It is not that we have programs, but that we spend on one thing instead of another. And it does not matter if the money is a tiny percentage of the budget, andy money spent on frivolous things is wasted. As Romney said in the debate, we cannot fund programs, even popular programs, if the money has to borrowed from china.
The theory of spending for much of the past decade has been that giving money away is wrong, and providing jobs through the TSA or military is better. The TSA is fine, it can employ people for a lifetime, but the military has proven to be very expensive. The taxpayers have pay for rehabilitation and medical care when a soldier comes back wounded physically or mentally. Often youngster who leave the army do not use their money to go to trade school or college, so they are not employable and the taxpayer has to pay for incentives for someone to hire them. We may pay for them to go to school, and maybe they don't finish, so that is money down the drain.
So the question is is the military jobs program or direct assistance program better use of taxpayer money. Certainly by Romney's definition if we have to borrow money, then we have to cut one the other or both. An arguement can be made for direct assistance, as those are often short term.
And with the printers make sure to secure anything that was secure. In my last big move the only thing I lost was a high end inkjet printer. Three miles unsecured in the car and it never worked again.
I would make an image of the harddisk and hand carry, and then back up data on some offsite device.
Yeah, the free market sucks. If you want a product, you have to pay enough to have it. Not everything can be shipped off to another country with more reasonable costs.
Oh, but there is. There are countries, such as Nigeria, with crude basically as good as the US, and we could work with the nigerian government to pay more and make the situation better, but instead we have this US first philosophy, in which we ship expensive canadian oil across the US and risk the US environment for fake crude that costs more.
Or perhaps we can outsource more refining, and hold strategic reserves of refined product that can be used in cases where
US refiners are unable to do the job they are paid to do, or simply are not able to utilize efficiencies that allowed other industries to run at prices consumers are willing to pay.
one one hand the oil industry wants us to believe it is all roses and they would never gouge us on prices and we just have to pay what they want, OTOH, when we talk alternatives to petroleum they bring out the big guns and makes sure it does not happen. Like the lie that most alternative energy companies have failed, or at least they have failed at a high rate than emerging companies.
The counterargument is Houston, Rx. No zoning. A neighborhood can have anything. Manufacturing, commercial warehouse, huge 10 story tall apartments, single family homes, 10,000 square foot mansions covering two lots. Some places have deed restrictions to keep it single family residential, but those are usually a square mile or two with a couple hundred houses. There are also towns within the inner city, but those again, do not make a significant area.
Furthermore, the roads for the most part are built within the city, and there is always money being spent on improving the roads, much more than widening highways, which can only easily happen outside the city center.
So lets look at development in this unzoned mass. Over 100 square miles. Significant areas, believe or not are undeveloped. A number of areas are overdeveloped. Gentrification is everywhere and elementary schools are turned around almost overnight when this happens. Almost everyone is within walking distance of at least a small park.
Second layer of houston. Maybe 60 years old. Another almost 200 square mile of living space. Much of it undeveloped. Many of the houses are under foreclosure. Unlike the city is is likely the house is very much worse less than the mortgage. Freeways lead out of the city specifically to serve the needs of the real estate developers that prize unzoned land. The real estate developers then build in deed restrictions and promote the planned communities that are pretty unavailable near town.
Third layer several years from being complete. It is unclear how much area this will add, and it will cover many existing cities and towns. On new recent highway build from the edge of the inner city out to the edge of the out layer. At the begining of this new high huge amounts of land ready for development, unrestricted, but no one wants to be there. Much better to build 10 miles out. But wait, there are already old places there, so lets go out another 5 miles. And we don't want mass transportation because that will bring out the people we are trying to avoid. So busses in the morning and evening to get people to and fro from work. Trains in the inner city to get people around the central business district. But otherwise huge subsidies from the inner city tax payer. And don't talk to me about gas taxes. I don't see how anyone could say paying 20 cents more a gallon is bad if it meant that the people who used the roads would actually be paying for them, instead of having other pay their way for them.
Advertisers who want to build a relationship with these people
Lots of very profitable businesses are built through advertising to the "boring" demographic that is actually employed and has disposable income that they're willing to spend on Hondas, and refrigerators, and Ikea furniture for their houses
A number in the kids in 13-20 year age range is going to buy a car or thinking of buying a car. Building up appeal in this age range can effect what they buy and can effect resale value, which will effect what older people buy. Honda can advertise all they want, but if the car can't be sold to teens because of the "mom-mobile" image they will not be sold to the boring people either. Honda was quite lucky for a while because they were easy to trick out.
I also note that Sears, the go to for appliances through my life, is now on the verge of going out of business largely because the focused on boring demographics and not building relationships with younger people. OTOH, Walmart and Target are building relationships.
There are many ways to reach the boring people, which is why they are boring. The sit and watch football games and soap operas and spend money on little other than their kids. But there is a short time when they will buying a lot of stuff, for their new apartment, during their mating, when they get their first big promotion, and at that point it will too late.
I suppose all the beer commercials on the Football games are for the adults. Some are, but many are there because kids are watching football with their parents, many who are drinking beer, and the beer companies want to impress their brand of mule piss on the youngsters. This is the same reason that cigarettes has not been able to advertise on sports for a long time. These advertisements are directed at kids, who may not have money now, and maybe will not buy many beers and cigs now, but will be the primary profit stream in a few short years.
First there are many social network companies. Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Path. All of these have enjoyed some level of success. Implying Google+ has any significant number of active users is simply active fibbing. Google has users because people who use Google to search are often forced to join Google+. Google active users are on the order of 100 million, about 50% less than even twitter, or 1/10th that of facebook. So simply being big does not mean that one can push a successful social network product. The problem with Google is that is complicated.
Second, I have seen the progress of these networks. Facebook, in my experience, took over from myspace because kids in middle school began to create facebook accounts instead of myspace accounts. This meant by 2010 that firms that wanted to reach the 18-24 demographic had better have a presence on facebook. It is that simple. Kids that want to keep up with friends from high school or college are going to have a Facebook account. Advertisers who want to build a relationship with these people who do not necessarily watch as much TV as the older generation are going to go to facebook as an alternative option.
Oh, and in case it was not clear, most middle school kids have not funds, ability, nor do they care, about acquiring a domain name. They are just looking for cool stuff that is free and allows them to do stuff without parental permission. They are experimenting with a new freedom, but not yet secure enough to actually defy the parental unit. One is free to build a social network for adults, but it won't compete with facebook based on the decentralization.
So what are the problems with facebook? First, their demographic is aging, in other words moms are signing up to monitor their kids, socialize with their friends, and generally make facebook uncool. This not only makes kids less likely to sign up than they would be a few years ago, but also dilutes the demographic. There are cheaper ways to reach moms than facebook, and even dads.
Second is the lack of mobile platform. Kids are more likely to interact with the internet using a small screen, and facebook does not know how to leverage that. So the kids are not being monitored as they used to be. Decentralization will not solve this problem.
So any new platform is going to have give the 13-20 year old kid a better product. If someone did, in four years Facebook would as much toast as myspace. Decentralization is not going to do this.
One of the primary methods that entrenched interests use to prevent progress is to state emerging solutions are less efficient than existing solution. This is of something that will typically be true. There has been about 40 years where a primary concern of internal engine auto manufacturing has been to make the process more efficient to cut costs and deal with an impending energy problem. We recall that in the 70's, when this was going on, all the studies showed that such efforts were going to be a waste of time because such cars would be low quality, unsafe, and no one would be able to afford them because no one would have jobs.
The war against the efficient car was so great that when government regulation and subsidies made steel and gas cheap, and theSUV became affordable, many people were cheering the win in the battle against the efficient car, cheering that one again the people who were stupid enough to choose a smaller could be be killed at will by the more intelligent people in larger cars. No one was talking about the cost in treasure and live that allowed the oil to be cheap, or that cheap stell came at great environmental costs, as well as the death of the steel industry in the US, to the point where steel was no longer part of the DJIA.
And of course when gas prices are up, and the consumers cannot afford to run the car, they don't blame themselves for bad decisions or the free market, but rather government. Which they should because with proper research and incentives the electric car can be produced and powered in an environmentally sound manner. An electric car can be fueled every night, during the down time, when electric plants are producing energy that is not being used. This is such an issue that some companies are offering free energy at night to encourage a shift in use. The electric car can be simpler, which can be a significant factor. The electric can does not need a catalytic converter, so we can use those rare earth minerals, which are extracted at great environmental impact, elsewhere.
of course some will say this is handwaving, but really, isn't that hypocrisy as well? The oil interest say no change in needed because new technology will make oil extraction and processing cheaper and safer. Why do they get to handwave and the electric people don't?
We have gone from a coding culture to a general tech culture to a generic geek culture. How many on the site regularly write code or have been employed as software developers, i.e. not just script kiddies or people who put computer together from store bought parts? Slashcode is hardly ever mentioned.
There is no reason to say this is a good thing or a bad thing, just that everything changes. Most of us must all adapt to the world as presented. But talking more about those changes would be interesting. For instance, things that happened at slashdot king of set standards for elsewhere. The moderations system. The controversy about using user comments in a private book. The way Google/MS/Apple comments are handled and shills are allowed to freely exist.
DNS filtering goes on every day on the Internet
I agree completely. For instance China is highly skilled in this. Iran is building a whole independent internet. Perhaps the MPAA would be happier making these their primary hubs of operation, places that are skilled in the art, so to speak. I don't think many in the western world would shed a tear if they chose to so do.
First,this result is not new. It has been suspected for a while that the water injection sites might cause small earthquakes. This paper is just another that provides evidence. It is not just a matter of correlation, there are physical paths to causation. It is not that the HIV virus just happens to be every AIDS patient. There is causation.
As far as jobs, this is pretty selectively applied. Windmills will create many construction and long term maintenance jobs. Hydrogen fueling station will create many construction jobs. Niether requires us to pay for fuel at levels that support $70 per barrel, or condemn peoples property for a pipeline, or pollute. There are many ways to work. Some people, like hitmen, have no problems if the jobs are unethical. Others od.
Everyone wants to bring up the mouse and keyboard. How hard is that? Hard enough so that Apple fails often, but no one seems to to care. OTOH, the only thing MS does make is the mouse and keyboard.
The XBox has little to do with hardware. The Xbox has a failure rate in the vicinity of 20-50%. It does not matter because MS has the money to just replace the console because the console is not the thing. The Games are the thing, and MS was able to use it's developer mojo to get the games. The XBox is not a success because MS is a great hardware or software company, the XBox is successful because MS is able to get vasts amounts of money in developers hands.
The xbox was also successful, particularly the 360, because it was entering a virtual console vacuum. After the late 1990's there were almost no consoles available. The manufacturers were down to Sony and Nintendo, with a shout out to Sega. by the time that the 360 was out, Sega was gone, beaten by the playstation, and Sony wanted to use the Playstation to push Blu Ray format, which made it expensive. So the tiers were set. The low end was a Wii which could be had for $250,if you could find one, and was essentially created a market of it's own. The 360 with could be had for $300, or the playstation which could be had for $500. MS won by using it's cash reserves to under cut the only competitor.
Phones cannot be undercut so easily. If it could make a superior smart phone and sell it through virgin mobile or cricket or boost at an unsubsidized prices of $200, then it might instantly get a huge market share. However it is not going sell number at a subsides price over $100. It has been trying for 12 years with little success. It cannot undercut the price as with the XBox, not link it with MS Windows as so many other products. We see a desperation in moving WIndows 8 to metro interface, thus making the argument that MS made with servers, that the benefit of common interface should be considered above functionality. In the case of servers, there was some success, but some of it was due to licensing agreements. I suppose that there could licensing agreement that use include the phone or tablet, but is MS going to be able to punish firms that use iPhone or Android in the way that they punish firms that used a Mac or *nix?
It is the lawyers job to extractnfacts. That is why we hire lawyers and not archaeologists for voire dire. Both discover facts, but lawyers have to I extract information from often hostile persons legally. In this case the question was have you been involved in a lawsuit. If the lawyer did ask clarifying and expansive questions, then that is the incompetency of the lawyer and Samsung should sue the lawyers. Based on the single incidence of the lawsuit, it is reasonable to have not selected the juror. Certainly no potential juror has to volunteer his whole life story.
In reality at the time there was probably no issue and probably follow up questions showed he was reasonable. Just answering yes to a question like this does not necessarily disqualify anyone. If the potential juror said it would not effect his decision, a reasonable lawyer might take that into account. What this is is a bunch of lawyers who have lost a case they probably should not have lost trying to cover their asses and bill hours grasping at whatever straws hey can, throwing mud and seeing what sticks.
I would also recommend http://www.antennasearch.com/. A while back I bought a device from Sprint, but could get no good reception. I checked this site and saw that though towers were nearby none were near enough to actually provide a good signal. Though they claim to have a 30 day return policy, I got a lot of grief even though I showed that the device was useless to me.
The US is a big place, and even within relatively small geographical areas there can be a lot of variation. Look at where you are going to be, and look at who has the towers and the coverage. There are even areas where cricket has a decent score.
And this is more proof that life science, medical science, about half of the articles seems to be "medical research" is not science. It is based too much on what people want to believe, too much on making a profit off pushing drugs, too little rigorous science. We know that many articles are paid for, written by ghost writers. We know that drug dealers want the drugs to be safe for kids, but really don't know or won't pay to do the proper research. We know that cancer is a business, and the research is not pushing for a cure, but to promote high cost treatments. We are told that we must be diagnosed with cancer early, but is that because early cancer is generally better for a cure, or because early diagnosis increases the years of survival, the statistic that is most used in cancer advertising. I still hear that early diagnosis of prostate cancer is critical on commercials, but that is not supported by real research. Or maybe it is. We won't know until biomedical researchers are paid at the level of the physics researcher, and doctors are paid at the level of teachers.
In my urban area I have one choice. High density, reasonable income levels, close to super high density areas. It is fast enough, not that expensive, but really all these speed charts are kind of useless unless you are going to move to an area where they are available. There is no competitive force.
In any case, for what I do speed does not seem to be a problem. I have run on ATT and Suddenlink, and it does not seem much slower than Comcast. It is not like I am downloading video for real time viewing, or every version of *nix. I have maybe 6 devices connected and doing stuff at the same time. The drive for speed is much less an issue for me than the drive for value.
Which is where someone like Google can really be a force for good. I don't know if they are serving places with no fiber, but something like that could really drive competition in areas with limited service.
This I think is the issue. At one time Applecare was more than just a warranty. It would fix things like DVD drives that would break with excessive us. Now it is nothing more than a warranty for manufacturers defects, so Applecare has become much less than it used to be. I agree. A manufacturer should be held liable for defects that occur within the expected lifetime of a product, which for a computer is 2-3 years. The extended warranty should cover damage that is not a defect, just stuff that happens.
Since the iGadget thing they are much more focused on cutting costs than making the most reliable products. Don't get me wrong, I still would rather use a Mac than any of the PCs I have laying around, but I am just not going to be so quick to buy Applecare. In the last two incidents I had, they first refused to repair a refurb unit because it was not in pristine condition on the outside(they eventually did fix the computer), and in the last incident they refused to fixe the computer without really looking at it at all. This really effects sales in two ways. First it limits the sales of $2000+ machines that really need to last three years without major repairs, and it limits of the sales of Applecare, which at one time was a good value.
There will be less pork and prices will be higher. If pork was not a fungible commodity, this would constitute a shortage, since demand tends to rise over time, if for no other reason than the population increases.
The reason a pork shortage is not like a gas shortage is because, as mentioned, pork is fungible commodity and people can adapt quickly if the price goes up. Auto fuel, OTOH is not fungible, and special interests has made a great effort to insure cars are not made to use other fuels, and people cannot overnight adjust their fuel use. Consumers cannot replace cars instantly, so everyone who spent the early 70's, or the late 90's, buying cars with 20 gallon fuel tanks that has a range of less than 300 miles were basically stuck with these vehicles and were forced to stand in line for gas. I have seen gas lines in recent memory, all these SUV waiting to fuel up.
Also in the 70's were a time of great flight to the subarbs, which started after the war. For instance, one suburb in my area double in size every decade between 1970 and 1980. The early residents were there because it was near a major commercial district, but many other later residents were there because of bussing and other issue. Their commute was easily 50 miles a day, which even in the 'fuel efficient' cars of te 70's often meant over 10 gallons a week. When they gas crisis hit, they just couldn't decide not to go to work or buy another car or move. They had to have the fuel, which meant line. It is interesting to note that this suburban area since the 80's only double every 20 years. Since the 90's it has been more efficient to revitalize('gentrify') areas of the city than to use the money for fuel. The question is do you put $300 a month into your car or into your mortgage.
Certain people will buy one. It will not be like laser printers and inkjet printers, in that 3D printer will be cheap enough to own one. It will be like high end laserjet or wide format printers in that the price will be within the range of hobbyist who want one. It will be like color laserjet and inkjet printers in that people will realize that the expense is in the consumables, not the printer itself. It will not be as bad as a chap color laserjet, where refilling the consumables is more expensive than the printer, but it will be close.
Most decent size firms and colleges have at least one 3d printer. Some places they are restricted due to the cost. Even at major research centers I have seen them idle, something I would not this expect if they were being used as a significant tool. It can take a day to make a decent sized object. For the common maker it wil be a curiosity where something is sent out to be made as a lark. One of the cool thing about making is using found objects to create significant machines, because we mostly don't hav the ability to create completely new parts. 3D printing does give us that ability, and at a relatively low cost, but stil higher than many can afford. For instance, I still might throw away my $200 machine because printing the little plastic peice that broke might still cost more than the machine.
First, sometimes work needs to get done. If something has to be done, and management has chosen the person to do it, then that person should do it. Sometimes it has to be that simple. Good managers know how to assign work and get it done. If the work is not getting done, the fire the person who is not doing it. If the managers cannot allocate and insure completion of work, fire the managers. No one is irreplacable, and there is good deal of incentive when the people who are not doing work are not allowed to stay.
Second, let people do the work and given them support. Sometimes people can get work done, sometimes they need help. If work is not getting done, given them help and make sure they understand it has to be done. If work is getting done, and they don't want help, leave them alone.
Third, don't skimp on the money. For people who are doing work, given them more money. Plain and simple. A firm has to pay employes that provide value. Now, work is not just sitting at a desk and looking busy. There has to be objectives measure of what provides value to the firm, not just does the person always look busy and stays off personal websites. SOme people are highly efficient, some people work in bursts. Some people get a months worth of work done in three weeks. One of the biggest problems is that efficient people are penalized, while inefficient phrenetic people are promoted. No highly effective person is going to respond well to a firm that specializes in everyone looking busy. Productivity has to be prized.
Right now AT&T have a per device fee to access the network, and then a fee that essentially buys a chunk of data. The per device fee basically bought 500 minutes 10 year, and know buys unlimited voice and text. The data fees are steep, $10-40 a gigbyte. Verizon has essentially the same setup.The old landlines would do this as well, charge for each connected device, and then charge for service. If the mobile follows the same trend, I suspect it will not be long until it just becomes data.
Of course these plans right know are disingenuous, because the per phone fee is essentially paying form unlimited voice and test for each phone, so we are still paying for this. If they were charging say $40 for the first device, and $10 for each additional device like they do on the family plans, then that would make more sense.
I applaud your courageous and independent minded decision to keep the web free. The government intrusion that is DNT is unjustified and surely will stopp all "technological innovation and productivity" on the web. We must have policies the "boost innovation and encourage the widespread 'digitization' of the economy" which "is critical to ensuring robust economic growth." It is true that "the innovation economy has become increasingly important" and we cannot allow "opposition to it from special interests" such as greedy copyright and patent holders, or even the pesky privacy concerns of the peasants, to stop that growth.
Indeed we have a digital economy, and, as has been shown again and again, those that hold their IP too close to their chests not only damage innovation and economy, but also themselves. Look at Google who has expanded the smart phone industry exponentially by using open source. Look at HP who has open sourced WebOS. Much of Apples fortunes has been built on open source. Local governments has released that the closed source textbook is bleeding the taxpayers dry, so has gone for open source textbook. Firms that open clearly have a competitive advantage. Users that are closed and do not share personal data clearly damage the web.
ITIF, you are obviously very wise people who know better than we do. You obviously have big penises and big breasts and are therefore best suited to tell us, the lower 99% of the consuming proletariat, what to do. So I encourage you to continue to show you superiority by further courageous moves in the progress of unbounded innovation. Make your books all digital and allow all of us the opportunity to read your wisdom, not just those who are old and have money or go to the library. The old are not going to be the innovators, and the young only know how to download free stuff. So make you wisdom accessible to all, as you want to make our personal details accesible to all. Do not just publish chapter 1, but all of your incredible mind changing orgasmic words from on high so we can all know you infinite enlightenment and become person who know our place in your perfect world.
One thing that is good about it is that it is in LaTeX. That means that it could, for instance, be put on Github, and changes made and committed. This is different from so many other books that are written in,. say MS Word, that are less easily revisioned.
So quality is going to depend on basic initial construction and how much buy there is to improve the book. From my experience, there is often s good amount of personality conflicts in these things. The reason we have commercial books is because powerful individuals focus on what they want instead of simply whether the content is accurate.
And because the issue appears to be the window, perhaps multipane windows will solve the problem. I have seen this work with friends that live near railroad tracks. This along with acoustic insulation should solve the problem. Of course, is the reason there is so much noise is because the window is open, then nothing is going to solve the problem.
There are ways to apply science as we know it to make it interesting, though you don't have to be a slave to it. For instance, the thrusters in babylon 5 tried to apply realistic kinematics. Also in babylon 5 the mass bombardment depicts a reasonable form of warfare using materials already in space, and not energy weapons or material that must be lifted into space. Energy weapons and force fields are always a science problem, as discussed in a couple episodes fo Doctor Who.
But science can be taken too far. For instance, one can quibble how warp drive and the transporter works in star trek. This is silly because these are plot devices, like the raft in Huckleberry FInn.Do we think a couple kids can float down the Mississippi? I think people are more forgiving with Stargate as this is allien technology. I find the stunts in ordinary action movies to be more troublesome, as they just show a lack of understanding of the laws of nature.
For instance the three light minute jump issue in BSG may stem from a lack of understanding of math. As Kirk realized in the Wrath of Kahn, Kahn living in a largely 2d world did fully understand the massive 3d nature of space. As a result, Kirk was able to out maneuver Kahn using superior understanding of the battlefield. How does this relate to the 3 light minute jump? Well the surface area of 3 light minute sphere is about 10 orders of magnitude larger than the circumference of three light minute. Though the two are not completely comparable(m and m^2), and the integrative scanning of the area will have finite widths, we will still have a much greater problem.
I know that many of/. readers have never really tried to create highly quality production level content, but it is really hard to do. College textbooks are really hard to produce because they must be highly rigorous but realize the student does not yet have the vocabulary or context.
Look around for introductory physics textbooks, for instance. I have seen some that are pretty good, but were made simply to say that a free textbook was available. There were none of the niceties one expects in a textbook made by a professional. No pride. but there a couple out there that are very good, and the existence of such books make me wonder why anyone would write another from scratch instead of using the creative commons to improve an existing book.
The funding, of course, is because people are going to be paid to write the books. After they are written, hopefully they will be under some copyleft licensee to insure they remain free to use. I imagine the cost can be minimized by using the massive number of professors to write the books. Perhaps they can be counted against publications for tenure, of fulfillment of post doc work. A single author writes each chapter, another develops the problem sets or essay questions.
What would be a shame is if these books were traditional books, and not integrated with other content. One of the most disappointing things about Khan is that it is just a hand on a board. No teaching just copying.
Slashdot Mirror
The theory of spending for much of the past decade has been that giving money away is wrong, and providing jobs through the TSA or military is better. The TSA is fine, it can employ people for a lifetime, but the military has proven to be very expensive. The taxpayers have pay for rehabilitation and medical care when a soldier comes back wounded physically or mentally. Often youngster who leave the army do not use their money to go to trade school or college, so they are not employable and the taxpayer has to pay for incentives for someone to hire them. We may pay for them to go to school, and maybe they don't finish, so that is money down the drain.
So the question is is the military jobs program or direct assistance program better use of taxpayer money. Certainly by Romney's definition if we have to borrow money, then we have to cut one the other or both. An arguement can be made for direct assistance, as those are often short term.
I would make an image of the harddisk and hand carry, and then back up data on some offsite device.
Oh, but there is. There are countries, such as Nigeria, with crude basically as good as the US, and we could work with the nigerian government to pay more and make the situation better, but instead we have this US first philosophy, in which we ship expensive canadian oil across the US and risk the US environment for fake crude that costs more.
Or perhaps we can outsource more refining, and hold strategic reserves of refined product that can be used in cases where US refiners are unable to do the job they are paid to do, or simply are not able to utilize efficiencies that allowed other industries to run at prices consumers are willing to pay.
one one hand the oil industry wants us to believe it is all roses and they would never gouge us on prices and we just have to pay what they want, OTOH, when we talk alternatives to petroleum they bring out the big guns and makes sure it does not happen. Like the lie that most alternative energy companies have failed, or at least they have failed at a high rate than emerging companies.
Furthermore, the roads for the most part are built within the city, and there is always money being spent on improving the roads, much more than widening highways, which can only easily happen outside the city center.
So lets look at development in this unzoned mass. Over 100 square miles. Significant areas, believe or not are undeveloped. A number of areas are overdeveloped. Gentrification is everywhere and elementary schools are turned around almost overnight when this happens. Almost everyone is within walking distance of at least a small park.
Second layer of houston. Maybe 60 years old. Another almost 200 square mile of living space. Much of it undeveloped. Many of the houses are under foreclosure. Unlike the city is is likely the house is very much worse less than the mortgage. Freeways lead out of the city specifically to serve the needs of the real estate developers that prize unzoned land. The real estate developers then build in deed restrictions and promote the planned communities that are pretty unavailable near town.
Third layer several years from being complete. It is unclear how much area this will add, and it will cover many existing cities and towns. On new recent highway build from the edge of the inner city out to the edge of the out layer. At the begining of this new high huge amounts of land ready for development, unrestricted, but no one wants to be there. Much better to build 10 miles out. But wait, there are already old places there, so lets go out another 5 miles. And we don't want mass transportation because that will bring out the people we are trying to avoid. So busses in the morning and evening to get people to and fro from work. Trains in the inner city to get people around the central business district. But otherwise huge subsidies from the inner city tax payer. And don't talk to me about gas taxes. I don't see how anyone could say paying 20 cents more a gallon is bad if it meant that the people who used the roads would actually be paying for them, instead of having other pay their way for them.
Lots of very profitable businesses are built through advertising to the "boring" demographic that is actually employed and has disposable income that they're willing to spend on Hondas, and refrigerators, and Ikea furniture for their houses
A number in the kids in 13-20 year age range is going to buy a car or thinking of buying a car. Building up appeal in this age range can effect what they buy and can effect resale value, which will effect what older people buy. Honda can advertise all they want, but if the car can't be sold to teens because of the "mom-mobile" image they will not be sold to the boring people either. Honda was quite lucky for a while because they were easy to trick out.
I also note that Sears, the go to for appliances through my life, is now on the verge of going out of business largely because the focused on boring demographics and not building relationships with younger people. OTOH, Walmart and Target are building relationships.
There are many ways to reach the boring people, which is why they are boring. The sit and watch football games and soap operas and spend money on little other than their kids. But there is a short time when they will buying a lot of stuff, for their new apartment, during their mating, when they get their first big promotion, and at that point it will too late. I suppose all the beer commercials on the Football games are for the adults. Some are, but many are there because kids are watching football with their parents, many who are drinking beer, and the beer companies want to impress their brand of mule piss on the youngsters. This is the same reason that cigarettes has not been able to advertise on sports for a long time. These advertisements are directed at kids, who may not have money now, and maybe will not buy many beers and cigs now, but will be the primary profit stream in a few short years.
Second, I have seen the progress of these networks. Facebook, in my experience, took over from myspace because kids in middle school began to create facebook accounts instead of myspace accounts. This meant by 2010 that firms that wanted to reach the 18-24 demographic had better have a presence on facebook. It is that simple. Kids that want to keep up with friends from high school or college are going to have a Facebook account. Advertisers who want to build a relationship with these people who do not necessarily watch as much TV as the older generation are going to go to facebook as an alternative option.
Oh, and in case it was not clear, most middle school kids have not funds, ability, nor do they care, about acquiring a domain name. They are just looking for cool stuff that is free and allows them to do stuff without parental permission. They are experimenting with a new freedom, but not yet secure enough to actually defy the parental unit. One is free to build a social network for adults, but it won't compete with facebook based on the decentralization.
So what are the problems with facebook? First, their demographic is aging, in other words moms are signing up to monitor their kids, socialize with their friends, and generally make facebook uncool. This not only makes kids less likely to sign up than they would be a few years ago, but also dilutes the demographic. There are cheaper ways to reach moms than facebook, and even dads.
Second is the lack of mobile platform. Kids are more likely to interact with the internet using a small screen, and facebook does not know how to leverage that. So the kids are not being monitored as they used to be. Decentralization will not solve this problem.
So any new platform is going to have give the 13-20 year old kid a better product. If someone did, in four years Facebook would as much toast as myspace. Decentralization is not going to do this.
The war against the efficient car was so great that when government regulation and subsidies made steel and gas cheap, and theSUV became affordable, many people were cheering the win in the battle against the efficient car, cheering that one again the people who were stupid enough to choose a smaller could be be killed at will by the more intelligent people in larger cars. No one was talking about the cost in treasure and live that allowed the oil to be cheap, or that cheap stell came at great environmental costs, as well as the death of the steel industry in the US, to the point where steel was no longer part of the DJIA.
And of course when gas prices are up, and the consumers cannot afford to run the car, they don't blame themselves for bad decisions or the free market, but rather government. Which they should because with proper research and incentives the electric car can be produced and powered in an environmentally sound manner. An electric car can be fueled every night, during the down time, when electric plants are producing energy that is not being used. This is such an issue that some companies are offering free energy at night to encourage a shift in use. The electric car can be simpler, which can be a significant factor. The electric can does not need a catalytic converter, so we can use those rare earth minerals, which are extracted at great environmental impact, elsewhere.
of course some will say this is handwaving, but really, isn't that hypocrisy as well? The oil interest say no change in needed because new technology will make oil extraction and processing cheaper and safer. Why do they get to handwave and the electric people don't?
There is no reason to say this is a good thing or a bad thing, just that everything changes. Most of us must all adapt to the world as presented. But talking more about those changes would be interesting. For instance, things that happened at slashdot king of set standards for elsewhere. The moderations system. The controversy about using user comments in a private book. The way Google/MS/Apple comments are handled and shills are allowed to freely exist.
DNS filtering goes on every day on the Internet
I agree completely. For instance China is highly skilled in this. Iran is building a whole independent internet. Perhaps the MPAA would be happier making these their primary hubs of operation, places that are skilled in the art, so to speak. I don't think many in the western world would shed a tear if they chose to so do.
As far as jobs, this is pretty selectively applied. Windmills will create many construction and long term maintenance jobs. Hydrogen fueling station will create many construction jobs. Niether requires us to pay for fuel at levels that support $70 per barrel, or condemn peoples property for a pipeline, or pollute. There are many ways to work. Some people, like hitmen, have no problems if the jobs are unethical. Others od.
The XBox has little to do with hardware. The Xbox has a failure rate in the vicinity of 20-50%. It does not matter because MS has the money to just replace the console because the console is not the thing. The Games are the thing, and MS was able to use it's developer mojo to get the games. The XBox is not a success because MS is a great hardware or software company, the XBox is successful because MS is able to get vasts amounts of money in developers hands.
The xbox was also successful, particularly the 360, because it was entering a virtual console vacuum. After the late 1990's there were almost no consoles available. The manufacturers were down to Sony and Nintendo, with a shout out to Sega. by the time that the 360 was out, Sega was gone, beaten by the playstation, and Sony wanted to use the Playstation to push Blu Ray format, which made it expensive. So the tiers were set. The low end was a Wii which could be had for $250,if you could find one, and was essentially created a market of it's own. The 360 with could be had for $300, or the playstation which could be had for $500. MS won by using it's cash reserves to under cut the only competitor.
Phones cannot be undercut so easily. If it could make a superior smart phone and sell it through virgin mobile or cricket or boost at an unsubsidized prices of $200, then it might instantly get a huge market share. However it is not going sell number at a subsides price over $100. It has been trying for 12 years with little success. It cannot undercut the price as with the XBox, not link it with MS Windows as so many other products. We see a desperation in moving WIndows 8 to metro interface, thus making the argument that MS made with servers, that the benefit of common interface should be considered above functionality. In the case of servers, there was some success, but some of it was due to licensing agreements. I suppose that there could licensing agreement that use include the phone or tablet, but is MS going to be able to punish firms that use iPhone or Android in the way that they punish firms that used a Mac or *nix?
In reality at the time there was probably no issue and probably follow up questions showed he was reasonable. Just answering yes to a question like this does not necessarily disqualify anyone. If the potential juror said it would not effect his decision, a reasonable lawyer might take that into account. What this is is a bunch of lawyers who have lost a case they probably should not have lost trying to cover their asses and bill hours grasping at whatever straws hey can, throwing mud and seeing what sticks.
The US is a big place, and even within relatively small geographical areas there can be a lot of variation. Look at where you are going to be, and look at who has the towers and the coverage. There are even areas where cricket has a decent score.
And this is more proof that life science, medical science, about half of the articles seems to be "medical research" is not science. It is based too much on what people want to believe, too much on making a profit off pushing drugs, too little rigorous science. We know that many articles are paid for, written by ghost writers. We know that drug dealers want the drugs to be safe for kids, but really don't know or won't pay to do the proper research. We know that cancer is a business, and the research is not pushing for a cure, but to promote high cost treatments. We are told that we must be diagnosed with cancer early, but is that because early cancer is generally better for a cure, or because early diagnosis increases the years of survival, the statistic that is most used in cancer advertising. I still hear that early diagnosis of prostate cancer is critical on commercials, but that is not supported by real research. Or maybe it is. We won't know until biomedical researchers are paid at the level of the physics researcher, and doctors are paid at the level of teachers.
In any case, for what I do speed does not seem to be a problem. I have run on ATT and Suddenlink, and it does not seem much slower than Comcast. It is not like I am downloading video for real time viewing, or every version of *nix. I have maybe 6 devices connected and doing stuff at the same time. The drive for speed is much less an issue for me than the drive for value.
Which is where someone like Google can really be a force for good. I don't know if they are serving places with no fiber, but something like that could really drive competition in areas with limited service.
Since the iGadget thing they are much more focused on cutting costs than making the most reliable products. Don't get me wrong, I still would rather use a Mac than any of the PCs I have laying around, but I am just not going to be so quick to buy Applecare. In the last two incidents I had, they first refused to repair a refurb unit because it was not in pristine condition on the outside(they eventually did fix the computer), and in the last incident they refused to fixe the computer without really looking at it at all. This really effects sales in two ways. First it limits the sales of $2000+ machines that really need to last three years without major repairs, and it limits of the sales of Applecare, which at one time was a good value.
The reason a pork shortage is not like a gas shortage is because, as mentioned, pork is fungible commodity and people can adapt quickly if the price goes up. Auto fuel, OTOH is not fungible, and special interests has made a great effort to insure cars are not made to use other fuels, and people cannot overnight adjust their fuel use. Consumers cannot replace cars instantly, so everyone who spent the early 70's, or the late 90's, buying cars with 20 gallon fuel tanks that has a range of less than 300 miles were basically stuck with these vehicles and were forced to stand in line for gas. I have seen gas lines in recent memory, all these SUV waiting to fuel up.
Also in the 70's were a time of great flight to the subarbs, which started after the war. For instance, one suburb in my area double in size every decade between 1970 and 1980. The early residents were there because it was near a major commercial district, but many other later residents were there because of bussing and other issue. Their commute was easily 50 miles a day, which even in the 'fuel efficient' cars of te 70's often meant over 10 gallons a week. When they gas crisis hit, they just couldn't decide not to go to work or buy another car or move. They had to have the fuel, which meant line. It is interesting to note that this suburban area since the 80's only double every 20 years. Since the 90's it has been more efficient to revitalize('gentrify') areas of the city than to use the money for fuel. The question is do you put $300 a month into your car or into your mortgage.
Most decent size firms and colleges have at least one 3d printer. Some places they are restricted due to the cost. Even at major research centers I have seen them idle, something I would not this expect if they were being used as a significant tool. It can take a day to make a decent sized object. For the common maker it wil be a curiosity where something is sent out to be made as a lark. One of the cool thing about making is using found objects to create significant machines, because we mostly don't hav the ability to create completely new parts. 3D printing does give us that ability, and at a relatively low cost, but stil higher than many can afford. For instance, I still might throw away my $200 machine because printing the little plastic peice that broke might still cost more than the machine.
First, sometimes work needs to get done. If something has to be done, and management has chosen the person to do it, then that person should do it. Sometimes it has to be that simple. Good managers know how to assign work and get it done. If the work is not getting done, the fire the person who is not doing it. If the managers cannot allocate and insure completion of work, fire the managers. No one is irreplacable, and there is good deal of incentive when the people who are not doing work are not allowed to stay.
Second, let people do the work and given them support. Sometimes people can get work done, sometimes they need help. If work is not getting done, given them help and make sure they understand it has to be done. If work is getting done, and they don't want help, leave them alone.
Third, don't skimp on the money. For people who are doing work, given them more money. Plain and simple. A firm has to pay employes that provide value. Now, work is not just sitting at a desk and looking busy. There has to be objectives measure of what provides value to the firm, not just does the person always look busy and stays off personal websites. SOme people are highly efficient, some people work in bursts. Some people get a months worth of work done in three weeks. One of the biggest problems is that efficient people are penalized, while inefficient phrenetic people are promoted. No highly effective person is going to respond well to a firm that specializes in everyone looking busy. Productivity has to be prized.
Of course these plans right know are disingenuous, because the per phone fee is essentially paying form unlimited voice and test for each phone, so we are still paying for this. If they were charging say $40 for the first device, and $10 for each additional device like they do on the family plans, then that would make more sense.
Indeed we have a digital economy, and, as has been shown again and again, those that hold their IP too close to their chests not only damage innovation and economy, but also themselves. Look at Google who has expanded the smart phone industry exponentially by using open source. Look at HP who has open sourced WebOS. Much of Apples fortunes has been built on open source. Local governments has released that the closed source textbook is bleeding the taxpayers dry, so has gone for open source textbook. Firms that open clearly have a competitive advantage. Users that are closed and do not share personal data clearly damage the web.
ITIF, you are obviously very wise people who know better than we do. You obviously have big penises and big breasts and are therefore best suited to tell us, the lower 99% of the consuming proletariat, what to do. So I encourage you to continue to show you superiority by further courageous moves in the progress of unbounded innovation. Make your books all digital and allow all of us the opportunity to read your wisdom, not just those who are old and have money or go to the library. The old are not going to be the innovators, and the young only know how to download free stuff. So make you wisdom accessible to all, as you want to make our personal details accesible to all. Do not just publish chapter 1, but all of your incredible mind changing orgasmic words from on high so we can all know you infinite enlightenment and become person who know our place in your perfect world.
So quality is going to depend on basic initial construction and how much buy there is to improve the book. From my experience, there is often s good amount of personality conflicts in these things. The reason we have commercial books is because powerful individuals focus on what they want instead of simply whether the content is accurate.
And because the issue appears to be the window, perhaps multipane windows will solve the problem. I have seen this work with friends that live near railroad tracks. This along with acoustic insulation should solve the problem. Of course, is the reason there is so much noise is because the window is open, then nothing is going to solve the problem.
But science can be taken too far. For instance, one can quibble how warp drive and the transporter works in star trek. This is silly because these are plot devices, like the raft in Huckleberry FInn.Do we think a couple kids can float down the Mississippi? I think people are more forgiving with Stargate as this is allien technology. I find the stunts in ordinary action movies to be more troublesome, as they just show a lack of understanding of the laws of nature.
For instance the three light minute jump issue in BSG may stem from a lack of understanding of math. As Kirk realized in the Wrath of Kahn, Kahn living in a largely 2d world did fully understand the massive 3d nature of space. As a result, Kirk was able to out maneuver Kahn using superior understanding of the battlefield. How does this relate to the 3 light minute jump? Well the surface area of 3 light minute sphere is about 10 orders of magnitude larger than the circumference of three light minute. Though the two are not completely comparable(m and m^2), and the integrative scanning of the area will have finite widths, we will still have a much greater problem.
Look around for introductory physics textbooks, for instance. I have seen some that are pretty good, but were made simply to say that a free textbook was available. There were none of the niceties one expects in a textbook made by a professional. No pride. but there a couple out there that are very good, and the existence of such books make me wonder why anyone would write another from scratch instead of using the creative commons to improve an existing book.
The funding, of course, is because people are going to be paid to write the books. After they are written, hopefully they will be under some copyleft licensee to insure they remain free to use. I imagine the cost can be minimized by using the massive number of professors to write the books. Perhaps they can be counted against publications for tenure, of fulfillment of post doc work. A single author writes each chapter, another develops the problem sets or essay questions.
What would be a shame is if these books were traditional books, and not integrated with other content. One of the most disappointing things about Khan is that it is just a hand on a board. No teaching just copying.