Oh, Computer *Science*.;) My fault-- all of those folks *are* retarded.
(I'm just kidding, all the way around. Sorry if the first message sounded miffed, or if anyone is offended by my lighthearted jab at my higher-level programming counterparts in the CS world.)
Wow, TWO whole US universities? That's definitely enough of a sample to make blanket statements for a whole country's engineering and CS programs.
But seriously-- I think Purdue's Computer Engineering program did a good job. I learned C, C++, Java, Fortran 77, CShell and KShell, Nawk, Sed, assembly for motorola 68HC12 and intel 8096, software and hardware development methodology, OO Design, VHDL, analog circuit design (amplifiers and whatnot), microprocessor design (my crappy 16-bit pipelined RISC chip ran at a whopping 24MHz in simulation, but it worked, damnit!), OS design and architecture (i never want to write another filesystem or memory manager), digital logic design (among a score of small projects, I built a digital audio compressor/limiter and a Pong game as choose-your-own projects) and enough math to make my head feel like bursting (Diff EQ was sophomore year-- and we had math all the way through, although I must say I'm not using Convolution or Laplace Transforms in my day-to-day work)
The US deserves some occasional bashing, but I think this one is undeserved.
Fooey. It has to do with *everything*. Yeah, your graphics card is sooper-fast. But what has to feed that card data? Your CPU. Your memory bus. Your AGP bus. UT2003 happens to be CPU-limited even with the latest-and-greatest video cards, all the way up to the fastest Athlon chips available.
You can see that the GeForce 4 Ti cards are ALL still getting faster the faster the CPU gets, right up to the bitter end.
That's not to say that a couple of years from now that 3D cards won't handle physics and AI onboard-- but they don't exist now, so it's hardly fair to say "A better gfx card will almost always be a bigger win than a faster CPU."
It depends on the game, and the newer they are, the more CPU they'll eat. (See Battlefield 1942)
They mentioned letting me have a repeater put on the line. All SBC Ameritech wanted was a reasonable $4000 for it.
I may have worded something wrong, but despite working through two well-placed friends at Covad, the end result was "you're too far and too dirty for anything to work, period. Sorry, dude!" I would have taken 144 at that point, because we didn't have @Home yet, either-- but I was stuck and had to wait until our apartment complex got a modernized cable system.
I seem to remember that IDSL has limits, too-- they're just much longer than that of traditional xDSL. But what do I know?
I don't think the series 2 units are hackable like the series 1 tivos were. There is some sort of cryptographic signature check on the config files, so it's not just a quick edit to the files to give yourself telnet and ftp.
Somebdy will figure something out though-- in the meantime, check out the tivo forums here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdispla y. php?forumid=8
When I peeked just now, the very first thread was titled "No, you cannot hack a series 2 box (yet)" and had quite a bit of good info. Be patient, though-- somebody will figure it out.:)
You make some good points. I don't do any hosting at home-- it's cheaper to pay somebody else $10/month to host stuff for me, where it's not subject to the limitations of residential connections.
Speakeasy was not the only DSL provider I tried, (I tried the ILEC as well as anybody else whose website said they served my zipcode-- something like 15 providers in all). My line is ridiculously long in addition to being dirty. The ILEC offered to fix it by adding some sort of repeater for the low, low price of $4000. And that would get me to 144/144. Not really worth the expenditure.
I do use the cable modem for access to work-- no problems there. I do wish I could get better outbound and more reasonable AUP, but I really don't have another fast option.
Like somebody already mentioned, in many spots nobody is "picking up the slack." I'm in indianapolis-- not huge, but not a small city either. Yet my only options where I live are cable or 56K dialup.
I've got a Comcast (formerly @Home) cable modem, and I would happily pay more for DSL from somebody like speakeasy, but it's not available in my area.
The techs laughed at my circuit-- it was the dirtiest they had seen in some time, especially in a major city. Bridge taps, unterminated pairs (one nearly a mile long), some sort of coil, and so on. He said every problem on their list was present more than once, on top of the distance being 50% outside their max window for IDSL (which would have been a whopping 144kbps anyway).
Satellite is out because of the ridiculous ping. Okay for web access, crap for games.
Don't forget that there are plenty of people who still live inside a geographically-enforced cable internet monopoly.
You turn on your 1541, at which point the quiet hole and the massive thrashing noise produced by the floppy drive collide, producing a sound/anti-sound reaction that will destroy life as we know it! (Or possibly just corrupt your cracked copy of Gauntlet.)
They make money on DVDs!! Tons of it! I doubt the shiny plastic disc, printing, and packaging costs them more than a tiny fraction of the cost of the DVD.
What do they care if theatres disappear entirely? Why is this an issue for them at all?
I'll settle for a Cell Phone/PDA/Camera as long as it's about the size of a Samsung A460, the PDA is relatively standard (PalmOS?), and the camera can do >1024x768. MP3 is optional, and left as extra credit for the manufacturer. (Also acceptable for extra credit: a PDA processor fast enough to run an mp3 player)
Samsung has 2 out of 3 with the upcoming i500, so I'll probably have to settle for that when my trusty Timeport finishes falling apart.
No, it won't replace my real camera, but sometimes you only want one small device with you, and don't need anything more than a snapshot camera for your drunken friends. (As in, most of the time) I have no idea where everybody else is carrying their PDAs and cameras, but I sure don't have the pockets for it.
The idea that solar panels take more energy to manufacture than they produce in their lifetime is not true. It is NOT a zero-sum process. Assuming solar panels require about 40% of the energy they will produce in their lifetime to manufacture, you are getting a 150% return on energy investment.
Solar panels are certainly energy intensive and dirty to manufacture-- but they get a whole lot cleaner after your first generation:
1. make panel from energy from fossil fuel 2. put panel on roof 3. use energy from panel to make next panel
This, of course, doesn't remove the need for nasty semiconductor manufacturing chemicals, but there IS a net gain. The system isn't zero-sum because the sun is dumping a whole lot of energy into it. You DO get more out than you put in. 150% more, roughly.
Whether that's enough to make it worth it financially is a different question altogether.
I did not intend to seem as if I was 'pushing back'. I was quite clear that I believe such a law is necessary.
I think you are glossing over the difficulty involved in a policy like this, though-- "about where it lives now in the physical world" is hardly a good legal definition, and will result in a vague mess like the DMCA. Most people might apply it intelligently, and most blind people are probably fine with flash movies that don't have play-by-play subtitles. But all it takes is one trigger-happy lawyer and a vague law to create all sorts of havoc for well-intended sites. On the other hand, simply creating an exception for primarily visual works would open a loophole big enough for a truck, leaving impaired folks no better off than they are.
It's important, it's necessary, but it's damn hard, too, and the law needs to be carefully designed. The "line in your mind" might work well, but i challenge you to write it succinctly in a way that leaves no loopholes yet causes nothing to be removed from the web-- AND is clear enough to be interpreted by the courts for the next 50 years without violating your intent.
The best approach, I think, would be to take it one piece at a time, rather than attempthing blanket laws. Airlines, to use the example in the story, should clearly make their sites web accessible. Same with government agencies that offer public services. Mortgage sites. Banks. Libraries. There are regulating bodies for all of these-- why not have the laws created at that level, instead of applying the ADA wholesale to the web? That way, nobody gets sued because their "all your base" movie doesn't have audible subtitling. The web, while public, is not really equivalent to a public business. It is everything from a bulletin board to a mortgage company.
Please, next time read the comments more carefully before you accuse someone of 'pushing back' against the disabled. I want this to work.
I'm no lawyer. But it seems that a modchip that allowed you to boot linux, but that didn't break the security on games would still be good even under the DMCA. The purpose does matter to some degree with the DMCA-- I don't believe it applies at all until you start giving yourself access to copyrighted works you're not supposed to.
I see no problem making web sites like the airline in question accessible to impaired people. The issue is where the line gets drawn, and by whom. The web encompasses more than just simple services like airline tickets-- it is also an artistic medium, a place people throw their diaries, a good way for a grad student to post their research quickly, or a way to make stupid jokes to share with the world.
Without very careful consideration, a law as thorough as our current physical-world rules would make large pieces of the web illegal. For example-- that funny flash movie with no vocals your friend sent you (frog in a blender, anyone?) is now off-limits. How could you possibly make that accessible? A page showing a montage of photographs? There are a number of things that are purely or significantly visual on the web that would be impossible to make accessible to the sight impaired.
A law is needed-- blind people make up such a tiny percentage of the population that they don't make up enough of a group to have any impact on the market financially. But the law needs to be a masterpiece of careful thought and planning, or it will strip the web of purely visual artworks, and make information exchange via quick-and-dirty sites a thing of the past.
"If they illegally copied, modified, and resold their copyright materials, yes."
You are correct, sir.
I do not know if the modchips contain copyrighted MS code. I suspect some do and some don't depending on the method used.
If they do not, however, NO ONE is reselling copyrighted materials.
Your example is slightly incorrect, too. There is no difference between what a reseller of mod-chipped xboxes is doing, and a reseller of modified cars, except that only an idiot would sell the reseller a car at a loss. How can you claim that "Company A" is keeping "all the profits?" when "Company B" has no profit to start with? If "Company B" has a poorly designed product that they can't manufacture at a low enough cost to keep up with their competition AND make a profit, why should the courts enforce their profits? Is it illegal to buy an xbox and then just leave it sitting around? Hardly. Yet that leaves MS in exactly the same money-losing situation as putting a mod chip in and using it for legal purposes.
Pirating games is illegal. Building a modchip containing modified MS XBox BIOS code is illegal. Building a modchip that contains no MS code and using it to play a European game or make backups of your games is legal.
MS may have been forced to drop their price to keep up with their competition, but that's the way economics works, as you so bluntly point out.
If you build a product that is more expensive than a similar one from a competitor, expect people to buy the cheaper one. If you can't make yours cheaper, don't expect regulation to help you make up the cost difference. There is no inherent right to make profit in a capitalist system-- if you can't get your production costs down as low as your competitors, you will be priced right out of the market. This happens all the time.
Why should microsoft be able to sell things at a loss with profits ensured by law, while their competitors are capable of making a profit on the hardware even at lower price points? (Nintendo is making a profit on the gamecube at $150)
But I digress. All of this is nearly irrelevant in the first place-- mod chips are no more illegal than guns. Just because they can be used illegally does not make them intrinsically illegal. (Unless they contain copyrighted code by MS!!) Whether or not MS has to lower their prices below cost to keep up with their competition's superior designs has no bearing on whether or not modchips are legal.
Since a gas mower produces more emissions per hour than a car does, I highly doubt that the iMow produces more net emissions than a gas mower, despite using 10x the power. (How much power is your car using? Lots.)
Gas lawmowers are fuel-efficient but extremely dirty.
But you are correct in stating that there are even better solutions than this-- I recall somebody making a solar-powered robot mower, too, and I will personally stick with an unpowered rotary mower.
Is a good link for this, since it is from a group that is actually trying to portray lawnmowers as clean. However, look closely at their numbers:
According to them, a walk-behind mower is used an average of 25 hours per year, and a car is driven an average of 14,000 miles per year.
In two years, the mower produces 2.1lbs. of emissions, and the car produces 20lbs. They go on to claim that this means mowers are cleaner, but the difference in amount of time in use in their example is staggering. At an average of 50mph, a car driven 14,000 miles per year is in use for 280 hours, compared to the measly 25 the mower is used.
So a lawnmower is producing more emissions per hour of usage THAN A FREAKING CAR, according to the stats given by the OPEI, an obviously pro-lawnmower group.
Don't buy connection kits from the phone company. Get the cable from a 3rd party-- www.thesupplynet.com had cables for everything. I have a cable for my ancient motorola timeport to connect via the serial port as a modem, and one to connect it to my PDA. No software or ISP needed with Sprint, just use their QNC system (which is free as long as you have wireless web.)
Not sure how other cell providers are, as I don't really have any reason or means to tinker around with them.
Most americans already pay far more than that for TV. This amounts to a little less than a $13/month increase to their cable bills, and despite the perpetual price hikes from the cable companies, people seem to be just paying the extra. I'm sure you'd find some takers.
I would certainly pay $150 a year to can the commercials. I fail to see how this is socialism-- as I understand it, the British TV license is optional. Don't want to pay? Don't watch the BBC channels.
Your bladder probably can't hold that much. But that doesn't mean you can't drink that much, as other posters have pointed out. There is DEFINITELY that much water in your body, and I will personally attest to drinking four 1-liter bottles of water after a 14-mile run in 95 degree heat last weekend.
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Oh, Computer *Science*. ;) My fault-- all of those folks *are* retarded.
(I'm just kidding, all the way around. Sorry if the first message sounded miffed, or if anyone is offended by my lighthearted jab at my higher-level programming counterparts in the CS world.)
Wow, TWO whole US universities? That's definitely enough of a sample to make blanket statements for a whole country's engineering and CS programs.
But seriously-- I think Purdue's Computer Engineering program did a good job. I learned C, C++, Java, Fortran 77, CShell and KShell, Nawk, Sed, assembly for motorola 68HC12 and intel 8096, software and hardware development methodology, OO Design, VHDL, analog circuit design (amplifiers and whatnot), microprocessor design (my crappy 16-bit pipelined RISC chip ran at a whopping 24MHz in simulation, but it worked, damnit!), OS design and architecture (i never want to write another filesystem or memory manager), digital logic design (among a score of small projects, I built a digital audio compressor/limiter and a Pong game as choose-your-own projects) and enough math to make my head feel like bursting (Diff EQ was sophomore year-- and we had math all the way through, although I must say I'm not using Convolution or Laplace Transforms in my day-to-day work)
The US deserves some occasional bashing, but I think this one is undeserved.
Fooey. It has to do with *everything*. Yeah, your graphics card is sooper-fast. But what has to feed that card data? Your CPU. Your memory bus. Your AGP bus. UT2003 happens to be CPU-limited even with the latest-and-greatest video cards, all the way up to the fastest Athlon chips available.
Take a look at this UT2003 benchmark chart:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1650&p =3
You can see that the GeForce 4 Ti cards are ALL still getting faster the faster the CPU gets, right up to the bitter end.
That's not to say that a couple of years from now that 3D cards won't handle physics and AI onboard-- but they don't exist now, so it's hardly fair to say "A better gfx card will almost always be a bigger win than a faster CPU."
It depends on the game, and the newer they are, the more CPU they'll eat. (See Battlefield 1942)
They mentioned letting me have a repeater put on the line. All SBC Ameritech wanted was a reasonable $4000 for it.
I may have worded something wrong, but despite working through two well-placed friends at Covad, the end result was "you're too far and too dirty for anything to work, period. Sorry, dude!" I would have taken 144 at that point, because we didn't have @Home yet, either-- but I was stuck and had to wait until our apartment complex got a modernized cable system.
I seem to remember that IDSL has limits, too-- they're just much longer than that of traditional xDSL. But what do I know?
I don't think the series 2 units are hackable like the series 1 tivos were. There is some sort of cryptographic signature check on the config files, so it's not just a quick edit to the files to give yourself telnet and ftp.
a y. php?forumid=8
:)
Somebdy will figure something out though-- in the meantime, check out the tivo forums here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdispl
When I peeked just now, the very first thread was titled "No, you cannot hack a series 2 box (yet)" and had quite a bit of good info. Be patient, though-- somebody will figure it out.
You make some good points. I don't do any hosting at home-- it's cheaper to pay somebody else $10/month to host stuff for me, where it's not subject to the limitations of residential connections.
Speakeasy was not the only DSL provider I tried, (I tried the ILEC as well as anybody else whose website said they served my zipcode-- something like 15 providers in all). My line is ridiculously long in addition to being dirty. The ILEC offered to fix it by adding some sort of repeater for the low, low price of $4000. And that would get me to 144/144. Not really worth the expenditure.
I do use the cable modem for access to work-- no problems there. I do wish I could get better outbound and more reasonable AUP, but I really don't have another fast option.
Like somebody already mentioned, in many spots nobody is "picking up the slack." I'm in indianapolis-- not huge, but not a small city either. Yet my only options where I live are cable or 56K dialup.
I've got a Comcast (formerly @Home) cable modem, and I would happily pay more for DSL from somebody like speakeasy, but it's not available in my area.
The techs laughed at my circuit-- it was the dirtiest they had seen in some time, especially in a major city. Bridge taps, unterminated pairs (one nearly a mile long), some sort of coil, and so on. He said every problem on their list was present more than once, on top of the distance being 50% outside their max window for IDSL (which would have been a whopping 144kbps anyway).
Satellite is out because of the ridiculous ping. Okay for web access, crap for games.
Don't forget that there are plenty of people who still live inside a geographically-enforced cable internet monopoly.
You turn on your 1541, at which point the quiet hole and the massive thrashing noise produced by the floppy drive collide, producing a sound/anti-sound reaction that will destroy life as we know it! (Or possibly just corrupt your cracked copy of Gauntlet.)
They make money on DVDs!! Tons of it! I doubt the shiny plastic disc, printing, and packaging costs them more than a tiny fraction of the cost of the DVD.
What do they care if theatres disappear entirely? Why is this an issue for them at all?
I'll settle for a Cell Phone/PDA/Camera as long as it's about the size of a Samsung A460, the PDA is relatively standard (PalmOS?), and the camera can do >1024x768. MP3 is optional, and left as extra credit for the manufacturer. (Also acceptable for extra credit: a PDA processor fast enough to run an mp3 player)
Samsung has 2 out of 3 with the upcoming i500, so I'll probably have to settle for that when my trusty Timeport finishes falling apart.
No, it won't replace my real camera, but sometimes you only want one small device with you, and don't need anything more than a snapshot camera for your drunken friends. (As in, most of the time) I have no idea where everybody else is carrying their PDAs and cameras, but I sure don't have the pockets for it.
The idea that solar panels take more energy to manufacture than they produce in their lifetime is not true. It is NOT a zero-sum process. Assuming solar panels require about 40% of the energy they will produce in their lifetime to manufacture, you are getting a 150% return on energy investment.
Solar panels are certainly energy intensive and dirty to manufacture-- but they get a whole lot cleaner after your first generation:
1. make panel from energy from fossil fuel
2. put panel on roof
3. use energy from panel to make next panel
This, of course, doesn't remove the need for nasty semiconductor manufacturing chemicals, but there IS a net gain. The system isn't zero-sum because the sun is dumping a whole lot of energy into it. You DO get more out than you put in. 150% more, roughly.
Whether that's enough to make it worth it financially is a different question altogether.
Why are they worried about nail files when I can stick the key to my honda between my fingers and make a nice 'pointy fist of doom'?
I did not intend to seem as if I was 'pushing back'. I was quite clear that I believe such a law is necessary.
I think you are glossing over the difficulty involved in a policy like this, though-- "about where it lives now in the physical world" is hardly a good legal definition, and will result in a vague mess like the DMCA. Most people might apply it intelligently, and most blind people are probably fine with flash movies that don't have play-by-play subtitles. But all it takes is one trigger-happy lawyer and a vague law to create all sorts of havoc for well-intended sites. On the other hand, simply creating an exception for primarily visual works would open a loophole big enough for a truck, leaving impaired folks no better off than they are.
It's important, it's necessary, but it's damn hard, too, and the law needs to be carefully designed. The "line in your mind" might work well, but i challenge you to write it succinctly in a way that leaves no loopholes yet causes nothing to be removed from the web-- AND is clear enough to be interpreted by the courts for the next 50 years without violating your intent.
The best approach, I think, would be to take it one piece at a time, rather than attempthing blanket laws. Airlines, to use the example in the story, should clearly make their sites web accessible. Same with government agencies that offer public services. Mortgage sites. Banks. Libraries. There are regulating bodies for all of these-- why not have the laws created at that level, instead of applying the ADA wholesale to the web? That way, nobody gets sued because their "all your base" movie doesn't have audible subtitling. The web, while public, is not really equivalent to a public business. It is everything from a bulletin board to a mortgage company.
Please, next time read the comments more carefully before you accuse someone of 'pushing back' against the disabled. I want this to work.
I'm no lawyer. But it seems that a modchip that allowed you to boot linux, but that didn't break the security on games would still be good even under the DMCA. The purpose does matter to some degree with the DMCA-- I don't believe it applies at all until you start giving yourself access to copyrighted works you're not supposed to.
I see no problem making web sites like the airline in question accessible to impaired people. The issue is where the line gets drawn, and by whom. The web encompasses more than just simple services like airline tickets-- it is also an artistic medium, a place people throw their diaries, a good way for a grad student to post their research quickly, or a way to make stupid jokes to share with the world.
Without very careful consideration, a law as thorough as our current physical-world rules would make large pieces of the web illegal. For example-- that funny flash movie with no vocals your friend sent you (frog in a blender, anyone?) is now off-limits. How could you possibly make that accessible? A page showing a montage of photographs? There are a number of things that are purely or significantly visual on the web that would be impossible to make accessible to the sight impaired.
A law is needed-- blind people make up such a tiny percentage of the population that they don't make up enough of a group to have any impact on the market financially. But the law needs to be a masterpiece of careful thought and planning, or it will strip the web of purely visual artworks, and make information exchange via quick-and-dirty sites a thing of the past.
"If they illegally copied, modified, and resold their copyright materials, yes."
You are correct, sir.
I do not know if the modchips contain copyrighted MS code. I suspect some do and some don't depending on the method used.
If they do not, however, NO ONE is reselling copyrighted materials.
Your example is slightly incorrect, too. There is no difference between what a reseller of mod-chipped xboxes is doing, and a reseller of modified cars, except that only an idiot would sell the reseller a car at a loss. How can you claim that "Company A" is keeping "all the profits?" when "Company B" has no profit to start with? If "Company B" has a poorly designed product that they can't manufacture at a low enough cost to keep up with their competition AND make a profit, why should the courts enforce their profits? Is it illegal to buy an xbox and then just leave it sitting around? Hardly. Yet that leaves MS in exactly the same money-losing situation as putting a mod chip in and using it for legal purposes.
Pirating games is illegal. Building a modchip containing modified MS XBox BIOS code is illegal. Building a modchip that contains no MS code and using it to play a European game or make backups of your games is legal.
MS may have been forced to drop their price to keep up with their competition, but that's the way economics works, as you so bluntly point out.
If you build a product that is more expensive than a similar one from a competitor, expect people to buy the cheaper one. If you can't make yours cheaper, don't expect regulation to help you make up the cost difference. There is no inherent right to make profit in a capitalist system-- if you can't get your production costs down as low as your competitors, you will be priced right out of the market. This happens all the time.
Why should microsoft be able to sell things at a loss with profits ensured by law, while their competitors are capable of making a profit on the hardware even at lower price points? (Nintendo is making a profit on the gamecube at $150)
But I digress. All of this is nearly irrelevant in the first place-- mod chips are no more illegal than guns. Just because they can be used illegally does not make them intrinsically illegal. (Unless they contain copyrighted code by MS!!) Whether or not MS has to lower their prices below cost to keep up with their competition's superior designs has no bearing on whether or not modchips are legal.
"There is no right to profit."
"There is no right to profit."
"There is no right to profit."
Since a gas mower produces more emissions per hour than a car does, I highly doubt that the iMow produces more net emissions than a gas mower, despite using 10x the power. (How much power is your car using? Lots.)
Gas lawmowers are fuel-efficient but extremely dirty.
But you are correct in stating that there are even better solutions than this-- I recall somebody making a solar-powered robot mower, too, and I will personally stick with an unpowered rotary mower.
http://www.opei.org/newsroom/story_display.php?id= 30
Is a good link for this, since it is from a group that is actually trying to portray lawnmowers as clean. However, look closely at their numbers:
According to them, a walk-behind mower is used an average of 25 hours per year, and a car is driven an average of 14,000 miles per year.
In two years, the mower produces 2.1lbs. of emissions, and the car produces 20lbs. They go on to claim that this means mowers are cleaner, but the difference in amount of time in use in their example is staggering. At an average of 50mph, a car driven 14,000 miles per year is in use for 280 hours, compared to the measly 25 the mower is used.
280 hrs. / 25 hrs. = 11.2
2.1lbs. * 11.2 = 23.52lbs.
So a lawnmower is producing more emissions per hour of usage THAN A FREAKING CAR, according to the stats given by the OPEI, an obviously pro-lawnmower group.
Don't buy connection kits from the phone company. Get the cable from a 3rd party-- www.thesupplynet.com had cables for everything. I have a cable for my ancient motorola timeport to connect via the serial port as a modem, and one to connect it to my PDA. No software or ISP needed with Sprint, just use their QNC system (which is free as long as you have wireless web.)
Not sure how other cell providers are, as I don't really have any reason or means to tinker around with them.
Most americans already pay far more than that for TV. This amounts to a little less than a $13/month increase to their cable bills, and despite the perpetual price hikes from the cable companies, people seem to be just paying the extra. I'm sure you'd find some takers.
I would certainly pay $150 a year to can the commercials. I fail to see how this is socialism-- as I understand it, the British TV license is optional. Don't want to pay? Don't watch the BBC channels.
Also, you will be able to use 64 in ExtraHalfBrite, but 32 of those will just be 50% dimmer versions of the first 32.
Your bladder probably can't hold that much. But that doesn't mean you can't drink that much, as other posters have pointed out. There is DEFINITELY that much water in your body, and I will personally attest to drinking four 1-liter bottles of water after a 14-mile run in 95 degree heat last weekend.