You may love the idea, but of course it is a ridiculous concept. There are very few things that people own that are generally taxed under some form of "property tax". Of all my worldly possesions, including my bank accounts, home, cars, boat, furniture, computers, other electronics, clothing, tools, etc. only one item I own is subject to a property tax. Trying to put forth the concept that because something is property it must be taxed badly fails the inductivve logic test because there are in fact many types of property that are not taxed.
I woul;d support the idea of a 5 year expiration based on lack of effort to commercialize. Two years is a bit too short - it may take longer for a company to work out funding, etc. I suppose a lot depends on how that law is written as to what a good time frame would be.
There are already patent maintenance fees of a few thousand dollars (and the numbers increase with the age of the patent) that do clean out some of the underbrush when it comes to patents.
For copyrights I like the idea of a similar idea. Once the original author is dead (or some time period, say 10 years has passed it takes a maintenance fee to keep the copyright alive.
Consumer CD-R's are cheap crap manufactured to sell off the shelves without any regard to quality except absolute minimal standards needed to dupe music. People who buy them expecting them to work for long term data archiving are at best uninformed. Good CD's like MAM-A archival quality CD's have an estimated lifetime in the 100+ year range. Accelerated thermal stability testing shows an error rate stability for these better than commercially pressed CD's.
There are now DVD R's made at the same quality level. I expect that we will eventually se the same thing for BD's.
This result; that is there is no clinically significant effect except on those with severe depression obviously indicates that these drugs are very over-prescribed. Since they are generally addictive and have strong side effects, it means to me that there is behavior on the part of their proponents and prescribers that at least rises to a highly unethical level and possibly to the level of criminality.
Both formats had their plusses and minuses. HD-DVD is cheaper to implement, but doesn't have the ultimate bit rate that is the final determination of the picture quality ceiling.
I really am glad the format war is over. Now I can start looking at the technology and maybe open up my wallet for some hardware without worrying about the format war. Manufacturers will now focus on the one technology, and getting costs down.
iTunes and iPods have made a significant impact on how popular music is consumed, but pretty much zero impact on all other genres. Outside pop music, CD sales have been growing over time, and the online sales of these other genres is pretty much dead in the water. CD's are not going away any time soon because albums which have lasting value, are well produced, and mastered do not fit the iPod crowd consumption or listening patterns.
I expect online movie downloads to follow exactly the same pattern. Some forms of video - cheap date movies, stupid comedy (Borat etc) and other sorts of low-end pop-junk like sit-com TV shows will be downloaded. Non-pop culture film (serious movies, foreign film, classics, etc.); i.e. things that have lasting value; that you can watch many times over your lifetime will still be distributed on physical media.
Sweeeeet. ZIFs are normally synthesized using 2-methyl imidazole, a known animal carcinogen. The solvent used is generally DMF, a known teratogen. So we are going to make tons and tons of this stuff to capture CO2, and then all die of cancer, and our babies are all going to have birth defects.
What really sucks is that if you live in China you could complain to your government that the big old sky eye was watching you and they might decide to shoot it down. In America about all you can do is stay indoors all the time, or maybe erect a big tent over your property,
The problem with gold or similar physical standard is that the amount of gold available is not tied to the size of the economy; the amount available grows much more slowly. If you have an expanding economy as is the case in most of the world you want the amount of money to expand with the size of the economy to prevent deflation (i.e. decreasing real prices) which is just as bad if not worse than inflation.
Nearly, but not quite. I had one damaged by a lightning stike. Interestingly you could still make calls on the phone, but the coil that motivated the ringer was shot so you could not hear incoming calls.
he is not making all other users of software poorer
This particular point is debatable. If the software creator is economically impacted by the act of piracy of many of his products several bad things can happen that negatively impact people who paid for the product, such as:
1. Creator discontinues product due to lack of profit. 2. Creator adopts draconian anti-piracy methods making software less convenient. 3. Creator reduces support for product to keep costs low. 4. Creator decides to quit software development and get into porn distribution.
And so on.
So yes pirating can make other users of the software poorer.
The expectation is that you improve and I improve the pay.
That's fine, but what you said previously was:
I will not pay anyone the same wage to continue doing the same task at the same rate for any reason year after year. To maintain their pay, employees should be expected to demonstrate improved performance
To maintain their pay, employees should be expected to demonstrate improved performance, or employers will (and should) seek out employees that will.
Employers like to promote the idea that there is no job security; the ying to that yang is that there is no employee loyalty.
If I improve my productivity over time, and you continue to offer me the same compensation for that increased performance, I will take my improved skills to another employer to obtain commensurate compensation. I will certainly not allow an employer to exploit me in the manner you describe.
I hate HD DVD + Blu-Ray. That is I hate the format war aspect of hidef movie playback. The sooner one of these dies, the better. I don't give a rat's ass which. Since it looks like HD-DVD is on life support I am all in favor of pulling the plug as soon as possible.
People trying to keep a dying format going are supporting a destructive format war and should rethink their lives.
Seriously, why bother? Few studios are going to make HD-DVD releases any more. Why feed a dead horse?
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You may love the idea, but of course it is a ridiculous concept. There are very few things that people own that are generally taxed under some form of "property tax". Of all my worldly possesions, including my bank accounts, home, cars, boat, furniture, computers, other electronics, clothing, tools, etc. only one item I own is subject to a property tax. Trying to put forth the concept that because something is property it must be taxed badly fails the inductivve logic test because there are in fact many types of property that are not taxed.
I woul;d support the idea of a 5 year expiration based on lack of effort to commercialize. Two years is a bit too short - it may take longer for a company to work out funding, etc. I suppose a lot depends on how that law is written as to what a good time frame would be.
There are already patent maintenance fees of a few thousand dollars (and the numbers increase with the age of the patent) that do clean out some of the underbrush when it comes to patents.
For copyrights I like the idea of a similar idea. Once the original author is dead (or some time period, say 10 years has passed it takes a maintenance fee to keep the copyright alive.
Consumer CD-R's are cheap crap manufactured to sell off the shelves without any regard to quality except absolute minimal standards needed to dupe music. People who buy them expecting them to work for long term data archiving are at best uninformed. Good CD's like MAM-A archival quality CD's have an estimated lifetime in the 100+ year range. Accelerated thermal stability testing shows an error rate stability for these better than commercially pressed CD's.
There are now DVD R's made at the same quality level. I expect that we will eventually se the same thing for BD's.
This result; that is there is no clinically significant effect except on those with severe depression obviously indicates that these drugs are very over-prescribed. Since they are generally addictive and have strong side effects, it means to me that there is behavior on the part of their proponents and prescribers that at least rises to a highly unethical level and possibly to the level of criminality.
Sony will laugh long and hard at that one, because MS isn't going to make a profit selling games at $2.00.
So where do standards come from if it isn't new products developed by businesses?
The space is not meaningless. The Transformers HD-DVD ran out of space for a lossless audio track and was released without one.
Both formats had their plusses and minuses. HD-DVD is cheaper to implement, but doesn't have the ultimate bit rate that is the final determination of the picture quality ceiling.
I really am glad the format war is over. Now I can start looking at the technology and maybe open up my wallet for some hardware without worrying about the format war. Manufacturers will now focus on the one technology, and getting costs down.
iTunes and iPods have made a significant impact on how popular music is consumed, but pretty much zero impact on all other genres. Outside pop music, CD sales have been growing over time, and the online sales of these other genres is pretty much dead in the water. CD's are not going away any time soon because albums which have lasting value, are well produced, and mastered do not fit the iPod crowd consumption or listening patterns.
I expect online movie downloads to follow exactly the same pattern. Some forms of video - cheap date movies, stupid comedy (Borat etc) and other sorts of low-end pop-junk like sit-com TV shows will be downloaded. Non-pop culture film (serious movies, foreign film, classics, etc.); i.e. things that have lasting value; that you can watch many times over your lifetime will still be distributed on physical media.
I think it is pretty well established that Microsoft is a good-intention free zone.
Sweeeeet. ZIFs are normally synthesized using 2-methyl imidazole, a known animal carcinogen. The solvent used is generally DMF, a known teratogen. So we are going to make tons and tons of this stuff to capture CO2, and then all die of cancer, and our babies are all going to have birth defects.
This plan suxors.
What really sucks is that if you live in China you could complain to your government that the big old sky eye was watching you and they might decide to shoot it down. In America about all you can do is stay indoors all the time, or maybe erect a big tent over your property,
$9.2T in debt is no small potatoes and it's not getting any smaller.
Sure it is, for two reasons. The first is inflation, and the second is that the US economy is growing faster than the debt is.
The problem with gold or similar physical standard is that the amount of gold available is not tied to the size of the economy; the amount available grows much more slowly. If you have an expanding economy as is the case in most of the world you want the amount of money to expand with the size of the economy to prevent deflation (i.e. decreasing real prices) which is just as bad if not worse than inflation.
But does it still work? I'd like to see it demonstrated.
I own an HP 35. Built in 1973. Still works.
The new made in China HP stuff is a cruel joke.
That was before telemarketing and after I started college. So it was a bad thing because all the hot coeds making booty calls to me went unanswered.
Nearly, but not quite. I had one damaged by a lightning stike. Interestingly you could still make calls on the phone, but the coil that motivated the ringer was shot so you could not hear incoming calls.
he is not making all other users of software poorer
This particular point is debatable. If the software creator is economically impacted by the act of piracy of many of his products several bad things can happen that negatively impact people who paid for the product, such as:
1. Creator discontinues product due to lack of profit.
2. Creator adopts draconian anti-piracy methods making software less convenient.
3. Creator reduces support for product to keep costs low.
4. Creator decides to quit software development and get into porn distribution.
And so on.
So yes pirating can make other users of the software poorer.
Worst. Summary. Ever.
The expectation is that you improve and I improve the pay.
That's fine, but what you said previously was:
I will not pay anyone the same wage to continue doing the same task at the same rate for any reason year after year. To maintain their pay, employees should be expected to demonstrate improved performance
That is rather different.
I can imagine that the comments feature will soon be disabled.
To maintain their pay, employees should be expected to demonstrate improved performance, or employers will (and should) seek out employees that will.
Employers like to promote the idea that there is no job security; the ying to that yang is that there is no employee loyalty.
If I improve my productivity over time, and you continue to offer me the same compensation for that increased performance, I will take my improved skills to another employer to obtain commensurate compensation. I will certainly not allow an employer to exploit me in the manner you describe.
If you use good quality media with gold stabilized dye the shelf life should be 100 years or more.
http://www.mam-a.com/products/dvd/Gold%20DVD/DVDR%20Gold.htm
Of course if you use the crap you get in most stores you are looking at 1 year.
I hate HD DVD + Blu-Ray. That is I hate the format war aspect of hidef movie playback. The sooner one of these dies, the better. I don't give a rat's ass which. Since it looks like HD-DVD is on life support I am all in favor of pulling the plug as soon as possible.
People trying to keep a dying format going are supporting a destructive format war and should rethink their lives.
Seriously, why bother? Few studios are going to make HD-DVD releases any more. Why feed a dead horse?