So, I did this with all of my movies, VHS, DVD, BluRay ect.. I ended up with a very large library of video on my computer. In my computer I used an Adaptec 5805 RAID controller with backup battery and 4 3TB WD Red HDD's to store all the data in a RAID 5. I am also running a PLEX Server to organize and add meta data to all of the video files as well as serve them to the HTPC and Roku 3 in my house. As for backup I purchased an account with Crash Plan.
With all of this I get a nice organized library for all my video files with meta data. The ability to stream them around my house and to my phone on the road. Data redundancy both local via the RAID 5 and remotely through crash plan.
Total cost
Raid Card: $250 (Yay Ebay! This card is $480 in newegg plus $120ish for the battery.)
Hard drive cage with Hotswap bays: $40
Server: Just used my gaming computer so $0 but would be $2.5k to rebuilt the computer but you don't need a computer that fast as a file server though it is a transcoding champ.
HDDs: 4x $125 = $500
Plex: Lifetime $75
Crash Plan: $5/month
Total: $945 + Computer + $5 a month
The initial backup took a really long time. (Almost 2 weeks.) Even with my 25mbps up stream so you may want to pop for the seeded backup option if your internet isn't very fast but it is limited to 1TB so it wouldn't have saved me too much time. I've been satisfied so far but I've been lucky and haven't needed the backup yet. Though I guess it's like insurance I pay for it but I don't ever want to use it.
They are still storing your credit card number somewhere. How is that different from storing a photo? Unless they are guaranteeing that the credit card number is never stored on Apple's servers I don't see how you could trust this service any more than there photo cloud.
Advancements in medicine (drugs) have reduced crime (they have almost eliminated the need for insane asylums)
Tell that to all the homeless schizophrenics on the street due to deinstitutionalization. We have not eliminated the need for forced institutionalization we have limited it some but mental health is a seriously neglected part of american society. Here's a less sensational article if you don't like the other one.
At the bottom of the reference I linked to, they mention that there are conspiracy theorists that say that Lay faked his death and he's still alive.
I got a fake I just made it up conspiracy theory. His heirs killed him by inducing a heart attack because they knew him dying before appeal would complicate the civil suits so they might be able to force settlement and keep more of the inheritance. That seems much more plausible than he faked his own death. But like I said I just made it up so it's probably not true.
super corrupt elements of the government(like unelected senators) were run out
See I always saw that as a misunderstanding by the majority of people as to what Senators really are. The US Federal Senator's job before the 17th amendment was to represent the interests of the State they were appointed by not the people of the State. (We have the House of Representatives for that) So if your senators were corrupt then it meant that your State Legislator/Governor was corrupt. (A very distinct possibility i.e. Illinois) All we have done is taken the part of the Federal government that was supposed to be stable and turned it into the US House of Reps part II.
Also I contend that it is easier to buy a Senator now than it was before the 17th amendment. Now instead of buying off the majority of a State Legislator you would only have to buy off one man. Of course given supply and demand (There are more State Legislators than Senators.) the price of buying a Senator may be such that it isn't any different.
There are times where a personal elevator might be nice to have. Like if I had a really tall house. But I think you are thinking to small. Elevators are the trains of vertical transportation. The helicopter is the car. I would love to own a helicopter if they were practical/affordable/not noise polling gas guzzling monsters. WHERE IS MY FLYING CAR?!!!!!
Oh it's worse than you think. The Chicago Tribune has already caught the city randomly changing the rules of the cameras so that there are occasonal large spikes of tickets generated. The rule changes are things like removing turn on red or changing the speed approached to the light for ticket triggering. The Chicago Tribune's website has a whole section on the ongoing red light issues. Sorry some of it is pay walled but not all of it.
Who said we were making calls.... maybe I just want that sexy Google maps voice in my head telling me to turn into a lake just to test me. Or it's for music you know whatever.
On the music note that always seemed like a cool idea to me until I got my new pipes on my bike. Now the idea of hearing music while at speed is a joke. All I feel is the rumble of my bike and I love it.
But seriously I never understood this both my hands must be on the wheel at all time crap the safe driving nazi's think about driving these days. I mean have any of you people ever driven a car with a manual transmission? I think if I can handle driving a manual I can manage to take one hand off the wheel to make a quick gesture without killing myself.
I was just about to say the same thing. I've lived in 4 different states and the Indiana DMV is the best run government office I've ever had the displeasure of working with. On a side note the Illinois Secretary of State was the worst.
Obviously you don't live in Chicago and have never driven on it's roads. But odd driving practices aside as a Chicago resident I have to say that I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that the city was quietly adjusting the thresholds on intersections occasionally to make a quick buck. I mean it is Chicago we are talking about, the only city where the officials are more corrupt is probably Detroit and the corruption never stops at the top.
When I lived in a Chicago apartment I got unwatchable reception on every channel but pbs and WGN even though I could see the antennas on top of sears and Hancock towers out my window. Sometimes living in a concrete canyon works in the cable company's favor.
Whoa! Wait a minute who ever said anything about solving overpopulation. I'm just saying that from a career perspective caregiver can be rewarding. Also, to really be a caregiver you are going to probably have to be married with your partner working, unless you want to be one of the government dependents but then why are you asking about jobs.
However, I do have some issues with your points.
Food scarcity is normally not caused by society not being able to produce enough food. Well maybe we can't produce a enough meat for everyone to eat like a fat American, but we could meet the current worlds total caloric needs with some work. However, due to war, oppression, terrible government, stupidity, and callously choosing to say screw the poor I want double Steak we make that hard.
Energy scarcity: We have tons of Uranium and Thorium. If we could get off our asses and actually use it to build useful things like Modern power plants instead of bombs we might be able to have a sensible energy agenda.
Pollution Levels: The modern world needs steel and steel is dirty. Unless you want to go back to a pre-steel world we are going to have to put up with some pollution for the foreseeable future. But with good management we can limit the pollution.
Disease Susceptibility: People get sick. Always have always will. Poor people get sick more than rich people due to malnutrition or improper hygiene. Things are still better now than they were though. Maybe we should raise the standard of living in the rest of the world some.
Psychological Disorder: Always existed, society just killed people with this because they were "Possessed by the devil" before the enlightenment. I am not for a return to that idea even if it puts stress on society.
Political unrest: Come on wars are as central to human activity as breathing. As long as humans exist there will be war or at least arguments over something. If you think otherwise have fun in your utopia fantasy land. I welcome getting proven wrong.
Overpopulation in the Western World: Most of the western world is in demographicdecline. (I'm assuming this is a predominantly western audience being English language and all.) The US and EU only skirt by with immigrants. So clearly we are not prolific reproducers anymore. Now for the rest of the world, they may have to tone down the reproducing, but unless we want to use that war thing to stop them I'm not sure how we could. And I'm not sure I can support a government that would go to war against the breeders it sounds to Nazi like to me.
Though in the end I agree with you. If we keep growing our population we will eventually run out of resources to support that population. In the end the only real answer is to get off this rock and colonize space. But that's not really an answer to the problem. It's just kicking it down the road for a really long time. (Universal Entropy and what not) Any other form of forced population control will require some form of world government. Otherwise the countries that don't comply will just swallow you up in a few generations.
Seriously, I know it's all anti-fem movement and all that but someone has to take care of children might as well take care of your own.
However, if having kids isn't your thing then you want to be somewhere in the robot design/maintenance track. So, something like Engineering or Computer Science would be best. Not everyone is good at math and abstract problem solving. Learn to do that really well and get some people skills and you should be able to stay at least marginally employed.
Another option might be to join the Military. There will always be a need for Generals even if all the grunts are robots. Someone, has to tell squad A to attack point B, and I'm not convinced that the lowly soldier will ever really be replaced with robots. Someone will always fight once the robots are defeated.
Also genetic engineering of crops might be a good thing to go into. We are going to need better yielding crops if we are going to support all the unemployed TV zombies the Robot's replace in the job market. Otherwise, someone might get the idea in their heads of limiting the population.
My wife and I love to go to movies actually. But what the movie really is, is an excuse to ship the kid off to Grandma's and then spend an afternoon with just the two of us. We normally go to a noon showing and then get lunch. It's always less crowded than at night, sometimes we even get the theater to ourselves, and the ticket prices are cheaper. But that's mostly for movies we don't want Jr. seeing. If it's a kids movie we just rent/buy it unless it's a special treat. Normally for a kids movie it's better just to buy it anyway. Your kid is going to want to watch it over and over again and they normally don't sit through the whole thing. (Now if I have to hear the Frozen soundtrack one more time I may break the blu-ray but that's another thing altogether.)
Cutting the cord is already a no-brainer when you look at the big picture (I think live sports fans are the only exception remaining?); TFA is about how it's starting to make even more sense in new ways, such as energy bills.
It's no wonder the cable company needs to buy so much government; with their current approach there's no way they could survive in a free market. I wonder how long until their non-customers are going to have to start paying subsidies to them through our water bills or something else that can't be reasonably opted out of.
I hear that. The only reason I keep Comcast around any more is for 1. Internet and 2. HBO Go. And honestly if I could buy HBO Go from any other provider I would. (You hear that HBO! I'd pay you directly if you would let me!) I mean no PS3 or Roku support come on Comcast!
It has been months since I actually watched live TV, and the last time was because my Dad was over and wanted to watch the news. I get all of my media from either online streaming sources or DVD/BluRays (Almost all scanned to my Plex Server now). I do record a few shows now and again still but for the most part I have lost interest in most Cable TV only a few big shows ever get me to watch like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones and by the time I hear about them I can usually watch them on Netflix or Amazon Prime anyway.The wife loves HBO though so I'm stuck with that going forward most likely.
You are exactly correct. There are very few programs that couldn't run completely in user space on a modern version of Windows (Vista SP1 or higher). The problem is that developers don't want to take the time to handle tokens and user permissions when the develop a program so they just require admin and since it's been going on for years no one complains.
I think that M$ is keenly aware of this too. It seems to me that every time they do a major update they try despratly to get developers to switch away from admin all the time and into trusted computing. I mean first it was "Click Once" and now it's Windows RT and the M$ App Store. It's just hard to get people to spend money on a system that they think won't let them run there stuff.
Also with quickbooks, something tells me that you found a DRM scheme that looks like an updater. I mean why the hell else would it need to call home so often?
Rand Paul invents new currency called the SPIDERCOIN. It will be pegged to the S&P 500's value..... and wait am minute this already exists. (See stock symbol SPY.) Why would I buy crypto currency that is just a stock pool sounds like an awfully complicated way to set up an ETF.
Look you ask why other companies don't do this and the answer is simple, they can't get away with it. Every cable company on the planet would love to have invented the practice. I could even see this ad happening:
"Super Def TV"! Only Available on Xfinity! Get your Super Def TV today with 2 year cable contract.
Hell, they already do this with DVR's. Why don't people just buy a TIVO or TV with cable card slot instead of paying Comcast $15 a month for a DVR? Because they don't think that way.
The real answer is that companies have figured out that most people won't sit down and do the accounting to figure out what the true amortized or depreciated cost of any item is over the long term. They instead just look at the advertised price and compare apples to cats.
American's don't think, "I have enough cash for that." They think, "I have enough credit for that." and could give two shits that the item costs them 200% more over 2 years. The only way to fix it is to make credit harder to get but then our economy would collapse (sooner) so.... yeah bring on the credit bubble baby!
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So, I did this with all of my movies, VHS, DVD, BluRay ect.. I ended up with a very large library of video on my computer. In my computer I used an Adaptec 5805 RAID controller with backup battery and 4 3TB WD Red HDD's to store all the data in a RAID 5. I am also running a PLEX Server to organize and add meta data to all of the video files as well as serve them to the HTPC and Roku 3 in my house. As for backup I purchased an account with Crash Plan.
With all of this I get a nice organized library for all my video files with meta data. The ability to stream them around my house and to my phone on the road. Data redundancy both local via the RAID 5 and remotely through crash plan.
The initial backup took a really long time. (Almost 2 weeks.) Even with my 25mbps up stream so you may want to pop for the seeded backup option if your internet isn't very fast but it is limited to 1TB so it wouldn't have saved me too much time. I've been satisfied so far but I've been lucky and haven't needed the backup yet. Though I guess it's like insurance I pay for it but I don't ever want to use it.
They are still storing your credit card number somewhere. How is that different from storing a photo? Unless they are guaranteeing that the credit card number is never stored on Apple's servers I don't see how you could trust this service any more than there photo cloud.
Let's not forget that Christians and Muslims are both religions with divergent sects. As such it might be helpful to see the following list:
By that account the Catholic Church is still the biggest religion.
Advancements in medicine (drugs) have reduced crime (they have almost eliminated the need for insane asylums)
Tell that to all the homeless schizophrenics on the street due to deinstitutionalization. We have not eliminated the need for forced institutionalization we have limited it some but mental health is a seriously neglected part of american society. Here's a less sensational article if you don't like the other one.
At the bottom of the reference I linked to, they mention that there are conspiracy theorists that say that Lay faked his death and he's still alive.
I got a fake I just made it up conspiracy theory. His heirs killed him by inducing a heart attack because they knew him dying before appeal would complicate the civil suits so they might be able to force settlement and keep more of the inheritance. That seems much more plausible than he faked his own death. But like I said I just made it up so it's probably not true.
super corrupt elements of the government(like unelected senators) were run out
See I always saw that as a misunderstanding by the majority of people as to what Senators really are. The US Federal Senator's job before the 17th amendment was to represent the interests of the State they were appointed by not the people of the State. (We have the House of Representatives for that) So if your senators were corrupt then it meant that your State Legislator/Governor was corrupt. (A very distinct possibility i.e. Illinois) All we have done is taken the part of the Federal government that was supposed to be stable and turned it into the US House of Reps part II.
Also I contend that it is easier to buy a Senator now than it was before the 17th amendment. Now instead of buying off the majority of a State Legislator you would only have to buy off one man. Of course given supply and demand (There are more State Legislators than Senators.) the price of buying a Senator may be such that it isn't any different.
There are times where a personal elevator might be nice to have. Like if I had a really tall house. But I think you are thinking to small. Elevators are the trains of vertical transportation. The helicopter is the car. I would love to own a helicopter if they were practical/affordable/not noise polling gas guzzling monsters. WHERE IS MY FLYING CAR?!!!!!
Oh it's worse than you think. The Chicago Tribune has already caught the city randomly changing the rules of the cameras so that there are occasonal large spikes of tickets generated. The rule changes are things like removing turn on red or changing the speed approached to the light for ticket triggering. The Chicago Tribune's website has a whole section on the ongoing red light issues. Sorry some of it is pay walled but not all of it.
Actually Mel Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, U.S. according to wikipedia.
He did attend acting school in Australia though so you can blame them for his acting skill.
Who said we were making calls.... maybe I just want that sexy Google maps voice in my head telling me to turn into a lake just to test me. Or it's for music you know whatever.
On the music note that always seemed like a cool idea to me until I got my new pipes on my bike. Now the idea of hearing music while at speed is a joke. All I feel is the rumble of my bike and I love it.
No that one's called Dogecoin
Your prank idea sounds great... well until people figure out the old coke can for hands trick.
But seriously I never understood this both my hands must be on the wheel at all time crap the safe driving nazi's think about driving these days. I mean have any of you people ever driven a car with a manual transmission? I think if I can handle driving a manual I can manage to take one hand off the wheel to make a quick gesture without killing myself.
I was just about to say the same thing. I've lived in 4 different states and the Indiana DMV is the best run government office I've ever had the displeasure of working with. On a side note the Illinois Secretary of State was the worst.
Better yet just let the maple leaves win the cup.
Obviously you don't live in Chicago and have never driven on it's roads. But odd driving practices aside as a Chicago resident I have to say that I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that the city was quietly adjusting the thresholds on intersections occasionally to make a quick buck. I mean it is Chicago we are talking about, the only city where the officials are more corrupt is probably Detroit and the corruption never stops at the top.
When I lived in a Chicago apartment I got unwatchable reception on every channel but pbs and WGN even though I could see the antennas on top of sears and Hancock towers out my window. Sometimes living in a concrete canyon works in the cable company's favor.
Whoa! Wait a minute who ever said anything about solving overpopulation. I'm just saying that from a career perspective caregiver can be rewarding. Also, to really be a caregiver you are going to probably have to be married with your partner working, unless you want to be one of the government dependents but then why are you asking about jobs.
However, I do have some issues with your points.
Food scarcity is normally not caused by society not being able to produce enough food. Well maybe we can't produce a enough meat for everyone to eat like a fat American, but we could meet the current worlds total caloric needs with some work. However, due to war, oppression, terrible government, stupidity, and callously choosing to say screw the poor I want double Steak we make that hard.
Energy scarcity: We have tons of Uranium and Thorium. If we could get off our asses and actually use it to build useful things like Modern power plants instead of bombs we might be able to have a sensible energy agenda.
Pollution Levels: The modern world needs steel and steel is dirty. Unless you want to go back to a pre-steel world we are going to have to put up with some pollution for the foreseeable future. But with good management we can limit the pollution.
Disease Susceptibility: People get sick. Always have always will. Poor people get sick more than rich people due to malnutrition or improper hygiene. Things are still better now than they were though. Maybe we should raise the standard of living in the rest of the world some.
Psychological Disorder: Always existed, society just killed people with this because they were "Possessed by the devil" before the enlightenment. I am not for a return to that idea even if it puts stress on society.
Political unrest: Come on wars are as central to human activity as breathing. As long as humans exist there will be war or at least arguments over something. If you think otherwise have fun in your utopia fantasy land. I welcome getting proven wrong.
Overpopulation in the Western World: Most of the western world is in demographic decline. (I'm assuming this is a predominantly western audience being English language and all.) The US and EU only skirt by with immigrants. So clearly we are not prolific reproducers anymore. Now for the rest of the world, they may have to tone down the reproducing, but unless we want to use that war thing to stop them I'm not sure how we could. And I'm not sure I can support a government that would go to war against the breeders it sounds to Nazi like to me.
Though in the end I agree with you. If we keep growing our population we will eventually run out of resources to support that population. In the end the only real answer is to get off this rock and colonize space. But that's not really an answer to the problem. It's just kicking it down the road for a really long time. (Universal Entropy and what not) Any other form of forced population control will require some form of world government. Otherwise the countries that don't comply will just swallow you up in a few generations.
Seriously, I know it's all anti-fem movement and all that but someone has to take care of children might as well take care of your own.
However, if having kids isn't your thing then you want to be somewhere in the robot design/maintenance track. So, something like Engineering or Computer Science would be best. Not everyone is good at math and abstract problem solving. Learn to do that really well and get some people skills and you should be able to stay at least marginally employed.
Another option might be to join the Military. There will always be a need for Generals even if all the grunts are robots. Someone, has to tell squad A to attack point B, and I'm not convinced that the lowly soldier will ever really be replaced with robots. Someone will always fight once the robots are defeated.
Also genetic engineering of crops might be a good thing to go into. We are going to need better yielding crops if we are going to support all the unemployed TV zombies the Robot's replace in the job market. Otherwise, someone might get the idea in their heads of limiting the population.
My wife and I love to go to movies actually. But what the movie really is, is an excuse to ship the kid off to Grandma's and then spend an afternoon with just the two of us. We normally go to a noon showing and then get lunch. It's always less crowded than at night, sometimes we even get the theater to ourselves, and the ticket prices are cheaper. But that's mostly for movies we don't want Jr. seeing. If it's a kids movie we just rent/buy it unless it's a special treat. Normally for a kids movie it's better just to buy it anyway. Your kid is going to want to watch it over and over again and they normally don't sit through the whole thing. (Now if I have to hear the Frozen soundtrack one more time I may break the blu-ray but that's another thing altogether.)
Cutting the cord is already a no-brainer when you look at the big picture (I think live sports fans are the only exception remaining?); TFA is about how it's starting to make even more sense in new ways, such as energy bills.
It's no wonder the cable company needs to buy so much government; with their current approach there's no way they could survive in a free market. I wonder how long until their non-customers are going to have to start paying subsidies to them through our water bills or something else that can't be reasonably opted out of.
I hear that. The only reason I keep Comcast around any more is for 1. Internet and 2. HBO Go. And honestly if I could buy HBO Go from any other provider I would. (You hear that HBO! I'd pay you directly if you would let me!) I mean no PS3 or Roku support come on Comcast!
It has been months since I actually watched live TV, and the last time was because my Dad was over and wanted to watch the news. I get all of my media from either online streaming sources or DVD/BluRays (Almost all scanned to my Plex Server now). I do record a few shows now and again still but for the most part I have lost interest in most Cable TV only a few big shows ever get me to watch like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones and by the time I hear about them I can usually watch them on Netflix or Amazon Prime anyway.The wife loves HBO though so I'm stuck with that going forward most likely.
No, a communist country where the state is a big player in the marketplace through state owned companies. Think of it as Fascism without a conscience.
What about socialism?
I believe you have just invented the credit card company.
You are exactly correct. There are very few programs that couldn't run completely in user space on a modern version of Windows (Vista SP1 or higher). The problem is that developers don't want to take the time to handle tokens and user permissions when the develop a program so they just require admin and since it's been going on for years no one complains.
I think that M$ is keenly aware of this too. It seems to me that every time they do a major update they try despratly to get developers to switch away from admin all the time and into trusted computing. I mean first it was "Click Once" and now it's Windows RT and the M$ App Store. It's just hard to get people to spend money on a system that they think won't let them run there stuff.
Also with quickbooks, something tells me that you found a DRM scheme that looks like an updater. I mean why the hell else would it need to call home so often?
Rand Paul invents new currency called the SPIDERCOIN. It will be pegged to the S&P 500's value..... and wait am minute this already exists. (See stock symbol SPY.) Why would I buy crypto currency that is just a stock pool sounds like an awfully complicated way to set up an ETF.
Look you ask why other companies don't do this and the answer is simple, they can't get away with it. Every cable company on the planet would love to have invented the practice. I could even see this ad happening:
"Super Def TV"! Only Available on Xfinity! Get your Super Def TV today with 2 year cable contract.
Hell, they already do this with DVR's. Why don't people just buy a TIVO or TV with cable card slot instead of paying Comcast $15 a month for a DVR? Because they don't think that way.
The real answer is that companies have figured out that most people won't sit down and do the accounting to figure out what the true amortized or depreciated cost of any item is over the long term. They instead just look at the advertised price and compare apples to cats.
American's don't think, "I have enough cash for that." They think, "I have enough credit for that." and could give two shits that the item costs them 200% more over 2 years. The only way to fix it is to make credit harder to get but then our economy would collapse (sooner) so.... yeah bring on the credit bubble baby!