I'm sorry. I don't see a world of difference between random mutations that propagate through the genetic code which may or may not be beneficial and purposely introduced mutations that may or may not be beneficial. It's all just "bits" of DNA; introducing some human code into the DNA of a potato and then claiming the potato is part human is like examining machine code to prove software IP infringement.
Antibiotics, growth hormones, and selling US meat in Europe are a completely separate set of issues. The need to bring them up in this context just highlights how flimsy the argument against GM is.
Aren't most vegetables and fruits that are grown today the result of genetic modifications, i.e. selective cross-pollination to promote beneficial qualities and mutations. I can't take these people seriously without ignoring 10,000 years of human agricultural practices. I understand and appreciate the people are concerned about long-term health effects, but anytime someone makes an argument based on some arbitrary limit, as in this is good and then you cross the line and now it's bad, I can't take them as seriously as I possibly should.
Let me get this straight . . . some douche European argues that Americans are worse at something compared to someone else because we haven't adequately lobbied our government to protect his ability to illegally download American movies, television, and music. Hmmm.... if he doesn't want American bullshit in Europe, he could probably start with not consuming American media.
To those that decides such things: can this be the new definition of irony?
Of course, you are correct. IMO, the difference between right to profit and right to try to profit is just semantics. If someone has property, be it real, intellectual, or other, that meets a need or want of society, they have the right to profit or try to profit from it.
Hard work? It's not like the citizens of these towns are all coming out on Saturday with their shovels and installing the infrastructure themselves like it's some sort of Amish barn-raising with a square dance at the end of the day.
This. And the right to profit isn't explicitly enumerated, but I believe it would fall under the 5th Amendment: "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." IANAL, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, but in most towns there is not a pre-existing private company that runs the bus line or installs water fountains in public spaces. And as far as schools go, in most towns, at least where I've lived, there is a public vote to approve increased property taxes to fund the new building. I know it's currently en-vogue to bash the telcos, but why shouldn't this be settled by a public vote rather than left to the desires and agendas of a few people in the city government.
With regards to under served communities, it's my understanding that they are exempt from some of the requirements in the NC bill.
I'm not so sure it would be feasible to fully automate the final assembly. I'm not aware of any computers that are made via fully automated processes. Certain components are, of course, but not the final assembly. You still need thousands of dexterous human fingers to put everything together as the last step. You are correct about setup costs though; I wouldn't be surprised if it costs upwards of a $100 million to fully tool and automate a final assembly line like the iPad.
I agree with your viewpoint, but Comcast, Cox, et cetera are not "natural" monopolies. They are government-created monopolies. With modern technologies like fiber optics, there's no reason why every home cannot be wired with 50 incoming optical lines (1 cm thick bundle), each one carrying a TV lineup. Then the consumer could choose if they want Comcast or Cox or AppleTV or Verizon and so on.
Can you please elaborate on why you assert they are government-created monopolies? Didn't the cable companies themselves pay for right-of-way access to run the coax way back when? I think you are implying that because cable companies are government-created monopolies there are government-created roadblocks in place to prevent fiber from being run to every home. I'll have to do some research myself, but if anyone knows some background information I'd love to read it.
...16-year-old girls everywhere driving around with Facebook on the heads-up display. You might as well install a keg in the trunk with the tap in the dash for all this will do to teen accident rates.
I'm not sure if you're making the claim that storage is now an oligopoly. Certainly, rotational media storage is, but that is a decreasing share of the overall storage market. Looking at the storage market as a whole and you should include all the SSD manufacturers like Intel, OCZ, and Crucial. I think you get to seven significant players pretty quickly, although I suspect there will be some consolidation with SSD's too sooner than later.
Over the past 10 years or so, HDD manufacturers have been on a race to the bottom in terms of $/GB. I think that's the exact reason you get batches of lousy consumer drives out on the market. Consolidation isn't going to be good for prices, but maybe in a less price sensitive market we can expect to see more consistent reliability from lot to lot for a given SKU.
Can someone that manages enterprise storage comment on this? Not counting the initial investment in $/GB since that should improve with time, do SSD's make the most sense in all applications? What about a disk that is used to store a lot of very small files (less than the SSD block size) that are regularly modified? I guess what I'm asking is: is there a hypothetical enterprise application where the expected lifespan of a HDD is better than an SSD?
My gut tells me that EOL for rotational media is a lot further out than three to four years, but I'm not familiar enough with enterprise storage applications to back up this belief. Otherwise, I don't understand why the traditional "big iron" HDD manufacturers are spending all this cash to consolidate if the required manufacturing capacity to satisfy the HDD market is going to monotonically decrease over the next three to four years. It's not as though that manufacturing expertise translates very well into making a profit on SSD's where the most important components are designed and manufactured by someone else. That's going to be a tough market to be in.
I think you were going to the wrong music shops. The place I haunted in my younger days, [url=http://www.flatblackandcircular.com/pages/store.html]Flat Black and Circular[/url], let you listen to any compact disc or phonographic record on a pair of headphones off to the side. If the CD or record was new and the shrink wrap was still on the packaging, you'd just take it to the counter and they'd remove it for you. If you're passionite about music, it's hard to beat face-to-face interactions with other people that share that same passion.
That's a fair complaint. At least on my Linux install, and I believe in Windows as well, the extra windows in GIMP don't automatically minimize or hide when focus is removed from the main window. It's never bothered me, but I can see how it could lead to inefficient clutter when you really need to get something accomplished in as short a time as possible. I'm wondering if this is a limitation of the operating systems rather than the application. I notice that with all windows minimized, clicking on the main application icon in the task bar (tint2 in my case) brings back all the extra windows, but clicking on the extra windows does not.
I've never understood what benefit having a full screen main window with all the toolbars, layer and color browsers, and property windows automatically docked to the edges of the screen imparts. I admit that I don't use any image editing software on a regular basis, but is it that confusing to use a piece of software if it doesn't have a full screen title bar and gray background behind the WIP? In my opinion, GIMP's current UI encourages the arrangement of all the ancillary windows in whatever works best for the task at hand.
The last time I used Photoshop extensively was in high school about 15 years ago. And if I remember correctly, on Mac at least, it didn't have a full screen main window; it was very similar to recent releases of GIMP. When did that change and was Photoshop suddenly better because of it?
These are the same players from the time when the first break up occurred.
Right . . . the AT&T executives from 1974, when the anti-trust lawsuit that led to AT&T's break-up was filed, are still running the company. C'mon now, John deButts, the chairman and chief executive of AT&T at that time, died in 1986.
I'm guessing this comment / question will not see the light of day due to my lousy rating, but here goes nothing:
I'm an electrical engineer making a decent living practicing applied electro-magnetics and communication theory. As part of my program at a slightly above average state university in the late '90s, I was required to take a semester of C++. I also took a second semester as an elective, but mostly coasted through as it was my final semester and had crammed in 13 other credits in required courses to finish.
Now, I certainly don't make a living writing software for public sale, but I do occasionally want / need to automate hardware and software tasks. My software development "language" choice was generally dictated by what was at hand, or with what I wanted to interface, or what had already been done. I've used TCL, LabVIEW, VB, Scheme, LUA, among others. I'm not an expert in any of them and I certainly am not an efficient programmer. I haven't had the need to use C++, or any similar language, but I do feel as though the C++ course that I was "forced" to take was beneficial. Specifically, I learned about programming syntax, how to read and debug code, and what arguments and built-in functions you should expect from any other language. More generally, I think I learned how to learn a new language which has been indispensable.
Is C++ the best language for learning what I did? It seems to have done okay for me, but I probably learned and forgot a lot of OO stuff that isn't very useful for what I do (quickly bang out some software to automate the task at hand) and maybe C would have been more applicable. Thoughts?
Ummm . . . no. The PDF from Verizon stated, in bold, and as the title of the subsequent paragraph, "If you subscribe to a Data Plan or Feature on February 3, 2011 or after, the following applies:" I'd like to add RTFA, but if you are a Verizon subscriber as implied by your post, apparently you couldn't even be arsed to read an important notice from a company with which you have signed a contract so I suppose it's hopeless.
Wireless providers are judged by investors on subscriber churn. They'll say whatever they have to and come up with whatever promotions they have to to always have more people signing up than are leaving. If that means pushing services that your network couldn't handle if more people use them than you predict, so be it. That said, a friend of mine, with mathematics and computer science masters degrees works for a wireless provider and spends his days managing a team that predicts what the business impact of decisions like this will be. Based on my discussions with him, I'm sure wireless providers have a very good model for how many people will actually be regularly using these high bandwidth services. Based on this announcement, it sure seems that at this time Verizon isn't able to achieve a high enough ROIC from building out their network capability to support the needs of the highest 5% of users.
. . . to which I'm looking forward. I can see the headline now; "February 3, 2016, California Appeals Court rules that Free Internet Porn is a basic human right."
Slashdot Mirror
I think this was taken word for word from a review of The Breakfast Club.
I'm sorry. I don't see a world of difference between random mutations that propagate through the genetic code which may or may not be beneficial and purposely introduced mutations that may or may not be beneficial. It's all just "bits" of DNA; introducing some human code into the DNA of a potato and then claiming the potato is part human is like examining machine code to prove software IP infringement.
Antibiotics, growth hormones, and selling US meat in Europe are a completely separate set of issues. The need to bring them up in this context just highlights how flimsy the argument against GM is.
Aren't most vegetables and fruits that are grown today the result of genetic modifications, i.e. selective cross-pollination to promote beneficial qualities and mutations. I can't take these people seriously without ignoring 10,000 years of human agricultural practices. I understand and appreciate the people are concerned about long-term health effects, but anytime someone makes an argument based on some arbitrary limit, as in this is good and then you cross the line and now it's bad, I can't take them as seriously as I possibly should.
Let me get this straight . . . some douche European argues that Americans are worse at something compared to someone else because we haven't adequately lobbied our government to protect his ability to illegally download American movies, television, and music. Hmmm.... if he doesn't want American bullshit in Europe, he could probably start with not consuming American media.
To those that decides such things: can this be the new definition of irony?
Of course, you are correct. IMO, the difference between right to profit and right to try to profit is just semantics. If someone has property, be it real, intellectual, or other, that meets a need or want of society, they have the right to profit or try to profit from it.
Hard work? It's not like the citizens of these towns are all coming out on Saturday with their shovels and installing the infrastructure themselves like it's some sort of Amish barn-raising with a square dance at the end of the day.
Well, he couldn't have done any better, could he?
This. And the right to profit isn't explicitly enumerated, but I believe it would fall under the 5th Amendment: "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." IANAL, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, but in most towns there is not a pre-existing private company that runs the bus line or installs water fountains in public spaces. And as far as schools go, in most towns, at least where I've lived, there is a public vote to approve increased property taxes to fund the new building. I know it's currently en-vogue to bash the telcos, but why shouldn't this be settled by a public vote rather than left to the desires and agendas of a few people in the city government.
With regards to under served communities, it's my understanding that they are exempt from some of the requirements in the NC bill.
I think the concern is that you can't subsidize the cost of the network by, say, charging extra for trash pickup or water and sewers.
I'm not so sure it would be feasible to fully automate the final assembly. I'm not aware of any computers that are made via fully automated processes. Certain components are, of course, but not the final assembly. You still need thousands of dexterous human fingers to put everything together as the last step. You are correct about setup costs though; I wouldn't be surprised if it costs upwards of a $100 million to fully tool and automate a final assembly line like the iPad.
I agree with your viewpoint, but Comcast, Cox, et cetera are not "natural" monopolies. They are government-created monopolies. With modern technologies like fiber optics, there's no reason why every home cannot be wired with 50 incoming optical lines (1 cm thick bundle), each one carrying a TV lineup. Then the consumer could choose if they want Comcast or Cox or AppleTV or Verizon and so on.
Can you please elaborate on why you assert they are government-created monopolies? Didn't the cable companies themselves pay for right-of-way access to run the coax way back when? I think you are implying that because cable companies are government-created monopolies there are government-created roadblocks in place to prevent fiber from being run to every home. I'll have to do some research myself, but if anyone knows some background information I'd love to read it.
. . . to the nearest Pizza Hut. I hope he tipped well.
...16-year-old girls everywhere driving around with Facebook on the heads-up display. You might as well install a keg in the trunk with the tap in the dash for all this will do to teen accident rates.
I'm not sure if you're making the claim that storage is now an oligopoly. Certainly, rotational media storage is, but that is a decreasing share of the overall storage market. Looking at the storage market as a whole and you should include all the SSD manufacturers like Intel, OCZ, and Crucial. I think you get to seven significant players pretty quickly, although I suspect there will be some consolidation with SSD's too sooner than later.
Over the past 10 years or so, HDD manufacturers have been on a race to the bottom in terms of $/GB. I think that's the exact reason you get batches of lousy consumer drives out on the market. Consolidation isn't going to be good for prices, but maybe in a less price sensitive market we can expect to see more consistent reliability from lot to lot for a given SKU.
Can someone that manages enterprise storage comment on this? Not counting the initial investment in $/GB since that should improve with time, do SSD's make the most sense in all applications? What about a disk that is used to store a lot of very small files (less than the SSD block size) that are regularly modified? I guess what I'm asking is: is there a hypothetical enterprise application where the expected lifespan of a HDD is better than an SSD?
My gut tells me that EOL for rotational media is a lot further out than three to four years, but I'm not familiar enough with enterprise storage applications to back up this belief. Otherwise, I don't understand why the traditional "big iron" HDD manufacturers are spending all this cash to consolidate if the required manufacturing capacity to satisfy the HDD market is going to monotonically decrease over the next three to four years. It's not as though that manufacturing expertise translates very well into making a profit on SSD's where the most important components are designed and manufactured by someone else. That's going to be a tough market to be in.
I think you were going to the wrong music shops. The place I haunted in my younger days, [url=http://www.flatblackandcircular.com/pages/store.html]Flat Black and Circular[/url], let you listen to any compact disc or phonographic record on a pair of headphones off to the side. If the CD or record was new and the shrink wrap was still on the packaging, you'd just take it to the counter and they'd remove it for you. If you're passionite about music, it's hard to beat face-to-face interactions with other people that share that same passion.
That's a fair complaint. At least on my Linux install, and I believe in Windows as well, the extra windows in GIMP don't automatically minimize or hide when focus is removed from the main window. It's never bothered me, but I can see how it could lead to inefficient clutter when you really need to get something accomplished in as short a time as possible. I'm wondering if this is a limitation of the operating systems rather than the application. I notice that with all windows minimized, clicking on the main application icon in the task bar (tint2 in my case) brings back all the extra windows, but clicking on the extra windows does not.
I've never understood what benefit having a full screen main window with all the toolbars, layer and color browsers, and property windows automatically docked to the edges of the screen imparts. I admit that I don't use any image editing software on a regular basis, but is it that confusing to use a piece of software if it doesn't have a full screen title bar and gray background behind the WIP? In my opinion, GIMP's current UI encourages the arrangement of all the ancillary windows in whatever works best for the task at hand.
The last time I used Photoshop extensively was in high school about 15 years ago. And if I remember correctly, on Mac at least, it didn't have a full screen main window; it was very similar to recent releases of GIMP. When did that change and was Photoshop suddenly better because of it?
You clearly missed the memo that netbooks have also gone the way of the netbook . . . . wait, what?
These are the same players from the time when the first break up occurred.
Right . . . the AT&T executives from 1974, when the anti-trust lawsuit that led to AT&T's break-up was filed, are still running the company. C'mon now, John deButts, the chairman and chief executive of AT&T at that time, died in 1986.
I'm guessing this comment / question will not see the light of day due to my lousy rating, but here goes nothing:
I'm an electrical engineer making a decent living practicing applied electro-magnetics and communication theory. As part of my program at a slightly above average state university in the late '90s, I was required to take a semester of C++. I also took a second semester as an elective, but mostly coasted through as it was my final semester and had crammed in 13 other credits in required courses to finish.
Now, I certainly don't make a living writing software for public sale, but I do occasionally want / need to automate hardware and software tasks. My software development "language" choice was generally dictated by what was at hand, or with what I wanted to interface, or what had already been done. I've used TCL, LabVIEW, VB, Scheme, LUA, among others. I'm not an expert in any of them and I certainly am not an efficient programmer. I haven't had the need to use C++, or any similar language, but I do feel as though the C++ course that I was "forced" to take was beneficial. Specifically, I learned about programming syntax, how to read and debug code, and what arguments and built-in functions you should expect from any other language. More generally, I think I learned how to learn a new language which has been indispensable.
Is C++ the best language for learning what I did? It seems to have done okay for me, but I probably learned and forgot a lot of OO stuff that isn't very useful for what I do (quickly bang out some software to automate the task at hand) and maybe C would have been more applicable. Thoughts?
Ummm . . . no. The PDF from Verizon stated, in bold, and as the title of the subsequent paragraph, "If you subscribe to a Data Plan or Feature on February 3, 2011 or after, the following applies:" I'd like to add RTFA, but if you are a Verizon subscriber as implied by your post, apparently you couldn't even be arsed to read an important notice from a company with which you have signed a contract so I suppose it's hopeless.
Wireless providers are judged by investors on subscriber churn. They'll say whatever they have to and come up with whatever promotions they have to to always have more people signing up than are leaving. If that means pushing services that your network couldn't handle if more people use them than you predict, so be it. That said, a friend of mine, with mathematics and computer science masters degrees works for a wireless provider and spends his days managing a team that predicts what the business impact of decisions like this will be. Based on my discussions with him, I'm sure wireless providers have a very good model for how many people will actually be regularly using these high bandwidth services. Based on this announcement, it sure seems that at this time Verizon isn't able to achieve a high enough ROIC from building out their network capability to support the needs of the highest 5% of users.
. . . to which I'm looking forward. I can see the headline now; "February 3, 2016, California Appeals Court rules that Free Internet Porn is a basic human right."