and see some primary sources here and here and these:
Phil Goodwin, "Empirical Evidence on Induced Traffic," Transportation, Vol. 23, No. 1, Feb. 1996, pp. 35-54. This is in a special issue of the journal Transportation devoted to induced travel. It has several very good articles.
Robert Noland, Relationships Between Highway Capacity and Induced Vehicle Travel, Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting Paper 991069 (www.epa.gov/tp/trb-rn.pdf), January 1999.
Harry Cohen, "Review of Empirical Studies of Induced Traffic," Expanding Metropolitan Highways: Implications for Air Quality and Energy Use, Transportation Research Board, Special Report #345, National Academy Press (Washington DC), 1995, Appendix B, pp. 295-309.
Cairns, Hass-Klau and Goodwin, Traffic Impacts of Highway Capacity Reductions: Assessment of the Evidence, London Transport Planning (London; www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-studies/sc1.htm), 1998.
You do know that there is now a fully-developed internet suite for the Commodore 64, right? Web, email, newsgroups, ftp... all in 64 kbits running at 1 MHz.
I think what you don't understand is that unions exist (or at least are created) due to situations where workers are exploited.
Doctors make a lot of money, yes, and so do other professionals. But no matter how much money you make, you don't deserve to be worked for 100 hours a week, or forced to work 10 hour shifts without a single break. And, when you ask managment to change tactics that are unreasonable, no one deserves to be told to "do as you are told or get the hell out".
That's all a union is supposed to do - it allows the workers to call management's bluff and "get the hell out". With that balance in place, management and employees can then they to figure out the problems and fix them. It really doesn't have anything to do with salary or job position.
Of course, I know that not all unions work like this. Most of the demands I hear about from older unions are pretty crazy. But some newer groups - like the interns at a northeast hospital that were being made to work 30+ hour shifts for no pay, or the flight attendants that just wanted one 15 minute break in their 10 hour shift so they could sit down or use the bathroom once - those sound like reasonable requests.
As long as for the user the randomness seems good and there are no big cheats like "if user won >$100, then he'll almost never win one $ again", it seems fair to me.
Had you read the article, you would see that this is almost precisely what they claim.
If I roll a dice and keep it hidden from you and ask you to guess what number that came up and then show you the dice.
Or if I ask you to pick a number and then roll the dice before your eyes.
In both those cases you have the same chance of picking the right number.
That isn't what these machines are doing. Your example is a bad one.
In the second scenario you give, neither person knows who will win until the bet is made. Thus, it is a gamble.
In the first scenario, it is still a gamble because, even after the die is rolled, you don't know what the other person will guess. But that's not how these machines are behaving.
To give a better example, in the first scenario you should decide that they lost right away. Then, after they guess a number, you turn the die so it doesn't match.
You knew that they would lose, and you would adjust the result to guarantee that. But, you deceived the other person into thinking that they could win. That is, by definition, fraud.
fraud
\Fraud\ n. [F. fraude, L. fraus, fraudis; prob. akin to Skr. dh[=u]rv to injure, dhv[.r] to cause to fall, and E. dull.] 1. Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick. 2. (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another.
I see you still didn't RTFA. What about before you put your money in, it decides if you win or lose. Then, when it knows that you will lose, it tells you that you "might" win, when if fact it already knows that you will not.
This is confusing people because it happens on the second round of gambling. After the first round, that money is yours. You have the choice to cash out or "put the money in again" and gamble again. It's not the same gamble, it's a new one, and there has to be a chance that it will win as well, at least until you choose to spend the money and push "go".
Well, for other types of games (i.e. video poker), Nevada law requires that games that appear to have a deck of cards operate in the same way as a real deck of cards.
Thus, if you have been dealt five cards, and hold four of them, then by law your next draw will be any one of the remaining 47 cards at random (equal probability of each). They cannot manipulate the card that you are dealt to maintain the payout percentage, win or lose.
For slot machines, since there is no "real" equivalent, they aren't required to do this. Indeed, when you push the button (or pull the lever), the machine immediately decides if you will win or lose. The rolling wheels are just eye candy. But... it does not decide this until AFTER you push the button, so that when you put in the money (or choose to keep going instead of cashing out) there is a chance you will get it back. If the machine was programmed to make you lose the next 20 bets automatically, then there would be no chance that you would win before you put in your money, and it would constitue fraud. (You were deceived into spending money with the false belief that you might get it back, when if fact there was no chance you could get it back.)
No, you are wrong, and here's another example to show it. Actually, this one is in the article as well.
Think about a man asking you to pick the Ace from three cards. What if, one day, he decides to slip the Ace up his sleeve right before you decide to bet, so that you can't win. Is this fraud? In your opinion, it is not, because the "gamble" is the decision to A) keep your money, or B) give your money to him.
But he has obscured this decision, by deceiving you into thinking that option B) includes a chance that you'll get your money back, when in fact he knows he'll win guaranteed. This is, by definition, fraud.
fraud
\Fraud\ n. [F. fraude, L. fraus, fraudis; prob. akin to Skr. dh[=u]rv to injure, dhv[.r] to cause to fall, and E. dull.] 1. Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick. 2. (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another.
Having watched a lot of Court TV recently, there was an interesting Forensic Files story about a woman who believed her boyfriend had raped her sister. There was not enough evidence to even secure a forced DNA test against him.
However, once after the woman and her boyfriend had sex, she retained some of the... material... and had it sent for DNA analysis. It matched, he was arrested, and went to trial.
At the trial, his defense attempted to throw out the DNA evidence, saying it was improperly acquired. However, he was overruled. The judge's opinion was that, because he did not make any attempt to retrieve the genetic material he left in his girlfriend, he had effectively "thrown it away" and given up all rights to it.
I know, the parallel is a stretch, but it's a good story.
But.. but.. Court TV has taught us so much. My wife and I almost have worked out all the steps a smart criminal needs to take to avoid getting caught and put on Forensic Files next season.
When we had Time Warner cable in Austin, I was fairly impressed. After we moved to Pflugerville, we switched to Cox cable. All I can say is it was HORRIBLE - poor bandwidth and high latency.
So... we switched to SBC DSL. Now, I want to be clear that we can see a SBC service center (in the distance) from our house, so we are close to our CO.
We had both for about a week. I ran the following tests. Before each test, I completely cleared the memory and disk caches to make sure I was grabbing a fresh copy.
www.pcpitstop.com/internet/bandwidth.asp
Running T1/Cable Modem speed test
Transmission speed with CABLE: 289 kbps
Transmission speed with DSL: 1180 kbps
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
Running Fast test
379.7 kilobits per second with CABLE
1.2 megabits per second with DSL
http://www.gtlakes.com/internet/speedtest/
High Bandwidth test
378.4 Kbps with CABLE
1181.6 Kbps with DSL
But.... that's not the worst part.
Cox Cable switched to two-hour IP leases. With a two hour lease, every two hours our internet connection dropped for a few seconds. Our local machines are all behind NAT, so their IP wasn't changing. This SUCKS when you do things like online gaming, because you get kicked offline. We had to pay an extra $15 a month for a static IP just so we didn't have to use their DHCP service.
With DSL, we have PPPoE. Now, I used to think that PPPoE sucked, because I had to have special software on my PC. But, with a router, I don't! Instead, my router logs me on. And it can keep my sessions up for 6.9999 days, then it automatically renews it. SBC IP leases are -three year- leases, because they know that they can reassign it every time we refresh. Thus, I now have 7 day IPs, MUCH better than Cox.
Finally, for whatever reason, our cable service had VERY bad packet loss. They saw no reason to fix it, as we could still do most things. (I know, not every person with cable will have this, but it was a factor for us.) We lost about 30% of our outgoing packets.
P.S. And now that we aren't tied to Cox for internet, we can save another $15 a month switching to satellite TV service.
It just has to be fair use. Anything else would be crazy. Provided, of course, that it is a picture of the ACTUAL UNIT you are selling.
Consider the automotive industry. If you try to sell a used car, you put the car's make and model (both trademarks) in the description. You include a photograph of the car (which may include trademark design features, maybe a maker's logo). Yet I think any judge would be crazy to say that you can't take a picture of your own car and post it somewhere. You OWN the car.
Hmm, actually, I bet there are judges that would say that. Damn, I live in a screwed up world...
It is NOT a drug "akin to producing cigarettes." Cigarette's create a physical dependency where your body, not your mind, craves more.
Online games can only create emotional dependencies. Sure, when your emotions are wracked, you can have jitters and sweat, but it has everything to do with you and nothing to do with the game.
No, there is no warning on the game that it can become addictive. Yes, it can become addictive to some people. Of course, exercise (over exercise), dieting (over dieting), bird-watching, mountain climbing, car driving, gambling, TV watching, cloud watching can also all become addictive to some people.
We do NOT need warning labels on everything expressing the dangers that people who can't limit themselves face. If anything, there should be a warning sign as you are carried from the hospital after birth:
Sure, that's Apples business model. They can keep doing it as long as they want to.
But, that doesn't mean that we (consumers, potential customers) can't ask for them to modify their business model. I think that they would make money (from me, personally, and from many others) if they offered this service to Windows users before another service comes in and consumes the market.
OS X seems decent. But if I wanted *nix with a pretty GUI, I'd probably use Xandros instead.
The Clash - London Calling (the song, not the record)
Amazon price: $9.99 with free shipping
Apple price: $0.99, assuming you don't want any other songs on the CD.
Add tax ($0.04) and CD-R ($0.10/150 songs) and this is MUCH cheaper than Amazon.
Great idea. I'd pay 99c a song to get a lot of the recent stuff I'd like to add to my MP3 collection. Heck, there's a lot of old stuff I'd like as well, that has just never been around, or wasn't good enough quality, on Napster/Limewire/Kazaa/etc. (Assuming they are standard MP3 format.)
But... we don't have, and couldn't afford to add, a lot of Apple hardware to our already full computer room. Why can't you A) offer this service to Windows (Linux too) people as well, stealing market share and keeping the Apple name alive for a lot of people for more than just Quicktime, or B) hurry up and offer OS X for Intel/AMD platform?
They may make the crew use the emergency escape pod.
My bigger question is... why did they can the shuttle replacement program a few years ago? There is no ongoing work to develop new reuseable modules. Did they think these would keep working forever? Like Mir?
>> I have to say that I don't usually like the Senetor's ideas at all (I'm a very strong conservative) but I LOVE like this idea. The fact that McCain (a strong conservative who's ideas I almost always like)
Funny, I'm a democrat, but McCain would be the only republican I'd support for president. I see him as the most mainstream republican in the senate, much less conservative than the rest.
...and they suck. It knocked us offline for about 10 seconds every two hours when the IP address renewed, which is darn annoying if you play any online games.
We have since gotten a static IP, which fixed the problem for $15 a month.:( I'm on the phone with the SBC today to see if the phone company has the same asinine leases with DSL.
My wife is a business analyst in the IT department of a major technology company. In order to get in the door to get a job as a temp worker admin at her company, you have to have a college degree. Her college degree? Flute performance.
Thus the actual degree doesn't matter. The fact that you have a degree is what matters. It means that you can, while as an adult, juggle work and your life. Sure if you explain your situation in depth you may be able to do this anyway, but why read a two-page resume explaining all this when a manager could just look for a single line with your college degree?
And, in my wife's opinion, having a degree proves to others you can wade through a certain amount of red tape and take a certain level of bullshit without exploding. Other posts here call this "social skills", but it's really just building up your BS tolerance.
Slashdot Mirror
Because Widening Roads Worsens Traffic Congestion.
Seriously.
Read here and here and here
and see some primary sources here and here and these:
Phil Goodwin, "Empirical Evidence on Induced Traffic," Transportation, Vol. 23, No. 1, Feb. 1996, pp. 35-54. This is in a special issue of the journal Transportation devoted to induced travel. It has several very good articles.
Robert Noland, Relationships Between Highway Capacity and Induced Vehicle Travel, Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting Paper 991069 (www.epa.gov/tp/trb-rn.pdf), January 1999.
Harry Cohen, "Review of Empirical Studies of Induced Traffic," Expanding Metropolitan Highways: Implications for Air Quality and Energy Use, Transportation Research Board, Special Report #345, National Academy Press (Washington DC), 1995, Appendix B, pp. 295-309.
Cairns, Hass-Klau and Goodwin, Traffic Impacts of Highway Capacity Reductions: Assessment of the Evidence, London Transport Planning (London; www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-studies/sc1.htm), 1998.
You do know that there is now a fully-developed internet suite for the Commodore 64, right? Web, email, newsgroups, ftp... all in 64 kbits running at 1 MHz.
I think what you don't understand is that unions exist (or at least are created) due to situations where workers are exploited.
Doctors make a lot of money, yes, and so do other professionals. But no matter how much money you make, you don't deserve to be worked for 100 hours a week, or forced to work 10 hour shifts without a single break. And, when you ask managment to change tactics that are unreasonable, no one deserves to be told to "do as you are told or get the hell out".
That's all a union is supposed to do - it allows the workers to call management's bluff and "get the hell out". With that balance in place, management and employees can then they to figure out the problems and fix them. It really doesn't have anything to do with salary or job position.
Of course, I know that not all unions work like this. Most of the demands I hear about from older unions are pretty crazy. But some newer groups - like the interns at a northeast hospital that were being made to work 30+ hour shifts for no pay, or the flight attendants that just wanted one 15 minute break in their 10 hour shift so they could sit down or use the bathroom once - those sound like reasonable requests.
As long as for the user the randomness seems good and there are no big cheats like "if user won >$100, then he'll almost never win one $ again", it seems fair to me.
Had you read the article, you would see that this is almost precisely what they claim.
If I roll a dice and keep it hidden from you and ask you to guess what number that came up and then show you the dice.
Or if I ask you to pick a number and then roll the dice before your eyes.
In both those cases you have the same chance of picking the right number.
That isn't what these machines are doing. Your example is a bad one.
In the second scenario you give, neither person knows who will win until the bet is made. Thus, it is a gamble.
In the first scenario, it is still a gamble because, even after the die is rolled, you don't know what the other person will guess. But that's not how these machines are behaving.
To give a better example, in the first scenario you should decide that they lost right away. Then, after they guess a number, you turn the die so it doesn't match.
You knew that they would lose, and you would adjust the result to guarantee that. But, you deceived the other person into thinking that they could win. That is, by definition, fraud.
fraud
\Fraud\ n. [F. fraude, L. fraus, fraudis; prob. akin to Skr. dh[=u]rv to injure, dhv[.r] to cause to fall, and E. dull.] 1. Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick. 2. (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another.
I see you still didn't RTFA. What about before you put your money in, it decides if you win or lose. Then, when it knows that you will lose, it tells you that you "might" win, when if fact it already knows that you will not.
This is confusing people because it happens on the second round of gambling. After the first round, that money is yours. You have the choice to cash out or "put the money in again" and gamble again. It's not the same gamble, it's a new one, and there has to be a chance that it will win as well, at least until you choose to spend the money and push "go".
Well, for other types of games (i.e. video poker), Nevada law requires that games that appear to have a deck of cards operate in the same way as a real deck of cards.
Thus, if you have been dealt five cards, and hold four of them, then by law your next draw will be any one of the remaining 47 cards at random (equal probability of each). They cannot manipulate the card that you are dealt to maintain the payout percentage, win or lose.
For slot machines, since there is no "real" equivalent, they aren't required to do this. Indeed, when you push the button (or pull the lever), the machine immediately decides if you will win or lose. The rolling wheels are just eye candy. But... it does not decide this until AFTER you push the button, so that when you put in the money (or choose to keep going instead of cashing out) there is a chance you will get it back. If the machine was programmed to make you lose the next 20 bets automatically, then there would be no chance that you would win before you put in your money, and it would constitue fraud. (You were deceived into spending money with the false belief that you might get it back, when if fact there was no chance you could get it back.)
No, you are wrong, and here's another example to show it. Actually, this one is in the article as well.
Think about a man asking you to pick the Ace from three cards. What if, one day, he decides to slip the Ace up his sleeve right before you decide to bet, so that you can't win. Is this fraud? In your opinion, it is not, because the "gamble" is the decision to A) keep your money, or B) give your money to him.
But he has obscured this decision, by deceiving you into thinking that option B) includes a chance that you'll get your money back, when in fact he knows he'll win guaranteed. This is, by definition, fraud.
fraud
\Fraud\ n. [F. fraude, L. fraus, fraudis; prob. akin to Skr. dh[=u]rv to injure, dhv[.r] to cause to fall, and E. dull.] 1. Deception deliberately practiced with a view to gaining an unlawful or unfair advantage; artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured; injurious stratagem; deceit; trick. 2. (Law) An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of obtaining some valuable thing or promise from another.
Add Columbian cocaine and Afghan opium to that list.
Oh wait...
Having watched a lot of Court TV recently, there was an interesting Forensic Files story about a woman who believed her boyfriend had raped her sister. There was not enough evidence to even secure a forced DNA test against him.
However, once after the woman and her boyfriend had sex, she retained some of the... material... and had it sent for DNA analysis. It matched, he was arrested, and went to trial.
At the trial, his defense attempted to throw out the DNA evidence, saying it was improperly acquired. However, he was overruled. The judge's opinion was that, because he did not make any attempt to retrieve the genetic material he left in his girlfriend, he had effectively "thrown it away" and given up all rights to it.
I know, the parallel is a stretch, but it's a good story.
Actually, my wife and I DID stop watching TV for about two years, entirely... Everquest just took up too much time to follow TV shows.
But.. but.. Court TV has taught us so much. My wife and I almost have worked out all the steps a smart criminal needs to take to avoid getting caught and put on Forensic Files next season.
>> Jake Gyllenhaal is a much better actor, and this is exactly what he needs to become a household name.
Actually, I think dropping six letters from "Gyllenhall" is what he needs to become a household name.
When we had Time Warner cable in Austin, I was fairly impressed. After we moved to Pflugerville, we switched to Cox cable. All I can say is it was HORRIBLE - poor bandwidth and high latency.
So... we switched to SBC DSL. Now, I want to be clear that we can see a SBC service center (in the distance) from our house, so we are close to our CO.
We had both for about a week. I ran the following tests. Before each test, I completely cleared the memory and disk caches to make sure I was grabbing a fresh copy.
www.pcpitstop.com/internet/bandwidth.asp
Running T1/Cable Modem speed test
Transmission speed with CABLE: 289 kbps
Transmission speed with DSL: 1180 kbps
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
Running Fast test
379.7 kilobits per second with CABLE
1.2 megabits per second with DSL
http://www.gtlakes.com/internet/speedtest/
High Bandwidth test
378.4 Kbps with CABLE
1181.6 Kbps with DSL
But.... that's not the worst part.
Cox Cable switched to two-hour IP leases. With a two hour lease, every two hours our internet connection dropped for a few seconds. Our local machines are all behind NAT, so their IP wasn't changing. This SUCKS when you do things like online gaming, because you get kicked offline. We had to pay an extra $15 a month for a static IP just so we didn't have to use their DHCP service.
With DSL, we have PPPoE. Now, I used to think that PPPoE sucked, because I had to have special software on my PC. But, with a router, I don't! Instead, my router logs me on. And it can keep my sessions up for 6.9999 days, then it automatically renews it. SBC IP leases are -three year- leases, because they know that they can reassign it every time we refresh. Thus, I now have 7 day IPs, MUCH better than Cox.
Finally, for whatever reason, our cable service had VERY bad packet loss. They saw no reason to fix it, as we could still do most things. (I know, not every person with cable will have this, but it was a factor for us.) We lost about 30% of our outgoing packets.
P.S. And now that we aren't tied to Cox for internet, we can save another $15 a month switching to satellite TV service.
It just has to be fair use. Anything else would be crazy. Provided, of course, that it is a picture of the ACTUAL UNIT you are selling.
Consider the automotive industry. If you try to sell a used car, you put the car's make and model (both trademarks) in the description. You include a photograph of the car (which may include trademark design features, maybe a maker's logo). Yet I think any judge would be crazy to say that you can't take a picture of your own car and post it somewhere. You OWN the car.
Hmm, actually, I bet there are judges that would say that. Damn, I live in a screwed up world...
The person, after being hit, can then say "well, let's look at the alternative view point, that violence actually solves problems."
Then, that person's brother walks over and blows a hole in your kid's head.
Would you just punch the guy in the nose again? Would you shoot his brother? Because his brother's son would shoot your wife.
That email forward "sounds" good, but it makes no more sense in the real world than any other crap you see spewing forth.
It is NOT a drug "akin to producing cigarettes." Cigarette's create a physical dependency where your body, not your mind, craves more.
Online games can only create emotional dependencies. Sure, when your emotions are wracked, you can have jitters and sweat, but it has everything to do with you and nothing to do with the game.
No, there is no warning on the game that it can become addictive. Yes, it can become addictive to some people. Of course, exercise (over exercise), dieting (over dieting), bird-watching, mountain climbing, car driving, gambling, TV watching, cloud watching can also all become addictive to some people.
We do NOT need warning labels on everything expressing the dangers that people who can't limit themselves face. If anything, there should be a warning sign as you are carried from the hospital after birth:
"Caution, life may be habit forming."
Sure, that's Apples business model. They can keep doing it as long as they want to.
But, that doesn't mean that we (consumers, potential customers) can't ask for them to modify their business model. I think that they would make money (from me, personally, and from many others) if they offered this service to Windows users before another service comes in and consumes the market.
OS X seems decent. But if I wanted *nix with a pretty GUI, I'd probably use Xandros instead.
The Clash - London Calling (the song, not the record) Amazon price: $9.99 with free shipping Apple price: $0.99, assuming you don't want any other songs on the CD. Add tax ($0.04) and CD-R ($0.10/150 songs) and this is MUCH cheaper than Amazon.
Apple:
Great idea. I'd pay 99c a song to get a lot of the recent stuff I'd like to add to my MP3 collection. Heck, there's a lot of old stuff I'd like as well, that has just never been around, or wasn't good enough quality, on Napster/Limewire/Kazaa/etc. (Assuming they are standard MP3 format.)
But... we don't have, and couldn't afford to add, a lot of Apple hardware to our already full computer room. Why can't you A) offer this service to Windows (Linux too) people as well, stealing market share and keeping the Apple name alive for a lot of people for more than just Quicktime, or B) hurry up and offer OS X for Intel/AMD platform?
They may make the crew use the emergency escape pod.
My bigger question is... why did they can the shuttle replacement program a few years ago? There is no ongoing work to develop new reuseable modules. Did they think these would keep working forever? Like Mir?
>> I have to say that I don't usually like the Senetor's ideas at all (I'm a very strong conservative) but I LOVE like this idea. The fact that McCain (a strong conservative who's ideas I almost always like)
Funny, I'm a democrat, but McCain would be the only republican I'd support for president. I see him as the most mainstream republican in the senate, much less conservative than the rest.
...and they suck. It knocked us offline for about 10 seconds every two hours when the IP address renewed, which is darn annoying if you play any online games.
:( I'm on the phone with the SBC today to see if the phone company has the same asinine leases with DSL.
We have since gotten a static IP, which fixed the problem for $15 a month.
My ISP is Cox Communications btw.
My wife is a business analyst in the IT department of a major technology company. In order to get in the door to get a job as a temp worker admin at her company, you have to have a college degree. Her college degree? Flute performance.
Thus the actual degree doesn't matter. The fact that you have a degree is what matters. It means that you can, while as an adult, juggle work and your life. Sure if you explain your situation in depth you may be able to do this anyway, but why read a two-page resume explaining all this when a manager could just look for a single line with your college degree?
And, in my wife's opinion, having a degree proves to others you can wade through a certain amount of red tape and take a certain level of bullshit without exploding. Other posts here call this "social skills", but it's really just building up your BS tolerance.
I could see needing 32M less RAM on a console.
Well, since EQ needs 640 MB to run well now, I guess that means your PS2 needs, well, 608 MB.