It wouldn't matter if the cellphones all ran OSS; if the chips were hardcoded to be ON all the time you'd still be monitorable. Most particularly if "always on" and GPS were required by gov't regulation. You could be eavesdropped and tracked any time someone felt the urge, and whether the software used was OSS or not would be irrelevant.
Unfortunately I think that's the direction it's headed; Treach^H^H^H^H Trusted Computing will lead to Trusted Phones with the same TC "security" features, because without a TC chip the phones won't be *allowed* to interact with your home PC, nor the provider's phone network (just as a non-TC computer will eventually no longer be allowed to connect to any ISP). Broadband internet using the cell phone network will doubtless accelerate this "integration".
"But if all the submissions have heavy bias, I'm not going to vote them all down, either."
Right, because it's better to have the news available one way or another than to not see it at all -- and we can figure out the biases for ourselves, that's what the discussion is for. And there are some topics on which a lack of heavy bias would itself be anomalous.
"I *like* it when it's obvious what agenda is being promoted."
Likewise. I'd rather know where someone is coming from up front than get ambushed halfway through the discussion.
[looking] Man, you ARE prolific! pretty rare that someone outposts me -- and still says stuff worth reading!!
(I should have over 10,000 comments, but a few months ago the system lost 2000 off my count. Oh well!)
And there you have in a nutshell why surplus funds should be cached rather than spent. But there's always that fear of "if we don't spend it, thus demonstrating that we needed it, we won't get *enough* money =next= year."
I have to wonder what percentage of taxpayer dollars is purely wasted that way.
I find this an interesting argument... my first thought after reading "I let go of the hammer and it fell to the ground" was that someone down below is now yelling, "Hey! snowwrestler just hit me with a hammer!"
Which viewpoint is biased? To determine that, you need to know motivations and point of view, and even then there'll be *someone's* bias involved.
But it's not mere bias that we see here on slashdot, rather, blatant editorializing. And since slashdot is really just one big Opinions page, where even what's "news" is a matter of opinion. Should we be surprised at bias? Hardly. I see one major purpose of the discussion threads as sorting out bias from facts. Sometimes that's important, sometimes not, but it's often enlightening: Many a time I've entered a discussion with one viewpoint, and gone away holding the opposite viewpoint.
Actually, it reminds me of the protection/bidding rackets that go on in some areas, where anyone can bid on a public project, but the only company that can win the bid is associated with the local unions, or puts appropriate bribes in the right warchests.
Did you ever try WordPerfect? it handles the issues you talk about, and has done so for over a decade. And it can handle *very* large documents. (I'd agree its stability not as good as it used to be, tho. Hence I mostly use older versions.)
Yep... in Montana, the average Democrat and Republican are actually bristly independents (often with what many would call a libertarian bent), taking advantage of whatever campaign funding they can get. If that puts a label on them, so be it.
Re:So is it ran by Harry Broderick?
on
A Space Junkyard
·
· Score: 1
I dunno. Is that a cement mixer I see in the background??
It's not that the users goes "The DRM won't let me play it!" As you say, most have no idea that DRM is involved at all.
Rather, the average user goes "Why won't your fucking file work on my computer? What's wrong with you people? What a ripoff!" And then tech support gets to waste time and money trying to help them work around the problem.
I vaugely recall reading that the average tech support call costs the average company a total of around $2/minute (most of which is infrastructure and overhead, not the tech's wages). Even were the cost just a few cents per minute, it still only takes a few minutes per sale to completely negate the retailer's profit margin on a sale as small as a piece of music.
And if 3/4ths of their calls are generated by issues with DRM -- that's a needless expense they'd rather do without.
If the RIAA listens to ANYONE, it will be to their retail distributors. And from what I know of the local-retail-music business, that's damn little already, tho still more than they listen to end users. And the RIAA can't very well accuse their retail outlets of being dirty internet pirates.
So... If local retailers stop carrying RIAA/DRM'd music, that sends a much louder message than anything that consumers, even collectively, could manage. And local retailers DO listen to their customers, because otherwise pretty soon they don't have any.
So instead of telling the faceless RIAA cartel (who couldn't care less what you think) why you no longer buy their product, tell your local retailer that you'd really like to buy $ALBUM, but you won't so long as it's DRM'd. THEN BUY SOME UNENCUMBERED MUSIC FROM THAT LOCAL RETAILER, so your favourite retailer sees that you're not just a cheapskate, you're really willing to buy good products, when they exist.
Well, I did say it was the record ca. 1980... don't know what miles it might have put on since, but he was doing around 100,000 miles a year. Rural mail routes in NE Montana are like that!! (IIRC the vehicle was an International, from back when they were still their own company.)
But that's really dandy about that Volvo -- and it looks cherry, too. And his advice is excellent for folks who want to keep their vehicle running for the long haul (literally:)
Pretty good indicator of why Volvo owners swear by their cars, too -- they're clearly designed to last. It doesn't matter how kindly you treat your car if it's built to die young (*cough* Chrysler *cough*).
Yeah, but that was the one this dealership did business with... I probably would have gone to a different dealer in the first place, or just used my bank.
New car depreciation is almost criminal itself. Some drop 50% of value in their first year or two. I'm not willing to pay that difference, even tho any vehicle of mine is liable to be used til it dies, rather than looked at as equity.
"Transportation officials said the survival rate for light trucks may have dropped because the vehicles are used more for day-to-day transportation needs than hauling cargo."
Probably not because of any real reason to junk them, but rather because the sort of people who buy a pickup, but *use* it exclusively as a passenger vehicle, still have the mentality that it's got a fixed lifespan and cannot possibly last any longer than a car. (Indeed, such is my observation, here in !SHINY!-obsessed California.)
I wonder how much the increased mileage has to do with major metros that produce long commutes -- around Los Angeles, it's common to drive 120 miles a day, which racks up 150,000 miles in just five years, and that's if you go absolutely nowhere but to work and back.
Might be a pre-established limit based on their max acceptable loss amount vs the risk of credit card fraud. But yeah, AFAIK there's no reason a merchant has to take any more payment by CC than they wish to. They just can't charge you extra for it, at least not in CA.
I had a mechanic in Montana who was like that. I swear he'd sometimes fix cars by laying on hands. They worshipped him and ran perfectly just to please him.:)
Nifty trick re the sensor, I'll have to remember that! Wonder if that dirty-sensor problem was why so many 1995 Fords have a repute as lemons??
Yeah, there were a few that were durable as rocks -- wasn't really the norm for wagons, tho. Probably cuz it was fundamentally a car that typically got used more like a light truck.
That's pretty cool that you've still got a vehicle that age running good, tho. It's really a waste to junk 'em if they're still functional.
Is that 283 a V-8? My '63 Olds F-85 had a 283 V-8 (IIRC)... wish I had that car back. Ball joint broke, and I made the mistake of parting it out rather than fixing it. The engine went into an airplane. ("It's a bird... It's a plane.... IT'S MY CAR!!!")
But that's kinda what I was talking about: Given the same minimal maintenance, a car will fall apart sooner and wind up in worse mechanical condition than a truck.
Also as you say it depends on the neighbourhood's economics. In po'folks' neighbourhoods you do indeed see a lot of junkers that clearly get no maintenance at all. Conversely someone with no more money than those po'folks, but who doesn't "think poor", will realise that regular maintenance is a good investment, as it prevents bigger bills in the future.
My primary vehicle is a '78 Ford pickup, and only in the last 5 years have I been unable to get genuine factory-new Ford parts for it. Fortunately, it rarely needs anything that's not pretty generic.
But actually, an oldtime VW Bug is a very good offroad vehicle. My aunt used hers to herd sheep and cattle on their ranch in Montana, no shit. (A REAL ranch, 100,000 acres or so.)
I used to have a '63 Olds F-85, and it was dandy on dirt roads. No pavement required, just a little grading and it was happy. Same with my current pickup, tho it rides rougher than the car did.
It's all in your perception of what constitutes a "road". Mine don't necessarily require asphalt.:)
Yeah, but it might be after being run past a good mechanic, even for just a outine tuneup.
Frex, I've got a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron, completely stock, never anything special done to it, but tuned by a competent mechanic -- and it passes the California smog test, in fact was near the very bottom of the emissions scale.
(BTW if there are any modern-classics collectors out there, it's for sale)
There's a fear meme that's been pushed by marketing ever since the first mass-produced cars:
OMG the car has over 100,000 miles!! or, OMG the car is over 7 years old!! Any minute now it's going to die and leave you stranded, or at the very least start nickel-and-diming you to death. Better replace it before it's too late!!
But in Real Life it doesn't work that way. Tell me, which is more economical:
1) Making a $450 payment on your new car each and every month, or
2) Spending about $700 every 3 years or so for some piece of major maintenance, which most middle-aged or older cars need due to stuff that simply wears out over the course of time, miles, and weather exposure (like brakes, bearings, water pump, alternator, etc.)
Lessee, $16,500 in monthly payments over three years, or $700 in repairs over the same three years... Gee, even I can do that math!!
Heck, let's get extravagant -- throw in a rebuilt engine for $4000, a rebuilt tranny for $3000, and a nice new paint job for $1000 -- and that total is still far cheaper than making monthly payments!!
Think I'll keep my old truck (now 29YO) going as long as possible, thank you very much. After all, it's paid for.:)
Because one of the big causes of lost sales is when the loan is denied. That's usually a lost sale. Cash on the spot -- well, you know the sale is a done deal and won't be denied a week later by the lender.
That happened to my neighbour when she went to buy a car -- the lender denied the loan because the vehicle had 72,000 miles on it, and they don't lend on anything with over 70,000 miles! End result, she repaired the old car instead, and no sale for the car dealer.
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It wouldn't matter if the cellphones all ran OSS; if the chips were hardcoded to be ON all the time you'd still be monitorable. Most particularly if "always on" and GPS were required by gov't regulation. You could be eavesdropped and tracked any time someone felt the urge, and whether the software used was OSS or not would be irrelevant.
Unfortunately I think that's the direction it's headed; Treach^H^H^H^H Trusted Computing will lead to Trusted Phones with the same TC "security" features, because without a TC chip the phones won't be *allowed* to interact with your home PC, nor the provider's phone network (just as a non-TC computer will eventually no longer be allowed to connect to any ISP). Broadband internet using the cell phone network will doubtless accelerate this "integration".
"But if all the submissions have heavy bias, I'm not going to vote them all down, either."
Right, because it's better to have the news available one way or another than to not see it at all -- and we can figure out the biases for ourselves, that's what the discussion is for. And there are some topics on which a lack of heavy bias would itself be anomalous.
"I *like* it when it's obvious what agenda is being promoted."
Likewise. I'd rather know where someone is coming from up front than get ambushed halfway through the discussion.
[looking] Man, you ARE prolific! pretty rare that someone outposts me -- and still says stuff worth reading!!
(I should have over 10,000 comments, but a few months ago the system lost 2000 off my count. Oh well!)
And there you have in a nutshell why surplus funds should be cached rather than spent. But there's always that fear of "if we don't spend it, thus demonstrating that we needed it, we won't get *enough* money =next= year."
I have to wonder what percentage of taxpayer dollars is purely wasted that way.
I find this an interesting argument... my first thought after reading "I let go of the hammer and it fell to the ground" was that someone down below is now yelling, "Hey! snowwrestler just hit me with a hammer!"
Which viewpoint is biased? To determine that, you need to know motivations and point of view, and even then there'll be *someone's* bias involved.
But it's not mere bias that we see here on slashdot, rather, blatant editorializing. And since slashdot is really just one big Opinions page, where even what's "news" is a matter of opinion. Should we be surprised at bias? Hardly. I see one major purpose of the discussion threads as sorting out bias from facts. Sometimes that's important, sometimes not, but it's often enlightening: Many a time I've entered a discussion with one viewpoint, and gone away holding the opposite viewpoint.
We already have an ombudsman system... except we call them "lobbyists". :(
Actually, it reminds me of the protection/bidding rackets that go on in some areas, where anyone can bid on a public project, but the only company that can win the bid is associated with the local unions, or puts appropriate bribes in the right warchests.
Did you ever try WordPerfect? it handles the issues you talk about, and has done so for over a decade. And it can handle *very* large documents. (I'd agree its stability not as good as it used to be, tho. Hence I mostly use older versions.)
Yep... in Montana, the average Democrat and Republican are actually bristly independents (often with what many would call a libertarian bent), taking advantage of whatever campaign funding they can get. If that puts a label on them, so be it.
I dunno. Is that a cement mixer I see in the background??
Well, I'd be interested, in case there's anything I missed in my own smash-and-grab from that fateful day. (Not very organized here, I'm afraid)
Oh, that explains why most of today's music sounds a lot like my dog howling at the moon.
It's not that the users goes "The DRM won't let me play it!" As you say, most have no idea that DRM is involved at all.
Rather, the average user goes "Why won't your fucking file work on my computer? What's wrong with you people? What a ripoff!" And then tech support gets to waste time and money trying to help them work around the problem.
I vaugely recall reading that the average tech support call costs the average company a total of around $2/minute (most of which is infrastructure and overhead, not the tech's wages). Even were the cost just a few cents per minute, it still only takes a few minutes per sale to completely negate the retailer's profit margin on a sale as small as a piece of music.
And if 3/4ths of their calls are generated by issues with DRM -- that's a needless expense they'd rather do without.
If the RIAA listens to ANYONE, it will be to their retail distributors. And from what I know of the local-retail-music business, that's damn little already, tho still more than they listen to end users. And the RIAA can't very well accuse their retail outlets of being dirty internet pirates.
So... If local retailers stop carrying RIAA/DRM'd music, that sends a much louder message than anything that consumers, even collectively, could manage. And local retailers DO listen to their customers, because otherwise pretty soon they don't have any.
So instead of telling the faceless RIAA cartel (who couldn't care less what you think) why you no longer buy their product, tell your local retailer that you'd really like to buy $ALBUM, but you won't so long as it's DRM'd. THEN BUY SOME UNENCUMBERED MUSIC FROM THAT LOCAL RETAILER, so your favourite retailer sees that you're not just a cheapskate, you're really willing to buy good products, when they exist.
Well, I did say it was the record ca. 1980 ... don't know what miles it might have put on since, but he was doing around 100,000 miles a year. Rural mail routes in NE Montana are like that!! (IIRC the vehicle was an International, from back when they were still their own company.)
:)
But that's really dandy about that Volvo -- and it looks cherry, too. And his advice is excellent for folks who want to keep their vehicle running for the long haul (literally
Pretty good indicator of why Volvo owners swear by their cars, too -- they're clearly designed to last. It doesn't matter how kindly you treat your car if it's built to die young (*cough* Chrysler *cough*).
Yeah, but that was the one this dealership did business with... I probably would have gone to a different dealer in the first place, or just used my bank.
New car depreciation is almost criminal itself. Some drop 50% of value in their first year or two. I'm not willing to pay that difference, even tho any vehicle of mine is liable to be used til it dies, rather than looked at as equity.
"Transportation officials said the survival rate
for light trucks may have dropped because the vehicles are used more for day-to-day transportation needs than hauling cargo."
Probably not because of any real reason to junk them, but rather because the sort of people who buy a pickup, but *use* it exclusively as a passenger vehicle, still have the mentality that it's got a fixed lifespan and cannot possibly last any longer than a car. (Indeed, such is my observation, here in !SHINY!-obsessed California.)
I wonder how much the increased mileage has to do with major metros that produce long commutes -- around Los Angeles, it's common to drive 120 miles a day, which racks up 150,000 miles in just five years, and that's if you go absolutely nowhere but to work and back.
Might be a pre-established limit based on their max acceptable loss amount vs the risk of credit card fraud. But yeah, AFAIK there's no reason a merchant has to take any more payment by CC than they wish to. They just can't charge you extra for it, at least not in CA.
I had a mechanic in Montana who was like that. I swear he'd sometimes fix cars by laying on hands. They worshipped him and ran perfectly just to please him. :)
Nifty trick re the sensor, I'll have to remember that! Wonder if that dirty-sensor problem was why so many 1995 Fords have a repute as lemons??
Yeah, there were a few that were durable as rocks -- wasn't really the norm for wagons, tho. Probably cuz it was fundamentally a car that typically got used more like a light truck.
... wish I had that car back. Ball joint broke, and I made the mistake of parting it out rather than fixing it. The engine went into an airplane. ("It's a bird... It's a plane.... IT'S MY CAR!!!")
That's pretty cool that you've still got a vehicle that age running good, tho. It's really a waste to junk 'em if they're still functional.
Is that 283 a V-8? My '63 Olds F-85 had a 283 V-8 (IIRC)
Nope, I let my mechanic work on my vehicles :)
But that's kinda what I was talking about: Given the same minimal maintenance, a car will fall apart sooner and wind up in worse mechanical condition than a truck.
Also as you say it depends on the neighbourhood's economics. In po'folks' neighbourhoods you do indeed see a lot of junkers that clearly get no maintenance at all. Conversely someone with no more money than those po'folks, but who doesn't "think poor", will realise that regular maintenance is a good investment, as it prevents bigger bills in the future.
My primary vehicle is a '78 Ford pickup, and only in the last 5 years have I been unable to get genuine factory-new Ford parts for it. Fortunately, it rarely needs anything that's not pretty generic.
[laughing] Good point :)
:)
But actually, an oldtime VW Bug is a very good offroad vehicle. My aunt used hers to herd sheep and cattle on their ranch in Montana, no shit. (A REAL ranch, 100,000 acres or so.)
I used to have a '63 Olds F-85, and it was dandy on dirt roads. No pavement required, just a little grading and it was happy. Same with my current pickup, tho it rides rougher than the car did.
It's all in your perception of what constitutes a "road". Mine don't necessarily require asphalt.
Yeah, but it might be after being run past a good mechanic, even for just a outine tuneup.
Frex, I've got a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron, completely stock, never anything special done to it, but tuned by a competent mechanic -- and it passes the California smog test, in fact was near the very bottom of the emissions scale.
(BTW if there are any modern-classics collectors out there, it's for sale)
There's a fear meme that's been pushed by marketing ever since the first mass-produced cars:
:)
OMG the car has over 100,000 miles!! or, OMG the car is over 7 years old!! Any minute now it's going to die and leave you stranded, or at the very least start nickel-and-diming you to death. Better replace it before it's too late!!
But in Real Life it doesn't work that way. Tell me, which is more economical:
1) Making a $450 payment on your new car each and every month, or
2) Spending about $700 every 3 years or so for some piece of major maintenance, which most middle-aged or older cars need due to stuff that simply wears out over the course of time, miles, and weather exposure (like brakes, bearings, water pump, alternator, etc.)
Lessee, $16,500 in monthly payments over three years, or $700 in repairs over the same three years... Gee, even I can do that math!!
Heck, let's get extravagant -- throw in a rebuilt engine for $4000, a rebuilt tranny for $3000, and a nice new paint job for $1000 -- and that total is still far cheaper than making monthly payments!!
Think I'll keep my old truck (now 29YO) going as long as possible, thank you very much. After all, it's paid for.
Dunno about elsehwere, but that'd be illegal in California. The vendor cannot charge you extra for paying with a credit card.
Because one of the big causes of lost sales is when the loan is denied. That's usually a lost sale. Cash on the spot -- well, you know the sale is a done deal and won't be denied a week later by the lender.
That happened to my neighbour when she went to buy a car -- the lender denied the loan because the vehicle had 72,000 miles on it, and they don't lend on anything with over 70,000 miles! End result, she repaired the old car instead, and no sale for the car dealer.