As an added bonus, you're almost certainly going to be able to claim a net operating loss for the first year, due to the accelerated depreciation, points, etc. Your depreciation plus interest, for example, will almost always be greater than your mortgage payments. Get the seller to pay points and you can borrow that money. The net operating loss will give you a refund of part of your taxes paid in previous tax years when you had income.
"save" $10-20K from your pay by buying everything on credit cards, use that as a down payment on a 2-4 unit apartment building, then travel off the residual income. If you have good credit and a job you can surely get $20K or so in unsecured credit at 9.9% or lower (and probably 0-2% for the first 6 months).
Are you suggesting that they aren't going to receive any federal funds for this project? If not, then I guess I don't care, since I don't live in Calfornia, but somehow I doubt it.
That's just another way of saying "let the bondholders pay for the mess." Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, but someone ultimately is going to have to pay.
Let a new company with new vision and an eye towards the future of transportation develop a high tech train system in America.
There's not a single passenger train system in the world that isn't subsidised by some government. Cut the funding and you can expect ticket prices to rise and the number of passengers to drop sharply.
Of course in todays low interest rate environment maybe the system could be sustained, at least until interest rates start going up again.
We don't need old companies to make a new train system.
Considering that it's only old companies that have the capital to make a new train system, yes we do.
I could always combine that with the other suggestion, and buy/find/steal a whole bunch of old electric meters and hook them up to each breaker (even to each outlet if I was psycho enough). Then use the laser system to read those meters.
Of course at that point I'd have to consider how much power the actual meters/lasers were using. Not to mention I'd have to convice the inspectors that it was perfectly safe (or tear the system down and hide it every time I did any new electrical work).
And then there's the question of just how much usefulness I'd get out of it. Probably not enough to justify the hassle, though setting up the laser system at the current meters would probably be worth it - they don't mention the actual prices, just that it's cheap.
Especially for retrofit situations? All outlets can be X-10 managed, but this doesn't say anything about actual power consumption. I'd like something at my breaker box to measure the actual Kilowatt usage on the different circuits. Also it needs to be something passive, so if the computer goes down the system still needs to work perfectly (and then can poll the devices when it comes back up).
How many Slashdot readers have learned Latin and how has it helped you in your life/career?
After taking Latin I've started snickering at people who use the objective case for predicate nominatives. Other than that, I don't think it's helped me at all, other than allowing me to get a degree without doing oral recitations in my language class.
display: Most Tvs are not of sufficient quality for displaying text clearly which makes them unsuitable for general computing. Most computer monitors are far smaller than you would wish to watch TV/DVD's on. Unless LCD screens get an awful lot cheaper this problem really isn't going to be solved.
Definately. I don't have any desire for mixing my computer monitor (small, high resolution, fits on my desk) and my TV monitor (large, high resolution not necessary, fits in my entertainment center).
I'm all about mixing my DVD player, cable box, computer, etc., but it's not something that's going to happen until I finish running coax into a wiring closet or something. And even then the DVD player will have to wait until I can get a couple terabytes for a couple hundred $s.
What I write about here tends to be technology and business, two very different enterprises that tend to feed each other. Business provides the money to develop new technologies that lead to more business, or at least that's the idea. I'm worried, though, that this traditional relationship is becoming skewed. I'm worried that we are doing too much business and not enough technology.
On the technology side, there is basic research and then research and development. The purpose of research and development is to invent a product for sale. Edison invented the first commercially successful light bulb, but he did not invent the underlying science that made that light bulb possible. Basic research is something else - ostensibly, the search for knowledge for its own sake. Basic research provides the scientific knowledge upon which R&D is later built. If a product ever results from basic research, it usually does so 10 to 15 years down the road, following a later period of research and development.
The companies that can afford to do basic research (and can't afford not to) are ones that dominate their markets. They have both the greatest resources to spare for this type of activity and the most to lose if, by choosing not to do basic research, they eventually lose their technical advantage over competitors. It's cheap insurance, since failing to do basic research guarantees that the next major advance will be owned by someone else.
Since their true product is insurance, not knowledge, basic researchers in industry often find their work is at the mercy of the marketplace and their captains-of-industry bosses. In the business world, just because something CAN be built does not at all guarantee that it WILL be built, which explains why RCA first invented and then dropped the liquid crystal display. RCA made this mid-1960s decision because LCDs might have threatened its then-profitable business of building cathode ray picture tubes. Forty years later, of course, RCA exists only as a brand name licensed from GE by Thomson, the French electronics giant, and LCD displays -- nearly all made in Asia -- are everywhere.
This explains why researchers at Xerox Corp. invented in the 1970s lots of computer technology Xerox never used. Computer workstations, networks, and graphical user interfaces were all invented by Xerox just in case the world traded paper for computer screens. And since the world is still hooked on paper, the only result of this research that Xerox bothered to exploit was the laser printer -- the only part that actually involved paper.
So we have idealized basic research (knowledge for the sake of knowledge) and real basic research (knowledge to maintain market dominance). But this only describes industrial basic research. Lots of basic research is also done at universities, where the real motivation is often to get tenure and/or brownie points for bringing-in research grants. And a fair amount of basic research is done at national laboratories and NASA.
If you are reading this outside the United States, I am sure there are equivalent organizations in your country. Please don't feel slighted because I am referring to outfits I know much better.
Now here is my complaint: Basic research is dying. I spent a day recently at IBM Research after it had experienced its first-ever layoffs. IBM, even IBM, can't afford to continue doing basic research at historic levels. If IBM is worrisome, Bell Labs -- birthplace of the transistor, the communications satellite, lasers, and so many other things that can zap you -- Bell Labs is a train wreck. Supported now by the decrepit Lucent Technologies instead of the equally decrepit AT&T, Bell Labs is a shadow of what it once was.
What about the universities? They, too, have learned a new game, and that game is patent exploitation. Led by the University of California, MIT and the University of Texas, these schools are building patent portfolios using the exact same rules followed by giant Japanese corporations. They are secretive and withhold information not only from the rest of the world, but even from their own organizations. Patent licensing is such a big deal and university patent attorneys are so clueless about the real purpose of research, that progress is being slowed, and in some cases, stopped altogether for a few years just to let the paperwork catch up.
So what we have is less and less basic research. In time, this will lead to less research and development, and ultimately to fewer and poorer products. We're eating our seed corn. It may not show for a few more years, but the result of this behavior will eventually be a shift in global scientific power.
This is not a good thing.
Now, while you are digesting that, I'd like to ask a favor. I'd like to next week take a look at where high-tech business is going in the next year and I'd like your help to do so. What is hot? What is not? I'm looking for good news and bad, and I am counting on you to give it to me so I can give it, in turn, to everyone else.
Is your company doing especially well? Are there sectors that are especially exciting, where products are bubbling to the surface and companies feel like they are about to show the world just how good they are? Tell me about it.
Or does your company or a company you know have about it the smell of death? Tell me about that, too.
It is relatively easy to predict the future five years from now, but much harder to look only 12 months ahead, but that's what I want to do.
Take wireless networking for example. The mobile phone companies are hurting and will continue to do so for another couple of years. Too much building too fast is the problem, too much debt, and no 3G customers to go with those half built 3G networks. WiFi (802.11a, b, and g) is coming on strong, though, and I think the new rage will be mesh networks where every node is also a router and a repeater. But we'll shortly see fallout even among the mesh companies with Nokia reworking its Rooftop product, MeshLAN faltering a bit, MobileMesh playing an uncertain role as the Open Source offering and a new player, SkyPilot, entering the business.
SkyPilot, run by one of the founders of Covad, is following the Covad model of bringing broadband services to incumbent ISPs, though this time the broadband is wireless. And it is high-speed, too, with most of the original mesh guys from SRI International now doing mac-level protocols for 802.11a backbones. SkyPilot is going to be a very big deal a year from now.
See, that's how it is done. Now it is your turn. Send me what you have and I'll compile it all and report back next week with a look at what 2003 will be like. But be honest. Only engineers, or those with the hearts of engineers, need reply.
Show me somewhere official where it says that. I read $.0007 per performance, which might be per listener when unicasting over the internet, but this isn't about unicasting over the internet, it's about broadcasting over the airwaves.
Using macros is dangerous and manually inlining is driving me crazy! What I need is a tool that will take the source files, look for the 'inline' keyword and generate new source files that are inlined.
Umm, isn't looking for the inline keyword and generating new source files dangerous as well?
It allows "CD quality" digital signals to be simulcast by stations along with their traditional analog feed.
Sounds like a "digital audio transmission". Don't radio stations have to pay (a lot) extra to broadcast that due to the Digital
Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995?
If not I think I'm going to start my own radio station - over 802.11b.
Slashdot Mirror
What they didn't tell you is that if you did go over the limit, you wouldn't be notified; they just quietly started billing you.
They don't do this any more. In fact, last time I signed up I used way over the limit (by accident) and they didn't even notice.
1 million disks * 1000 hours each = 1 billion hours free.
Well, the discs don't actually represent free hours. Anyone (with a checking account or credit card) can get the free hours with or without the disc.
Also you figure if 1% forget to unsubscribe, that's $200,000 for AOL.
How can I go about collecting Big Fucking Slashdot Ads so I can return a million of them to the advertisers?
If you have $20k in cash and $20k in debt, you have a net worth of $0, which won't get you approved for a mortgage on that apartment.
That's simply not true.
As an added bonus, you're almost certainly going to be able to claim a net operating loss for the first year, due to the accelerated depreciation, points, etc. Your depreciation plus interest, for example, will almost always be greater than your mortgage payments. Get the seller to pay points and you can borrow that money. The net operating loss will give you a refund of part of your taxes paid in previous tax years when you had income.
"save" $10-20K from your pay by buying everything on credit cards, use that as a down payment on a 2-4 unit apartment building, then travel off the residual income. If you have good credit and a job you can surely get $20K or so in unsecured credit at 9.9% or lower (and probably 0-2% for the first 6 months).
This isn't in the U.S.
Are you suggesting that they aren't going to receive any federal funds for this project? If not, then I guess I don't care, since I don't live in Calfornia, but somehow I doubt it.
That's just another way of saying "let the bondholders pay for the mess." Which isn't necessarily a bad idea, but someone ultimately is going to have to pay.
Let a new company with new vision and an eye towards the future of transportation develop a high tech train system in America.
There's not a single passenger train system in the world that isn't subsidised by some government. Cut the funding and you can expect ticket prices to rise and the number of passengers to drop sharply.
Of course in todays low interest rate environment maybe the system could be sustained, at least until interest rates start going up again.
We don't need old companies to make a new train system.
Considering that it's only old companies that have the capital to make a new train system, yes we do.
The nearly bankrupt Amtrak is already sucking billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers.
Don't forget to consider that the gravity that the black hole exerts on the star will change over time.
As will the "gravity" of any star.
As it gathers more matter into itself it's gravitational force will grow stronger.
And as it radiates energy out it will grow weaker.
In this case, it is not like orbiting another star.
How so? As stars gather more matter into themselves their "gravitational force grows stronger."
I could always combine that with the other suggestion, and buy/find/steal a whole bunch of old electric meters and hook them up to each breaker (even to each outlet if I was psycho enough). Then use the laser system to read those meters.
Of course at that point I'd have to consider how much power the actual meters/lasers were using. Not to mention I'd have to convice the inspectors that it was perfectly safe (or tear the system down and hide it every time I did any new electrical work).
And then there's the question of just how much usefulness I'd get out of it. Probably not enough to justify the hassle, though setting up the laser system at the current meters would probably be worth it - they don't mention the actual prices, just that it's cheap.
Thanks for the info.
Especially for retrofit situations? All outlets can be X-10 managed, but this doesn't say anything about actual power consumption. I'd like something at my breaker box to measure the actual Kilowatt usage on the different circuits. Also it needs to be something passive, so if the computer goes down the system still needs to work perfectly (and then can poll the devices when it comes back up).
Oh, that's right, I'm blocking timothy...
Talk about needing PGP!
Does anybody have any suggestions as to when data backup becomes a full-time position?
When money grows on trees.
How many Slashdot readers have learned Latin and how has it helped you in your life/career?
After taking Latin I've started snickering at people who use the objective case for predicate nominatives. Other than that, I don't think it's helped me at all, other than allowing me to get a degree without doing oral recitations in my language class.
display: Most Tvs are not of sufficient quality for displaying text clearly which makes them unsuitable for general computing. Most computer monitors are far smaller than you would wish to watch TV/DVD's on. Unless LCD screens get an awful lot cheaper this problem really isn't going to be solved.
Definately. I don't have any desire for mixing my computer monitor (small, high resolution, fits on my desk) and my TV monitor (large, high resolution not necessary, fits in my entertainment center).
I'm all about mixing my DVD player, cable box, computer, etc., but it's not something that's going to happen until I finish running coax into a wiring closet or something. And even then the DVD player will have to wait until I can get a couple terabytes for a couple hundred $s.
What I write about here tends to be technology and business, two very different enterprises that tend to feed each other. Business provides the money to develop new technologies that lead to more business, or at least that's the idea. I'm worried, though, that this traditional relationship is becoming skewed. I'm worried that we are doing too much business and not enough technology.
On the technology side, there is basic research and then research and development. The purpose of research and development is to invent a product for sale. Edison invented the first commercially successful light bulb, but he did not invent the underlying science that made that light bulb possible. Basic research is something else - ostensibly, the search for knowledge for its own sake. Basic research provides the scientific knowledge upon which R&D is later built. If a product ever results from basic research, it usually does so 10 to 15 years down the road, following a later period of research and development.
The companies that can afford to do basic research (and can't afford not to) are ones that dominate their markets. They have both the greatest resources to spare for this type of activity and the most to lose if, by choosing not to do basic research, they eventually lose their technical advantage over competitors. It's cheap insurance, since failing to do basic research guarantees that the next major advance will be owned by someone else.
Since their true product is insurance, not knowledge, basic researchers in industry often find their work is at the mercy of the marketplace and their captains-of-industry bosses. In the business world, just because something CAN be built does not at all guarantee that it WILL be built, which explains why RCA first invented and then dropped the liquid crystal display. RCA made this mid-1960s decision because LCDs might have threatened its then-profitable business of building cathode ray picture tubes. Forty years later, of course, RCA exists only as a brand name licensed from GE by Thomson, the French electronics giant, and LCD displays -- nearly all made in Asia -- are everywhere.
This explains why researchers at Xerox Corp. invented in the 1970s lots of computer technology Xerox never used. Computer workstations, networks, and graphical user interfaces were all invented by Xerox just in case the world traded paper for computer screens. And since the world is still hooked on paper, the only result of this research that Xerox bothered to exploit was the laser printer -- the only part that actually involved paper.
So we have idealized basic research (knowledge for the sake of knowledge) and real basic research (knowledge to maintain market dominance). But this only describes industrial basic research. Lots of basic research is also done at universities, where the real motivation is often to get tenure and/or brownie points for bringing-in research grants. And a fair amount of basic research is done at national laboratories and NASA.
If you are reading this outside the United States, I am sure there are equivalent organizations in your country. Please don't feel slighted because I am referring to outfits I know much better.
Now here is my complaint: Basic research is dying. I spent a day recently at IBM Research after it had experienced its first-ever layoffs. IBM, even IBM, can't afford to continue doing basic research at historic levels. If IBM is worrisome, Bell Labs -- birthplace of the transistor, the communications satellite, lasers, and so many other things that can zap you -- Bell Labs is a train wreck. Supported now by the decrepit Lucent Technologies instead of the equally decrepit AT&T, Bell Labs is a shadow of what it once was.
What about the universities? They, too, have learned a new game, and that game is patent exploitation. Led by the University of California, MIT and the University of Texas, these schools are building patent portfolios using the exact same rules followed by giant Japanese corporations. They are secretive and withhold information not only from the rest of the world, but even from their own organizations. Patent licensing is such a big deal and university patent attorneys are so clueless about the real purpose of research, that progress is being slowed, and in some cases, stopped altogether for a few years just to let the paperwork catch up.
So what we have is less and less basic research. In time, this will lead to less research and development, and ultimately to fewer and poorer products. We're eating our seed corn. It may not show for a few more years, but the result of this behavior will eventually be a shift in global scientific power.
This is not a good thing.
Now, while you are digesting that, I'd like to ask a favor. I'd like to next week take a look at where high-tech business is going in the next year and I'd like your help to do so. What is hot? What is not? I'm looking for good news and bad, and I am counting on you to give it to me so I can give it, in turn, to everyone else.
Is your company doing especially well? Are there sectors that are especially exciting, where products are bubbling to the surface and companies feel like they are about to show the world just how good they are? Tell me about it.
Or does your company or a company you know have about it the smell of death? Tell me about that, too.
It is relatively easy to predict the future five years from now, but much harder to look only 12 months ahead, but that's what I want to do.
Take wireless networking for example. The mobile phone companies are hurting and will continue to do so for another couple of years. Too much building too fast is the problem, too much debt, and no 3G customers to go with those half built 3G networks. WiFi (802.11a, b, and g) is coming on strong, though, and I think the new rage will be mesh networks where every node is also a router and a repeater. But we'll shortly see fallout even among the mesh companies with Nokia reworking its Rooftop product, MeshLAN faltering a bit, MobileMesh playing an uncertain role as the Open Source offering and a new player, SkyPilot, entering the business.
SkyPilot, run by one of the founders of Covad, is following the Covad model of bringing broadband services to incumbent ISPs, though this time the broadband is wireless. And it is high-speed, too, with most of the original mesh guys from SRI International now doing mac-level protocols for 802.11a backbones. SkyPilot is going to be a very big deal a year from now.
See, that's how it is done. Now it is your turn. Send me what you have and I'll compile it all and report back next week with a look at what 2003 will be like. But be honest. Only engineers, or those with the hearts of engineers, need reply.
It's $.0007 per listener per song
Show me somewhere official where it says that. I read $.0007 per performance, which might be per listener when unicasting over the internet, but this isn't about unicasting over the internet, it's about broadcasting over the airwaves.
Using macros is dangerous and manually inlining is driving me crazy! What I need is a tool that will take the source files, look for the 'inline' keyword and generate new source files that are inlined.
Umm, isn't looking for the inline keyword and generating new source files dangerous as well?
That's $0.0007 per performance? That's less than $1 a day. Doesn't sound too bad.
Find a crack for VMWare. Run linux in the background.
It allows "CD quality" digital signals to be simulcast by stations along with their traditional analog feed.
Sounds like a "digital audio transmission". Don't radio stations have to pay (a lot) extra to broadcast that due to the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995?
If not I think I'm going to start my own radio station - over 802.11b.
And what you all are buying can all be got for free at any good public library.
A degree?