Some poor fellow apparently demonstrated that a gas mixture other than traditional LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas=Butane+Propane) could burn in a stove, coming out of a metal cilinder and controlled by some sort of electronics. He thinks this will help solve the lack of LPG in his region. But he gives no clue as to what is his gas mixture, and there's no info on whether his apparatus is safe from accidents/explosions, environment-friendly, unharmful to one's health in home usage, economical to produce/sell and energy-efficient.
When I opened TFA I was expecting much more. Usually the pecking order (economics and supply problems notwithstanding) for cooking is: Electricity -> Piped Natural Gas -> LPG (Propane/Butante) -> Kerosene/Parafin -> Coal -> Wood/charcoal/dry dung
How does his solution compare (economically, and in health/safety aspects) in this sequence, especially in his intended local market? That I would like to know.
Unless the specific goal of/. was to flame-bait around the perennial arab/israeli problem, this post was a waste of time.
Yup. This problem is compounded by the fact that the 360 overheats if it is not in an open area.
I have to pull it out of its niche in the furniture every time I want to play for more than 10-20 minutes. I then place it on top of the TV table, right beside the TV. All this movement may cause spinning dvd to get damaged (as TFA points out). Plus, the Box is left in an inadequate position during gameplay. That led recently to my 4-y-o son knocking it down (from vertical do horizontal, it did not fall to the floor) while we played Viva Pinata -- ruining the disk the original (brand new) Viva Pinata disks. And they don't let you play backups:-(((.
I know, I know, it is my fault I placed it vertical on the furniture. But it would never have been there if it did not overheat in the first place.
Excellent points. I think that there is still a great amount of improvement to be made on how we teach. In the beginning, it was all dry and hard, indeciphrable. Today it is all soft and dumb, imprecise. There's serious need for artful rewriting of the approach, so that it can be comprehensive, understandable, exact, insightful. Not a small task!
You comment reminds me of Richard Feynman, and his remarks about education. See the excerpt from his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman".
From there, it's but a small step to realizing that they can also walk away from Windows completely
No way. I'm as huge a unix and Free Software proponent as anyone here, but even I can see that statement is utterly idiotic. The motivation to stay with XP is the desire to not change. Change takes effort, which is generally not worth it if things are working fine at the moment. The "don't fix it if it's not broken" theory.
Well, people not upgrading sets up a fixed target for Open Source alternatives (Linux, OpenOffice, etc) to replicate, in all the dimensions that would be important for a user (so that said user feels that he has not changed anything).
Then other questions come: could Linux be more XP-like than XP itself? Not really. But XP is being discontinued and, in any case, it is paid software. Another question: once the OS (Linux/Windows) is completely transparent to the user, could the OpenSource OS fork into something different, and invert the game, causing MS to play catch-up? All very interesting.
One thing semms sure to me: once the innovation/obsolescence curve flattens, it will be *much* harder for proprietary software to keep charging what they are used to.
Well, since you mentioned, here are, imho, the problems with each of your alternatives:
1) Pass on the money while they still live, giving gifts to family/friends under the tax limits each year for many years.
This alternative invalidates your alternative #4. In fact, it is exactly what my grandfather did before he passed away in order to avoid inheritance tax: he transfered what he had to the name of his children. Of course then the children would have to register that income and pay taxes over that. But their tax bracket would be much lower than your proposed 90% tax. What, you think you could place limits on how much he could transfer? Watch Mickey Blue Eyes.
2) Pass on the money while they still live, giving it to charity with no limits.
Well, this point is really number (3) below. Except it happens before you die.
3) Allow the money to go to charity when they die, with no limits.
How fair or efficient is that? You could be perpetuating a rich person's eccentricity. In fact, just recently there was a very interesting debate around a rich woman who donated millions of her money to a charity to support... her dog! (see Rich Bitch). Her white maltese (called "Trouble") will get her own, tax-free, trust fund.
4) Have the government take most of it.
Would be a good idea, if the government were such a perfect agent for our society's welfare. Do you really trust the government to spend that money well? Think US$700bn, think US$25bn, think of the cost of the Iraq War. Then think about how much ($20k, $100k?) you parents will be leaving for you.
If you think your parents would leave a larger sum, you may have less to worry. As Warren Buffet, the 3rd richest man in the world, told us about, the tax system tends to be lighter on the rich.... The rich often pay less taxes, have good lawyers, creative accountants, resourceful private bankers...
A favorite Murphy Law states: Hard Problems have solutions that are simple, elegant, and wrong. But I am with you: it should be discussed...
> A part of me can't help thinking that cops are so enthusiastic about child porn because perpetrators are typically solitary and quiet, hence easy to arrest.
Wow, "solitary and quiet". That sounds so innocent. Do you have kids?
This is another chapter in the war between SMS and IM. Which will be won by the latter, I guess.
Anyway, Verizon is probably reacting to services like this which makes sending SMS from an IM client free. Install an IM client on your phone and you have free SMS.
In the long run, my guess is, we will be all using IM clients to text each other in cell phones. They will consume (a small amount of) bandwidth from our 3G data plans. They will allow us to communicate not only with other cellulars, but with computers, PDAs, and other network devices. And they allow us to text someone in the other side of the world just as easily as in the same city.
SMS may be living a brief moment of glory under the sun. Unless, of course, operators decide to charge it more competitively -- soon.
>Is there a way to send/receive SMS over a data connection in a manner that preserves all of the customs of conventional SMS (eg, send message to phone number from ordinary phone)?
Electric Cars are coming from everywhere, in different sizes and shapes, with different concepts. Some will append the electric motor to a a ignition engine generator (making it a hybrid). Some are tricycles using solar back-up power. Others are super-sport cars. It is all very interesting.
If your children needs this 50% minimum then you probably are not caring enough about their learning. So you wouldn't complain: it doesn't matter to you. OTOH if your children doesn't need the 50% rule, they already score higher: this rule doesn't affect them. So again you wouldn't complain: it doesn't matter to you.
...she is unwilling to admit that global warming might be related to burning fossil fuels...
Or... she knows fossil fuels cause global warming, but won't oppose it because she owns some acres in Sweet Home Alaska, and is hoping that Global Warming will turn them into the next Napa Valley.
>Being able to read the Japanese and German codes was a decisive advantage in winning WWII
Decisive? In the sense that without it the war would be lost? Hardly. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are made more formidable than they actually were, in the wave of pride that came after the allies defeated them. They were heroic, as were the allies. But it was never an equal match of forces once both the US and the USSR were on the side of the allies.
I recommend reading "The Prize",by Pulitzer Prize winning author Daniel Yergin, in order to have an economic perspective on WWII. You will see how once the oil embargo was placed on Japan, and once Germany decided to break its alliance with the Soviets (thereby cutting its supply of Oil) the outcome of the war was pretty much decided. Essentially once that happened both Japan and Germany had a ticking clock to run against: their dimnishing stock of oil. That made it necessary for both to be very audacious, taking great risks and placing all their hopes in a few bold moves. Pearl Harbour for the Japanese, the drive towards the heart of Russia for the German.
These two bets didn't pay off, and from then on they were essentially on the defensive, trying to make do with very limited amounts of oil.
Because there are 10,000 ways of sending confidential, encrypted data across national borders using little known tools such as... the internet!
Not to mention thumb-drives that are becoming pinky-drives. Not to mention relatively strong and free data encryption.
My greatest gripe with this kind of decision, though, is not its inefficiency -- but rather, the precedent it opens. Coincidentally, my homepage yesterday had the following "thought of the day":
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
- HL Mencken
I said out loud, "That looks like the Wildwood trail a few miles north of Germantown Road." And of course, it was. And that wasn't an isolated event.
I don't think I'm special for being able to do this. It's just paying attention to detail, like the particular ratio of the populations of certain kinds of plants, what kind of moss is growing on the trees, the quality and appearance of the trail surface, how the trail slopes. These things stick permanently in my brain.
You probably are also not special in having selective memory and/or reinforcement bias, which would lead you to recall that particular success, or others like it, and forget or disconsider failures. And we/. readers are also not specially prepared to estimate how many TV Viewers had the exact same reaction as you, except they erred the pictured location and then decided *not* to write about it (selection bias).
I fail to see how looking up the capital of Argentina the "old way" in a paper bound encyclopedia is anymore educational than looking it up on the internet.
It's possible that the more difficult a thing is to do, the more significant it will be in your memory. 'At your fingertips' probably doesn't leave the same impression on you that 'dig through the encyclopedia' does. Like you said, though, this likely varies from person to person.
It is also possible that the more difficult an information is to get, the less likely it will reach your brain in the first place. So people will likely be working with a more limited, mainstream set of facts. No "long tail" before the internet... Less information into brains, more prejudice, less to remember, more time to get attached to the few facts you have. Stupid? I think the term is narrow minded.
Being able to pull that information off the top of your head is great, but I think it's a fair trade to have quick access to billions of times of more information if the tradeoff is that I don't remember as much of it.
True, very true... right up until the power goes out.
That is what I always told the guys who went hunting for lions with rifles instead of wooden spears: you will be ok right until you run out of ammunition. Of course this line didn't stall the sale of hunting rifles, nor did the lack of bullets help protect the great cats from extinction.
However I fear it is really not that simple. I can think of a few examples which would be hard to fit in your "3 classes of people" model.
First, there are the "discussion/opinion" people. What are they? Content creators? In a sense they are, but they well may be parroting other folks or just adding noise. They nevertheless are information processors. Like us here at/.
Second there are the people that are uncapable of consuming information. Surely in this world there are plenty of illiterate, functionally illiterate or simply dim people who are unable understand, process, absorb, or otherwise do anything with information -- beyond laugh at it, spit on it, or stare glass-eyed at it.
Third, it is hard to separate "information generators" from "content aggregators" and place scientist in the first class. What are information generators? I can think of celebrities doing blunders which will be reported by the media, or sportsmen who by playing, for example basketball games, generate information other people will report on/talk about. Scientists are generally not information generators but content organizers and aggregators, working under strict hypothesis/test rules. As are reporters.
And finally, there is the issue of roles and degrees of fitness to them. These types you portray are more classification of acts/roles than classification of people. Anyone may perform all three of your roles, in different points in time. The aggregators are not just in the Search Engine companies, but they may be anyone who collects and sends links to their friends. So it is a very wide category.
In Brazil everyone knows what TPM is. These three letters form a very colloquial expression, meaning "Tensão Pré-Menstrual". In English you'd use for the same effect PMS (Pre-Menstrual Syndrome).
*shivers*
Why is this bringing Douglas Adams to mind ?... Ah, here... There you go.
It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.
For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle," a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle.
The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.
(...)
Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.
> You may not have paid, but you didn't 'steal' anything, you simply trespassed.
Consider that it is your own bridge, and that you built it for the good of the community, put your good name to a bank in order to get the US$ 250 million in credit needed for it. Consider that you are today repaying the US$ 250 million you spent on the bridge, your bridge, and that you depend on the cash flow from toll booths to pay for it. If free riders (people who used the bridge but do not pay for it) break the cash flow in half, now you can only afford to repay US$ 125 million -- and the creditors will take your bridge away from you, as the collateral for the original US$ 250 million loan. It is not your bridge any longer.
So, in a very real sense, the bridge was stolen from you.
Say, what will you tell your friends when one of them asks you about whether they should build another bridge, like you did?
bet that you need an internet connection open every single time you open Office so it can contact the licensing server. If the time limit was kept locally, that'd be too hackable.
I bet they don't need it.
Checking the licensing server once per day (or once per use) is no more nor less hackable than checking it once per week, or per month. So I'd guess you won't need to have an open internet connection to use it. They are not that fool. Not when you don't even need an open internet connection to run Google Apps.
And the thing about constant updates, which can be made mandatory, is that MS could wipe hacks out each and every time one is found (virus scan-like). Though they may not want to, as piracy is not completely bad for MS: if piracy were impossible OpenOffice and Google Apps would have a much greater penetration. And that in the end would bite MS back.
Slashdot Mirror
Some poor fellow apparently demonstrated that a gas mixture other than traditional LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas=Butane+Propane) could burn in a stove, coming out of a metal cilinder and controlled by some sort of electronics. He thinks this will help solve the lack of LPG in his region. But he gives no clue as to what is his gas mixture, and there's no info on whether his apparatus is safe from accidents/explosions, environment-friendly, unharmful to one's health in home usage, economical to produce/sell and energy-efficient.
When I opened TFA I was expecting much more. Usually the pecking order (economics and supply problems notwithstanding) for cooking is: Electricity -> Piped Natural Gas -> LPG (Propane/Butante) -> Kerosene/Parafin -> Coal -> Wood/charcoal/dry dung
How does his solution compare (economically, and in health/safety aspects) in this sequence, especially in his intended local market? That I would like to know.
Unless the specific goal of /. was to flame-bait around the perennial arab/israeli problem, this post was a waste of time.
Yup. This problem is compounded by the fact that the 360 overheats if it is not in an open area.
I have to pull it out of its niche in the furniture every time I want to play for more than 10-20 minutes. I then place it on top of the TV table, right beside the TV. All this movement may cause spinning dvd to get damaged (as TFA points out). Plus, the Box is left in an inadequate position during gameplay. That led recently to my 4-y-o son knocking it down (from vertical do horizontal, it did not fall to the floor) while we played Viva Pinata -- ruining the disk the original (brand new) Viva Pinata disks. And they don't let you play backups :-(((.
I know, I know, it is my fault I placed it vertical on the furniture. But it would never have been there if it did not overheat in the first place.
Excellent points. I think that there is still a great amount of improvement to be made on how we teach. In the beginning, it was all dry and hard, indeciphrable. Today it is all soft and dumb, imprecise. There's serious need for artful rewriting of the approach, so that it can be comprehensive, understandable, exact, insightful. Not a small task!
You comment reminds me of Richard Feynman, and his remarks about education. See the excerpt from his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman".
Well, people not upgrading sets up a fixed target for Open Source alternatives (Linux, OpenOffice, etc) to replicate, in all the dimensions that would be important for a user (so that said user feels that he has not changed anything).
Then other questions come: could Linux be more XP-like than XP itself? Not really. But XP is being discontinued and, in any case, it is paid software. Another question: once the OS (Linux/Windows) is completely transparent to the user, could the OpenSource OS fork into something different, and invert the game, causing MS to play catch-up? All very interesting.
One thing semms sure to me: once the innovation/obsolescence curve flattens, it will be *much* harder for proprietary software to keep charging what they are used to.
Well, since you mentioned, here are, imho, the problems with each of your alternatives:
This alternative invalidates your alternative #4. In fact, it is exactly what my grandfather did before he passed away in order to avoid inheritance tax: he transfered what he had to the name of his children. Of course then the children would have to register that income and pay taxes over that. But their tax bracket would be much lower than your proposed 90% tax. What, you think you could place limits on how much he could transfer? Watch Mickey Blue Eyes.
Well, this point is really number (3) below. Except it happens before you die.
How fair or efficient is that? You could be perpetuating a rich person's eccentricity. In fact, just recently there was a very interesting debate around a rich woman who donated millions of her money to a charity to support... her dog! (see Rich Bitch). Her white maltese (called "Trouble") will get her own, tax-free, trust fund.
Would be a good idea, if the government were such a perfect agent for our society's welfare. Do you really trust the government to spend that money well? Think US$700bn, think US$25bn, think of the cost of the Iraq War. Then think about how much ($20k, $100k?) you parents will be leaving for you.
If you think your parents would leave a larger sum, you may have less to worry. As Warren Buffet, the 3rd richest man in the world, told us about, the tax system tends to be lighter on the rich.... The rich often pay less taxes, have good lawyers, creative accountants, resourceful private bankers...
A favorite Murphy Law states: Hard Problems have solutions that are simple, elegant, and wrong. But I am with you: it should be discussed...
And I wonder, can anyone other than *me* ever have a soul?
>Where did God come from?
Assuming he exists...
> A part of me can't help thinking that cops are so enthusiastic about child porn because perpetrators are typically solitary and quiet, hence easy to arrest.
Wow, "solitary and quiet". That sounds so innocent. Do you have kids?
>I've been told I look like Sarah Palin...
After a comment like that I just had to see for myself...
(sorry for the slight invasion of privacy, but it was just two or three clicks to get there)
This is another chapter in the war between SMS and IM. Which will be won by the latter, I guess.
Anyway, Verizon is probably reacting to services like this which makes sending SMS from an IM client free. Install an IM client on your phone and you have free SMS.
In the long run, my guess is, we will be all using IM clients to text each other in cell phones. They will consume (a small amount of) bandwidth from our 3G data plans. They will allow us to communicate not only with other cellulars, but with computers, PDAs, and other network devices. And they allow us to text someone in the other side of the world just as easily as in the same city.
SMS may be living a brief moment of glory under the sun. Unless, of course, operators decide to charge it more competitively -- soon.
>Is there a way to send/receive SMS over a data connection in a manner that preserves all of the customs of conventional SMS (eg, send message to phone number from ordinary phone)?
Check this article.
Electric Cars are coming from everywhere, in different sizes and shapes, with different concepts. Some will append the electric motor to a a ignition engine generator (making it a hybrid). Some are tricycles using solar back-up power. Others are super-sport cars. It is all very interesting.
Back in February I was so amazed with the variety that I posted in my blog thirty different electric and hybrid cars from all over the world. From the established auto industry of Japan and the US down to individual projects, this is a really special moment for entrepreneurs, inventors and creative people. The blog post is in portuguese, but there are pictures and reference links for all 30 electric car models.
Sorry for the plug. Cheers.
If your children needs this 50% minimum then you probably are not caring enough about their learning. So you wouldn't complain: it doesn't matter to you. OTOH if your children doesn't need the 50% rule, they already score higher: this rule doesn't affect them. So again you wouldn't complain: it doesn't matter to you.
Or... she knows fossil fuels cause global warming, but won't oppose it because she owns some acres in Sweet Home Alaska, and is hoping that Global Warming will turn them into the next Napa Valley.
>Being able to read the Japanese and German codes was a decisive advantage in winning WWII
Decisive? In the sense that without it the war would be lost? Hardly. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are made more formidable than they actually were, in the wave of pride that came after the allies defeated them. They were heroic, as were the allies. But it was never an equal match of forces once both the US and the USSR were on the side of the allies.
I recommend reading "The Prize",by Pulitzer Prize winning author Daniel Yergin, in order to have an economic perspective on WWII. You will see how once the oil embargo was placed on Japan, and once Germany decided to break its alliance with the Soviets (thereby cutting its supply of Oil) the outcome of the war was pretty much decided. Essentially once that happened both Japan and Germany had a ticking clock to run against: their dimnishing stock of oil. That made it necessary for both to be very audacious, taking great risks and placing all their hopes in a few bold moves. Pearl Harbour for the Japanese, the drive towards the heart of Russia for the German.
These two bets didn't pay off, and from then on they were essentially on the defensive, trying to make do with very limited amounts of oil.
Because there are 10,000 ways of sending confidential, encrypted data across national borders using little known tools such as... the internet!
Not to mention thumb-drives that are becoming pinky-drives.
Not to mention relatively strong and free data encryption.
My greatest gripe with this kind of decision, though, is not its inefficiency -- but rather, the precedent it opens. Coincidentally, my homepage yesterday had the following "thought of the day":
Think about that.
There are many reasons for why the Amazon is being cleared today. Ethanol is not one of them.
Great post. Wish I had some mod points to mod you up.
Interesting post.
/.
However I fear it is really not that simple. I can think of a few examples which would be hard to fit in your "3 classes of people" model.
First, there are the "discussion/opinion" people. What are they? Content creators? In a sense they are, but they well may be parroting other folks or just adding noise. They nevertheless are information processors. Like us here at
Second there are the people that are uncapable of consuming information. Surely in this world there are plenty of illiterate, functionally illiterate or simply dim people who are unable understand, process, absorb, or otherwise do anything with information -- beyond laugh at it, spit on it, or stare glass-eyed at it.
Third, it is hard to separate "information generators" from "content aggregators" and place scientist in the first class. What are information generators? I can think of celebrities doing blunders which will be reported by the media, or sportsmen who by playing, for example basketball games, generate information other people will report on/talk about. Scientists are generally not information generators but content organizers and aggregators, working under strict hypothesis/test rules. As are reporters.
And finally, there is the issue of roles and degrees of fitness to them. These types you portray are more classification of acts/roles than classification of people. Anyone may perform all three of your roles, in different points in time. The aggregators are not just in the Search Engine companies, but they may be anyone who collects and sends links to their friends. So it is a very wide category.
Cheers.
*shivers*
Why is this bringing Douglas Adams to mind ?
> You may not have paid, but you didn't 'steal' anything, you simply trespassed.
Consider that it is your own bridge, and that you built it for the good of the community, put your good name to a bank in order to get the US$ 250 million in credit needed for it. Consider that you are today repaying the US$ 250 million you spent on the bridge, your bridge, and that you depend on the cash flow from toll booths to pay for it. If free riders (people who used the bridge but do not pay for it) break the cash flow in half, now you can only afford to repay US$ 125 million -- and the creditors will take your bridge away from you, as the collateral for the original US$ 250 million loan. It is not your bridge any longer.
So, in a very real sense, the bridge was stolen from you.
Say, what will you tell your friends when one of them asks you about whether they should build another bridge, like you did?
bet that you need an internet connection open every single time you open Office so it can contact the licensing server. If the time limit was kept locally, that'd be too hackable.
I bet they don't need it.
Checking the licensing server once per day (or once per use) is no more nor less hackable than checking it once per week, or per month. So I'd guess you won't need to have an open internet connection to use it. They are not that fool. Not when you don't even need an open internet connection to run Google Apps.
And the thing about constant updates, which can be made mandatory, is that MS could wipe hacks out each and every time one is found (virus scan-like). Though they may not want to, as piracy is not completely bad for MS: if piracy were impossible OpenOffice and Google Apps would have a much greater penetration. And that in the end would bite MS back.
There was a discussion around essentially the same topic, here in /. a couple of months ago:
Molten Salt-Base Solar Power