I don't understand your tagline regarding Mosaic. You don't have to remember it, it's an integral part of any IE browser, even today. Open your M$ browser and click Help then About. Mosaic is still there and M$ still pays licensing fees for it to SpyGlass. If you don't believe me, read the history for yourself.
I am seeing two issues here that are becoming clearer in the Open Source arena. One is that when there is a violation, there is not currently anyone willing to spend the huge dollars needed to litigate the issue. With Comercialware, there has always been someone with fairly deep pockets to pay an attorney to pursue the violators in court. Who is that going to be in the Open Source community? Who is making money on this stuf so that they can pay the expense of litigation when necessary? Is the 'free' trajectory shooting itself in the foot that way?
Another interesting point I see is that someone, sooner or later is going to challenge the legality of Open Source under the 'free' standard and litigate that it is tantamount to price fixing, i.e. antitrust. How long before someone challenges that the contractual language that forces someone to provide code at no cost is the same as being forced to sell it at an inflated price. The price is still fixed, whether at zero or at some other number.
These are a couple of major challenges that await open source. I hope someone gets their ducks in a row before these things come to fruition. Open Source has driven the industry in a very good direction. I would hate to see it fall because it can't support itself, financially, when and where it is needed. Justice is NOT free, in fact the costs are enormous to obtain justice. Somehow that has to be worked into the Open SOurce equation in a way that works for us all or the likes of Sony are going to kill it off.
"removing the world's Web servers and replacing them with half the number of UltraSparc T1-based systems would have the same effect on carbon dioxide emissions as planting 1 million trees.""
I have to agree. But I think that the savings is truely in the number of those new servers that would be powered down because most people wouldn't use them. Most of the code in use today wouldn't run on them. So it is true that if you replaced everything with Sun equipment, you could turn most of it off due to it's disuse and therefore save a whole lot of cash, as they suggest. Perhaps that is not what they meant, but it makes a whole lot more sense.
No, it won't be cheap. Perhaps in x number of years it might be, but not soon.
It does have a place in the market however. The high end resolution video market is hungry for this kind of stuff right now. Do you work with Photoshop at all? When you need to create good graphics, you want as much resolution as you can get to start with. You shrink it to the size you need when you are done. Same thing with video. It just hasn't been available in a decent technical package yet.
You are correct about the storage requirements. I can't image how many Terabytes you need to produce an hours worth of viewing time. Sure might have an immediate impact on drive pricing. Historically, as demand goes up, price comes down (over simplification, granted). The network architecture to handle loads and storage areas of these sizes does however exist and works quite well. Perhaps the the markets are actually inline on this one. You might see it take off in a high end kind of way.
The real story is that Blue Gene was supposed to run Windows Vista code. At the time, MS supplied an alpha set of code to trial on the machine. A massive concurrent multiprocessor buffer overrun caused a blackhole to develop many miles above the earth. Unfortunately this was the exact same time the that Space Shuttle Columbia was passing through the same space. It in turn caused the shielding in the wing to be ripped away and.. you know the rest.
hmm. Didn't they (BBC) just layoff or outsource a huge part of their IT staff? Perhaps the lack of personel to properly set up the application (Blackberry Server) might be part of it? Can you really 'get by' without experienced help? Is this a result of the BBC slashing their IT staff to the bone? I would dare say that it would be hard to argue that it did not have some effect.
"So it would cost $200 to fill it up all the way."
I see people want to believe this. It's just not technically or economically feasible to operate very many vehicles this way. Regardless of today's aluminum prices, they would only skyrocket if demand went up much. Besides, how would you refuel when you ran out of aluminum wire to burn on I40 100 miles from Amarillo? We better have a whole bunch of aluminum cable trucks cruising the highways. Secondly, this hardly counts as a zero emissions vehicle as if exhausts Aluminum Oxide by the bushel. Third the process would have great difficulty in colder climates, as half of the US is cold in the winter.
All that can ever be done is to minimize to risk. Or perhaps they could take a page out of the banking industry's history and model it after the banks that cannot be robbed, or the convienience stores that can't be held up or the cars that cannot be stole or the homes that cannot be broken into, maybe the ship that can't be sunk even. No matter what you do or how far you take it, there is always going to be some a'hole out there that will find a way to break it. The trick is to make it hard to do an to minimize your risks. Perhaps it is at least harder to break into Vista than previous versions and the tools to minimize risk are better. I don't think that saying because it can be broken, it's a failure. It just needs to be better.
For someone who supposedly knows so much about it, you would think you could point to something specific. So far you haven't shown anything other than the fact that Tivo allows you even more functionality with regard to Pay Per View and Video on Demand than you ever had without it. I do have a Tivo and have never experienced the inability to record a regular program. Furthermore, how can you call me a liar when I am expressing my experience with the unit? It's seems to me you are simply intent on bashing Tivo and misrepresenting the facts to place it in a bad light. If you really want a unit that allows you to record copyrighted and copy protected material, then Tivo is not the unit for you. It's that simply. It is however an awesome unit for those of us who do not have any desire to do such things. I am not judging you, I just think you are judging Tivo in a light that it wasn't meant to be.
"I have seen more than one red flag over the last few weeks saying that the program couldn't be kept longer than 7 days "
lol, it's only on stuff you could never keep at all before and I am frankly surprised that you can or are allowed record it at all.
Per your own link from Tivo;
"Pay Per View, Video On Demand, DVD or VHS sources"
And this is a problem? You think you should be able to freely hijack these recordings? If anything they are still providing a benefit there and allowing you to record Pay per View and keep it for 7 days. That's seven days longer to watch a PPV show than you ever had before, and you want to complain? No matter how you want to slice it, they are still providing a benefit that you never had access to before.
" Note that the cost comparison isn't quite that cut and dried, because lots of people already have computers "
You are right in that regard. The only issue, that is not addressed in the reviews, is the resource consumption on the machine running the PVR applciations. Your box is nearly consumed with regards to resources when it is recording or playing back a program. I prefer to have my PVR solution on a seperate box because of that. But you are correct in that if you choose to use your existing machine and don't mind the resource hit, the cost comparison is greatly changed, and Tivo becomes less attractive.
" because with tivo, the company controls what you can record and how long you can keep it."
There is absolutely no truth in that statement. You control everything that is recorded and how long it stays on the box. You can keep anything you record forever if you so desire.
"self-built solutions are under the complete control of its owner."
" I'm not paying $12 or $13 a month for infomercials. "
I would dare say that you never had Tivo to begin with. The most you would ever pay per month is $8.99 and that is the highest rate you can buy into. Second, I have never heard of Tivo arbitrarily switching channels. If it is true, then you had a faulty box. It always prompts before automatically switching. Third, they do not have delivered infomercials. The delivered content is mainly previews for other programs. Something is really fishy about your experience. Fourth, the wise thing to do is to to pay for the lifetime service. It is cheaper in the long run and with the price of the box and the lifetime subscription, it still is less than half of the price it would cost to put your own solution together.
Hmm. I agree that we should continue to control the internet, but regardless of our intentions. This technology came from the US, it was developed here. I am sure that if France or another national interest had developed this system of communication, they too would resist losing control of it's oversight.
I do not agree that the current federal administration in the US can be trusted as it is evident that cronyism runs deep and strong right now. It is my opinion (just my opinion mind you) that the over-riding concern seems more recently to be to garner control of such things within the Bush circle of friends rather than placing the best interests of the General Public first. I do find that disturbing. I think you would also find the the view of the US's intentions is much more highly critical outside of the borders than it is even within them. With the demonstrated policy of striking out first and asking questions later, who can blame them for feeling that way? I think that as a country with a great technologically advanced military presence as we (the US) have in the world, that a great responsibility goes along with that the bend over backwards to accomodate the concerns of other (inter) national interests. Otherwise the concern as to the intention to dominate all lesser powers can be interpretted in any action that excludes the input of those outside interests. I think that we (the US) should maintain control, but perhaps make better allowances for third party input and direction than we do now.
It seems like Tivo is becoming hated around here for some reason. Even the review as posted freely admits that nothing, not even Windows Media Center comes (due to large screen picture quality) close to Tivo features and function. When you account for the cost of the other options, you have a real difficult time justifying anything else. A base Tivo unit is now $49, plus a liftime subscription for $299 (total cost of $348). The software and PC and tuner card(s) for the other options will cost at least twice that. There is nothing to install with Tivo short of screwing the cable in and plugging in the network, nothing to check compatability with. It's upgradable for those who like to tinker. The hacks, that give skip functionality and such, can be found from links off the Tivo site itself, and a simpleton can run them from the remote and have worked from day one and still work today. I love to put together solutions myself, but until the software comes on par with Tivo functionality and pricing, I can't justify changing. I would gain nothing and lose quality, functionality and money.
"Wow, because it has the largest market share and it tells so to its shareholders it is GOOD? I better ditch Linux and get back to Windows."
Isn't it funny how it seems to be ok to change the rules depending on who the players are? I heard something on NPR in respect to George Clooney's new movie and McCarthy-ism that struck a cord this morning. It has the same vein of truth in it. There are things that every generation has to continually fight for. I am starting to believe that applying the rules of conduct to everyone evenly is one of those things that require a constant battle to ensure it is maintained.
I agree. This is a very old stuff. It is quite simple too. We have been doing it since WWII to my knowledge. It's simple triangulation. It doesn't even take much computing power to do it. It's pretty simple math that can be done in a couple of minutes by hand. The real issue is deployment, cost and manpower. It needs to be integrated with existing systems to be of any value. We already have so many individual 'systems' out there that it is nearly impossible to deploy them effectively. Platform integration is the key and the DOD (Dept Of Defense) steps on itself in that regard. They refuse to allow the different suppliers of these technologies to talk to each other or share information for fear of too creating too large a risk by piling too much information in one place. The real issue is how outr government manages it's resources, not the advancement of technology. With the management system we have in place today, we can't even take advantage of technology that was in place 10 years ago in some venues. It's pretty sad. People like to think that the military has all of this cool stuff that is way beyond our imagination. There are a few examples of that being true, but the larger truth is that the DOD is so paranoid that they have stifled integration of technologies and many areas that could be drastically improved have been stifled because of that.
Sounds good until the first one leaks and kills it's host. Lithium in the human body is a dangerous substance to mess with. To make a battery out of it, requires that you cause it to become unstable, shed electrons. Lithium also makes a great propellant and explosive. Lithium is also used as a drug. Unfortunately it's use is precluded in patients with significant renal or cardiovascular disease, severe debilitation or dehydration, or sodium depletion, since the risk of lithium toxicity is very high in such patients. These are exactly the same patients that would be candidates to receive such devices. The risk of leakage may be very small, but the toxicity associated with such an event would be fatal in most of the patients that would be receiving the device. I highly doubt that they could ever receive approval for the battery with these facts being known.
"They won't put the places I shop on line out of business. I shop at bookstores on line for books I can't get at my local bookstore. I buy gear on line that I can't get stocked locally."
You slept through that economics class then. These facilities will not stay in business simply because you shop there or you want them to stay around. Businesses operate on what we call margin. The more volume, the less margin is required per item because volume is higher. The lower the volume, the higher the margin must be on each item sold to pay for the fixed overhead. Expenses do not lower themselves at the same rate that profit does. With even a small number of people leaving the online shopping medium, the online retailers have to raise prices to increase margin per item to pay the fixed overhead. The higher the prices go, the less people who shop there. The scale that tips a buyer into the online sale rather than a brick and mortar sale is hairline thin as it is. Even the Federal Reserve has the same analysis. That's why there has been a federally mandated moratorium on taxes for online sales to date. You cannot foster the growth of an industry if the incentive is to do otherwise. You fail to realize that even a slight loss of even marginal sales can be catastrophic in it's effect on the retailer. Once you start collapsing a business model in that way, it is extremely hard to reverse the trend. It tends to feed on it's self. As less retailers occupy a space (physical or virtual), the less attraction there is for a potential customer to spend the time to go there. So even fewer customers because the retail space has shrunk, that again feeds the margin loss and we then have a vicious cycle to shrinking space to do business in with ever high pricing structures to pay for the loss of margin. It's difficult to avoid the collapse once you start it. With so many other market pressures colluding right now (energy prices, wages, job losses), it could be an economically devastating collapse too.
What the morons in those state governments seem to not take into consideration is that they are going to put e-tailers out of business by doing that. Why? Because it is only slightly cheaper in most cases to purchase something over the web, (once you add in shipping). If tax is added back in, it becomes more expensive and most people will buy it off the store shelf instead. Sure they will collect more in sales tax that way, but at what cost to the economy?
"Why must we moderate to death something that is only slightly off-topic."
I agree too. The current system plays into the hands of the lunitic fringe more than any other. Precisely the reason people like Dovark see Slashdot as a bunch of zealots, because the power is in the hands of those who are willing to spend the time necessary to abuse the system that is in place. I made a comment a couple of months ago that was intended to be funny and it got modded as offtopic 3 times in one day. Instant 30 day ban for me. Of course bans don't work right either. The IP that posted the message is banned, not the user account. Easily defeated by rotating your proxy. This moderation and penalty system needs some work, but I see that cmdrtaco, (the real number 1 at slashdot), has posted in his journal that it is next on the list, right after subscriber functionality.
I like reading science fiction too, but that is all this is until there is something more to go along with the pretty words. Why post an acrticle about something being caught on film and then not show the film?
"For it to be truly immersive, shouldn't they be bragging about 4 \pi steradians instead of 360 degrees?"
The same thing struck me when I read that. Our language is being coruppted by people who don't understand what they are talking about. 360 degrees is a 2 dimensional measurement and yet the topic of discussion is in regards to a 3D environment. Perhaps I am too old or have worked to long in government strict technical areas, but there is a dire need for people to use better language when describing technology. "360 degree" is an inappropriate adjective for the device being described unless further qualified.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand your tagline regarding Mosaic. You don't have to remember it, it's an integral part of any IE browser, even today. Open your M$ browser and click Help then About. Mosaic is still there and M$ still pays licensing fees for it to SpyGlass. If you don't believe me, read the history for yourself.
I am seeing two issues here that are becoming clearer in the Open Source arena. One is that when there is a violation, there is not currently anyone willing to spend the huge dollars needed to litigate the issue. With Comercialware, there has always been someone with fairly deep pockets to pay an attorney to pursue the violators in court. Who is that going to be in the Open Source community? Who is making money on this stuf so that they can pay the expense of litigation when necessary? Is the 'free' trajectory shooting itself in the foot that way?
Another interesting point I see is that someone, sooner or later is going to challenge the legality of Open Source under the 'free' standard and litigate that it is tantamount to price fixing, i.e. antitrust. How long before someone challenges that the contractual language that forces someone to provide code at no cost is the same as being forced to sell it at an inflated price. The price is still fixed, whether at zero or at some other number.
These are a couple of major challenges that await open source. I hope someone gets their ducks in a row before these things come to fruition. Open Source has driven the industry in a very good direction. I would hate to see it fall because it can't support itself, financially, when and where it is needed. Justice is NOT free, in fact the costs are enormous to obtain justice. Somehow that has to be worked into the Open SOurce equation in a way that works for us all or the likes of Sony are going to kill it off.
"removing the world's Web servers and replacing them with half the number of UltraSparc T1-based systems would have the same effect on carbon dioxide emissions as planting 1 million trees.""
I have to agree. But I think that the savings is truely in the number of those new servers that would be powered down because most people wouldn't use them. Most of the code in use today wouldn't run on them. So it is true that if you replaced everything with Sun equipment, you could turn most of it off due to it's disuse and therefore save a whole lot of cash, as they suggest. Perhaps that is not what they meant, but it makes a whole lot more sense.
No, it won't be cheap. Perhaps in x number of years it might be, but not soon.
It does have a place in the market however. The high end resolution video market is hungry for this kind of stuff right now. Do you work with Photoshop at all? When you need to create good graphics, you want as much resolution as you can get to start with. You shrink it to the size you need when you are done. Same thing with video. It just hasn't been available in a decent technical package yet.
You are correct about the storage requirements. I can't image how many Terabytes you need to produce an hours worth of viewing time. Sure might have an immediate impact on drive pricing. Historically, as demand goes up, price comes down (over simplification, granted). The network architecture to handle loads and storage areas of these sizes does however exist and works quite well. Perhaps the the markets are actually inline on this one. You might see it take off in a high end kind of way.
The real story is that Blue Gene was supposed to run Windows Vista code. At the time, MS supplied an alpha set of code to trial on the machine. A massive concurrent multiprocessor buffer overrun caused a blackhole to develop many miles above the earth. Unfortunately this was the exact same time the that Space Shuttle Columbia was passing through the same space. It in turn caused the shielding in the wing to be ripped away and.. you know the rest.
hmm. Didn't they (BBC) just layoff or outsource a huge part of their IT staff? Perhaps the lack of personel to properly set up the application (Blackberry Server) might be part of it? Can you really 'get by' without experienced help? Is this a result of the BBC slashing their IT staff to the bone? I would dare say that it would be hard to argue that it did not have some effect.
"So it would cost $200 to fill it up all the way."
I see people want to believe this. It's just not technically or economically feasible to operate very many vehicles this way. Regardless of today's aluminum prices, they would only skyrocket if demand went up much. Besides, how would you refuel when you ran out of aluminum wire to burn on I40 100 miles from Amarillo? We better have a whole bunch of aluminum cable trucks cruising the highways. Secondly, this hardly counts as a zero emissions vehicle as if exhausts Aluminum Oxide by the bushel. Third the process would have great difficulty in colder climates, as half of the US is cold in the winter.
"we got the security right this time...honest"
All that can ever be done is to minimize to risk. Or perhaps they could take a page out of the banking industry's history and model it after the banks that cannot be robbed, or the convienience stores that can't be held up or the cars that cannot be stole or the homes that cannot be broken into, maybe the ship that can't be sunk even. No matter what you do or how far you take it, there is always going to be some a'hole out there that will find a way to break it. The trick is to make it hard to do an to minimize your risks. Perhaps it is at least harder to break into Vista than previous versions and the tools to minimize risk are better. I don't think that saying because it can be broken, it's a failure. It just needs to be better.
For someone who supposedly knows so much about it, you would think you could point to something specific. So far you haven't shown anything other than the fact that Tivo allows you even more functionality with regard to Pay Per View and Video on Demand than you ever had without it. I do have a Tivo and have never experienced the inability to record a regular program. Furthermore, how can you call me a liar when I am expressing my experience with the unit? It's seems to me you are simply intent on bashing Tivo and misrepresenting the facts to place it in a bad light. If you really want a unit that allows you to record copyrighted and copy protected material, then Tivo is not the unit for you. It's that simply. It is however an awesome unit for those of us who do not have any desire to do such things. I am not judging you, I just think you are judging Tivo in a light that it wasn't meant to be.
""
;)
Thanks for the reminder. I seem to forget that that Slashdot is a comedy site myself. That does put the article in the appropriate light.
"I have seen more than one red flag over the last few weeks saying that the program couldn't be kept longer than 7 days "
lol, it's only on stuff you could never keep at all before and I am frankly surprised that you can or are allowed record it at all.
Per your own link from Tivo;
"Pay Per View, Video On Demand, DVD or VHS sources"
And this is a problem? You think you should be able to freely hijack these recordings? If anything they are still providing a benefit there and allowing you to record Pay per View and keep it for 7 days. That's seven days longer to watch a PPV show than you ever had before, and you want to complain? No matter how you want to slice it, they are still providing a benefit that you never had access to before.
" Note that the cost comparison isn't quite that cut and dried, because lots of people already have computers "
You are right in that regard. The only issue, that is not addressed in the reviews, is the resource consumption on the machine running the PVR applciations. Your box is nearly consumed with regards to resources when it is recording or playing back a program. I prefer to have my PVR solution on a seperate box because of that. But you are correct in that if you choose to use your existing machine and don't mind the resource hit, the cost comparison is greatly changed, and Tivo becomes less attractive.
" because with tivo, the company controls what you can record and how long you can keep it."
There is absolutely no truth in that statement. You control everything that is recorded and how long it stays on the box. You can keep anything you record forever if you so desire.
"self-built solutions are under the complete control of its owner."
As is the Tivo solution.
" I'm not paying $12 or $13 a month for infomercials. "
I would dare say that you never had Tivo to begin with. The most you would ever pay per month is $8.99 and that is the highest rate you can buy into. Second, I have never heard of Tivo arbitrarily switching channels. If it is true, then you had a faulty box. It always prompts before automatically switching. Third, they do not have delivered infomercials. The delivered content is mainly previews for other programs. Something is really fishy about your experience. Fourth, the wise thing to do is to to pay for the lifetime service. It is cheaper in the long run and with the price of the box and the lifetime subscription, it still is less than half of the price it would cost to put your own solution together.
Hmm. I agree that we should continue to control the internet, but regardless of our intentions. This technology came from the US, it was developed here. I am sure that if France or another national interest had developed this system of communication, they too would resist losing control of it's oversight.
I do not agree that the current federal administration in the US can be trusted as it is evident that cronyism runs deep and strong right now. It is my opinion (just my opinion mind you) that the over-riding concern seems more recently to be to garner control of such things within the Bush circle of friends rather than placing the best interests of the General Public first. I do find that disturbing. I think you would also find the the view of the US's intentions is much more highly critical outside of the borders than it is even within them. With the demonstrated policy of striking out first and asking questions later, who can blame them for feeling that way? I think that as a country with a great technologically advanced military presence as we (the US) have in the world, that a great responsibility goes along with that the bend over backwards to accomodate the concerns of other (inter) national interests. Otherwise the concern as to the intention to dominate all lesser powers can be interpretted in any action that excludes the input of those outside interests. I think that we (the US) should maintain control, but perhaps make better allowances for third party input and direction than we do now.
"It took a nice three story fall onto concrete and shattered. I own a Canon SD300 now, and apparently they're not affected by this problem."
You mean you can drop your new one three stories and it won't shatter? Wow! That IS a good camera.
It seems like Tivo is becoming hated around here for some reason. Even the review as posted freely admits that nothing, not even Windows Media Center comes (due to large screen picture quality) close to Tivo features and function. When you account for the cost of the other options, you have a real difficult time justifying anything else. A base Tivo unit is now $49, plus a liftime subscription for $299 (total cost of $348). The software and PC and tuner card(s) for the other options will cost at least twice that. There is nothing to install with Tivo short of screwing the cable in and plugging in the network, nothing to check compatability with. It's upgradable for those who like to tinker. The hacks, that give skip functionality and such, can be found from links off the Tivo site itself, and a simpleton can run them from the remote and have worked from day one and still work today. I love to put together solutions myself, but until the software comes on par with Tivo functionality and pricing, I can't justify changing. I would gain nothing and lose quality, functionality and money.
"Wow, because it has the largest market share and it tells so to its shareholders it is GOOD? I better ditch Linux and get back to Windows."
Isn't it funny how it seems to be ok to change the rules depending on who the players are? I heard something on NPR in respect to George Clooney's new movie and McCarthy-ism that struck a cord this morning. It has the same vein of truth in it. There are things that every generation has to continually fight for. I am starting to believe that applying the rules of conduct to everyone evenly is one of those things that require a constant battle to ensure it is maintained.
I agree. This is a very old stuff. It is quite simple too. We have been doing it since WWII to my knowledge. It's simple triangulation. It doesn't even take much computing power to do it. It's pretty simple math that can be done in a couple of minutes by hand. The real issue is deployment, cost and manpower. It needs to be integrated with existing systems to be of any value. We already have so many individual 'systems' out there that it is nearly impossible to deploy them effectively. Platform integration is the key and the DOD (Dept Of Defense) steps on itself in that regard. They refuse to allow the different suppliers of these technologies to talk to each other or share information for fear of too creating too large a risk by piling too much information in one place. The real issue is how outr government manages it's resources, not the advancement of technology. With the management system we have in place today, we can't even take advantage of technology that was in place 10 years ago in some venues. It's pretty sad. People like to think that the military has all of this cool stuff that is way beyond our imagination. There are a few examples of that being true, but the larger truth is that the DOD is so paranoid that they have stifled integration of technologies and many areas that could be drastically improved have been stifled because of that.
Sounds good until the first one leaks and kills it's host. Lithium in the human body is a dangerous substance to mess with. To make a battery out of it, requires that you cause it to become unstable, shed electrons. Lithium also makes a great propellant and explosive. Lithium is also used as a drug. Unfortunately it's use is precluded in patients with significant renal or cardiovascular disease, severe debilitation or dehydration, or sodium depletion, since the risk of lithium toxicity is very high in such patients. These are exactly the same patients that would be candidates to receive such devices. The risk of leakage may be very small, but the toxicity associated with such an event would be fatal in most of the patients that would be receiving the device. I highly doubt that they could ever receive approval for the battery with these facts being known.
"They won't put the places I shop on line out of business. I shop at bookstores on line for books I can't get at my local bookstore. I buy gear on line that I can't get stocked locally."
You slept through that economics class then. These facilities will not stay in business simply because you shop there or you want them to stay around. Businesses operate on what we call margin. The more volume, the less margin is required per item because volume is higher. The lower the volume, the higher the margin must be on each item sold to pay for the fixed overhead. Expenses do not lower themselves at the same rate that profit does. With even a small number of people leaving the online shopping medium, the online retailers have to raise prices to increase margin per item to pay the fixed overhead. The higher the prices go, the less people who shop there. The scale that tips a buyer into the online sale rather than a brick and mortar sale is hairline thin as it is. Even the Federal Reserve has the same analysis. That's why there has been a federally mandated moratorium on taxes for online sales to date. You cannot foster the growth of an industry if the incentive is to do otherwise. You fail to realize that even a slight loss of even marginal sales can be catastrophic in it's effect on the retailer. Once you start collapsing a business model in that way, it is extremely hard to reverse the trend. It tends to feed on it's self. As less retailers occupy a space (physical or virtual), the less attraction there is for a potential customer to spend the time to go there. So even fewer customers because the retail space has shrunk, that again feeds the margin loss and we then have a vicious cycle to shrinking space to do business in with ever high pricing structures to pay for the loss of margin. It's difficult to avoid the collapse once you start it. With so many other market pressures colluding right now (energy prices, wages, job losses), it could be an economically devastating collapse too.
What the morons in those state governments seem to not take into consideration is that they are going to put e-tailers out of business by doing that. Why? Because it is only slightly cheaper in most cases to purchase something over the web, (once you add in shipping). If tax is added back in, it becomes more expensive and most people will buy it off the store shelf instead. Sure they will collect more in sales tax that way, but at what cost to the economy?
"Why must we moderate to death something that is only slightly off-topic."
I agree too. The current system plays into the hands of the lunitic fringe more than any other. Precisely the reason people like Dovark see Slashdot as a bunch of zealots, because the power is in the hands of those who are willing to spend the time necessary to abuse the system that is in place. I made a comment a couple of months ago that was intended to be funny and it got modded as offtopic 3 times in one day. Instant 30 day ban for me. Of course bans don't work right either. The IP that posted the message is banned, not the user account. Easily defeated by rotating your proxy. This moderation and penalty system needs some work, but I see that cmdrtaco, (the real number 1 at slashdot), has posted in his journal that it is next on the list, right after subscriber functionality.
I like reading science fiction too, but that is all this is until there is something more to go along with the pretty words. Why post an acrticle about something being caught on film and then not show the film?
"For it to be truly immersive, shouldn't they be bragging about 4 \pi steradians instead of 360 degrees?"
The same thing struck me when I read that. Our language is being coruppted by people who don't understand what they are talking about. 360 degrees is a 2 dimensional measurement and yet the topic of discussion is in regards to a 3D environment. Perhaps I am too old or have worked to long in government strict technical areas, but there is a dire need for people to use better language when describing technology. "360 degree" is an inappropriate adjective for the device being described unless further qualified.