I presume if you are watching clips in class, the professor has either a computer or a DVD player hooked to a large monitor or projector. Why not just cue up the particular discs? Especially with licensed DVD player software it's easy to jog forward to the clip necessary and the professor need only mark the time code on his notes to find the clips quickly. Nothing here is restricted, it's just less convenient and make take an additional 15-30 seconds of load time, during which the professor may be discussing the upcoming clip. It's easy enough to carry a portable case which holds 20, 30, or more DVDs for a lecture - certainly more than you could reasonably watch and discuss in a 50 or 75 minute standard lecture period. If it's a matter of worrying about moving the DVDs from case to lecture book and back, there are 3 ring binder sleeves which the professor could use to permanently place the DVD in his or her lecture binder. Sure, that might mean buying a second copy, but that's a small price when compared to what it would cost him to actually purchase the rights for his "public performance" he seems to do every class, even on an academic pricing scale. And what is the cost of 100 or so DVDs (say, $1500-$2000 at retail) for a lecture which is likely to generate over a hundred thousand dollars in tuition revenue (and/or state funds) for the university over the course of four or five years? You would cheat someone spending millions of dollars on content out of just 2% of your revenue stream for the sake of your convenience? Look at real estate agents - they get 6% of the sale of a home...they only want a small fraction of that, and as a one time fee. I've had graduate classes where the cost of the textbooks for the class (a 12 person lecture series) cost more than $2000.
Of course, that's a bunch of bullshit. But if you say it with a straight face and an "honest day's pay for an honest day's work" mannerism, it makes the MPAA sound like they're just looking to ensure that they are justly compensated for their work. And, sadly, many won't see through it.
As far as our government is concerned right now, ripping DVDs IS illegal when doing so circumvents the CSS, which is a violation of the DMCA.
Really? I was under the impression, based on several readings, that it is not illegal to circumvent CSS for fair use purposes, but it _is_ illegal to help anyone do so, though instruction, software, etc. The upshot is that you have to be able to decrypt it yourself (i.e. find the key and code the decrypter). That is, of course, nearly impossible for the vast majority of people, which makes it effectively impossible without making it illegal.
Hence, my ownership and use of AnyDVD - provided I use it for "fair use" purposes (which are subject to interpretation) - is legal, but nobody in the US may offer AnyDVD for sale. Were Slysoft not out of the US jurisdiction (Antigua, I believe) it would be illegal for them to sell that software. I happen to use it for making a copy for my car, as I used to with my tapes, CDs, and records, and for placing the discs (sans advertisements) on my media server, just as I have ripped my CD collection. The original discs are carefully stored and out of harms way. I do this now because a previous DVD player (Sony jukebox) destroyed 4 of my discs, two of which are out of print and irreplaceable.
I know, I got the joke...but I'm taking this opportunity to rail at recent restaurant prices. Mods, fire up that Off Topic label...
[rant] Now, I'm doubly screwed since the lovely state of Virginia allows a fairly high meal tax (11%) for a state which also has an income tax, but I've been noticing an alarming trend in drink prices.
A large drink at a fast food joint has been creeping up, and unless you're on the dollar menu (what is now termed a "small", though the cup is 22oz) a large is north of $1.79. Go out to a chain restaurant (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Outback, Red Robin etc. - or similar) and the drinks are now over $2. $2.29 the last time, if I remember, and the kids cup is $1.49. This was driven home last summer when I was in NC and it was cheaper for me to get a "happy hour" 12-14 oz premium tap beer for less than the iced tea.
Oh, and just for the record, the last time I wandered into a burger joint where tips are common (that would be Red Robin, though I prefer the local joint at nearly the same price) a burger and fries was just shy of $10. So I suppose for me it's:
Two burgers and fries: 20$ Two large drinks: 4.50$ Tax and tip: 6.50$ Getting paid for something most people can just do with simple mental math: PRICELESS. [/rant]
Maybe that wasn't the idea. What if their business model was "buy one get 7 free," where you purchased one highly marketed song for $15 and the artist threw in several more tracks as "bonus". That was, to some extent, what singles were - a track you paid for, with the "flip side" as a bonus track. They just jacked up the price and extended the number of extra cuts. The executives had a shotgun point of view, paying to produce several tracks of which they expected one to be a hit. Though the rest was chaff, there was no reason to sell only a single when you could provide "value" by selling the whole album.
Not that I believe it was consciously developed that way, but is does have a certain truth to it. They got used to selling the hit for $15, and giving you the ones that didn't make it as an album. That's a shift from the past when more artists developed albums as a complete work. Now they're pissed that the "single" concept has come back and they've gotten used to the higher development costs of their current model. By pushing artists to produce more volume, they've increased their production costs without appreciably increasing the net number of blockbusters (and some might say have actually reduced it).
It is an interesting question, though I'm not going to rtfa to see if they have an overall sensor size. Luckily, when imaging most celestial opbjects the DOF should be pretty insignificant. On the bright side, if an asteroid does come out blurry due to a depth of field issue, we're probably not going to be around long enough to worry about it!
Not if there are a lot of images in the emails, which is usually what bogs it all down. There is no efficient, automated way (of which I'm aware) to compress images attachments (including scanned documents embedded in PDFs) without losing information. For example, a color scanned document may be color for very few pages, but there's no way to automatically tell reliably in software.
Now, if they have multiple copies of the same file, it may be possible to consolidate.
It is the responsibility of the site owner to be able to verify the copyright ownership or licensing status of every image/piece of content on his site.
I had (have) a site which my webmaster created with what she thought was licensed content. A popular image licensing firm sent her a notice to take down certain images and pay blackmail money^W^W restitution or they would take her to court. She took the images down and they settled; she asked them if there were any other images so that she could make sure she didn't have future liability. Two years later, I got a similar notice, with demands. My legal council (which cost nearly 30% of the amount they wanted, which was in turn about 10x the value of the images used based on their own catalog) who does happen to be an expert in IP law, basically told me I was screwed, and to pony up a check or be looking at 5 to 6 figures of litigation.
My old webmaster was kind enough to call them up and negotiate about a 20% reduction in the settlement on my behalf.
The moral of the story is this: If he has infringing content on his site, it is irrelevant whether or not they identify every piece. He has to be able to provide proof of license for every file he has. If he cannot, then he needs to take the images down or face possible ruin in court. This is the hidden failure of the system - there are so many regulations that it is impossible for a small business person to create a startup and know the implications, and ignorance is no defense. I feel for him, but he is (presuming he has actual unlicensed material) effectively screwed.
What gives then the right to tax? Or to require training to keep a professional license (okay, that's state...)? Or require certain records be kept private?
It's not one person demanding it - it's the representatives of all 300+ million citizens voting on whether or not we as a country believe it is in the best interest of everyone to do these things.
If you don't like (proposed or past) policy decisions, change out your politicians. What you you think just happened a week ago?
Interested bigwigs from the tech industry, including Cisco, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are expected to testify along with professors, lawyers and other industry players
I don't see a mention of consumers, and since consumers don't pay for lawyers (except the few who defend IP suits) or professors (who's salaries are paid for by "research grants" from corporations), it sounds like this can only end in tears.
Most have already been mentioned, but as the owner of a small business, let me tell you how I value IT:
1) How much would it cost for a technically competent person in the firm to take over your job. Not their salary, but their billing rate x the time to manage and put out fires. This is the "opportunity" cost of that person, and that income is lost when they are non-productive. There will be some initial training costs and some ongoing costs to figure in to "keep up" with the servers. If there isn't a person competent to do your job, or nobody who could be trained to do so (in the boss' eyes - pick the smart alec engineer who always wants manage his own workstation before you claim "nobody") then you have to go to option 2
2) How much would a service contract cost with an outsourcing firm? Count a monthly fee and maybe one escalation per year in excess of that. If you can fix the problems quicker, them realistically estimate the number of additional down hours per year between you and the contract service and multiply that times the billing rates of those who can't so anything without access to the system. You'll need good downtime numbers for that.
Those are the two real costs. I happen to manage my own systems (see smart alec engineer, above) and I can reasonably say that I spend $3000-5000 in otherwise billable time each year on maintenance. The lowest maintenance contract I can get with competent people would likely run me closer to $8k (minimum). For me, the time I lose is only partially worrysome because I don't pay myself anything extra for working 60 hour weeks over 40 hours weeks, and I control my server (yes, singular). It's a cost I choose not to bear. I do, however, pay $1200/year for service on my two large printing machines - those are not worth my time.
This one, at 320x240 probably isn't, but the competitors are 640x480 certainly are. Marketing presentations are nothing like business meetings - they're all pretty pictures with captions.
Screw this "community service" bullshit. We need paid employees to do these kinds of things. In fact, they should hire private contractors to hire people. Then I can pay for the people to do the work, people to manage those people, a corporate structure to make a prfit off of it, and a whole set of administrative personnel on the governmental side to administer the new contracts.
As it is, I don't pay enough taxes, and am just looking for ways Obama can liberate more money from my bank account. Besides, most children these days already have an empathy for others and a well developed sense of their need to contribute positively to their community. Nearly every teenager I meet marvels at the wisdom of their elders and can't seem to get their parents to stop enticing them to play video games or text to one another all day. Having them do community service would just eat into the quality time they spend with their parents and grandparents, learning fine, small town moral values.
The 100 hours a year in college might seem a bit high - I know it does to me - but on reflection it's like adding a 1 credit class each semester (3 hrs a week for 16 weeks twice a year). Many already do this. The "jump off a bridge" answer doesn't hold much water for me, so I won't cite the several "western" nations which require (up to 2 years?) of service from every citizen. I'm not 100% on board with this, but I generally like the idea. Then again, I'm not in school anymore, so it doesn't affect me as much.
I believe there are other versions. Dell was advertising one in email a couple weeks ago with 50 lumens, though I don't know if that was rated or real-world. It was also 640x480 I think.
Being able to carry one in your laptop bag for impromptu meetings is a key use. Having one to project the latest episode of [insert favorite show here] from your cell phone is one of those cool applications you buy it for, even though you'll probably never use it that way.
BTW - not every presentation occurs where there is a mounted projector. In the architecture field, for example, we often give presentations to smaller clients (churches, non-profits, individuals) in class or meeting rooms with nothing but a table, some chairs, and four white walls. These people don't have their "dream buildings" yet...which is why we're working with them.
On the contrary, it's not overcrowding (though that is the case in some areas), it's over use. I'm no tree-hugging hippie, but it seems that we are utilizing resources at a pretty unsustainable rate, and our population is mostly unchecked so it's just going to get worse. Some governments (Germany and Russia come to mind) are actively encouraging an expanding birth rate to support their social programs which are essentially pyramid schemes. That's counterproductive in the long run.
Most of our "modern" society relies on a large, ever growing younger population to support the status quo. To prosper, long term, I think we need to scale back and learn to live within our planetary means. It won't get dire for a long time, it will just get slowly worse and worse. I'm comfortable enough to worry less about my day to day problems and consider the bigger picture. There are things we can't control and there are things we can. Population growth is one of those things we could, if people would think of others before themselves.
There _are_ way to many stupid people in the world; I should add selfish and inconsiderate as well. Depending on where you are in the mix, I might be in the stupid category by your standards. I've pretty much resigned myself to what exists, 'cause the momentum would require far more personal effort than I can give. *shrug*
Obama seems to have somehow slipped through the vetting process. It's common knowledge that politicians should not have an independently functioning brain with an ability to grasp the overall picture. Did no one interview this guy to make sure he could be swayed by a $600/hr lobbiest in an expensive suit, or by advisers with hidden agendas? This, my fellow Americans, can lead to no good outcomes. Applying common sense and logic in this fashion will surely grind Washington D.C. to a halt.
Mark my words...this fool will be making decisions which will utterly confound both major parties. The only thing I can't determine is whether they'll strip his flesh like a school of piranhas or end up following him off the cliff of common sense.:-)
If they manage to cure cancer, it will likely be too expensive for the average person, and any insurance you can afford won't cover it. Don't think of it a capitalism gone wrong, think of it as medical extortion. That way, we won't have to worry about keeping the elite alive, and the poor can die of "natural causes" just like they always have.
Sorry, that was a poor attempt at humor. Serously, despite wide and inexpensive availability of contraception, individual humans have very little control or foresight when it comes to controlling the number of offspring they have. We have advanced to the point (well beyond the point, actually) where having a large family is necessary or desirable. If each couple had only one child, on average, we could fix a lot of problems in just a few generations. It would generate other problems, but on balance it would provide a much more sustainable population.
As for the lack of suffering at life's end...well, no matter how good our medical care gets, we will still die. And for most of us that will mean some sort of painful end as one critical part of us fails before the others do. With a few exceptions, that's going to mean suffering at the end of life. *shrug*
I agree, but at some point you have to move on. This is going to sound racist, but I'm going to say it anyway - though it's only a single data point. I used to live near, DC, and I've also lived near LA. On average, I found African Americans to be, um, less motivated than those of Latin American descent. This is not some statistical survey, and doesn't represent everyone of course, but I was far more impressed with the work ethic of those in LA. This was, I should also say, in the jobs for people who could not afford to attend higher education, and represented a generally lower socioeconomic stratum, and these were all people born after 1960. If you were to ignore the emotional baggage of their parents and beyond, they would be considered on relatively equal footing.
A lot of the problems start with bad personal image and poor work ethics at home. I have no doubt that there would be inequity, but I believe that two generations of positive attitude and work ethic can eliminate all barriers up to the top few percent of society. The last couple percent will take centuries to fix, but the only place to start is today.
My wife had tangential question last night - why is it that Ohio and Florida tend to decide the election.
There's no nefariousness here, just simple demographics. There's no "fix" actually needed, unless you believe that the election should be a simple popular vote.
In many states, the majority of voters hold values which align closely with one party or another. In these cases, it is a forgone conclusion that the state will end up with a majority for a particular party. Often, the states have areas which lean in opposite directions. Depending on which districts come in first, the vote may seem skewed opposite of the prediction. Mark Warner (D), in Virginia, for example was declared the winner within an hour of the polls closing. The right-leaning south and western portions of the state had him in the lead before the left-leaning north had turned in any results. If he won in the "enemy" territory, he was basically a shoe-in.
Ohio, Florida, and the other "battleground" states are fairly well balanced left-right, and as such their electoral votes are in play because of the uniform demographic mix. It doesn't make California, Texas, or Washington D.C. any less necessary, but nobody every worries about those states having the majority switch.
Also, if the exit polls are significantly lopsided, they will call the election just after the polls close. That's a change from the past, when they would start calling states before the polls closed based on the exits. That tended to skew the results because people for the winner didn't bother to vote, and people for the loser were emboldened to falsify the prediction. Once the polls close there's no fear of affecting the outcome.
Absolutely - every time I hear people complain about welfare, I think they should give it a shot. It's not as easy as it would appear, and the life is not nearly as glamorous as these oppressed "working class" people would believe it to be. Further, most of these people don't pay any significant fraction of their income in federal income taxes.
The most I've ever paid in federal income taxes is about 12% of my gross income, and that was before my wife and I had kids and we both worked in LA and rented (i.e. two professional incomes and no deductions). On average, I think we pay between 6% and 9% of our gross income as federal income tax, and we're certainly above median income in my area. I pay more for sales tax when we go out to eat.
That's what conservatives have been telling progressives to do for the last 8 years. The "real America" has, apparently, chosen the direction they want to go. If you don't like it, leave.
Sounds very petty, doesn't it. It's a good time to realize that empathy for those who disagree with you is not a weakness.
I would like it very much if most of the religious right, which has been suggesting that democrats move to another country if they don't like the Bush Doctrine, eat their own dog food now.
You are correct. Unfortunately(?), it is in the best financial interest of insurers to get you to have preventative care. And, quite honestly, people are generally freaky about doctors and exams - it just goes against most social customs - so many people forego regular visits. Hell, you can count me in that group - I haven't been to a physician regularly in over a decade, though I'll claim it's mostly an odd combination of living mostly a healthy lifestyle and fearing that they'll tell me that I'm not as healthy as I want to be.
Insurance, by a better definition, would be something like the current HSA plans (high deductible, close to $6k for a family, but a total annual out of pocket cap at 10k or less). Adding in a discount for those who prove they have an annual physical would be a good start, but then it might be easier just to pay for the physical and call that the "discount." And you're back to traditional healthcare insurance model.
Insurance rates are based on pools, not on the overall population. It's much more capitalist - people don't want to pay for other's risks if they are higher than themselves. The healthcare/company thing is - mostly - less sinister than it can appear. Congress fixed the worst part by outlawing exclusions for preexisting conditions, but failed by not making a group for those having to go it alone.
Insurance is, by and large, a socialist proposition. It shares the risk - and you might say redistributes wealth - among people. Still, it's a valuable tool for financial planning because many serious ailments would utterly bankrupt the average person. By keeping people healthy through maintenance, fewer major events occur, and total costs go down.
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I presume if you are watching clips in class, the professor has either a computer or a DVD player hooked to a large monitor or projector. Why not just cue up the particular discs? Especially with licensed DVD player software it's easy to jog forward to the clip necessary and the professor need only mark the time code on his notes to find the clips quickly. Nothing here is restricted, it's just less convenient and make take an additional 15-30 seconds of load time, during which the professor may be discussing the upcoming clip. It's easy enough to carry a portable case which holds 20, 30, or more DVDs for a lecture - certainly more than you could reasonably watch and discuss in a 50 or 75 minute standard lecture period. If it's a matter of worrying about moving the DVDs from case to lecture book and back, there are 3 ring binder sleeves which the professor could use to permanently place the DVD in his or her lecture binder. Sure, that might mean buying a second copy, but that's a small price when compared to what it would cost him to actually purchase the rights for his "public performance" he seems to do every class, even on an academic pricing scale. And what is the cost of 100 or so DVDs (say, $1500-$2000 at retail) for a lecture which is likely to generate over a hundred thousand dollars in tuition revenue (and/or state funds) for the university over the course of four or five years? You would cheat someone spending millions of dollars on content out of just 2% of your revenue stream for the sake of your convenience? Look at real estate agents - they get 6% of the sale of a home...they only want a small fraction of that, and as a one time fee. I've had graduate classes where the cost of the textbooks for the class (a 12 person lecture series) cost more than $2000.
Of course, that's a bunch of bullshit. But if you say it with a straight face and an "honest day's pay for an honest day's work" mannerism, it makes the MPAA sound like they're just looking to ensure that they are justly compensated for their work. And, sadly, many won't see through it.
As far as our government is concerned right now, ripping DVDs IS illegal when doing so circumvents the CSS, which is a violation of the DMCA.
Really? I was under the impression, based on several readings, that it is not illegal to circumvent CSS for fair use purposes, but it _is_ illegal to help anyone do so, though instruction, software, etc. The upshot is that you have to be able to decrypt it yourself (i.e. find the key and code the decrypter). That is, of course, nearly impossible for the vast majority of people, which makes it effectively impossible without making it illegal.
Hence, my ownership and use of AnyDVD - provided I use it for "fair use" purposes (which are subject to interpretation) - is legal, but nobody in the US may offer AnyDVD for sale. Were Slysoft not out of the US jurisdiction (Antigua, I believe) it would be illegal for them to sell that software. I happen to use it for making a copy for my car, as I used to with my tapes, CDs, and records, and for placing the discs (sans advertisements) on my media server, just as I have ripped my CD collection. The original discs are carefully stored and out of harms way. I do this now because a previous DVD player (Sony jukebox) destroyed 4 of my discs, two of which are out of print and irreplaceable.
I know, I got the joke...but I'm taking this opportunity to rail at recent restaurant prices. Mods, fire up that Off Topic label...
[rant]
Now, I'm doubly screwed since the lovely state of Virginia allows a fairly high meal tax (11%) for a state which also has an income tax, but I've been noticing an alarming trend in drink prices.
A large drink at a fast food joint has been creeping up, and unless you're on the dollar menu (what is now termed a "small", though the cup is 22oz) a large is north of $1.79. Go out to a chain restaurant (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Outback, Red Robin etc. - or similar) and the drinks are now over $2. $2.29 the last time, if I remember, and the kids cup is $1.49. This was driven home last summer when I was in NC and it was cheaper for me to get a "happy hour" 12-14 oz premium tap beer for less than the iced tea.
Oh, and just for the record, the last time I wandered into a burger joint where tips are common (that would be Red Robin, though I prefer the local joint at nearly the same price) a burger and fries was just shy of $10. So I suppose for me it's:
Two burgers and fries: 20$ Two large drinks: 4.50$ Tax and tip: 6.50$ Getting paid for something most people can just do with simple mental math: PRICELESS.
[/rant]
Maybe that wasn't the idea. What if their business model was "buy one get 7 free," where you purchased one highly marketed song for $15 and the artist threw in several more tracks as "bonus". That was, to some extent, what singles were - a track you paid for, with the "flip side" as a bonus track. They just jacked up the price and extended the number of extra cuts. The executives had a shotgun point of view, paying to produce several tracks of which they expected one to be a hit. Though the rest was chaff, there was no reason to sell only a single when you could provide "value" by selling the whole album.
Not that I believe it was consciously developed that way, but is does have a certain truth to it. They got used to selling the hit for $15, and giving you the ones that didn't make it as an album. That's a shift from the past when more artists developed albums as a complete work. Now they're pissed that the "single" concept has come back and they've gotten used to the higher development costs of their current model. By pushing artists to produce more volume, they've increased their production costs without appreciably increasing the net number of blockbusters (and some might say have actually reduced it).
Sucks to be them.
C'mon, don't keep us guessing at the domain you chose :-)
Kind of a shame that pushingdaisies is taken, now, isn't it?
It is an interesting question, though I'm not going to rtfa to see if they have an overall sensor size. Luckily, when imaging most celestial opbjects the DOF should be pretty insignificant. On the bright side, if an asteroid does come out blurry due to a depth of field issue, we're probably not going to be around long enough to worry about it!
Not if there are a lot of images in the emails, which is usually what bogs it all down. There is no efficient, automated way (of which I'm aware) to compress images attachments (including scanned documents embedded in PDFs) without losing information. For example, a color scanned document may be color for very few pages, but there's no way to automatically tell reliably in software.
Now, if they have multiple copies of the same file, it may be possible to consolidate.
It is the responsibility of the site owner to be able to verify the copyright ownership or licensing status of every image/piece of content on his site.
I had (have) a site which my webmaster created with what she thought was licensed content. A popular image licensing firm sent her a notice to take down certain images and pay blackmail money^W^W restitution or they would take her to court. She took the images down and they settled; she asked them if there were any other images so that she could make sure she didn't have future liability. Two years later, I got a similar notice, with demands. My legal council (which cost nearly 30% of the amount they wanted, which was in turn about 10x the value of the images used based on their own catalog) who does happen to be an expert in IP law, basically told me I was screwed, and to pony up a check or be looking at 5 to 6 figures of litigation.
My old webmaster was kind enough to call them up and negotiate about a 20% reduction in the settlement on my behalf.
The moral of the story is this: If he has infringing content on his site, it is irrelevant whether or not they identify every piece. He has to be able to provide proof of license for every file he has. If he cannot, then he needs to take the images down or face possible ruin in court. This is the hidden failure of the system - there are so many regulations that it is impossible for a small business person to create a startup and know the implications, and ignorance is no defense. I feel for him, but he is (presuming he has actual unlicensed material) effectively screwed.
What gives then the right to tax? Or to require training to keep a professional license (okay, that's state...)? Or require certain records be kept private?
It's not one person demanding it - it's the representatives of all 300+ million citizens voting on whether or not we as a country believe it is in the best interest of everyone to do these things.
If you don't like (proposed or past) policy decisions, change out your politicians. What you you think just happened a week ago?
Right from the summary:
Interested bigwigs from the tech industry, including Cisco, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are expected to testify along with professors, lawyers and other industry players
I don't see a mention of consumers, and since consumers don't pay for lawyers (except the few who defend IP suits) or professors (who's salaries are paid for by "research grants" from corporations), it sounds like this can only end in tears.
Most have already been mentioned, but as the owner of a small business, let me tell you how I value IT:
1) How much would it cost for a technically competent person in the firm to take over your job. Not their salary, but their billing rate x the time to manage and put out fires. This is the "opportunity" cost of that person, and that income is lost when they are non-productive. There will be some initial training costs and some ongoing costs to figure in to "keep up" with the servers. If there isn't a person competent to do your job, or nobody who could be trained to do so (in the boss' eyes - pick the smart alec engineer who always wants manage his own workstation before you claim "nobody") then you have to go to option 2
2) How much would a service contract cost with an outsourcing firm? Count a monthly fee and maybe one escalation per year in excess of that. If you can fix the problems quicker, them realistically estimate the number of additional down hours per year between you and the contract service and multiply that times the billing rates of those who can't so anything without access to the system. You'll need good downtime numbers for that.
Those are the two real costs. I happen to manage my own systems (see smart alec engineer, above) and I can reasonably say that I spend $3000-5000 in otherwise billable time each year on maintenance. The lowest maintenance contract I can get with competent people would likely run me closer to $8k (minimum). For me, the time I lose is only partially worrysome because I don't pay myself anything extra for working 60 hour weeks over 40 hours weeks, and I control my server (yes, singular). It's a cost I choose not to bear. I do, however, pay $1200/year for service on my two large printing machines - those are not worth my time.
This one, at 320x240 probably isn't, but the competitors are 640x480 certainly are. Marketing presentations are nothing like business meetings - they're all pretty pictures with captions.
Screw this "community service" bullshit. We need paid employees to do these kinds of things. In fact, they should hire private contractors to hire people. Then I can pay for the people to do the work, people to manage those people, a corporate structure to make a prfit off of it, and a whole set of administrative personnel on the governmental side to administer the new contracts.
As it is, I don't pay enough taxes, and am just looking for ways Obama can liberate more money from my bank account. Besides, most children these days already have an empathy for others and a well developed sense of their need to contribute positively to their community. Nearly every teenager I meet marvels at the wisdom of their elders and can't seem to get their parents to stop enticing them to play video games or text to one another all day. Having them do community service would just eat into the quality time they spend with their parents and grandparents, learning fine, small town moral values.
The 100 hours a year in college might seem a bit high - I know it does to me - but on reflection it's like adding a 1 credit class each semester (3 hrs a week for 16 weeks twice a year). Many already do this. The "jump off a bridge" answer doesn't hold much water for me, so I won't cite the several "western" nations which require (up to 2 years?) of service from every citizen. I'm not 100% on board with this, but I generally like the idea. Then again, I'm not in school anymore, so it doesn't affect me as much.
I believe there are other versions. Dell was advertising one in email a couple weeks ago with 50 lumens, though I don't know if that was rated or real-world. It was also 640x480 I think.
Being able to carry one in your laptop bag for impromptu meetings is a key use. Having one to project the latest episode of [insert favorite show here] from your cell phone is one of those cool applications you buy it for, even though you'll probably never use it that way.
BTW - not every presentation occurs where there is a mounted projector. In the architecture field, for example, we often give presentations to smaller clients (churches, non-profits, individuals) in class or meeting rooms with nothing but a table, some chairs, and four white walls. These people don't have their "dream buildings" yet...which is why we're working with them.
On the contrary, it's not overcrowding (though that is the case in some areas), it's over use. I'm no tree-hugging hippie, but it seems that we are utilizing resources at a pretty unsustainable rate, and our population is mostly unchecked so it's just going to get worse. Some governments (Germany and Russia come to mind) are actively encouraging an expanding birth rate to support their social programs which are essentially pyramid schemes. That's counterproductive in the long run.
Most of our "modern" society relies on a large, ever growing younger population to support the status quo. To prosper, long term, I think we need to scale back and learn to live within our planetary means. It won't get dire for a long time, it will just get slowly worse and worse. I'm comfortable enough to worry less about my day to day problems and consider the bigger picture. There are things we can't control and there are things we can. Population growth is one of those things we could, if people would think of others before themselves.
There _are_ way to many stupid people in the world; I should add selfish and inconsiderate as well. Depending on where you are in the mix, I might be in the stupid category by your standards. I've pretty much resigned myself to what exists, 'cause the momentum would require far more personal effort than I can give. *shrug*
Obama seems to have somehow slipped through the vetting process. It's common knowledge that politicians should not have an independently functioning brain with an ability to grasp the overall picture. Did no one interview this guy to make sure he could be swayed by a $600/hr lobbiest in an expensive suit, or by advisers with hidden agendas? This, my fellow Americans, can lead to no good outcomes. Applying common sense and logic in this fashion will surely grind Washington D.C. to a halt.
Mark my words...this fool will be making decisions which will utterly confound both major parties. The only thing I can't determine is whether they'll strip his flesh like a school of piranhas or end up following him off the cliff of common sense. :-)
If they manage to cure cancer, it will likely be too expensive for the average person, and any insurance you can afford won't cover it. Don't think of it a capitalism gone wrong, think of it as medical extortion. That way, we won't have to worry about keeping the elite alive, and the poor can die of "natural causes" just like they always have.
Sorry, that was a poor attempt at humor. Serously, despite wide and inexpensive availability of contraception, individual humans have very little control or foresight when it comes to controlling the number of offspring they have. We have advanced to the point (well beyond the point, actually) where having a large family is necessary or desirable. If each couple had only one child, on average, we could fix a lot of problems in just a few generations. It would generate other problems, but on balance it would provide a much more sustainable population.
As for the lack of suffering at life's end...well, no matter how good our medical care gets, we will still die. And for most of us that will mean some sort of painful end as one critical part of us fails before the others do. With a few exceptions, that's going to mean suffering at the end of life. *shrug*
Who keeps dead mice in their freezer for 16 years? Remind me not to have the Brunswick stew at their house.
I agree, but at some point you have to move on. This is going to sound racist, but I'm going to say it anyway - though it's only a single data point. I used to live near, DC, and I've also lived near LA. On average, I found African Americans to be, um, less motivated than those of Latin American descent. This is not some statistical survey, and doesn't represent everyone of course, but I was far more impressed with the work ethic of those in LA. This was, I should also say, in the jobs for people who could not afford to attend higher education, and represented a generally lower socioeconomic stratum, and these were all people born after 1960. If you were to ignore the emotional baggage of their parents and beyond, they would be considered on relatively equal footing.
A lot of the problems start with bad personal image and poor work ethics at home. I have no doubt that there would be inequity, but I believe that two generations of positive attitude and work ethic can eliminate all barriers up to the top few percent of society. The last couple percent will take centuries to fix, but the only place to start is today.
My wife had tangential question last night - why is it that Ohio and Florida tend to decide the election.
There's no nefariousness here, just simple demographics. There's no "fix" actually needed, unless you believe that the election should be a simple popular vote.
In many states, the majority of voters hold values which align closely with one party or another. In these cases, it is a forgone conclusion that the state will end up with a majority for a particular party. Often, the states have areas which lean in opposite directions. Depending on which districts come in first, the vote may seem skewed opposite of the prediction. Mark Warner (D), in Virginia, for example was declared the winner within an hour of the polls closing. The right-leaning south and western portions of the state had him in the lead before the left-leaning north had turned in any results. If he won in the "enemy" territory, he was basically a shoe-in.
Ohio, Florida, and the other "battleground" states are fairly well balanced left-right, and as such their electoral votes are in play because of the uniform demographic mix. It doesn't make California, Texas, or Washington D.C. any less necessary, but nobody every worries about those states having the majority switch.
Also, if the exit polls are significantly lopsided, they will call the election just after the polls close. That's a change from the past, when they would start calling states before the polls closed based on the exits. That tended to skew the results because people for the winner didn't bother to vote, and people for the loser were emboldened to falsify the prediction. Once the polls close there's no fear of affecting the outcome.
Absolutely - every time I hear people complain about welfare, I think they should give it a shot. It's not as easy as it would appear, and the life is not nearly as glamorous as these oppressed "working class" people would believe it to be. Further, most of these people don't pay any significant fraction of their income in federal income taxes.
The most I've ever paid in federal income taxes is about 12% of my gross income, and that was before my wife and I had kids and we both worked in LA and rented (i.e. two professional incomes and no deductions). On average, I think we pay between 6% and 9% of our gross income as federal income tax, and we're certainly above median income in my area. I pay more for sales tax when we go out to eat.
That's what conservatives have been telling progressives to do for the last 8 years. The "real America" has, apparently, chosen the direction they want to go. If you don't like it, leave.
Sounds very petty, doesn't it. It's a good time to realize that empathy for those who disagree with you is not a weakness.
I would like it very much if most of the religious right, which has been suggesting that democrats move to another country if they don't like the Bush Doctrine, eat their own dog food now.
You are correct. Unfortunately(?), it is in the best financial interest of insurers to get you to have preventative care. And, quite honestly, people are generally freaky about doctors and exams - it just goes against most social customs - so many people forego regular visits. Hell, you can count me in that group - I haven't been to a physician regularly in over a decade, though I'll claim it's mostly an odd combination of living mostly a healthy lifestyle and fearing that they'll tell me that I'm not as healthy as I want to be.
Insurance, by a better definition, would be something like the current HSA plans (high deductible, close to $6k for a family, but a total annual out of pocket cap at 10k or less). Adding in a discount for those who prove they have an annual physical would be a good start, but then it might be easier just to pay for the physical and call that the "discount." And you're back to traditional healthcare insurance model.
Insurance rates are based on pools, not on the overall population. It's much more capitalist - people don't want to pay for other's risks if they are higher than themselves. The healthcare/company thing is - mostly - less sinister than it can appear. Congress fixed the worst part by outlawing exclusions for preexisting conditions, but failed by not making a group for those having to go it alone.
Insurance is, by and large, a socialist proposition. It shares the risk - and you might say redistributes wealth - among people. Still, it's a valuable tool for financial planning because many serious ailments would utterly bankrupt the average person. By keeping people healthy through maintenance, fewer major events occur, and total costs go down.