This is the rub. Doing something innovative, like magsafe, takes time and is the exact sort of things that patents should protect. The nice thing about magsafe is that there is really no physical connection. It is not yank resistant, it is yank tolerant. Unlike barrel type adapters, there is not stress on the interface, stress that all too often means the device becomes damaged and a $1000 machine is ruined because of a $20 part.
The other thing is that magsafe cannot be only solution. We cannot be in a world where the only way to physically transfer power is a barrel plug and magsafe. The real problem is that there is just a great deal of incentive to keep charges non standard. Apple does this by coming up with a nifty and effective and useful interface. Everyone else just makes arbitrary changes.
And just because the question comes up, USB in not the answer. It is fragile connector except in the full size version.
A few years ago, in the time before ripping, firms could be assured to sell a product many times to the same customer. You lost an album, another sale. You upgraded from VHS to DVD, another sale. The big thing studios were fighting over was the customers right to own a perfect copy, with no generational copy penalty. Such a thing kills the long term profits of a venture. Bambi only get sold one, and is passed on from generation to generation.
This is why I have bought almost no videos online. The nature of the sale is that I do not own the product, but merely have a license to view it for an indeterminate period. Invariably at some time, when Amazon changes format, when Apple iTunes is no more, I will lose the ability to view the content. Better to buy a DVD and make a backup. Or, honestly, steam or rent.
As much as studios complain about streaming, through stunts like this they are pushing us all in that direction.
IIRC, when Schneier sold his company to BT one of the stipulations is that he run Crypto-Gram separate from the company. Up until then the newsletter was essentially published as part of company. BT did not any confusion that the opinions in Cryto-Gram were in any related to BT. So schneier.com was founded.
The other day he posted a story about how the existence of a security threat, even if is not exploited, creates mistrust. So given we know that the NSA and GCHQ are spying, we are naturally suspicious of BT, even if they are not part of the spying. Now if they are ejecting a person critical of the spying, we are even more suspicious, even if they are not doing anything wrong.
I buy my CFL from Ikea. They are cheap, nice and work well. I see the people who oppose as old dogmatics, you know the same ones who hide in their mansions sipping expensive port, listening to vinyl, telling all the kids to get off their lawn, and how whale blubber makes much softer and more acceptable lighting.
It is beyond Luddite. It is the idea that any change from an arbitrary standard is oppression. I have no problem dying, so why do I need seat belts in my car. I am perfectly happy pissing on my neighbors lawn, so why do I need indoor plumbing. I have been making huge sums of money keeping paper accounting records, so why are you going to let some computer take my job.
And really this is what all the argument is about. Who is going to be allowed to profit. Those that are pushing 50 years old technology, inefficient, but keeping the old guard rich, or those that push the boundaries, build the technological future of the country, and insure our economic future. Energy efficiency is a place where the US can lead. It will cause some legacy institutions to fail. The question is are we going to let the entire country fail just to keep a few rich people in Champagne.
In any case I don't see how this help limit patents. Google after all, IIRC, hold a patent for scanning personal data and targeting advertisement based on keywords. If there is an obvious patent, that would be it. The fact is that Google simply did not have the good sense, or maybe the creativity, to develop patents over time the way that many other companies have done over the past 100 years. It was mostly just in business to make money through the obscurity of it adsense software. Acknowledging it's mistakes, it overpaid for the Motorola portfolio.
These things are often oversimplified to teach the basics. For the purposes of a introductory chemistry class, the group 18 elements are not going to play a part in chemical reactions under everyday circumstances. This is simplified down to 8 valence electrons. When one talks about s^2p^6 for everything but He, all the eyes starts going into the forehead and all the other details become lost and questions such as 'is this going to be on the test' get most of the attention. What we are talking about here is not ordinary chemistry, but supernovas, which build most other elements out of the noble gas Helium.
I don't know whether it is good or bad, but it does seem that Blue Origin many not be aggressively targeted launch. RIght now the seen to one rudimentary launch facility in Texas near the Texas/New Mexico/Mexico border. Space X has facilities at Spaceport America in New Mexico a couple hundred miles north-northwest of the Blue Origin facility and KSC. As an aside, this makes me wonder if the New Mexico government experiment to compete with NASA might not be working so well. The New Mexico facility was supposed to be complete this year, but evidently is not.
In any case if Blue Origin want to supply recreational suborbital of LEO travel for the masses, the New Mexico facility might be the e way to go. Fly in Albuquerque, three hour drive to the spaceport. Not really that much more inconvenient than KSC, though there is not happy stay in Coco Beach, and two hours closer to Orlando. There would have to bus or plane service, and a nice hotel, for the New Mexico Facility. But really, I think it could work.
my understanding is that there used to be a pretty prevalent scam in which a firm would send something of value unsolicited and then bill the recipient. When the recipient did not pay, the firm would harrasss the recipient and do whatever nasty thing they could to get the money. If you were someone that sold stuff like that from Fingerhut, i.e. marking up just 10000%, one could get a pretty penny if even 10% of the recipients were extorted to pay.
To combat this, in the US there are laws, as cited below, that pretty much give huge right to the recipient of unsolicited merchandise. There are two exceptions. Merchandise that is sent for inspection is to be returned. For instance I used to get calls from firms that would offer to send me stuff for free and if I liked it they would then bill the company. The assumption was that the purchasing department in a moderately sized organization would pay for stuff management wanted without too much checking or hassle. The law still provides a level of protection as the merchandise can be returned and the time frame is not set in stone.
My feeling is that, at least in the US, the recipient should be protected. Look at it this way. I order a box of pens from office depot. Instead of pens, the send me a printer. It could be that someone in my office steals it. Am I then liable for the printer?
I tend to mute my computer during commercials, especially now that the commercials can run into 3 minutes.
I wonder if the advertisers realize that a commercial on streaming is not the same as a commercial on TV. That a three minute break on TV is ok. After all, if one is watching live TV one can wander around the house and still probably hear the TV, hear the commercial, and get back in time for the show, even if you have to do a live rewind. If you are watching recorded TV, most of the time you can fast forward which means that if a commercial is well made you are at least seeing the branding.
OTOH, since the ads on streaming has become more than a minute, I tend to mute and do something else, then back up the content if I miss something. I have heard TV executives screaming about how mad they are that they can only sell a fraction of advertising on streaming that they can on TV. But what is going to happen when advertisers realize that nobody is going to hand around for three minutes to watch the ads? Probably the same thing that happened to web sites when ad people realized that banner ads were being ignored.
Did Google not do it's homework? Is it not a competent company? Or is just trying to gain access to the easy customers, the low hanging fruit, and using the media to make it look like a victim.
I can tell you there are places where ATT is not. In Houston, for instance, there are many areas where ATT and Verizon do not offer service. Dense urban areas. Areas that if Google came in and set up wifi it would improve the quality of life greatly. But no, they cannot do this. They have to go to Austin which is overstaturated. It really makes no sense that they would choose Austin, much less fight for it. If Google Fiber is there to bring access to the people, then there is really no clear reason for them to be in Austin.
I think the problem can be traced to the assumption that one person is rational and another isn't. This is a belief that cannot be proved except by using other assumptions.
In the examples cited, for instance, one is a technological issue and the other a natural issue. We harass and improve technology to make everyone lives better, but we worship nature through study and celebration to make technology. No one is denying the 'accepted' models, just saying there is different ways to live life in the face of the accepted models. One problem with so-called skeptics is they spend too much time defending the accepted model and too little time studying nature to improve it.
At least 51% of the world believes in a deity. That is a majority. Thankfully no rational person based on beliefs on a majority or odds. Beliefs are personal. What is reality is based on evidence and confirming experience. Rational people, scientists, are characterized by the ability to look at new information and change the accepted reality when needed, even if it is silly, like the quantization of changing mass.
Reality and knowledge and science is not limited to what one learns in school or what one was taught to believe. Most of us were taught, for instance, that Neanderthals went completely extinct, but we know have significant evident that many of us carry their genetic heritage. There is even evidence of a 'third race' of humans. Many may have learned Schrodinger equations in school, but do not know that they are subtly wrong. Reality is complex, and assuming we know, or that god plays dice with odds, it an emotional and irrational response.
I certainly am more comfortable being a god fearing agnostics. The problem with religion and those are are religious with non-religion is that spend too might time standing in the rain saying how religious they are. Even Jesus says you should go into your closet to pray if you don't want to be a hypocrite. And yes, the people of Reason Magazine tend to be as fixed in their manners and any religious zealot.
I would say, however, if ones beliefs are based on proof or disproof, then one is a pretty scary person. The one thing that I have come to learn is that my beliefs are exactly that, mine, and are not respective of anything that might be proved or disproved. This does not mean that science is beyond me. I am perfectly aware that when I flip a light switch I complete a circuit that heat up a filament(or excites a gas) that causes photons to be emitted. I do not believe that when I flip a switch that I am performing some ritual that causes the almighty to create light.
And even though I have worked through kepler's law, have worked out the deviations in the orbits classical and modern theories, I still believe that if no one dance the sun would not come back after winter. And I believe this not because no one can keep everyone from dancing at the solstice, but because it is pretty to think so. It matters not that reality does not fit the believe, or if no one else believes it. I am not going to go around supporting my ego by trying to convince everyone else it is true. I am not going to go out, like so many Christians, and kill those who do not believe, or kill children who might be effected by beliefs of others. I was raised to be content with my beliefs, and let other be content with thiers
So I will be grateful that there is such a wonderful place for us to live, and dance to express my thanks. I will pray in private and endeavor to treat people better than I expect to be treated, and sometimes just give people money because I can afford to, without any thought of how they will spend it. I will try not be attached to my stuff, as that absolutely leads to misery. I will remember that the world is somewhat effected by our actions, so if we want a world that is more to our liking, then we better in a way that could bring about such a world. Not expect others to live in a way that I would wish, because I can only be responsible for my actions, not others.
And if the people at reason magazine or the catholic church or the whereever are so insecure that need to demonize me, then so be it. I cannot be responsible for them.
You know vibrators were invented, the official story goes, because women would get hysterical and one way doctors would treat it would be to manually stimulate the woman to orgasm. Presumably men in the habit of paying amateurs to do so. The vibrator was then a labor saving device.
From this one would assume that if women are overeating because of stress, the some sort of stress sensing panties are in order. Stimulation can automatically be applied and relieve the stress.
I would say that coding, at the high level, it much less tedious than it once was. A lot can be done by drag and drop. Even the most tedious platform coding, for the Mac, has been greatly simplified. Of course much of this 'simple' coding does not pay very much.
From a pedagogical point of view, the idea is to teach techniques and process without overwhelming the immature mine with the details. It many cases this leads to meaningless games and trivial activities that don't really teach much. University of Colorado, who has done lots of great work in promoting this stuff, also has also done some stuff that is just games and requires a great deal of elaboration to make it effective.
One project that has been around for a while that is high quality is Alice. The project, like so many others, suffer from the 'magic bullet' phenomenon. To often people expect a curriculum to magically cause a student to learn content without a qualified teacher. This predates computers. It is why we such problems in so many elementary schools that leads to failure in high grades.
Coding is a process skill, a logical skill, and a discipline. It is not just knowing keywords, or which things to drag, or how to use an IDE. For a teacher who only has a passing relationship with coding, this is what it taught. For others the nuts and bolts, at an appropriate level, is the focus.
While Reductio ad absurdum is a valid argument, it can easily fall to the strawman fallacy. This arguement, for example, can be used when one kills a person because he is a black person. You can rebut the murder was not racially motivated because you don't car if people are green or orange, and you have black friends. One has nothing to do with the other.
Further many of the example you give are not covered under standard insurance. Smokers can be denied coverage. Skydiving accidents are not covered. Mandatory riders are required. And comparing mobsters, well that is just silly. Is there insurance for murder?
Make these people buy mandatory insurance with a special rider in case they get sick. The public should not have to cover a penny of their medical bills.
Hopefully these people are not allowed in public or private schools or daycare. We care enough about our dogs and cats to not let them in kennels and grooming situations unless they have vaccinations. Why should we care about kids any less. I mean if someone want to start a vac-free school where everyone is not vaccinated, that is their right, but we shouldn't put innocent kids at risk.
In principle I agree, though I have never seen extension cords snaking though parking lots.
However, the value of the theft is an issue. Unless the school is having problems with people stealing electricity, and has a policy of arresting everyone that is doing it, such an act should really just encompass a summons to court where some fine will be levied. I suspect that the school does not have such a problem and is not arresting everyone, as the arrest occurred days later at the guys house, not at the school. It does not take more than 5 minutes to check with the staff to see if the guy had permission.
So what we have here are police who have wasted huge amounts of money and resources to harass a guy who really not justify the public expense. It is like the case where the police arrested two men who were chaperoning a girl to a dance class, had notarized authorization from her parents, but still wanted to waste booking time and the expense of keeping the girl in protective services even when the parents said they had authorized the trip. Sure, both cases may be extreme caution, but how much extreme caution can we afford?
My understanding is that much of this is based on compulsory licensing. This means that if you record music, and sell music, then it fair game for broadcast. This has been the model for a long time. And it has worked. One wonders if the Beatles or Elvis would be successful if the radio did not pay to advertise their music. Yet much of the current issue we have from streaming is because many labels and artist think they left a lot of money on the table when the licensing for radio was established. Many labels and artist seem to believe that radio is stealing money from them, although one wonders how a hit can be generated more cheaply than through airplay. Airplay that depends on broadband owned by the public, BTW.
Here is why internet radio is not stealing money from artist. Because it pays more. My understanding is that it pays directly to artists, not through middlemen who manipulate the numbers to pay royalties to artists based on fictional 'credits'. So if an artist is to get $100 from spotify, that is $100 that they would have never gotten through radio, and part of the money is not being diverted to more 'popular' artists or just not paid at all because you do not meet the quarterly threshold.
I also think that the labels might be making a long term mistake by believing they need to maximize upfront profits in streaming instead of looking at the promotional possibilities. As an example I look at Eminem. He got really pissed off at Napster when his music was on the site back in 2000. However, his music was not playing on the major young peoples stations in 2000. He was playing on some stations I listened to, in particular a hybrid english/spanish/hip hop(ther is fair amount of really good spanish hip top) station, but was not at all what the 'in crowd' listened to. Suburban parents were not comfortable with rap. But kids were hearing the music, and I wonder where from. Could it be they were downloading it to the computers? From Napster. I recall when he broke through to mainstream stations. For instance I was in the gym and the DJ(they still existed back then) was pleading with listeners to stop calling requested 'Stan' as they were going to get it on the air as fast as they could. As I said, most stations were not playing it, it was listener demand.
This has all been rehashed millions of times. That the artists are being robbed by streaming. I don't know. In the US minimum wage is less than $8 and hour, so if you spend 40 hours on a song, and get $300 in royalties, I am not sure who you are behind. If I spend 40 hours coding, and someone uses it once, am I entitled to $300? The reality is that recording music, like coding or anything else, is a speculative enterprise. Unless you create some work for hire, where someone else is going to take the risk and gain the majority of the reward, there is no entitlement to pay.
Frankly, if all the big talent that wouldn't work for less than a million dollars a year, I am sure that we would be back to days where most work was done 'for hire' and the artists were paid the absolute minimum possible.
Typically speaking, communication between the hemispheres is one indication of genius. It means that one can integrate more knowledge. Part of this is based on the myth that the 'right' and 'left' hemisphere have different tasks, like one side is creative and the other analytical. But nevertheless there is an idea that 'Einsteins', had well linked hemispheres.
In any case, there is controversy whether anything other than the total number of neurons matter. What is pretty clear is that we develop an oversupply of neurons, the get interconnected as we gather experiences, and then as we reach adulthood they begin to get pruned as the remain unused. The interconnects may or may not be important beyond the antiquated and quaint idea that the hemispheres perform different functions. Experimentally a person with half a brain can perform all functions as a person with a whole brain.
For me this is the question. I have unlimited 4G, so the store wifi does not always provide value. I will sometimes bring my tablet, which has limited 3G, so the store Wifi is valuable there. But if I am using my tablet I am not really shopping, just waiting around for others. Not a problem as the store still gets my money, but they get no real data on my movements or whatever.
But I think the point about why we need wifi when we have 4G is important in that it provides a base for the expected service. The store has to provide better performance than what we get, and it can't just be that the store has crippled the 4G service. What I have noticed is that stores often have inferior service, often because of throttling of certain content. Now, obvously some filtering is necessary as they don't want people to come to store just to make use of the free wifi to pleasure themselves in the bath room, or wherever.
OTOH, I have seen places that block software updates and youtube videos and the like. Really, if a store is trying to provide a service where a child can be entertained while the parent shop, this is excessive. Or when I am waiting for someone. I may need to update something, or want to download a new app. Why not?
This can be an issue. Back in the day we all set user agents to report as IE on MS Windows to trick websites into working. I don't know if something was baked into ISS that made it bork on non-MS web browsers, but it did create a situation where the number on user browsing on IE was inflated. Usually worked fine one the server was tricked. Now, of course, sites like/. have truly awful mobile versions and there is little way to get out of it.
A big part of the problem is that young people still think very concretely and still do not always get cause and effect. A big problem is that people focus on the language rather than the basics of programming.
I learned to code simple things in basic, use a compiler, and run a program around age 11. But I did not learn programming until two years later using FORTRAN. But we did not get to FORTRAN immediately. We talked about how to break down a problem, how to write steps in simple statements, how to translate those steps in code. One of the first things we actually wrote ourselves was the swap function. No one told us how. We just did it, and learned about variables through code that did not produce the desired results. At that point we got to abstract thinking.
Here is the nice thing about the computer. It will do exactly what you tell it. This means that errors in one's thinking and logic are concretely reproduced in errors in output. If one focuses on that then when a child becomes a teen, any language can be introduced, be it C, Forth, Python, FORTRAN, Ruby, Basic, Shakespeare and all will be well.
This is why robotics is so nice for K-8 programming. First, the child has to create a procedure and code the procedure into the robot. If the procedure is not correct, the robot will not do what it is supposed to do. Immediate concrete feedback for a concrete problem. As the child gets older, more number sense can be added, and ultimately variables in terms of sensors, and logic based on those sensors. All concrete. The problem with robotics after grade 6 or so it becomes overwhelmed with the physics and engineering. It no longer is primarily a tool for teaching kids how to program.
By time a child is 10-12, some can handle more abstract problems in the same way that some kids can deal with algebra prior to high school. This isn't necessarily something one can tell with test scores or based on how hard the student is willing to work. It is simply mental maturity. At this point formal languages can and should be introduced. The problems should become more abstract. I recall one of the things I things I did on an Apple II back in high school was use shape tables to display a 3D looking cosine function.
In terms of what language to use, I have become fond of Python because it is powerful but does not have all the complexities of other languages. I have used it with high school kids to work up an online game. But initially the programming language should not the primary issue. A person who is a software developer, who can think abstractly, should be able to handle any language. Mandating a language is like mandating an Office application. You are limiting the flexibility of students to learn.
Ideally, if these dating sites are going to work, it is not just going to be simple physical attraction, it is going to be interests.
For instance if you are looking at a supermodel type, you are looking at someone who interests run in keeping a body that meets other expectations, adorning that body, and maybe augmenting it to make it more acceptable. Obviously this is time consuming if that is not your interest, then where is the commonality. I can also tell you from experience that such people really crave the approval of others, so if you walk into a room and your own body does not create that approval, it adds stress to the relationship.
This is true for other things as well. If someone like recreational drugs, legal or illegal it does not matter, and you do not, then what are two going to do? If one person is into extreme sports and the other isn't, can that work? Maybe
I think there is a bit of an honesty gap because what most people want is sex. So we try to construct a set of interests and finagle our bodies so that we can maximize the possibility that someone will be interested enough to have sex with us. But this is even a problem. There are variations in the expectations of sex, yet most people with just check the box for yes, without any elaboration. One of my friends, and I have also read this recently in an article where it stated research says that women do not tend to climax during casual sex, that she seldom had sex with a guy for the act of sex. There was generally something else. For guys this is true as well, they want to be seen in a relationship with the right kind of person. So we are trying to make ourselves out to attract the kind of person who will make others think better of us, like the supermodel. Or the person who is afraid of looking dumb.
It is unclear whether it was the banks of governments fault for the great depression. Certainly the banks were not responsible enough to keep enough liquid cash, but government policies did have something to do with the problems. Likewise the housing bubble was caused by banks loaning money to people who were intent on flipping properties, both banks and borrowers assuming that property values would go up rapidly for the long term. Government may have had something to do with it, like asking banks to work harder to get less qualified borrowers into home, but a big issue in the worst markets were loaning money to flippers with no verifiable income and approving mortgages to non-US speculators.
As far as private currency, there is a lot of it. Stocks, real estate, gold, anything that can be battered is private currency. Also, not all governmental currency is created equal. Both private currency, and most governmental currency, is bench marked based on the perceived value relative to a few major currencies, like the USD, the GNP, the Euro, the Swiss Franc.
Neither is bitcoin innovative. Gold, for instance, was something that could be had with limited resources by the average person and then sold for much more that the cost of extraction. There was a time when wealthy people could have a significant amount of anonymity by having offshore bank accounts. The problem with bitcoin is the same as most non standard currencies. For most transactions they have to be converted first into a standard currency. For example, I can spend USD almost anywhere, and have, but if I have pesos I have to convert them.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter. The standard currencies have long term value because they secured in various way by large institutional backers. For instance, the US Government changes the currency to make it harder to counterfeit. That said the long term
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The other thing is that magsafe cannot be only solution. We cannot be in a world where the only way to physically transfer power is a barrel plug and magsafe. The real problem is that there is just a great deal of incentive to keep charges non standard. Apple does this by coming up with a nifty and effective and useful interface. Everyone else just makes arbitrary changes.
And just because the question comes up, USB in not the answer. It is fragile connector except in the full size version.
This is why I have bought almost no videos online. The nature of the sale is that I do not own the product, but merely have a license to view it for an indeterminate period. Invariably at some time, when Amazon changes format, when Apple iTunes is no more, I will lose the ability to view the content. Better to buy a DVD and make a backup. Or, honestly, steam or rent.
As much as studios complain about streaming, through stunts like this they are pushing us all in that direction.
The other day he posted a story about how the existence of a security threat, even if is not exploited, creates mistrust. So given we know that the NSA and GCHQ are spying, we are naturally suspicious of BT, even if they are not part of the spying. Now if they are ejecting a person critical of the spying, we are even more suspicious, even if they are not doing anything wrong.
It is beyond Luddite. It is the idea that any change from an arbitrary standard is oppression. I have no problem dying, so why do I need seat belts in my car. I am perfectly happy pissing on my neighbors lawn, so why do I need indoor plumbing. I have been making huge sums of money keeping paper accounting records, so why are you going to let some computer take my job.
And really this is what all the argument is about. Who is going to be allowed to profit. Those that are pushing 50 years old technology, inefficient, but keeping the old guard rich, or those that push the boundaries, build the technological future of the country, and insure our economic future. Energy efficiency is a place where the US can lead. It will cause some legacy institutions to fail. The question is are we going to let the entire country fail just to keep a few rich people in Champagne.
In any case I don't see how this help limit patents. Google after all, IIRC, hold a patent for scanning personal data and targeting advertisement based on keywords. If there is an obvious patent, that would be it. The fact is that Google simply did not have the good sense, or maybe the creativity, to develop patents over time the way that many other companies have done over the past 100 years. It was mostly just in business to make money through the obscurity of it adsense software. Acknowledging it's mistakes, it overpaid for the Motorola portfolio.
These things are often oversimplified to teach the basics. For the purposes of a introductory chemistry class, the group 18 elements are not going to play a part in chemical reactions under everyday circumstances. This is simplified down to 8 valence electrons. When one talks about s^2p^6 for everything but He, all the eyes starts going into the forehead and all the other details become lost and questions such as 'is this going to be on the test' get most of the attention. What we are talking about here is not ordinary chemistry, but supernovas, which build most other elements out of the noble gas Helium.
In any case if Blue Origin want to supply recreational suborbital of LEO travel for the masses, the New Mexico facility might be the e way to go. Fly in Albuquerque, three hour drive to the spaceport. Not really that much more inconvenient than KSC, though there is not happy stay in Coco Beach, and two hours closer to Orlando. There would have to bus or plane service, and a nice hotel, for the New Mexico Facility. But really, I think it could work.
To combat this, in the US there are laws, as cited below, that pretty much give huge right to the recipient of unsolicited merchandise. There are two exceptions. Merchandise that is sent for inspection is to be returned. For instance I used to get calls from firms that would offer to send me stuff for free and if I liked it they would then bill the company. The assumption was that the purchasing department in a moderately sized organization would pay for stuff management wanted without too much checking or hassle. The law still provides a level of protection as the merchandise can be returned and the time frame is not set in stone.
My feeling is that, at least in the US, the recipient should be protected. Look at it this way. I order a box of pens from office depot. Instead of pens, the send me a printer. It could be that someone in my office steals it. Am I then liable for the printer?
I wonder if the advertisers realize that a commercial on streaming is not the same as a commercial on TV. That a three minute break on TV is ok. After all, if one is watching live TV one can wander around the house and still probably hear the TV, hear the commercial, and get back in time for the show, even if you have to do a live rewind. If you are watching recorded TV, most of the time you can fast forward which means that if a commercial is well made you are at least seeing the branding.
OTOH, since the ads on streaming has become more than a minute, I tend to mute and do something else, then back up the content if I miss something. I have heard TV executives screaming about how mad they are that they can only sell a fraction of advertising on streaming that they can on TV. But what is going to happen when advertisers realize that nobody is going to hand around for three minutes to watch the ads? Probably the same thing that happened to web sites when ad people realized that banner ads were being ignored.
I can tell you there are places where ATT is not. In Houston, for instance, there are many areas where ATT and Verizon do not offer service. Dense urban areas. Areas that if Google came in and set up wifi it would improve the quality of life greatly. But no, they cannot do this. They have to go to Austin which is overstaturated. It really makes no sense that they would choose Austin, much less fight for it. If Google Fiber is there to bring access to the people, then there is really no clear reason for them to be in Austin.
Reality and knowledge and science is not limited to what one learns in school or what one was taught to believe. Most of us were taught, for instance, that Neanderthals went completely extinct, but we know have significant evident that many of us carry their genetic heritage. There is even evidence of a 'third race' of humans. Many may have learned Schrodinger equations in school, but do not know that they are subtly wrong. Reality is complex, and assuming we know, or that god plays dice with odds, it an emotional and irrational response.
I would say, however, if ones beliefs are based on proof or disproof, then one is a pretty scary person. The one thing that I have come to learn is that my beliefs are exactly that, mine, and are not respective of anything that might be proved or disproved. This does not mean that science is beyond me. I am perfectly aware that when I flip a light switch I complete a circuit that heat up a filament(or excites a gas) that causes photons to be emitted. I do not believe that when I flip a switch that I am performing some ritual that causes the almighty to create light.
And even though I have worked through kepler's law, have worked out the deviations in the orbits classical and modern theories, I still believe that if no one dance the sun would not come back after winter. And I believe this not because no one can keep everyone from dancing at the solstice, but because it is pretty to think so. It matters not that reality does not fit the believe, or if no one else believes it. I am not going to go around supporting my ego by trying to convince everyone else it is true. I am not going to go out, like so many Christians, and kill those who do not believe, or kill children who might be effected by beliefs of others. I was raised to be content with my beliefs, and let other be content with thiers
So I will be grateful that there is such a wonderful place for us to live, and dance to express my thanks. I will pray in private and endeavor to treat people better than I expect to be treated, and sometimes just give people money because I can afford to, without any thought of how they will spend it. I will try not be attached to my stuff, as that absolutely leads to misery. I will remember that the world is somewhat effected by our actions, so if we want a world that is more to our liking, then we better in a way that could bring about such a world. Not expect others to live in a way that I would wish, because I can only be responsible for my actions, not others.
And if the people at reason magazine or the catholic church or the whereever are so insecure that need to demonize me, then so be it. I cannot be responsible for them.
From this one would assume that if women are overeating because of stress, the some sort of stress sensing panties are in order. Stimulation can automatically be applied and relieve the stress.
From a pedagogical point of view, the idea is to teach techniques and process without overwhelming the immature mine with the details. It many cases this leads to meaningless games and trivial activities that don't really teach much. University of Colorado, who has done lots of great work in promoting this stuff, also has also done some stuff that is just games and requires a great deal of elaboration to make it effective.
One project that has been around for a while that is high quality is Alice. The project, like so many others, suffer from the 'magic bullet' phenomenon. To often people expect a curriculum to magically cause a student to learn content without a qualified teacher. This predates computers. It is why we such problems in so many elementary schools that leads to failure in high grades.
Coding is a process skill, a logical skill, and a discipline. It is not just knowing keywords, or which things to drag, or how to use an IDE. For a teacher who only has a passing relationship with coding, this is what it taught. For others the nuts and bolts, at an appropriate level, is the focus.
Further many of the example you give are not covered under standard insurance. Smokers can be denied coverage. Skydiving accidents are not covered. Mandatory riders are required. And comparing mobsters, well that is just silly. Is there insurance for murder?
Hopefully these people are not allowed in public or private schools or daycare. We care enough about our dogs and cats to not let them in kennels and grooming situations unless they have vaccinations. Why should we care about kids any less. I mean if someone want to start a vac-free school where everyone is not vaccinated, that is their right, but we shouldn't put innocent kids at risk.
However, the value of the theft is an issue. Unless the school is having problems with people stealing electricity, and has a policy of arresting everyone that is doing it, such an act should really just encompass a summons to court where some fine will be levied. I suspect that the school does not have such a problem and is not arresting everyone, as the arrest occurred days later at the guys house, not at the school. It does not take more than 5 minutes to check with the staff to see if the guy had permission.
So what we have here are police who have wasted huge amounts of money and resources to harass a guy who really not justify the public expense. It is like the case where the police arrested two men who were chaperoning a girl to a dance class, had notarized authorization from her parents, but still wanted to waste booking time and the expense of keeping the girl in protective services even when the parents said they had authorized the trip. Sure, both cases may be extreme caution, but how much extreme caution can we afford?
Here is why internet radio is not stealing money from artist. Because it pays more. My understanding is that it pays directly to artists, not through middlemen who manipulate the numbers to pay royalties to artists based on fictional 'credits'. So if an artist is to get $100 from spotify, that is $100 that they would have never gotten through radio, and part of the money is not being diverted to more 'popular' artists or just not paid at all because you do not meet the quarterly threshold.
I also think that the labels might be making a long term mistake by believing they need to maximize upfront profits in streaming instead of looking at the promotional possibilities. As an example I look at Eminem. He got really pissed off at Napster when his music was on the site back in 2000. However, his music was not playing on the major young peoples stations in 2000. He was playing on some stations I listened to, in particular a hybrid english/spanish/hip hop(ther is fair amount of really good spanish hip top) station, but was not at all what the 'in crowd' listened to. Suburban parents were not comfortable with rap. But kids were hearing the music, and I wonder where from. Could it be they were downloading it to the computers? From Napster. I recall when he broke through to mainstream stations. For instance I was in the gym and the DJ(they still existed back then) was pleading with listeners to stop calling requested 'Stan' as they were going to get it on the air as fast as they could. As I said, most stations were not playing it, it was listener demand.
This has all been rehashed millions of times. That the artists are being robbed by streaming. I don't know. In the US minimum wage is less than $8 and hour, so if you spend 40 hours on a song, and get $300 in royalties, I am not sure who you are behind. If I spend 40 hours coding, and someone uses it once, am I entitled to $300? The reality is that recording music, like coding or anything else, is a speculative enterprise. Unless you create some work for hire, where someone else is going to take the risk and gain the majority of the reward, there is no entitlement to pay.
Frankly, if all the big talent that wouldn't work for less than a million dollars a year, I am sure that we would be back to days where most work was done 'for hire' and the artists were paid the absolute minimum possible.
In any case, there is controversy whether anything other than the total number of neurons matter. What is pretty clear is that we develop an oversupply of neurons, the get interconnected as we gather experiences, and then as we reach adulthood they begin to get pruned as the remain unused. The interconnects may or may not be important beyond the antiquated and quaint idea that the hemispheres perform different functions. Experimentally a person with half a brain can perform all functions as a person with a whole brain.
But I think the point about why we need wifi when we have 4G is important in that it provides a base for the expected service. The store has to provide better performance than what we get, and it can't just be that the store has crippled the 4G service. What I have noticed is that stores often have inferior service, often because of throttling of certain content. Now, obvously some filtering is necessary as they don't want people to come to store just to make use of the free wifi to pleasure themselves in the bath room, or wherever.
OTOH, I have seen places that block software updates and youtube videos and the like. Really, if a store is trying to provide a service where a child can be entertained while the parent shop, this is excessive. Or when I am waiting for someone. I may need to update something, or want to download a new app. Why not?
This can be an issue. Back in the day we all set user agents to report as IE on MS Windows to trick websites into working. I don't know if something was baked into ISS that made it bork on non-MS web browsers, but it did create a situation where the number on user browsing on IE was inflated. Usually worked fine one the server was tricked. Now, of course, sites like /. have truly awful mobile versions and there is little way to get out of it.
I learned to code simple things in basic, use a compiler, and run a program around age 11. But I did not learn programming until two years later using FORTRAN. But we did not get to FORTRAN immediately. We talked about how to break down a problem, how to write steps in simple statements, how to translate those steps in code. One of the first things we actually wrote ourselves was the swap function. No one told us how. We just did it, and learned about variables through code that did not produce the desired results. At that point we got to abstract thinking.
Here is the nice thing about the computer. It will do exactly what you tell it. This means that errors in one's thinking and logic are concretely reproduced in errors in output. If one focuses on that then when a child becomes a teen, any language can be introduced, be it C, Forth, Python, FORTRAN, Ruby, Basic, Shakespeare and all will be well.
This is why robotics is so nice for K-8 programming. First, the child has to create a procedure and code the procedure into the robot. If the procedure is not correct, the robot will not do what it is supposed to do. Immediate concrete feedback for a concrete problem. As the child gets older, more number sense can be added, and ultimately variables in terms of sensors, and logic based on those sensors. All concrete. The problem with robotics after grade 6 or so it becomes overwhelmed with the physics and engineering. It no longer is primarily a tool for teaching kids how to program.
By time a child is 10-12, some can handle more abstract problems in the same way that some kids can deal with algebra prior to high school. This isn't necessarily something one can tell with test scores or based on how hard the student is willing to work. It is simply mental maturity. At this point formal languages can and should be introduced. The problems should become more abstract. I recall one of the things I things I did on an Apple II back in high school was use shape tables to display a 3D looking cosine function.
In terms of what language to use, I have become fond of Python because it is powerful but does not have all the complexities of other languages. I have used it with high school kids to work up an online game. But initially the programming language should not the primary issue. A person who is a software developer, who can think abstractly, should be able to handle any language. Mandating a language is like mandating an Office application. You are limiting the flexibility of students to learn.
For instance if you are looking at a supermodel type, you are looking at someone who interests run in keeping a body that meets other expectations, adorning that body, and maybe augmenting it to make it more acceptable. Obviously this is time consuming if that is not your interest, then where is the commonality. I can also tell you from experience that such people really crave the approval of others, so if you walk into a room and your own body does not create that approval, it adds stress to the relationship.
This is true for other things as well. If someone like recreational drugs, legal or illegal it does not matter, and you do not, then what are two going to do? If one person is into extreme sports and the other isn't, can that work? Maybe
I think there is a bit of an honesty gap because what most people want is sex. So we try to construct a set of interests and finagle our bodies so that we can maximize the possibility that someone will be interested enough to have sex with us. But this is even a problem. There are variations in the expectations of sex, yet most people with just check the box for yes, without any elaboration. One of my friends, and I have also read this recently in an article where it stated research says that women do not tend to climax during casual sex, that she seldom had sex with a guy for the act of sex. There was generally something else. For guys this is true as well, they want to be seen in a relationship with the right kind of person. So we are trying to make ourselves out to attract the kind of person who will make others think better of us, like the supermodel. Or the person who is afraid of looking dumb.
As far as private currency, there is a lot of it. Stocks, real estate, gold, anything that can be battered is private currency. Also, not all governmental currency is created equal. Both private currency, and most governmental currency, is bench marked based on the perceived value relative to a few major currencies, like the USD, the GNP, the Euro, the Swiss Franc.
Neither is bitcoin innovative. Gold, for instance, was something that could be had with limited resources by the average person and then sold for much more that the cost of extraction. There was a time when wealthy people could have a significant amount of anonymity by having offshore bank accounts. The problem with bitcoin is the same as most non standard currencies. For most transactions they have to be converted first into a standard currency. For example, I can spend USD almost anywhere, and have, but if I have pesos I have to convert them.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter. The standard currencies have long term value because they secured in various way by large institutional backers. For instance, the US Government changes the currency to make it harder to counterfeit. That said the long term
If you smoke, buying cigs by the carton makes economic sense as well.