With all the voter suppression happening and voting machines flipping votes, you will not have to worry about it any more. Next election, You might not be given the option.
None of this happens with enough frequency to change any election result.... But hey, there's no way your vote counts if you don't cast it.
Bad example. Ole' Roy was the candidate because another candidate split the republican vote in the primary, not because he was the darling of the party. Trump campaigned for another republican in the primary you know. This is uniquely a republican problem, where better candidates split the vote in the primary, leaving the less desirable candidate in the general (Hello? Remember how Trump got nominated?). THAT'S the issue here, or it was the issue with Roy. I don't see democrats doing this as much, though it seems to be happening more often of late.
That the rank and file vote for their party's candidate, is NOT unique to either party. In fact, it's pretty much a given for both sides. This is why turnout tends to be the focus of campaigns, you have to get your rank and file out to vote, or you are done, in most places where the race is even marginally competitive.
I was under the distinct impression that sunspots where unexpectedly low in number. Not a Maunder Minimum, but it has been very disruptive to HF radio propagation as a lack of sunspots thins out the ionosphere and drives the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) down. The lower bands are *really* impacted by impulse noise (lighting, arching and other very loud RF sources) and for ham radio operators stuffs a lot of us in very small and narrow portions of the 75 and 40 meter bands.
Because the oil business is complicated. The US imports and exports oil. It is also has one of the largest oil refining industries on the planet. Not all oil is the same, so refineries will often get oil from multiple sources and then mix it together to make it easier to refine.
When you take into account both imports and exports, the net difference is about 3.7 million barrels per day imported into the US. Consumption is at about 20 million barrels per day, so the imports are still a significant chunk of that. The main reason that the US is a net importer rather than a net exporter is the low price of oil on the global markets; as long as the price remains low, many of the American oil fields cannot be profitably operated. If the price went up significantly it would not be long before the US became a net exporter.
Exactly this. Fracking has made the USA the home of low cost Natural Gas and re-vitalized the production of crude coming from existing well bores. But prices are so cheap right now that it's still not worth spending the money to produce crude, so it sits in the ground, waiting for it to become economic to recover.
When Oil was above $100 bbl a lot of capacity was developed that now sits idle. It's just waiting for the day it's worth pumping. I'm guessing we will need it within a decade or so, barring some advancement tin Fusion or other large scale, low environmental impact power source.
Does this mean that we will keep Net Neutrality in place? Does it mean nothing? Does it mean that we may be able to repeal the FCC rules that overturned net neutrality under the heavily bribed and set for life because of industrial lobbying and then congressional appointment staff person known as Ajit Pal?
It means nothing really. It has zero impact on anything about NN, it doesn't force the FCC to enforce NN, undo the repeal or affect any future regulations the FCC may or may not choose to enforce in the future. About the ONLY thing I can imagine this does is give us a pretty good picture of how the SC would chose to not be involved in other such cases. 6 to 3 is pretty open and shut.
The whole purpose behind the Boring Company is to shift the economics around tunnel building.
Well, then.. Good luck to Musk. The issue he faces is the same issue that has faced miners forever, the method that works for you today at the current location, is unlikely to work in another location, even in the same tunneling project. Packed soil mines totally different from fractured granite, which may vary from foot to foot based on how much ground water is flowing around the tunnel bore. Digging in the LA basin is but one kind of solution and developing solutions that work well there won't amount to much trying to go through the Alps.
Tunnel boring machines vary wildly in their design construction and operation and are usually specific builds for the expected conditions. I don't see how Musk can alter the economics all that much, even if he was to create a erector set version of off the shelf components to build them from. Seems that there just won't be enough demand for these systems.
But hey, if he want's to dig expensive holes... Let m.
Ah, but you make my point for me. Subways exist. Musk hasn't solved any novel problem there, nor will he..
But you also realize that building Subways under ground is HUGELY expensive. Only viable where the real-estate is just not available. For instance, in Dallas, we have our DART light rail system, it rarely goes underground, only where it was just too expensive to obtain the right of way. Even though down town it just took over a series of allies and roads and runs at street level. Then there is the Chicago way, where the majority of their light rail system runs ABOVE the streets... Or even Boston where a significant amount of their "subway" system runs above ground. Atlanta and Denver have similar mix of tunnels, street level and elevated tracks. And this is just the mass transit systems I've actually been on.
Tunnels are TOO expensive to be used except in exceptional circumstances, where the city planners didn't leave sufficient space on the map. Musk has made no novel or unique advances here.
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, . But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless....
That explains why tunelling urban metros like the London Underground railway are always empty.
Sorry I didn't make it clear. I was talking about Hyper-loop transport where physics limit your speed due to passenger comfort and the practicality of having to have multiple access points you have to stop at along the way. Subways have their place, but Hyper-Loop doesn't replace them.
Tunnels have their place for passengers, but they are hugely expensive and usually too limiting to actually use, except in the densest urban environments (going slow) or situations where getting to point B from point A is all anybody really wants to do, such as from England to France under the Channel or going though a mountain instead of around or over it.
Apparently you miss my point. I'm saying that this isn't new, that the limitations of tunnels remain, even when Musk builds them. Urban environments are poor places for his Hyper loop idea do to the short distances involved and Tunnels are *very* expensive to build at least for passenger and freight traffic.
The ONLY possible advantage tunnels have is that they can ignore densely spaced urban property boundaries, at least in some cases, as they connect point to point, but this is NOT universally true and depends on the structures above and the nature of the ground they are being built under.
How do I know tunnels are expensive? Ever been to Boston? The "Big Dig" is a prime example of shoving major amounts of traffic below ground in an urban area. It was HUGELY expensive and justified only because of the historical and market value of the ground it would have taken to do this above ground. Usually it's a whole lot cheaper to build elevated roads at multiple levels in such situations. Especially in earthquake zones. They look like crap, but they are cheaper.
The problem here is that any "network" of tunnels that intersect or have lots of stops are NOT fast do to simple physics and passenger comfort. There are a limited amount of acceleration you can use and if you have to stop every four to eight blocks that's going to significantly limit your speed. Subways have this very limitation now, Musk hasn't fixed that or has any novel ideas about addressing any of this.
My observation here is simply that Musk banding about with his hyper loop idea AND trying to demonstrate it in urban areas is cute, but hardly useful to anybody. As a technology demonstrator? Maybe that's useful, but it's a huge expense for little benefit beyond that.
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are way too expensive and are even more limited than roads. They only go from point A to B and there is no choice about exiting them in between.
Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, like from England to France under water or though a mountain. But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless, especially the high speed kind, because a significant number of folks only want to go part way between A and B, and the tunnel is worthless for them..
3.1% is extremely non-impressive. Apple is in the early stages of a death spiral, they got nothing anymore. Overpriced junk.
I'm no apple fanboy, but the news reporting over's Apple's demise is WAY to soon. They may be hitting their peek and driven their business so large they've run out of customers who can buy their stuff, but they are FAR from heading into a death spiral. They have money to burn and could heat their new headquarters with $100 bills for decades.
Anybody who parrots this "news" is either a fool or is shorting the stock and looking for a quick buck by talking down the stock (maybe both).
I think Apple's chosen to optimzie for the use-case "Show me some landmarks so I know where I am" over âoeI need to quickly identifiy all state and federal parks in this area".
If only there were some kind of global system that would tell you your position.
Yea, something that was satellite based and triangulated your position in 3D space as well as your speed... Hmmmm.. Think of the commercial applications for something like that, not to mention the military ones.. Oh my.
Why is this data even available to Google or any public connection for that matter? Stupid...
Well, I'm not totally sure, but it seems to me that covert human operatives on foreign soil need some way to communicate "in the clear" with their handlers. This means that the idea was to communicate over public networks.... Thus the use of public webpages...
Google is in the business of scanning and cataloging public pages then providing links based on search criteria.
However, why somebody didn't prevent these pages from being scanned though any number of available methods is beyond me..
Remember, the patent rolls from the bankrupt company back to the original holder, which must be a person or their estate.
So in your example, if the business formed to market your new tool is assigned the patent and when it fails, the ownership of the patent simply rolls back to the original patent holder, who can then assign it to another company who's better at marketing.
So, when Snap-On offers $100K, it will be to the original patent holder (or their estate) and if they go bankrupt the whole cycle keeps going.
The point is to avoid patent trolls being viable by removing patents from being available for speculative investment from companies going bankrupt and making it expensive to have a patent change hands.
But I am obviously spit-balling here. I'm sure there are unintended side effects and likely better ways to do what I'm trying to do.
Which is why I think any patents held by a company in bankruptcy should be thrown into the public domain.
So I propose that we make it so patents either revert back to the original patent filers, or are assigned to the public domain should the current holder be forced into bankruptcy.
In addition, all patents must be "maintained" by paying a set of yearly fees to remain in force. The fees increase each year by adding 20% to last year's fees. Fees may be paid in advance at the current year's rate, but anytime the patent is re-assigned, any prepaid fees are forfeit and the new owner must pay fees at the current yearly rate.
So if you want patent protection, you will pay fees to keep it. If you cannot make money on the patent, then it reverts to the public domain.
Why? Apple replaces the battery in reasonably current I-Devices for very little coin. Just hit up the Apple Store and they will set you up.
Where I like the user replaceable battery option, let's face it, Apple isn't going to give you that. In fact, the market is moving away from that as you look at currently available handsets...
Oh sure, until that gamble rolls craps, THEN you are done too.
So what you're saying is that a startup company's efforts might fail? Oh no!/s
Not at all. What I'm saying is if you choose to totally ignore the opinions of people who disagree with you and fire a bunch of people closer to the actual work getting done than you are, you send a chilling message to the rest you didn't fire.
IF Musk fired these folks for BUDGETARY reasons, then let him say that. However, the same thing is going to happen to your work force. Layoffs are a very blunt tool, they destroy moral and culture, and should be used with care and as little as possible. You may layoff the bottom feeders, but you will lose many of your brightest and best because they have options, many of which will look more stable.
Either way, public firings/layoffs are bad. There are better ways to jettison the dead wood and motivate the team.
From the sounds of this article they already had a fairly toxic work environment with management split about the appropriate way forward. Elon simply picked a side and fired the rest so they wouldn't remain a festering wound.
If that's what Musk was trying to accomplish, he's every bit the idiot his detractors claim. You don't fire your underlings for not agreeing with your views, you fire them for not following your instructions or some kind of inexcusable behavior. What Musk did was to beat his underlings with a stick, which may produce immediate and visible compliance at first, but is counter productive in the long term, where they will react in fear. You want employees to take pride in their hard work because they care about the project's success, not because they fear failure and beating.
Fear stifles creativity, suppresses team work, and creates a culture of CYA, where everybody is rigidly following the process to avoid a beating. You want employees who are working hard, interested in the success of the project and willing to go that extra mile, work that extra hour or help out others with their tasks, not because it keeps them out of trouble, but because it's what the program needs to be successful. You don't get that behavior using sticks.
Slashdot Mirror
With all the voter suppression happening and voting machines flipping votes, you will not have to worry about it any more. Next election, You might not be given the option.
None of this happens with enough frequency to change any election result.... But hey, there's no way your vote counts if you don't cast it.
Proof of concept? Alabama 2016. Roy Moore.
Bad example. Ole' Roy was the candidate because another candidate split the republican vote in the primary, not because he was the darling of the party. Trump campaigned for another republican in the primary you know. This is uniquely a republican problem, where better candidates split the vote in the primary, leaving the less desirable candidate in the general (Hello? Remember how Trump got nominated?). THAT'S the issue here, or it was the issue with Roy. I don't see democrats doing this as much, though it seems to be happening more often of late.
That the rank and file vote for their party's candidate, is NOT unique to either party. In fact, it's pretty much a given for both sides. This is why turnout tends to be the focus of campaigns, you have to get your rank and file out to vote, or you are done, in most places where the race is even marginally competitive.
Have they?
I was under the distinct impression that sunspots where unexpectedly low in number. Not a Maunder Minimum, but it has been very disruptive to HF radio propagation as a lack of sunspots thins out the ionosphere and drives the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) down. The lower bands are *really* impacted by impulse noise (lighting, arching and other very loud RF sources) and for ham radio operators stuffs a lot of us in very small and narrow portions of the 75 and 40 meter bands.
Because the oil business is complicated. The US imports and exports oil. It is also has one of the largest oil refining industries on the planet. Not all oil is the same, so refineries will often get oil from multiple sources and then mix it together to make it easier to refine.
When you take into account both imports and exports, the net difference is about 3.7 million barrels per day imported into the US. Consumption is at about 20 million barrels per day, so the imports are still a significant chunk of that. The main reason that the US is a net importer rather than a net exporter is the low price of oil on the global markets; as long as the price remains low, many of the American oil fields cannot be profitably operated. If the price went up significantly it would not be long before the US became a net exporter.
Exactly this. Fracking has made the USA the home of low cost Natural Gas and re-vitalized the production of crude coming from existing well bores. But prices are so cheap right now that it's still not worth spending the money to produce crude, so it sits in the ground, waiting for it to become economic to recover.
When Oil was above $100 bbl a lot of capacity was developed that now sits idle. It's just waiting for the day it's worth pumping. I'm guessing we will need it within a decade or so, barring some advancement tin Fusion or other large scale, low environmental impact power source.
Then they can play the 2 cities against each other to maximize incentives/bribes!
Or just accept them from both and have two new places to house the slave drivers.... Um... Managers... And laugh all the way to the bank.
Does this mean that we will keep Net Neutrality in place? Does it mean nothing? Does it mean that we may be able to repeal the FCC rules that overturned net neutrality under the heavily bribed and set for life because of industrial lobbying and then congressional appointment staff person known as Ajit Pal?
It means nothing really. It has zero impact on anything about NN, it doesn't force the FCC to enforce NN, undo the repeal or affect any future regulations the FCC may or may not choose to enforce in the future. About the ONLY thing I can imagine this does is give us a pretty good picture of how the SC would chose to not be involved in other such cases. 6 to 3 is pretty open and shut.
Is net neutrality the law of the land or not?
Not...
It was never a law anyway, it was a regulation.
The whole purpose behind the Boring Company is to shift the economics around tunnel building.
Well, then.. Good luck to Musk. The issue he faces is the same issue that has faced miners forever, the method that works for you today at the current location, is unlikely to work in another location, even in the same tunneling project. Packed soil mines totally different from fractured granite, which may vary from foot to foot based on how much ground water is flowing around the tunnel bore. Digging in the LA basin is but one kind of solution and developing solutions that work well there won't amount to much trying to go through the Alps.
Tunnel boring machines vary wildly in their design construction and operation and are usually specific builds for the expected conditions. I don't see how Musk can alter the economics all that much, even if he was to create a erector set version of off the shelf components to build them from. Seems that there just won't be enough demand for these systems.
But hey, if he want's to dig expensive holes... Let m.
Ah, but you make my point for me. Subways exist. Musk hasn't solved any novel problem there, nor will he..
But you also realize that building Subways under ground is HUGELY expensive. Only viable where the real-estate is just not available. For instance, in Dallas, we have our DART light rail system, it rarely goes underground, only where it was just too expensive to obtain the right of way. Even though down town it just took over a series of allies and roads and runs at street level. Then there is the Chicago way, where the majority of their light rail system runs ABOVE the streets... Or even Boston where a significant amount of their "subway" system runs above ground. Atlanta and Denver have similar mix of tunnels, street level and elevated tracks. And this is just the mass transit systems I've actually been on.
Tunnels are TOO expensive to be used except in exceptional circumstances, where the city planners didn't leave sufficient space on the map. Musk has made no novel or unique advances here.
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, . But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless ....
That explains why tunelling urban metros like the London Underground railway are always empty.
Sorry I didn't make it clear. I was talking about Hyper-loop transport where physics limit your speed due to passenger comfort and the practicality of having to have multiple access points you have to stop at along the way. Subways have their place, but Hyper-Loop doesn't replace them.
Tunnels have their place for passengers, but they are hugely expensive and usually too limiting to actually use, except in the densest urban environments (going slow) or situations where getting to point B from point A is all anybody really wants to do, such as from England to France under the Channel or going though a mountain instead of around or over it.
Apparently you miss my point. I'm saying that this isn't new, that the limitations of tunnels remain, even when Musk builds them. Urban environments are poor places for his Hyper loop idea do to the short distances involved and Tunnels are *very* expensive to build at least for passenger and freight traffic.
The ONLY possible advantage tunnels have is that they can ignore densely spaced urban property boundaries, at least in some cases, as they connect point to point, but this is NOT universally true and depends on the structures above and the nature of the ground they are being built under.
How do I know tunnels are expensive? Ever been to Boston? The "Big Dig" is a prime example of shoving major amounts of traffic below ground in an urban area. It was HUGELY expensive and justified only because of the historical and market value of the ground it would have taken to do this above ground. Usually it's a whole lot cheaper to build elevated roads at multiple levels in such situations. Especially in earthquake zones. They look like crap, but they are cheaper.
The problem here is that any "network" of tunnels that intersect or have lots of stops are NOT fast do to simple physics and passenger comfort. There are a limited amount of acceleration you can use and if you have to stop every four to eight blocks that's going to significantly limit your speed. Subways have this very limitation now, Musk hasn't fixed that or has any novel ideas about addressing any of this.
My observation here is simply that Musk banding about with his hyper loop idea AND trying to demonstrate it in urban areas is cute, but hardly useful to anybody. As a technology demonstrator? Maybe that's useful, but it's a huge expense for little benefit beyond that.
So, it's only of use if you want to go to SpaceX.
Got it.
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are way too expensive and are even more limited than roads. They only go from point A to B and there is no choice about exiting them in between.
Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, like from England to France under water or though a mountain. But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless, especially the high speed kind, because a significant number of folks only want to go part way between A and B, and the tunnel is worthless for them..
3.1% is extremely non-impressive. Apple is in the early stages of a death spiral, they got nothing anymore. Overpriced junk.
I'm no apple fanboy, but the news reporting over's Apple's demise is WAY to soon. They may be hitting their peek and driven their business so large they've run out of customers who can buy their stuff, but they are FAR from heading into a death spiral. They have money to burn and could heat their new headquarters with $100 bills for decades.
Anybody who parrots this "news" is either a fool or is shorting the stock and looking for a quick buck by talking down the stock (maybe both).
If the data isn't useless. I'm glad now that the grassy forest patches are rendered in fine detail while Apple mislabels it as a busy city centre.
Hey, now the homeless know where they can drive in tent stakes and sleep on soft grass, just consult their I-Device and volia! Honey, I'm Home!
Now we just need a program that gives away cell phones....
I think Apple's chosen to optimzie for the use-case "Show me some landmarks so I know where I am" over âoeI need to quickly identifiy all state and federal parks in this area".
If only there were some kind of global system that would tell you your position.
Yea, something that was satellite based and triangulated your position in 3D space as well as your speed... Hmmmm.. Think of the commercial applications for something like that, not to mention the military ones.. Oh my.
is bound to fail
ANYTHING used often enough and long enough WILL fail. Neither Russia or the USA is immune from statistics.
Why is this data even available to Google or any public connection for that matter? Stupid...
Well, I'm not totally sure, but it seems to me that covert human operatives on foreign soil need some way to communicate "in the clear" with their handlers. This means that the idea was to communicate over public networks.... Thus the use of public webpages...
Google is in the business of scanning and cataloging public pages then providing links based on search criteria.
However, why somebody didn't prevent these pages from being scanned though any number of available methods is beyond me..
Remember, the patent rolls from the bankrupt company back to the original holder, which must be a person or their estate.
So in your example, if the business formed to market your new tool is assigned the patent and when it fails, the ownership of the patent simply rolls back to the original patent holder, who can then assign it to another company who's better at marketing.
So, when Snap-On offers $100K, it will be to the original patent holder (or their estate) and if they go bankrupt the whole cycle keeps going.
The point is to avoid patent trolls being viable by removing patents from being available for speculative investment from companies going bankrupt and making it expensive to have a patent change hands.
But I am obviously spit-balling here. I'm sure there are unintended side effects and likely better ways to do what I'm trying to do.
Which is why I think any patents held by a company in bankruptcy should be thrown into the public domain.
So I propose that we make it so patents either revert back to the original patent filers, or are assigned to the public domain should the current holder be forced into bankruptcy.
In addition, all patents must be "maintained" by paying a set of yearly fees to remain in force. The fees increase each year by adding 20% to last year's fees. Fees may be paid in advance at the current year's rate, but anytime the patent is re-assigned, any prepaid fees are forfeit and the new owner must pay fees at the current yearly rate.
So if you want patent protection, you will pay fees to keep it. If you cannot make money on the patent, then it reverts to the public domain.
A company is worth more than a sum of its assets, there is also Good Will... oh wait...
I think the Good Will account is overdrawn by more than $2. Bankrupt!
Something tells me that those patents will be snapped up for more than $2 though.
Great. I'm a buyer at that price, and I'll happily put them into one of the patent trusts. Where do I have to talk to?
And now we know how patent trolls get started... :)
USER REPLACEABLE BATTERY
Why? Apple replaces the battery in reasonably current I-Devices for very little coin. Just hit up the Apple Store and they will set you up.
Where I like the user replaceable battery option, let's face it, Apple isn't going to give you that. In fact, the market is moving away from that as you look at currently available handsets...
Oh sure, until that gamble rolls craps, THEN you are done too.
So what you're saying is that a startup company's efforts might fail? Oh no! /s
Not at all. What I'm saying is if you choose to totally ignore the opinions of people who disagree with you and fire a bunch of people closer to the actual work getting done than you are, you send a chilling message to the rest you didn't fire.
IF Musk fired these folks for BUDGETARY reasons, then let him say that. However, the same thing is going to happen to your work force. Layoffs are a very blunt tool, they destroy moral and culture, and should be used with care and as little as possible. You may layoff the bottom feeders, but you will lose many of your brightest and best because they have options, many of which will look more stable.
Either way, public firings/layoffs are bad. There are better ways to jettison the dead wood and motivate the team.
From the sounds of this article they already had a fairly toxic work environment with management split about the appropriate way forward. Elon simply picked a side and fired the rest so they wouldn't remain a festering wound.
If that's what Musk was trying to accomplish, he's every bit the idiot his detractors claim. You don't fire your underlings for not agreeing with your views, you fire them for not following your instructions or some kind of inexcusable behavior. What Musk did was to beat his underlings with a stick, which may produce immediate and visible compliance at first, but is counter productive in the long term, where they will react in fear. You want employees to take pride in their hard work because they care about the project's success, not because they fear failure and beating.
Fear stifles creativity, suppresses team work, and creates a culture of CYA, where everybody is rigidly following the process to avoid a beating. You want employees who are working hard, interested in the success of the project and willing to go that extra mile, work that extra hour or help out others with their tasks, not because it keeps them out of trouble, but because it's what the program needs to be successful. You don't get that behavior using sticks.