There is no difference between your presented scenarios. When you see the light turn yellow you are supposed to make a decision as to whether it is safer for you to proceed through the intersection before the light changes to red, or stop before you enter the intersection. (People who say flat out that yellow means you should begin slowing to a stop are not only wrong, but are also almost certainly very bad drivers. Bad because they don't know the proper thing to do, and very bad because they think they're right.)
If you neither have time to stop safely without overrunning the line or causing the driver behind you to test their reaction time not to hit you, the yellow is too short.
Or an insurance industry lawsuit complaining about the increase in rear-end collisions due to unexpectedly short yellow lights resulting in drivers slamming on the brakes.
The only thing it is missing is proper MS Exchange connectivity. And a GSM radio, thus forcing you to carry yet another device in your pocket even though you've already got one with 99% of the required functionality.
I think that's a pretty good feature list.... I'd tweak it a little though...
1. It really needs 5-6 hours of battery life. More would be better. An extra battery defeats the point of "small". I don't want to carry one, and I don't want to carry a power supply either. I just want to know it's going to work all day with intermittent usage.
5. The resolution should be really, really high. Just because the screen is small, doesn't mean it should have fewer pixels. 1600x1200 on a 10" screen would be a minimum. 1920x1200 on a 12" widescreen is the stuff dreams are made of.
6. I can live without a touch screen. Fingertips aren't very precise anyway. Just give it a really good keyboard, and a docked wireless mouse (no protruding while it's in storage).
8. It needs video out. HDMI ports are very small.
9. The thin isn't necessary, but light is. 3-4lbs. Max.
Your own source (the linked NCSE report) does *not* conclude that we are overly dependent on foreign refining. The issues it deals with are more of volatility than overall cost. Short term price spikes, in my opinion, aren't really a big deal. There are other ways to mitigate that problem.
The report outlines three ways that we could tell that we have become overly dependent:
Availability of supplies meeting U.S. specifications, so that demand
can be met without the need for waivers that could compromise
environmental protections.
The speed with which incremental supply might be available, given
just-in-time gasoline inventories, in order to avoid excessive price
volatility.
The delivered price of foreign supplies, and whether they are above
the incremental price of domestic output, such that they ultimately
contribute to higher prices.
Since inventories are at historic highs, it seems clear that the first point isn't a problem. The price volatility issue is being addressed other ways (likely, new local taxes will keep gas prices where they are when the price drops. This is already in the works). And historical evidence would suggest that the third is not really possible, since foreign price increases cause domestic price increases regardless of dependence.
That particular source is also significantly out of date, as it was written in the context of increasing demand, and we are in an unusual period of decreasing demand. Regardless, I don't think that paper supports your position.
Lastly, "domestic" is a big word in the context of the US. Californian or Texan refining doesn't reduce transport costs for gasoline to New England over purchasing product from Canada, or even the UK for example. If your argument is transportation costs, you have to think about "local" refineries. "Domestic" isn't sufficiently precise.
It's a global market. If some country or countries decide to withhold sales from us, we'll buy from elsewhere, and they'll sell to the former customers of our new suppliers. Prices go up for everybody. If we have fully domestic supplies, and war breaks out in the middle east cutting off supply, our production will be sold in the global commodities market like it is now, and prices will go up for us even though we produce our own. We have no choice but to be subject to the fluctuation of the global petroleum market as long as we want to participate in international trade.
So your reason is nonsensical. Refining domestically doesn't solve that problem.
My claim was based on the fact that we have plenty of product. Which we do. Reserves are at historically high levels. The only reason we have this obsession with "eliminating the dependence on foreign oil" is because it sounds good to the American public when a politician says it. Rare is the politician that wants to eliminate or dependence on foreign refining.
Why do we need to refine our oil domestically? Like you said, nobody wants it in their back yard. And since it's a global commodity, having local production and refining doesn't protect us at all from global price fluctuations. Not only that, but we often end up tanking the stuff around by sea anyway. So local refineries mean all of the negatives with no real tangible benefit.
Just because the production isn't local doesn't mean there's a shortage.
We actually have plenty of refining capacity. Production is up and consumption is down. In recent weeks, gasoline reserves have been as much as 10% higher than historical averages.
The reason the price of oil and gasoline are so high right now is the flood of speculative investors into the oil market. That adds a lot of demand, but it's not consumer demand. Production continues, and that oil will have to end up on the market eventually... Whoever the next president is, they will get credit for "solving" the problem, even though the important bits have already played out.
Microsoft's digital downloads are not competition to BluRay. Pay-per-view content is a different market than re-viewable media. Microsoft's competitors are Blockbuster, Netflix, and Amazon. Not Sony.
The most highly regulated employment markets in Europe are a really poor example for you to be holding up here. If you count just the Euro zone, unemployment is double what it is in the US.
The problem with unions isn't that they exist. It's that they continue to exist after they've solved the problem they were organized to create. Inevitably, corruption overtakes the primary objectives of the union and they move beyond "fair labor practices" to racketeering and protectionism. There's an easy fix, of course. Allow unions, but also allow replacement of union employees that strike. If the union has fair and reasonable demands, the copmany won't be able to hire replacements for the long term anyway.
Additionally, people in the US generally get 15 days vacation as a minimum. With exceptions of course.
Why would the server need a sound card at all in that case?
Plus the article explicitly mentions iTunes, which allows authorizing multiple computers for playback.
Lastly, 5.1 sound cards aren't fancy or expensive. They're the default on pretty much any setup these days. Bundled with practically every desktop motherboard.
Easy, download the MP3s from Kazaa or rip them from CD. How does that distribute them to multiple rooms in the house?
This story was like a high school algebra word problem. The DRM was extra information unrelated to the problem, put there to confuse you if you don't actually understand the solution. If you try to use it in your answer, you get an 'F'.
It would seem to me that this story was about using one computer, with one sound card to decode digital audio to multiple analog streams. If it were about the DRM, they could have just authorized three systems to decode the music.
I've got some limited functionality because it's a down level client, I can still do pretty much everything. About the only thing that doesn't work is the Citrix webpart. It just takes a little longer to get to everything else. But, anyone who uses Linux is used to things taking longer...:) Pretty much everything... Except change your password. Which is really inconvenient when you're in an environment with password expiration.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no difference between your presented scenarios. When you see the light turn yellow you are supposed to make a decision as to whether it is safer for you to proceed through the intersection before the light changes to red, or stop before you enter the intersection. (People who say flat out that yellow means you should begin slowing to a stop are not only wrong, but are also almost certainly very bad drivers. Bad because they don't know the proper thing to do, and very bad because they think they're right.)
If you neither have time to stop safely without overrunning the line or causing the driver behind you to test their reaction time not to hit you, the yellow is too short.
Or an insurance industry lawsuit complaining about the increase in rear-end collisions due to unexpectedly short yellow lights resulting in drivers slamming on the brakes.
Every week I fill a 35 gallon trash bag with junk mail. I then pay to throw out (recycle) said bag of junk mail. Entire cost, my ass.
In municipalities that provide trash collection, the government ends up paying that part of the costs of direct mail advertising.
Based on your attitude towards other people's ideas and opinions, you're also an asshole. Ironic, considering that you were wrong, huh?
So that means you need to spend all that money on Office for 1% of your needs instead of 100%?
I think that's a pretty good feature list.... I'd tweak it a little though...
1. It really needs 5-6 hours of battery life. More would be better. An extra battery defeats the point of "small". I don't want to carry one, and I don't want to carry a power supply either. I just want to know it's going to work all day with intermittent usage.
5. The resolution should be really, really high. Just because the screen is small, doesn't mean it should have fewer pixels. 1600x1200 on a 10" screen would be a minimum. 1920x1200 on a 12" widescreen is the stuff dreams are made of.
6. I can live without a touch screen. Fingertips aren't very precise anyway. Just give it a really good keyboard, and a docked wireless mouse (no protruding while it's in storage).
8. It needs video out. HDMI ports are very small.
9. The thin isn't necessary, but light is. 3-4lbs. Max.
Which is why the value is in the millions of man hours of work they put into those things, and not the things they started with.
Take that a step further. Could that mean we wouldn't even notice? Would we be able to tell?
Quoting your post:
So US refineries cut production to keep prices up because supplies were getting high... Doesn't that underscore my point?
The report outlines three ways that we could tell that we have become overly dependent:
Since inventories are at historic highs, it seems clear that the first point isn't a problem. The price volatility issue is being addressed other ways (likely, new local taxes will keep gas prices where they are when the price drops. This is already in the works). And historical evidence would suggest that the third is not really possible, since foreign price increases cause domestic price increases regardless of dependence.
That particular source is also significantly out of date, as it was written in the context of increasing demand, and we are in an unusual period of decreasing demand. Regardless, I don't think that paper supports your position.
Lastly, "domestic" is a big word in the context of the US. Californian or Texan refining doesn't reduce transport costs for gasoline to New England over purchasing product from Canada, or even the UK for example. If your argument is transportation costs, you have to think about "local" refineries. "Domestic" isn't sufficiently precise.
But we are anyway.
It's a global market. If some country or countries decide to withhold sales from us, we'll buy from elsewhere, and they'll sell to the former customers of our new suppliers. Prices go up for everybody. If we have fully domestic supplies, and war breaks out in the middle east cutting off supply, our production will be sold in the global commodities market like it is now, and prices will go up for us even though we produce our own. We have no choice but to be subject to the fluctuation of the global petroleum market as long as we want to participate in international trade.
So your reason is nonsensical. Refining domestically doesn't solve that problem.
My claim was based on the fact that we have plenty of product. Which we do. Reserves are at historically high levels. The only reason we have this obsession with "eliminating the dependence on foreign oil" is because it sounds good to the American public when a politician says it. Rare is the politician that wants to eliminate or dependence on foreign refining.
Why do we need to refine our oil domestically? Like you said, nobody wants it in their back yard. And since it's a global commodity, having local production and refining doesn't protect us at all from global price fluctuations. Not only that, but we often end up tanking the stuff around by sea anyway. So local refineries mean all of the negatives with no real tangible benefit.
Just because the production isn't local doesn't mean there's a shortage.
We actually have plenty of refining capacity. Production is up and consumption is down. In recent weeks, gasoline reserves have been as much as 10% higher than historical averages.
The reason the price of oil and gasoline are so high right now is the flood of speculative investors into the oil market. That adds a lot of demand, but it's not consumer demand. Production continues, and that oil will have to end up on the market eventually... Whoever the next president is, they will get credit for "solving" the problem, even though the important bits have already played out.
Microsoft's digital downloads are not competition to BluRay. Pay-per-view content is a different market than re-viewable media. Microsoft's competitors are Blockbuster, Netflix, and Amazon. Not Sony.
*cough*France*cough*
The most highly regulated employment markets in Europe are a really poor example for you to be holding up here. If you count just the Euro zone, unemployment is double what it is in the US.
The problem with unions isn't that they exist. It's that they continue to exist after they've solved the problem they were organized to create. Inevitably, corruption overtakes the primary objectives of the union and they move beyond "fair labor practices" to racketeering and protectionism. There's an easy fix, of course. Allow unions, but also allow replacement of union employees that strike. If the union has fair and reasonable demands, the copmany won't be able to hire replacements for the long term anyway.
Additionally, people in the US generally get 15 days vacation as a minimum. With exceptions of course.
As for your two complaints:
1: Business lines are the same price or cheaper than the residential lines (unless you want statics).
2: No it doesn't.
FUD pure and simple.
They *don't* rip your copper out if you ask them not to, and there's a 50/50 chance they won't rip it out even if you don't ask.
Exactly. You can't. Not through any Microsoft web service that I'm aware of. You need a Microsoft client.
Start working on Web 5.0. Nobody will see it coming.
Why would the server need a sound card at all in that case?
Plus the article explicitly mentions iTunes, which allows authorizing multiple computers for playback.
Lastly, 5.1 sound cards aren't fancy or expensive. They're the default on pretty much any setup these days. Bundled with practically every desktop motherboard.
This story was like a high school algebra word problem. The DRM was extra information unrelated to the problem, put there to confuse you if you don't actually understand the solution. If you try to use it in your answer, you get an 'F'.
It would seem to me that this story was about using one computer, with one sound card to decode digital audio to multiple analog streams. If it were about the DRM, they could have just authorized three systems to decode the music.
And that last comment is just plain trolling.
I'm just going on the information Verizon provides...
Do you live near a town line or something?