"Imagine one data cartridge, small enough to fit into a shirt pocket, being able to store the equivalent of 200 two-hour movies, 50,000 trees made into paper, 100,000,000 web pages or all the X-ray films in a large hospital! NANOCUBIC technology makes this possible."
Well, given that a 2 hour movie can be stored on a single 8GB DVD, you'd still need 3 of these to store the 'source' archive used in movie making.
As for the tape - I'll point out that the only real limitation as to quantity is how much tape you're willing to use, how big of a reel you're willing to live with.
The concern with magnetic tape is still longevity - it undergoes gradual degradation just like more traditional film tape. One thing you don't want to do with archives is to put it on brand new cutting edge technology - you want stable, not necessarily new.
You'd be correct here, but storing a codec, heck entire computers and operating systems, isn't that big of a deal here.
This data is probably being stored in the studio quality MPEG standard I read about - it's like keeping a JPG of each frame, instead of deltas and occasional keyframes.
Increases the storage needs tremendously, but is less lossy than most formats, while still keeping storage needs to something sorta sane. That shouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Worst case, somebody should be able to knock up a converter as long as a drive that can read the media is still operational.
In the other thread I proposed rating technologies on a four scale basis - Modern(HDDVD/Blueray), Current(DVD), Outdated(VHS), and Legacy (Betamax). My standard was simple - Modern is just that, the best industry-standard tech. Current is 'still in common use', Outdated is 'obviously on it's way out, but 'equipment capable of handling it is still in regular production', and Legacy is pretty much 'You're pretty much stuck with used equipment or special order for new stuff'.
The goal would be to transition from outdated to modern formats on a regular basis. If anything ends up legacy - priority on transfer.
Someone might say that hard drives are not an acceptable form of storage for long term-
Agree. Hard Drives are designed for active access, not creating archives.
A few hard drives replaced on a yearly basis could be under $1K. With the right machinery to do the copying, you might not even need much of a staff.
Adds up quick if you consider that if each movie takes up 4TB(using another poster's number for spiderman) - that's a minimum of 4 drives, more likely 5 or more for RAID 5 or even a RAID 6(able to recover from multiple drive failures at the same time) type application.
Personally, I'd go for glass masters - the current expected survival, given proper storage, is in the centuries.
Figure 8 GB per glass master, at a cost of $1k each*. That'd end up being 500 masters - $500k ouch. Still, you'd end up with a store that would slaughter even film at longevity.
And it'd be mostly a static cost - not annual.
Maybe they're going with something like a DAT tape system. Much cheaper per tape, but might need an annual read test/refresh. Still, shouldn't be anything like the cost they're quoting.
*I looked up a site and saw that the cost increase for 1000 disks vs 2500 disks was $1,500(the first 1000 DVD-8 would be $1.5k less out of a lot of 2500 than purchased seperately). Glass master is included, so I figured ~$1k for the mastering process.
- presumption of being a criminal: get your fingerprints taken at the border, get inspected by idiots in the name of security every hour, get to take your bloody *shoes* off whenever you want to board a plane. Get real. None of that stuff stops terrorism. It does however, stop *tourism*.
Most of this stuff happens even to US Citizens. It's at least part of the reason for the airlines being in trouble - I avoid flying now even for domestic flights, and many are.
I happen to agree that it's theater, but haven't been able to convince anybody high enough to do something to actually take action.
- no protection by the law: as a foreigner you are not protected by any american laws. The constitution doesn't apply to you. The authorities can do with you whatever they want, for any reason they feel like. You could be sitting on a beach one moment and being beaten up in Guantanamo Bay the next, and noone would care.
Incorrect. For one thing, your country can complain*. For another, despite what you may have heard, as a rule the US doesn't just grab random people and toss them in Guantanamo. For one thing, it's unproductive. While you might have to worry about varying laws**, for the most part as long as you're only touring they're very consistant and not much of a hassle. Stuff gets much more complicated if you're looking at doing business here, of course, but that's true everywhere.
- lawsuits. Get involved in any kind of accident, and american lawyers will bleed you dry. You might not even be able to go back to your own country.
Again, incorrect. As long as you're not involved in a criminal matter and considered a flight risk, civil matters cannot restrict your freedom - to include leaving the country and simply circular filing any notices they send you. Just don't count on returning. It's not like they'll extradite you for something petty like civil damages.;)
If you want to do things the proper way, I'll admit that the US system is not the cheapest. Still, it's a relatively easy matter to retain a lawyer yourself and, depending on the circumstances, negotiate a settlement out of court or even have the lawyer do all the court duties. You don't even have to show up necessarily.
For something like a car accident - I suggest buying the rental insurance policy. Then if you're in an accident, you give them that insurance information and that's likely the last you'll hear from them. I was in a fender-bender accident and that's what happened for me.
While there are certainly horror stories - these can happen in other countries as well. Most cases don't end up going all the way to the supreme court, after all. You can be held liable wherever you go. Heck, if I had gotten into an accident(vehicle or otherwise) in Germany I would have sought representation as well to figure out my liability.
Things get even more interesting if you are arabic-looking, or if you have done anything that american law does not approve of (even if it was legal in the country where the act was committed!). In either case, the risk of going to the US increases considerably.
We constantly fight against racial profiling, but this can be true, I'm afraid to admit. As for doing things against US law - it doesn't matter if it was legal where you did it(if you're not a US citizen). Doing it in the USA can cause issues - The latest I heard about was a woman who was importing and eating bush meat(monkeys). She's looking at a number of felonies, but it was clear that she knew it was illegal here - she was smuggling it in under fish.
For example, we aren't go throwing you in prison for naming a stuffed animal.
*Very good advice regardless of where you're going: Leave an intinerary with somebody you trust, and keep them updated. **the US allows individual states and sometimes even municipalities such as cities to pass their own laws
Well, I'd imagine that you could do it with a properly geared shutter on the projector as well.;)
Though I think that the best answer is that given that the lighting of the room and the fact that the curtains look to be a black velor(a very fluffy type of fabric), that any image would be well distorted.
And from the picture, it does appear that at least a part is more lit up.
We're already using the 'lose all your money' outcome on people who merely invest in a failing company. If that's also the penalty for investing in a criminal enterprise and "not knowing", why not just invest in a criminal venture for higher payouts and no extra risk?
Because in order to have a chance at making that profit it'd have to last longer than a public criminal corporation would exist?
We're talking, at the very least, about publicly traded, properly registered LLCs.
Let's bring Enron in - Say I owned $1k in shares, giving me an annual profit of ~$50-$100(5-10%). How much investigation do you expect me to do, in order to avoid the extra liability you're proposing? Especially considering that it was a publicly traded and audited company? Could you expect me, a small time investor, to realize the link between the auditing company and the bookkeeping company, much less that there are shady deals going on and executives/CEOs are hiding things?
Heck - what about mutual funds? I'm into index funds. I theoretically own a bit of stock in quite a chunck of corporations in the USA.
Basically, I think that CEOs and Executives should be held responsible because it's their job, they have the time and resources to check this stuff. Your average stockholder doesn't have enough votes to make a real difference.
If that went far enough, you could start a company, set the company up to break a law profitably in the near future, and sell all 'control' to some patsy. Your excuse is that the patsy should have noticed the upcoming legal issue and remedied it. You either collect a wind-fall, or lose nothing more than otherwise worthless stock if it's caught.
As you're the one that started and set up the company, you'd probably be guilty of a laundry list of crimes such as conspiracy. The patsy stands to lose his money, but can come after you, indeed, you might find stuff like fraud and scam charges added to the list of charges against you.
If the shareholders stood to lose their investment in the case of criminal actions, they'd be more likely to hire an independent auditing firm, or something. Had this been done with Enron they likely could have avoided much of the problem.
Enron was 'independently' audited. The audit company was in on it as well - and went bankrupt even faster than Enron. Actually, Enron would be a pretty good example of stuff. It it'd gotten out in the open, the shareholders would have revolted and voted in new executives who'd fire&replace the CEO, etc...
Despite this, the shareholders are out their money and many of the executives are finding themselves broke from civil and criminal trials, with many going to prison.
If you commit a crime you don't have limited liability. Imagine an arsonist torching a hospital and only being liable up to his assets, but otherwise able to reincorporate and be free the next day. Why do we let crime-by-committee go unpunished? It's more convenient for business, to be able to invest without having a responsibility to investigate, but it'd be easier yet if we just repealed all laws. Why do we pretend to have them when we don't really enforce them?
If you commit a crime, should your employer be held liable? Your parents? The company that gave you a loan to buy the car you used in the crime(should have checked better!).
Um, no. Corporations are more properly called Limited Liability Corporations, or LLCs. The idea is that you only have liability for the MONEY YOU INVEST IN THE COMPANY, nothing else. If the company tanks, creditors CAN NOT do after the shareholders. That's the whole point.
Um, yes. I was talking about the (really) old days - before the USA even formed. Before the formation of the concept and laws were formed supporting a LLC.
Back then, if a company went belly up the creditors could go after anybody owning part of the company for the debts - people ended up in poor houses and even debtors prison for stuff.
This does not extend to criminal liability. If a Corporation orders someone murdered, everyone involved in that decision has personal criminal liability PLUS the company faces civil liability. Corporations very much like to argue otherwise, that the corporation is a "person" and holds sole liability. This view is wrong.
I could swear I mentioned this part. Now a murder is an extreme act - I was thinking more along the lines of tossing executives into jail/prison for stuff like violating EPA, fair practice laws. I even mentioned enforcing a sort of military justice - no knowledge is not necessarily a defense(it was your position, your job, your duty to know).
Is it any different in the USA? The underground market is just that, underground.
In my experience, very.
In the USA, it would be exceedingly rare for the pirate DVD business to have a public storefront. Outside of 'first world' nations, this is frequently standard practice.
I've actually browsed through stores with burned DVD in plastic sleeves with a printed insert copied from the real DVD case. Even guaranteed!
The US has invested billions (trillions?) in its war against drugs, and they are still widely available in any urban center.
Heck, they're widely available even in my town, and it's not exactly a 'urban center'. Over 50% of the high school seniors admitted to smoking MJ - higher than those who admitted to using alcohol. Heck, they rated alcohol and tobacco as harder to get than MJ.
Personally, I think it should be legalized and regulated - it's very much a 'the tighter you hold your fist, the more slips through your fingers' type situation. Banning is holding your fist very tight indeed - and actually results in less control over the drug stream.
Banning should be reserved for situations like crimes where a victim can be found - murder, assault, rape, theft, etc...
Considering that I've always wanted to tour the world, and that one of my influences has been the Indiana Jones movies, Egypt and Baghdad was on the list. Heck, Rambo takes place in Afghanistan.
Now, with all this stuff, I'm afraid that I might end up in some internet video getting my head chopped off.
How things have changed.
Others might object - but when it comes to the tourist industry, image is everything. Perhaps unfortunately, Arabic and Muslim countries are suffering from a major image problem in the west right now.
For even a large family, 10 simultaneous users would be extremely rare.
If they really want to stream something like five simultaneous HDTV channels, then yes, they'd need to move up.
Besides, do you seriously believe that any file access tasks will seriously strain any semi-modern CPU? At least until you start looking at dozens of hard drives.
I'm leery of the idea that this could be done at 'reasonably fixed cost'. The biggest expense here is going to be orbital lifting - which isn't going to get orders of magnitude cheaper anytime soon. Sure, it'll be more or less fixed, but reasonable?
Basically, even if we say that this power source ends up being 100X cheaper, down to $8/watt instead of $800/watt, it's still 2-8X as expensive as other technologies.
Oh, and it's been bugging me - but $1/watt is NOT a good comparison cost for solar power - the figure for the orbital power station is for a station, not a panel.
A better figure for solar is $2-4 per watt, installed in a large plant. After all you can't just toss panels on the ground and expect them to work. You need bases, frames, electrical connections, transformers, and inverters. Likely motors to track the sun(increases in efficiency outweigh the increased install cost). Heck, for the scales we're talking about, you're going to need access roads.
I'll have to agree with 4 though I'm sure they'll build the receiving stations - they're cheap after all. The expensive part is in orbit. Then we use one to microwave Bin Laden when he shows his head above ground.
Well that's reasonable. But does control and responsibility for wielding it stop at the employee relationship or does it extend to board members? If so, why not to owners? Or partial owners in the case of stock.
Yes, it extends to board members. That'd be like saying congress has no responsibility for the deficit. It extends to owners who have an active part in the business*. Those who solely own stock, at least in a publicly traded company should be pretty much immune beyond losing their investment.
I say 'publicly traded' because a company has to meet certain standards to be traded in markets such as the NYSE. At least for me, this would count as 'due investigation' on the part of a small time investor.
If SCO's board are liable for the baseless lawsuit, why not people who bought in knowing the facts (ie, baseless case) but hoping for a piece of the phat lawsuit monies.
It might have been obvious to us, but you should remember that investors aren't always savey in all matters legal or computing related. Some laypeople might have believed that SCO had a case.
Somebody has to own the stock, below a certain point it's almost like gambling - sure, it's only got a 1 in 10 chance of payout, but buy in is cheap enough to make it semi-worth the gamble.
Take Enron during the discovery - it might have been possible that the news wouldn't have been as bad as it was and Enron might of stayed afloat. Might even have made massive gains - buy at 10 cents, sell at 10 dollars type stuff.
Then there'd be the whole 'Buy enough of it while it's cheap, then fire the board/CEO and turn the company around' hostile takeover strategy.
*Though peon level workers who have exercised minor stock options like Walmart offers might be an interesting case.
1: By a minimum of two orders of magnitude? Even nuclear is estimated at $1-3 per watt. $8/watt is still too expensive for anything but special purposes - like supplying remote stations and forward military bases at the end of long supply chains.
2: A properly installed solar panel is about as vulnerable to plain rain as a roof is. Tsunamis and hurricanes would still take them out, but these disasters take out all sorts of stuff.
3: Any ground station would be as vulnerable to natural disasters as a solar array. Heck, the receiving station is likely going to be a lot like a thermal solar array. And it's going to be disrupted by weather almost as easily as solar panels. So yes, buffering will be necessary. 4: I could see it for this, but I also see a lot of problems - for one, there are many cheaper solutions even if we get it 10X cheaper, down to $80/watt.
One alternate solution for the island, as an example, would be a off-shore nuclear plant - essentially a barge or submersible with a nuclear plant on it, with a power line stretched to shore.
The submersible part comes in handy, even if it's normally designed to be on the surface, in cases of weather and disasters like tsunamis and hurricanes. As sorts of weather doesn't affect things too much under even 10 meters of ocean.
If I started a company, and with the thinnest pretense claimed to be in legitimate business yet still robbed people, thus returning profits far in excess of what you could reasonably expect, you just look the other way and whistle, in total legal innocence.
I'd be subject to losing my investments in your company. Actually, stuff like this happens fairly frequently, it's just that the people making the 'investment' are dupes, and the person getting the money a scam artist.
Certainly sometimes a company's worker commits a crime, like running a red light while delivering a parcel. But sometimes the company places unreasonable demands on drivers that necessitate running red lights to meet goals, yet the executives want to disclaim responsibility.
That's why I brought up military style criminal liability. Under that system, if you're in charge(like an executive or CEO), you can be charged with the crimes of those under you.
Under that system, 'anticipatory ignorance' could be fatal.
After all, a share-holder is in a better place to examine Coke's practices for malfeasance than some assembly-line worker in Guatemala. Surely if a crime is committed and someone needs to pay, it'd make more sense to charge the shareholders than society in general?
Please note that I made mention of holding executives responsible. Normal stockholders shouldn't be expected to know that company XYZ is illegally dumping waste in Kentucky. Depending upon the circumstances, especially for a multinational company it might be unreasonable to assume that the executives knew.
Still, the company could be help fiscally responsible for the waste, even if it breaks them. Meanwhile, the company isn't charged with anything criminal, because a company can't commit a criminal offense - The employees who performed the dumping are charged, and if it's determined that the plant manager had a deliberate or outright negligent lack of knowledge(turned a blind eye), he's charged to. If it's bad enough, hit the appropriate executives or even the CEO.
The investors already have quite a bit to lose - their shares of the company.
Better yet, switch it out for non-magnetic media. People might complain about DVDs degrading - but most of the time they're talking about DVD-Rs. For stuff like this, not only would I demand a dozen or so duplicate DVDs, I'd also go after a glass master, along with numerous machines capable of reading it stored in secure fashion.
Then have an IT staff with a binder - each year they go through all the formats stuff is stored on and give it a rating - Modern(HDDVD, blueray), Current(DVD, CD), Outdated(VHS), and Legacy(Betamax).
When something shifts to outdated, it's time to start updating it to modern. Priority on anything that makes it into the Legacy category.
Roughly speaking, my standard is that Modern is the 'latest and greatest'. Current is 'accepted industry standard, commercially available'. Outdated still has new equipment being manufactured, but is clearly leaving the market. Legacy is where you can't walk into a store and order something, and anything you do get is likely used and possibly even rebuilt.
I think it wasn't so much to protect the executives so much as the investors.
Previously, if a company went belly up in a really bad way, the creditors could go after everybody who owned some of the company, even if they had nothing to do with the affairs of the company.
It'd be quite chilling to business investing if people had to worry that a Enron style failure would be able to reduce their entire portfolio to zero, even cost them their house, instead of just losing the previous value of those shares.
Some of this I blame on mutual funds and large investment firms - makes it hard to kick out bad executives.
Personally, I'd dial the 'rights' thing back a bit - corporations aren't allowed to own stock, and can't be convicted on criminal matters(though they'd still be liable in civil cases - feel free to sue the company into oblivion if it's bad enough).
The criminal matters would come down to employees and executives being put on trial for their company. For bad stuff I'd have it be like the military - sometimes an executive can be held responsible for the acts of his subordinate employees, even without any knowledge.
There's no way to lock the door without the keys, at least not the way I habitually lock the door.
His actions: Take key out of ignition Open door, put down keys, pick up groceries in the back seat. Close doors. Go to lock car using fob, realize keys are in back seat.
And I just want to point out that if Congress has to subsidize receivers to force this change along, it's probably not a good idea in the first place. And let me also point out that F*@& Congress for spending tax money on paying for unnecessary digital upgrades.
It looks like you haven't been informed as to the way it is in the back end.
You see, there's actually very little bandwidth that's not in use today. The way the old analogue channels work, they end up using far more of the spectrum than what a digital channel of similar range and data rate needs. In addition, you need large gaps between stations on the same channel to avoid interference.
Thus, by switching to digital we can offer more stations, even HD ones, in less of the spectrum than the analogue stations take up now.
The FCC is going to auction off the freed up bands for billions. Remember the stuff about Google entering the auction for bandwidth in the 700mhz range? The cell phone companies wanting in on it?
They will then use some of the proceeds of the auction to offer the coupons to people who need a settop box. People like me, who have a perfectly good, if older, 32" TV that doesn't feel the need to go out and spend $500-700 on a new one.
Thus, I'm satisfied(I just switch to using a converter box), the companies that purchased the channels are happy(new opportunities for profit!), emergency services(our radios are cheaper, and we now have data/voice channels that can penetrate buildings!), HDTV owners who for whatever odd reason don't have cable or satellite, SDTV viewers(potential for more channels to watch), the economy as a whole as new radio ventures are a possibility.
Maybe find an friend who's a US citizen that doesn't need all of his coupons to buy a set box for you?
The subsidy, at least right now, isn't expected to be 100%, but with the way electronics are I expect to see ones that are free with coupon within six months.
And it's a few years yet before they shut off analogue. It's just that they aren't offering the coupons yet.
As for me, I went looking and couldn't find any converter boxes - I'd be tempted to buy one without the coupon just to see if I could get extra channels.
I was going off the site claiming 170 miles on a charge, planned on increasing to 300.
If it's 300, I'd have to charge about as often as I fill up now. 170 would have me doubling my filling.
In other words, it's just a number pulled out of the air to make your idea seem more palatable.
How long would it take you to walk over to the front or back of your car, open a panel, and plug a power cord in?
Thinking about the procedures, 30 seconds sounds good to me.
The longer times would be for if you have to do stuff like get an extension cord out of the trunk, or open a locked door, etc...
Now, this isn't exactly a EV battery but I wasn't trying to derive my entire driving energy from it. Earlier this year, my alternator died, but I made sure my battery had a full charge. I couldn't make it the 40 miles from my mom's house back home just firing the plugs, sensors and brake lights and that was before it got dark.
As you say, you don't have an EV battery, which would have orders of magnitude more power. Plus your spark plugs aren't exactly light on the power draw, and depending on your vehicle, there may have been some other factors.
When I was talking about the hour, I was also including driving time to the lot and back. Highly variable, but likely to be greater than 10 minutes. And it doesn't help if the lot doesn't have a van/truck when you need it.
I agree with 2, but I used a 'fully loaded' sedan price to match. It was quick, and a 'worst case' scenario.
The truck I'm looking into buying will be a monster - 4x4, Diesel, full bed, etc...
I'm looking at $30k for it, so it's still a lot less than that Expedition.
I just tend to pull this stuff out when people complain about seeing all the large vehicles around not being used for something a car can't do.
Thing is, a once a week need would give you 52 days of 'needing' the vehicle, which is well within the realm of making it economical, especially if you figure that it'll cost $100/day to rent a suitable vehicle.
That's $5.2k in rental fees versus $4.6k extra in fuel/payments.
Then figure in the hassle of filling out paperwork all the time to get the vehicle, hassle, etc... 1 hour per rental spent in 'prep', if you value your time at $20/hour, that's another $1040 'saved' by just buying the larger vehicle outright.
Meanwhile it's used as a commuter because it's cheaper than obtaining a dedicated one.
You must not drive much. I have to fill up at least weekly, and I have to ask: are you counting the time it takes to go to the gas station and pay the bill?
My normal station is only two blocks away from work, and that adds at least two minutes.
30 seconds is just an estimate; it could be half that with a good setup, and double or triple for a stupid one.
As for the downed mileage - it actually does lower your mileage; it's just not noticeable.
A normal radio, cell phone charger, etc... Will hardly be noticed by a EV battery.
Slashdot Mirror
"Imagine one data cartridge, small enough to fit into a shirt pocket, being able to store the equivalent of 200 two-hour movies, 50,000 trees made into paper, 100,000,000 web pages or all the X-ray films in a large hospital! NANOCUBIC technology makes this possible."
Well, given that a 2 hour movie can be stored on a single 8GB DVD, you'd still need 3 of these to store the 'source' archive used in movie making.
As for the tape - I'll point out that the only real limitation as to quantity is how much tape you're willing to use, how big of a reel you're willing to live with.
The concern with magnetic tape is still longevity - it undergoes gradual degradation just like more traditional film tape. One thing you don't want to do with archives is to put it on brand new cutting edge technology - you want stable, not necessarily new.
You'd be correct here, but storing a codec, heck entire computers and operating systems, isn't that big of a deal here.
This data is probably being stored in the studio quality MPEG standard I read about - it's like keeping a JPG of each frame, instead of deltas and occasional keyframes.
Increases the storage needs tremendously, but is less lossy than most formats, while still keeping storage needs to something sorta sane. That shouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Worst case, somebody should be able to knock up a converter as long as a drive that can read the media is still operational.
In the other thread I proposed rating technologies on a four scale basis - Modern(HDDVD/Blueray), Current(DVD), Outdated(VHS), and Legacy (Betamax). My standard was simple - Modern is just that, the best industry-standard tech. Current is 'still in common use', Outdated is 'obviously on it's way out, but 'equipment capable of handling it is still in regular production', and Legacy is pretty much 'You're pretty much stuck with used equipment or special order for new stuff'.
The goal would be to transition from outdated to modern formats on a regular basis. If anything ends up legacy - priority on transfer.
Someone might say that hard drives are not an acceptable form of storage for long term-
Agree. Hard Drives are designed for active access, not creating archives.
A few hard drives replaced on a yearly basis could be under $1K. With the right machinery to do the copying, you might not even need much of a staff.
Adds up quick if you consider that if each movie takes up 4TB(using another poster's number for spiderman) - that's a minimum of 4 drives, more likely 5 or more for RAID 5 or even a RAID 6(able to recover from multiple drive failures at the same time) type application.
Personally, I'd go for glass masters - the current expected survival, given proper storage, is in the centuries.
Figure 8 GB per glass master, at a cost of $1k each*. That'd end up being 500 masters - $500k ouch. Still, you'd end up with a store that would slaughter even film at longevity.
And it'd be mostly a static cost - not annual.
Maybe they're going with something like a DAT tape system. Much cheaper per tape, but might need an annual read test/refresh. Still, shouldn't be anything like the cost they're quoting.
*I looked up a site and saw that the cost increase for 1000 disks vs 2500 disks was $1,500(the first 1000 DVD-8 would be $1.5k less out of a lot of 2500 than purchased seperately). Glass master is included, so I figured ~$1k for the mastering process.
- presumption of being a criminal: get your fingerprints taken at the border, get inspected by idiots in the name of security every hour, get to take your bloody *shoes* off whenever you want to board a plane. Get real. None of that stuff stops terrorism. It does however, stop *tourism*.
;)
Most of this stuff happens even to US Citizens. It's at least part of the reason for the airlines being in trouble - I avoid flying now even for domestic flights, and many are.
I happen to agree that it's theater, but haven't been able to convince anybody high enough to do something to actually take action.
- no protection by the law: as a foreigner you are not protected by any american laws. The constitution doesn't apply to you. The authorities can do with you whatever they want, for any reason they feel like. You could be sitting on a beach one moment and being beaten up in Guantanamo Bay the next, and noone would care.
Incorrect. For one thing, your country can complain*. For another, despite what you may have heard, as a rule the US doesn't just grab random people and toss them in Guantanamo. For one thing, it's unproductive. While you might have to worry about varying laws**, for the most part as long as you're only touring they're very consistant and not much of a hassle. Stuff gets much more complicated if you're looking at doing business here, of course, but that's true everywhere.
- lawsuits. Get involved in any kind of accident, and american lawyers will bleed you dry. You might not even be able to go back to your own country.
Again, incorrect. As long as you're not involved in a criminal matter and considered a flight risk, civil matters cannot restrict your freedom - to include leaving the country and simply circular filing any notices they send you. Just don't count on returning. It's not like they'll extradite you for something petty like civil damages.
If you want to do things the proper way, I'll admit that the US system is not the cheapest. Still, it's a relatively easy matter to retain a lawyer yourself and, depending on the circumstances, negotiate a settlement out of court or even have the lawyer do all the court duties. You don't even have to show up necessarily.
For something like a car accident - I suggest buying the rental insurance policy. Then if you're in an accident, you give them that insurance information and that's likely the last you'll hear from them. I was in a fender-bender accident and that's what happened for me.
While there are certainly horror stories - these can happen in other countries as well. Most cases don't end up going all the way to the supreme court, after all. You can be held liable wherever you go. Heck, if I had gotten into an accident(vehicle or otherwise) in Germany I would have sought representation as well to figure out my liability.
Things get even more interesting if you are arabic-looking, or if you have done anything that american law does not approve of (even if it was legal in the country where the act was committed!). In either case, the risk of going to the US increases considerably.
We constantly fight against racial profiling, but this can be true, I'm afraid to admit. As for doing things against US law - it doesn't matter if it was legal where you did it(if you're not a US citizen). Doing it in the USA can cause issues - The latest I heard about was a woman who was importing and eating bush meat(monkeys). She's looking at a number of felonies, but it was clear that she knew it was illegal here - she was smuggling it in under fish.
For example, we aren't go throwing you in prison for naming a stuffed animal.
*Very good advice regardless of where you're going: Leave an intinerary with somebody you trust, and keep them updated.
**the US allows individual states and sometimes even municipalities such as cities to pass their own laws
Well, I'd imagine that you could do it with a properly geared shutter on the projector as well. ;)
Though I think that the best answer is that given that the lighting of the room and the fact that the curtains look to be a black velor(a very fluffy type of fabric), that any image would be well distorted.
And from the picture, it does appear that at least a part is more lit up.
We're already using the 'lose all your money' outcome on people who merely invest in a failing company. If that's also the penalty for investing in a criminal enterprise and "not knowing", why not just invest in a criminal venture for higher payouts and no extra risk?
Because in order to have a chance at making that profit it'd have to last longer than a public criminal corporation would exist?
We're talking, at the very least, about publicly traded, properly registered LLCs.
Let's bring Enron in - Say I owned $1k in shares, giving me an annual profit of ~$50-$100(5-10%). How much investigation do you expect me to do, in order to avoid the extra liability you're proposing? Especially considering that it was a publicly traded and audited company? Could you expect me, a small time investor, to realize the link between the auditing company and the bookkeeping company, much less that there are shady deals going on and executives/CEOs are hiding things?
Heck - what about mutual funds? I'm into index funds. I theoretically own a bit of stock in quite a chunck of corporations in the USA.
Basically, I think that CEOs and Executives should be held responsible because it's their job, they have the time and resources to check this stuff. Your average stockholder doesn't have enough votes to make a real difference.
If that went far enough, you could start a company, set the company up to break a law profitably in the near future, and sell all 'control' to some patsy. Your excuse is that the patsy should have noticed the upcoming legal issue and remedied it. You either collect a wind-fall, or lose nothing more than otherwise worthless stock if it's caught.
As you're the one that started and set up the company, you'd probably be guilty of a laundry list of crimes such as conspiracy. The patsy stands to lose his money, but can come after you, indeed, you might find stuff like fraud and scam charges added to the list of charges against you.
If the shareholders stood to lose their investment in the case of criminal actions, they'd be more likely to hire an independent auditing firm, or something. Had this been done with Enron they likely could have avoided much of the problem.
Enron was 'independently' audited. The audit company was in on it as well - and went bankrupt even faster than Enron. Actually, Enron would be a pretty good example of stuff. It it'd gotten out in the open, the shareholders would have revolted and voted in new executives who'd fire&replace the CEO, etc...
Despite this, the shareholders are out their money and many of the executives are finding themselves broke from civil and criminal trials, with many going to prison.
If you commit a crime you don't have limited liability. Imagine an arsonist torching a hospital and only being liable up to his assets, but otherwise able to reincorporate and be free the next day. Why do we let crime-by-committee go unpunished? It's more convenient for business, to be able to invest without having a responsibility to investigate, but it'd be easier yet if we just repealed all laws. Why do we pretend to have them when we don't really enforce them?
If you commit a crime, should your employer be held liable? Your parents? The company that gave you a loan to buy the car you used in the crime(should have checked better!).
Um, no. Corporations are more properly called Limited Liability Corporations, or LLCs. The idea is that you only have liability for the MONEY YOU INVEST IN THE COMPANY, nothing else. If the company tanks, creditors CAN NOT do after the shareholders. That's the whole point.
Um, yes. I was talking about the (really) old days - before the USA even formed. Before the formation of the concept and laws were formed supporting a LLC.
Back then, if a company went belly up the creditors could go after anybody owning part of the company for the debts - people ended up in poor houses and even debtors prison for stuff.
This does not extend to criminal liability. If a Corporation orders someone murdered, everyone involved in that decision has personal criminal liability PLUS the company faces civil liability. Corporations very much like to argue otherwise, that the corporation is a "person" and holds sole liability. This view is wrong.
I could swear I mentioned this part. Now a murder is an extreme act - I was thinking more along the lines of tossing executives into jail/prison for stuff like violating EPA, fair practice laws. I even mentioned enforcing a sort of military justice - no knowledge is not necessarily a defense(it was your position, your job, your duty to know).
Is it any different in the USA? The underground market is just that, underground.
In my experience, very.
In the USA, it would be exceedingly rare for the pirate DVD business to have a public storefront. Outside of 'first world' nations, this is frequently standard practice.
I've actually browsed through stores with burned DVD in plastic sleeves with a printed insert copied from the real DVD case. Even guaranteed!
The US has invested billions (trillions?) in its war against drugs, and they are still widely available in any urban center.
Heck, they're widely available even in my town, and it's not exactly a 'urban center'. Over 50% of the high school seniors admitted to smoking MJ - higher than those who admitted to using alcohol. Heck, they rated alcohol and tobacco as harder to get than MJ.
Personally, I think it should be legalized and regulated - it's very much a 'the tighter you hold your fist, the more slips through your fingers' type situation. Banning is holding your fist very tight indeed - and actually results in less control over the drug stream.
Banning should be reserved for situations like crimes where a victim can be found - murder, assault, rape, theft, etc...
Considering that I've always wanted to tour the world, and that one of my influences has been the Indiana Jones movies, Egypt and Baghdad was on the list. Heck, Rambo takes place in Afghanistan.
Now, with all this stuff, I'm afraid that I might end up in some internet video getting my head chopped off.
How things have changed.
Others might object - but when it comes to the tourist industry, image is everything. Perhaps unfortunately, Arabic and Muslim countries are suffering from a major image problem in the west right now.
define 'many' in this context - 10, 100, 1k, 10k?
For even a large family, 10 simultaneous users would be extremely rare.
If they really want to stream something like five simultaneous HDTV channels, then yes, they'd need to move up.
Besides, do you seriously believe that any file access tasks will seriously strain any semi-modern CPU? At least until you start looking at dozens of hard drives.
I'm leery of the idea that this could be done at 'reasonably fixed cost'. The biggest expense here is going to be orbital lifting - which isn't going to get orders of magnitude cheaper anytime soon. Sure, it'll be more or less fixed, but reasonable?
Basically, even if we say that this power source ends up being 100X cheaper, down to $8/watt instead of $800/watt, it's still 2-8X as expensive as other technologies.
Oh, and it's been bugging me - but $1/watt is NOT a good comparison cost for solar power - the figure for the orbital power station is for a station, not a panel.
A better figure for solar is $2-4 per watt, installed in a large plant. After all you can't just toss panels on the ground and expect them to work. You need bases, frames, electrical connections, transformers, and inverters. Likely motors to track the sun(increases in efficiency outweigh the increased install cost). Heck, for the scales we're talking about, you're going to need access roads.
I guess my point is that in a professionally installed system, while panels are going to be a major expense, it's hardly the only one. Heck, here's a 'kit' site. Gridtie systems Picking a large one out(tend to scale well), it's $37,201 for a 7kw array. That's $5.31 per watt for material cost alone. Using the 7kw system as a test model, it's $34k for the solar panels outside the kit, 4k for the inverter. Heck, a quick browsing shows solar panels are still closer to $5/watt than $1/watt, at least at retail. So assuming $5/watt for a plant might not be unreasonable as to the raw cost - with many plants hiding how much it's actually costing by figuring in government subsidies before releasing the cost. IE plant's going to cost $2 mil to build, but the government is subsidizing $1 million of it, so they release that the plant's going to cost $1 mil.
I'll have to agree with 4 though I'm sure they'll build the receiving stations - they're cheap after all. The expensive part is in orbit. Then we use one to microwave Bin Laden when he shows his head above ground.
Well that's reasonable. But does control and responsibility for wielding it stop at the employee relationship or does it extend to board members? If so, why not to owners? Or partial owners in the case of stock.
Yes, it extends to board members. That'd be like saying congress has no responsibility for the deficit. It extends to owners who have an active part in the business*. Those who solely own stock, at least in a publicly traded company should be pretty much immune beyond losing their investment.
I say 'publicly traded' because a company has to meet certain standards to be traded in markets such as the NYSE. At least for me, this would count as 'due investigation' on the part of a small time investor.
If SCO's board are liable for the baseless lawsuit, why not people who bought in knowing the facts (ie, baseless case) but hoping for a piece of the phat lawsuit monies.
It might have been obvious to us, but you should remember that investors aren't always savey in all matters legal or computing related. Some laypeople might have believed that SCO had a case.
Somebody has to own the stock, below a certain point it's almost like gambling - sure, it's only got a 1 in 10 chance of payout, but buy in is cheap enough to make it semi-worth the gamble.
Take Enron during the discovery - it might have been possible that the news wouldn't have been as bad as it was and Enron might of stayed afloat. Might even have made massive gains - buy at 10 cents, sell at 10 dollars type stuff.
Then there'd be the whole 'Buy enough of it while it's cheap, then fire the board/CEO and turn the company around' hostile takeover strategy.
*Though peon level workers who have exercised minor stock options like Walmart offers might be an interesting case.
1: By a minimum of two orders of magnitude? Even nuclear is estimated at $1-3 per watt. $8/watt is still too expensive for anything but special purposes - like supplying remote stations and forward military bases at the end of long supply chains.
2: A properly installed solar panel is about as vulnerable to plain rain as a roof is. Tsunamis and hurricanes would still take them out, but these disasters take out all sorts of stuff.
3: Any ground station would be as vulnerable to natural disasters as a solar array. Heck, the receiving station is likely going to be a lot like a thermal solar array. And it's going to be disrupted by weather almost as easily as solar panels. So yes, buffering will be necessary.
4: I could see it for this, but I also see a lot of problems - for one, there are many cheaper solutions even if we get it 10X cheaper, down to $80/watt.
One alternate solution for the island, as an example, would be a off-shore nuclear plant - essentially a barge or submersible with a nuclear plant on it, with a power line stretched to shore.
The submersible part comes in handy, even if it's normally designed to be on the surface, in cases of weather and disasters like tsunamis and hurricanes. As sorts of weather doesn't affect things too much under even 10 meters of ocean.
If I started a company, and with the thinnest pretense claimed to be in legitimate business yet still robbed people, thus returning profits far in excess of what you could reasonably expect, you just look the other way and whistle, in total legal innocence.
I'd be subject to losing my investments in your company. Actually, stuff like this happens fairly frequently, it's just that the people making the 'investment' are dupes, and the person getting the money a scam artist.
Certainly sometimes a company's worker commits a crime, like running a red light while delivering a parcel. But sometimes the company places unreasonable demands on drivers that necessitate running red lights to meet goals, yet the executives want to disclaim responsibility.
That's why I brought up military style criminal liability. Under that system, if you're in charge(like an executive or CEO), you can be charged with the crimes of those under you.
Under that system, 'anticipatory ignorance' could be fatal.
After all, a share-holder is in a better place to examine Coke's practices for malfeasance than some assembly-line worker in Guatemala. Surely if a crime is committed and someone needs to pay, it'd make more sense to charge the shareholders than society in general?
Please note that I made mention of holding executives responsible. Normal stockholders shouldn't be expected to know that company XYZ is illegally dumping waste in Kentucky. Depending upon the circumstances, especially for a multinational company it might be unreasonable to assume that the executives knew.
Still, the company could be help fiscally responsible for the waste, even if it breaks them. Meanwhile, the company isn't charged with anything criminal, because a company can't commit a criminal offense - The employees who performed the dumping are charged, and if it's determined that the plant manager had a deliberate or outright negligent lack of knowledge(turned a blind eye), he's charged to. If it's bad enough, hit the appropriate executives or even the CEO.
The investors already have quite a bit to lose - their shares of the company.
Better yet, switch it out for non-magnetic media. People might complain about DVDs degrading - but most of the time they're talking about DVD-Rs. For stuff like this, not only would I demand a dozen or so duplicate DVDs, I'd also go after a glass master, along with numerous machines capable of reading it stored in secure fashion.
Then have an IT staff with a binder - each year they go through all the formats stuff is stored on and give it a rating - Modern(HDDVD, blueray), Current(DVD, CD), Outdated(VHS), and Legacy(Betamax).
When something shifts to outdated, it's time to start updating it to modern. Priority on anything that makes it into the Legacy category.
Roughly speaking, my standard is that Modern is the 'latest and greatest'. Current is 'accepted industry standard, commercially available'. Outdated still has new equipment being manufactured, but is clearly leaving the market. Legacy is where you can't walk into a store and order something, and anything you do get is likely used and possibly even rebuilt.
I think it wasn't so much to protect the executives so much as the investors.
Previously, if a company went belly up in a really bad way, the creditors could go after everybody who owned some of the company, even if they had nothing to do with the affairs of the company.
It'd be quite chilling to business investing if people had to worry that a Enron style failure would be able to reduce their entire portfolio to zero, even cost them their house, instead of just losing the previous value of those shares.
Some of this I blame on mutual funds and large investment firms - makes it hard to kick out bad executives.
Personally, I'd dial the 'rights' thing back a bit - corporations aren't allowed to own stock, and can't be convicted on criminal matters(though they'd still be liable in civil cases - feel free to sue the company into oblivion if it's bad enough).
The criminal matters would come down to employees and executives being put on trial for their company. For bad stuff I'd have it be like the military - sometimes an executive can be held responsible for the acts of his subordinate employees, even without any knowledge.
Please note:
There's no way to lock the door without the keys, at least not the way I habitually lock the door.
His actions: Take key out of ignition
Open door, put down keys, pick up groceries in the back seat.
Close doors.
Go to lock car using fob, realize keys are in back seat.
Keys not locked in the car.
And I just want to point out that if Congress has to subsidize receivers to force this change along, it's probably not a good idea in the first place. And let me also point out that F*@& Congress for spending tax money on paying for unnecessary digital upgrades.
It looks like you haven't been informed as to the way it is in the back end.
You see, there's actually very little bandwidth that's not in use today. The way the old analogue channels work, they end up using far more of the spectrum than what a digital channel of similar range and data rate needs. In addition, you need large gaps between stations on the same channel to avoid interference.
Thus, by switching to digital we can offer more stations, even HD ones, in less of the spectrum than the analogue stations take up now.
The FCC is going to auction off the freed up bands for billions. Remember the stuff about Google entering the auction for bandwidth in the 700mhz range? The cell phone companies wanting in on it?
They will then use some of the proceeds of the auction to offer the coupons to people who need a settop box. People like me, who have a perfectly good, if older, 32" TV that doesn't feel the need to go out and spend $500-700 on a new one.
Thus, I'm satisfied(I just switch to using a converter box), the companies that purchased the channels are happy(new opportunities for profit!), emergency services(our radios are cheaper, and we now have data/voice channels that can penetrate buildings!), HDTV owners who for whatever odd reason don't have cable or satellite, SDTV viewers(potential for more channels to watch), the economy as a whole as new radio ventures are a possibility.
Maybe find an friend who's a US citizen that doesn't need all of his coupons to buy a set box for you?
The subsidy, at least right now, isn't expected to be 100%, but with the way electronics are I expect to see ones that are free with coupon within six months.
And it's a few years yet before they shut off analogue. It's just that they aren't offering the coupons yet.
As for me, I went looking and couldn't find any converter boxes - I'd be tempted to buy one without the coupon just to see if I could get extra channels.
I was going off the site claiming 170 miles on a charge, planned on increasing to 300.
If it's 300, I'd have to charge about as often as I fill up now. 170 would have me doubling my filling.
In other words, it's just a number pulled out of the air to make your idea seem more palatable.
How long would it take you to walk over to the front or back of your car, open a panel, and plug a power cord in?
Thinking about the procedures, 30 seconds sounds good to me.
The longer times would be for if you have to do stuff like get an extension cord out of the trunk, or open a locked door, etc...
Now, this isn't exactly a EV battery but I wasn't trying to derive my entire driving energy from it. Earlier this year, my alternator died, but I made sure my battery had a full charge. I couldn't make it the 40 miles from my mom's house back home just firing the plugs, sensors and brake lights and that was before it got dark.
As you say, you don't have an EV battery, which would have orders of magnitude more power. Plus your spark plugs aren't exactly light on the power draw, and depending on your vehicle, there may have been some other factors.
When I was talking about the hour, I was also including driving time to the lot and back. Highly variable, but likely to be greater than 10 minutes. And it doesn't help if the lot doesn't have a van/truck when you need it.
I agree with 2, but I used a 'fully loaded' sedan price to match. It was quick, and a 'worst case' scenario.
The truck I'm looking into buying will be a monster - 4x4, Diesel, full bed, etc...
I'm looking at $30k for it, so it's still a lot less than that Expedition.
I just tend to pull this stuff out when people complain about seeing all the large vehicles around not being used for something a car can't do.
Thing is, a once a week need would give you 52 days of 'needing' the vehicle, which is well within the realm of making it economical, especially if you figure that it'll cost $100/day to rent a suitable vehicle.
That's $5.2k in rental fees versus $4.6k extra in fuel/payments.
Then figure in the hassle of filling out paperwork all the time to get the vehicle, hassle, etc... 1 hour per rental spent in 'prep', if you value your time at $20/hour, that's another $1040 'saved' by just buying the larger vehicle outright.
Meanwhile it's used as a commuter because it's cheaper than obtaining a dedicated one.
Just wished they were a tad cheaper.
What do you expect from something with essentially two complete power systems?
Complexity adds cost, and hybrids are some of the most complex vehicles on the market.
You must not drive much. I have to fill up at least weekly, and I have to ask: are you counting the time it takes to go to the gas station and pay the bill?
My normal station is only two blocks away from work, and that adds at least two minutes.
30 seconds is just an estimate; it could be half that with a good setup, and double or triple for a stupid one.
As for the downed mileage - it actually does lower your mileage; it's just not noticeable.
A normal radio, cell phone charger, etc... Will hardly be noticed by a EV battery.