It would be like trading in your 10 year old car for a new one that looks cool and is comfortable, but is completely autopiloted, and only lets you out at certain stops. Businesses have to apply to the car maker so the car would stop at their brick and mortar store. And without warning, this can be taken away, so if someone used to stop at a Target, they wouldn't have that option tomorrow and only get Wal-Marts.
Your analog is simpler if you just say "it would be like selling your old car and relying on the bus". That's effectively auto pilot, it only lets you out at certain stops near some businesses, and those stops can change. Or the bus routes can changes and the only ones you get to now go by Wal-Mart instead of Target.
And what force, pray tell, caused a galaxy moving away from us to stop, then start moving towards us at the speed of light?
Keep in mind that the answer isn't "gravity", because A) unless they started out going 8 times the speed of light, there's no way gravity slowed them to nothing over 8 billion years, then turned them around and sped up to light speed over just 1 billion years, and B) because closer galaxies aren't moving towards us, even though we are apparently a huge gravity well.
If you say "a new unknown force that can manipulate galaxies at will", I'll readily concede that we could be living in a giant computer simulation, and the operators may have paused it and changed a variable or two about a billion years ago, just to see what would happen. Or perhaps the galaxy in question was pushed a bit too hard by one of His Noodley Appendages. But that's philosophy, not physics.
If BP were forced to shoulder the entire cost of this mistake, they would go bankrupt.
Why do you think that? How much do you think the repair, collection, cleanup operation will cost? Given limited landfall so far, my estimate is still just $10 billion.
Coincidentally, BP's profits for Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 totalled $10 billion. I don't see why BP can't easily pay for the entire thing by taking Q2 and Q3 charges.
Yes of course, because if some governments have done some bad things, then all governments are bad, but if some corporations have done some bad things, then they're just bad apples and we should trust and embrace all the rest (until we learn what bad thing they are doing).
Ok, new steel smelting plant on the other side of your house, to use all that available wind power. I'll put a coal-fired plant next to that for the calm days.
Good to see a Tu quoque fallacy still warrants a +5 Insightful here on the ol' Slashdots, though maybe it only works if you put a few random words in ALL CAPS.
Of course your closing slippery slope fallacy just helps things along.
If you both speed and run red lights/stop signs, it probably averages out to the same as a person driving slower but stopping all the time. So it's all good. =p
Not when the electric utility has to pay for their raw energy source (assuming it's not wind/solar/hydro), whereas the wastewater plant is paid to receive it's energy input.
It may cost more up front to install the equipment, and it may cost more in a typical 3- to 5-year ROI, but over the long term the costs should be lower unless the maintenance and repair costs dominate.
Except that's not at all what the article says. They aren't trying to expand into the energy trading market. All they're trying to do is increase the available supply of renewable electricity for their own data centers.
Yeah, but the difference is how it used to be that the manufacturer paid for a license, sold you the product (cost of license built-in), and you used it for whatever you wanted.
Nowadays, they want to control not just how the product is made and sold, but how it is USED. That's just plain too much power.
This is new? Didn't C compiler vendors used to demand royalties on the sale of products made with their compilers, at least until the advent of GCC?
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It would be like trading in your 10 year old car for a new one that looks cool and is comfortable, but is completely autopiloted, and only lets you out at certain stops. Businesses have to apply to the car maker so the car would stop at their brick and mortar store. And without warning, this can be taken away, so if someone used to stop at a Target, they wouldn't have that option tomorrow and only get Wal-Marts.
Your analog is simpler if you just say "it would be like selling your old car and relying on the bus". That's effectively auto pilot, it only lets you out at certain stops near some businesses, and those stops can change. Or the bus routes can changes and the only ones you get to now go by Wal-Mart instead of Target.
Legal at least in California, thanks to 30 seconds on Google:
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060720210018AAWfCCp
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/liensale.htm
Alice owns the code she wrote in step 1, before Bob hired her, unless the copyrights were transferred.
Unless Bob scrubs all of Alice's pre-employment code from the file, when Bob distributes with a different license Alice could sue him.
The people with common sense on these issues are not that uncommon, it is not like they would be hard to hire in an official position !
I think the most "common" sense on this topic would be that copyright infringement (and many instances of fair use) = stealing.
The common / lay opinion is not always the correct-by-the-law or correct-by-founders-intent opinion.
And what force, pray tell, caused a galaxy moving away from us to stop, then start moving towards us at the speed of light?
Keep in mind that the answer isn't "gravity", because A) unless they started out going 8 times the speed of light, there's no way gravity slowed them to nothing over 8 billion years, then turned them around and sped up to light speed over just 1 billion years, and B) because closer galaxies aren't moving towards us, even though we are apparently a huge gravity well.
If you say "a new unknown force that can manipulate galaxies at will", I'll readily concede that we could be living in a giant computer simulation, and the operators may have paused it and changed a variable or two about a billion years ago, just to see what would happen. Or perhaps the galaxy in question was pushed a bit too hard by one of His Noodley Appendages. But that's philosophy, not physics.
Knives don't stab people. Robots stab people...with knives.
If BP were forced to shoulder the entire cost of this mistake, they would go bankrupt.
Why do you think that? How much do you think the repair, collection, cleanup operation will cost? Given limited landfall so far, my estimate is still just $10 billion.
Coincidentally, BP's profits for Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 totalled $10 billion. I don't see why BP can't easily pay for the entire thing by taking Q2 and Q3 charges.
Heh, yeah, I thought of that as I wrote it.
The few companies outside of OPEC are way too small to in anyway change OPECs decision.
And since BP isn't in OPEC, you reinforced my point. Thanks!
The troops don't make their own decisions. Obama does - both for himself and, now, for the troops.
It's okay to wish the troops a safe job and return home while disliking the policy that sent them out in the first place.
Yes of course, because if some governments have done some bad things, then all governments are bad, but if some corporations have done some bad things, then they're just bad apples and we should trust and embrace all the rest (until we learn what bad thing they are doing).
Ok, new steel smelting plant on the other side of your house, to use all that available wind power. I'll put a coal-fired plant next to that for the calm days.
Only now, because those crazy guvment regulators went and enacted it across the country. The GGGGP was pretty clear that all government is bad.
Come to think of it, I should put a coal plant next to his house. There's just enough room to put another next to his kid's school.
Probably compressed natural gas. Which IS used for heating instead (at least in Texas) - a job that could also be done by electricity.
There's nothing wrong with a "race" to be "first" if it yields demonstrable benefit. The Apollo program was like that.
The ocean doesn't disperse water equally, though. The gulf water is going to get pumped right up onto Britain first, and then to the north pole IIRC.
Sure it's not as serious as a total oceanic ecosystem collapse, but it can be devastating to multiple distinct ocean regions.
Do you really think more regulation of the oil industry was going to pass in 2004-2008?
Except Bobby "Volcano-Monitoring-Is-A-Waste-Of-Money" Jindal actively works to promote the downsizing of the federal government.
Why would the feds even figure into his complaint? Shouldn't he be complaining that BP wasn't adequately prepared and isn't doing all they could be?
Good to see a Tu quoque fallacy still warrants a +5 Insightful here on the ol' Slashdots, though maybe it only works if you put a few random words in ALL CAPS.
Of course your closing slippery slope fallacy just helps things along.
And how are they going to raise rates when none of their competitors face a multi-billion dollar charge?
I think they take a charge and their shareholders eat much of the cost this time. No way around it.
Then if anything comes out regarding culpability for the disaster, the shareholders can sue the executives for breach of fiduciary duty.
You could if you needed warranty work on the suspension, or the chassis, or any of the other countless parts that you didn't replace after market.
At least you could after the government stepped in and made it possible.
If you both speed and run red lights/stop signs, it probably averages out to the same as a person driving slower but stopping all the time. So it's all good. =p
Not when the electric utility has to pay for their raw energy source (assuming it's not wind/solar/hydro), whereas the wastewater plant is paid to receive it's energy input.
It may cost more up front to install the equipment, and it may cost more in a typical 3- to 5-year ROI, but over the long term the costs should be lower unless the maintenance and repair costs dominate.
Except that's not at all what the article says. They aren't trying to expand into the energy trading market. All they're trying to do is increase the available supply of renewable electricity for their own data centers.
I guess it wasn't quite that obvious.
Yeah, but the difference is how it used to be that the manufacturer paid for a license, sold you the product (cost of license built-in), and you used it for whatever you wanted.
Nowadays, they want to control not just how the product is made and sold, but how it is USED. That's just plain too much power.
This is new? Didn't C compiler vendors used to demand royalties on the sale of products made with their compilers, at least until the advent of GCC?