Nearly as bad, but it's still an order of magnitude "better" than mass transit. The "why" is pretty simple -- with a highway, you remove a level of control (specifically, the actual driving of the vehicles) from the hands of the idiots.
3) If a mass-transit system could somehow avoid the beaurocratic nightmare of individual power-grabs and assheaded planning and become a useful system which serviced its customers in a logically optimized manner.
I take BART into work every day. Every day, I end up standing for half an hour on the way in and another half hour on the way out. Now, remind me, why is mass transit unpopular?
Here in Chicago, it would be extremely difficult to construct a good system without severely screwing up traffic even worse than it is already.
Which, of course, is why Chicago has never had a widely-used mass transit system consisting of, say, an elevated train of some sort.
I don't see why this sort of system couldn't be used to replace an existing one. Living in the Bay Area, however, I can testify that the major problem with mass transit isn't the technology behind it, but rather the corrupt, power-hungry shills who plan and execute it. Our BART system, for example, has been in service for something like 30 years and still doesn't run to the Silicon Valley or any of the airports.
From now on, we'll all travel in TUBES!
on
Pipeline Mass Transit?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I think this will never see the light of day in the US.
Why, you ask? Not because it's not interesting and efective technology, but because we Americans don't like mass transit. We want cars. We have a *right* to cars. Look in the Bill of Rights. It's there. Or if it's not, I think it should be, so it might as well be there right next to my right to own a minigun.
Seriously, though, there are hundreds neat ideas for viable mass-transit available, but I'm stuck riding a 30 year-old, beaurocracy-lader system called BART to work everyday. That has, to put it mildly, soured my viewpoint somewhat. Until we remove the corruption that wil always accompany mass transit, we might as well forget about it.
Sorry attempt at FUD. It is Microsoft and other companies.
It's dangerous to dismiss a major monopoly with a history of illegally abusing its position as just another company.
This particular instance might not be such a big deal, but the prescident it establishes should make the blood of anyone who relies on business for their livelyhood (aka, just about all of us) run cold.
The applications of this sort of thing extend way beyond K-Mart. Essentially, MS is reserving the right to decide who can transfer licenses and who cannot. This is life or death stuff, especially for any company which develops software for Windows (again, this is most development houses -- they can't escape to Linux even if it were a viable desktop replacement, which it's not).
So, in the future, all your business decisions would be "Is this good for us?" followed immediately by "Will this piss off Bill Gates?" -- this would seem to "discourage" anyone from competing with MS in any sector, esp. competition from startups (most successful startups end up being bought, after all; investors would not want to see the possibility of this eliminated).
If this stands, Microsoft has successfully become the deciding party in all major corporate mergers and aquisitions. Who is going to buy another sizable company knowing that they'll be forced to relicense all of their software?
Talk about extending your monopoly.
IMO, nobody at Microsoft believes that they will lose in the long run, and that's made them both overcomfortable and vulnerable. The more they tighten their graip, the more syste^H^H^H companies will slip through their fingers.
Personally, I shop where ever the price is lowest -- that includes taxes and shipping.
This means the only time I buy at Fry's is when I either need it *fast* (which happens) or when it's so little it's not worth ordering (which also happens). I mean, the CA taxes on anything in the $50+ range makes it worthwhile to always buy online and pay shipping.
This, on the other hand, could change all that, couldn't it? I think this will just drive more people away from online business, sink a sector of the economy and drive prices up for the consumer (which means they'll probably spend less, which is a Bad Thing, especially when you're in a recession).
But hey -- if that happens, I'll start selling motherboards on the street in SF right next to the guy selling the fake Rolexes.
I think this should actually shield the virus-writer from any sort of prosecution, shouldn't it? I suppose you could do all sorts of nasty stuff and be completely protected so long as you could prove the user clicked "ok" to the license.
Maybe this will be the tool which turns the tide on the EULA.
What if the team isn't able to find, or the show didn't provide the necessary parts?
The show always provide everything that could be needed, but you're right, they have to find them and sometimes they don't. I have actually, on camera, been talking to a team member while I have been kicking a working engine and coughing and pointing to it, and still the guy ignored it and found a much worse one.
Robert Llewellyn, of Red Dwarf fame (Kryten)
George Gray, who went on to host the weekday version of The Weakest Link.
And now the two recent replacements, who I hate with the fire of a thousand suns.
Out of all the teams that competed over the years, did you have a particular favorite team in terms of either technical innovation, work ethic or oddball team members? Which team do you feel was the "best (cough, Long Brothers, cough) overall Junkyard Wars team?
So, if you want a robot that can plug itself back in (at least, one that can do so by remembering where it's docking station is), be prepared to spend a lot more than $200.
Well, let's think different.
We don't need a combat system here -- we're talking about one room. How about putting a blinking IR light on the docking station and a IR detector on the vacuum unit? Then program the vacuum to roll around until it "sees" the dock...
That my Aibo can plug itself back in, but this thing can't?
Seriously, how hard would it be to remember a room, vacuum it, and return to a docking station while I'm at work? What good is this thing *unless* it does that? I want my vacuuming to be sort of like setting up a maintainance cron job to run at 3 AM.
This, and a sane policy that recognizes that authors don't have any incentive to create Writings and Discoveries after they're dead, would pretty much wrap it all up.
Interesting, but totally off-base.
Consider the memoirs of U.S. Grant. Their are considered to be a model for military memoirs, and he wrote them while he was dying of throat cancer. He did so with the specific intent of restoring his family fortune (lost in bad business deals) and providing for his family.
That alone demonstrates that heirs should be allowed copyright protection for a limited time.
Who gets to decide what it takes to "promote", and what exactly "limited" means?
Well the Court *can*.
What they'd do is establish a logical "test" which could be applied to decide what constitutes promotion (probably be called the Eldred Test). A good example of this is the Lemon Test, written by Justice Warren Burger in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), which can be applied to any future law concerning (in this case) school prayer.
Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
So the framers specifically state their intent in giving Congress this power. A trillion years may be a limited time, but it cannot be reasonably seen as a promotion of the "Progress of Science and useful Arts".
The idea here is that even the stuff before that first comma is important. Lessig et al. argue that, by extending copyright over too long a time, you're actually doing more harm (aka, arresting spin-offs and adaptations) than good (convincing creators to create by making it financially attractive).
So it's not black and white. You absolutely cannot cimply ignore any of the words or phrases in the Constitution.
Except, of course, we're talking about law and not poker.
In reality, Lessig could publish all of his notes from the case and let the opposition interview him for a week to get all the juicy tidbits and it wouldn't matter a hill of beans -- it's like asking a coach about his superbowl strategy the day after the game is played.
All said, I think that Lessig played a pretty good game here and gave "us" (as in "we the people") pretty much our best possible shot here. People who think he "lost" the Supreme Court arguement just because the justices gave him a hard time are obviously not framiliar with the Court in general.
That said, I'm not sure that the Court will side with Lessig simply because, IMO, Congress isn't really in violation of the Constitution. Really, this is a fight that needs to be taken to the Congress, which just won't happen until the American people (again, "we the people") take some interest in the machinations of their government.
Slashdot Mirror
Nearly as bad, but it's still an order of magnitude "better" than mass transit. The "why" is pretty simple -- with a highway, you remove a level of control (specifically, the actual driving of the vehicles) from the hands of the idiots.
If you could drive a car between San Francisco and New York in five and a half hours, nobody would ever fly...
3) If a mass-transit system could somehow avoid the beaurocratic nightmare of individual power-grabs and assheaded planning and become a useful system which serviced its customers in a logically optimized manner.
I take BART into work every day. Every day, I end up standing for half an hour on the way in and another half hour on the way out. Now, remind me, why is mass transit unpopular?
Which, of course, is why Chicago has never had a widely-used mass transit system consisting of, say, an elevated train of some sort.
I don't see why this sort of system couldn't be used to replace an existing one. Living in the Bay Area, however, I can testify that the major problem with mass transit isn't the technology behind it, but rather the corrupt, power-hungry shills who plan and execute it. Our BART system, for example, has been in service for something like 30 years and still doesn't run to the Silicon Valley or any of the airports.
Why, you ask? Not because it's not interesting and efective technology, but because we Americans don't like mass transit. We want cars. We have a *right* to cars. Look in the Bill of Rights. It's there. Or if it's not, I think it should be, so it might as well be there right next to my right to own a minigun.
Seriously, though, there are hundreds neat ideas for viable mass-transit available, but I'm stuck riding a 30 year-old, beaurocracy-lader system called BART to work everyday. That has, to put it mildly, soured my viewpoint somewhat. Until we remove the corruption that wil always accompany mass transit, we might as well forget about it.
Weirdly, I am actually having a burrito right now (surfing during a seriously late lunch). I feel very metaphysical right now.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is a monopoly. This makes it a different situation, despite what your natural instincts about economics tells you.
It's dangerous to dismiss a major monopoly with a history of illegally abusing its position as just another company.
This particular instance might not be such a big deal, but the prescident it establishes should make the blood of anyone who relies on business for their livelyhood (aka, just about all of us) run cold.
The applications of this sort of thing extend way beyond K-Mart. Essentially, MS is reserving the right to decide who can transfer licenses and who cannot. This is life or death stuff, especially for any company which develops software for Windows (again, this is most development houses -- they can't escape to Linux even if it were a viable desktop replacement, which it's not).
So, in the future, all your business decisions would be "Is this good for us?" followed immediately by "Will this piss off Bill Gates?" -- this would seem to "discourage" anyone from competing with MS in any sector, esp. competition from startups (most successful startups end up being bought, after all; investors would not want to see the possibility of this eliminated).
Be afraid.
If this stands, Microsoft has successfully become the deciding party in all major corporate mergers and aquisitions. Who is going to buy another sizable company knowing that they'll be forced to relicense all of their software?
Talk about extending your monopoly.
IMO, nobody at Microsoft believes that they will lose in the long run, and that's made them both overcomfortable and vulnerable. The more they tighten their graip, the more syste^H^H^H companies will slip through their fingers.
Watch out -- I hear the states are going to hire Jack Valenti to come after us.
This means the only time I buy at Fry's is when I either need it *fast* (which happens) or when it's so little it's not worth ordering (which also happens). I mean, the CA taxes on anything in the $50+ range makes it worthwhile to always buy online and pay shipping.
This, on the other hand, could change all that, couldn't it? I think this will just drive more people away from online business, sink a sector of the economy and drive prices up for the consumer (which means they'll probably spend less, which is a Bad Thing, especially when you're in a recession).
But hey -- if that happens, I'll start selling motherboards on the street in SF right next to the guy selling the fake Rolexes.
I think this should actually shield the virus-writer from any sort of prosecution, shouldn't it? I suppose you could do all sorts of nasty stuff and be completely protected so long as you could prove the user clicked "ok" to the license.
Maybe this will be the tool which turns the tide on the EULA.
RIP: Senator Paul Wellstone.
What if the team isn't able to find, or the show didn't provide the necessary parts?
The show always provide everything that could be needed, but you're right, they have to find them and sometimes they don't. I have actually, on camera, been talking to a team member while I have been kicking a working engine and coughing and pointing to it, and still the guy ignored it and found a much worse one.
Robert Llewellyn, of Red Dwarf fame (Kryten)
George Gray, who went on to host the weekday version of The Weakest Link.
And now the two recent replacements, who I hate with the fire of a thousand suns.
She's said previously that she got the idea while watching Apollo 13 (the scene where they're trying to kludge an air filter).
Out of all the teams that competed over the years, did you have a particular favorite team in terms of either technical innovation, work ethic or oddball team members? Which team do you feel was the "best (cough, Long Brothers, cough) overall Junkyard Wars team?
Well, let's think different.
We don't need a combat system here -- we're talking about one room. How about putting a blinking IR light on the docking station and a IR detector on the vacuum unit? Then program the vacuum to roll around until it "sees" the dock...
That my Aibo can plug itself back in, but this thing can't? Seriously, how hard would it be to remember a room, vacuum it, and return to a docking station while I'm at work? What good is this thing *unless* it does that? I want my vacuuming to be sort of like setting up a maintainance cron job to run at 3 AM.
Interesting, but totally off-base.
Consider the memoirs of U.S. Grant. Their are considered to be a model for military memoirs, and he wrote them while he was dying of throat cancer. He did so with the specific intent of restoring his family fortune (lost in bad business deals) and providing for his family.
That alone demonstrates that heirs should be allowed copyright protection for a limited time.
Well the Court *can*.
What they'd do is establish a logical "test" which could be applied to decide what constitutes promotion (probably be called the Eldred Test). A good example of this is the Lemon Test, written by Justice Warren Burger in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), which can be applied to any future law concerning (in this case) school prayer.
That said, I hope this thread doesn't get hijacked into another gun control discussion.
Psst! We're talking about copyrights here. While this decision could potentially impact patents as well, I think we're getting ahead of ourselves.
So the framers specifically state their intent in giving Congress this power. A trillion years may be a limited time, but it cannot be reasonably seen as a promotion of the "Progress of Science and useful Arts".
The idea here is that even the stuff before that first comma is important. Lessig et al. argue that, by extending copyright over too long a time, you're actually doing more harm (aka, arresting spin-offs and adaptations) than good (convincing creators to create by making it financially attractive).
So it's not black and white. You absolutely cannot cimply ignore any of the words or phrases in the Constitution.
In reality, Lessig could publish all of his notes from the case and let the opposition interview him for a week to get all the juicy tidbits and it wouldn't matter a hill of beans -- it's like asking a coach about his superbowl strategy the day after the game is played.
All said, I think that Lessig played a pretty good game here and gave "us" (as in "we the people") pretty much our best possible shot here. People who think he "lost" the Supreme Court arguement just because the justices gave him a hard time are obviously not framiliar with the Court in general.
That said, I'm not sure that the Court will side with Lessig simply because, IMO, Congress isn't really in violation of the Constitution. Really, this is a fight that needs to be taken to the Congress, which just won't happen until the American people (again, "we the people") take some interest in the machinations of their government.
I'm reasonably sure that I just heard Jack Valenti spinning in his grave. The MPAA thought they had problems before...