I flashed with the Vegan (I think) ROM. It's available on XDA developers. Total install time is 5 minutes.
That being said, the latest updates of the TnT interface aren't nearly as bad as the launched version. The device was nearly unusable at launch. It became mediocre 12/23/2010.
But it rocks with a custom ROM. The custom ROMs (like Vegan) tend to have Google Market pre-installed, which is quite slick.
But NK has a huge amount of artillery. If attacked, the regime would know they're going down and they would pretty much level Seoul. I recall reading, though I can't source it now, that there's too much NK artillery to take out in a quick strike, even for the US military. So they can't be taken down militarily without huge sacrifices in the South.
I quote: Barring the use of nuclear weapons or large-scale bombing runs, destroying a city requires an extended campaign of shelling and demolition, the likes of which the world hasn't seen since WWII. When the Chechen capital of Grozny was all-but-destroyed by Russian forces in 1999, it was the result of months of artillery and missile bombardments, as well as air strikes. There's no doubt that North Korea's massive deployment of artillery, and potential deployment of roughly 300 ballistic missiles, could wreak havoc on Seoul and its population. What's clear, however, is that a sudden barrage of shells and missiles would only mark the beginning of a battle for the city, not an apocalyptic fait accomplit.
The Battle for Seoul would be ugly. Lots of people would die. There would be immense losses of human life, and immense financial losses. But Seoul would emerge on the other side; 98% of the North's artillery would be obliterated within 96 hours, and the joint US/South Korean force would smash through the DMZ and conqueror Pyongyang in a matter of days. There would most likely be quite a few high profile losses in Seoul, but the city would survive.
North Korea maintains numerical parity with South Korea, but much of its' equipment is antiquated. The modern US/South Korean forces would achieve air dominance in a matter of hours, and the rest of the North would fold like a house of cards.
Now, obviously, peaceful unification (and regime collapse) would be preferable. No one, particularly the South, wants a war; but these days, it is pretty obvious who would win the war, and Seoul would not be lost.
I do think, however, that the North shelling Seoul would result in the end of the Northern regime. The South Korean street is known for being very temperamental, and a direct attack on Seoul would result in cries for "rivers of blood".
I would say that the appropriate "scientific" language would be either "Dangerous", or "Mildly Toxic". Perhaps with a caveat of "Life threatening for those with compromised respiratory systems."
I find it hilarious that progressives seem to get hysterical about the CO2 emissions in the US, but give China (and other "poor" nations) a pass on "Clear and Present" danger pollutants.
See; the US shouldn't be emitting CO2, but it is JUST FINE if China emits coal ash, airborne mercury, dioxins. It's a gigantic problem for a nuclear plant in the US to release "heat" into a river or lake, while it is JUST FINE for China to dump PCBs, lead, arsenic, mercury, and hydrocarbons into waterways.
America's liberal economists point to China as a model economy. Except, of course, when someone points out that there are Chinese policies that cost tens of thousands, if not millions of lives a year (mine regulations, pollution regulations, little to no liability for environmental malfeasance). In THOSE situations, its the Free Market to blame, not the benevolent hand of the Chinese dictatorship.
Who are you going to believe? China apologists like Thomas Friedman (and Paul Krugman), or your own lying, cancer-ridden lungs/eyes/pancreas?
You do realize that the sort of pollutants the article discusses have little or nothing to do with GHG emissions, right?
People are really stupid. CO2 may cause the planet to warm up, but it certainly won't kill millions by way of lung cancer and other respiratory aliments.
The US (and the west in general) has done an admirable job of eliminating or reducing air borne pollutants. The US is currently debating the merits of managing non-pollutant emissions, such as CO2, the byproduct of "clean coal", natural gas, and other complete oxidization products.
Downplaying the improvements in Western air quality is extremely dangerous, and one only has to tour some of the various polluted hell-holes in the East to truly understand how important clean air is.
Try Ted [Torrent Episode Downloader] with PS3 Media Server. You get the same shows you watch now. It costs you nothing. All the commercials are edited out. And you can usually watch them within 3-4 hours of their being broadcast.
The only possible alternative that is similar in functionality (shows WITHOUT commercials, not just commercials you fast forward through) is Amazon VOD. That being said, Amazon VOD is only compatible with certain devices, unlike PS3 Media Server, which works with nearly all DLNA devices. Otherwise, I would probably just buy the shows through Amazon VOD. If it only worked on the PS3, natively.
You can use Amazon VOD, Hulu, and Netflix through PlayOn, but it kind of sucks. Netflix on the PS3 (the version Sony promotes) is using a Bluray disk, and the interface is terrible. One must click through titles one-by-one, with no way to hold down the "forward" button, or flick a page at a time.
The only issue with PS3 Media Server is that you have to organize the files, because although Ted does a great job of downloading the files, they will end up in a giant pile on your drive with crappy "leet speak" names. There are a few automatic renaming utilities, but these are very kludge.
There is a new (free as in beer) DLNA server called Serviio which fixes that, by automagically downloading program names, and presenting a hierarchical interface to the user. That way, you can keep your TV shows in a big pile, and organize them whenever you want. This combination (TED+SERVIIO) represents truly automatic HD video on demand, sans commercials, of nearly any content you would want. And its free.
That being said, Serviio's transcoding is somewhat buggy, so TV Nirvana isn't quite ready yet. But it's almost there.
The funny thing is that I cannot get service this good from any provider at *any* price. I would be willing to pay quite a premium to get truly ad-free TV. But I want my shows to download automatically (or stream), I want it in HD, and I want it to work with a video game console or TV, eliminating a set-top box that would otherwise take up valuable space.
The ironic thing? I prefer watching TV on my PS3s than on my DirecTV HD-DVRs with nearly every channel.
Well, not to be too snarky, but my browsing profile currently matches what you say, with the added bonus of my constantly browsing the comments on Slashdot with Full/All-Comments on all the time. I've been browsing for about 30 minutes, I have 4 tabs open, and the following Addons: Adobe Contribute, ComEd's Real-Time Prices Toolbar, LastPass, FlashGot, Vuze Remote, and AdBlock.
I also have a Gmail session open, with Voice/Video Chat Enabled. My firefox is currently using 220 MB of Real Memory.
If I close Gmail, that drops another 20 MB.
I consider this machine a little long in the tooth, and I'm still running with 4 GB of ram. I can spare 220 MB for my browsing pleasure.
I'm with the following AC. You may be experiencing these problems. I don't. I would love to help figure out why you experience these problems, but I cannot reproduce them. How can I help fix them, then?
(The cure to delusions is to give reality a greater appeal, and make the delusions look really bad. And I mean in the minds of the infected. They must have an excuse to keep their self-respect, and get back into a better reality. So we must first and foremost stop all the “threats”. Like the “economic crisis”, the growing poverty, and especially the easy-to-kill fake ones like the way overblown “terrorist threat”, or the whole Obama fear. I say, the primary target should be to shoot Glenn Beck and close down FOX News ASAP. BUT: Let give them a reason, so THEY do it, or it will only get worse. And then go for the “churches”. They are THE professionals since thousands of years, and the feed on it like no other. )
Yes, exactly. Because the road to a more peaceful world runs through murderous purges.
Now that you mention it, I would give Stalin the political label "progressive". I won't go any further, because then I would be feeding a troll.
And HTC is only "making this work" if you ignore the patent lawsuit brought by Apple.
Google isn't leaping to Android's defense. Google is letting "The Partners" handle it. This is in sharp contrast to the patent portfolio HP gets from Palm.
That being said, I love my Pre, and I've converted 10-12 people to the Pre. Beefier hardware, something HP can pump out, will make the experience better.
I also anticipate an HP Slate-style WebOS tablet, which will knock the patents of the iPad. The WebOS ecosystem is much better thought out than the Apple app store.
The Middle East has had more time to modernize than Western Civilization has. They have have no excuse for not being world leaders; the Middle East was at one time the greatest center of learning and science in the world. To say they have not had an opportunity to modernize is bull. They have continued to live in the iron age due to the choices they have made; not a lack of opportunity. And this garbage has persisted even into the current century.
Agreed, and the Iranian experience up until the collapse of the Shah proves it. Up through 1979, Iran was rather "civilized" by Western standards, at least culturally/economically. In many ways similar to China today. It is difficult to imagine now, but there was an alliance between Iran and Israel .
At one point, Syria and Lebanon were both developing briskly. For the most part, the Islamic extremist/militant/political resurgence sprung up with the Iranian Revolution. Since then, each nation in the region has done its damnedest to Islamicize as fast as possible, most likely as a counterweight to their economic failures.
I can speak from family experience, and friend experience, that Iran pre-1979 was culturally very liberal; with public social behavior that would make Westerners' blush. Pre-1979 Iran was the number one customer of AT&T's USA Long Distance minutes, worldwide. The 1973-74 oil embargo had resulted in vast amounts of wealth heading into the Middle East, and many had assumed that in the long run Tehran would be the new banking/financial capital of the world.
Development is not an inevitable force. One merely has to look at the promising states of the third world, such as Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba; many of these places were considered economic miracles at one point.
Then crappy dictators took over, corruption ran rampant, and the rising stars collapsed. Venezuela is on this path now.
Some of these states survive, and turned things around, slowly; like Vietnam, and to some extent Lebanon.
They have have no excuse for not being world leaders; the Middle East was at one time the greatest center of learning and science in the world. I cannot agree with this statement more. In addition to having advanced societies, the incredible oil wealth of the Middle East was probably the greatest concentration of natural wealth in a given region, ever. That the regimes of these nations have managed to squander these vast, immense, incredible resources is nothing short of criminal. Criminal isn't even the right word for it.
It is *simply* *unimaginable* that gas is about $0.29 in Iran; and that most of it is imported since they no longer have the refinery capacity to manufacturer it. It is *simply* *unimaginable* that it is a common sight to see gallons of fuel splashed into the streets of Tehran, because it is so "value-less" to the consumer. It is *shocking* and *disturbing* that Iran and Syria trade away vast quantities of high-quality, industrial resources to China or Russia for a pile of worthless, outdated weaponry which will inevitably used to oppress their citizens.
These things are a humanitarian tragedy of epic proportions. These nations have truly squandered their wealth. 20-50 years from now, they will have no natural resources left, and will have nothing to show for that massive destruction of wealth; and most of them will endure starvation and poor standards of living between now and then!
There *is* *no* *excuse* for this mismanagement!!!
It is just as meaningless to say that "employees don't pay taxes, corporations do".
No, it isn't. Altering marginal tax rates as significant effects on the composition of the economy. Increase or decreasing corporate tax rates effects consumer prices, while increase or decreasing payroll taxes effects employment rates.
The economy is more complicated than "dollars in/dollars out". When you alter the potentials of any given set of actors, you alter the behavior of that set of actors; usually, the downstream effects tend to be diffuse with minimal impact on macroeconomic behavior. As such, it makes a lot more sense to look at the economy as a series of pools of wealth. Transfers of wealth between actors should be taxed, but at minimal levels in order to minimally disrupt the market. Higher levels are appropriate *only* in situations where the goal is to manipulate behavior, not generate revenue (i.e. consumption taxes on road use are designed to fight congestion, supposedly, rather than to generate revenue). Furthermore, the goal of the tax system should be to subject each transfer of wealth to one tax; not multiple. Finally, non-human entities should be exempt from taxation-- unless the revenue generated never ends up in the hand of a human. This means that the only income that should be taxed is that which is claimed as income by individuals, or that which is subordinated to a financial instrument operated on behalf an individual (or individuals) but is not designed to pay out direct dividends (like trusts, or other long term group holding vehicles).
The current system, with vast numbers of loopholes and high marginal rates simply isn't workable. Most of the reasons that the current system pisses off both market capitalists and progressive liberals is that we have high levels of taxation and regulation, while we exempt the larger corporations and richest individuals from most of this system. Our current system is *the worst* of both worlds; wealth flows to the rich, and the middle class/poor are kept tied up in a system of regulation and taxation.
The fundamental truth is that overcomplicated systems are designed to help the "biggest" players. Did you ever get into a game, as a kid, that involved the other kids changing the rules constantly? "Oh, on your third turn, if you roll a 4, you don't actually get to move 4; you pay the other players X, and move backwards 2. You didn't know that? Your problem".
Well, that's the game the U.S. industrial fascist/corporatist system uses. And the rules change as different political parties sweep into power, and different big corporations end up as winners and losers. Today, the financial sector and big auto/big labor are the winners. Yesterday, it was petrochemicals and military contractors. Given the current political situation, I'm guess that health insurers and the agricultural sector are the next big winners.
Aren't you all tired of this? Don't you see that one of the benefits of a simpler, and flatter (but not necessarily totally flat) tax code is that these entities won't be able to game the system as much?
It exhausts me that people on board like Slashdot fight over whether the guy making $270,000 a year should pay on a higher marginal rate than the guy making $50,000, but neither really cares about the business shoveling money out of the Treasury at rate of $10 million a day (I'm looking at you, AIG) , because the "big guys always win". Everyone between the poor and the mid-upper class can pay less for government services if the top 10%'s playing field is leveled. Get a flat 10-15% out of everyone, and there will be plenty of government income. A $13 trillion economy should be able to function with a $1.6 trillion federal government and an additional $1 trillion in state/local governments. And that leaves you plenty of money to spare to build a "last-resort" welfare network to insure that the streets aren't full of polio victims or starving children.
You'll never fix society by implementing more Bush-like tax cuts, or by raising the marginal tax rates/brackets. Scrap the IRS code, rethink the revenue structure, and start over. There is far, far, far too much kruft in the current system to fix.
The senate bill is. I'm skeptical that the senate wants to conduct the several more weeks of debate it will take to turn the reconciliation package into law.
*shrug* . I'm not sure why people think the reconciliation package will be the final law on the issue.
Am I the only one in this world that sees the un-sustainable direction this country is going?
No, but the American people are learning (again, as they have short memories) that elections do indeed have consequences. The tea parties, and the general disdain for congress, are a reflection on the knowledge that we, The People, goofed royally when we elected Obama.
Neither Clinton nor McCain would have put us into the situation we are currently in. The economy is in a state of ongoing malaise, unemployement is projected to be high for the foreseeable future, but Congress and the President have been on a health care death-march for over a year.
And their "solution" to the budget deficits? The VAT. And their "solution" to the unemployment that will result from the VAT? No problem, we'll spend more on stimulus!
There's a reason November is setting up to be a congressional blood-letting. And if unemployment doesn't improve dramatically by 2012, we will have a landslide Republican victory. Regardless of who rules the legislature, the executive is the one who pays when the economy is poor.
The silver lining in all this is that if we get a landslide Republican victory in 2012, health care, taxes, and a huge number of other policies will be revoked. Reconciliation, the "Slaughter Rule", and a variety of other legislative tricks will be kosher. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the Republican members of the Senate's "Gang of 16" have given up on bipartisanship.
To truly turn health care into a free market, you would have to create a system that is much more callous than almost anyone would be willing to tolerate. But, I guess if you're a free market thinker, every problem looks like a nail.
Eh?
Most Republicans were willing to allow subsidies for some individuals to purchase insurance on the private market. There are even some libertarians that hold this view.
Free market solutions aren't always "the wild west" version of an given issue. Sometimes they mean utilizing market forces through incentives, tax and fiscal policies, in lieu of attempting to fiat outcomes. The reason for this is that market based solutions tend to work better (and cheaper) than fiat solutions.
You can't fiat and end to poverty, and I would argue that you can't fiat a functioning health care system. You setup conditions that allow the market to do it for you, and you provide incentives to help the impoverished.
*shrug* Time will tell, though. I can't imagine people will be happy with Obamacare in the near future, particularly if it kicks off a double-dip recession when the top tax brackets go to an effective 65-70%.
You do realize that if insurance companies do not discriminate against pre-existing conditions, they cannot possibly stay in business.
Risk versus Reward? The democrats don't realize that this is what happened to the financial industry.
1. Build Regulation that encourages risky lending practices 2. Privatize profits (in this case, allow the insurers to charge ever-increasing premiums on more expensive plans). 3. Allow the industry to "consolidate" itself towards greater efficiencies (expect the big insurers to purchase the smaller companies). 4. Socialize the costs (once there are no more small insurers to leverage for buyouts, the large insurance companies's bankrupt balance sheets will implode, but as they will be "too big to fail", the government will bail them out, regulate them, and end up with a significant (majority) ownership percentage).
There is no way that this plan passed by the House/Senate will create a solvent insurance industry. Frankly, for the vast majority of people, there is a serious incentive to *not* buy insurance until you need it. The fees simply aren't that bad. The large companies that pour money into the "premium" insurers will feed a giant pyramid scheme.
Of course, if you are a conspiracy theorist, one might believe that was by design. Kill the industry, and nationalize it. *shrug*
Either way, that the passage of this bill changes politics forever. The next time there is a Republican President, with a Republican Congress, expect 51 votes in the Senate, and a slight majority in the House to gut Social Security, scrap the Department of Education, and dramatically cut both the government budget and taxes. The legislative bar has been set very, very low, the gang of 16 is dead, and "Parliamentary Rules" have gone by the way side.
Having Biden overrule the Senate Parliamentarian will be the final nail in the coffin, and open the door to total legislative warfare once the minority gains power. The democrats whined and moaned that Bush was the imperial president; they managed to derail significant portions of his legislative agenda based upon that war cry.
I'm all for the commercialization of Space. NASA was/is a waste of time and money.
You don't have to be much of a science fiction fan to appreciate the opportunities created by a serious presence in space. Even if we teleoperated everything from the ground, orbital power is a winner. Asteroid mining to prevent the destruction of our own environment down here is a winner. And human history has proven time and time again that opportunities can be opened up by endeavors and scientific discovery that we couldn't even begin to imagine at the outset.
There's so much more we should be doing up there. The shuttle was just farting around in LEO. We should end it to do something better, not end it to abandon a manned presence in space. If we're not going to move forward up there, other nations will. And we will have ceded the high frontier.
The reason for this is simple. The energy requirements of achieving orbit are simply too high given that mankind is mired in the chemical-energy age. A real human presence outside of LEO cannot be achieved without nuclear propulsion. There simply is no other way around the energy requirements.
Why do I say this? Because mankind has already given up a 60 year old technology capable of boosting entire cities anywhere in the solar system, and even for achieving low relativistic velocities.
Cost estimates projected that for 1% of the US GDP (a paltry $130 billion, not even 10% of the dual stimulus and bank bailouts) we could build an operate an 8 million ton vehicle in the solar system. This is an estimate based on using 1958 materials, and a craft designed with modern, strong materials (carbon fibers and the like) could be significantly heavier.
It is *simply impossible* to fathom that this $130 billion dollar investment would not achieve greater dividends than, say, Obama stimulus. It may have even been superior to the economic effects of the TARP.
And I'd hazard a guess that it would improve both the economy and health care (through technological advances) if we spent the $900 billion Obama is allocating for HCR on Orion vessels (we could build a fleet of ships the size of Star War's Star Destroyers!).
Space Factories. Space Farms. Fleets of Solar Power Satellites. High Energy Risk Free Research Stations. Cities on the Moon. Cities on Mars. Massive Scale Asteroid Belt Mining. Construction and operation of additional vessels outside the Earth's magnetosphere.
So we have to detonated some nuclear explosives in the Earth's atmosphere to get it going. Mankind did this for years, and old for war purposes, not science/economic. Not to mention, the launching of Solar Power Satellites would probably result in a net reduction of radiation emissions due to man's activities.
Even then, the total fallout from an Orion program would be minimal:
But the main unsolved problem for a launch from the surface of the Earth was thought to be nuclear fallout. Any explosions within the magnetosphere would carry fissionables back to earth unless the spaceship were launched from a polar region such as a barge in the higher regions of the Arctic, with the initial launching explosion to be a large mass of conventional high explosive only to significantly reduce fallout; subsequent detonations would be in the air and therefore much cleaner. Antarctica is not viable, as this would require enormous legal changes as the continent is presently an international wildlife preserve. Freeman Dyson, group leader on the project, estimated back in the '60s that with conventional nuclear weapons, each launch would cause on average between 0.1 and 1 fatal cancers from the fallout.[14] Danger to human life was not a reason given for shelving the project - those included lack of mission requirement (no-one in the US Government could think of any reason to put thousands of tons of payload into orbit), the decision to focus on rockets (for the Moon mis
And by "change economic direction of the past", you mean, vote out the democrats who have been in power since 2006, and return the Republicans to power, right?
An unpopular sentiment on Slashdot, but the "new" democrats, epitomized in Obama, have put this country on the fast track (within a decade) to national bankruptcy.
Mark my words, without a change in direction, we will end up close to 100% debt-to-GDP, and then China will start a trade war with the view that a trade war will hurt them less then us. Thankfully, however, it seems that the American voter has tired of the democrats, and we'll safely have the adults back in charge this November. Better yet, Obama will remain president, and given that the job market won't recover till 2013+, we'll have another Reagan revolution in 2012.
And Republicans will be around to take the credit for the recovery.
That's nice, but I can read whole books on an LCD with no light source - and have done so. So we're pretty much back to square one as to saying which technology will work.
Honestly? I can't anymore. I can read a chapter here or there, but that's all.
But really, I think the arguments about which causes greater eyestrain are silly
Well, then, you must be one of the lucky ones who doesn't get eyestrain.
My eyeballs hurt as I drive at night whenever I see oncoming cars' headlights. I can't read an ebook on my laptop for more than an hour or so, even with the backlight set to minimum. I find watching a TV set to "UltraBright" in a dim room to be impossible. I don't mind reading in direct sunlight, but for some reason I have difficulties with bright screens or displays when the surroundings are dim.
As such, ePaper is a dream come true; a display for an electronic device that we can use for long periods of time without causing headaches or eye strain. And I get the impression that I'm not the only one with these sorts of eye-strain issues.
Saying it doesn't make it true, but thank you for "reminding" me of the points I already specifically addressed. Have you actually used a Kindle in typical indoor lighting conditions for any length of time?
I don't know if he has, but I certainly have. My wife and I both have Kindles. One of my best friends has a B&N Nook which he shares with his wife. My sister has the Sony Ebook reader, whatever it is called.
We all agree that the ePaper screen causes a great deal less eye strain, mainly as a result of having no backlight. From my personal experience, as an early adopter of the Kindle with thousands of ebooks, I can say that I have used it many times in every concievable lighting situation, from a 1 watt LED night light, to 10s of watts of CFL, to daylight sun.
Now, I'm not saying that may exist a certain percentage of the population who find the level of contrast causes some eye-strain, but for me, and everyone I know who has bothered to try an ebook reader, including my technically illiterate parents, we all agree that the ePaper is very easy on the eyes.
The other thing I love about my Kindle is the battery life. I don't have to babysit the thing with a charger; I plug it in once a week, and I use it for a few hours a day. It doesn't matter if I traveling on a trip or what not; shorter trips don't even require me to bring the charger.
For the most part, I treat my Kindle like a real book. It doesn't need to be charged often, and it fits well into my briefcase (or my wife's purse). I don't have to pay monthly fees for it, just pay for what I buy. I can't read it in absolute darkness, but I don't find myself frustrated by eye strain after sitting in front of it for hours (unlike, say, my MacBook Pro).
*shrug* People are different. And I'm not even sure if you are in the minority in thinking that the non-iPad eBook readers are unusable today. That being said, all my impressions, and my family & friends' impressions, of today's common ebook readers are positive.
I think the iPad is destined to be another Apple TV.
It's expensive, functionally limited, and a good deal less portable than an iPhone or iPod. I've got several good friends who are mega-apple-fanboys (I'm a moderate apple fanboy, BTW), and not one of them is the least bit interested. Every one of them thought the iPad would be a general-purpose computing device, and it just isn't.
Every one of them would prefer to have an iPhone and a netbook, or an iPhone and a MacBook Air. Frankly, I agree with them. I just don't see the draw of the device.
I'm sure that Apple will sell quite a few of these devices to people who will use them as portable web tablets and video players, but I just don't see the iPad having near the market influence of the iPhone. Apple would have to dramatically alter the OS of the iPad to do that, and I think they are unwilling to support 3 different OSs at one time (they're concerned about fracturing the developer base, and OS X and OS iPod are enough). All that being said, I agree with the FSF's opinion in principle, but refuse to fear the market damaging effects of a device that I just don't think will be that successful.
Now, if the iPad was running Android, or WebOS, or an OS that was easier to tweak into a general purpose computing device, than it's fate might be different. Even then, it's seriously overpriced compared to your average netbook, and I have a feeling that Acer and ASUS's response would be Netbooks sans keyboard.
People just need to face it; as much as John Q Nerd wants a cool-looking Tablet computer, tablet machines continuously fail in the marketplace. Touch devices just don't sell well unless they are pocket portable.
The current administration would be much more interested in keeping the current tax system, and adding another layer of VAT on top of that. Most of us are pretty unhappy about it; that's why the VAT has such a bad rap in the U.S.
Most American's would probably be *thrilled* to replace the income tax with a VAT.
In my opinion, for those "inside civilization"* a GPS phone is vastly superior to a standalone GPS. I've used both extensively.
A standalone GPS is restricted to the database it can carry around. Some, like the Tom-Tom's, have a nice software interface for updating this regularly, but it is impractical to do this more than once a day, and a hassle to boot.
My Pre, on the other hand, running Sprint's Telenav, gets updates "on the wire". This has a side effect of offering you a much larger database, too; you aren't restricted by on-board storage, but can have Telenav's entire phone book at your finger tips. Most areas also have traffic congestion information, as well, which is very, very nice.
You can do other things as well, such as "find the cheapest gas along my route". Not to mention that Telenav fixes the routing on a regular basis; I've seen routing improve in areas that had undergone recent construction. It's really a *very* nice app.
*All that being said, you need to be inside cell coverage for it to work at all. I've heard that they are working on an offline option for which you would carry some data with you, and would sync up when you get back into coverage, but at the moment the cell phone approach is not the best when you are going to spend a significant amount of time off the interstates (IMHO, there is decent Sprint/Verizon coverage everywhere in the US with 5-10 miles of the interstates, but it can get hairy on state highways). This sound like a big problem, however, very very few citydwellers end up in the sticks on a regular basis, and for those that do, you can usually get the last 20-50 miles of your drive done without a GPS system.
Slashdot Mirror
I second this.
I flashed with the Vegan (I think) ROM. It's available on XDA developers. Total install time is 5 minutes.
That being said, the latest updates of the TnT interface aren't nearly as bad as the launched version. The device was nearly unusable at launch. It became mediocre 12/23/2010.
But it rocks with a custom ROM. The custom ROMs (like Vegan) tend to have Google Market pre-installed, which is quite slick.
But NK has a huge amount of artillery. If attacked, the regime would know they're going down and they would pretty much level Seoul. I recall reading, though I can't source it now, that there's too much NK artillery to take out in a quick strike, even for the US military. So they can't be taken down militarily without huge sacrifices in the South.
These days, the theory is that isn't really true.
I quote:
Barring the use of nuclear weapons or large-scale bombing runs, destroying a city requires an extended campaign of shelling and demolition, the likes of which the world hasn't seen since WWII. When the Chechen capital of Grozny was all-but-destroyed by Russian forces in 1999, it was the result of months of artillery and missile bombardments, as well as air strikes. There's no doubt that North Korea's massive deployment of artillery, and potential deployment of roughly 300 ballistic missiles, could wreak havoc on Seoul and its population. What's clear, however, is that a sudden barrage of shells and missiles would only mark the beginning of a battle for the city, not an apocalyptic fait accomplit.
The Battle for Seoul would be ugly. Lots of people would die. There would be immense losses of human life, and immense financial losses. But Seoul would emerge on the other side; 98% of the North's artillery would be obliterated within 96 hours, and the joint US/South Korean force would smash through the DMZ and conqueror Pyongyang in a matter of days. There would most likely be quite a few high profile losses in Seoul, but the city would survive.
North Korea maintains numerical parity with South Korea, but much of its' equipment is antiquated. The modern US/South Korean forces would achieve air dominance in a matter of hours, and the rest of the North would fold like a house of cards.
Now, obviously, peaceful unification (and regime collapse) would be preferable. No one, particularly the South, wants a war; but these days, it is pretty obvious who would win the war, and Seoul would not be lost.
I do think, however, that the North shelling Seoul would result in the end of the Northern regime. The South Korean street is known for being very temperamental, and a direct attack on Seoul would result in cries for "rivers of blood".
Hear Hear
I would say that the appropriate "scientific" language would be either "Dangerous", or "Mildly Toxic". Perhaps with a caveat of "Life threatening for those with compromised respiratory systems."
I find it hilarious that progressives seem to get hysterical about the CO2 emissions in the US, but give China (and other "poor" nations) a pass on "Clear and Present" danger pollutants.
See; the US shouldn't be emitting CO2, but it is JUST FINE if China emits coal ash, airborne mercury, dioxins. It's a gigantic problem for a nuclear plant in the US to release "heat" into a river or lake, while it is JUST FINE for China to dump PCBs, lead, arsenic, mercury, and hydrocarbons into waterways.
America's liberal economists point to China as a model economy. Except, of course, when someone points out that there are Chinese policies that cost tens of thousands, if not millions of lives a year (mine regulations, pollution regulations, little to no liability for environmental malfeasance). In THOSE situations, its the Free Market to blame, not the benevolent hand of the Chinese dictatorship.
Who are you going to believe? China apologists like Thomas Friedman (and Paul Krugman), or your own lying, cancer-ridden lungs/eyes/pancreas?
You do realize that the sort of pollutants the article discusses have little or nothing to do with GHG emissions, right?
People are really stupid. CO2 may cause the planet to warm up, but it certainly won't kill millions by way of lung cancer and other respiratory aliments.
The US (and the west in general) has done an admirable job of eliminating or reducing air borne pollutants. The US is currently debating the merits of managing non-pollutant emissions, such as CO2, the byproduct of "clean coal", natural gas, and other complete oxidization products.
Downplaying the improvements in Western air quality is extremely dangerous, and one only has to tour some of the various polluted hell-holes in the East to truly understand how important clean air is.
*shrug* Pretty well, actually.
Try Ted [Torrent Episode Downloader] with PS3 Media Server. You get the same shows you watch now. It costs you nothing. All the commercials are edited out. And you can usually watch them within 3-4 hours of their being broadcast.
The only possible alternative that is similar in functionality (shows WITHOUT commercials, not just commercials you fast forward through) is Amazon VOD. That being said, Amazon VOD is only compatible with certain devices, unlike PS3 Media Server, which works with nearly all DLNA devices. Otherwise, I would probably just buy the shows through Amazon VOD. If it only worked on the PS3, natively.
You can use Amazon VOD, Hulu, and Netflix through PlayOn, but it kind of sucks. Netflix on the PS3 (the version Sony promotes) is using a Bluray disk, and the interface is terrible. One must click through titles one-by-one, with no way to hold down the "forward" button, or flick a page at a time.
The only issue with PS3 Media Server is that you have to organize the files, because although Ted does a great job of downloading the files, they will end up in a giant pile on your drive with crappy "leet speak" names. There are a few automatic renaming utilities, but these are very kludge.
There is a new (free as in beer) DLNA server called Serviio which fixes that, by automagically downloading program names, and presenting a hierarchical interface to the user. That way, you can keep your TV shows in a big pile, and organize them whenever you want. This combination (TED+SERVIIO) represents truly automatic HD video on demand, sans commercials, of nearly any content you would want. And its free.
That being said, Serviio's transcoding is somewhat buggy, so TV Nirvana isn't quite ready yet. But it's almost there.
The funny thing is that I cannot get service this good from any provider at *any* price. I would be willing to pay quite a premium to get truly ad-free TV. But I want my shows to download automatically (or stream), I want it in HD, and I want it to work with a video game console or TV, eliminating a set-top box that would otherwise take up valuable space.
The ironic thing? I prefer watching TV on my PS3s than on my DirecTV HD-DVRs with nearly every channel.
Well, not to be too snarky, but my browsing profile currently matches what you say, with the added bonus of my constantly browsing the comments on Slashdot with Full/All-Comments on all the time. I've been browsing for about 30 minutes, I have 4 tabs open, and the following Addons: Adobe Contribute, ComEd's Real-Time Prices Toolbar, LastPass, FlashGot, Vuze Remote, and AdBlock.
I also have a Gmail session open, with Voice/Video Chat Enabled. My firefox is currently using 220 MB of Real Memory.
If I close Gmail, that drops another 20 MB.
I consider this machine a little long in the tooth, and I'm still running with 4 GB of ram. I can spare 220 MB for my browsing pleasure.
I'm with the following AC. You may be experiencing these problems. I don't. I would love to help figure out why you experience these problems, but I cannot reproduce them. How can I help fix them, then?
I'm going to spam a post of mine, because there are *so many* morons posting on this story.
Our world has a lot of problems. Pogroms aren't the answer to any of them.
Yes, exactly. Because the road to a more peaceful world runs through murderous purges.
Now that you mention it, I would give Stalin the political label "progressive". I won't go any further, because then I would be feeding a troll.
(The cure to delusions is to give reality a greater appeal, and make the delusions look really bad. And I mean in the minds of the infected. They must have an excuse to keep their self-respect, and get back into a better reality. So we must first and foremost stop all the “threats”. Like the “economic crisis”, the growing poverty, and especially the easy-to-kill fake ones like the way overblown “terrorist threat”, or the whole Obama fear. I say, the primary target should be to shoot Glenn Beck and close down FOX News ASAP. BUT: Let give them a reason, so THEY do it, or it will only get worse. And then go for the “churches”. They are THE professionals since thousands of years, and the feed on it like no other. )
Yes, exactly. Because the road to a more peaceful world runs through murderous purges.
Now that you mention it, I would give Stalin the political label "progressive". I won't go any further, because then I would be feeding a troll.
And HTC is only "making this work" if you ignore the patent lawsuit brought by Apple.
Google isn't leaping to Android's defense. Google is letting "The Partners" handle it. This is in sharp contrast to the patent portfolio HP gets from Palm.
That being said, I love my Pre, and I've converted 10-12 people to the Pre. Beefier hardware, something HP can pump out, will make the experience better.
I also anticipate an HP Slate-style WebOS tablet, which will knock the patents of the iPad. The WebOS ecosystem is much better thought out than the Apple app store.
The Middle East has had more time to modernize than Western Civilization has. They have have no excuse for not being world leaders; the Middle East was at one time the greatest center of learning and science in the world. To say they have not had an opportunity to modernize is bull. They have continued to live in the iron age due to the choices they have made; not a lack of opportunity. And this garbage has persisted even into the current century.
Agreed, and the Iranian experience up until the collapse of the Shah proves it. Up through 1979, Iran was rather "civilized" by Western standards, at least culturally/economically. In many ways similar to China today. It is difficult to imagine now, but there was an alliance between Iran and Israel .
At one point, Syria and Lebanon were both developing briskly. For the most part, the Islamic extremist/militant/political resurgence sprung up with the Iranian Revolution. Since then, each nation in the region has done its damnedest to Islamicize as fast as possible, most likely as a counterweight to their economic failures.
I can speak from family experience, and friend experience, that Iran pre-1979 was culturally very liberal; with public social behavior that would make Westerners' blush. Pre-1979 Iran was the number one customer of AT&T's USA Long Distance minutes, worldwide. The 1973-74 oil embargo had resulted in vast amounts of wealth heading into the Middle East, and many had assumed that in the long run Tehran would be the new banking/financial capital of the world.
Development is not an inevitable force. One merely has to look at the promising states of the third world, such as Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba; many of these places were considered economic miracles at one point.
Then crappy dictators took over, corruption ran rampant, and the rising stars collapsed. Venezuela is on this path now.
Some of these states survive, and turned things around, slowly; like Vietnam, and to some extent Lebanon.
They have have no excuse for not being world leaders; the Middle East was at one time the greatest center of learning and science in the world.
I cannot agree with this statement more. In addition to having advanced societies, the incredible oil wealth of the Middle East was probably the greatest concentration of natural wealth in a given region, ever. That the regimes of these nations have managed to squander these vast, immense, incredible resources is nothing short of criminal. Criminal isn't even the right word for it.
It is *simply* *unimaginable* that gas is about $0.29 in Iran; and that most of it is imported since they no longer have the refinery capacity to manufacturer it. It is *simply* *unimaginable* that it is a common sight to see gallons of fuel splashed into the streets of Tehran, because it is so "value-less" to the consumer. It is *shocking* and *disturbing* that Iran and Syria trade away vast quantities of high-quality, industrial resources to China or Russia for a pile of worthless, outdated weaponry which will inevitably used to oppress their citizens.
These things are a humanitarian tragedy of epic proportions. These nations have truly squandered their wealth. 20-50 years from now, they will have no natural resources left, and will have nothing to show for that massive destruction of wealth; and most of them will endure starvation and poor standards of living between now and then!
There *is* *no* *excuse* for this mismanagement!!!
It is just as meaningless to say that "employees don't pay taxes, corporations do".
No, it isn't. Altering marginal tax rates as significant effects on the composition of the economy. Increase or decreasing corporate tax rates effects consumer prices, while increase or decreasing payroll taxes effects employment rates.
The economy is more complicated than "dollars in/dollars out". When you alter the potentials of any given set of actors, you alter the behavior of that set of actors; usually, the downstream effects tend to be diffuse with minimal impact on macroeconomic behavior. As such, it makes a lot more sense to look at the economy as a series of pools of wealth. Transfers of wealth between actors should be taxed, but at minimal levels in order to minimally disrupt the market. Higher levels are appropriate *only* in situations where the goal is to manipulate behavior, not generate revenue (i.e. consumption taxes on road use are designed to fight congestion, supposedly, rather than to generate revenue). Furthermore, the goal of the tax system should be to subject each transfer of wealth to one tax; not multiple. Finally, non-human entities should be exempt from taxation-- unless the revenue generated never ends up in the hand of a human. This means that the only income that should be taxed is that which is claimed as income by individuals, or that which is subordinated to a financial instrument operated on behalf an individual (or individuals) but is not designed to pay out direct dividends (like trusts, or other long term group holding vehicles).
The current system, with vast numbers of loopholes and high marginal rates simply isn't workable. Most of the reasons that the current system pisses off both market capitalists and progressive liberals is that we have high levels of taxation and regulation, while we exempt the larger corporations and richest individuals from most of this system. Our current system is *the worst* of both worlds; wealth flows to the rich, and the middle class/poor are kept tied up in a system of regulation and taxation.
The fundamental truth is that overcomplicated systems are designed to help the "biggest" players. Did you ever get into a game, as a kid, that involved the other kids changing the rules constantly? "Oh, on your third turn, if you roll a 4, you don't actually get to move 4; you pay the other players X, and move backwards 2. You didn't know that? Your problem".
Well, that's the game the U.S. industrial fascist/corporatist system uses. And the rules change as different political parties sweep into power, and different big corporations end up as winners and losers. Today, the financial sector and big auto/big labor are the winners. Yesterday, it was petrochemicals and military contractors. Given the current political situation, I'm guess that health insurers and the agricultural sector are the next big winners.
Aren't you all tired of this? Don't you see that one of the benefits of a simpler, and flatter (but not necessarily totally flat) tax code is that these entities won't be able to game the system as much?
It exhausts me that people on board like Slashdot fight over whether the guy making $270,000 a year should pay on a higher marginal rate than the guy making $50,000, but neither really cares about the business shoveling money out of the Treasury at rate of $10 million a day (I'm looking at you, AIG) , because the "big guys always win". Everyone between the poor and the mid-upper class can pay less for government services if the top 10%'s playing field is leveled. Get a flat 10-15% out of everyone, and there will be plenty of government income. A $13 trillion economy should be able to function with a $1.6 trillion federal government and an additional $1 trillion in state/local governments. And that leaves you plenty of money to spare to build a "last-resort" welfare network to insure that the streets aren't full of polio victims or starving children.
You'll never fix society by implementing more Bush-like tax cuts, or by raising the marginal tax rates/brackets. Scrap the IRS code, rethink the revenue structure, and start over. There is far, far, far too much kruft in the current system to fix.
The reconciliation package is not law, yet.
The senate bill is. I'm skeptical that the senate wants to conduct the several more weeks of debate it will take to turn the reconciliation package into law.
*shrug* . I'm not sure why people think the reconciliation package will be the final law on the issue.
Am I the only one in this world that sees the un-sustainable direction this country is going?
No, but the American people are learning (again, as they have short memories) that elections do indeed have consequences. The tea parties, and the general disdain for congress, are a reflection on the knowledge that we, The People, goofed royally when we elected Obama.
Neither Clinton nor McCain would have put us into the situation we are currently in. The economy is in a state of ongoing malaise, unemployement is projected to be high for the foreseeable future, but Congress and the President have been on a health care death-march for over a year.
And their "solution" to the budget deficits? The VAT. And their "solution" to the unemployment that will result from the VAT? No problem, we'll spend more on stimulus!
There's a reason November is setting up to be a congressional blood-letting. And if unemployment doesn't improve dramatically by 2012, we will have a landslide Republican victory. Regardless of who rules the legislature, the executive is the one who pays when the economy is poor.
The silver lining in all this is that if we get a landslide Republican victory in 2012, health care, taxes, and a huge number of other policies will be revoked. Reconciliation, the "Slaughter Rule", and a variety of other legislative tricks will be kosher. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the Republican members of the Senate's "Gang of 16" have given up on bipartisanship.
To truly turn health care into a free market, you would have to create a system that is much more callous than almost anyone would be willing to tolerate. But, I guess if you're a free market thinker, every problem looks like a nail.
Eh?
Most Republicans were willing to allow subsidies for some individuals to purchase insurance on the private market. There are even some libertarians that hold this view.
McCain's health care tax credit was one of these proposals.
Free market solutions aren't always "the wild west" version of an given issue. Sometimes they mean utilizing market forces through incentives, tax and fiscal policies, in lieu of attempting to fiat outcomes. The reason for this is that market based solutions tend to work better (and cheaper) than fiat solutions.
You can't fiat and end to poverty, and I would argue that you can't fiat a functioning health care system. You setup conditions that allow the market to do it for you, and you provide incentives to help the impoverished.
*shrug* Time will tell, though. I can't imagine people will be happy with Obamacare in the near future, particularly if it kicks off a double-dip recession when the top tax brackets go to an effective 65-70%.
You do realize that if insurance companies do not discriminate against pre-existing conditions, they cannot possibly stay in business.
Risk versus Reward? The democrats don't realize that this is what happened to the financial industry.
1. Build Regulation that encourages risky lending practices
2. Privatize profits (in this case, allow the insurers to charge ever-increasing premiums on more expensive plans).
3. Allow the industry to "consolidate" itself towards greater efficiencies (expect the big insurers to purchase the smaller companies).
4. Socialize the costs (once there are no more small insurers to leverage for buyouts, the large insurance companies's bankrupt balance sheets will implode, but as they will be "too big to fail", the government will bail them out, regulate them, and end up with a significant (majority) ownership percentage).
There is no way that this plan passed by the House/Senate will create a solvent insurance industry. Frankly, for the vast majority of people, there is a serious incentive to *not* buy insurance until you need it. The fees simply aren't that bad. The large companies that pour money into the "premium" insurers will feed a giant pyramid scheme.
Of course, if you are a conspiracy theorist, one might believe that was by design. Kill the industry, and nationalize it. *shrug*
Either way, that the passage of this bill changes politics forever. The next time there is a Republican President, with a Republican Congress, expect 51 votes in the Senate, and a slight majority in the House to gut Social Security, scrap the Department of Education, and dramatically cut both the government budget and taxes. The legislative bar has been set very, very low, the gang of 16 is dead, and "Parliamentary Rules" have gone by the way side.
Having Biden overrule the Senate Parliamentarian will be the final nail in the coffin, and open the door to total legislative warfare once the minority gains power. The democrats whined and moaned that Bush was the imperial president; they managed to derail significant portions of his legislative agenda based upon that war cry.
That's never going to work again.
*shrug*
I'm all for the commercialization of Space. NASA was/is a waste of time and money.
You don't have to be much of a science fiction fan to appreciate the opportunities created by a serious presence in space. Even if we teleoperated everything from the ground, orbital power is a winner. Asteroid mining to prevent the destruction of our own environment down here is a winner. And human history has proven time and time again that opportunities can be opened up by endeavors and scientific discovery that we couldn't even begin to imagine at the outset.
There's so much more we should be doing up there. The shuttle was just farting around in LEO. We should end it to do something better, not end it to abandon a manned presence in space. If we're not going to move forward up there, other nations will. And we will have ceded the high frontier.
The reason for this is simple. The energy requirements of achieving orbit are simply too high given that mankind is mired in the chemical-energy age. A real human presence outside of LEO cannot be achieved without nuclear propulsion. There simply is no other way around the energy requirements.
Why do I say this? Because mankind has already given up a 60 year old technology capable of boosting entire cities anywhere in the solar system, and even for achieving low relativistic velocities.
Cost estimates projected that for 1% of the US GDP (a paltry $130 billion, not even 10% of the dual stimulus and bank bailouts) we could build an operate an 8 million ton vehicle in the solar system. This is an estimate based on using 1958 materials, and a craft designed with modern, strong materials (carbon fibers and the like) could be significantly heavier.
It is *simply impossible* to fathom that this $130 billion dollar investment would not achieve greater dividends than, say, Obama stimulus. It may have even been superior to the economic effects of the TARP.
And I'd hazard a guess that it would improve both the economy and health care (through technological advances) if we spent the $900 billion Obama is allocating for HCR on Orion vessels (we could build a fleet of ships the size of Star War's Star Destroyers!).
Space Factories. Space Farms. Fleets of Solar Power Satellites. High Energy Risk Free Research Stations. Cities on the Moon. Cities on Mars. Massive Scale Asteroid Belt Mining. Construction and operation of additional vessels outside the Earth's magnetosphere.
So we have to detonated some nuclear explosives in the Earth's atmosphere to get it going. Mankind did this for years, and old for war purposes, not science/economic. Not to mention, the launching of Solar Power Satellites would probably result in a net reduction of radiation emissions due to man's activities.
Even then, the total fallout from an Orion program would be minimal:
But the main unsolved problem for a launch from the surface of the Earth was thought to be nuclear fallout. Any explosions within the magnetosphere would carry fissionables back to earth unless the spaceship were launched from a polar region such as a barge in the higher regions of the Arctic, with the initial launching explosion to be a large mass of conventional high explosive only to significantly reduce fallout; subsequent detonations would be in the air and therefore much cleaner. Antarctica is not viable, as this would require enormous legal changes as the continent is presently an international wildlife preserve. Freeman Dyson, group leader on the project, estimated back in the '60s that with conventional nuclear weapons, each launch would cause on average between 0.1 and 1 fatal cancers from the fallout.[14] Danger to human life was not a reason given for shelving the project - those included lack of mission requirement (no-one in the US Government could think of any reason to put thousands of tons of payload into orbit), the decision to focus on rockets (for the Moon mis
And by "change economic direction of the past", you mean, vote out the democrats who have been in power since 2006, and return the Republicans to power, right?
An unpopular sentiment on Slashdot, but the "new" democrats, epitomized in Obama, have put this country on the fast track (within a decade) to national bankruptcy.
Mark my words, without a change in direction, we will end up close to 100% debt-to-GDP, and then China will start a trade war with the view that a trade war will hurt them less then us. Thankfully, however, it seems that the American voter has tired of the democrats, and we'll safely have the adults back in charge this November. Better yet, Obama will remain president, and given that the job market won't recover till 2013+, we'll have another Reagan revolution in 2012.
And Republicans will be around to take the credit for the recovery.
Say what you will about Bush's pre-2006 economic policies, he left the national debt situation better off than Clinton did.
That's nice, but I can read whole books on an LCD with no light source - and have done so. So we're pretty much back to square one as to saying which technology will work.
Honestly? I can't anymore. I can read a chapter here or there, but that's all.
But really, I think the arguments about which causes greater eyestrain are silly
Well, then, you must be one of the lucky ones who doesn't get eyestrain.
My eyeballs hurt as I drive at night whenever I see oncoming cars' headlights. I can't read an ebook on my laptop for more than an hour or so, even with the backlight set to minimum. I find watching a TV set to "UltraBright" in a dim room to be impossible. I don't mind reading in direct sunlight, but for some reason I have difficulties with bright screens or displays when the surroundings are dim.
As such, ePaper is a dream come true; a display for an electronic device that we can use for long periods of time without causing headaches or eye strain. And I get the impression that I'm not the only one with these sorts of eye-strain issues.
Hear Hear! I agree completely. I use my Kindle in the same circumstances.
Saying it doesn't make it true, but thank you for "reminding" me of the points I already specifically addressed. Have you actually used a Kindle in typical indoor lighting conditions for any length of time?
I don't know if he has, but I certainly have. My wife and I both have Kindles. One of my best friends has a B&N Nook which he shares with his wife. My sister has the Sony Ebook reader, whatever it is called.
We all agree that the ePaper screen causes a great deal less eye strain, mainly as a result of having no backlight. From my personal experience, as an early adopter of the Kindle with thousands of ebooks, I can say that I have used it many times in every concievable lighting situation, from a 1 watt LED night light, to 10s of watts of CFL, to daylight sun.
Now, I'm not saying that may exist a certain percentage of the population who find the level of contrast causes some eye-strain, but for me, and everyone I know who has bothered to try an ebook reader, including my technically illiterate parents, we all agree that the ePaper is very easy on the eyes.
The other thing I love about my Kindle is the battery life. I don't have to babysit the thing with a charger; I plug it in once a week, and I use it for a few hours a day. It doesn't matter if I traveling on a trip or what not; shorter trips don't even require me to bring the charger.
For the most part, I treat my Kindle like a real book. It doesn't need to be charged often, and it fits well into my briefcase (or my wife's purse). I don't have to pay monthly fees for it, just pay for what I buy. I can't read it in absolute darkness, but I don't find myself frustrated by eye strain after sitting in front of it for hours (unlike, say, my MacBook Pro).
*shrug* People are different. And I'm not even sure if you are in the minority in thinking that the non-iPad eBook readers are unusable today. That being said, all my impressions, and my family & friends' impressions, of today's common ebook readers are positive.
I think the iPad is destined to be another Apple TV.
It's expensive, functionally limited, and a good deal less portable than an iPhone or iPod. I've got several good friends who are mega-apple-fanboys (I'm a moderate apple fanboy, BTW), and not one of them is the least bit interested. Every one of them thought the iPad would be a general-purpose computing device, and it just isn't.
Every one of them would prefer to have an iPhone and a netbook, or an iPhone and a MacBook Air. Frankly, I agree with them. I just don't see the draw of the device.
I'm sure that Apple will sell quite a few of these devices to people who will use them as portable web tablets and video players, but I just don't see the iPad having near the market influence of the iPhone. Apple would have to dramatically alter the OS of the iPad to do that, and I think they are unwilling to support 3 different OSs at one time (they're concerned about fracturing the developer base, and OS X and OS iPod are enough). All that being said, I agree with the FSF's opinion in principle, but refuse to fear the market damaging effects of a device that I just don't think will be that successful.
Now, if the iPad was running Android, or WebOS, or an OS that was easier to tweak into a general purpose computing device, than it's fate might be different. Even then, it's seriously overpriced compared to your average netbook, and I have a feeling that Acer and ASUS's response would be Netbooks sans keyboard.
People just need to face it; as much as John Q Nerd wants a cool-looking Tablet computer, tablet machines continuously fail in the marketplace. Touch devices just don't sell well unless they are pocket portable.
Move to a national VAT
See, thats really the issue, in the U.S.
The current administration would be much more interested in keeping the current tax system, and adding another layer of VAT on top of that. Most of us are pretty unhappy about it; that's why the VAT has such a bad rap in the U.S.
Most American's would probably be *thrilled* to replace the income tax with a VAT.
Now, who is more likely to afford a heart transplant?
Without question, its the factory worker who puts cars together. Have you seen the UAW health care plans?
Now, the REAL killer app for Google Navigation, which will be apparent to all eventually if it isn't now, is free cloud-provided live traffic.
Amen. This is why I love Sprint's Telenav. Turn-by-turn guidance, with voice directions, and it takes traffic into account.
That's the *future* of city/suburb GPS.
In my opinion, for those "inside civilization"* a GPS phone is vastly superior to a standalone GPS. I've used both extensively.
A standalone GPS is restricted to the database it can carry around. Some, like the Tom-Tom's, have a nice software interface for updating this regularly, but it is impractical to do this more than once a day, and a hassle to boot.
My Pre, on the other hand, running Sprint's Telenav, gets updates "on the wire". This has a side effect of offering you a much larger database, too; you aren't restricted by on-board storage, but can have Telenav's entire phone book at your finger tips. Most areas also have traffic congestion information, as well, which is very, very nice.
You can do other things as well, such as "find the cheapest gas along my route". Not to mention that Telenav fixes the routing on a regular basis; I've seen routing improve in areas that had undergone recent construction. It's really a *very* nice app.
*All that being said, you need to be inside cell coverage for it to work at all. I've heard that they are working on an offline option for which you would carry some data with you, and would sync up when you get back into coverage, but at the moment the cell phone approach is not the best when you are going to spend a significant amount of time off the interstates (IMHO, there is decent Sprint/Verizon coverage everywhere in the US with 5-10 miles of the interstates, but it can get hairy on state highways). This sound like a big problem, however, very very few citydwellers end up in the sticks on a regular basis, and for those that do, you can usually get the last 20-50 miles of your drive done without a GPS system.