Compare the pre-WWII autobahns (the post WWII autobahns were constructed with Marshal Plan aid from the US; Germany, recall, was economically devastated, and the highways were a major part of the economic recovery) with the post WWII Eisenhower Interstate system, and you'll see that both US and German highways of this caliber were precisely comparable in features and design in the post WWII era. You can see some of the pre-WWII autobahns abandoned in the former East Germany. They weren't very impressive, except by comparison tot the alternatives.
Some US states had highway systems comparable to the autobahns in 1940 (courtesy of the PWA) and let's not forget that the entire German system was just a state-sized 'demonstrator project' in US terms. (the former West Germany was only the size of Oregon)
...Monsanto effectively has a monopoly on certain types of seed...
Certain types of seed? You might as well complain that Nabisco has a monopoly on Fig Newtons and Oreos. Alternatives are absolutely available. By some measures, they may not be as good -- but then again, I may not like Hydrox cookies. So what?
Or that Archer Daniels Midland *effectively* has a monopoly on the growing of certain grains.
Name the grain and maybe we can have a discussion. Otherwise, you've said zilch. And I bet that the 'certain grains' is a tiny category, such as a specific strain, not something substantial like 'rye' or 'wheat'.
A monopoly per se is not necessarily bad. In theoretical terms, you have a monopoly on sleeping with your spouse. It's when it interferes with a legitimate free market that we object. If you can't buy a Mercedes from Ford, that's not a monopoly because there are alternatives to Mercedes. When MS deliberately engineers its products to 'break' compatibility with its competitors, that's anti-competitive. When Monsanto engineers a new grain and says, use it for it's advantages, or use something else -- well that's expected practice, and the basis of commercial innovation.
KevinMS says: "... oryou can use a more elegant and powerful solution called
Sneakemail like I do."
I'm sure your short term experience with Sneakemail has been fine (assuming you have no affiliation with the company), but I cannot bring myself to use a proxy e-mail site that:
does not have a privacy statement
does not explain its operation clearly in advance (in fact, says essentially nothing).
tells me to create an account blindly, and promises to explain everything as it goes along
explains nothing before collecting my real e-mail address
does not explain its revenue model (if they go belly up, they may sell their customer list)
makes no privacy promises regarding the mail that passes through it, before sign-up (so they can freely make a list of all the porn sites you do business with, but don't want spamming you
In short, this site has written itself a blank check for abuse. I intend to set up an account with them, leading to a [nonobvious] unused address, just to see if I start recieving mail there! (If not tomorrow, then eventually.) My past tests with similar services have had a near 100% spam rate.
Be very wary of using Sneakemail, or any service that does not spell out privacy policies. Even sites the spell them out often don't follow them, so what are we to expect from one that makes no promises?
I'd like to see the list. 1,800 may sound like a lot, but clearly there's some selective enforcement going on. A single quick Domain Surfer Search turns up over 6,000 candidates. Some may turn out to be non-infringing, and some may be licensed, but I doubt that there are 4000+ such exceptions.
The 'Special Olympics' has seemed curiously spared -- it may be licensed, but I've never seen any indication of Olympic licensing *or* the Olympic seals or symbols at Special Olympic events. Yet it is a sporting event that people may legitimately assume operates under Olympic imprimatur, and it is so well-known (with a 32 year history) that the IOC can hardly claim they weren't aware of it.
What's the diligence standard for trademark defense, anyway? Maybe they've already lost a big chunk of their exclusivity -- a fact that the next 'little guy' they persecute may be able to use in their defense.
Damn, I can remember when geeks had some hint of a clue about math or science.
The author opens with a claim that Shell Oil has a competition where cars run on "standard petroleum" -- maybe a diesel could run on pure petroleum, but that's the stuff that comes out of the ground, not out of fuel pumps. That's a hint that he's clueless.
Further he claims 10K+ miles/per gallon (40K+ kilometers per liter) That's 200x most production high economy cars, and 100x the target for the ultra economy cars. In order for this to even be thermodynamically possible, the efficiency of today's cars would have to be under 1%.
Don't we even have some intuitive sense of the general amount of energy in burning gasoline? And the amount of work involved in moving things on Earth. Think!!! Halfway around the Earth on a gallon? Do you really believe that? (10K mpg is trivial in space, of course) Think of the amount of enrgy required to lift a car over even a modest hill.
Well the guys working on Society of Automotive Engineers competitions sure haven't seemed to have heard of it. Even their most highly compromised, highly optimized vehicles don't come close. Ultralight, ultrafragile shells on bicycle/tricycle frames with a total vehicle weight in the *tens* of pounds (see some pictures) can achieve many hundreds of mpg -- at 15 mpg on a track with no uphills greater than 1%.
Actually, if you read the SAE competition rules, you'll see that these vehicles are not capable of cruising most campuses. They are too underpowered to climb any hill that you can't coast over at 15-16 mpg. (a modest speed on an ordinary bicycle)
Not in most states, if the business is offering walk-in "public accomodation." Just because you don't like someone, you can't ban him from your restaurant, and you certainly can't get the police to remove him.
True, in most states you will find that licensed public accommodations undertake a duty to serve the public (restaurants, stores, hotels, taxis, etc.) However, their rights to exclude are pretty broad, even in those states. Thare are specific protected categories, and aside from that it hinges on the officer's judgement of whether s/he wishs to intervene.
[The courts, including the Supremes, have ruled many times that the police do not have a specific obligation to protect and individual or property in every specific instance. People have been attacked by known felons, when the felon was under observation and the attack was observed by police, without intervention and without recourse]
The dude is a jerk, which is, of course, no crime. However, among the conditions of using E-bay are that you agree not to be a jerk, that you agree E-bay can set the rules for jerkiness, and you agree to 'get out and stay out; if they kick you out." he agreed to that each time he created an account. Otherwise, he has the same right to come and observe, but not participate, as any random stranger. "participation" in web sites is not public, "viewing" pages is (unless access is restricted). Even accessing pages is a limited right -- or certain DoS attacks would be legal.
If you own a lunch counter, you certainly can refuse to serve anyone you wish -- unless you do so for a strictly illegal reason. Race has been deemed to be an illegal reason; in some circumstances, so is gender. The list of such protected categories is short and each is enacted in a specific law. You can, for example, refuse to serve Democrats, etc. (just be careful not to exclude people who can characterize their category as a 'disability', which would be against the ADA. "people I don't like" or "people who smell bad" are not protected categories per se.
You can't discriminate on race, etc. when selling a house (Fair Housing Act) but you can refuse to sell to a jerk. There is no law forcing you to take the highest bidder. If your neighbor begs you not sell to his wife's college flame, that's your right.
Each of the other items you claim as Federal decisions are misstatements (unless you can supply a specific case I'm unaware of). Homeless people enjoy the same use of public parks as *you* do (you can do what they do), so it's really *public* use of public parks. Lunatics can be locked up without their consent *if they may reasonably be seen as posing a danger to themselves or others*. A woman's right to privacy does not allow her to murder because murder is a legal term, and the courts have said that abortion is not murder. You may think it is, but apparently, you hold a lot of baseless opinions.
You did single out Willie Nelson on purpose, right? Otherwise, your comment was amazingly ironic.
For those who don't know: for many years, (late 80's - 90's) Willie Nelson was just about the most financially troubled singers making the charts on a regular basis.
Such fundraising events were discussed by his fans and I believe some may actually have taken place.
Hey, maybe your German is better than mine (I studied in Germany for a while and lived Switzerland), but wouldn't "Raumfahrtingenieure" get your point across better? ["Weltraumfahrtingenieure" would be more exact, but nobody would use that terminology.]
Luft = air, Raum = space [Weltraum = outer space] "Luftfahrtingenieure" does mean "Aviation engineer".
I'm very curious to know if there is a systematic effort underway to search our (limited) stock of ancient parchment scrolls for previous works. It seems like an obvious project, but as underfunded (and competitively proprietary) as archeology and analysis of ancient texts are, I wonder if this has been undertaken.
Anyone out there know anything about this? If so, links, please!
With each passing year, we may be losing what little remains of the 'lost' pre-Alexandrian texts
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin looked like some sort of plantation owner...
Funny you should mention that, because the photo of STS-106 astronauts Wilcutt and Altman on the Shuttle update page looks like an outtake from "Strange Brew" or some similar lowbrow buddy flick. [STS-106, launching in Sept, will install Zvezda on the ISS]
Suddenly I'm struck by the remarkable resemblance between NASA's antics and SCTV. The lost Mars missions, and all the rest would fit perfectly into a "Second City Space Administration" with Daniel Goldin as "Guy Caballero".
In fact, that wouldn't be a bad revenue stream. SNL is still raking in the bucks, even though it's longer in the tooth than John Glenn. SCASA could never be nearly as tired. [This revenue model has been a natural, but overlooked, option since the second season of Miami Vice, when the budget per episode was more than the annual budget of the real Miami police unit it was -loosely- based on]
Innovation, man! To heck with this insistence on dignity! An irreverent comedy could get the memes and the dinero (as in bucks, not Robert) rolling.
Then you could let users download songs, and either throw a bit of money at the artist as a way of saying thank you... Hmm.. throw a bit of money at the artist Maybe I'm alone on this, but when I lived in the city many years ago, there was *nothing* so cool as being stuck in a subway, waiting for a train, harried and edgy, and having a good performer start playing. I gladly tossed the guy a buck or two, instead of pocket change, even though I was a poor student (and fundamentally cheap at heart). Those guys did a lot more for me than any jukebox or many CD's I've bought. Many times, they would play some old old familiar standby, turning it from something I tuned out to a favorite. It's more immersive than the radio, Cd, etc -- just like when some movie cranks up a song you've heard a million times, and suddenly it seems *perfect* I only wish there was some way to bring *that* experience to life more often, using today's technology. The closest I seem to comne these days, is the guy with the boom-box or the convertible. And frankly I sometimes feel *those* guys should be paying *me*... damages.
Slashdot Mirror
Compare the pre-WWII autobahns (the post WWII autobahns were constructed with Marshal Plan aid from the US; Germany, recall, was economically devastated, and the highways were a major part of the economic recovery) with the post WWII Eisenhower Interstate system, and you'll see that both US and German highways of this caliber were precisely comparable in features and design in the post WWII era. You can see some of the pre-WWII autobahns abandoned in the former East Germany. They weren't very impressive, except by comparison tot the alternatives.
Some US states had highway systems comparable to the autobahns in 1940 (courtesy of the PWA) and let's not forget that the entire German system was just a state-sized 'demonstrator project' in US terms. (the former West Germany was only the size of Oregon)
...Monsanto effectively has a monopoly on certain types of seed...
Certain types of seed? You might as well complain that Nabisco has a monopoly on Fig Newtons and Oreos. Alternatives are absolutely available. By some measures, they may not be as good -- but then again, I may not like Hydrox cookies. So what?
Or that Archer Daniels Midland *effectively* has a monopoly on the growing of certain grains.
Name the grain and maybe we can have a discussion. Otherwise, you've said zilch. And I bet that the 'certain grains' is a tiny category, such as a specific strain, not something substantial like 'rye' or 'wheat'.
A monopoly per se is not necessarily bad. In theoretical terms, you have a monopoly on sleeping with your spouse. It's when it interferes with a legitimate free market that we object. If you can't buy a Mercedes from Ford, that's not a monopoly because there are alternatives to Mercedes. When MS deliberately engineers its products to 'break' compatibility with its competitors, that's anti-competitive. When Monsanto engineers a new grain and says, use it for it's advantages, or use something else -- well that's expected practice, and the basis of commercial innovation.
Sneakemail like I do."
I'm sure your short term experience with Sneakemail has been fine (assuming you have no affiliation with the company), but I cannot bring myself to use a proxy e-mail site that:
In short, this site has written itself a blank check for abuse. I intend to set up an account with them, leading to a [nonobvious] unused address, just to see if I start recieving mail there! (If not tomorrow, then eventually.) My past tests with similar services have had a near 100% spam rate.
Be very wary of using Sneakemail, or any service that does not spell out privacy policies. Even sites the spell them out often don't follow them, so what are we to expect from one that makes no promises?
I'd like to see the list. 1,800 may sound like a lot, but clearly there's some selective enforcement going on. A single quick Domain Surfer Search turns up over 6,000 candidates. Some may turn out to be non-infringing, and some may be licensed, but I doubt that there are 4000+ such exceptions.
The 'Special Olympics' has seemed curiously spared -- it may be licensed, but I've never seen any indication of Olympic licensing *or* the Olympic seals or symbols at Special Olympic events. Yet it is a sporting event that people may legitimately assume operates under Olympic imprimatur, and it is so well-known (with a 32 year history) that the IOC can hardly claim they weren't aware of it.
What's the diligence standard for trademark defense, anyway? Maybe they've already lost a big chunk of their exclusivity -- a fact that the next 'little guy' they persecute may be able to use in their defense.
I made a typo: 10K mpg is roughly 4 Km/L. Also, I intended to include The SAE Supermileage Competition page
Th rest of my previous post stands.
This article is being modded up to 4-5?
Damn, I can remember when geeks had some hint of a clue about math or science.
The author opens with a claim that Shell Oil has a competition where cars run on "standard petroleum" -- maybe a diesel could run on pure petroleum, but that's the stuff that comes out of the ground, not out of fuel pumps. That's a hint that he's clueless.
Further he claims 10K+ miles/per gallon (40K+ kilometers per liter) That's 200x most production high economy cars, and 100x the target for the ultra economy cars. In order for this to even be thermodynamically possible, the efficiency of today's cars would have to be under 1%.
Don't we even have some intuitive sense of the general amount of energy in burning gasoline? And the amount of work involved in moving things on Earth. Think!!! Halfway around the Earth on a gallon? Do you really believe that? (10K mpg is trivial in space, of course) Think of the amount of enrgy required to lift a car over even a modest hill.
Well the guys working on Society of Automotive Engineers competitions sure haven't seemed to have heard of it. Even their most highly compromised, highly optimized vehicles don't come close. Ultralight, ultrafragile shells on bicycle/tricycle frames with a total vehicle weight in the *tens* of pounds (see some pictures) can achieve many hundreds of mpg -- at 15 mpg on a track with no uphills greater than 1%.
Actually, if you read the SAE competition rules, you'll see that these vehicles are not capable of cruising most campuses. They are too underpowered to climb any hill that you can't coast over at 15-16 mpg. (a modest speed on an ordinary bicycle)
Not in most states, if the business is offering walk-in "public accomodation." Just because you don't like someone, you can't ban him from your restaurant, and you certainly can't get the police to remove him.
True, in most states you will find that licensed public accommodations undertake a duty to serve the public (restaurants, stores, hotels, taxis, etc.) However, their rights to exclude are pretty broad, even in those states. Thare are specific protected categories, and aside from that it hinges on the officer's judgement of whether s/he wishs to intervene.
[The courts, including the Supremes, have ruled many times that the police do not have a specific obligation to protect and individual or property in every specific instance. People have been attacked by known felons, when the felon was under observation and the attack was observed by police, without intervention and without recourse]
The dude is a jerk, which is, of course, no crime. However, among the conditions of using E-bay are that you agree not to be a jerk, that you agree E-bay can set the rules for jerkiness, and you agree to 'get out and stay out; if they kick you out." he agreed to that each time he created an account. Otherwise, he has the same right to come and observe, but not participate, as any random stranger. "participation" in web sites is not public, "viewing" pages is (unless access is restricted). Even accessing pages is a limited right -- or certain DoS attacks would be legal.
If you own a lunch counter, you certainly can refuse to serve anyone you wish -- unless you do so for a strictly illegal reason. Race has been deemed to be an illegal reason; in some circumstances, so is gender. The list of such protected categories is short and each is enacted in a specific law. You can, for example, refuse to serve Democrats, etc. (just be careful not to exclude people who can characterize their category as a 'disability', which would be against the ADA. "people I don't like" or "people who smell bad" are not protected categories per se.
You can't discriminate on race, etc. when selling a house (Fair Housing Act) but you can refuse to sell to a jerk. There is no law forcing you to take the highest bidder. If your neighbor begs you not sell to his wife's college flame, that's your right.
Each of the other items you claim as Federal decisions are misstatements (unless you can supply a specific case I'm unaware of). Homeless people enjoy the same use of public parks as *you* do (you can do what they do), so it's really *public* use of public parks. Lunatics can be locked up without their consent *if they may reasonably be seen as posing a danger to themselves or others*. A woman's right to privacy does not allow her to murder because murder is a legal term, and the courts have said that abortion is not murder. You may think it is, but apparently, you hold a lot of baseless opinions.
You did single out Willie Nelson on purpose, right? Otherwise, your comment was amazingly ironic.
For those who don't know: for many years, (late 80's - 90's) Willie Nelson was just about the most financially troubled singers making the charts on a regular basis.
Such fundraising events were discussed by his fans and I believe some may actually have taken place.
Hey, maybe your German is better than mine (I studied in Germany for a while and lived Switzerland), but wouldn't "Raumfahrtingenieure" get your point across better? ["Weltraumfahrtingenieure" would be more exact, but nobody would use that terminology.]
Luft = air, Raum = space [Weltraum = outer space]
"Luftfahrtingenieure" does mean "Aviation engineer".
I'm very curious to know if there is a systematic effort underway to search our (limited) stock of ancient parchment scrolls for previous works. It seems like an obvious project, but as underfunded (and competitively proprietary) as archeology and analysis of ancient texts are, I wonder if this has been undertaken.
Anyone out there know anything about this? If so, links, please!
With each passing year, we may be losing what little remains of the 'lost' pre-Alexandrian texts
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin looked like some sort of plantation owner...
Funny you should mention that, because the photo of STS-106 astronauts Wilcutt and Altman on the Shuttle update page looks like an outtake from "Strange Brew" or some similar lowbrow buddy flick. [STS-106, launching in Sept, will install Zvezda on the ISS]
Suddenly I'm struck by the remarkable resemblance between NASA's antics and SCTV. The lost Mars missions, and all the rest would fit perfectly into a "Second City Space Administration" with Daniel Goldin as "Guy Caballero".
In fact, that wouldn't be a bad revenue stream. SNL is still raking in the bucks, even though it's longer in the tooth than John Glenn. SCASA could never be nearly as tired. [This revenue model has been a natural, but overlooked, option since the second season of Miami Vice, when the budget per episode was more than the annual budget of the real Miami police unit it was -loosely- based on]
Innovation, man! To heck with this insistence on dignity! An irreverent comedy could get the memes and the dinero (as in bucks, not Robert) rolling.
Per Jamie's original article: ...from the "can't-get-more-alliteration-than-that-sorry" dept.
Apple Asks for Annullment of Advance Article
BMOC Busts Balls of Broadsheets
Cabalistic Computer Company Calls for cancellation of contraband communiques
Developers deride dampening of disclosures
... etc. etc.
Then you could let users download songs, and either throw a bit of money at the artist as a way of saying thank you... Hmm.. throw a bit of money at the artist Maybe I'm alone on this, but when I lived in the city many years ago, there was *nothing* so cool as being stuck in a subway, waiting for a train, harried and edgy, and having a good performer start playing. I gladly tossed the guy a buck or two, instead of pocket change, even though I was a poor student (and fundamentally cheap at heart). Those guys did a lot more for me than any jukebox or many CD's I've bought. Many times, they would play some old old familiar standby, turning it from something I tuned out to a favorite. It's more immersive than the radio, Cd, etc -- just like when some movie cranks up a song you've heard a million times, and suddenly it seems *perfect* I only wish there was some way to bring *that* experience to life more often, using today's technology. The closest I seem to comne these days, is the guy with the boom-box or the convertible. And frankly I sometimes feel *those* guys should be paying *me*... damages.