Man, this is such a load of steaming BS. The parent poster made an excellent argument.
The point here is that there are no competitors. That is the definition of a monopoly.
Yes, but a government enforced monopoly is when the government prevents would be competitors from even considering the idea.
No, it just doesn't make good economic sense for a competitor to run a cable to your house. Not much point in having two sets of electric wires, is there? That's a waste of resources and that translates to inefficiency.
Welcome to the principles of capitalism. Why don't you let the potential competitors decide what's wasteful and what's not. Perhaps they would not agree. In my area there are two local Telcos: Verizon and RCN. RCN only recently started offering local service. They are cheaper and better than Verizon (IMHO). I have to assume that Verizon did not let them use their wires. So they must have ran their own. RCN also competes with AT&T in my local area for cable modem service. I suspect that also means two sets of cables.
I don't think some politician is qualified to decide what is "wasteful" or "inefficient" in the area of telecommunications. Let the market decide.
In a genuinely free market natural monopolies would only occur when would be competitors felt that the current organization is so efficient that they could not possibly compete. You don't need an economics degree to figure that one out. It's just common sense. Oligopies are a different story however.
If there are ten companies each running wire to your house, the total cost for that is much higher than is one company ran wire to your house. This means that the marginal cost curve for a monopoly is much lower than that for a purely competitive market. It is this lowered cost curve that leads to a natural monopoly, that is to say a market that is more efficiently served by a monopoly than by competition.
What about 10 cell phone companies with 10 different tower networks, or 10 different airlines all covering the same routes or 10 different restaurants in your city? Seems kind of redundant, doesn't it? What a waste of resources. It would probably be much more cost effective to have one company do it all. Perhaps we should outlaw all competition in all industries. It's just so wasteful. Or perhaps we could just accept the fact that with competition also comes some redundancy of resources. The additional start up costs of laying telecommunications wire does limit competition in these industries, but it doesn't eliminate it. Only the government can do that.
Apparently, one moderator must have thought you were joking, and so did I, until I saw this post. It did sound as though you were being sarcastic, poking fun (and rightfully so) at this slow, not-even-close-to-relativistic speed.
Consider what we would do with a permanent moon base compared to what we would do with an antimatter rocket capable of traveling to other star systems within our lifetime.
I'm considering it. The same people who oppose spending money on going to the moon or mars, will also be against going to Alpha Centauri, regardless of how cool the idea is to geeks and scientists. Think about how cool it would be to send an unmanned probe or manned mission to explore some of Jupiters moons like Io and Europa with more than just flyby photos, but people don't want to spend that kind of money on space exploration.
Not only do we not have the technology to make it to Alpha Centauri, we can't even currently imagine a theory of physics that would allow us the propulsion to get there within a human lifetime.
Nuclear fusion bombs against an ablation shield won't do it. Sustained nuclear fusion (not invented yet) won't do it. Ion drives won't do it. Laser powered solar sails won't do it. Antimatter drives won't do it either, although they are the fastest method.
For some enlightenment, check out this explanation from a NASA scientist: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/scales.h tm The essential problem is that the distances are so great that any kind of propellant, even one with the energy density of antimatter will be used up too quickly. Also, you can definitely forget about the idea of stopping, turning around and coming back.
The only interstellar propulsion research that I'm aware of is being done by NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program which is struggling just to survive. How can you expect exponential advances when no one is even doing any significant research. Hell, we can't even get the funds to go to the moon or mars. IMHO, your only chance is in medical research extending your lifetime to 500 or 1000 years, in which case you might live to see a real interstellar mission.
It's lucky there are only a few of those ad servers. I'd hate to be spending all of my internet time just adding in the IP addresses. It's lucky that there aren't an almost unlimited number of addresses to block. That would be truly awful.
An excellent point. For many of us who can hear the difference, sound quality has been the problem with MP3s. If I'm paying for the music, even one penny per track, I would need to have a wav or ape file. If they want to compress the music and sell it, they'll have to compress it losslessly. Then $1.00 per track would seem well worth it, almost too good to be true. I'd still be reluctant, however, because at this point in the war, I've really grown to hate the record companies and the RIAA. However, this is good news, a step in the right direction. My question is only why it took them so long, and will the other distributors follow?
My stance is not a legal one. I don't care what the current laws are in the US. What right does the state have to take one of its citizens into custody just because certain people believe they have valuable information? And once they force this person to appear, what right do they have to coerce him into divulging said information? I don't think a "valid" and just government has this right. So you merely presented me with a nice example of the US government casually violating the rights of its citizens.
As for "crossing a line", I was referring to a police line, not to a property line. I am not trying to invalidate property rights. Crossing a police line and breaking and entering are clearly not the same, although US lawyers may not agree.
I do not equate laws with totalitarianism. I equate laws that violate the inherent rights of it's citizens with totalitarianism. The US has more than enough to qualify.
It doesn't bother me anymore that the US is not even close to being free. I've come to accept it over the years. I guess we Libertarians can always build our own space shuttle and colonize the moon or perhaps annex Antarctica as our new country (in defiance of international treaties).
What still has the power to bother me is when people claim that it is a free country. I don't think they should be able to get away with that one point. Maybe a century ago, before the income tax amendment and social security and so much more, we could claim to be free, but not now.
As a society, we have matured past freedom into the middle age of statism and are fast approaching our final destination: a state controlled, democratic, totalitarian state. It will still be called "free". We will be free to do whatever the "majority" thinks we should do.
First, no one is "given" any rights. From a government POV they're all privileges anyway, to be revoked as deemed appropriate. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say that citizens must always reveal information simply because an agent of the government asks for it. A society in which all questions from a government agent must be answered merely because they need or want that information is a totalitarian one. The US has been creeping in that direction for many years, proving the point that free societies are inherently unstable and naturally transform into totalitarian states eventually.
Being arrested for merely "crossing a line" is absurd, a tactic of a totalitarian regime. I agree that it shouldn't matter whether the individual is a reporter or not. This law is just one of many examples of why the US is not even close to being a free society. 17th is not too bad.
Not that I think these people really know what they're talking about. Most western countries have reasonably free presses anyway (meaning that the government doesn't usually interfere) with them. Recently the US has been leading the attack on these freedoms however when it comes to copyright and anything "on a computer". Most of the other countries will eventually follow suite since more control is the natural direction of any government.
"What's a tortoise?" or "Do you like our owl?" or "Of course it's not real. Do you think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake."
Perhaps we will be able to artificially recreate the wilderness and the other animals that used to live here?
Actually, Antarctica really is much more devoid of wildlife than the Arctic. Why this is I don't know. For land animals there really isn't much more than penguins. Also, it gets much colder than the Arctic, with temperatures approaching -129F (-90C) on occasion. The Arctic is a tropical paradise by comparison. [Time to rent that bungalow in Qaanaaq, Greenland].
LOL. I hope this is a joke or sarcasm. Surely you don't really believe Bush's moronic feel-good analysis of Bin Laden's motives. Obviously, these guys are not some kind of rabid marxists out to destroy any hint of non-marxist countries. I don't know exactly what their motives are, but it is certainly not "to attack whatever country is the most free". We might not even qualify for that title anymore anyway. Hence the motivation for the FSP.
Did you read his Radium story? Interesting stuff. Makes me want to go out and buy (or build) a geiger counter and start rock hunting. Trouble is how do you tell the difference between Radium and Uranium, let alone between the different isotopes? Also, anyone know where I can get a lead suit, hood, face mask, gloves, and boots? I'd like to experiment with building nuclear batteries (inspired by the recent slashdot story), but you need a license to legally buy those "safe" beta sources, so I'm going to have to play with some nice gamma ray emitters like uranium. Also, did you notice how ugly is wife was at their wedding? No wonder he's got such an impressive resume. He's always at work so he doesn't have to go home. Or was that his mother?
The trick is spinning down the U-238. Once you have enough U-235. The delivery mechanism is easy. Just click two half critical mass U-235 bricks together. You'll be in Kansas in no time.
Whatever happened to plain vanilla "shyness". In my own experience there seems to be some correlation between shyness and above average intelligence. So lack of social skills or social anxiety cannot be the same as Autism or Aspergers which are both forms of brain dysfunction. I'm getting tired of so many geeks here listening to a description of Autism or Aspergers and automatically assuming "that's me, at least a little". There is such a thing as shyness, social anxiety, introversion, etc, which are not related to Autism or Aspergers. Most geeks are just shy, end of story.
First, he was talking about the "small box" vaccine not "variola major". Second, he must have been talking about another Ben Franklin, one who was alive after the invention of the "small box" vaccine.
Actually that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that only a minority of sellers are willing to use it even when the buyer pays. Why should they bother, when the majority of buyers don't seem to care? Sometimes you can convince a seller to accept escrow, but usually you can't.
I agree. McMurdo Station, Antarctica is rather nice this time of year. Antarctica is owned by no one. Therefore there can be no extradition treaty because there is no government. Fried penguin may get a bit old though.
Actually any place with no extradition treaty, preferably one where the government is not particularly friendly with the US and one where almost no one speaks English. If you go to federal prison you will almost certainly get HIV from being raped. Most new prisoners are raped in the very first week, often times even the first night they arrive. Save yourself! Don't sacrifice your life just to live in America.
Get out while you still can! Anyway you can. Why would you want to live in a country unjust enough to do this to you anyway? You could even learn some survival skills and live off the land for awhile in a remote place in the US. There are many areas of the US where you would be safe from the police.
Perhaps the best advice is to buy a decent SUV and cross the border on land over to Mexico. The mexican border guards will not know or care about who you are. From there you are home free. Money will be your only problem. But you should be able to find a job somewhere and earn the going wage under the table, even if this is only $100/month. If it is enough for the locals, then you can survive on it.
I hate to hear a story like this. It's such a waste of life. But traveling will expand your horizons, whatever that means. Anyway, it's better than getting HIV and becoming an involuntary homosexual in prison. Keep Uranus intact and run for the border!
The only other option would be to try to get into and stay in solitary confinement for the entire 3 years. You'd need to research exactly what kinds of things you need to do to get there and stay there. This is kind of risky though. You could be raped the very first night you get there. I think Mexico is the better option.
Actually this would be a big improvement and probably alot cheaper. Change the target market to adults, not young children. Increase Gigi's salary enough to get her to do the show completely naked. You wouldn't need any sex per se. Just some goofy plot device where all the clothing on the ship is permanently destroyed and cannot be recreated. Of course, it would be nice if they would keep the guys' clothes on. But all the women would be stark naked. I think you'd increase the ratings just a bit.
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Man, this is such a load of steaming BS. The parent poster made an excellent argument.
The point here is that there are no competitors. That is the definition of a monopoly.
Yes, but a government enforced monopoly is when the government prevents would be competitors from even considering the idea.
No, it just doesn't make good economic sense for a competitor to run a cable to your house. Not much point in having two sets of electric wires, is there? That's a waste of resources and that translates to inefficiency.
Welcome to the principles of capitalism. Why don't you let the potential competitors decide what's wasteful and what's not. Perhaps they would not agree. In my area there are two local Telcos: Verizon and RCN. RCN only recently started offering local service. They are cheaper and better than Verizon (IMHO). I have to assume that Verizon did not let them use their wires. So they must have ran their own. RCN also competes with AT&T in my local area for cable modem service. I suspect that also means two sets of cables.
I don't think some politician is qualified to decide what is "wasteful" or "inefficient" in the area of telecommunications. Let the market decide.
In a genuinely free market natural monopolies would only occur when would be competitors felt that the current organization is so efficient that they could not possibly compete. You don't need an economics degree to figure that one out. It's just common sense. Oligopies are a different story however.
If there are ten companies each running wire to your house, the total cost for that is much higher than is one company ran wire to your house. This means that the marginal cost curve for a monopoly is much lower than that for a purely competitive market. It is this lowered cost curve that leads to a natural monopoly, that is to say a market that is more efficiently served by a monopoly than by competition.
What about 10 cell phone companies with 10 different tower networks, or 10 different airlines all covering the same routes or 10 different restaurants in your city? Seems kind of redundant, doesn't it? What a waste of resources. It would probably be much more cost effective to have one company do it all. Perhaps we should outlaw all competition in all industries. It's just so wasteful. Or perhaps we could just accept the fact that with competition also comes some redundancy of resources. The additional start up costs of laying telecommunications wire does limit competition in these industries, but it doesn't eliminate it. Only the government can do that.
Now if we could just come up with a propulsion system that could propel a ship at 1g for a year :).
Apparently, one moderator must have thought you were joking, and so did I, until I saw this post. It did sound as though you were being sarcastic, poking fun (and rightfully so) at this slow, not-even-close-to-relativistic speed.
I'm considering it. The same people who oppose spending money on going to the moon or mars, will also be against going to Alpha Centauri, regardless of how cool the idea is to geeks and scientists. Think about how cool it would be to send an unmanned probe or manned mission to explore some of Jupiters moons like Io and Europa with more than just flyby photos, but people don't want to spend that kind of money on space exploration.
Not only do we not have the technology to make it to Alpha Centauri, we can't even currently imagine a theory of physics that would allow us the propulsion to get there within a human lifetime.
h tm The essential problem is that the distances are so great that any kind of propellant, even one with the energy density of antimatter will be used up too quickly. Also, you can definitely forget about the idea of stopping, turning around and coming back.
Nuclear fusion bombs against an ablation shield won't do it. Sustained nuclear fusion (not invented yet) won't do it. Ion drives won't do it. Laser powered solar sails won't do it. Antimatter drives won't do it either, although they are the fastest method.
For some enlightenment, check out this explanation from a NASA scientist: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/scales.
The only interstellar propulsion research that I'm aware of is being done by NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program which is struggling just to survive. How can you expect exponential advances when no one is even doing any significant research. Hell, we can't even get the funds to go to the moon or mars. IMHO, your only chance is in medical research extending your lifetime to 500 or 1000 years, in which case you might live to see a real interstellar mission.
It's lucky there are only a few of those ad servers. I'd hate to be spending all of my internet time just adding in the IP addresses. It's lucky that there aren't an almost unlimited number of addresses to block. That would be truly awful.
Worse I can't even vote the people out who are making this stuff up.
Neither can we.
An excellent point. For many of us who can hear the difference, sound quality has been the problem with MP3s. If I'm paying for the music, even one penny per track, I would need to have a wav or ape file. If they want to compress the music and sell it, they'll have to compress it losslessly. Then $1.00 per track would seem well worth it, almost too good to be true. I'd still be reluctant, however, because at this point in the war, I've really grown to hate the record companies and the RIAA. However, this is good news, a step in the right direction. My question is only why it took them so long, and will the other distributors follow?
My stance is not a legal one. I don't care what the current laws are in the US. What right does the state have to take one of its citizens into custody just because certain people believe they have valuable information? And once they force this person to appear, what right do they have to coerce him into divulging said information? I don't think a "valid" and just government has this right. So you merely presented me with a nice example of the US government casually violating the rights of its citizens.
As for "crossing a line", I was referring to a police line, not to a property line. I am not trying to invalidate property rights. Crossing a police line and breaking and entering are clearly not the same, although US lawyers may not agree.
I do not equate laws with totalitarianism. I equate laws that violate the inherent rights of it's citizens with totalitarianism. The US has more than enough to qualify.
It doesn't bother me anymore that the US is not even close to being free. I've come to accept it over the years. I guess we Libertarians can always build our own space shuttle and colonize the moon or perhaps annex Antarctica as our new country (in defiance of international treaties).
What still has the power to bother me is when people claim that it is a free country. I don't think they should be able to get away with that one point. Maybe a century ago, before the income tax amendment and social security and so much more, we could claim to be free, but not now.
As a society, we have matured past freedom into the middle age of statism and are fast approaching our final destination: a state controlled, democratic, totalitarian state. It will still be called "free". We will be free to do whatever the "majority" thinks we should do.
First, no one is "given" any rights. From a government POV they're all privileges anyway, to be revoked as deemed appropriate. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say that citizens must always reveal information simply because an agent of the government asks for it. A society in which all questions from a government agent must be answered merely because they need or want that information is a totalitarian one. The US has been creeping in that direction for many years, proving the point that free societies are inherently unstable and naturally transform into totalitarian states eventually.
Being arrested for merely "crossing a line" is absurd, a tactic of a totalitarian regime. I agree that it shouldn't matter whether the individual is a reporter or not. This law is just one of many examples of why the US is not even close to being a free society. 17th is not too bad.
Not that I think these people really know what they're talking about. Most western countries have reasonably free presses anyway (meaning that the government doesn't usually interfere) with them. Recently the US has been leading the attack on these freedoms however when it comes to copyright and anything "on a computer". Most of the other countries will eventually follow suite since more control is the natural direction of any government.
"What's a tortoise?" or "Do you like our owl?" or "Of course it's not real. Do you think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake." Perhaps we will be able to artificially recreate the wilderness and the other animals that used to live here?
1. Immediate global thermonuclear war (right now). 2. Planetary exploration and a lunar colony. 3. ???? 4. Profit.
Actually, Antarctica really is much more devoid of wildlife than the Arctic. Why this is I don't know. For land animals there really isn't much more than penguins. Also, it gets much colder than the Arctic, with temperatures approaching -129F (-90C) on occasion. The Arctic is a tropical paradise by comparison. [Time to rent that bungalow in Qaanaaq, Greenland].
LOL. I hope this is a joke or sarcasm. Surely you don't really believe Bush's moronic feel-good analysis of Bin Laden's motives. Obviously, these guys are not some kind of rabid marxists out to destroy any hint of non-marxist countries. I don't know exactly what their motives are, but it is certainly not "to attack whatever country is the most free". We might not even qualify for that title anymore anyway. Hence the motivation for the FSP.
Did you read his Radium story? Interesting stuff. Makes me want to go out and buy (or build) a geiger counter and start rock hunting. Trouble is how do you tell the difference between Radium and Uranium, let alone between the different isotopes? Also, anyone know where I can get a lead suit, hood, face mask, gloves, and boots? I'd like to experiment with building nuclear batteries (inspired by the recent slashdot story), but you need a license to legally buy those "safe" beta sources, so I'm going to have to play with some nice gamma ray emitters like uranium. Also, did you notice how ugly is wife was at their wedding? No wonder he's got such an impressive resume. He's always at work so he doesn't have to go home. Or was that his mother?
The trick is spinning down the U-238. Once you have enough U-235. The delivery mechanism is easy. Just click two half critical mass U-235 bricks together. You'll be in Kansas in no time.
Whatever happened to plain vanilla "shyness". In my own experience there seems to be some correlation between shyness and above average intelligence. So lack of social skills or social anxiety cannot be the same as Autism or Aspergers which are both forms of brain dysfunction. I'm getting tired of so many geeks here listening to a description of Autism or Aspergers and automatically assuming "that's me, at least a little". There is such a thing as shyness, social anxiety, introversion, etc, which are not related to Autism or Aspergers. Most geeks are just shy, end of story.
How do you know you have AS?
ROFL. Damn, I wish I had mod points. This may be the funniest comment I've ever seen on /. (Although mine should be modded down as redundant).
First, he was talking about the "small box" vaccine not "variola major". Second, he must have been talking about another Ben Franklin, one who was alive after the invention of the "small box" vaccine.
So the average CD would drop to $17.50 from $18.00.
Actually that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that only a minority of sellers are willing to use it even when the buyer pays. Why should they bother, when the majority of buyers don't seem to care? Sometimes you can convince a seller to accept escrow, but usually you can't.
Since when did Paypal start doing Escrow?
I agree. McMurdo Station, Antarctica is rather nice this time of year. Antarctica is owned by no one. Therefore there can be no extradition treaty because there is no government. Fried penguin may get a bit old though. Actually any place with no extradition treaty, preferably one where the government is not particularly friendly with the US and one where almost no one speaks English. If you go to federal prison you will almost certainly get HIV from being raped. Most new prisoners are raped in the very first week, often times even the first night they arrive. Save yourself! Don't sacrifice your life just to live in America. Get out while you still can! Anyway you can. Why would you want to live in a country unjust enough to do this to you anyway? You could even learn some survival skills and live off the land for awhile in a remote place in the US. There are many areas of the US where you would be safe from the police. Perhaps the best advice is to buy a decent SUV and cross the border on land over to Mexico. The mexican border guards will not know or care about who you are. From there you are home free. Money will be your only problem. But you should be able to find a job somewhere and earn the going wage under the table, even if this is only $100/month. If it is enough for the locals, then you can survive on it. I hate to hear a story like this. It's such a waste of life. But traveling will expand your horizons, whatever that means. Anyway, it's better than getting HIV and becoming an involuntary homosexual in prison. Keep Uranus intact and run for the border! The only other option would be to try to get into and stay in solitary confinement for the entire 3 years. You'd need to research exactly what kinds of things you need to do to get there and stay there. This is kind of risky though. You could be raped the very first night you get there. I think Mexico is the better option.
Actually this would be a big improvement and probably alot cheaper. Change the target market to adults, not young children. Increase Gigi's salary enough to get her to do the show completely naked. You wouldn't need any sex per se. Just some goofy plot device where all the clothing on the ship is permanently destroyed and cannot be recreated. Of course, it would be nice if they would keep the guys' clothes on. But all the women would be stark naked. I think you'd increase the ratings just a bit.