>> 5)I'm forgetful. If I forgot for even 1 evening to plug it in I'd be in trouble. That's not acceptable. It needs to be able to go at least a week without plugging in.
I suppose you'll just have to suck it up and turn your brain on for a change. A minor inconvenience in the big picture I think.
I would hope that they would have a reminder, kind of like the way most cars beep if you open the door with the key still in the ignition. It wouldn't be too hard to program a voice to say "Don't forget to plug-in". After two weeks, it would be such a habit you would feel uncomfortable stepping out of a gas vehicle and not plugging it in. . I am curious about one thing, however. If electric cars become the norm, will kids run through garages and unplug them for fun? How would you prevent that?
Internet analogy: . When you connect to the internet, you receive content that is not produced by your ISP, and you may even produce content of your own. Regardless, you still pay your ISP a fee to connect you to the pipe. Should you wish to go "off the grid", then it is your choice to do so. . If they use net metering, then it is likely that they use energy on some occasions, and then make up for it on others. In this situation, the power company is still providing a service by acting a a permanent battery on the occasions when the user keeps consumption under production, and by giving the user an always available source of power, should he or she ever go need it. . It may sound like these people are being double charged. After all, they are paying both for the additional power they consume, and for the ability to consume power. But, they are also paying to keep the equipment serviced regularly, and to provide availability at any time. In this analogy, we are talking about people who are already self-sufficient, or close to it. These people still have the option of buying and maintaining their own batteries, becoming entirely self-sufficient, and ditching the electric company altogether. The reason they don't do that is because the electric company still provides a useful service.
What, you haven't read the proposed health care bill? only took me 2 minutes to find the bill and find the fines (which are implemented as fining everyone via taxes, then rebate the payment to those proven innocent).
So, if you redefine "tax" to mean "fine", then he is fining people. Well, you're a bright one, aren't you. For the purpose of this discussion, I am redefining "bright" to mean "full of shit"
What, you haven't read the laws that affect you?
If I ever wanted to start a post office, then I would contact a lawyer regarding the legality. You just have a bone to pick and are willing to believe any dubious piece of information that find's its way onto a newsgroup forum.
in several cases people have tried to start First Class mail services to compete directly with the Post Office, and found out the hard way doing so is outright illegal.Yes, I've researched it - you can too.
Can you name one company who has found out "the hard way"?
You don't want citations, you want an excuse to demean someone who holds a different view.
No, I want to ask some lunatic who is ranting about crazy shit to double check his information. Apparently it is all based on the idea that if you don't care about honesty, and act hateful enough, then you will somehow get your point across.
Actually, my criteria is more like saying "propaganda does not count". . As for your health care statement, technically, it is true that you have to have health insurance or be penalized, but I think a cap of either 2.5% of income or the cost of the insurance means you are not being "heavily fined". If you make 50,000 per year, then you can be fined $1,250/year for not having health insurance. Of course that's with either your employer or the federal government paying most of the cost for you, and letting you decline if you say "I'm religious" or "I can't afford it".
I think a big part of it was that, before the internet became huge, distribution was slow, inefficient, and limited by geographic locations. Essentially, networking was a way to increase availability of information and break the aforementioned restrictions. . Now that we've grown up, and the dotcoms have grown up, the business world has taken notice, and they see the opposite problem, (which we so gleefully created). We spent our earlier years working to make information ubiquitous, while they spent the same amount of time trying to control it. We have gone from being the Johnny Appleseeds of our time, to the bouncers, creating artificial restrictions to keep people out. . Slashdotters are still interested in the next video game system and the next computer chip, and the next iPhone. It's just the DRM, the iPhone "jails", and the legislative efforts that scare them.
It's worse than that. Apple is the owner of the platform, and the problem is that the owner of the network complained. So, an iPhone developer can currently be screwed if Apple or AT&T object. What happens if and when an iPhone is released for Verizon or T-Mobile? Will they have veto power over apps? . "I'm sorry, your application has been revoked. Verizon wishes to charge a monthly fee for what you turned into a one-time charge."
Have you seen a CAPTCHA lately? It looks more like a rorschach test than any human readable language. I spent thirty minutes trying to find the "duck", "butterfly", and "puerto-rican flight attendant strangling a hooker" buttons. It turns out they're unicode.
2 extra legs require more food to keep up, and more coordination to, well, coordinate. Evolution may be dumb, but it's also cheap. It will take its time getting rid of those extra appendages, but growing them in the first place is unlikely to ever happen.
I don't know if I would say the message is the same. At the very least, the viewer could take different interpretations from "V For Vendetta" and 1984. In 1984, the reason the ending is bad is because the author may be suggesting that human beings can be subjugated and brainwashed, and because those in power can create an stable balance of power that keeps the lower class subservient to those in power.
V for Vendetta is more hopeful. One of the differences can be summed up as: . 1984: Fight for your rights now, before it's too late. V for Vendetta: It's never too late. All you need is a terrorist in a funny mask, and the problem-fixing uprising will be coming along shortly. . (BTW, I loved V for Vendetta, and loved the questions it raised about whether V was justified in his actions, but my point is that each one is different, and you cannot just apply the "I've seen x, so I don't need to see y" attitude.)
Why? Do you think computers are going away? . If you're referring to a document format, the text and csv will be around forever. Even if they cease to be common knowledge, those who need to know how to open a text file can figure it out. There are no guarantees for images, but odds are that someone will have a program capable of opening gifs or jpgs 76 years from now. . (Platform isn't an issue, as text, CSV, and gif/jpeg can be accessed on nearly every system on earth.) . And as for hardware, well, keep it on a remote server that is backed up regularly, and copies should last longer than the paper your log would be written on. . Of course, there are other possibillties. for example, use LaTeX, and just make it a point to keep a copy of the installer stored with the document.
I see no reason to assume it would be anywhere near comparable in quality. In fact, I think we would run into three models. .
Badly shot camera-phone vids uploaded to youtube, combined with disparate tweets and myspace posts about the local fire or car wreck. Who knows, someone may create a social networking site devoted to local news and you may be able to get it all in one place. Just don't expect these people do provide anywhere near the quality of coverage you see from local news already.
People with a bone to pick. There are always going to be Michael Moores running into police stations and looking through public records, and actually researching the story, but usually it will be because they already know who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are and they just want to know how to spin it. Replace "Michael Moore" with "Sean Hannity" if you'd like.
People trying to make money. Huffington Post, World Net Daily, and many of these sites that have blatant biases will continue to operate. But when the free articles they link to start to dry up, that's going to put more pressure on them to either work harder for less money, or to find a way to bring in more money. We're going to create a hypercompetitive environment in a field where red meat makes more money than factual reporting. I don't expect that to work well.
As for you supply and demand, well, I'm sure there is also a demand for free sports cars. That does not mean the supply will come. There is a demand for free gas, but it isn't going to happen just because people want it to.
Oops, there goes capitalism. . You know, if every news reporter reported just for the love of reporting, with no pay, and every musician sang just for the love of singing, and they all got free food and apartments because every farmer and landlord does it for the love and farming and land-lording then society would fall apart. Too many people would sit on their asses, for the love of sitting on their asses, and nobody would become a janitor, for the love of being a janitor.
Execs thinking that a for-pay service in a world of for-free services will be viable is. There will always be a free alternative and that is where people will go.
That's an assumption. Right now, aggregators such as google news and slashdot are built on the backs of local newspapers, which are crmubling because they cannot compete with the news aggregators. Do you see the problem here?
People like Mr. Diller believe that if everybody gets together and starts charging for content then consumers will have no choice but to pay up.
Well, they could use bittorrent to download their local news, or move to a delivery service that is either built on a proprietary player with ads embedded, or one that is so heavily DRMed that it isn't worth it to crack and remove the ads. . Of course, there is one other option. Make your boss pay for it. That seems to be a big direction now. Give things away for free to students, but then charge out the ass if a business wants to use it. They could do the same thing with news. . But, I promise you, if the money dries up, so will the free content.
The fact is there will always be a free alternative. I'm not saying there isn't or won't be a market for premium content. Just that there will always be free. Free-as-in-beer and hopefully free-as-in-speech.
Maybe I'm contradicting myself, but there will be some free content. There will be youtube videos of someone driving by a car wreck shooting video from a camera phone. And there will be politicial action committees paying people to set up astroturf news services. In fact, the Rush Limbaughs of the world will do ok, because their "content" is an advertisement. As for quality content. Reporting, that adheres to some journalistic standard, that will be the premium content. And bitch all you want about how existing reporters aren't good enough, but trust me, if you stop paying them, they will get a hell of a lot worse.
You are assuming that free content will always be produced. The problem, especially at the local level, is that banner ads do not bring in much revenue, and ad blockers actually reduce that even further. The internet revenue model continues to be: . 1. Create Content 2. Give it away for free 3. ???? 4. Profit . So, you can call these people assholes, while complaining that they don't do more work and do it all for free, but eventually, someone is going to have to pay for this content. Maybe the current business model would be more accurately described as: . 1. Create Content 2. Give it away for free 3. Make your grandmother subscribe to the print version just to, ya know, keep the content providers in business. 4. Profit . Those grandparents are dropping off, and it's only a matter of time before we have to find someone else to pay for the products we use.
Lately, the phrase "Jury Duty" has been rattling around in my head. I have been thinking about how our legal system is based on the idea that regular citizens have a responsibility to help it run smoothly, even if we have to occasionally send out letters and make them. . Because the patent office cannot have an expert for every field, I am wondering if we cannot implement a system in which patent requests are sent out to randomly chosen experts in whatever fields that patent may qualify for, and if the experts' (possibly defined as anyone with a M.S. or higher from an accredited institution), input can be taken into account by the USPTO. Of course the USPTO people would still have to verify that any criticism is really valid, but at least they would not be doing 100% of the legwork, and the people evaluating the patents would be more well-informed than the typical patent clerk. . The hard part would be incentives. Because a patent application costs around $10 grand, it wouldn't be difficult to increase the fee and pay out rewards for citations of prior art. And phrasing it as "your contribution to the arts and sciences" may provide some incentives for the idealistic. I'm wondering, assuming that we want to reward the inventors of new technologies, how would others fix the current system?
Slashdot Mirror
Tom's Law:
Any word, acronym, or expression you don't understand, is about sex.
Corollary:
Your company's web filter WILL block it.
Not until we get our collective heads out of our asses and start building nuclear plants anyway.
The leaf
======
Advantages:
inexpensive
lower emissions
Does not fund terrorist operations.
.
Drawbacks
========
Is not a nuclear power plant.
>> 5)I'm forgetful. If I forgot for even 1 evening to plug it in I'd be in trouble. That's not acceptable. It needs to be able to go at least a week without plugging in.
I suppose you'll just have to suck it up and turn your brain on for a change. A minor inconvenience in the big picture I think.
I would hope that they would have a reminder, kind of like the way most cars beep if you open the door with the key still in the ignition. It wouldn't be too hard to program a voice to say "Don't forget to plug-in". After two weeks, it would be such a habit you would feel uncomfortable stepping out of a gas vehicle and not plugging it in.
.
I am curious about one thing, however. If electric cars become the norm, will kids run through garages and unplug them for fun? How would you prevent that?
Internet analogy:
.
When you connect to the internet, you receive content that is not produced by your ISP, and you may even produce content of your own. Regardless, you still pay your ISP a fee to connect you to the pipe. Should you wish to go "off the grid", then it is your choice to do so.
.
If they use net metering, then it is likely that they use energy on some occasions, and then make up for it on others. In this situation, the power company is still providing a service by acting a a permanent battery on the occasions when the user keeps consumption under production, and by giving the user an always available source of power, should he or she ever go need it.
.
It may sound like these people are being double charged. After all, they are paying both for the additional power they consume, and for the ability to consume power. But, they are also paying to keep the equipment serviced regularly, and to provide availability at any time. In this analogy, we are talking about people who are already self-sufficient, or close to it. These people still have the option of buying and maintaining their own batteries, becoming entirely self-sufficient, and ditching the electric company altogether. The reason they don't do that is because the electric company still provides a useful service.
Think of it as hearsay for experts: if you don't know about a topic, you shouldn't be allowed to comment on the record on that topic.
As a ten year slashdot commenter, I'm glad that rule only applies in the courtroom.
Now this story will linger as 'common knowledge' for years and rational people will have to cnstantly explain it was a PR stunt.
Well done jackass, you've made the world a worse place.
Didn't he do that by deciding to become a DJ?
Citation?
What, you haven't read the proposed health care bill? only took me 2 minutes to find the bill and find the fines (which are implemented as fining everyone via taxes, then rebate the payment to those proven innocent).
So, if you redefine "tax" to mean "fine", then he is fining people. Well, you're a bright one, aren't you. For the purpose of this discussion, I am redefining "bright" to mean "full of shit"
What, you haven't read the laws that affect you?
If I ever wanted to start a post office, then I would contact a lawyer regarding the legality. You just have a bone to pick and are willing to believe any dubious piece of information that find's its way onto a newsgroup forum.
in several cases people have tried to start First Class mail services to compete directly with the Post Office, and found out the hard way doing so is outright illegal.Yes, I've researched it - you can too.
Can you name one company who has found out "the hard way"?
You don't want citations, you want an excuse to demean someone who holds a different view.
No, I want to ask some lunatic who is ranting about crazy shit to double check his information. Apparently it is all based on the idea that if you don't care about honesty, and act hateful enough, then you will somehow get your point across.
Actually, my criteria is more like saying "propaganda does not count".
.
As for your health care statement, technically, it is true that you have to have health insurance or be penalized, but I think a cap of either 2.5% of income or the cost of the insurance means you are not being "heavily fined". If you make 50,000 per year, then you can be fined $1,250/year for not having health insurance. Of course that's with either your employer or the federal government paying most of the cost for you, and letting you decline if you say "I'm religious" or "I can't afford it".
being heavily fined if you _don't_ participate in ObamaCare, or jailed if you try to start a First Class mail service
[citation needed] (and no, Glen Beck, World Net Daily, and rush Limbaugh do not count)
I think a big part of it was that, before the internet became huge, distribution was slow, inefficient, and limited by geographic locations. Essentially, networking was a way to increase availability of information and break the aforementioned restrictions.
.
Now that we've grown up, and the dotcoms have grown up, the business world has taken notice, and they see the opposite problem, (which we so gleefully created). We spent our earlier years working to make information ubiquitous, while they spent the same amount of time trying to control it. We have gone from being the Johnny Appleseeds of our time, to the bouncers, creating artificial restrictions to keep people out.
.
Slashdotters are still interested in the next video game system and the next computer chip, and the next iPhone. It's just the DRM, the iPhone "jails", and the legislative efforts that scare them.
It's worse than that. Apple is the owner of the platform, and the problem is that the owner of the network complained. So, an iPhone developer can currently be screwed if Apple or AT&T object. What happens if and when an iPhone is released for Verizon or T-Mobile? Will they have veto power over apps?
.
"I'm sorry, your application has been revoked. Verizon wishes to charge a monthly fee for what you turned into a one-time charge."
Have you seen a CAPTCHA lately? It looks more like a rorschach test than any human readable language. I spent thirty minutes trying to find the "duck", "butterfly", and "puerto-rican flight attendant strangling a hooker" buttons. It turns out they're unicode.
"So beauty is measured in pounds?"
Only if you're a British male.
Hmmm...
1. Get an internet connection.
2. Signup for match.com
3. ????
4. Masturbation!
So you're saying that we're all allergic to our own stupidity?
If he was really psychic, he could have answered that question for himself.
2 extra legs require more food to keep up, and more coordination to, well, coordinate. Evolution may be dumb, but it's also cheap. It will take its time getting rid of those extra appendages, but growing them in the first place is unlikely to ever happen.
Asimov did androids struggling with their (lack of) humanity in the 50s
And don't forget Pinocchio before that!
I don't know if I would say the message is the same. At the very least, the viewer could take different interpretations from "V For Vendetta" and 1984. In 1984, the reason the ending is bad is because the author may be suggesting that human beings can be subjugated and brainwashed, and because those in power can create an stable balance of power that keeps the lower class subservient to those in power.
V for Vendetta is more hopeful. One of the differences can be summed up as:
.
1984: Fight for your rights now, before it's too late.
V for Vendetta: It's never too late. All you need is a terrorist in a funny mask, and the problem-fixing uprising will be coming along shortly.
.
(BTW, I loved V for Vendetta, and loved the questions it raised about whether V was justified in his actions, but my point is that each one is different, and you cannot just apply the "I've seen x, so I don't need to see y" attitude.)
Why? Do you think computers are going away?
.
If you're referring to a document format, the text and csv will be around forever. Even if they cease to be common knowledge, those who need to know how to open a text file can figure it out. There are no guarantees for images, but odds are that someone will have a program capable of opening gifs or jpgs 76 years from now.
.
(Platform isn't an issue, as text, CSV, and gif/jpeg can be accessed on nearly every system on earth.)
.
And as for hardware, well, keep it on a remote server that is backed up regularly, and copies should last longer than the paper your log would be written on.
.
Of course, there are other possibillties. for example, use LaTeX, and just make it a point to keep a copy of the installer stored with the document.
I see no reason to assume it would be anywhere near comparable in quality. In fact, I think we would run into three models.
.
As for you supply and demand, well, I'm sure there is also a demand for free sports cars. That does not mean the supply will come. There is a demand for free gas, but it isn't going to happen just because people want it to.
Oops, there goes capitalism.
.
You know, if every news reporter reported just for the love of reporting, with no pay, and every musician sang just for the love of singing, and they all got free food and apartments because every farmer and landlord does it for the love and farming and land-lording then society would fall apart. Too many people would sit on their asses, for the love of sitting on their asses, and nobody would become a janitor, for the love of being a janitor.
Execs thinking that a for-pay service in a world of for-free services will be viable is. There will always be a free alternative and that is where people will go.
That's an assumption. Right now, aggregators such as google news and slashdot are built on the backs of local newspapers, which are crmubling because they cannot compete with the news aggregators. Do you see the problem here?
People like Mr. Diller believe that if everybody gets together and starts charging for content then consumers will have no choice but to pay up.
Well, they could use bittorrent to download their local news, or move to a delivery service that is either built on a proprietary player with ads embedded, or one that is so heavily DRMed that it isn't worth it to crack and remove the ads.
.
Of course, there is one other option. Make your boss pay for it. That seems to be a big direction now. Give things away for free to students, but then charge out the ass if a business wants to use it. They could do the same thing with news.
.
But, I promise you, if the money dries up, so will the free content.
The fact is there will always be a free alternative. I'm not saying there isn't or won't be a market for premium content.
Just that there will always be free. Free-as-in-beer and hopefully free-as-in-speech.
Maybe I'm contradicting myself, but there will be some free content. There will be youtube videos of someone driving by a car wreck shooting video from a camera phone. And there will be politicial action committees paying people to set up astroturf news services. In fact, the Rush Limbaughs of the world will do ok, because their "content" is an advertisement. As for quality content. Reporting, that adheres to some journalistic standard, that will be the premium content. And bitch all you want about how existing reporters aren't good enough, but trust me, if you stop paying them, they will get a hell of a lot worse.
You are assuming that free content will always be produced. The problem, especially at the local level, is that banner ads do not bring in much revenue, and ad blockers actually reduce that even further. The internet revenue model continues to be:
.
1. Create Content
2. Give it away for free
3. ????
4. Profit
.
So, you can call these people assholes, while complaining that they don't do more work and do it all for free, but eventually, someone is going to have to pay for this content. Maybe the current business model would be more accurately described as:
.
1. Create Content
2. Give it away for free
3. Make your grandmother subscribe to the print version just to, ya know, keep the content providers in business.
4. Profit
.
Those grandparents are dropping off, and it's only a matter of time before we have to find someone else to pay for the products we use.
Lately, the phrase "Jury Duty" has been rattling around in my head. I have been thinking about how our legal system is based on the idea that regular citizens have a responsibility to help it run smoothly, even if we have to occasionally send out letters and make them.
.
Because the patent office cannot have an expert for every field, I am wondering if we cannot implement a system in which patent requests are sent out to randomly chosen experts in whatever fields that patent may qualify for, and if the experts' (possibly defined as anyone with a M.S. or higher from an accredited institution), input can be taken into account by the USPTO. Of course the USPTO people would still have to verify that any criticism is really valid, but at least they would not be doing 100% of the legwork, and the people evaluating the patents would be more well-informed than the typical patent clerk.
.
The hard part would be incentives. Because a patent application costs around $10 grand, it wouldn't be difficult to increase the fee and pay out rewards for citations of prior art. And phrasing it as "your contribution to the arts and sciences" may provide some incentives for the idealistic. I'm wondering, assuming that we want to reward the inventors of new technologies, how would others fix the current system?