Respectfully, I am going to have to disagree with you concerning problems with UIs being unsolvable - but I am familiar with the video you linked to and it is one of my favorites. The line at the end of the video - "Oh, we hadn't though about that." - highlights the key problem: traditionally, interface design and computer interaction was done by engineers and programmers.
However, over the past 10-15 years, there has been a growing trend in Human Computer Interface (HCI) design (also known by several other acronyms). A variety of tools have been developed by incorporating multidisciplinary approaches - contextual interviews within the workplace to gain better understanding of how existing systems are used, usability evaluation to see how well a particular user can accomplish a specific task, cognitive modelling to evaluate the efficiency of the interface for a non-error generating expert user (not exactly the best model to use, especially since it reduces the user to a computer-like automaton), design ethnographies or cultural probes to gain insight into the values and needs of the users, experience prototyping to observe reactions of the user, and incorporation of low fidelity prototyping (such as paper prototyping) in tandem with large-volume ideation and testing at the earliest stages of computer interface development. These draw on sociology, cognitive psychology, industrial engineering, art and design, and computer science (of course).
In the video, we saw an engineer make assumptions of what a user would know how to do - in HCI design, those assumptions are not made. Instead, they are based on data gathered through the various tools mentioned above. Modelling draws out what breakdowns exist in current or proposed systems, and these can be corrected before any code is hacked.
As to diminishing returns - there I do agree. You cannot make an interface that will work with 100% of the users. This is why there is a slogan "there's an app for that" - the goal is not to make a single alarm clock app for your smartphone (although all the manufacturers seem to be trying to do that right now) - the goal is to have a set of alarm clock applications to choose from based on your target market. So instead of differentiating your smartphone by the hardware, you might be better off differentiating it by bundled default applications - maybe a "silver" edition has larger fonts and more explicit/verbal cues in the interface, while the "net shell" model might have more utilities for someone familiar with SSH, telnet, and a preference for CLIs over GUIs. You could have a "big hands" and "small hands" model that has the interface tweaked for different finger thickness, and another model dedicated to a younger crowd that has an entirely different way of interfacing. You make it so these apps are available to all phones, but only vary what is preloaded so you don't try to make the "one size fits all" design.
If there all these people who fanatically believe they are going to be taken away in the Rapture, and they believe those behind are going to be tortured and are evil (andthus doing evil things) - are we going to see a spike in violence due to these "faithful" who learn they are "sinners".
So, on the 22nd, I'll start spreading vicious rumors that God found no one worthy of being spared and all humanity is doomed - and seeing how many people fall for it. Oh yeah, I'll probably be rolling my eyes as they also say "no, no, no - there was a miscalculation and we didn't use divine years in our calculations, and one year in heaven is actually 1.1731592 years on Earth, so...."
Microsoft provides free telephone support for security issues to all customers, regardless of whether the software was purchased at retail or as part of a new PC.
The top post of the article linked to also has a poster making this same comment, and the article details Microsoft's policy on assistance for malware removal.
Also, as has been stated, Apple is not just the OS but the system manufacturer. I don't know to what extent HP, Dell, or other system manufacturers support malware removal, but for the premium price I would have thought they would have better support. Oh well, I guess Apple will just stick to blocking you loading 3rd party apps and porn on your smartphone...
Of course is is unpatriotic to question any security measures that a government feels it needs to do in a time of economic, political, and military crisis. Trains with people in them? Don't know what you're talking about... but I am sure the government has the best interest in our pure and noble society at heart... don't question, don't think - merely recognize if a government needs to violate your civil liberties to make you safe, it is done in your best interest.
DISCLAIMER: The above was sarcasm. I am not advocating that we distrust everything the government does and make it an "us versus them" situation - but when talking about surrendering liberties for security, we should be very careful. There is a time to scrutinize and question, and there is a time to sacrifice. However, I have always seen the victims of 9/11 as the sacrifice of a free and open society... but instead our society decided they would rather give up their freedoms in turn for feeling safe. In other words, they died for a lifestyle that our country no longer stands for.
I think copying is more a symptom of students burdened with costs - tuition, segregated fees, dorms/living expenses (as many do not attend schools near their homes where they can remain living with their parents), and book fees - all while watching governments across the board de-prioritize educational funding so that school becomes unaffordable unless you are destitute or rich.
From the student's perspective: What has changed so much in mathematics up through calculus that I need to buy a new revision of the textbook every two years, other than the publishers don't want used book sales (much like the other slashdot article stated that game companies don't like used sales because it is 'worse than piracy from an economic standpoint'). Why is the only way I can get a book in a bundled package with a study guide and online resource that I neither want nor does my professor require? Why do I need to buy a particular book if I already know of a better one, but my professor requires the 10 odd problems assigned out of the book? What am I paying my professor for if most or all the information they are professing is from a book I could have studied outside the classroom?
Gripes, but I think they are legitimate gripes that lead to a very important question: should education be a for-profit enterprise with all its knowledge locked up into highly restrictive IP laws, or does the knowledge output of academia belong to the society as a whole and as such should be subsidized by that society as a whole?
...not to mention the obvious stereotyping the user has done, and the fact that any researcher in academia who doesn't have a ton of citations in a research paper would have it scrutinized for plagiarism - and most likely they would find something. There are very few original ideas that do not build on others, and in our Intellectual Property mad society (where ideas = money) we must cite everything all the time. I'm sure I should be citing someone right now, but for the life of me I can say who published this sentiment I feel.
If you want to go off and do your own thing, fine. Have at it.
But don't expect to write code that keeps a 777 safely in the air. That is the type of scenario that we need discipline, not creativity.
I just finished an intensive course on Human Computer Interface (HCI) design. True, poor code can cause these things to happen - but so can poor design. In your example, we read a research paper where they discovered pilots use spacial location and position of analog instruments and components to gain information "at a glance", but with an all digital design they received information in purely numerical means and thus were unable to quickly process the information (in other words, the cognitive load of the analog systems was lower by 'chunking' the information via visuospatial encoding). I would suggest to the coder who wants to expand into a "creative" realm, they get involved in HCI and design teams or help form one in their company.
Unfortunately, in the US at least, congress wimps out on the Production Tax Credit. This makes alternative energy more expensive than those existing industries that receive government funding in tax dollars. Since the consumer is only looking at their utility bill, they are under the notion that it cost them less (not recognizing the tax burden that may be factored into the lower utility bill), so they don't buy it. "When it cost as much as I'm using now, then I'll buy" attitudes prevent consumer adoption - low sales means less money for further research, and less savings due to economy of scale on production.
Imagine if instead of the automotive bailout, the government financed wind production companies - have them buy the auto manufacturers to make delivery trucks for the turbines, road construction to handle the large vehicles to place the turbines, converted auto factory to make the wind turbines, and finally a grid upgrade to transmit the power to the coast - what might of happened with our economy and the cost of alternative energy power generation?
FYI, after attending a Wisconsin Wind Power conference I learned that the cost to upgrade the grid to transport energy from the Great Plains to the east coast would have been roughly equal to that $1200 for every family stimulus bill "W" pushed for. I think that would have had better long term benefits for the US than the payout - and in the future two factors will become key to national security: energy resources and water resources.
Like has been said - I assume your costs for nuclear included disposal/storage of waste material and cost to mine - not based on raw consumer cost after government subsidies. With coal-based electric, I am also assuming you figure that gas and mining costs will remain static over the repayment period and will not see an increase due to increasing scarcity (although I have seen my gas at the pump going up a bit lately). Really, if you want to compare cost - don't compare just the utility payment as the cost to generate power - many fossil fuels and nuclear power has a significant amount of government money put into it, and that means tax dollars. In the US you can look at the boom-bust cycle of wind and solar and see it matches with the loss of the Production Tax Credit that congress lets slide every year - do the same to oil and nuclear power and you will see the same collapse in the industry. Maybe its time to give alternative energy an even footing in the marketplace.
I'm not buying any tablet that can't run a decent virtual paint program (ArtRage/Corel Painter) and uses a wacom digitizer for pen input. After all, if I can't use a stylus and write on it like a notepad, then what good is it for me? A pad of paper and a smartphone will suit better for my purposes.
Precisely what I was thinking of. Manufacturers maintain drivers and the burden would be on Google to design the interface to those drivers (and thus maintain a repository of them for going to plain vanilla). I thought this was how linux worked also (like most modern OSes), and so it shouldn't be a problem. I think this would have the added benefit of standardizing some hardware and thus causing economies of scale to decrease the cost of the phones for the manufacturers. Then we are basically allowing users to get rid of the customized interfaces (Blur, Touchwiz, Sense, etc) in order to allow phones to stay current with the latest Android release - that should have no bearing on the underlying drivers needed by the OS to run the hardware in the phone.
Allow the manufacturer to customize the hell out of it, but write into the license agreement that all functionality must work a vanilla install that is made available OTA. That way a user can go into the update menu and select "update to latest Google version of Android supported by your phone's hardware WARNING: ALL MANUFACTURER CUSTOMIZATION WILL BE LOST". When on vanilla, make the latest manufacturer switchover available. If they did this, how many of us would still be on 2.1 or 2.2? That would be the best of both the worlds.
How would you address the difficulty of enforcement? IE, who would be ensuring all the small businesses are transferring the taxes they collected on behalf of other states to the appropriate state? Also, how do I as a state entity ensure that all my collected taxes are properly transferred to me? (I think most states would grumble about the federal government taking away their authority to enforce their state sales tax collection and thus the politics would go *ka-BLOOIE* in our faces.) Thus, the collecting of taxes by businesses is trivial - the assurance that these large and small businesses transfer the collected taxes to the various states is what is not trivial.
Its not a matter that the goods went through there, it is a matter of the goods being sold from there. UPS does not sell the contents of the package, so you don't charge them - Amazon is selling the contents of the package, so who pays the sales tax?...or are you implying all goods sold online should be exempt from taxation, and thus stores can make everything a web-based ordering system where people are merely picking up their goods (doing an end-around of the sales tax system and causing its de facto abolishment)?
Sorry for my bad language. You are correct, they are not paying the tax - they are collecting it from the customer and paying it. My point was this: a brick & mortar business of a state collects the tax and pays it to the state, not the individual. However, when the individual buys from out-of-state in Wisconsin and does not pay the Wisconsin Sales Tax, it is their burden to report it on the income tax form and pay said sales tax. The argument is the object was delivered in Wisconsin and thus that is where it is due.
Of course, I think sales tax conflicts happen because they are an ill-defined problem. If I go across the border and buy a durable good from an appliance store (or any other good), I will pay the sales tax for Illinois even though I am transporting it back to Wisconsin. I can't say I'm taking it to a different state and not pay sales tax. By this argument, an online retailer should pay taxes based on where they operate from. Conversely, the argument goes that the point of receipt is important. By this argument the sales tax of the location of delivery should be used - thus I pay Illinois sales tax on a durable good because I picked it up there, but if I have it delivered to Wisconsin then I pay Wisconsin sales tax.
I think we need to define the purpose of sales tax also - but that is a larger social problem. Face it, in the USA no one wants to pay any taxes. They view them as "taking their money" no matter what. There is no thought to the public money that goes into roads to transport goods or the maintenance of waste disposal systems, nor in the municipal water infrastructure that is vital to manufacturing most goods or the maintenance of a military to protect the sovereignty of the nation who's political philosophies allow you to consume in the manner you want.
Also, I am thinking about the mom-n-pops and small start ups... how does a state ensure that all the little guys are collecting and transferring the appropriate sales taxes to their State? Do they look through the entire web and request complete sales records of every site they find? That is like them evaluating the goods purchased by every individual in the state. So the big guys have no problem setting up a system and the States can easily track them... and they make up a good chunk of the revenue, but the nickles and dimes of the little guys add up. The trick is designing a fair system for all users of the system.
All I know is my state's law (Wisconsin) - basically, with most online sales it is the burden of the purchaser to report the purchases/sales taxes of items bought on the internet at the end of the year with your state income tax filing. However, I believe if you maintain a brick & mortar business in the state then it becomes the burden of the business to file the taxes (probably because they already must pay in their state taxes).
Unfortunately, there is no good solution with state sales taxes. If you put the burden on the purchaser, then the state will have to scrutinize every citizen (which is not practical/possible) - but this problem doesn't go away if you require businesses to collect them. There are thousands of small retailers who would have to file forms with every state they sold in, and the individual states would have to scrutinize every online business for sales (also not practical/possible).
Hmmm... maybe if we did away with a sales tax and made it a disposal tax....
I think it is still fairly difficult to get a "white box" laptop, and it is laptops where this becomes a real issue. (There are some barebones laptops you can get, but I in general this is only a techie solution. Can you still find small computer shops building white box desktops?)
However, I agree with the sentiments on this thread - the companies get paid a lot to install all the crapware, and thus it subsidizes the cost of our laptops. If we wish to have a "clean" system, then we need to get rid of that subsidy by buying a copy of Windows on top of the OEM copy preloaded. Then all that is left to do is make the recovery/driver disks, do a clean install of the retail or OEM copy we bought (that doesn't contain bloatware), and use the recovery disks to install those pieces of software we really want - like DVD playing software and fingerprint reader software that would cost us more to buy.
Alternatively, there is a solution I use. Buy backup software (I like Acronis myself), uninstall all the bloatware, and make an image. Any time you need to redo your machine, you merely restore the image. (Or do something like load VMWare and put a clean virtual machine on it - it doesn't help with bloatware on the host computer, but the guest system will be clean.)
Courts rule that political parties are now illegal in the prison systems. Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and so forth are obviously modeled after gang organizations, and thus should be allowed. Especially those Tea Party-ers who like to engage in an activity they dub "tea bagging" - which in a prison is just wrong on so many levels.
Someone like me can reasonably propose that the previous 50 years of warming mean nothing since the next 50 will be cooling.
Since you mentioned that you reasonably propose this prediction, I must ask you to explain your reasoning. What makes you believe the next 50 years will be cooling? What are the mechanisms? Please explain your model - I am genuinely interested in hearing about it.
Actually, if you check who got sued you'll see they are Canadian companies. So just like text books, you have to apply the order of magnitude increase for being in the USA.
Not that the planners would let him; but any "middle aged to retired man" who consumes a martian launch spot is suffering from a different flavor of selfishness.
Unless the costs come down by a fair few factors of ten, there is no case to be made for sending any but the healthiest, expected-to-last-longest, specimens...
The proposed trip to Mars is one-way. It isn't the Earth, so all the environments that we have evolved to survive in don't exist. Additionally, at a mere 10 month trip time, more colonists could be sent up in short order. Thus, you don't need the expected-to-last-longest specimens. You need healthy specimens who hold expertise in a variety of fields who are willing to die. I think you will find a good number of empty-nesters may fall into that category (as the young ones more often than not lack the desired experience). Thus I think this suicidal crew would consist predominantly of fairly healthy 35-55 year old members, and not the younger crew you seem to expect.
Unless, of course, the final selection for the crew is selected by a reality TV show... wait, I think I just found a way to secure their funding! Heck, imagine getting voted off that version of survivor!
Its not the video recording that is the issue, it is the audio. There are states where you cannot record audio without both parties being aware of the recording. Believe it or not, this is done for your protection. Thus, if you are like the biker who got pulled over while using a helmet cam, my advice would be wearing a T-shirt that states by being in your presence you are agreeing to be audio recorded.
1.5 yrs until people will not be using Blender, Flash Pro, Visual Studio, or want to engage in some high-end 3D FPSers? Sorry, no. Where am I suppose to edit my AVCHD video files? What about the 720p files I shoot on my phone? Store my digitized photo albums, or keep a backup of all the individual songs I bought in case my iPod battery dies?
One factor they probably didn't count: cost. If smart devices are a threat to any market, it is the netbook. Sorry, the iPad doesn't even come close to touching a venerable Toshiba M400 tablet PC, and an ancient M200 is probably just as good. However, an iPad might compete with my original EEE PC 4G - which I have to nLite XP to get it to fit on (+eeectl = x2 screen brightness for operation in full daylight = awesome).
Don't get me wrong. I just got an android phone, and its nice - but it is no where near a PC replacement. Heck, a 4" screen for reading emails is iffy, and the web experience is less then great. However, it has a lot of convenience - especially setting it up as a hotspot to use with my laptop when no free wi-fi is around.
My apologies for being a bit random in my comments... I'm trying to learn to be brief.
Agreed. I was trying to point out there are alternatives that do not require tactile feedback in the traditional sense. Since this seems to be marketed towards photo editing/layout (based on the video) and other non-text input intensive tasks, I was stating these alternate systems of input may be valid. Also, when editing photos and video a pen may be quite useful - but the current design would probably not allow for a Wacom digitizer to be added to the system.
Your notion that we punish those who fall in our nation's jurisdiction (ie, our citizens and our agencies that helped leak the information) and not a foreign entity (such as wikileaks) was the same conclusion my coworkers and I reached the other day.
As to those individuals, they have some questions they must ask themselves: 1) Is this secret covering up immoral or illegal activities? and 2) Am I willing to accept a punishment that may include death for leaking this information?
For example, if you knew of the Tuskegee Experiment or the similar experiment in Guatemala, would you be willing to risk death for treason to reveal this state secret? If you were a German in 1943, would you risk death for treason to reveal what happened at Auschwitz?
Yes, these are extreme cases. I recognize some of the information may actually harm diplomatic relations, especially when they are official records on one person's personal opinion on a topic and not a representation of the State's view - and I would hope that foreign leaders could recognize that. Publishing those "secrets" seems trivial - but should revealing such things be considered treason? This is something I am still weighing, as I know perception and respect is vital for stable friendly international relations.
In the end, there are times where I find those that leak information to be very patriotic. Of course, I then have to look at corner cases - do I find those who assassinate doctors who perform abortions patriotic? No. So I still need to look at where this fuzzy line of morality falls - and whether an individual has a right to define it for themselves or it should be based on the majority of a society. It has been something I've milled over for many years...
Slashdot Mirror
Respectfully, I am going to have to disagree with you concerning problems with UIs being unsolvable - but I am familiar with the video you linked to and it is one of my favorites. The line at the end of the video - "Oh, we hadn't though about that." - highlights the key problem: traditionally, interface design and computer interaction was done by engineers and programmers.
However, over the past 10-15 years, there has been a growing trend in Human Computer Interface (HCI) design (also known by several other acronyms). A variety of tools have been developed by incorporating multidisciplinary approaches - contextual interviews within the workplace to gain better understanding of how existing systems are used, usability evaluation to see how well a particular user can accomplish a specific task, cognitive modelling to evaluate the efficiency of the interface for a non-error generating expert user (not exactly the best model to use, especially since it reduces the user to a computer-like automaton), design ethnographies or cultural probes to gain insight into the values and needs of the users, experience prototyping to observe reactions of the user, and incorporation of low fidelity prototyping (such as paper prototyping) in tandem with large-volume ideation and testing at the earliest stages of computer interface development. These draw on sociology, cognitive psychology, industrial engineering, art and design, and computer science (of course).
In the video, we saw an engineer make assumptions of what a user would know how to do - in HCI design, those assumptions are not made. Instead, they are based on data gathered through the various tools mentioned above. Modelling draws out what breakdowns exist in current or proposed systems, and these can be corrected before any code is hacked.
As to diminishing returns - there I do agree. You cannot make an interface that will work with 100% of the users. This is why there is a slogan "there's an app for that" - the goal is not to make a single alarm clock app for your smartphone (although all the manufacturers seem to be trying to do that right now) - the goal is to have a set of alarm clock applications to choose from based on your target market. So instead of differentiating your smartphone by the hardware, you might be better off differentiating it by bundled default applications - maybe a "silver" edition has larger fonts and more explicit/verbal cues in the interface, while the "net shell" model might have more utilities for someone familiar with SSH, telnet, and a preference for CLIs over GUIs. You could have a "big hands" and "small hands" model that has the interface tweaked for different finger thickness, and another model dedicated to a younger crowd that has an entirely different way of interfacing. You make it so these apps are available to all phones, but only vary what is preloaded so you don't try to make the "one size fits all" design.
If there all these people who fanatically believe they are going to be taken away in the Rapture, and they believe those behind are going to be tortured and are evil (andthus doing evil things) - are we going to see a spike in violence due to these "faithful" who learn they are "sinners".
So, on the 22nd, I'll start spreading vicious rumors that God found no one worthy of being spared and all humanity is doomed - and seeing how many people fall for it. Oh yeah, I'll probably be rolling my eyes as they also say "no, no, no - there was a miscalculation and we didn't use divine years in our calculations, and one year in heaven is actually 1.1731592 years on Earth, so...."
Microsoft provides free telephone support for security issues to all customers, regardless of whether the software was purchased at retail or as part of a new PC.
The top post of the article linked to also has a poster making this same comment, and the article details Microsoft's policy on assistance for malware removal.
Also, as has been stated, Apple is not just the OS but the system manufacturer. I don't know to what extent HP, Dell, or other system manufacturers support malware removal, but for the premium price I would have thought they would have better support. Oh well, I guess Apple will just stick to blocking you loading 3rd party apps and porn on your smartphone...
Of course is is unpatriotic to question any security measures that a government feels it needs to do in a time of economic, political, and military crisis. Trains with people in them? Don't know what you're talking about... but I am sure the government has the best interest in our pure and noble society at heart... don't question, don't think - merely recognize if a government needs to violate your civil liberties to make you safe, it is done in your best interest.
DISCLAIMER: The above was sarcasm. I am not advocating that we distrust everything the government does and make it an "us versus them" situation - but when talking about surrendering liberties for security, we should be very careful. There is a time to scrutinize and question, and there is a time to sacrifice. However, I have always seen the victims of 9/11 as the sacrifice of a free and open society... but instead our society decided they would rather give up their freedoms in turn for feeling safe. In other words, they died for a lifestyle that our country no longer stands for.
I think copying is more a symptom of students burdened with costs - tuition, segregated fees, dorms/living expenses (as many do not attend schools near their homes where they can remain living with their parents), and book fees - all while watching governments across the board de-prioritize educational funding so that school becomes unaffordable unless you are destitute or rich.
From the student's perspective: What has changed so much in mathematics up through calculus that I need to buy a new revision of the textbook every two years, other than the publishers don't want used book sales (much like the other slashdot article stated that game companies don't like used sales because it is 'worse than piracy from an economic standpoint'). Why is the only way I can get a book in a bundled package with a study guide and online resource that I neither want nor does my professor require? Why do I need to buy a particular book if I already know of a better one, but my professor requires the 10 odd problems assigned out of the book? What am I paying my professor for if most or all the information they are professing is from a book I could have studied outside the classroom?
Gripes, but I think they are legitimate gripes that lead to a very important question: should education be a for-profit enterprise with all its knowledge locked up into highly restrictive IP laws, or does the knowledge output of academia belong to the society as a whole and as such should be subsidized by that society as a whole?
...not to mention the obvious stereotyping the user has done, and the fact that any researcher in academia who doesn't have a ton of citations in a research paper would have it scrutinized for plagiarism - and most likely they would find something. There are very few original ideas that do not build on others, and in our Intellectual Property mad society (where ideas = money) we must cite everything all the time. I'm sure I should be citing someone right now, but for the life of me I can say who published this sentiment I feel.
If you want to go off and do your own thing, fine. Have at it.
But don't expect to write code that keeps a 777 safely in the air. That is the type of scenario that we need discipline, not creativity.
I just finished an intensive course on Human Computer Interface (HCI) design. True, poor code can cause these things to happen - but so can poor design. In your example, we read a research paper where they discovered pilots use spacial location and position of analog instruments and components to gain information "at a glance", but with an all digital design they received information in purely numerical means and thus were unable to quickly process the information (in other words, the cognitive load of the analog systems was lower by 'chunking' the information via visuospatial encoding). I would suggest to the coder who wants to expand into a "creative" realm, they get involved in HCI and design teams or help form one in their company.
Unfortunately, in the US at least, congress wimps out on the Production Tax Credit. This makes alternative energy more expensive than those existing industries that receive government funding in tax dollars. Since the consumer is only looking at their utility bill, they are under the notion that it cost them less (not recognizing the tax burden that may be factored into the lower utility bill), so they don't buy it. "When it cost as much as I'm using now, then I'll buy" attitudes prevent consumer adoption - low sales means less money for further research, and less savings due to economy of scale on production.
Imagine if instead of the automotive bailout, the government financed wind production companies - have them buy the auto manufacturers to make delivery trucks for the turbines, road construction to handle the large vehicles to place the turbines, converted auto factory to make the wind turbines, and finally a grid upgrade to transmit the power to the coast - what might of happened with our economy and the cost of alternative energy power generation?
FYI, after attending a Wisconsin Wind Power conference I learned that the cost to upgrade the grid to transport energy from the Great Plains to the east coast would have been roughly equal to that $1200 for every family stimulus bill "W" pushed for. I think that would have had better long term benefits for the US than the payout - and in the future two factors will become key to national security: energy resources and water resources.
Like has been said - I assume your costs for nuclear included disposal/storage of waste material and cost to mine - not based on raw consumer cost after government subsidies. With coal-based electric, I am also assuming you figure that gas and mining costs will remain static over the repayment period and will not see an increase due to increasing scarcity (although I have seen my gas at the pump going up a bit lately). Really, if you want to compare cost - don't compare just the utility payment as the cost to generate power - many fossil fuels and nuclear power has a significant amount of government money put into it, and that means tax dollars. In the US you can look at the boom-bust cycle of wind and solar and see it matches with the loss of the Production Tax Credit that congress lets slide every year - do the same to oil and nuclear power and you will see the same collapse in the industry. Maybe its time to give alternative energy an even footing in the marketplace.
I'm not buying any tablet that can't run a decent virtual paint program (ArtRage/Corel Painter) and uses a wacom digitizer for pen input. After all, if I can't use a stylus and write on it like a notepad, then what good is it for me? A pad of paper and a smartphone will suit better for my purposes.
Precisely what I was thinking of. Manufacturers maintain drivers and the burden would be on Google to design the interface to those drivers (and thus maintain a repository of them for going to plain vanilla). I thought this was how linux worked also (like most modern OSes), and so it shouldn't be a problem. I think this would have the added benefit of standardizing some hardware and thus causing economies of scale to decrease the cost of the phones for the manufacturers. Then we are basically allowing users to get rid of the customized interfaces (Blur, Touchwiz, Sense, etc) in order to allow phones to stay current with the latest Android release - that should have no bearing on the underlying drivers needed by the OS to run the hardware in the phone.
Allow the manufacturer to customize the hell out of it, but write into the license agreement that all functionality must work a vanilla install that is made available OTA. That way a user can go into the update menu and select "update to latest Google version of Android supported by your phone's hardware WARNING: ALL MANUFACTURER CUSTOMIZATION WILL BE LOST". When on vanilla, make the latest manufacturer switchover available. If they did this, how many of us would still be on 2.1 or 2.2? That would be the best of both the worlds.
How would you address the difficulty of enforcement? IE, who would be ensuring all the small businesses are transferring the taxes they collected on behalf of other states to the appropriate state? Also, how do I as a state entity ensure that all my collected taxes are properly transferred to me? (I think most states would grumble about the federal government taking away their authority to enforce their state sales tax collection and thus the politics would go *ka-BLOOIE* in our faces.) Thus, the collecting of taxes by businesses is trivial - the assurance that these large and small businesses transfer the collected taxes to the various states is what is not trivial.
Its not a matter that the goods went through there, it is a matter of the goods being sold from there. UPS does not sell the contents of the package, so you don't charge them - Amazon is selling the contents of the package, so who pays the sales tax? ...or are you implying all goods sold online should be exempt from taxation, and thus stores can make everything a web-based ordering system where people are merely picking up their goods (doing an end-around of the sales tax system and causing its de facto abolishment)?
Sorry for my bad language. You are correct, they are not paying the tax - they are collecting it from the customer and paying it. My point was this: a brick & mortar business of a state collects the tax and pays it to the state, not the individual. However, when the individual buys from out-of-state in Wisconsin and does not pay the Wisconsin Sales Tax, it is their burden to report it on the income tax form and pay said sales tax. The argument is the object was delivered in Wisconsin and thus that is where it is due.
Of course, I think sales tax conflicts happen because they are an ill-defined problem. If I go across the border and buy a durable good from an appliance store (or any other good), I will pay the sales tax for Illinois even though I am transporting it back to Wisconsin. I can't say I'm taking it to a different state and not pay sales tax. By this argument, an online retailer should pay taxes based on where they operate from. Conversely, the argument goes that the point of receipt is important. By this argument the sales tax of the location of delivery should be used - thus I pay Illinois sales tax on a durable good because I picked it up there, but if I have it delivered to Wisconsin then I pay Wisconsin sales tax.
I think we need to define the purpose of sales tax also - but that is a larger social problem. Face it, in the USA no one wants to pay any taxes. They view them as "taking their money" no matter what. There is no thought to the public money that goes into roads to transport goods or the maintenance of waste disposal systems, nor in the municipal water infrastructure that is vital to manufacturing most goods or the maintenance of a military to protect the sovereignty of the nation who's political philosophies allow you to consume in the manner you want.
Also, I am thinking about the mom-n-pops and small start ups... how does a state ensure that all the little guys are collecting and transferring the appropriate sales taxes to their State? Do they look through the entire web and request complete sales records of every site they find? That is like them evaluating the goods purchased by every individual in the state. So the big guys have no problem setting up a system and the States can easily track them... and they make up a good chunk of the revenue, but the nickles and dimes of the little guys add up. The trick is designing a fair system for all users of the system.
All I know is my state's law (Wisconsin) - basically, with most online sales it is the burden of the purchaser to report the purchases/sales taxes of items bought on the internet at the end of the year with your state income tax filing. However, I believe if you maintain a brick & mortar business in the state then it becomes the burden of the business to file the taxes (probably because they already must pay in their state taxes).
Unfortunately, there is no good solution with state sales taxes. If you put the burden on the purchaser, then the state will have to scrutinize every citizen (which is not practical/possible) - but this problem doesn't go away if you require businesses to collect them. There are thousands of small retailers who would have to file forms with every state they sold in, and the individual states would have to scrutinize every online business for sales (also not practical/possible).
Hmmm... maybe if we did away with a sales tax and made it a disposal tax....
I think it is still fairly difficult to get a "white box" laptop, and it is laptops where this becomes a real issue. (There are some barebones laptops you can get, but I in general this is only a techie solution. Can you still find small computer shops building white box desktops?)
However, I agree with the sentiments on this thread - the companies get paid a lot to install all the crapware, and thus it subsidizes the cost of our laptops. If we wish to have a "clean" system, then we need to get rid of that subsidy by buying a copy of Windows on top of the OEM copy preloaded. Then all that is left to do is make the recovery/driver disks, do a clean install of the retail or OEM copy we bought (that doesn't contain bloatware), and use the recovery disks to install those pieces of software we really want - like DVD playing software and fingerprint reader software that would cost us more to buy.
Alternatively, there is a solution I use. Buy backup software (I like Acronis myself), uninstall all the bloatware, and make an image. Any time you need to redo your machine, you merely restore the image. (Or do something like load VMWare and put a clean virtual machine on it - it doesn't help with bloatware on the host computer, but the guest system will be clean.)
Courts rule that political parties are now illegal in the prison systems. Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and so forth are obviously modeled after gang organizations, and thus should be allowed. Especially those Tea Party-ers who like to engage in an activity they dub "tea bagging" - which in a prison is just wrong on so many levels.
Someone like me can reasonably propose that the previous 50 years of warming mean nothing since the next 50 will be cooling.
Since you mentioned that you reasonably propose this prediction, I must ask you to explain your reasoning. What makes you believe the next 50 years will be cooling? What are the mechanisms? Please explain your model - I am genuinely interested in hearing about it.
Actually, if you check who got sued you'll see they are Canadian companies. So just like text books, you have to apply the order of magnitude increase for being in the USA.
Not that the planners would let him; but any "middle aged to retired man" who consumes a martian launch spot is suffering from a different flavor of selfishness. Unless the costs come down by a fair few factors of ten, there is no case to be made for sending any but the healthiest, expected-to-last-longest, specimens...
The proposed trip to Mars is one-way. It isn't the Earth, so all the environments that we have evolved to survive in don't exist. Additionally, at a mere 10 month trip time, more colonists could be sent up in short order. Thus, you don't need the expected-to-last-longest specimens. You need healthy specimens who hold expertise in a variety of fields who are willing to die. I think you will find a good number of empty-nesters may fall into that category (as the young ones more often than not lack the desired experience). Thus I think this suicidal crew would consist predominantly of fairly healthy 35-55 year old members, and not the younger crew you seem to expect.
Unless, of course, the final selection for the crew is selected by a reality TV show... wait, I think I just found a way to secure their funding! Heck, imagine getting voted off that version of survivor!
Its not the video recording that is the issue, it is the audio. There are states where you cannot record audio without both parties being aware of the recording. Believe it or not, this is done for your protection. Thus, if you are like the biker who got pulled over while using a helmet cam, my advice would be wearing a T-shirt that states by being in your presence you are agreeing to be audio recorded.
1.5 yrs until people will not be using Blender, Flash Pro, Visual Studio, or want to engage in some high-end 3D FPSers? Sorry, no. Where am I suppose to edit my AVCHD video files? What about the 720p files I shoot on my phone? Store my digitized photo albums, or keep a backup of all the individual songs I bought in case my iPod battery dies?
One factor they probably didn't count: cost. If smart devices are a threat to any market, it is the netbook. Sorry, the iPad doesn't even come close to touching a venerable Toshiba M400 tablet PC, and an ancient M200 is probably just as good. However, an iPad might compete with my original EEE PC 4G - which I have to nLite XP to get it to fit on (+eeectl = x2 screen brightness for operation in full daylight = awesome).
Don't get me wrong. I just got an android phone, and its nice - but it is no where near a PC replacement. Heck, a 4" screen for reading emails is iffy, and the web experience is less then great. However, it has a lot of convenience - especially setting it up as a hotspot to use with my laptop when no free wi-fi is around.
My apologies for being a bit random in my comments... I'm trying to learn to be brief.
Agreed. I was trying to point out there are alternatives that do not require tactile feedback in the traditional sense. Since this seems to be marketed towards photo editing/layout (based on the video) and other non-text input intensive tasks, I was stating these alternate systems of input may be valid. Also, when editing photos and video a pen may be quite useful - but the current design would probably not allow for a Wacom digitizer to be added to the system.
Your notion that we punish those who fall in our nation's jurisdiction (ie, our citizens and our agencies that helped leak the information) and not a foreign entity (such as wikileaks) was the same conclusion my coworkers and I reached the other day.
As to those individuals, they have some questions they must ask themselves: 1) Is this secret covering up immoral or illegal activities? and 2) Am I willing to accept a punishment that may include death for leaking this information?
For example, if you knew of the Tuskegee Experiment or the similar experiment in Guatemala, would you be willing to risk death for treason to reveal this state secret? If you were a German in 1943, would you risk death for treason to reveal what happened at Auschwitz?
Yes, these are extreme cases. I recognize some of the information may actually harm diplomatic relations, especially when they are official records on one person's personal opinion on a topic and not a representation of the State's view - and I would hope that foreign leaders could recognize that. Publishing those "secrets" seems trivial - but should revealing such things be considered treason? This is something I am still weighing, as I know perception and respect is vital for stable friendly international relations.
In the end, there are times where I find those that leak information to be very patriotic. Of course, I then have to look at corner cases - do I find those who assassinate doctors who perform abortions patriotic? No. So I still need to look at where this fuzzy line of morality falls - and whether an individual has a right to define it for themselves or it should be based on the majority of a society. It has been something I've milled over for many years...