To avoid paying tax you have to go and work somewhere that doesn't tax income. Such places exist, but unless you are a multimillionaire you will probably find that by the time you have paid for armed guards, personal health care and all the other bits and pieces of a civilised life, you would have found it cheaper to stay where you were.
Actually, Vanautu is a lovely place to live/work. Now, if I could work out a way of setting up a Vanautu Co. on the 'net, paying me every cent it earns (no income tax) and then being able to work remotely from any place in the world... Now that would be cool.
Or a coffee shop. But trust me when I say store based laundering operations go down pretty quick. It's only the smart ones that actually get away with it...
What's the point of putting all that power in to finding one password/encryption key. Say you do crack it, what will you find? In the couple of minutes of freedom you have snooping around, a) you have to find an account with substantial funds, and b) transfer it to your own account.
... make it easier to launder money on the internet"
Hello? Anybody home? You can't launder electronic cash you fool. The purpose of laundering is to turn cold hard cash in to legitimate earnings. Biggest launderers are obviously criminals (drugs, stolen good, fraudsters, etc). I think what you may mean is "make it easier to put away illegal earnings".
BTW, the easiest way to launder money is to go to Las Vegas (If you're a US resident) or any other casino, buy $9,000 worth of chips from every teller until all your cash is chips, stay 3 days and cash in your chips that you "won". The Casino pays out all transaction over $1000 in cheques, and report all transactions over $10,000. Hint: Don't cash in more than $10,000. Now, take your 10 cheques for $9,500 in to 10 different banks and deposit the winnings. After that, then you can transfer it to your Swiss bank account so the money is there when you get out of jail.
...and they have lots of money in the bank. Heck, Bill could buy it on his own!
Yeah, they're one of about 10 big companies in the world that have over a billion US$ in cash reserves. Bill himself has a lot of stock, a lot of options and a bit of debt (secured with stock). He personally does not have hoards of cash just kicking around, not 7 bil anyway;-)
To be completely honest about the whole thing, if by some chance someone did come up with a cost effective personal flying device I'm sure it would be limited to a couple of things.
Firstly, I don't think they'd be allowed in the same airspace as current tech planes. The max flight height would probably be less than 700 feet.
Flight paths would have to follow 'roads' like light poles with beacons on the top or someting and finally,
Weather would all of a sudden make a difference as to when you could and could not go out. I can honestly say I've been on the road in some pretty bad conditions (so bad I ended up pulling off the road) and flying in worse, but, in the plane at least you can fly around the storm cells.
Ah but the great thing is there's a prob already on it's way to Titan to investigate this. It the Cassini: Voyage to Saturn Project. Nice site scientifically speaking. You should check it out.
There are more rules to flying than driving, they're actually enforced on all planes and there are no wankers in the air. Planes are adequately separated and vertically spaced... shall I go on.
If I were driving and yanked the wheel to the right at top speed, what would happen? Death would surely ensue. If I were flying at Va (maximum speed for full control deflection) and yanked the wheel to the right, I'd barrel roll the plane, but I wouldn't die.
Planes are much safer than cars. The people controlling them know it and they respect their surroundings, unlike 80% of drivers on the roads.
You have to look at the number of deaths per miles travelled as you say. Of all passenger road travel, the deaths per mile (at 35mph) are about 10,000 - 1 to the deaths per mile of passanger air travel (at 600mph). That excludes military action eg. KAL 007 was shot down etc.
How much will it cost? In limited production (500 units per year) the M400 Skycar will sell for a price comparable to that of a four passenger high performance helicopter or airplane, approximately $1 Million. As the volume of production increases substantially, its price can approach that of a luxury automobile.
What is taking so long? Revolutionary ideas are not born overnight. We have been in development for 30 years and have several prototypes and concept vehicles flying. The progress of the M400 is on a very quick schedule when you review the man-hours and dollars expended. Only $100 Million has been spent in R & D at Moller International, compare this to the $1.2 Billion required for the gearbox design on the Bell-Boeing V22 Osprey.
Oh! only 100 million. Shit I thought it was more that had to be recovered in R&D
Remeber, this has to come out of the profit margin so let's see;
500 per year, costs are $1 million each let's say... 50,000 per year, cost would be $60,000 each as you say. Let's see now, scale the plant up from 500 to 50,000/year, suddenly these things are everywhere, there's air jams, milage goes down, popularity wears off, what ever.
There is no way you can build a million dollar vehicle (to begin with) for less than 10% on a mass scale
There is no way these things will sell for $60,000. Try $600,000. Do you know how much carbon fibre, boron and other high cost/low weight material is in them? a single kilogram of carbon fibre cost's well over a $1000 and that a raw product. Consider that a) there are many kilo's of carbon fibre in each one and b) you have to mould and set the stuff.
There is no way $60,000 is going to buy you a four seater aircraft, unless you get a second hand cessna 172. And that is made from aluminium and steel.
In short, no. Why? I hear you ask. As a pilot, let me begin.
Suppose these things are cheap enough to mass-produce or perhaps mass-produced enough to be cheap. Suppose also that every owner gets whatever training is necessary. Then you can say goodbye to the oft-mentioned fantasy of chuckling to yourself as you serenely fly over the traffic jams below, because now the sky is full of people who used to be driving. What kind of flight-control, traffic-control, and safety systems would be required to make them safe?
Something better than what we have now, which is so good, there hasn't been a mid-air for a decade. Seperation standards put heavy jets (>500,000lbs) at 3Nm, medium at 2Nm and light (the class this would be in) at visual separation.
Well, as safe as car traffic is now, for argument's sake.
You are 10 times more likely to die on the road on a ten minute trip to the airport than a 12 hour flight to Europe
Unless every unit is centrally controlled or has on-board 3D radar coupled to the nav system (and would you really trust that anyway?), you can't just let people fly wherever they want at 80 MPH.
This thing is fly by cable. i.e. all human input. No radar, no nav - all visual, so forget rainy days.
I'm not a pilot, so maybe those of you who are can enlighten us on airspace regulations. Would there be a minimum altitude for "high" speed travel?
Not above 250Mph below 10,000 feet
Would different altitude ranges be reserved for different headings?
East - even 1000's (2500, 4500, 6500, etc) West - odd 1000's (1500, 3500, 5500, etc)
How about failure modes? Are emergency parachutes enough?
Yes
Mars-lander-type external airbags? What about the traffic below you? Compressed helium and emergency balloons?
No
It seems like there are a lot of issues to be resolved apart from mechanical and economic feasibility. Does anyone know what the state-of-the-art thinking is here?
Look, I'm sure bands get f*cked over by labels all the time, but... Would you sign up for 99 years for anything? Put you business hat on for a minute - how long are building leases? Not 99 years. Even a life sentence is only 20 years these days.
I'm from Australia. Our dollars only 0.65 of yours, plus, we don't get super sweet deals from major vendors with net access, etc. We have to pay a full price on machines.
Besides, a Voodoo III will not always be fully maxed out with a dual CPU because a lot of games are written for broad consumer machines, not a single spec like a console. That is why they can squeeze every last piece of performance from a console - Check out GT2 for PSX, remebering a PSX is a 486 with 16MB, a 4x CD and an equivalent of a Voodoo I.
On every contract you ever sign, you can legally cross out anything that you don't agree with. That's why both parties sign it. You pick out what you don't want, and sign. They either agree and counter-sign, or disagree and write up a new contract.
Any artist considering signing with Sony would be advised to dlete this from their contract.
Concerts make very little money compared to album sales. Especially for smaller name bands.
Picture this:
Big name band puts out new album, sells 500,000 copies with an income of about $1.00 each. That's half a million dollars, plus what the label paid them to record it in the first place - Probably about another $500,000 - Total, $1 million.
Same band goes on tour, plays to, say 30 concerts at 30,000 people each - 900,000 people and charge $40 per ticket. Of this, it costs about $35 per person to put the concert on in the first place, plus tour expenses, plus this, plus that. The promoter takes a cut, the label takes a cut and eventually the band may end up with about $500,000 after 30 concerts. Not bad but...
They just advertised their music in a major way and reeled in a few new fans. "Liked the concert? Buy the album." That is the pupose of touring for the bigger name bands.
Hey presto album sales dollars again. Usually more than before.
Now look think about a little band that get's little support from their record label.
They record a CD, sell about 20,000 copies (maybe!) and get about $0.60 per copy. To get more sales, you need to get more fans, so...
They have to tour to advertise and can only charge about $10 so people attend. Nearly all of the money received on touring is spent on tour!
It only serves as a marketing tool to sell albums.
A record deal isn't just about distribution. It's a lot more to do with the marketing than anything else. Anyone can press out thoushands of CD's for about 25c each, but you need to advertise to sell them.
In Australia we have 200 "chart" stores that are the record industries worst kept secret. All the major labels put ultra marketing dollars in to these stores (and very little in to any others) in order to pump up the album on the charts. Once they're in the top 20, the CD moves to the chart rack and will be carried by ALL the stores. The label will also release your singles to the radio stations for air play. Where else are the general public going to here your music?
The only saving grace is that once you've got a hit, people may actually look for your album (It took me a week to track down "The Living End" EP before their album release). If people look on the 'net, well, what more needs to be said.
I suppose if you use the net to advertise/market your album, you can bypass the misguidings of a record label, but... You absolutely have to have a fan-base/name/history/etc before you can go it alone. When you're that big, you can delete items you don't like from a contract. Just put a line through it on the contract, then it's legally deleted from the contract.
For this reason. I don't think we will see the death of the record label for a long, long time.
It's all in the delivery. It's not funny unless the comment is being made in a serious tone as though the person saying it truly believes what they're saying.
And just to stay on topic... PSX2, where do I sign.
For all those bagging the release date, you'll just have to live with your PSX until that date.
Have a machine that intentionaly 'mounts' the other one, clamps on (magnetic or barbed) and then proceeds to drill or cut the one below. You'd have to hit something vital to it's operation sooner or later and hopefully this would bring the maker to tears. (I hate it when something I do gets broken).
As for outlawing weapons, my first choice was gas axe (oxy-acetelene) - banned, then ultra high voltage - banned, then... Oh bugger it. If you can't be really destructive, what's the point?
From what I recall, Voyager can no longer transmit pictures back, but is still operating somewhere near Saturn. It's done about 60-65% of it's intended journey.
Slashdot Mirror
To avoid paying tax you have to go and work somewhere that doesn't tax income. Such places exist, but unless you are a multimillionaire you will probably find that by the time you have paid for armed guards, personal health care and all the other bits and pieces of a civilised life, you would have found it cheaper to stay where you were.
Actually, Vanautu is a lovely place to live/work. Now, if I could work out a way of setting up a Vanautu Co. on the 'net, paying me every cent it earns (no income tax) and then being able to work remotely from any place in the world... Now that would be cool.
Or a coffee shop. But trust me when I say store based laundering operations go down pretty quick. It's only the smart ones that actually get away with it...
kinda like crime in general really.
What's the point of putting all that power in to finding one password/encryption key. Say you do crack it, what will you find? In the couple of minutes of freedom you have snooping around, a) you have to find an account with substantial funds, and b) transfer it to your own account.
Easy! NOT.
... make it easier to launder money on the internet"
Hello? Anybody home? You can't launder electronic cash you fool. The purpose of laundering is to turn cold hard cash in to legitimate earnings. Biggest launderers are obviously criminals (drugs, stolen good, fraudsters, etc). I think what you may mean is "make it easier to put away illegal earnings".
BTW, the easiest way to launder money is to go to Las Vegas (If you're a US resident) or any other casino, buy $9,000 worth of chips from every teller until all your cash is chips, stay 3 days and cash in your chips that you "won". The Casino pays out all transaction over $1000 in cheques, and report all transactions over $10,000. Hint: Don't cash in more than $10,000. Now, take your 10 cheques for $9,500 in to 10 different banks and deposit the winnings. After that, then you can transfer it to your Swiss bank account so the money is there when you get out of jail .
...and they have lots of money in the bank. Heck, Bill could buy it on his own!
;-)
Yeah, they're one of about 10 big companies in the world that have over a billion US$ in cash reserves. Bill himself has a lot of stock, a lot of options and a bit of debt (secured with stock). He personally does not have hoards of cash just kicking around, not 7 bil anyway
But it's not like they can't afford it...
It would however put a serious dent in their ongoing anti-trust suit if they did though.
To be completely honest about the whole thing, if by some chance someone did come up with a cost effective personal flying device I'm sure it would be limited to a couple of things.
Firstly, I don't think they'd be allowed in the same airspace as current tech planes. The max flight height would probably be less than 700 feet.
Flight paths would have to follow 'roads' like light poles with beacons on the top or someting and finally,
Weather would all of a sudden make a difference as to when you could and could not go out. I can honestly say I've been on the road in some pretty bad conditions (so bad I ended up pulling off the road) and flying in worse, but, in the plane at least you can fly around the storm cells.
Ah but the great thing is there's a prob already on it's way to Titan to investigate this. It the Cassini: Voyage to Saturn Project. Nice site scientifically speaking. You should check it out.
No, planes are not more dangerous than cars.
There are more rules to flying than driving, they're actually enforced on all planes and there are no wankers in the air. Planes are adequately separated and vertically spaced... shall I go on.
If I were driving and yanked the wheel to the right at top speed, what would happen? Death would surely ensue. If I were flying at Va (maximum speed for full control deflection) and yanked the wheel to the right, I'd barrel roll the plane, but I wouldn't die.
Planes are much safer than cars. The people controlling them know it and they respect their surroundings, unlike 80% of drivers on the roads.
Only because there are a lot more cars on the road, and planes have trained pilots.
Exactly. When was te last time you saw a ninty year old granny flying with the left hand stobe lights on eh?
Anyone can get a drivers license. You have to be fit, well and capable to fly.
Yes, I really mean what I said.
You have to look at the number of deaths per miles travelled as you say. Of all passenger road travel, the deaths per mile (at 35mph) are about 10,000 - 1 to the deaths per mile of passanger air travel (at 600mph). That excludes military action eg. KAL 007 was shot down etc.
From their site:
How much will it cost?
In limited production (500 units per year) the M400 Skycar will sell for a price comparable to that of a four passenger high performance helicopter or airplane, approximately $1 Million. As the volume of production increases substantially, its price can approach that of a luxury automobile.
What is taking so long?
Revolutionary ideas are not born overnight. We have been in development for 30 years and have several prototypes and concept vehicles flying. The progress of the M400 is on a very quick schedule when you review the man-hours and dollars expended. Only $100 Million has been spent in R & D at Moller International, compare this to the $1.2 Billion required for the gearbox design on the Bell-Boeing V22 Osprey.
Oh! only 100 million. Shit I thought it was more that had to be recovered in R&D
Remeber, this has to come out of the profit margin so let's see;
500 per year, costs are $1 million each
let's say...
50,000 per year, cost would be $60,000 each as you say. Let's see now, scale the plant up from 500 to 50,000/year, suddenly these things are everywhere, there's air jams, milage goes down, popularity wears off, what ever.
There is no way you can build a million dollar vehicle (to begin with) for less than 10% on a mass scale
Woah dude!
There is no way these things will sell for $60,000. Try $600,000. Do you know how much carbon fibre, boron and other high cost/low weight material is in them? a single kilogram of carbon fibre cost's well over a $1000 and that a raw product. Consider that a) there are many kilo's of carbon fibre in each one and b) you have to mould and set the stuff.
There is no way $60,000 is going to buy you a four seater aircraft, unless you get a second hand cessna 172. And that is made from aluminium and steel.
In short, no. Why? I hear you ask. As a pilot, let me begin.
Suppose these things are cheap enough to mass-produce or perhaps mass-produced enough to be cheap. Suppose also that every owner gets whatever training is necessary. Then you can say goodbye to the oft-mentioned fantasy of chuckling to yourself as you serenely fly over the traffic jams below, because now the sky is full of people who used to be driving. What kind of flight-control, traffic-control, and safety systems would be required to make them safe?
Something better than what we have now, which is so good, there hasn't been a mid-air for a decade. Seperation standards put heavy jets (>500,000lbs) at 3Nm, medium at 2Nm and light (the class this would be in) at visual separation.
Well, as safe as car traffic is now, for argument's sake.
You are 10 times more likely to die on the road on a ten minute trip to the airport than a 12 hour flight to Europe
Unless every unit is centrally controlled or has on-board 3D radar coupled to the nav system (and would you really trust that anyway?), you can't just let people fly wherever they want at 80 MPH.
This thing is fly by cable. i.e. all human input. No radar, no nav - all visual, so forget rainy days.
I'm not a pilot, so maybe those of you who are can enlighten us on airspace regulations. Would there be a minimum altitude for "high" speed travel?
Not above 250Mph below 10,000 feet
Would different altitude ranges be reserved for different headings?
East - even 1000's (2500, 4500, 6500, etc)
West - odd 1000's (1500, 3500, 5500, etc)
How about failure modes? Are emergency parachutes enough?
Yes
Mars-lander-type external airbags? What about the traffic below you? Compressed helium and emergency balloons?
No
It seems like there are a lot of issues to be resolved apart from mechanical and economic feasibility. Does anyone know what the state-of-the-art thinking is here?
Seemed like a good idea at the time!
Look, I'm sure bands get f*cked over by labels all the time, but... Would you sign up for 99 years for anything? Put you business hat on for a minute - how long are building leases? Not 99 years. Even a life sentence is only 20 years these days.
Yeah, lot's, at pub's and the like. Stadium gigs are about $35 to $50 though, not $10 or $12.
Oh, one more point. Australian Dollars.
I'm from Australia. Our dollars only 0.65 of yours, plus, we don't get super sweet deals from major vendors with net access, etc. We have to pay a full price on machines.
Besides, a Voodoo III will not always be fully maxed out with a dual CPU because a lot of games are written for broad consumer machines, not a single spec like a console. That is why they can squeeze every last piece of performance from a console - Check out GT2 for PSX, remebering a PSX is a 486 with 16MB, a 4x CD and an equivalent of a Voodoo I.
Only replying to this to get it at the top but...
On every contract you ever sign, you can legally cross out anything that you don't agree with. That's why both parties sign it. You pick out what you don't want, and sign. They either agree and counter-sign, or disagree and write up a new contract.
Any artist considering signing with Sony would be advised to dlete this from their contract.
Just my 2 bob.
That's only a one-off case.
A lot of acts get their contracts based on performance. "Your album does well, you'll do well" type thing.
The label will pay for the first album, don't expect any more favours if it's shit though.
Concerts make very little money compared to album sales. Especially for smaller name bands.
Picture this:
Big name band puts out new album, sells 500,000 copies with an income of about $1.00 each. That's half a million dollars, plus what the label paid them to record it in the first place - Probably about another $500,000 - Total, $1 million.
Same band goes on tour, plays to, say 30 concerts at 30,000 people each - 900,000 people and charge $40 per ticket. Of this, it costs about $35 per person to put the concert on in the first place, plus tour expenses, plus this, plus that. The promoter takes a cut, the label takes a cut and eventually the band may end up with about $500,000 after 30 concerts. Not bad but...
They just advertised their music in a major way and reeled in a few new fans. "Liked the concert? Buy the album." That is the pupose of touring for the bigger name bands.
Hey presto album sales dollars again. Usually more than before.
Now look think about a little band that get's little support from their record label.
They record a CD, sell about 20,000 copies (maybe!) and get about $0.60 per copy. To get more sales, you need to get more fans, so...
They have to tour to advertise and can only charge about $10 so people attend. Nearly all of the money received on touring is spent on tour!
It only serves as a marketing tool to sell albums.
A record deal isn't just about distribution. It's a lot more to do with the marketing than anything else. Anyone can press out thoushands of CD's for about 25c each, but you need to advertise to sell them.
In Australia we have 200 "chart" stores that are the record industries worst kept secret. All the major labels put ultra marketing dollars in to these stores (and very little in to any others) in order to pump up the album on the charts. Once they're in the top 20, the CD moves to the chart rack and will be carried by ALL the stores. The label will also release your singles to the radio stations for air play. Where else are the general public going to here your music?
The only saving grace is that once you've got a hit, people may actually look for your album (It took me a week to track down "The Living End" EP before their album release). If people look on the 'net, well, what more needs to be said.
I suppose if you use the net to advertise/market your album, you can bypass the misguidings of a record label, but... You absolutely have to have a fan-base/name/history/etc before you can go it alone. When you're that big, you can delete items you don't like from a contract. Just put a line through it on the contract, then it's legally deleted from the contract.
For this reason. I don't think we will see the death of the record label for a long, long time.
The URL's /.'d out. Bugger.
Added point to your post, A Voodoo III costs $300 and its not as good, plus you need a $5000 machine to fully utilise it.
It's all in the delivery. It's not funny unless the comment is being made in a serious tone as though the person saying it truly believes what they're saying.
And just to stay on topic... PSX2, where do I sign.
For all those bagging the release date, you'll just have to live with your PSX until that date.
Here's a thought...
Have a machine that intentionaly 'mounts' the other one, clamps on (magnetic or barbed) and then proceeds to drill or cut the one below. You'd have to hit something vital to it's operation sooner or later and hopefully this would bring the maker to tears. (I hate it when something I do gets broken).
As for outlawing weapons, my first choice was gas axe (oxy-acetelene) - banned, then ultra high voltage - banned, then... Oh bugger it. If you can't be really destructive, what's the point?
From what I recall, Voyager can no longer transmit pictures back, but is still operating somewhere near Saturn. It's done about 60-65% of it's intended journey.