Keep in mind, unless you specify google to focus on your language, the search results should be _exactly_ the same across local sites. Except if they tamper with the results, which both Google and Yahoo do for Germany and France.
Sadly, you can't test the Chinese version from outside China. cyberlaw sometimes has a proxy running in China that will allow you to test it, but its currently down. A google filters those results based upon whether your IP block is Chinese or not.
3. Perhaps a search engine that does not bow to the Chinese goverment in the name of the almighty dollar?
Think this search engine is going to allow you to search for information about 'Nazis'
Think again.
Not that Google in France or Germany would allow you to, either. Companies generally bow to regulations in whatever environment they are running. This is called 'respect' for another countries' culture. Do I always agree? No. But is it better than giving up on the market? Yes.
Why would anyone _ever_ want to Boot XP on one of these things?
Why not Virtualize? Modern versions of VMware include OpenGL support. Wine has OpenGL/DirectX support. Cedega has damn good DirectX support.
Some inbetween layer of OS virutalization or Win32 API support seems vastly superior to running XP straight on the machine, no?
The only possible exception would be Xen, methinks, especially because these new machines are VT (vanderpool) capable. But still; the _only_ group of people for whom virtualization is not a good option is crazy hard core gamers. For the rest of us, running XP in a sandbox is vastly superior to running it native, no?
My own personal view is that loose confederation of states are preferable to strong federal governments, especially if the confederation manages to not disintegrate.
I'd like to see some power devolution to the states in the U.S, while maintaining a free-trade policy and a common currency.
Wow! I just invented the E.U.! Go Go EU! God knows why some states want to drag the E.U. to greater integration; I think they'd do better as a confederation of independent states with some common policies.
*shrug*. I dunno, perhaps not Fusion, but some of the biggest investors in renewables have been energy companies. BP in particular, but Shell and others as well.
Yes, if Fusion comes, it will be through public/private partnerships. I don't think thats bad; I call myself a libertarian, however given that I think pollution is an 'external cost', I'd call funding alternative energy sources a reasonable market-based solution to an externality that the market cannot 'see'.
And really, do you think that it would be possible for a company to afford fusion research right now? I think you'll agree with me that fusion research is underfunded at the moment. Yet the U.S. government spends about 200-300 million per year on fusion research.
We've been researching for what, 30 years? That's a load no company is large enough to afford. Hell, I don't want companies that large to be around!
If you notice, while I do like the idea of fusion plants here on earth, I was talking about Fusion, with a capital F, as in the Sun;-) If High-Lift, or one of the other companies working on a space elevator is succesful, I *know* we'll see corporate Solar Power Stations. As long as getting to orbit is made substantially cheaper, a Solar Power Station would be a fantastic investment for the large power companies.
I've done a substantial amount of travelling. I don't think the vast majority of the world is out to get 'us'. In fact, the proportion of the world which is out to get 'us' is generally much smaller than the war mongering faction of the U.S.
However, to say that the world should innately distrust the U.S. because we are an unpredictable force in international politics is a bit innane. The U.S. is no more or less reliable than other powers; honestly, most people I've met in other nations are as distrustful of their own governments as they are of the American government. The primary difference between the U.S. government and other governments is not tempermant, its ability to project power.
Perhaps you should be a little more distrustful of your government. As a citizen of the U.S., Iran, and the U.K., I'm distrustful of all three governments, and recognize that all three have been comprised of warmongers within recent history.
This theme has held true nearly everwhere I've travelled; from the horn of Africa (Ethiopia and the Sudan), to Arab states (Egypt, S. Arabia), to European nations (U.K., France, Germany, Italy). This isn't a full list of where I've travelled, just highlights of areas where I've seen the relics of prior wars first hand.
The only places I've found where the governments can be counted on staying peaceful are nations that have experienced serious military decline. Holland, for example, or Mexico. Once a nation develops a military, it is not safe to classify it in the "peaceful" category, regardless of whether it be a 'war-like' state, (N. Korea), or the gold-standard of democracy (slight amount of sarcasm there, U.S.).
No, I don't think Galileo is going to be used as a weapon of war. At the same time, I don't think Europeans can point at us as an example of 'irrational warmongers'. I say this from a person who has lived both perspectives; both identities should be _ashamed_ of our governments.
In the longview of history, the American war in Iraq is no different than the French involvement in Vietnam, or the British conflict in the Falklands.
The U.S. never properly disengaged after 'Desert Storm 1'. We'd maintained a half-assed military presence for 10 years, not to mention a prolonged bombing campaign. War is bad, I agree; however, to the realist policy makers that are oh-so-common in modern politics, do you really see 'Desert Storm 2' as more irrational than the Chechnian conflict, or the eternal conflict in the Israel/Arab situation, or the long term conflict over the Kashmir? How about Ethiopia/Eritriea? Aren't the Eritrean's dead right? What about China and Taiwan? Or China, Japan, Russia, and Vietnam over the oil reserves in the South China Sea? What about the long term conflict over Northern Ireland, which has hopefully settled down?
Don't get me wrong; I'm not giving the U.S. credit. I'm saying the rest of the world is just as bad. The civilized world is just as conflict prone as the warlike 'uncivilized world'. The only real long term solution is demilitarization.
P.S. Yes, the French are 'out to get us';-) Just kidding.
The US has proven to be a unpredictable, unreliable partner in international politics.
And France, Britain, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudia Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, and Israel have demonstrated themselves to be reliable, predictable partners in international politics?
You, sir, need to learn your history. Just because the current most-talked about military conflict involves the U.S. doesn't mean that the U.S. is the only country getting involved in these conflicts. WWI and WWII are the biggest examples, but there are plenty of little things littered throughout the 20th century.
Governments are fickle and unreliable. I cannot think of a government that provides a shining example of how to run its foreign policy, not over the long term (50 years).
Until people are building it, I do not find this "engineering", it is more like sci-fi. Personally I don't believe that there is a single technological solution that will fix our energy problems, there has never been one and there will never be one.
I do admit its not in the immediate future, unless we get a breakthrough launch technology soon.
Many of the engineering problems discussed in the article are related to energy usage and the cost of miles of superconductors. In terms of energy usage, yes, there's a high investment required. However, once we develop the ability to put large payloads in space, we can begin the generation of sufficent energy to power our mass-driver slingshot.
Also, there's some really promising moderate temperature superconductor research going on right now.
*shrug*. I can dream; these are big construction projects, but then again, so where the pyramids and the great wall of china. Technology has come a long way since those days, so we should expect more out of modern day 'wonders of the world' type investments.
In terms of accuracy, I think we are starting to reach the limits of physics, at least in terms of orbital signals.
Doesn't some of the newer GPS technology work with ground based towers, too? WAAS uses ground reference points.
I cannot find an article talking about it (the physics of the situation), but that's mainly because I'm too lazy to properly google it, and my first search didn't pull up anything obvious.
There's only one category of people who have a right to be angry about this system.
EU citizens concerned about government waste.
EU citizens should think about whether their governments have a higher priority spending issue. Most likely not; I think civilian spaces programs are a good investment, and I like the idea of Galileo.
For the rest of us, its pure gravy. We get another GPS system that costs us NOTHING
Sorry if I call it GPS, too, even though GPS is a tradename; Global Positioning System is far more descriptive than Galileo. Perhaps I should call it World Positioning System?
Anyways, I'm thrilled. Us non-Europeans (well, that's a lie, I hold British Citizenship) get a second positioning system for *free*. That means better accuracy, and higher avaliability. I bet we'll see receivers that will operate on both systems, and will get data in situations where either system will fail.
The only slightly crappy part is that you have to pay for access to the high-accuracy signal, and I'm too cheap to pay for it;-) I'll happily use the free signal from both GPS and Galileo.
How could it _ever_ possibly be bad if a government who does NOT collect taxes from you implements a free service you can take advantage of? It's not like this could hurt anyone in ANYWAY; I don't even see the dispute, other than the penis-size value.
The EU has been arguing over very, very substantial issues for a long time. The question is whether or not the Union will survive them. My money used to be on no, and is slowly moving towards yes. This is mainly because I believe integration will slow down; we'll have a European identity, and a great deal of cooperation, but I do not think Europe will ever become a superstate.
True, but irrelevant and missing the point besides. It is not how much energy humans use on a cosmological scale that is the issue, which is obviously insignificant. The point is that the window of sustainability, the brackets between which life can and cannot be sustained, are precariously narrow, and if our short-sighted appetite for energy pushes beyond one end of that bracket then we as a species are fucked. I do not agree that an appetite for energy breaks sustainability. I do agree that we shouldn't be burning precious fossil fuels for energy, and I do agree that pollution is something that needs to be controlled. However, that's not a reason to artifically limit energy usage, nor is it a reason to prevent market forces controlling our energy supply.
Not all libertarians believe in pure laissez-faire capitalism; there's a reason we aren't anarcho-capitalists. I do believe that in some situations there are external costs, and in those situations the government should take some action to account for them. A portion of that needs to be paid by the electrical company; the electric company will pass that on to energy users, and that's the way it *should* be. The remainder of the "costs" of pollution should be picked up by the government. As a libertarian, I recognize this; I also recognize that the government will not efficently use resources to clean up pollution, and will most likely not efficently invest in non-polluting sources of energy. But that doesn't break capitalist economics; thats a *preference*, and in the end, the market is about expressing preferences. We pay a premium for our preferences sometime, and a clean environment is a preference worth paying a premium for.
Keep in mind that as part of my vision as to 'cleaning up pollution', the government should be investing in research and development to non-polluting sources. This includes research and development in nuclear technologies; as far as I can tell the devil of nuclear isn't so bad as the devil of fossil fuels, and it may be a useful stopgap measure towards renewables (primarily solar, either directly, or tidal).
If there's a better mechanism to interalize those pollution costs to the energy companies, we wouldn't need the government to interfer. But there isn't; and there are too many sources of pollution to accurately send a bill to each producer. Therefore, the government can and should implement a strategy to manage it.
None of this means that we should look to a miserly future in terms of energy usage. It just means we need to make better usage of our resourcs, and we need to develop avaliable resources as well as possible.
In a world of unlimited energy, conservation doesn't make any sense, and that's NOT a bad thing! Home insulation, exotic lighting, more advanced heating and cooling systems, even more sophisticated energy-saving technology for computing; these things all have their own disadvantages associated with them. Energy-efficent lighting usually requires toxic chemicals. Insulation disposal is a big environmental problem.
But at the moment, given that we do not have huge sources of energy, these costs are preferably to burning more coal.
Basically, I'm saying you may be making the same mistake that short-sighted robber-baron capitalists do. Don't use ideology as a goal; energy efficency isn't a goal, its a solution to a problem. There may be better solutions. We weight the costs and benefits of each solution, and pick the most practical at any given time. In the current world, energy efficency makes _sense_, and if/when energy prices rise, we'll be willing to spend more (and even do things like create more pollution) in order to achieve better energy efficency. If/when energy prices fall, we can sacrifice energy efficency, first for practical reasons, then for aesthetic reasons.
I do not believe the we should continue to feed the fossil fuel fires of 18th century (and onwards) industralization. We need a new paradigm in energy production, and we need it to be better
The generating companies don't have to pay for the pollution they cause, That's a different issue. Pollution doesn't endanger the power grid, except in cataclysmic scenarios. I was merely pointing out that "the tragedy of the commons" doesn't apply to the electrical grid.
I do believe in non-polluting power. I think the government should fund next-generation nuclear research, and we should keep working on both renewables (high-end solar, and tidal, mainly) and nuclear. This means nuclear waste processing, too; once we work out an environmentally friendly solution to the nuclear fuel cycle, we can begin talking about implementing it on a global scale.
I think better researched nuclear will do less damage to the planet than fossil fuels. Think of it as a stepping stone to renewables; better than staying on fossil fuels, but not ideal.
Unless there is someway to interalize pollution to electrical generation, its an external cost, and needs to be handled outside the market framework. I say this as a tried and true libertarian; the market can only resolve problems that it can see, and it 'sees' through costs.
I cannot think of a way to accurately associate pollution costs with electrical companies; there are too many other sources of pollution. Better that we take it as a 'community' wide cost, put some of it on the electrical companies, pay the efficency loss, and fix it on the public works level. There's nothing wrong with recognizing the government should pay for something; we just need to understand that it introduces serious inefficency into the market, but that's the premium we pay for specifying certain preferences. That's why the government should only get involved in certain situations. Pollution is most likely one of these.
and are often subsidized by the government or shady accounting.
This is problematic, and should not occur. If you notice, my post said that when the market is not able to account for costs such as this, you DO get a tragedy of the commons situation. Underpaying for electrical generation = collapse of the grid.
Then you have a problem: the difference between what you want to have and going to get, will only increase in the decades to come, as prices will rise and supplies dwindle.
This is strictly a technological problem, and capitalism is VERY good at solving these kinds of problems.
Fusion is the answer. Maybe not local fusion; maybe we'll never be able to do small scale fusion.
Our planet, however, convieniently orbits a fusion reactor whose output the human mind cannot fathom. We call it the sun; it produces more energy than the species called "Man" knows what to do with.
The only question is how we can harness it. The sun isn't a dam; there isn't a theoretical limit on how much of its energy we can use. Not enough ground space? No problem; Solar Power Satellites to the rescue.
Not enough orbital space? Put 'em in solar orbit, setup relay stations. Efficency isn't an issue; once again, the tap is SO large that the solution is merely a matter of scale, not efficency.
When we are utilizing a non-negligble portion of the sun's energy output, we can talk about energy scarcity. As it is, the only projects we can currently conceive of that would use a non-neglible portion of the sun's energy output would be stellar engineering, on a solar system level, and even then there's more energy than we could possible ever need. We're talking enough energy to literally synthesize vast amounts of matter from energy.
It is an endless font so large that it does NOT fit within the human mind. It's project we can only talk about in engineering terms; its just to big for us to conceive.
Tough guy bullshit. You stupid fuck. Look at the universe around you. Cheap energy is a historical blip, and there is nothing written into the laws that govern the universe that says it should or will continue indefinitely.You sound like some stupid fucking libertarian, living life with complete disregard for the effects of their actions.
Sorry, I'm with the other guy. The activites of humans, even on a "local" cosmological scale (solar system, or ~5-10 light years) is completely negligble.
If mankind ever gets to the point where we are consuming a non-negligble portion of the sun's output, I'll change my tune. As is, the largest fusion reactor the mind can possibly fathom will be running waste free, for the forseeable future.
Sorry if me not looking beyond 5-10 billion years is ignoring long-term economic effects. Eventually, if man gets that far (or whatever species we evolve into), we'll have to come to grips with the heat death of the universe.
But right now, our energy consumption/generation on a cosmological scale can be easily rounded off to ZERO.
Wake me up when we are moving planets, terraforming mars (rapidly), or are in the process of constructing multiple rings of sun-orbit solar power generation facilities.
The universe is not some cold, dark place which mankind sends ripples through by our technological monstrocities.
The universe IS a place with extremes, with very, very cold dark places, and very, very hot bright places. Much of it is silent, however the places of interaction are very violent, with forces (read energy) on a scale that the human mind simply cannot comprehend. We can talk about it in numbers, we can work out the details; but really, neither you nor I can fully appreciate the output of the sun, let alone the output of a galaxy, let alone the forces involved in catacylsmic events (Galactic Collisions, anyone?, or even the more mundane Supernova)
Wake me up when we are dealing with energy and mass densities capable of cause local and extreme relativistic effects.
Limiting our vision to the small quantities of energy we currently dealing with dooms mankind to our 3rd rock from the sun. On a timescale of millions of years, we should dream about construction projects on a cosmological scale.
The only thing it takes is time, and energy. On a very large, very grand scale.
The big problem with nuclear reactors is they throw off neutrons. That's where all the energy is. The plant absorbs the neutrons, turning a large part of that energy into heat that turns turbines. What isn't heat though is transmuting the elements of the reactor. After about 25 years, the whole reactor has changed enough of the material into hot, fragile radioisotopes that the plant has to be shut down and abandoned. And then you go build another one somewhere else. The land the original plant stood on is off limits - too dangerous to reuse for some other purpose.
This is a technical problem with viable solutions. For one, modern (4th and 5th generation plant designs) do not expose the plant itself to much radiation. The moderating fluid absorbs the neutrons now, and its MUCh easier to handle storage for it than for the reactor materials. There's still the metal cladding to the fuel rods, however that's generally stored with the spent fuel itself.
As far as I know, the dangerous levels of radioactivity associated with reactor parts tends to not be such a problem after 20-50 years; that's a much more manageable problem then the fuel itself.
IFRs may also be a solution; thought they've never been tested.
Either way, its entirely a technological problem, and the solution is more research on disposal technologies.
Also, it does seem that there may be technological solutions to radiation. I'm more than a little bit suspicious of this: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=849072003 , however, the idea looks pretty interesting.
I was going to agree with you, that the dynamic of the situation does in someways resemble a 'tragedy of the commons', however, if you think about it, it's really not the case.
Although the cost of extra electrical usage is low, the price DOES indeed cover the generation and distribution cost. If there is high demand, and insufficent supply, the electrical company will increase prices until efficency becomes important, and until it is capable of purchasing greater supply.
We do see this; many areas do have private efficency programs often sponsored by the electrical company themselves. Encouragements to purchase energy efficent lighting/heating, or better insulation, as well as automation of lights/electronics.
At low costs, there is little personal incentive towards efficency, however: There isn't a "tragedy" here. As long as electrical prices are NOT capped by the government, the market can adequately self regulation supply and demand. The system, is not in ANY danger of collapse. The commons (the electrical grid and supply) is getting misused to some extent. This is normal under ANY economic system; when resources are plentiful, they are not used wisely. As they become scarce the system will become more efficent. Either that, or technology makes resources MORE plentiful (this is what will happen with electricity, IMHO).
Things change radically when the government interfers: case in point, California's supposed deregulation where electrical companies maintained price caps, but energy producers were free to charge any rate.
Forgive my poor grammar, I just woke up, and seem to have some problems constructing with sentences.:) Need more coffee, methinks.
1. T-mobile regularly offers free phones. Go into the store, or call 'em up. You have to bargain a little bit sometimes, but you can usually get a midrange phone free. The Amazon deal is just gravy.
P.S. I just got my father a V360 for free from Customer Service on his account. He had to resign his contract, for 2 more years, but his new phone is 100% free.
2. See #1. Learn to bargain;-)
3. This deal is rotated in and out. They tend to offer it for 3 months every 18 months. They also offer a variety of other deals that are pretty good, too, like the 3000 minutes for $39.99 (or $49.99, can't remember), within your 5-state local region. I've been on this $39.99 plan for over 3 years.
The way I described getting a good deal from T-mobile is the straight forward way. But you can do it from a store or via phone Customer Service, too; what you don't understand is that each and ever T-mobile franchise store gets ridiculous signup bonus whenever they sucker you into a 2-year contract. This means that if they end up charge you for any phone under $150 retail price, you got ripped off, royally.
You might not be able to get the store to pay you a $100 credit; but a free phone isn't a bad deal.
Re:Could be that iPod owners have more...
on
iPod Owners Not Thieves
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Is their any doubt over whether it is legal for someone in the US to purchase their mp3 data?
Actually, there isn't that much doubt, but surprisingly not in the direction you think.
Now for the country that may well have the strictest rules on copyrights, the USA. A thread in the Fatwallet forums brings some light in his confusing subject. We will not bother you with all the details. Here is a concise version of the interesting parts:
*
"MP3's, OGG's, etc are not illegal in the USA and therefore can be imported. There is also no law against importing music from other countries (including Russia). Because you are buying this legally in Russia and then importing to the USA, this should be 100% legit. For example, assuming that Russian Vodka is illegal to buy in the USA on Sunday, but you buy the Russian Vodka in Moscow on Sunday, then you import it into the USA, you have done nothing wrong. Again, this assumes that 1) it is illegal to buy Russian Vodka on Sunday in the USA 2) it is legal in Moscow and 3) it is legal to import Russian Vodka."
Title 17 Chapter 6 Sec. 602 of the U.S. Code covers "Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords". You can find this title here
Subsection (a) tells us:
*
"Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501."
So it's illegal you may think. But take a close look at sub (a)(2):
*
"This subsection does not apply to importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage;"
If MP3's, OGG's etc are in fact considered phonorecords, U.S. citizens can legally buy these as long if they are for private use and not for distribution. If MP3s, OGG's etc. are not considered phonorecords, no import laws apply. The sections of digital audio recording and sound recording have no mention of importation.
So in layman's terms the bottom line of this discussion is:
*
Downloading from Allofmp3 is legal for U.S. Citizens, as long as the files are for private use and not for distribution.
That subsection, (a) (2), is pretty clear; as long as its for your own use, and you only have one copy, its legal.
Keep in mind the way American law works. 1) It is copying of copyright works that is illegal, not possession. 2) Allofmp3 violates no Russian laws. 3) Either there is no regulation at all regarding importation of music, or the above listed regulation specifying that personal use = not infringing applies.
This isn't legal advice, obviously. A U.S. court could see it differently, and until there is legal precedent, god knows how a judge will rule. But its definitely not the open and shut "Allofmp3.com violates U.S. copyright law".
allofmp3.com does not steal music. What they do is legal in Russia. The question is whether or not it is legal to purchase their service in the U.S.
allofmp3.com "steals" music in the same sense that the government taxing you "steals" money. Intellectual property, like other social constructs, is defined entirely by its legal status.
I do not believe that people have an intrisic right to protection of Intellectual Property.
Use a modern distribution, one that has software mixing using dmix and dsnoop enabled. Or you can do it yourself, its a little tricky, but not outside the range of the average poweruser. (Your better off with a better distro, though).
Then, pipe all your legacy OSS apps through AOSS (sadly, skype IS a legacy app). Supposedly, the Skype people are working on native alsa support; AFAIK, thats the last OSS app I use.
As long as you are using either pure Alsa, or AOSS for OSS apps, you won't get stupid sound-card sharing issues.
Either that, or purchase a soundcard with hardware mixing, like a soundblaster live or audigy. You can get sb! lives for next to nothing.
At a minimum, you can have EFI Linux and EFI OS X running side by side. Then you can run XP or Vista or DOS or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in Qemu or VMware or whatever on Linux, or on Virtual PC on OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
It's more sophisticated that you might think:p /1488031
g le-Suche&meta== nazi&btnG=Rechercher&meta=- us&q=nazi&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
... Japan:% E8%F1%EA+%E2+Google&lr=
h tm
d _by_search_engines_in_Mainland_China
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google/
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.ph
Notice:
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=nazi&btnG=Goo
Ergebnisse 1 - 10 von ungefähr 28.300.000 für nazi. (0,03 Sekunden)
http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&ie=ISO-8859-1&q
Résultats 1 - 10 sur un total d'environ 28 300 000 pour nazi. (0,05 secondes)
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en
Results 1 - 10 of about 29,900,000 for nazi [definition]. (0.04 seconds)
See the search count numbers? Don't blame it on language. Lets search for Nazi in
http://www.google.co.jp/search?q=Nazi&btnG=%CF%EE
Nazi 29,900,000 1 - 10 (0.05 )
Neat, huh?
Keep in mind, unless you specify google to focus on your language, the search results should be _exactly_ the same across local sites. Except if they tamper with the results, which both Google and Yahoo do for Germany and France.
Research on Similar experiences with china:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/
Sadly, you can't test the Chinese version from outside China. cyberlaw sometimes has a proxy running in China that will allow you to test it, but its currently down. A google filters those results based upon whether your IP block is Chinese or not.
Here's someone's test. You don't have to believe it, I guess:
http://www.dit-inc.us/report/google200409/google.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_blocke
Interestingly enough, looks like our Congress criters may be trying to change this behavior:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6026733.html
3. Perhaps a search engine that does not bow to the Chinese goverment in the name of the almighty dollar?
Think this search engine is going to allow you to search for information about 'Nazis'
Think again.
Not that Google in France or Germany would allow you to, either. Companies generally bow to regulations in whatever environment they are running. This is called 'respect' for another countries' culture. Do I always agree? No. But is it better than giving up on the market? Yes.
Why would anyone _ever_ want to Boot XP on one of these things?
Why not Virtualize? Modern versions of VMware include OpenGL support. Wine has OpenGL/DirectX support. Cedega has damn good DirectX support.
Some inbetween layer of OS virutalization or Win32 API support seems vastly superior to running XP straight on the machine, no?
The only possible exception would be Xen, methinks, especially because these new machines are VT (vanderpool) capable. But still; the _only_ group of people for whom virtualization is not a good option is crazy hard core gamers. For the rest of us, running XP in a sandbox is vastly superior to running it native, no?
I agree.
My own personal view is that loose confederation of states are preferable to strong federal governments, especially if the confederation manages to not disintegrate.
I'd like to see some power devolution to the states in the U.S, while maintaining a free-trade policy and a common currency.
Wow! I just invented the E.U.! Go Go EU! God knows why some states want to drag the E.U. to greater integration; I think they'd do better as a confederation of independent states with some common policies.
*shrug*. I dunno, perhaps not Fusion, but some of the biggest investors in renewables have been energy companies. BP in particular, but Shell and others as well.
;-) If High-Lift, or one of the other companies working on a space elevator is succesful, I *know* we'll see corporate Solar Power Stations. As long as getting to orbit is made substantially cheaper, a Solar Power Station would be a fantastic investment for the large power companies.
Yes, if Fusion comes, it will be through public/private partnerships. I don't think thats bad; I call myself a libertarian, however given that I think pollution is an 'external cost', I'd call funding alternative energy sources a reasonable market-based solution to an externality that the market cannot 'see'.
And really, do you think that it would be possible for a company to afford fusion research right now? I think you'll agree with me that fusion research is underfunded at the moment. Yet the U.S. government spends about 200-300 million per year on fusion research.
We've been researching for what, 30 years? That's a load no company is large enough to afford. Hell, I don't want companies that large to be around!
If you notice, while I do like the idea of fusion plants here on earth, I was talking about Fusion, with a capital F, as in the Sun
I've done a substantial amount of travelling. I don't think the vast majority of the world is out to get 'us'. In fact, the proportion of the world which is out to get 'us' is generally much smaller than the war mongering faction of the U.S.
;-) Just kidding.
However, to say that the world should innately distrust the U.S. because we are an unpredictable force in international politics is a bit innane. The U.S. is no more or less reliable than other powers; honestly, most people I've met in other nations are as distrustful of their own governments as they are of the American government. The primary difference between the U.S. government and other governments is not tempermant, its ability to project power.
Perhaps you should be a little more distrustful of your government. As a citizen of the U.S., Iran, and the U.K., I'm distrustful of all three governments, and recognize that all three have been comprised of warmongers within recent history.
This theme has held true nearly everwhere I've travelled; from the horn of Africa (Ethiopia and the Sudan), to Arab states (Egypt, S. Arabia), to European nations (U.K., France, Germany, Italy). This isn't a full list of where I've travelled, just highlights of areas where I've seen the relics of prior wars first hand.
The only places I've found where the governments can be counted on staying peaceful are nations that have experienced serious military decline. Holland, for example, or Mexico. Once a nation develops a military, it is not safe to classify it in the "peaceful" category, regardless of whether it be a 'war-like' state, (N. Korea), or the gold-standard of democracy (slight amount of sarcasm there, U.S.).
No, I don't think Galileo is going to be used as a weapon of war. At the same time, I don't think Europeans can point at us as an example of 'irrational warmongers'. I say this from a person who has lived both perspectives; both identities should be _ashamed_ of our governments.
In the longview of history, the American war in Iraq is no different than the French involvement in Vietnam, or the British conflict in the Falklands.
The U.S. never properly disengaged after 'Desert Storm 1'. We'd maintained a half-assed military presence for 10 years, not to mention a prolonged bombing campaign. War is bad, I agree; however, to the realist policy makers that are oh-so-common in modern politics, do you really see 'Desert Storm 2' as more irrational than the Chechnian conflict, or the eternal conflict in the Israel/Arab situation, or the long term conflict over the Kashmir? How about Ethiopia/Eritriea? Aren't the Eritrean's dead right? What about China and Taiwan? Or China, Japan, Russia, and Vietnam over the oil reserves in the South China Sea? What about the long term conflict over Northern Ireland, which has hopefully settled down?
Don't get me wrong; I'm not giving the U.S. credit. I'm saying the rest of the world is just as bad. The civilized world is just as conflict prone as the warlike 'uncivilized world'. The only real long term solution is demilitarization.
P.S. Yes, the French are 'out to get us'
Because European countries don't fight wars, huh?
Pardon me while I laugh myself to death.
The European countries have been fighting wars all over the global since *far* before the U.S. was founded.
The US has proven to be a unpredictable, unreliable partner in international politics.
And France, Britain, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudia Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, and Israel have demonstrated themselves to be reliable, predictable partners in international politics?
You, sir, need to learn your history. Just because the current most-talked about military conflict involves the U.S. doesn't mean that the U.S. is the only country getting involved in these conflicts. WWI and WWII are the biggest examples, but there are plenty of little things littered throughout the 20th century.
Governments are fickle and unreliable. I cannot think of a government that provides a shining example of how to run its foreign policy, not over the long term (50 years).
Until people are building it, I do not find this "engineering", it is more like sci-fi. Personally I don't believe that there is a single technological solution that will fix our energy problems, there has never been one and there will never be one.
d =141
I do admit its not in the immediate future, unless we get a breakthrough launch technology soon.
Those are coming. A space elevator would be nice. You've probably heard a lot about them.
http://www.physicspost.com/printpage.php?articleI
A less likely, but still possible concept is a mass driver:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver
Many of the engineering problems discussed in the article are related to energy usage and the cost of miles of superconductors. In terms of energy usage, yes, there's a high investment required. However, once we develop the ability to put large payloads in space, we can begin the generation of sufficent energy to power our mass-driver slingshot.
Also, there's some really promising moderate temperature superconductor research going on right now.
*shrug*. I can dream; these are big construction projects, but then again, so where the pyramids and the great wall of china. Technology has come a long way since those days, so we should expect more out of modern day 'wonders of the world' type investments.
In terms of accuracy, I think we are starting to reach the limits of physics, at least in terms of orbital signals.
Doesn't some of the newer GPS technology work with ground based towers, too? WAAS uses ground reference points.
I cannot find an article talking about it (the physics of the situation), but that's mainly because I'm too lazy to properly google it, and my first search didn't pull up anything obvious.
There's only one category of people who have a right to be angry about this system.
;-) I'll happily use the free signal from both GPS and Galileo.
EU citizens concerned about government waste.
EU citizens should think about whether their governments have a higher priority spending issue. Most likely not; I think civilian spaces programs are a good investment, and I like the idea of Galileo.
For the rest of us, its pure gravy. We get another GPS system that costs us NOTHING
Sorry if I call it GPS, too, even though GPS is a tradename; Global Positioning System is far more descriptive than Galileo. Perhaps I should call it World Positioning System?
Anyways, I'm thrilled. Us non-Europeans (well, that's a lie, I hold British Citizenship) get a second positioning system for *free*. That means better accuracy, and higher avaliability. I bet we'll see receivers that will operate on both systems, and will get data in situations where either system will fail.
The only slightly crappy part is that you have to pay for access to the high-accuracy signal, and I'm too cheap to pay for it
How could it _ever_ possibly be bad if a government who does NOT collect taxes from you implements a free service you can take advantage of? It's not like this could hurt anyone in ANYWAY; I don't even see the dispute, other than the penis-size value.
...France, Germany and the U.K. start argueing over trivial issues.
Trivial issues, you mean like theEuropean Constitution or farm subsidies, which are a substantial portion of the EU's budget?
The EU has been arguing over very, very substantial issues for a long time. The question is whether or not the Union will survive them. My money used to be on no, and is slowly moving towards yes. This is mainly because I believe integration will slow down; we'll have a European identity, and a great deal of cooperation, but I do not think Europe will ever become a superstate.
Personally, I think that's a good thing.
True, but irrelevant and missing the point besides. It is not how much energy humans use on a cosmological scale that is the issue, which is obviously insignificant. The point is that the window of sustainability, the brackets between which life can and cannot be sustained, are precariously narrow, and if our short-sighted appetite for energy pushes beyond one end of that bracket then we as a species are fucked.
I do not agree that an appetite for energy breaks sustainability. I do agree that we shouldn't be burning precious fossil fuels for energy, and I do agree that pollution is something that needs to be controlled. However, that's not a reason to artifically limit energy usage, nor is it a reason to prevent market forces controlling our energy supply.
Not all libertarians believe in pure laissez-faire capitalism; there's a reason we aren't anarcho-capitalists. I do believe that in some situations there are external costs, and in those situations the government should take some action to account for them. A portion of that needs to be paid by the electrical company; the electric company will pass that on to energy users, and that's the way it *should* be. The remainder of the "costs" of pollution should be picked up by the government. As a libertarian, I recognize this; I also recognize that the government will not efficently use resources to clean up pollution, and will most likely not efficently invest in non-polluting sources of energy. But that doesn't break capitalist economics; thats a *preference*, and in the end, the market is about expressing preferences. We pay a premium for our preferences sometime, and a clean environment is a preference worth paying a premium for.
Keep in mind that as part of my vision as to 'cleaning up pollution', the government should be investing in research and development to non-polluting sources. This includes research and development in nuclear technologies; as far as I can tell the devil of nuclear isn't so bad as the devil of fossil fuels, and it may be a useful stopgap measure towards renewables (primarily solar, either directly, or tidal).
If there's a better mechanism to interalize those pollution costs to the energy companies, we wouldn't need the government to interfer. But there isn't; and there are too many sources of pollution to accurately send a bill to each producer. Therefore, the government can and should implement a strategy to manage it.
None of this means that we should look to a miserly future in terms of energy usage. It just means we need to make better usage of our resourcs, and we need to develop avaliable resources as well as possible.
In a world of unlimited energy, conservation doesn't make any sense, and that's NOT a bad thing! Home insulation, exotic lighting, more advanced heating and cooling systems, even more sophisticated energy-saving technology for computing; these things all have their own disadvantages associated with them. Energy-efficent lighting usually requires toxic chemicals. Insulation disposal is a big environmental problem.
But at the moment, given that we do not have huge sources of energy, these costs are preferably to burning more coal.
Basically, I'm saying you may be making the same mistake that short-sighted robber-baron capitalists do. Don't use ideology as a goal; energy efficency isn't a goal, its a solution to a problem. There may be better solutions. We weight the costs and benefits of each solution, and pick the most practical at any given time. In the current world, energy efficency makes _sense_, and if/when energy prices rise, we'll be willing to spend more (and even do things like create more pollution) in order to achieve better energy efficency. If/when energy prices fall, we can sacrifice energy efficency, first for practical reasons, then for aesthetic reasons.
I do not believe the we should continue to feed the fossil fuel fires of 18th century (and onwards) industralization. We need a new paradigm in energy production, and we need it to be better
The generating companies don't have to pay for the pollution they cause,
That's a different issue. Pollution doesn't endanger the power grid, except in cataclysmic scenarios. I was merely pointing out that "the tragedy of the commons" doesn't apply to the electrical grid.
I do believe in non-polluting power. I think the government should fund next-generation nuclear research, and we should keep working on both renewables (high-end solar, and tidal, mainly) and nuclear. This means nuclear waste processing, too; once we work out an environmentally friendly solution to the nuclear fuel cycle, we can begin talking about implementing it on a global scale.
I think better researched nuclear will do less damage to the planet than fossil fuels. Think of it as a stepping stone to renewables; better than staying on fossil fuels, but not ideal.
Unless there is someway to interalize pollution to electrical generation, its an external cost, and needs to be handled outside the market framework. I say this as a tried and true libertarian; the market can only resolve problems that it can see, and it 'sees' through costs.
I cannot think of a way to accurately associate pollution costs with electrical companies; there are too many other sources of pollution. Better that we take it as a 'community' wide cost, put some of it on the electrical companies, pay the efficency loss, and fix it on the public works level. There's nothing wrong with recognizing the government should pay for something; we just need to understand that it introduces serious inefficency into the market, but that's the premium we pay for specifying certain preferences. That's why the government should only get involved in certain situations. Pollution is most likely one of these.
and are often subsidized by the government or shady accounting.
This is problematic, and should not occur. If you notice, my post said that when the market is not able to account for costs such as this, you DO get a tragedy of the commons situation. Underpaying for electrical generation = collapse of the grid.
Then you have a problem: the difference between what you want to have and going to get, will only increase in the decades to come, as prices will rise and supplies dwindle.
This is strictly a technological problem, and capitalism is VERY good at solving these kinds of problems.
Fusion is the answer. Maybe not local fusion; maybe we'll never be able to do small scale fusion.
Our planet, however, convieniently orbits a fusion reactor whose output the human mind cannot fathom. We call it the sun; it produces more energy than the species called "Man" knows what to do with.
The only question is how we can harness it. The sun isn't a dam; there isn't a theoretical limit on how much of its energy we can use. Not enough ground space? No problem; Solar Power Satellites to the rescue.
Not enough orbital space? Put 'em in solar orbit, setup relay stations. Efficency isn't an issue; once again, the tap is SO large that the solution is merely a matter of scale, not efficency.
When we are utilizing a non-negligble portion of the sun's energy output, we can talk about energy scarcity. As it is, the only projects we can currently conceive of that would use a non-neglible portion of the sun's energy output would be stellar engineering, on a solar system level, and even then there's more energy than we could possible ever need. We're talking enough energy to literally synthesize vast amounts of matter from energy.
It is an endless font so large that it does NOT fit within the human mind. It's project we can only talk about in engineering terms; its just to big for us to conceive.
Tough guy bullshit. You stupid fuck. Look at the universe around you. Cheap energy is a historical blip, and there is nothing written into the laws that govern the universe that says it should or will continue indefinitely.You sound like some stupid fucking libertarian, living life with complete disregard for the effects of their actions.
Sorry, I'm with the other guy. The activites of humans, even on a "local" cosmological scale (solar system, or ~5-10 light years) is completely negligble.
If mankind ever gets to the point where we are consuming a non-negligble portion of the sun's output, I'll change my tune. As is, the largest fusion reactor the mind can possibly fathom will be running waste free, for the forseeable future.
Sorry if me not looking beyond 5-10 billion years is ignoring long-term economic effects. Eventually, if man gets that far (or whatever species we evolve into), we'll have to come to grips with the heat death of the universe.
But right now, our energy consumption/generation on a cosmological scale can be easily rounded off to ZERO.
Wake me up when we are moving planets, terraforming mars (rapidly), or are in the process of constructing multiple rings of sun-orbit solar power generation facilities.
The universe is not some cold, dark place which mankind sends ripples through by our technological monstrocities.
The universe IS a place with extremes, with very, very cold dark places, and very, very hot bright places. Much of it is silent, however the places of interaction are very violent, with forces (read energy) on a scale that the human mind simply cannot comprehend. We can talk about it in numbers, we can work out the details; but really, neither you nor I can fully appreciate the output of the sun, let alone the output of a galaxy, let alone the forces involved in catacylsmic events (Galactic Collisions, anyone?, or even the more mundane Supernova)
Wake me up when we are dealing with energy and mass densities capable of cause local and extreme relativistic effects.
Limiting our vision to the small quantities of energy we currently dealing with dooms mankind to our 3rd rock from the sun. On a timescale of millions of years, we should dream about construction projects on a cosmological scale.
The only thing it takes is time, and energy. On a very large, very grand scale.
The big problem with nuclear reactors is they throw off neutrons. That's where all the energy is. The plant absorbs the neutrons, turning a large part of that energy into heat that turns turbines. What isn't heat though is transmuting the elements of the reactor. After about 25 years, the whole reactor has changed enough of the material into hot, fragile radioisotopes that the plant has to be shut down and abandoned. And then you go build another one somewhere else. The land the original plant stood on is off limits - too dangerous to reuse for some other purpose.
c iated_reactor_types
This is a technical problem with viable solutions. For one, modern (4th and 5th generation plant designs) do not expose the plant itself to much radiation. The moderating fluid absorbs the neutrons now, and its MUCh easier to handle storage for it than for the reactor materials. There's still the metal cladding to the fuel rods, however that's generally stored with the spent fuel itself.
As far as I know, the dangerous levels of radioactivity associated with reactor parts tends to not be such a problem after 20-50 years; that's a much more manageable problem then the fuel itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Asso
IFRs may also be a solution; thought they've never been tested.
Either way, its entirely a technological problem, and the solution is more research on disposal technologies.
Also, it does seem that there may be technological solutions to radiation. I'm more than a little bit suspicious of this: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=849072003 , however, the idea looks pretty interesting.
I was going to agree with you, that the dynamic of the situation does in someways resemble a 'tragedy of the commons', however, if you think about it, it's really not the case.
:) Need more coffee, methinks.
Although the cost of extra electrical usage is low, the price DOES indeed cover the generation and distribution cost. If there is high demand, and insufficent supply, the electrical company will increase prices until efficency becomes important, and until it is capable of purchasing greater supply.
We do see this; many areas do have private efficency programs often sponsored by the electrical company themselves. Encouragements to purchase energy efficent lighting/heating, or better insulation, as well as automation of lights/electronics.
At low costs, there is little personal incentive towards efficency, however: There isn't a "tragedy" here. As long as electrical prices are NOT capped by the government, the market can adequately self regulation supply and demand. The system, is not in ANY danger of collapse. The commons (the electrical grid and supply) is getting misused to some extent. This is normal under ANY economic system; when resources are plentiful, they are not used wisely. As they become scarce the system will become more efficent. Either that, or technology makes resources MORE plentiful (this is what will happen with electricity, IMHO).
Things change radically when the government interfers: case in point, California's supposed deregulation where electrical companies maintained price caps, but energy producers were free to charge any rate.
Forgive my poor grammar, I just woke up, and seem to have some problems constructing with sentences.
1. T-mobile regularly offers free phones. Go into the store, or call 'em up. You have to bargain a little bit sometimes, but you can usually get a midrange phone free. The Amazon deal is just gravy.
;-)
P.S. I just got my father a V360 for free from Customer Service on his account. He had to resign his contract, for 2 more years, but his new phone is 100% free.
2. See #1. Learn to bargain
3. This deal is rotated in and out. They tend to offer it for 3 months every 18 months. They also offer a variety of other deals that are pretty good, too, like the 3000 minutes for $39.99 (or $49.99, can't remember), within your 5-state local region. I've been on this $39.99 plan for over 3 years.
The way I described getting a good deal from T-mobile is the straight forward way. But you can do it from a store or via phone Customer Service, too; what you don't understand is that each and ever T-mobile franchise store gets ridiculous signup bonus whenever they sucker you into a 2-year contract. This means that if they end up charge you for any phone under $150 retail price, you got ripped off, royally.
You might not be able to get the store to pay you a $100 credit; but a free phone isn't a bad deal.
Actually, there isn't that much doubt, but surprisingly not in the direction you think.
Information here, I'll quote the good bits:
http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm
That subsection, (a) (2), is pretty clear; as long as its for your own use, and you only have one copy, its legal.
Keep in mind the way American law works. 1) It is copying of copyright works that is illegal, not possession. 2) Allofmp3 violates no Russian laws. 3) Either there is no regulation at all regarding importation of music, or the above listed regulation specifying that personal use = not infringing applies.
This isn't legal advice, obviously. A U.S. court could see it differently, and until there is legal precedent, god knows how a judge will rule. But its definitely not the open and shut "Allofmp3.com violates U.S. copyright law".
allofmp3.com does not steal music. What they do is legal in Russia. The question is whether or not it is legal to purchase their service in the U.S.
allofmp3.com "steals" music in the same sense that the government taxing you "steals" money. Intellectual property, like other social constructs, is defined entirely by its legal status.
I do not believe that people have an intrisic right to protection of Intellectual Property.
Use a modern distribution, one that has software mixing using dmix and dsnoop enabled. Or you can do it yourself, its a little tricky, but not outside the range of the average poweruser. (Your better off with a better distro, though).
Then, pipe all your legacy OSS apps through AOSS (sadly, skype IS a legacy app). Supposedly, the Skype people are working on native alsa support; AFAIK, thats the last OSS app I use.
As long as you are using either pure Alsa, or AOSS for OSS apps, you won't get stupid sound-card sharing issues.
Either that, or purchase a soundcard with hardware mixing, like a soundblaster live or audigy. You can get sb! lives for next to nothing.
Microsoft just committed to Office Mac for at least 5 more years earlier this week.
That could _easily_ mean one more release.
Not that I care; I hope OpenOffice.org for OS X takes off soon.
Although it could seriously hurt opensource, more and more these days I wonder if software should have liability associated with it.
I would love to see some kind of accountability system that did not gut opensource software.
Yes, you need an EFI-capable operating system.
However, keep in mind that these systems are Vanderpool enabled. The intel core duo processor has VT (vanderpool features).
What does this mean?
Side by side independant OS virtualization utilizing Xen. Including Windows.
http://www.xensource.com/news/pr030105.html
At a minimum, you can have EFI Linux and EFI OS X running side by side.
Then you can run XP or Vista or DOS or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in Qemu or VMware or whatever on Linux, or on Virtual PC on OS X.