Or hydraulic power - raise and lower a barge by filling a lagoon. As the barge falls, it pulls on ropes to pull the block up one more step - no need for block and tackle, just a pulley and a big enough barge, and either an ample source of flowing water, or gangs of animals or workers running screw-pumps - which I think they also had.
There's all sorts of ways we could think of to build the pyramids.
Well, probably not kites - but the egyptions apparently did dig canals, and did have sail technology - so why not run a rope from a boat to a block and tackle? Deliver the block to a dock via boat, then as the boat sails back for another block, it powers the block up into place...
Makes more sense than kites!
Obviously: Free/cheap TV means commercials. Tivo subverts this. Combo PVR/recordable-DVD devices are coming. So the future holds some combination of:
(a) higher cable rates, more pay per view
(b) centralized control and monitoring of viewing
(c) more and harder to avoid adverts
(d) cheaper programming (re-runs, reality TV, game shows)
I suspect it may settle out as:
- Free broadcast TV with cheap content and whatever commercials they want to stuff in any way they can.
- Better content you either pay for or get free by interacting with targetted commercials. Captured or downloaded - and once paid for you can capture or download again for a nominal fee.
A corporation is just a group of people - some employees, some shareholders. No corporation ever "says" anything - it's always people hired by the corporation to say things other people in the corporation have decided need saying.
Which of those people would you deprive of their freedom of speech, in order to prevent a corporation from having the right to freedom of speech? The same goes for pretty much all other corporate "rights".
Then there's the corporate limitation of liability. This doesn't protect the officers of a corporation from responsibility for criminal actions - it only protects the owners (shareholders) of the corporation from criminal or financially foolish actions on the part of their officers and other representatives, since they are not in a position to monitor the day-to-day activities of those people.
Now you might say that the world would be better off if the owners were forced to monitor the activities of the company - but that'd pretty much kill off corporations. All we have to base the value of that on is history - and in ages when there were no corporations, there wasn't much between "dirt poor" and "filthy rich".
If it were true that the "junk" in our genetic code indicated devolution, the junk would be unique to humanity, rather than closely matching the junk in other species. Unless you believe God slapped the same garbage code, more or less, into every species back on day one.
I predict that new religious cults will arise upon the publishing of the human genome, focused on trying to "decode God's message from the extra genetic material". Obviously He must have put it there for a purpose, since he can't make mistakes and wouldn't have put it there just to fool us.
Q: Why would the feds want to ban crypto? Are they really, really interested in what I have to say? Out to "get something on me" in case I ever step out of line? Nope.
A: They fear that the volume of encrypted communication will get so large that the encrypted messages of those who really have something to hide won't stand out by the very fact of their use of encryption.
What does this imply? That "they" are monitoring just about all communications - including those we commonly assume they aren't legally allowed to - and tracking encrypted comm traffic flow. Do you think the Europeans would tolerate US spy agencies monitoring their communications, if they weren't doing the same for US communications, and trading info when "something comes up"? Neat way to get around any ban on wiretaps without a warrant - just collude with someone who isn't bound by your nation's laws.
US uses ~1/3 of world energy, producing 1/4 of world C02. Rest of world uses 2/3 of energy, producing 3/4 of C02. So US C02 per energy used is about 0.7, vs 1.1 for rest of world. If rest of world matched US CO2 per energy used, we'd reduce world CO2 emmissions by about 30% - nearly as much as the US total.
I'm not trying to score points here - if someone can explain why there's this discrepancy in CO2 per energy used, I'd love to hear it.
Slashdot Mirror
Or hydraulic power - raise and lower a barge by filling a lagoon. As the barge falls, it pulls on ropes to pull the block up one more step - no need for block and tackle, just a pulley and a big enough barge, and either an ample source of flowing water, or gangs of animals or workers running screw-pumps - which I think they also had. There's all sorts of ways we could think of to build the pyramids.
Well, probably not kites - but the egyptions apparently did dig canals, and did have sail technology - so why not run a rope from a boat to a block and tackle? Deliver the block to a dock via boat, then as the boat sails back for another block, it powers the block up into place... Makes more sense than kites!
Obviously: Free/cheap TV means commercials. Tivo subverts this. Combo PVR/recordable-DVD devices are coming. So the future holds some combination of: (a) higher cable rates, more pay per view (b) centralized control and monitoring of viewing (c) more and harder to avoid adverts (d) cheaper programming (re-runs, reality TV, game shows) I suspect it may settle out as: - Free broadcast TV with cheap content and whatever commercials they want to stuff in any way they can. - Better content you either pay for or get free by interacting with targetted commercials. Captured or downloaded - and once paid for you can capture or download again for a nominal fee.
A corporation is just a group of people - some employees, some shareholders. No corporation ever "says" anything - it's always people hired by the corporation to say things other people in the corporation have decided need saying.
Which of those people would you deprive of their freedom of speech, in order to prevent a corporation from having the right to freedom of speech? The same goes for pretty much all other corporate "rights".
Then there's the corporate limitation of liability. This doesn't protect the officers of a corporation from responsibility for criminal actions - it only protects the owners (shareholders) of the corporation from criminal or financially foolish actions on the part of their officers and other representatives, since they are not in a position to monitor the day-to-day activities of those people.
Now you might say that the world would be better off if the owners were forced to monitor the activities of the company - but that'd pretty much kill off corporations. All we have to base the value of that on is history - and in ages when there were no corporations, there wasn't much between "dirt poor" and "filthy rich".
If it were true that the "junk" in our genetic code indicated devolution, the junk would be unique to humanity, rather than closely matching the junk in other species. Unless you believe God slapped the same garbage code, more or less, into every species back on day one. I predict that new religious cults will arise upon the publishing of the human genome, focused on trying to "decode God's message from the extra genetic material". Obviously He must have put it there for a purpose, since he can't make mistakes and wouldn't have put it there just to fool us.
Q: Why would the feds want to ban crypto? Are they really, really interested in what I have to say? Out to "get something on me" in case I ever step out of line? Nope.
A: They fear that the volume of encrypted communication will get so large that the encrypted messages of those who really have something to hide won't stand out by the very fact of their use of encryption.
What does this imply? That "they" are monitoring just about all communications - including those we commonly assume they aren't legally allowed to - and tracking encrypted comm traffic flow. Do you think the Europeans would tolerate US spy agencies monitoring their communications, if they weren't doing the same for US communications, and trading info when "something comes up"? Neat way to get around any ban on wiretaps without a warrant - just collude with someone who isn't bound by your nation's laws.
US uses ~1/3 of world energy, producing 1/4 of world C02. Rest of world uses 2/3 of energy, producing 3/4 of C02. So US C02 per energy used is about 0.7, vs 1.1 for rest of world. If rest of world matched US CO2 per energy used, we'd reduce world CO2 emmissions by about 30% - nearly as much as the US total. I'm not trying to score points here - if someone can explain why there's this discrepancy in CO2 per energy used, I'd love to hear it.
Maybe the DoD wants a bit of time to make sure the Russians are ready to tell the difference between an Iridium and an ICBM.