If Comcast doesn't count even one TV show/movie that it provides through its service, but does count the data for the same show if provided by a competing service, then that seems like a monopoly issue. Net neutrality issues might be used to argue against the practice, but it's more likely (IMO) a monopoly issue and should be dealt with on that basis.
If you're working with a large legacy codebase with install sites over a decade old, you're not going to be jumping at Metro quite yet. It probably isn't going to be until Windows 9 before Microsoft stabilizes their new platform enough to be worth porting code forward. Look at 95 vs 98 vs ME, and then XP vs XPSP2 (which really could have been a new operating system...), and then Vista vs Win7. Microsoft tick-tocks between "what fresh hell is this?" and "Whew! That's a relief!".
Good point. People who believe that, say, solar cell production doesn't cause environmental issues are just kidding themselves. I favor approaching energy needs with multiple solutions. Yes, you get lots of different environmental impacts, but you don't concentrate them into a small number of huge impacts. We won't run out of oil and gas for a long time, but at some point, it'll be too expensive to try to keep up with current output. Better to use diverse energy sources, improving efficiency and reducing environmental problems as we go along. Silver bullets should be saved for werewolves.
IIRC, subsidies for wind power that work out to less than $0.02/kWh makes all the difference between private companies starting wind projects or not. So it seems to me that wind is pretty close to being economically viable, and will eventually get there when the costs for producing coal/gas/oil gets high enough, considering that it's getting harder to extract those resources.
When I bought my house back in the late '80s, one of the first things the real estate agent did was do a quick income/debt check to see how much we could afford. The loan people also checked.
These people are probably, from a legal standpoint, considered experts in their field. They told the buyers they could afford those houses. Of course, they didn't care because they were so far removed from the consequences of defaults, they didn't really care. They were being pushed by the bankers to sell as much as possible, so the sales growth and therefore stock price would keep going up. So yes, the buyers were stupid, but those bankers/real estate agents/mortgage brokers made Forrest Gump look like Einstein by comparison. Plenty of blame to go around.
The car analogy made me think of this aspect, which ties into the how the nerds/mechanically-inclined view walled gardens versus more open devices: The auto industry has tried for years to make it as difficult as possible for independent mechanics to work on autos. They want everyone to go to the dealerships for all service. In the US at least, laws have been passed requiring manufacturers, to a degree, to keep things open enough so that independent shops can service the cars.
Apple, along with many other manufactures, wants to keep their systems as closed as possible, so that only their authorized repair centers can work on their products. This has a side effect that individuals predisposed to fixing/modding their products are finding it difficult to do so. This is, of course, of little concern to people who are going to pay someone to fix their stuff when it breaks.
The man card issue doesn't really apply. Is anyone going to replace a broken LCD panel by getting the constituent parts and building a new one? Is a gear head going to cast his own engine block and new internals with alloys he's mixed up from ores he's dug up from the ground? How far a person goes or doesn't go into fixing a device depends on their knowledge, skills, and willingness to spend the necessary time. But there are limits to what's practical to do. Walled gardens raise those limits and some people don't like that while others don't care.
However, if you're underground, there are a number of companies that can sell you GPS repeaters that will help you navigate even when you can't receive any satellite signals directly:
Nope, sorry, the first link is for a system that allows you to place an antenna and receiver in different locations so that the receiver can get the time signals--not positioning data--in places where you can't get a GPS signal. Useful, for example, when you need to have tier-1 or 2 time accuracy w/o connection to an NTP server. Actually, you can get positioning data, but it'll be the antenna's location. The second link uses GPS for surface equipment, with a local transmitter to increase the accuracy of the positioning data. The local transmitter is at a fixed, known location and reduces the positioning error for each receiver.
From what I've read about other tunneling equipment, they use lasers to figure out the distance and direction of the equipment, and the laser equipment at the start of the tunnel is in a known location.
Even with supposed advances, solar panels still never even come close to putting out energy that comes close to the energy used in manufacturing the panels.
I've heard that argument before. I'm wondering, however, how the cost per kWh can be anywhere near traditional power plants if that's true. Isn't the cost of the solar cells based upon manufacturing costs, which would have to include the energy costs? Or am I missing something?
Halving the cost of the cells doesn't lower the overall manufacturing and installations costs, so this advance may be moot anyway.
-STATUTE-
A person who, while engaged in a professional capacity or activity described in subsection (b) of section 226 of the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 on Federal land or in a federally operated (or contracted) facility, learns of facts that give reason to suspect that a child has suffered an incident of child abuse, as defined in subsection (c) of that section, and fails to make a timely report as required by subsection (a) of that section, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year or both.
So if you're working on a machine, see CP and don't report it, you are on the hook.
From the snippet it looks like this statute applies to employees or contractors working on federal land, not individuals. Of course, if you get child porn on your computer 'accidentally' and the police find you before you report it, you'll still be in a world of hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if the government has some way of tracking traffic from known sites hosting child porn and those downloading it.
On some buses phone use may be prohibited. Otherwise, conversations with other people on the bus is generally acceptable, so what makes a conversation where one of the parties is remote different? In both cases, talking too loud is annoying, and that may be prohibited under the same rule as no boom boxes, etcetera. If the phone conversation is carried out such that it would be considered acceptable by most if it were a face-to-face conversation, I don't see why one would be OK and not the other. Or are you saying that person to person conversations on a bus is not a right?
I have no sympathy for anyone who is foreclosed on because they got a loan they couldn't afford. And make no mistake, they knew what they were getting into. It's all right there and anytime I've purchased real estate, they laid it all right out for me and had me initial it. I knew what I was getting into and I knew what my budget was...so did everyone else.
...
At best, you can lay 50% of the blame for the housing crash on the lenders and brokers. The homeowners were in on it just like everyone else in the game.
When I bought my house, the first thing the realtor did was do a quick calculation of how much house I could afford based upon salary and debt. The lender also made sure that I qualified for the loan. Both would be considered experts in their field, so if they tell me I can afford the house, why should I not believe them? These loans were made because the people approving them were so removed from the consequences of making bad loans, they didn't care. Sure, the buyer is also to blame, but the lenders and investors should have had to suffer the consequences of their actions, just like the buyers did. For the most part, that didn't happen.
As I recall, manned aircraft are required to fly at least 500 feet above inhabited structures. While this wouldn't strictly apply to unmanned aircraft, the implication is that it's legal to fly above private property if you're at least 500 high. It would also be difficult to bring down a UAV with a shotgun at that distance. Well, maybe not. UAVs are pretty fragile. Their mistake was to fly too low. Damaging private property, the UAV, while in legal airspace, could possibly be prosecuted. Disclosure: IANAL.
This in no way suggests that I am for or against either group. If the hunters were following the laws regarding shooting released animals, IMO they can do so. If they are breaking any laws while doing so, then the animal rights group is OK trying to catch them at it, as long as they don't break any laws doing so.
Considering that we've got guys on/. claiming to be RF designers and saying that the GPS receiver manufacturers are building poor product and that proper designs would work and reject high-power, adjacent-channel interference, I'd guess that they could find plenty of 'educated' engineers who'd testify that pigs can fly.
No, the GPS makers didn't take advantage. Satellite transmitters are fairly low power, and it takes a high-gain receiver to pick up the signal. Especially back when GPS came out, you couldn't make a filter sharp enough to reject high powered transmitters on nearby frequencies. It's still difficult, if not impossible, to do the filtering without decreasing the receiver sensitivity so much that it can't pick up the satellites under normal conditions, which includes poor weather. Granted, new receivers could probably be built with better rejection w/o significant loss of sensitivity, but the military and FCC set up the rules correctly for the technology back in the day--adjacent frequencies for low power satellite transmission only. LS wants to change those rules, regardless of harm to others.
And atmospheric friction would require that the 'projectile' would need better heat shielding than current spacecraft need for reentry. Unless you can get the rail gun above a significant portion of the atmosphere--on a mountain maybe?--the projectile is likely to burn up.
Increasing H-1B visas increases jobs in the US, true. Increases jobs for US citizens? More people working at Starbucks to supply the H1-B workers with coffee?
--No one is arguing for no regulation. But there is such a thing as over regulation.
I'd argue that that's exactly what companies are going for. The mantra is; 1) regulation kills jobs/prevents job growth. 2) If the economy is down, see # 1. But the recessions started by the saving & loan scandal in the 80's, the telecom bust around 2000, and the sub-prime implosion of 2008 were all preceded by loosened regulation of those industries. The busts were caused by unsustainable growth that was maintained, temporarily, by poor/unethical business practices.
In the early 2000's, politicians from both parties passed laws that relaxed regulation of the banking/loan industry. They did so because the economy was shaky, and no one wanted to get caught not supporting bills that were touted as 'fixes' to help the economy. Just in case the economy tanked in an election year. No one wants to give their opponents ammo for the elections, even if it's BS.
He picked the two top-selling vehicles so, yes, I'd call it a good comparison.
We've improved the fuel efficiency of the gas engine tremendously over the last couple of decades, but in the US, we've traded that in for shoving around bigger vehicles.
Combined with the population growth in the US, why else do you think that we still import so much oil? E85/E10 does as much for us in reducing oil consumption/pollution as the change in daylight saving a few years back did. Zilch.
Exactly. A perfect UI is different for different people. Touch-typists, among others, usually hate any task that takes their hands from the keyboard. A good UI will be efficient in the number of clicks required to do a task, and will probably have a good way to accomplish the same tasks using only keyboard commands. Many UI designers and programmers forget how a program is going to be used. Look at how many web forms request something like a phone number, for instance, and make you manually page (tab or click) through three input boxes to enter the (US) number.
OK, you don't understand DSLR and want optical zoom capability. Since you mention travel, I'm not sure why it's just DSLR vs. MILC. Yes, DSLR can get you some great lens, and yes, MILC could leave you with a bag full of proprietary lenses that can't be used when you upgrade. But traveling with bulky DSLR/lenses, or even a MILC w/lenses can be a real pain. Why not get a good compact camera? There are some really good ones out there, the Canon S95 being one that has a better than average sensor, low light capability, etcetera. For the record, in the Canon/Nikon holy wars, I lean toward the Canon camp, but I don't own the S95. I mention the S95 because it's a great example of why it's not all about how many megapixels you can cram into a sensor. I'm sure most of the major players out there have similar high-end compacts. For travel, you'll be more likely to get some memorable shots if you don't have to lug around a big heavy bag with camera and lenses, pick and switch lenses, and so on.
From what I understand, depending upon how it's set up, once you authorize automatic transfers, you've given the company the ability to pull any amount that they wish. If they make a mistake, you have to get you money back, including any overdraft fees, if those occur. With credit cards, you can contest any payment, and the amount won't be charged until resolution of the issue. Which is why I don't use automatic bank transfers.
If I understand correctly, you wrote a program, possibly on company time, so that you can get coffee. And the company should pay you for this why?
If you can show the company that they can save money because they don't need to increase head count, you might get them to give you a little something extra, rather than fire your a**. If you are really really lucky.
For the OP, it comes down to 1) the type of boss he has, 2) his relationship with his boss and, 3) how he approaches his boss. Some will appreciate people who go above and beyond while others would likely fire you. Reading the posts here on./, you can see both examples.
I worked for a company that gave a bonus if you wrote an article that was written on your own time and got published in an industry magazine. One coworker objected to having to work on his own time. He just couldn't seem to get the idea: we'll pay you a little something extra for going above and beyond your job description, but do your expected work full time. But there are plenty of bosses who, even if there's a clear case that you can improve the companies bottom line, they'd drop you like a bad habit for being so insolent for suggesting you wanting to be compensated for such work.
Slashdot Mirror
If Comcast doesn't count even one TV show/movie that it provides through its service, but does count the data for the same show if provided by a competing service, then that seems like a monopoly issue. Net neutrality issues might be used to argue against the practice, but it's more likely (IMO) a monopoly issue and should be dealt with on that basis.
If you're working with a large legacy codebase with install sites over a decade old, you're not going to be jumping at Metro quite yet. It probably isn't going to be until Windows 9 before Microsoft stabilizes their new platform enough to be worth porting code forward. Look at 95 vs 98 vs ME, and then XP vs XPSP2 (which really could have been a new operating system...), and then Vista vs Win7. Microsoft tick-tocks between "what fresh hell is this?" and "Whew! That's a relief!".
Where's my mod +1 when I need it?
Good point. People who believe that, say, solar cell production doesn't cause environmental issues are just kidding themselves. I favor approaching energy needs with multiple solutions. Yes, you get lots of different environmental impacts, but you don't concentrate them into a small number of huge impacts. We won't run out of oil and gas for a long time, but at some point, it'll be too expensive to try to keep up with current output. Better to use diverse energy sources, improving efficiency and reducing environmental problems as we go along. Silver bullets should be saved for werewolves.
IIRC, subsidies for wind power that work out to less than $0.02/kWh makes all the difference between private companies starting wind projects or not. So it seems to me that wind is pretty close to being economically viable, and will eventually get there when the costs for producing coal/gas/oil gets high enough, considering that it's getting harder to extract those resources.
When I bought my house back in the late '80s, one of the first things the real estate agent did was do a quick income/debt check to see how much we could afford. The loan people also checked.
These people are probably, from a legal standpoint, considered experts in their field. They told the buyers they could afford those houses. Of course, they didn't care because they were so far removed from the consequences of defaults, they didn't really care. They were being pushed by the bankers to sell as much as possible, so the sales growth and therefore stock price would keep going up. So yes, the buyers were stupid, but those bankers/real estate agents/mortgage brokers made Forrest Gump look like Einstein by comparison. Plenty of blame to go around.
The car analogy made me think of this aspect, which ties into the how the nerds/mechanically-inclined view walled gardens versus more open devices: The auto industry has tried for years to make it as difficult as possible for independent mechanics to work on autos. They want everyone to go to the dealerships for all service. In the US at least, laws have been passed requiring manufacturers, to a degree, to keep things open enough so that independent shops can service the cars.
Apple, along with many other manufactures, wants to keep their systems as closed as possible, so that only their authorized repair centers can work on their products. This has a side effect that individuals predisposed to fixing/modding their products are finding it difficult to do so. This is, of course, of little concern to people who are going to pay someone to fix their stuff when it breaks.
The man card issue doesn't really apply. Is anyone going to replace a broken LCD panel by getting the constituent parts and building a new one? Is a gear head going to cast his own engine block and new internals with alloys he's mixed up from ores he's dug up from the ground? How far a person goes or doesn't go into fixing a device depends on their knowledge, skills, and willingness to spend the necessary time. But there are limits to what's practical to do. Walled gardens raise those limits and some people don't like that while others don't care.
However, if you're underground, there are a number of companies that can sell you GPS repeaters that will help you navigate even when you can't receive any satellite signals directly:
http://www.vialite.co.uk/gps_band_overview.php http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/GPS-Machine-Guidance_1939.htm
Nope, sorry, the first link is for a system that allows you to place an antenna and receiver in different locations so that the receiver can get the time signals--not positioning data--in places where you can't get a GPS signal. Useful, for example, when you need to have tier-1 or 2 time accuracy w/o connection to an NTP server. Actually, you can get positioning data, but it'll be the antenna's location. The second link uses GPS for surface equipment, with a local transmitter to increase the accuracy of the positioning data. The local transmitter is at a fixed, known location and reduces the positioning error for each receiver.
From what I've read about other tunneling equipment, they use lasers to figure out the distance and direction of the equipment, and the laser equipment at the start of the tunnel is in a known location.
Even with supposed advances, solar panels still never even come close to putting out energy that comes close to the energy used in manufacturing the panels.
I've heard that argument before. I'm wondering, however, how the cost per kWh can be anywhere near traditional power plants if that's true. Isn't the cost of the solar cells based upon manufacturing costs, which would have to include the energy costs? Or am I missing something?
Halving the cost of the cells doesn't lower the overall manufacturing and installations costs, so this advance may be moot anyway.
Be careful.
From: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C110.txt
-HEAD- Sec. 2258. Failure to report child abuse
-STATUTE- A person who, while engaged in a professional capacity or activity described in subsection (b) of section 226 of the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 on Federal land or in a federally operated (or contracted) facility, learns of facts that give reason to suspect that a child has suffered an incident of child abuse, as defined in subsection (c) of that section, and fails to make a timely report as required by subsection (a) of that section, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year or both.
So if you're working on a machine, see CP and don't report it, you are on the hook.
From the snippet it looks like this statute applies to employees or contractors working on federal land, not individuals. Of course, if you get child porn on your computer 'accidentally' and the police find you before you report it, you'll still be in a world of hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if the government has some way of tracking traffic from known sites hosting child porn and those downloading it.
On some buses phone use may be prohibited. Otherwise, conversations with other people on the bus is generally acceptable, so what makes a conversation where one of the parties is remote different? In both cases, talking too loud is annoying, and that may be prohibited under the same rule as no boom boxes, etcetera. If the phone conversation is carried out such that it would be considered acceptable by most if it were a face-to-face conversation, I don't see why one would be OK and not the other. Or are you saying that person to person conversations on a bus is not a right?
Don't forget cell phone use in restrooms.
Oh what absolute B.S.
I have no sympathy for anyone who is foreclosed on because they got a loan they couldn't afford. And make no mistake, they knew what they were getting into. It's all right there and anytime I've purchased real estate, they laid it all right out for me and had me initial it. I knew what I was getting into and I knew what my budget was...so did everyone else.
...
At best, you can lay 50% of the blame for the housing crash on the lenders and brokers. The homeowners were in on it just like everyone else in the game.
When I bought my house, the first thing the realtor did was do a quick calculation of how much house I could afford based upon salary and debt. The lender also made sure that I qualified for the loan. Both would be considered experts in their field, so if they tell me I can afford the house, why should I not believe them? These loans were made because the people approving them were so removed from the consequences of making bad loans, they didn't care. Sure, the buyer is also to blame, but the lenders and investors should have had to suffer the consequences of their actions, just like the buyers did. For the most part, that didn't happen.
OK, most people think they are above median drivers. But are really bad at statistics.
As I recall, manned aircraft are required to fly at least 500 feet above inhabited structures. While this wouldn't strictly apply to unmanned aircraft, the implication is that it's legal to fly above private property if you're at least 500 high. It would also be difficult to bring down a UAV with a shotgun at that distance. Well, maybe not. UAVs are pretty fragile. Their mistake was to fly too low. Damaging private property, the UAV, while in legal airspace, could possibly be prosecuted. Disclosure: IANAL.
This in no way suggests that I am for or against either group. If the hunters were following the laws regarding shooting released animals, IMO they can do so. If they are breaking any laws while doing so, then the animal rights group is OK trying to catch them at it, as long as they don't break any laws doing so.
Considering that we've got guys on /. claiming to be RF designers and saying that the GPS receiver manufacturers are building poor product and that proper designs would work and reject high-power, adjacent-channel interference, I'd guess that they could find plenty of 'educated' engineers who'd testify that pigs can fly.
No, the GPS makers didn't take advantage. Satellite transmitters are fairly low power, and it takes a high-gain receiver to pick up the signal. Especially back when GPS came out, you couldn't make a filter sharp enough to reject high powered transmitters on nearby frequencies. It's still difficult, if not impossible, to do the filtering without decreasing the receiver sensitivity so much that it can't pick up the satellites under normal conditions, which includes poor weather. Granted, new receivers could probably be built with better rejection w/o significant loss of sensitivity, but the military and FCC set up the rules correctly for the technology back in the day--adjacent frequencies for low power satellite transmission only. LS wants to change those rules, regardless of harm to others.
And atmospheric friction would require that the 'projectile' would need better heat shielding than current spacecraft need for reentry. Unless you can get the rail gun above a significant portion of the atmosphere--on a mountain maybe?--the projectile is likely to burn up.
Increasing H-1B visas increases jobs in the US, true. Increases jobs for US citizens? More people working at Starbucks to supply the H1-B workers with coffee?
--No one is arguing for no regulation. But there is such a thing as over regulation.
I'd argue that that's exactly what companies are going for. The mantra is; 1) regulation kills jobs/prevents job growth. 2) If the economy is down, see # 1. But the recessions started by the saving & loan scandal in the 80's, the telecom bust around 2000, and the sub-prime implosion of 2008 were all preceded by loosened regulation of those industries. The busts were caused by unsustainable growth that was maintained, temporarily, by poor/unethical business practices.
In the early 2000's, politicians from both parties passed laws that relaxed regulation of the banking/loan industry. They did so because the economy was shaky, and no one wanted to get caught not supporting bills that were touted as 'fixes' to help the economy. Just in case the economy tanked in an election year. No one wants to give their opponents ammo for the elections, even if it's BS.
He picked the two top-selling vehicles so, yes, I'd call it a good comparison.
We've improved the fuel efficiency of the gas engine tremendously over the last couple of decades, but in the US, we've traded that in for shoving around bigger vehicles.
Combined with the population growth in the US, why else do you think that we still import so much oil? E85/E10 does as much for us in reducing oil consumption/pollution as the change in daylight saving a few years back did. Zilch.
Exactly. A perfect UI is different for different people. Touch-typists, among others, usually hate any task that takes their hands from the keyboard. A good UI will be efficient in the number of clicks required to do a task, and will probably have a good way to accomplish the same tasks using only keyboard commands. Many UI designers and programmers forget how a program is going to be used. Look at how many web forms request something like a phone number, for instance, and make you manually page (tab or click) through three input boxes to enter the (US) number.
OK, you don't understand DSLR and want optical zoom capability. Since you mention travel, I'm not sure why it's just DSLR vs. MILC. Yes, DSLR can get you some great lens, and yes, MILC could leave you with a bag full of proprietary lenses that can't be used when you upgrade. But traveling with bulky DSLR/lenses, or even a MILC w/lenses can be a real pain. Why not get a good compact camera? There are some really good ones out there, the Canon S95 being one that has a better than average sensor, low light capability, etcetera. For the record, in the Canon/Nikon holy wars, I lean toward the Canon camp, but I don't own the S95. I mention the S95 because it's a great example of why it's not all about how many megapixels you can cram into a sensor. I'm sure most of the major players out there have similar high-end compacts. For travel, you'll be more likely to get some memorable shots if you don't have to lug around a big heavy bag with camera and lenses, pick and switch lenses, and so on.
From what I understand, depending upon how it's set up, once you authorize automatic transfers, you've given the company the ability to pull any amount that they wish. If they make a mistake, you have to get you money back, including any overdraft fees, if those occur. With credit cards, you can contest any payment, and the amount won't be charged until resolution of the issue. Which is why I don't use automatic bank transfers.
I think you've just described the majority of people in Congress.
If you can show the company that they can save money because they don't need to increase head count, you might get them to give you a little something extra, rather than fire your a**. If you are really really lucky.
For the OP, it comes down to 1) the type of boss he has, 2) his relationship with his boss and, 3) how he approaches his boss. Some will appreciate people who go above and beyond while others would likely fire you. Reading the posts here on ./, you can see both examples.
I worked for a company that gave a bonus if you wrote an article that was written on your own time and got published in an industry magazine. One coworker objected to having to work on his own time. He just couldn't seem to get the idea: we'll pay you a little something extra for going above and beyond your job description, but do your expected work full time. But there are plenty of bosses who, even if there's a clear case that you can improve the companies bottom line, they'd drop you like a bad habit for being so insolent for suggesting you wanting to be compensated for such work.