That relies on the assumption that you only have 1 standard that no older standards are ever used.
Not at all. I'm well aware of the existing legacy equipment and I understand that people will continue to use it for some time. But you are only thinking of it (understandably) from one perspective. Continuing to sell it going forward is demonstrably wasteful. 9 pin D-sub connectors used to be common and still exist but they aren't sold as standard equipment on most PCs anymore. Those who need them for old equipment either buy an interface card or an adapter. New equipment comes with new ports and you adapt old equipment to it. To continue to sell a variety of legacy ports in new equipment is wasteful. There is some waste and conversion cost to the new standard but in the long run having a single physical connection standard will demonstrably be less wasteful than trying to maintain numerous legacy connectors with physically different connections.
When USB-C became the standard, people didn’t stop using mini-B, micro-B etc and threw away all their devices that used them.
This is a sunk cost fallacy. Nobody is asking them to stop using devices they already have. Those items are already paid for so it doesn't make sense to keep throwing money at multiple legacy ports on the devices they connect to in perpetuity.
That would actually been a lot more waste.
Not at all if you think through the entire scope of the problem. It might be more waste for that individual but overall it ends up being less. You have fewer components to manufacture so the supply chain costs go down significantly. People give Apple a lot of shit for going whole hog into USB-C (perhaps too aggressively) but a big part of the reason they are pushing it is because it saves a LOT of money in the long run. Every legacy port Apple has to support creates a substantial and measurable cost to them and ultimately to their customers. Every PC maker will eventually have to follow suit to maintain profit margins because legacy ports and support are expensive.
Eventually old equipment gets replaced by new on the new standards and saves money in the long run. Trying to stick with legacy ports actually increases cost and waste globally even if it saves it for individuals in many cases.
Plenty of airports have reached, or are reaching, their maximum capacity. If a single takeoff/landing could carry more passengers, that would be very welcome.
There is FAR more to the cost equation than capacity constraints for takeoffs/landings at a handful of airports.
The problem with the A380 is that it creates more turbulence in the air around it than any other plane.
The article you linked to is from 2005. That might be a problem with the A380 but it's not even near the top of the list of the reasons why it is struggling economically. The A380 is designed for long flights between big hubs. Smaller more fuel efficient planes, low cost point-to-point airlines, minimal number of economically viable routes for such a big aircraft, cost of airport modifications and servicing infrastructure, etc. Basically the A380 only made sense for a few airlines on a few routes. Boeing knew this from their experience with the 747 and so they bet on the 787 instead. Boeing was right about where the market was headed. This isn't to say the A380 was a terrible idea but it just doesn't reflect the economic reality of the airline industry today.
Ye olde USB 1 isn't going away anytime soon, because it is cheap to implement.
Sadly this is undoubtedly true, at least the first bit. USB-C isn't hugely more expensive to implement but there is a large installed base of USB-A/B cables and ports out there already and that matters. I still haven't seen a printer with an USB-C port though I'm sure some exist. I've never seen a USB-C keyboard or mouse in person though again I'm sure they exist.
That makes it ideal for low-cost, low-bandwidth devices, especially input devices.
The cost argument isn't as significant as many people think. I make cables for a living so I'm more familiar than most with the costs involved. It actually costs more in a lot of cases to use multiple cables optimized for individual tasks than to just use a common cable that works for all, even if it is overkill for some of the tasks. USB-C is being produced at sufficient scale that the cost of it is not (or doesn't need to be) substantially higher than legacy USB connections. Once you include the engineering, tooling, support, warranty, supply chain, etc costs all in, the cost argument for legacy USB tends to be a poor one.
And USB 2 has to stick around for another decade or so because of legacy flash drives and cameras.
Older USB ports will stick around for quite a while but for more general reasons than just those items. Those items could be adapted to USB-C easily enough. It's more general network effects in play. The PC sitting behind me as I type this doesn't have a single USB-C port on it and it's not that old. Even unpopular legacy ports tend to die a hard death, particularly when they are as common as the older USB ports are. Hell we still see PCs with PS/2 ports even today for some mind blowing reason.
I make wire harnesses for a living and you would not believe how many tens of thousands of unnecessary, obsolete, redundant, and superseded connection components are still in use today. I have a bookshelf literally full of catalogs 20 feet from my desk 90+% full of legacy components that still get used here and there, mostly by idiot engineers who make perfect the enemy of good. The big problem in converting is that a lot of existing equipment including a lot of charging infrastructure already has the ports. I think you are about right that it's going to take another 10-15 years to migrate the majority of equipment over to USB-C and to gradually clear out the older ports. They'll never completely go away but it's going to take a while to get to the tipping point where most vanish.
Because "industry standard" wires don't use natural resources.
Using a standard cable means you need less of them in total. It means that nobody has to create tooling or waste energy or transport a second type of cable. This costs real money, uses real energy and is easily shown to be wasteful.
When he bought his ticket he agreed that he would board every flight at the scheduled time or else pay a cancellation service charge.
Terms of agreements have to be agreed to by both parties. Sounds like a German court found that such a contract was not valid for some reason. My guess is that it was thrown out at least in part because the airline cannot show that they were harmed in any way. And just because they have a contract does not automatically mean that contract is legally valid. There are lots of reasons why a contract might be held to be unenforceable.
It's part of most airlines terms and conditions.
Here are Lufthansa's terms and conditions. I see nothing about the passenger incurring a service charge if they fail to board. Perhaps I've overlooked something but a quick reading seems to reveal no such terms.
The trick for me is to not go further into detail about how I do it, but I have done this on many holidays over the past few years.
It's not like it's a big secret how to do it. I've done it too. Why the cloak and dagger? It's not illegal, immoral, or fattening. If they don't want people to do it then they shouldn't offer pricing which makes it advantageous.
My only hesitation in doing this would be that if they force people to gate-check bags to the final destination, you're in big trouble.
You usually know before you even leave for the airport if this is likely to be a problem for you. Most trips I've taken lately have only needed a modest amount of cary on luggage my bag easily fits in the seat in front of me if there is no room overhead. Worst case is that I lose some leg room but I won't have to check anything no matter what. I knew that before I left for the airport.
So airlines have idiotic pricing policies and somehow this is the fault of the passengers for taking advantage of the airline's lunacy? It is entirely within their power to make this money saving trick go away by simple charging the sum of all the rates for each leg of the flight.
It's not clear to me why they would care. They have their money and if they don't have to transport the passenger on that leg then they save fuel or they can put someone else in the seat since they seem to always overbook flights anyway.
The report adds that a Berlin district court dismissed the case, but the airline company is now appealing that verdict.
It's certainly not illegal and it's not clear the passenger had any sort of contractual obligation to fly the entire distance of the flight.
All connectors have their problems. USB-C isn't perfect but it's definitely Good Enough. The physical connector is a big upgrade over Micro-USB (keyed connectors suck) in pretty much every meaningful way. It's very fast, can carry all the power a smartphone will ever need, is double ended, it's cheaper, and has more advantages besides.
Lightning has about 10 times more sturdy connection.
Not really true but even if it were that is not sufficient justification for its continued existence or use. USB-C is durable enough to get the job done in most cases and it is far more capable as an interface. Lightning was a good idea at the time of its introduction but not it's an idea which has run its course. Time to let it die.
And you don't think they deserve some mocking for going with ligthning in the first place, considering there was the deal, that manufacturers would make an effort to unify the ports on phones?
No because microUSB sucks sour frog ass. Seriously, it's a terrible physical connector. If USB-C had been available when Lightning was introduced then yes introducing Lightining would have been a terrible decision. But at the time of its introduction Lightning as a big improvement over the alternatives even in the face of being expensive and proprietary. Now however USB-C has pretty much eliminated any meaningful advantages Lightning once had, hugely outperforms it, and is standard. Apple sticking with Lightning at this point is nothing but a pathetic cash grab and lock in attempt.
I've only ever seen one USB-C cable and the person who uses it finds it annoying
Oh well clearly then your single data point proves that nobody uses USB-C despite it being on nearly every new computer and smartphone sold these days, including all the computers sold by Apple.
I don't know why someone would have a "ton" of those cables, maybe two if they have a new iphone.
Because even if you aren't trying you end up with a bunch over time. I've used iPhones for several product generations and so has my wife. I'm sure we have at least a dozen Lightning cables between us. I have 40+ USB-A/B cables, dozens of micro and mini USB cables, and probably 5 USB-C cables with more undoubtedly coming. They come with devices and it's pretty easy to end up with a lot after a while. And that's even if you don't buy any extras. This is why I wish lightning and USB-A/B and microUSB would die in a fire so we can standardize on USB-C and I can get rid of a lot of unnecessary cables.
Fast charge doesn't matter if you're able to actually let go of the phone and put it down, charging overnight should last all day.
It doesn't matter until it does. I generally only charge at night but I've had days where I've needed a quick charge. Not everyone has the same schedule. It's particularly problematic for people traveling a lot.
No, he's a potential new customer, which actually makes him more valuable.
Not necessarily. Not all customers are equal and sometimes the cost of winning a new customer exceeds the value that customer brings.
Getting people off competitors' products and onto yours is a higher priority for businesses
Definitely not in Apple's case. Apple has never tried to chase market share at any cost. They have always been happy having a smaller but more profitable and stable portion of the market. In the case of the iPhone they get the vast majority of the profits in the industry so it's unclear what point there would be to them in chasing low margin customers unless their market starts eroding under them. Apple exists to make money, not to get the largest possible market share.
do you think it's just an odd accident people switching from one broadband provider to another get discounts and loyal customers get nothing?
I consider all people willing to pay $1000 for a new phone without fast charging to be dumb, frankly.
To be fair you can get fast(er) charging with the iPhone if you buy their (expensive) USB-C to Lightning cable and one of their (expensive) higher voltage USB-C power adapters. I have this setup at home and it works substantially faster. I haven't timed it but it gets me most if not all of a charge in less than an hour.
Honestly though my complaint about the iPhone charging is that they continue to use Lightning connectors when USB-C has eliminated any technical reason for Apple to continue to use them. USB-C is faster, can deliver more power, is double ended, ships on all their laptops, and is an industry standard. Continuing to use Lightning at this point on the iPhone is just a dick move.
The site explains that Lightning port is not going anywhere and Apple is resistant to changing the included accessories to maintain production costs.
Just remember Apple is claiming to be eco-friendly while producing hundreds of millions of unnecessary, proprietary, and redundant connectors instead of using an industry standard USB-C cable that would accomplish exactly the same purpose AND waste less in the process. Not to mention that USB-C can transfer data faster (480Mbps vs 10Gbps), transfer more power (12W vs 100W), be double ended, and work with other devices.
When Lightning was introduced it was an improvement over the truly awful microUSB connectors. USB-C has eliminated any reason for Lightning to continue to exist other than profit seeking and vendor lock in.
Such as O'Neill colonies and planet terraforming. All these things are possible. Doesn't mean they will happen, just that they are possible.
I think the proper word might be plausible, not possible. We aren't sure (yet) if they are actually possible because we aren't sure if it can actually be done. The ideas have seemingly solid reasoning behind them but that's still a fair distance from actually being achievable. I have my doubts about a lot of the space stuff that gets discussed for both economic and technological reasons but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to think about. Nothing wrong with poking holes in ideas either but the troll's repeated ad-hominem attacks (calling people "space nutters") for simply bringing up the concept is just a dick move on his part. I've said repeatedly I can't tell if he's a troll or an idiot or a novel combination of the two.
Anyway, I keep hoping someone else would come in that would be interested in having an intelligent conversation on the subjects.
I have the interest. Other people will have to determine if what I say is intelligent... I do try though.
Plastic utensils are off course overused, but will you make sure both the food and health industry sanitizes whatever other method available properly?
Such requirements are already in place. Ever eaten at a non-fast food restaurant? It's a solved problem. A dishwasher is entirely adequate when dealing with "real" utensils.
What is the cost of acquiring, operating and inspecting an autoclave system with the volume required for eg. a McDonalds.
Zero because they don't need one. There are perfectly viable alternatives to plastic utensils. Not to mention that most of their menu does not require cutlery of any description. In case you weren't aware most of their menu is sandwiches and finger food.
How will we deal with the massive amounts of trash and green house gasses metal utensils will generate for both more resource intensive production, heavier transportation and proper disposal (as well as people simply throwing them into the landfill-destined garbage)?
Nobody is going to use disposable metal utensils. Nobody is even proposing that idea.
Perhaps we need to develop non-plastic, compostable utensils
Compostable plastics are produced from renewable sources, so they even have the potential to be carbon-neutral.
There is no requirement that something that is compostable be produced from renewable sources. It can be but it does not have to be. Being compostable just means it can break down safely into compost. And just because something is derived from renewable materials does not automatically mean it is carbon neutral. If the energy inputs to process the material are not carbon neutral then it is unlikely the product itself will be.
They do have to be tested to make sure they only break down into harmless compounds, though.
I think you are conflating biodegradable plastic with compostable. Compostable is a subset of biodegradable. A product can be biodegradable but not break down into usable compost. If it cannot be turned into compost then it isn't compostable.
There are no floating cities on Earth, which is far easier to accomplish. Why do you think Venus would be different?
You do realize that Venus is a different planet with very different properties, right? The important one is that the atmosphere of Venus is FAR more massive and dense than Earth's atmosphere. If a floating city is possible then doing it on Venus would likely be far easier on Earth for the exact same reason we can more easily float boats on water than in the air.
No it's not a serious proposal. It's just a conceptual idea. Maybe in a few hundred or thousands of years we might seriously entertain the idea but for our lifetime it's almost certain to remain just a fun hypothetical discussion. Don't get so worked up about it.
No, your not. The wiki page was just a start. There is volumes of ideal out there with workable plans. You're ether uneducated on the subject or just a trolling now.
Yes he is trolling. Or he's a dick about the topic to such a degree that it is indistinguishable from trolling. Either way don't waste your time.
The best Space Nutters always talk about building floating cities on Venus.
Yeah we know you like to troll about space topics and you're seriously a dick about it. Your "space nutters" meme is quite tired. You aren't convincing anyone of anything. If you don't like talking about concepts in space exploration that's fine but other people do. Let it go. People are just talking about the idea. Nobody has seriously proposed actually doing a floating city because everyone knows we don't have that sort of technology and won't for a very long time if ever. Certainly not in either of our remaining lifespans. If people want to talk about something that won't happen for hundreds or thousands of years if ever, why do you give a shit? It's fun to discuss. If you don't care about the topic then go somewhere else and talk about something you actually care about.
I'll tell you what: you show you can build a floating city here on Earth first. Then we will talk about doing it in Venus which is about 1,000,000x harder than on Earth.
Sigh... The atmosphere on Venus is FAR more dense and massive than the one on Earth. Presuming a floating city is possible at all, it would be FAR easier to float one in the atmosphere of Venus than Earth. If we get to the point where we have the sort of technology to make a floating city and to navigate around the solar system economically, doing so on Venus is very plausibly easier than on Earth.
I agree with the rest of your comment, but I think crystal balls are cloudy in this area. The computers are now becoming capable of performing service jobs, which is where people went when automation reduced manufacturing jobs.
I work in manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have not been reduced the way many people think. Some have been relocated. There are more manufacturing jobs than ever globally. What has changed in the US is that labor intensive products are not built in countries with low labor costs. Capital intensive products are built in the US. The US has a $3 Trillion manufacturing sector. The total number of manufacturing jobs in the US is about the same as it was at the start of WWII. It's down from the peak numbers in the 1970s but still accounts for around 13 million people and holding. The percent of the jobs in the economy has fallen but that's largely because the other sectors grew while manufacturing jobs stayed steady.
As well, the workers' share of profits has been declining for decades, and wages aren't keeping up with inflation, so that final point is extremely disputable.
That depends on exactly how you measure it and which jobs you are measuring. Just because someone has a smaller piece of the pie doesn't mean they are worse off if the pie overall grew. And the evidence is clear that the pie has grown. Sure you can find some periods where the data shows a decline but I can show you hundreds of years of data showing a very steady increase. Yes there are some serious income inequality issues going on but that isn't proof of some irreversible decline in employment thanks to automation. Don't conflate the two issues.
What exactly do the humans do when robots do the service jobs?
Several answers to that. 1) Robots do not and will not do all the service jobs. Automation does not solve every problem because it is not economical to automate everywhere. People naively extrapolate automation trends to infinity without really understanding what is going on. It's too expensive to automate problem and automation creates new jobs that cannot yet be automated. 70 years ago secretarial pools were a common thing. Today they are unheard of and yet we still have full employment. 2) We have no idea what jobs will be created by further advances in automation. We never have known and cannot know. I'm old enough to pre-date the internet and if anyone claims they predicted what it would do and the huge economic impact it has had is lying. We dreamed about such things but had absolutely no idea what form it would actually take or what jobs it would involve. The jobs people will be doing in 50 years are hard to imagine today. Some will be the same but many haven't even been invented yet. 3) Humans control legislatures and can easily regulate automation in places should it become necessary. 4) The amount of economically valuable work that can be done is effectively infinite and our resources to automate are finite. Automation can sometimes depress wages but it doesn't eliminate them altogether. Some things that are currently impossible become economically achievable as automation makes it possible for people to address those problems.
Automation cost more jobs in the last decade than immigrants or outsourcing and it is a trend that will continue according to UBS... who in only interested in long term investing.
A) Immigrants demonstrably do not cost jobs. The US is a nation of immigrants and always has been. If immigrants cost jobs our nation would have failed long ago. In fact immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate share of successful new companies and job creation. B) Automation creates jobs. This computer you are using right at this moment is nothing more than automation. Our entire technology sector did not even exist 70 years ago. The internet as we know it today simply did not exist prior to the 1990s. C) Outsourcing relocates work to where it is economically efficient. If a company cannot compete with local wages/talent/infrastructure then. D) Unemployment by any measure is consistent with historical norms. There is NO evidence of automation or immigrants or outsourcing causing an irreversible decline in employment.
GOOD that Trump is clueless about how much of a job killer this will be; especially for his base. IT people will not like being hated more than immigrants.
Yeah, yeah... We've been hearing this idiotic argument since the start of the industrial revolution. How every new technology is going to take away all the jobs. It was industrial robots when I was young. Guess what? It's always wrong. Every time it results in MORE jobs, not less. The jobs are different jobs but there are more of them in the end. Some people do have trouble with the changes but the economic gains by people at all levels of the economy at the end are indisputable.
Canada is #1 in AI because the smart people left for Canada during Bush's crimes
That's a nice little made up lie. No evidence of any mass exodus from the US to Canada in the last 20 years nor has the rate of emigration from the US to Canada changed dramatically.
Is there something the EU member want to do that the current GPS network cannot or declines to do?
Yes. Not have an important piece of technology controlled by a (potential) rival nation. Maybe not an ideal reason but NIH is sometimes a strong motivation.
Accomplished? Other than coasting on other people's work, what has he actually managed to accomplish?
Oh he seems to have accomplished a thing or two...
Founded Zip2 and sold it to Compaq for $307 million Founder of X.com and CEO of Paypal - sold to eBay for $1.5 billion Chairman and CEO of Tesla motors since 2008 - company now worth $52 billion as of this post Founder of Solarcity Created concept of Hyperloop Founded OpenAI research corporation Founded Neuralink Founded The Boring Company Founded SpaceX and got the first privately financed orbital rocket into space and has driven down the cost to orbit dramatically.
My question would be what have you accomplished besides being bad at snark on the internet? Name me one person who has actually accomplished more than Musk has in the last 20 years.
For the record, I love the idea of electric cars, it's just that Tesla's surveillance-heavy, repair-unfriendly implementation sucks.
Right because all the other car makers are just killing it with their EVs implment... oh that's right they barely exist. I think you need to take off the tinfoil hat. If you don't like/want a Telsa for whatever reason that's fine. But their cars are clearly popular and people find them good value for money. The notion that it is some unrepairable, Orwell-mobile is just absurd.
Whatever you think of Tesla, if you think the other automakers won't do approximately the exact same things Tesla is doing you are delusional. It just didn't occur to them to really try. Tesla just gets the advantage of starting with a clean slate and not having to answer to shareholders demanding steady quarterly profits to deal with.
Slashdot Mirror
That relies on the assumption that you only have 1 standard that no older standards are ever used.
Not at all. I'm well aware of the existing legacy equipment and I understand that people will continue to use it for some time. But you are only thinking of it (understandably) from one perspective. Continuing to sell it going forward is demonstrably wasteful. 9 pin D-sub connectors used to be common and still exist but they aren't sold as standard equipment on most PCs anymore. Those who need them for old equipment either buy an interface card or an adapter. New equipment comes with new ports and you adapt old equipment to it. To continue to sell a variety of legacy ports in new equipment is wasteful. There is some waste and conversion cost to the new standard but in the long run having a single physical connection standard will demonstrably be less wasteful than trying to maintain numerous legacy connectors with physically different connections.
When USB-C became the standard, people didn’t stop using mini-B, micro-B etc and threw away all their devices that used them.
This is a sunk cost fallacy. Nobody is asking them to stop using devices they already have. Those items are already paid for so it doesn't make sense to keep throwing money at multiple legacy ports on the devices they connect to in perpetuity.
That would actually been a lot more waste.
Not at all if you think through the entire scope of the problem. It might be more waste for that individual but overall it ends up being less. You have fewer components to manufacture so the supply chain costs go down significantly. People give Apple a lot of shit for going whole hog into USB-C (perhaps too aggressively) but a big part of the reason they are pushing it is because it saves a LOT of money in the long run. Every legacy port Apple has to support creates a substantial and measurable cost to them and ultimately to their customers. Every PC maker will eventually have to follow suit to maintain profit margins because legacy ports and support are expensive.
Eventually old equipment gets replaced by new on the new standards and saves money in the long run. Trying to stick with legacy ports actually increases cost and waste globally even if it saves it for individuals in many cases.
Plenty of airports have reached, or are reaching, their maximum capacity. If a single takeoff/landing could carry more passengers, that would be very welcome.
There is FAR more to the cost equation than capacity constraints for takeoffs/landings at a handful of airports.
The problem with the A380 is that it creates more turbulence in the air around it than any other plane.
The article you linked to is from 2005. That might be a problem with the A380 but it's not even near the top of the list of the reasons why it is struggling economically. The A380 is designed for long flights between big hubs. Smaller more fuel efficient planes, low cost point-to-point airlines, minimal number of economically viable routes for such a big aircraft, cost of airport modifications and servicing infrastructure, etc. Basically the A380 only made sense for a few airlines on a few routes. Boeing knew this from their experience with the 747 and so they bet on the 787 instead. Boeing was right about where the market was headed. This isn't to say the A380 was a terrible idea but it just doesn't reflect the economic reality of the airline industry today.
Ye olde USB 1 isn't going away anytime soon, because it is cheap to implement.
Sadly this is undoubtedly true, at least the first bit. USB-C isn't hugely more expensive to implement but there is a large installed base of USB-A/B cables and ports out there already and that matters. I still haven't seen a printer with an USB-C port though I'm sure some exist. I've never seen a USB-C keyboard or mouse in person though again I'm sure they exist.
That makes it ideal for low-cost, low-bandwidth devices, especially input devices.
The cost argument isn't as significant as many people think. I make cables for a living so I'm more familiar than most with the costs involved. It actually costs more in a lot of cases to use multiple cables optimized for individual tasks than to just use a common cable that works for all, even if it is overkill for some of the tasks. USB-C is being produced at sufficient scale that the cost of it is not (or doesn't need to be) substantially higher than legacy USB connections. Once you include the engineering, tooling, support, warranty, supply chain, etc costs all in, the cost argument for legacy USB tends to be a poor one.
And USB 2 has to stick around for another decade or so because of legacy flash drives and cameras.
Older USB ports will stick around for quite a while but for more general reasons than just those items. Those items could be adapted to USB-C easily enough. It's more general network effects in play. The PC sitting behind me as I type this doesn't have a single USB-C port on it and it's not that old. Even unpopular legacy ports tend to die a hard death, particularly when they are as common as the older USB ports are. Hell we still see PCs with PS/2 ports even today for some mind blowing reason.
I make wire harnesses for a living and you would not believe how many tens of thousands of unnecessary, obsolete, redundant, and superseded connection components are still in use today. I have a bookshelf literally full of catalogs 20 feet from my desk 90+% full of legacy components that still get used here and there, mostly by idiot engineers who make perfect the enemy of good. The big problem in converting is that a lot of existing equipment including a lot of charging infrastructure already has the ports. I think you are about right that it's going to take another 10-15 years to migrate the majority of equipment over to USB-C and to gradually clear out the older ports. They'll never completely go away but it's going to take a while to get to the tipping point where most vanish.
Because "industry standard" wires don't use natural resources.
Using a standard cable means you need less of them in total. It means that nobody has to create tooling or waste energy or transport a second type of cable. This costs real money, uses real energy and is easily shown to be wasteful.
When he bought his ticket he agreed that he would board every flight at the scheduled time or else pay a cancellation service charge.
Terms of agreements have to be agreed to by both parties. Sounds like a German court found that such a contract was not valid for some reason. My guess is that it was thrown out at least in part because the airline cannot show that they were harmed in any way. And just because they have a contract does not automatically mean that contract is legally valid. There are lots of reasons why a contract might be held to be unenforceable.
It's part of most airlines terms and conditions.
Here are Lufthansa's terms and conditions. I see nothing about the passenger incurring a service charge if they fail to board. Perhaps I've overlooked something but a quick reading seems to reveal no such terms.
The trick for me is to not go further into detail about how I do it, but I have done this on many holidays over the past few years.
It's not like it's a big secret how to do it. I've done it too. Why the cloak and dagger? It's not illegal, immoral, or fattening. If they don't want people to do it then they shouldn't offer pricing which makes it advantageous.
My only hesitation in doing this would be that if they force people to gate-check bags to the final destination, you're in big trouble.
You usually know before you even leave for the airport if this is likely to be a problem for you. Most trips I've taken lately have only needed a modest amount of cary on luggage my bag easily fits in the seat in front of me if there is no room overhead. Worst case is that I lose some leg room but I won't have to check anything no matter what. I knew that before I left for the airport.
So airlines have idiotic pricing policies and somehow this is the fault of the passengers for taking advantage of the airline's lunacy? It is entirely within their power to make this money saving trick go away by simple charging the sum of all the rates for each leg of the flight.
It's not clear to me why they would care. They have their money and if they don't have to transport the passenger on that leg then they save fuel or they can put someone else in the seat since they seem to always overbook flights anyway.
The report adds that a Berlin district court dismissed the case, but the airline company is now appealing that verdict.
It's certainly not illegal and it's not clear the passenger had any sort of contractual obligation to fly the entire distance of the flight.
USB C also has its problem
All connectors have their problems. USB-C isn't perfect but it's definitely Good Enough. The physical connector is a big upgrade over Micro-USB (keyed connectors suck) in pretty much every meaningful way. It's very fast, can carry all the power a smartphone will ever need, is double ended, it's cheaper, and has more advantages besides.
Lightning has about 10 times more sturdy connection.
Not really true but even if it were that is not sufficient justification for its continued existence or use. USB-C is durable enough to get the job done in most cases and it is far more capable as an interface. Lightning was a good idea at the time of its introduction but not it's an idea which has run its course. Time to let it die.
And you don't think they deserve some mocking for going with ligthning in the first place, considering there was the deal, that manufacturers would make an effort to unify the ports on phones?
No because microUSB sucks sour frog ass. Seriously, it's a terrible physical connector. If USB-C had been available when Lightning was introduced then yes introducing Lightining would have been a terrible decision. But at the time of its introduction Lightning as a big improvement over the alternatives even in the face of being expensive and proprietary. Now however USB-C has pretty much eliminated any meaningful advantages Lightning once had, hugely outperforms it, and is standard. Apple sticking with Lightning at this point is nothing but a pathetic cash grab and lock in attempt.
I've only ever seen one USB-C cable and the person who uses it finds it annoying
Oh well clearly then your single data point proves that nobody uses USB-C despite it being on nearly every new computer and smartphone sold these days, including all the computers sold by Apple.
I don't know why someone would have a "ton" of those cables, maybe two if they have a new iphone.
Because even if you aren't trying you end up with a bunch over time. I've used iPhones for several product generations and so has my wife. I'm sure we have at least a dozen Lightning cables between us. I have 40+ USB-A/B cables, dozens of micro and mini USB cables, and probably 5 USB-C cables with more undoubtedly coming. They come with devices and it's pretty easy to end up with a lot after a while. And that's even if you don't buy any extras. This is why I wish lightning and USB-A/B and microUSB would die in a fire so we can standardize on USB-C and I can get rid of a lot of unnecessary cables.
Fast charge doesn't matter if you're able to actually let go of the phone and put it down, charging overnight should last all day.
It doesn't matter until it does. I generally only charge at night but I've had days where I've needed a quick charge. Not everyone has the same schedule. It's particularly problematic for people traveling a lot.
No, he's a potential new customer, which actually makes him more valuable.
Not necessarily. Not all customers are equal and sometimes the cost of winning a new customer exceeds the value that customer brings.
Getting people off competitors' products and onto yours is a higher priority for businesses
Definitely not in Apple's case. Apple has never tried to chase market share at any cost. They have always been happy having a smaller but more profitable and stable portion of the market. In the case of the iPhone they get the vast majority of the profits in the industry so it's unclear what point there would be to them in chasing low margin customers unless their market starts eroding under them. Apple exists to make money, not to get the largest possible market share.
do you think it's just an odd accident people switching from one broadband provider to another get discounts and loyal customers get nothing?
Different markets with different dynamics.
I consider all people willing to pay $1000 for a new phone without fast charging to be dumb, frankly.
To be fair you can get fast(er) charging with the iPhone if you buy their (expensive) USB-C to Lightning cable and one of their (expensive) higher voltage USB-C power adapters. I have this setup at home and it works substantially faster. I haven't timed it but it gets me most if not all of a charge in less than an hour.
Honestly though my complaint about the iPhone charging is that they continue to use Lightning connectors when USB-C has eliminated any technical reason for Apple to continue to use them. USB-C is faster, can deliver more power, is double ended, ships on all their laptops, and is an industry standard. Continuing to use Lightning at this point on the iPhone is just a dick move.
The site explains that Lightning port is not going anywhere and Apple is resistant to changing the included accessories to maintain production costs.
Just remember Apple is claiming to be eco-friendly while producing hundreds of millions of unnecessary, proprietary, and redundant connectors instead of using an industry standard USB-C cable that would accomplish exactly the same purpose AND waste less in the process. Not to mention that USB-C can transfer data faster (480Mbps vs 10Gbps), transfer more power (12W vs 100W), be double ended, and work with other devices.
When Lightning was introduced it was an improvement over the truly awful microUSB connectors. USB-C has eliminated any reason for Lightning to continue to exist other than profit seeking and vendor lock in.
Such as O'Neill colonies and planet terraforming. All these things are possible. Doesn't mean they will happen, just that they are possible.
I think the proper word might be plausible, not possible. We aren't sure (yet) if they are actually possible because we aren't sure if it can actually be done. The ideas have seemingly solid reasoning behind them but that's still a fair distance from actually being achievable. I have my doubts about a lot of the space stuff that gets discussed for both economic and technological reasons but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to think about. Nothing wrong with poking holes in ideas either but the troll's repeated ad-hominem attacks (calling people "space nutters") for simply bringing up the concept is just a dick move on his part. I've said repeatedly I can't tell if he's a troll or an idiot or a novel combination of the two.
Anyway, I keep hoping someone else would come in that would be interested in having an intelligent conversation on the subjects.
I have the interest. Other people will have to determine if what I say is intelligent... I do try though.
Plastic utensils are off course overused, but will you make sure both the food and health industry sanitizes whatever other method available properly?
Such requirements are already in place. Ever eaten at a non-fast food restaurant? It's a solved problem. A dishwasher is entirely adequate when dealing with "real" utensils.
What is the cost of acquiring, operating and inspecting an autoclave system with the volume required for eg. a McDonalds.
Zero because they don't need one. There are perfectly viable alternatives to plastic utensils. Not to mention that most of their menu does not require cutlery of any description. In case you weren't aware most of their menu is sandwiches and finger food.
How will we deal with the massive amounts of trash and green house gasses metal utensils will generate for both more resource intensive production, heavier transportation and proper disposal (as well as people simply throwing them into the landfill-destined garbage)?
Nobody is going to use disposable metal utensils. Nobody is even proposing that idea.
Perhaps we need to develop non-plastic, compostable utensils
Already done. They exist today.
Compostable plastics are produced from renewable sources, so they even have the potential to be carbon-neutral.
There is no requirement that something that is compostable be produced from renewable sources. It can be but it does not have to be. Being compostable just means it can break down safely into compost. And just because something is derived from renewable materials does not automatically mean it is carbon neutral. If the energy inputs to process the material are not carbon neutral then it is unlikely the product itself will be.
They do have to be tested to make sure they only break down into harmless compounds, though.
I think you are conflating biodegradable plastic with compostable. Compostable is a subset of biodegradable. A product can be biodegradable but not break down into usable compost. If it cannot be turned into compost then it isn't compostable.
There are no floating cities on Earth, which is far easier to accomplish. Why do you think Venus would be different?
You do realize that Venus is a different planet with very different properties, right? The important one is that the atmosphere of Venus is FAR more massive and dense than Earth's atmosphere. If a floating city is possible then doing it on Venus would likely be far easier on Earth for the exact same reason we can more easily float boats on water than in the air.
No it's not a serious proposal. It's just a conceptual idea. Maybe in a few hundred or thousands of years we might seriously entertain the idea but for our lifetime it's almost certain to remain just a fun hypothetical discussion. Don't get so worked up about it.
No, your not. The wiki page was just a start. There is volumes of ideal out there with workable plans. You're ether uneducated on the subject or just a trolling now.
Yes he is trolling. Or he's a dick about the topic to such a degree that it is indistinguishable from trolling. Either way don't waste your time.
The best Space Nutters always talk about building floating cities on Venus.
Yeah we know you like to troll about space topics and you're seriously a dick about it. Your "space nutters" meme is quite tired. You aren't convincing anyone of anything. If you don't like talking about concepts in space exploration that's fine but other people do. Let it go. People are just talking about the idea. Nobody has seriously proposed actually doing a floating city because everyone knows we don't have that sort of technology and won't for a very long time if ever. Certainly not in either of our remaining lifespans. If people want to talk about something that won't happen for hundreds or thousands of years if ever, why do you give a shit? It's fun to discuss. If you don't care about the topic then go somewhere else and talk about something you actually care about.
I'll tell you what: you show you can build a floating city here on Earth first. Then we will talk about doing it in Venus which is about 1,000,000x harder than on Earth.
Sigh... The atmosphere on Venus is FAR more dense and massive than the one on Earth. Presuming a floating city is possible at all, it would be FAR easier to float one in the atmosphere of Venus than Earth. If we get to the point where we have the sort of technology to make a floating city and to navigate around the solar system economically, doing so on Venus is very plausibly easier than on Earth.
I agree with the rest of your comment, but I think crystal balls are cloudy in this area. The computers are now becoming capable of performing service jobs, which is where people went when automation reduced manufacturing jobs.
I work in manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have not been reduced the way many people think. Some have been relocated. There are more manufacturing jobs than ever globally. What has changed in the US is that labor intensive products are not built in countries with low labor costs. Capital intensive products are built in the US. The US has a $3 Trillion manufacturing sector. The total number of manufacturing jobs in the US is about the same as it was at the start of WWII. It's down from the peak numbers in the 1970s but still accounts for around 13 million people and holding. The percent of the jobs in the economy has fallen but that's largely because the other sectors grew while manufacturing jobs stayed steady.
As well, the workers' share of profits has been declining for decades, and wages aren't keeping up with inflation, so that final point is extremely disputable.
That depends on exactly how you measure it and which jobs you are measuring. Just because someone has a smaller piece of the pie doesn't mean they are worse off if the pie overall grew. And the evidence is clear that the pie has grown. Sure you can find some periods where the data shows a decline but I can show you hundreds of years of data showing a very steady increase. Yes there are some serious income inequality issues going on but that isn't proof of some irreversible decline in employment thanks to automation. Don't conflate the two issues.
What exactly do the humans do when robots do the service jobs?
Several answers to that.
1) Robots do not and will not do all the service jobs. Automation does not solve every problem because it is not economical to automate everywhere. People naively extrapolate automation trends to infinity without really understanding what is going on. It's too expensive to automate problem and automation creates new jobs that cannot yet be automated. 70 years ago secretarial pools were a common thing. Today they are unheard of and yet we still have full employment.
2) We have no idea what jobs will be created by further advances in automation. We never have known and cannot know. I'm old enough to pre-date the internet and if anyone claims they predicted what it would do and the huge economic impact it has had is lying. We dreamed about such things but had absolutely no idea what form it would actually take or what jobs it would involve. The jobs people will be doing in 50 years are hard to imagine today. Some will be the same but many haven't even been invented yet.
3) Humans control legislatures and can easily regulate automation in places should it become necessary.
4) The amount of economically valuable work that can be done is effectively infinite and our resources to automate are finite. Automation can sometimes depress wages but it doesn't eliminate them altogether. Some things that are currently impossible become economically achievable as automation makes it possible for people to address those problems.
Automation cost more jobs in the last decade than immigrants or outsourcing and it is a trend that will continue according to UBS... who in only interested in long term investing.
A) Immigrants demonstrably do not cost jobs. The US is a nation of immigrants and always has been. If immigrants cost jobs our nation would have failed long ago. In fact immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate share of successful new companies and job creation.
B) Automation creates jobs. This computer you are using right at this moment is nothing more than automation. Our entire technology sector did not even exist 70 years ago. The internet as we know it today simply did not exist prior to the 1990s.
C) Outsourcing relocates work to where it is economically efficient. If a company cannot compete with local wages/talent/infrastructure then.
D) Unemployment by any measure is consistent with historical norms. There is NO evidence of automation or immigrants or outsourcing causing an irreversible decline in employment.
GOOD that Trump is clueless about how much of a job killer this will be; especially for his base. IT people will not like being hated more than immigrants.
Yeah, yeah... We've been hearing this idiotic argument since the start of the industrial revolution. How every new technology is going to take away all the jobs. It was industrial robots when I was young. Guess what? It's always wrong. Every time it results in MORE jobs, not less. The jobs are different jobs but there are more of them in the end. Some people do have trouble with the changes but the economic gains by people at all levels of the economy at the end are indisputable.
Canada is #1 in AI because the smart people left for Canada during Bush's crimes
That's a nice little made up lie. No evidence of any mass exodus from the US to Canada in the last 20 years nor has the rate of emigration from the US to Canada changed dramatically.
Is there something the EU member want to do that the current GPS network cannot or declines to do?
Yes. Not have an important piece of technology controlled by a (potential) rival nation. Maybe not an ideal reason but NIH is sometimes a strong motivation.
Accomplished? Other than coasting on other people's work, what has he actually managed to accomplish?
Oh he seems to have accomplished a thing or two...
Founded Zip2 and sold it to Compaq for $307 million
Founder of X.com and CEO of Paypal - sold to eBay for $1.5 billion
Chairman and CEO of Tesla motors since 2008 - company now worth $52 billion as of this post
Founder of Solarcity
Created concept of Hyperloop
Founded OpenAI research corporation
Founded Neuralink
Founded The Boring Company
Founded SpaceX and got the first privately financed orbital rocket into space and has driven down the cost to orbit dramatically.
My question would be what have you accomplished besides being bad at snark on the internet? Name me one person who has actually accomplished more than Musk has in the last 20 years.
For the record, I love the idea of electric cars, it's just that Tesla's surveillance-heavy, repair-unfriendly implementation sucks.
Right because all the other car makers are just killing it with their EVs implment... oh that's right they barely exist. I think you need to take off the tinfoil hat. If you don't like/want a Telsa for whatever reason that's fine. But their cars are clearly popular and people find them good value for money. The notion that it is some unrepairable, Orwell-mobile is just absurd.
Whatever you think of Tesla, if you think the other automakers won't do approximately the exact same things Tesla is doing you are delusional. It just didn't occur to them to really try. Tesla just gets the advantage of starting with a clean slate and not having to answer to shareholders demanding steady quarterly profits to deal with.