Middle ages folks had very little concept of contagion prevention.. germs weren't even discovered for a few hundred more years. I'd think that perhaps the middle ages plague was a combination of nasty things.. remember, it wasn't one "great plague" but a series of famines and pandemics over 50-75 years, peaking every 10-15 years killing 25%-50% of towns. The ones that survived benefited two-fold. First they passed on natural immunity to our generations that helps slow the spread, and second they were suffering effects of extreme overpopulation, few children were being born and mortality was high. With fewer people they were able to grow stronger to resist it until the disease burned out.
But few retail stores stock more that 50 or 100 current titles, so I think the original idea is quite good. Movie theaters show only 12 or so films at a time, even in big cities. Opening a Brick and Mortar store or theater up to even 1% of "hits" say music/movies that actually made a popularity chart in the last 50 years would be an impressive achievement. Even blockbuster movies like Star Wars or Indiana Jones become "unpurchasable" in a relatively short amount of time.... They've already hit "bargin bin" status in most retail outlets.
Having a surefire way to get at that back catalog would be highly important. The real key is getting business to focus on marketing in "long tail" manner. Something like Netflix is interesting because they are a business that really pays no penalty for keeping extra DVDs in the warehouse.... but how do they get people interested in WATCHING them. I find Emusic to be a similar thing in that area, but again, the hardest part is matching up MORE stuff I'm interested in rather than what publishers are currently marketing. I think Disney has the best handle on it because they republish back catalog in a big way every 10 years or so... making it "new" again to a new group of people. How do you do that for general things like "Bing Crosby" movies or "Rogers and Hammerstein" musicals? Heck, even getting recent Anime published in English in a reasonable time is difficult, or finding material from Electronica/J-Pop scenes due to publishers only wanting to publish "top 10" material.. when the majority of people don't BUY that stuff.. but they all would buy a different part of the top 500 or so songs.
That's correct, movies and TV shows negotiate for inclusion rights up front as an amount of THEIR royalty fees for the show. There was big dust up about this when shows started going to DVD and songwriters/artists started demanding extra royalties for DVD releases. I'd expect any movie soundtrack to have all it's songwriter/artists royalties pre-contracted tied to performance royalties of the show in any medium (television, movie, dvd, iTunes, netflix, video on demand, etc) for anything in the last 5 years going forward. I'd expect the studios negotiate directly with artists or don't include the music. period. It's Clearances 101 now.
Except that ASCAP was one of the first to sue studios years ago. Remember how series with lots of classic music couldn't be made into DVD sets because of clearances.. the studios got those clearances and added "digital rights" in every new contract. ASCAP is upset because those contract essentially cut ASCAP out of things like iTunes as the rights are squarely in the studio/label's hands.
The writer's strike was an honest dispute because studios were essentially not paying for plays because the contracts didn't say "digital broadcast" or "digital sale".. playing games that "sold it on iTunes" wasn't the same as "sold it on DVD box set", let alone add based services like Hulu or subscriptions like Netflix when "pay per view" on cable was included.
This is ASCAP.. they represent the people that write lyrics and sheet music and "paper" music publishers. The RIAA represents Performance Artists and Recording publishers... at least blame the right guys today.
What you have is that the RIAA publishers secured open-ended deals with music writers for all forms of publishing CDs and DVDs and downloads before doing the recording... after being sued for years, the RIAA labels and MPAA studios made sure to dot "i"s and cross "t"s and won't add any song to a soundtrack without those rights from all artists and writers secured. ASCAP just realized that the "standard form" the labels and studios insist on just shut down their little protection racket, and worse cut them out of the money loop by going straight to the artist first.. just like good contracts should.
ASCAP is asking for a legislated mandatory royalty, just like they get for radio/TV/performance/webcasters and just like Sound Exchange gets for performance artist from webcasters.This means EVERY track has to pay another royalty... even tracks you would publish yourself... because nobody can be sure you're really you when broadcasting, so we have to collect royalties from everybody, for everybody to be fair. This amounts to "free money" for song previews that only a few artists are ever going to see.
See that's where ASCAP won the battle but lost the war a few years back. Anything Hollywood publishes TODAY, they will secure full distribution rights to before releasing.. movie, DVD, rentals, youtube... etc. After ASCAP shenanigans with things like "Freaks and Geeks" holding up DVD distribution because the studio "didn't pay for that", studios won't even add your song without the blanket contract in place so that the music rights tag along with all their other distribution rights. Music publishers went thru the same thing back the Napster days.... they won't publish an album on CD unless the songwriter and artist grant all the various digital rights as well. Publishing execs nailed these guys down in the last few years after being repeatedly sued and now the money tree is shut down while Apple is neatly flying high in the aftermath. ASCAP overreached, and was inflexible and difficult to deal with... they got shut down by careful paperwork. Now they want Congress to step in and create another new "royalty" because they're not getting a good enough deal on the ones they already signed.
This a repeat of the game they play with radio stations. When you hear really long concert commercials with the band's track playing the whole time it's promoters gaming the ASCAP system for extra radio plays. I think radio stations have to count a "play" at 15 seconds or something, and now ASCAP want's samples at a "play" rate.
We're still dealing with fallout from the "digital" versus CD distribution. Just like performance artists don't get $2.50 ringtone royalties (those go directly to the publisher) the per track royalties ASCAP gets for CDs (and probably digital rentals of movies/TV shows) aren't contractually written for "digital" mediums at all, or for a reduced rate. ASCAP lost it's chances with Hollywood on this one fare and square. They tried to hold up early DVD releases of TV seasons (Freaks and Geeks was a famous one on Slashdot that actually had to reedit soundtracks because ASCAP artists wouldn't budge) playing contractual games and lawsuits. They won some lawsuits but in a limited enough fashion Hollywood was able to get the last laugh by getting "blanket" licensing for thing like CDs and TV seasons directly from the artists before even letting them work, and added the "digital" parts to distribution for TV, movie, DVD, etc. ASCAP is trying to end-run contracts and get Congress to create yet another new "on the internet" fee for "web distribution", but not the same web distribution covered under the webcasting clearing house (same rules as radio play) or the "sale" royalties for things like iTunes and emusic (counts as "CD" sales, not webcasting).
I assume you mean "boiling" but that's not how things work. You take showers in that tub every day... you add and subtract the little critters daily and they swirl around your bathroom... they've done studies about bathroom germs and it's kind of creepy, they pretty much go everywhere.
The key is DAMP and warm, it's what germs love. You add water every day and it sits collecting germs and then evaporates slowly all day... the germs live in the oils (soap and stuff you wash off) and dust (mostly skin flakes) mixed up that settles on stuff. The water from your shower isn't nearly enough to kill all the little critters, even strong bleach and disinfectant doesn't go everywhere without taking way to much time. Evolution rules... the strong survive and the weak die until you have a nice little life cycle going right under your nose.
Well, if they really wanted to stop selling XP they could have. Linux was starting to pick up on Netbooks because Vista was inadequate for the assigned task. So Microsoft made a choice to sell XP and continue to profit and keep it's market share so they need to offer the proper amount of support for new licenses as they don't exactly offer "clearance sales" on "old" licenses do they.
If Microsoft isn't capable of dealing with so many combinations of hardware and software, maybe they need a smaller market share... room for somebody else to step in. So what you're saying is that a company with tens of billions of dollars of CASH on hand can't/won't handle support for one of it's key products just because it's "old"? If we wouldn't have allowed Microsoft to get so big, maybe they wouldn't have these kinds of problems... This is where those pesky statistics get you. Microsoft's market share is long past the point of diminishing returns and yet they throw money holding every single OEM tightly, pushing "dead" products so that fledgling new ones don't get a single chance to get cash flow to start fixing their flaws and growing up.
I live in one of those and many of those people deserved to be wiped out by gas prices.
The smart commuters driving reasonable efficient cars weren't hit unreasonably hard. The clowns that though driving an Expedition 1 1/2 hours each way, every day to work, without carpooling, got slaughtered. Part of this push for "mileage" based tax is that the idea of giving breaks for more efficient rides is working... those that bought the big SUVs are simply jealous that the Prius and Civic drivers are mocking them at the pumps.
My issue is that the problem WILL happen again, and instead of pushing for high speed trains, good busing and sane work hours, people want to punish the people planning ahead buying small cars and expect a government bailout. I live in Michigan and we really need a Chicago-Detroit run along I-94 as well as a Detroit-Lansing-Grand Rapids run to benefit commuters and start leaving the SUVs at home.
The reason "exurbs" became popular was that it took getting 75+ miles from workplaces before starter housing became affordable. Also the premium for city work was just too good with such cheap gas. Of course going back to the status quo doesn't really fix the problem. Had prices stayed high it would be the incentive cities like Detroit and Toledo need to clean out their inner cities You can find property dirt cheap there, entire blocks have nobody living there, but nobody will live there. Had fuel prices stayed up places close to work would be rebuilt. With cheap gas the "upper" middle class just drives farther and farther away from the problem driving up cost of delivering mail and packages, school transportation, and city services with urban sprawl.
you clearly don't get that the ipod's adapter outputs the actual audio and video (scrambled) signals that other devices can pick up as "line-level" analog. If you use USB 2.0 then the device you are plugging into has do to all the decoding work. USB is pointless for things like video.... I mean you could use the unit as a fancy flash drive for that purpose (and it does work if you save the file to the data side)
Micro USB might be useful for DATA transfer and charging, but iPods can pull more current for quick-charge than the USB 2.0 spec allows... that can harm your standards following equipment. USB for OUTPUT requires host controllers, which are different from what's built into portable devices. An Ipod would have to have a USB OUT to drive USB speakers, video cards, etc to be used in the manner you are thinking of.
Unless of course, you have those devices where they use bastard "USB shaped" plugs with extra pins for audio and video. I have several cameras that use those, but there's no guarantee that the cords will actually work with another manufacturer's device even though the plug fits in the hole.
if we can determine our exact risk then it's not insurance. We're all going to die and the risk goes up every year.. until your 115 or so. So the "risk" is will you die during the time you have large amounts of responsibilities (work, home, wife, kids) or live past that peak risk time to just cover final expenses.
If something has definite risk it can be prevented.. if it can't be prevented then risk is involved and insurance is paid.
I understand what you're saying. If you were trying to fly it like a remote control hot air balloon you could adjust it's direction by carefully picking it's altitude.
If we sold cheap device that could fly across the Atlantic like that the terroristas would have them too! OMG! That's the primary reason for not allowing cheap GPS is that it's TOO good. In exchange for using the more accurate signals they agreed to make the units unusable for aircraft, balloons, SCUD guidance, etc. It also keeps people paying more for the "registered" official aircraft rated ones.
There are not firm rules in the US either but if you caused a nasty accident, like running a school bus off the road, they'd surely use the 8+ hours driving + 10 hours working against you to elevate the accident to criminal charges. It's also been used against employers that made such demands and employees killed themselves trying to get back home so they could be to work on time and crossed the yellow line. Since the lawsuits many companies have rules on the books that travel time counts as "worked" hours (for labor law purposes) and that employees need more than 8 hours between shifts (for insurance safety purposes) That doesn't mean department managers of 20 years won't skirt the rules to make their department budgets look better though.
but those things are what points are for. Things like DWI (the lesser charge) or wreckless driving (15 over the speed limit, circumstances) are minimum of 3 points if not stepped up to misdemeanor criminal charges. Things like running red lights (the vast majority of the time tickets are for the lesser charge of failing to yield) and such are automatic 2 points... most insurance companies will seriously threaten you with 2 points in one year and will drop you cold with any single 3 point violation.
In Michigan we have wonderful "driver responsibility" fees... depending on violation they can hit you for $250+ two years in a row (no, you can't pay ahead) "just because" and even if you fight the certain tickets you still pay it.
I live in a "no-fault" state, Michigan, and there is still "fault" based on the tickets, the drivers just don't see it. It works exactly like you said, each driver ensures their car. So if I drive a $600 Yugo, I can reduce my coverage to just cover my Personal protection (medical accident coverage) and Personal Damage liability (crashing into things).
What happens behind-the-scenes though, is that when you get into an accident the insurance companies still argue it out based on the issued tickets. (that's why there's still a line item for uninsured motorists, which also includes non-driver passengers and pedestrians) So the teen driver's rates go up. The bigger portion of insurance today is the medical portion so that even a minor emergency medical bill is the price of a very nice car... unlike medial HMO/PPO coverage insurance companies tend not to have the side deals that knock down prices so auto-related injuries are paid out full list price at the hospital.
no, I was going for the responsibility angle. They law Requires you have insurance, and requires the insurance pay if you are injured. Traffic laws and rights of way are established as well as money spent on road markings, guardrails, and removing road hazards that obstruct views of traffic. The law requires Car designers to put in seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones... this costs millions of dollars extra per model and the law requires cars undergo extensive testing of the safety measures before the car can be sold.
At some point the law has required "everybody else", literally thousands of people per car/driver, to contribute to your safety... so the law needs to REQUIRE you to look after it as well by properly using the designed, built, tested safety features so the person required to pay for you if you splatter is out a little bit less money.
But any non-trivial employees is dealing with multiple types of email. My boss may deal with contracts for purchasing software such as terms and conditions and those are mostly sent via email now days. You may have HR reports under a different retention. You may have environmental/insurance/osha reporting forms that you need to keep record of emailing to the appropriate officers, etc. Some things have to be kept for 5 years, some "forever".
You are correct that the server handles the actual retention but the user still has to file/identify it appropriately in the first place or it gets the "default" treatment.. which could cause problems.
I don't see how emotional control matters. The biggest "emotional" problem most teens have is getting too excited about driving and not watching the signs and traffic carefully enough... rolling thru stop signs, not being careful to look both ways... in a hurry to get somewhere. Most teens are still focused on the mechanics of driving that "road rage" isn't really an issue... except maybe dealing with "mature" drivers.
Wreckless fucks in Beamers was always my problem.. They'd swerve in and out of traffic and while the "teen" is getting prepared to follow the rules to move over cut them off on the right, or not leave proper clearance/pay attention to signals leaving other people room (2-3 car leangths) for mistakes. My experience on my highways is that the 40-50 males in "way to nice cars" are the ones that cause accidents because they cut off drivers, tailgating, passing on the right, forcing everybody else on the road to take evasive action because they want to get one more car ahead.
but why would the government restrict "private" companies from strong arming (free market!!!) YOU into survaillence tech Government can later get a warrant for? Government plays the "free market" card whenever it suits them.. they've already got a similar thing where they remotely turned on the OnStar phone to spy on some suspected drug dealer... the courts view was that "there wasn't a law against it" expect the same treatment for these "voluntary" insurance cameras.
To be fair China is still a Command economy that let's "Capitalism" play because it's a useful way to get people to work harder.. they are a long way from the idea of "Free Markets". This is where it's not a "round" world.. The Chinese government has their eye on the 50 year game and is more than willing to tie up all of a natural resource... and throw people in jail when the "free market" price goes up.
While the US punishes "intervention" by state banks in places like Japan and Korea for making sure their chip makers don't go under, China is stacking the deck on a NATIONAL level for resources... setting prices that corporations are allowed to SELL to China for.. and nobody is really stopping them. Just last week China "decided" they weren't going to be exporting any more rare earth metals (needed for high power magnets in electronics) They just issued a directive it wasn't allowed to be exported anymore....for any price. Back in 2007 one of the things that knocked US auto makers on their butts was China using scrap US steel instead of imported ore. It nearly doubled the price of scrap here (ironically bought with trade surplus dollars no less!) and made it even harder to complete with Asian companies... it was the straw that caused a good deal of the auto maker meltdown earlier this year. China manipulates their currency by not allowing dollars to be converted into Chinese money except for specific state-sponsored investments, and they don't allow US companies to take their Chinese profits OUT of the country either. It sets up a situation where they pile up money in US banks to buy US resources... but US companies can't pull their capital profits OUT of China...
China is playing the long game, highly protectionist and stacking the deck with our own money and resources against us. It's economic "war" played at the highest level and the US government has no grasp that the "invisible hand' won't save them.
in most states you have to pay the same gas tax on alternative fuels or your a "tax evader" That is one of the big problems with bio-diesel is that small home units are "too small" to properly inspect so they won't grant tax stamps... but you have to have the stamp tax to legally drive the vehicle or pay a fine (and of course the fine is more...) States used to play the same game with alcohol taxes too for home brewing too.. it wasn't "illegal" to brew at home, but you had no legal way to pay the tax for that single batch of beverage you brewed... so you were "moonshining".
I see per mile as a waste of time as well. The market has proven that Gas needs to be about $3+ per gallon before consumers really start paying attention to their driving habits. Today it's about $2.50 so the Feds and States should each take a quarter (that would MORE than double the highest gas tax in the country) and call it good. Commercial vehicles get tax reductions by paying a flat fee anyway but they may need to extend that to gas powered commercial trucks (UPS, Fed EX, contractors, fleets) but it's easy to even it out and not crush businesses.
Things you have to get at a pump like CNG, Ethanol, etc have tax built in already. Electric power has some difficulty, but it requires amperage beyond what most homes can provide without professional wiring installed by the utility/electrician, so there's your in to tag that specific meter with a tax code. BioDiesel and such are too rare and low volume to deal with right now.. grandfather them in.. as soon as somebody SELLS that fuel they would have to pay all the normal station taxes... problem solved.
That was more about lead poisoning from the tin-lead solder joints. Bottled water has it's own problems. It's basically city tap water or well water, filtered, in a bottle. Which means you have all the same problems you could have at home combine that they run the equipment with almost zero regulation other than the content of the water put in the bottle (and not the content after it's sat on a shelf 3 months) Also, the bottles aren't thick enough (like glass ones) to make the water "sanitary" and the stored water can easily absorb gaseous toxins from where ever it's stored (i.e. on a shipper's truck loading dock exposed to diesel fumes/exhaust all day).
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because once they drain the vital fluids (so you don't rot so quickly) you're dead for sure, even if you weren't before!
Although that doesn't really seem to be zombie/vampire protection though. The ancient Egyptians had it right to scramble the brains and remove them.
The key is antibiotic as much as anything.
Middle ages folks had very little concept of contagion prevention.. germs weren't even discovered for a few hundred more years. I'd think that perhaps the middle ages plague was a combination of nasty things.. remember, it wasn't one "great plague" but a series of famines and pandemics over 50-75 years, peaking every 10-15 years killing 25%-50% of towns. The ones that survived benefited two-fold. First they passed on natural immunity to our generations that helps slow the spread, and second they were suffering effects of extreme overpopulation, few children were being born and mortality was high. With fewer people they were able to grow stronger to resist it until the disease burned out.
But few retail stores stock more that 50 or 100 current titles, so I think the original idea is quite good. Movie theaters show only 12 or so films at a time, even in big cities. Opening a Brick and Mortar store or theater up to even 1% of "hits" say music/movies that actually made a popularity chart in the last 50 years would be an impressive achievement. Even blockbuster movies like Star Wars or Indiana Jones become "unpurchasable" in a relatively short amount of time.... They've already hit "bargin bin" status in most retail outlets.
Having a surefire way to get at that back catalog would be highly important. The real key is getting business to focus on marketing in "long tail" manner. Something like Netflix is interesting because they are a business that really pays no penalty for keeping extra DVDs in the warehouse.... but how do they get people interested in WATCHING them. I find Emusic to be a similar thing in that area, but again, the hardest part is matching up MORE stuff I'm interested in rather than what publishers are currently marketing. I think Disney has the best handle on it because they republish back catalog in a big way every 10 years or so... making it "new" again to a new group of people. How do you do that for general things like "Bing Crosby" movies or "Rogers and Hammerstein" musicals? Heck, even getting recent Anime published in English in a reasonable time is difficult, or finding material from Electronica/J-Pop scenes due to publishers only wanting to publish "top 10" material.. when the majority of people don't BUY that stuff.. but they all would buy a different part of the top 500 or so songs.
That's correct, movies and TV shows negotiate for inclusion rights up front as an amount of THEIR royalty fees for the show. There was big dust up about this when shows started going to DVD and songwriters/artists started demanding extra royalties for DVD releases. I'd expect any movie soundtrack to have all it's songwriter/artists royalties pre-contracted tied to performance royalties of the show in any medium (television, movie, dvd, iTunes, netflix, video on demand, etc) for anything in the last 5 years going forward. I'd expect the studios negotiate directly with artists or don't include the music. period. It's Clearances 101 now.
Except that ASCAP was one of the first to sue studios years ago. Remember how series with lots of classic music couldn't be made into DVD sets because of clearances.. the studios got those clearances and added "digital rights" in every new contract. ASCAP is upset because those contract essentially cut ASCAP out of things like iTunes as the rights are squarely in the studio/label's hands.
The writer's strike was an honest dispute because studios were essentially not paying for plays because the contracts didn't say "digital broadcast" or "digital sale".. playing games that "sold it on iTunes" wasn't the same as "sold it on DVD box set", let alone add based services like Hulu or subscriptions like Netflix when "pay per view" on cable was included.
This is ASCAP.. they represent the people that write lyrics and sheet music and "paper" music publishers. The RIAA represents Performance Artists and Recording publishers... at least blame the right guys today.
What you have is that the RIAA publishers secured open-ended deals with music writers for all forms of publishing CDs and DVDs and downloads before doing the recording... after being sued for years, the RIAA labels and MPAA studios made sure to dot "i"s and cross "t"s and won't add any song to a soundtrack without those rights from all artists and writers secured. ASCAP just realized that the "standard form" the labels and studios insist on just shut down their little protection racket, and worse cut them out of the money loop by going straight to the artist first.. just like good contracts should.
ASCAP is asking for a legislated mandatory royalty, just like they get for radio/TV/performance/webcasters and just like Sound Exchange gets for performance artist from webcasters.This means EVERY track has to pay another royalty... even tracks you would publish yourself... because nobody can be sure you're really you when broadcasting, so we have to collect royalties from everybody, for everybody to be fair. This amounts to "free money" for song previews that only a few artists are ever going to see.
See that's where ASCAP won the battle but lost the war a few years back. Anything Hollywood publishes TODAY, they will secure full distribution rights to before releasing.. movie, DVD, rentals, youtube... etc. After ASCAP shenanigans with things like "Freaks and Geeks" holding up DVD distribution because the studio "didn't pay for that", studios won't even add your song without the blanket contract in place so that the music rights tag along with all their other distribution rights. Music publishers went thru the same thing back the Napster days.... they won't publish an album on CD unless the songwriter and artist grant all the various digital rights as well. Publishing execs nailed these guys down in the last few years after being repeatedly sued and now the money tree is shut down while Apple is neatly flying high in the aftermath. ASCAP overreached, and was inflexible and difficult to deal with... they got shut down by careful paperwork. Now they want Congress to step in and create another new "royalty" because they're not getting a good enough deal on the ones they already signed.
This a repeat of the game they play with radio stations. When you hear really long concert commercials with the band's track playing the whole time it's promoters gaming the ASCAP system for extra radio plays. I think radio stations have to count a "play" at 15 seconds or something, and now ASCAP want's samples at a "play" rate.
We're still dealing with fallout from the "digital" versus CD distribution. Just like performance artists don't get $2.50 ringtone royalties (those go directly to the publisher) the per track royalties ASCAP gets for CDs (and probably digital rentals of movies/TV shows) aren't contractually written for "digital" mediums at all, or for a reduced rate. ASCAP lost it's chances with Hollywood on this one fare and square. They tried to hold up early DVD releases of TV seasons (Freaks and Geeks was a famous one on Slashdot that actually had to reedit soundtracks because ASCAP artists wouldn't budge) playing contractual games and lawsuits. They won some lawsuits but in a limited enough fashion Hollywood was able to get the last laugh by getting "blanket" licensing for thing like CDs and TV seasons directly from the artists before even letting them work, and added the "digital" parts to distribution for TV, movie, DVD, etc. ASCAP is trying to end-run contracts and get Congress to create yet another new "on the internet" fee for "web distribution", but not the same web distribution covered under the webcasting clearing house (same rules as radio play) or the "sale" royalties for things like iTunes and emusic (counts as "CD" sales, not webcasting).
I assume you mean "boiling" but that's not how things work. You take showers in that tub every day... you add and subtract the little critters daily and they swirl around your bathroom... they've done studies about bathroom germs and it's kind of creepy, they pretty much go everywhere.
The key is DAMP and warm, it's what germs love. You add water every day and it sits collecting germs and then evaporates slowly all day... the germs live in the oils (soap and stuff you wash off) and dust (mostly skin flakes) mixed up that settles on stuff. The water from your shower isn't nearly enough to kill all the little critters, even strong bleach and disinfectant doesn't go everywhere without taking way to much time. Evolution rules... the strong survive and the weak die until you have a nice little life cycle going right under your nose.
Well, if they really wanted to stop selling XP they could have. Linux was starting to pick up on Netbooks because Vista was inadequate for the assigned task. So Microsoft made a choice to sell XP and continue to profit and keep it's market share so they need to offer the proper amount of support for new licenses as they don't exactly offer "clearance sales" on "old" licenses do they.
If Microsoft isn't capable of dealing with so many combinations of hardware and software, maybe they need a smaller market share... room for somebody else to step in. So what you're saying is that a company with tens of billions of dollars of CASH on hand can't/won't handle support for one of it's key products just because it's "old"? If we wouldn't have allowed Microsoft to get so big, maybe they wouldn't have these kinds of problems... This is where those pesky statistics get you. Microsoft's market share is long past the point of diminishing returns and yet they throw money holding every single OEM tightly, pushing "dead" products so that fledgling new ones don't get a single chance to get cash flow to start fixing their flaws and growing up.
I live in one of those and many of those people deserved to be wiped out by gas prices.
The smart commuters driving reasonable efficient cars weren't hit unreasonably hard. The clowns that though driving an Expedition 1 1/2 hours each way, every day to work, without carpooling, got slaughtered. Part of this push for "mileage" based tax is that the idea of giving breaks for more efficient rides is working... those that bought the big SUVs are simply jealous that the Prius and Civic drivers are mocking them at the pumps.
My issue is that the problem WILL happen again, and instead of pushing for high speed trains, good busing and sane work hours, people want to punish the people planning ahead buying small cars and expect a government bailout. I live in Michigan and we really need a Chicago-Detroit run along I-94 as well as a Detroit-Lansing-Grand Rapids run to benefit commuters and start leaving the SUVs at home.
The reason "exurbs" became popular was that it took getting 75+ miles from workplaces before starter housing became affordable. Also the premium for city work was just too good with such cheap gas. Of course going back to the status quo doesn't really fix the problem. Had prices stayed high it would be the incentive cities like Detroit and Toledo need to clean out their inner cities You can find property dirt cheap there, entire blocks have nobody living there, but nobody will live there. Had fuel prices stayed up places close to work would be rebuilt. With cheap gas the "upper" middle class just drives farther and farther away from the problem driving up cost of delivering mail and packages, school transportation, and city services with urban sprawl.
you clearly don't get that the ipod's adapter outputs the actual audio and video (scrambled) signals that other devices can pick up as "line-level" analog. If you use USB 2.0 then the device you are plugging into has do to all the decoding work. USB is pointless for things like video.... I mean you could use the unit as a fancy flash drive for that purpose (and it does work if you save the file to the data side)
Micro USB might be useful for DATA transfer and charging, but iPods can pull more current for quick-charge than the USB 2.0 spec allows... that can harm your standards following equipment. USB for OUTPUT requires host controllers, which are different from what's built into portable devices. An Ipod would have to have a USB OUT to drive USB speakers, video cards, etc to be used in the manner you are thinking of.
Unless of course, you have those devices where they use bastard "USB shaped" plugs with extra pins for audio and video. I have several cameras that use those, but there's no guarantee that the cords will actually work with another manufacturer's device even though the plug fits in the hole.
if we can determine our exact risk then it's not insurance. We're all going to die and the risk goes up every year.. until your 115 or so. So the "risk" is will you die during the time you have large amounts of responsibilities (work, home, wife, kids) or live past that peak risk time to just cover final expenses.
If something has definite risk it can be prevented.. if it can't be prevented then risk is involved and insurance is paid.
I understand what you're saying. If you were trying to fly it like a remote control hot air balloon you could adjust it's direction by carefully picking it's altitude.
If we sold cheap device that could fly across the Atlantic like that the terroristas would have them too! OMG! That's the primary reason for not allowing cheap GPS is that it's TOO good. In exchange for using the more accurate signals they agreed to make the units unusable for aircraft, balloons, SCUD guidance, etc. It also keeps people paying more for the "registered" official aircraft rated ones.
There are not firm rules in the US either but if you caused a nasty accident, like running a school bus off the road, they'd surely use the 8+ hours driving + 10 hours working against you to elevate the accident to criminal charges. It's also been used against employers that made such demands and employees killed themselves trying to get back home so they could be to work on time and crossed the yellow line. Since the lawsuits many companies have rules on the books that travel time counts as "worked" hours (for labor law purposes) and that employees need more than 8 hours between shifts (for insurance safety purposes) That doesn't mean department managers of 20 years won't skirt the rules to make their department budgets look better though.
but those things are what points are for. Things like DWI (the lesser charge) or wreckless driving (15 over the speed limit, circumstances) are minimum of 3 points if not stepped up to misdemeanor criminal charges. Things like running red lights (the vast majority of the time tickets are for the lesser charge of failing to yield) and such are automatic 2 points... most insurance companies will seriously threaten you with 2 points in one year and will drop you cold with any single 3 point violation.
In Michigan we have wonderful "driver responsibility" fees... depending on violation they can hit you for $250+ two years in a row (no, you can't pay ahead) "just because" and even if you fight the certain tickets you still pay it.
I live in a "no-fault" state, Michigan, and there is still "fault" based on the tickets, the drivers just don't see it. It works exactly like you said, each driver ensures their car. So if I drive a $600 Yugo, I can reduce my coverage to just cover my Personal protection (medical accident coverage) and Personal Damage liability (crashing into things).
What happens behind-the-scenes though, is that when you get into an accident the insurance companies still argue it out based on the issued tickets. (that's why there's still a line item for uninsured motorists, which also includes non-driver passengers and pedestrians) So the teen driver's rates go up. The bigger portion of insurance today is the medical portion so that even a minor emergency medical bill is the price of a very nice car... unlike medial HMO/PPO coverage insurance companies tend not to have the side deals that knock down prices so auto-related injuries are paid out full list price at the hospital.
no, I was going for the responsibility angle. They law Requires you have insurance, and requires the insurance pay if you are injured. Traffic laws and rights of way are established as well as money spent on road markings, guardrails, and removing road hazards that obstruct views of traffic. The law requires Car designers to put in seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones... this costs millions of dollars extra per model and the law requires cars undergo extensive testing of the safety measures before the car can be sold.
At some point the law has required "everybody else", literally thousands of people per car/driver, to contribute to your safety... so the law needs to REQUIRE you to look after it as well by properly using the designed, built, tested safety features so the person required to pay for you if you splatter is out a little bit less money.
But any non-trivial employees is dealing with multiple types of email. My boss may deal with contracts for purchasing software such as terms and conditions and those are mostly sent via email now days. You may have HR reports under a different retention. You may have environmental/insurance/osha reporting forms that you need to keep record of emailing to the appropriate officers, etc. Some things have to be kept for 5 years, some "forever".
You are correct that the server handles the actual retention but the user still has to file/identify it appropriately in the first place or it gets the "default" treatment.. which could cause problems.
I don't see how emotional control matters. The biggest "emotional" problem most teens have is getting too excited about driving and not watching the signs and traffic carefully enough... rolling thru stop signs, not being careful to look both ways... in a hurry to get somewhere. Most teens are still focused on the mechanics of driving that "road rage" isn't really an issue... except maybe dealing with "mature" drivers.
Wreckless fucks in Beamers was always my problem.. They'd swerve in and out of traffic and while the "teen" is getting prepared to follow the rules to move over cut them off on the right, or not leave proper clearance/pay attention to signals leaving other people room (2-3 car leangths) for mistakes. My experience on my highways is that the 40-50 males in "way to nice cars" are the ones that cause accidents because they cut off drivers, tailgating, passing on the right, forcing everybody else on the road to take evasive action because they want to get one more car ahead.
but why would the government restrict "private" companies from strong arming (free market!!!) YOU into survaillence tech Government can later get a warrant for? Government plays the "free market" card whenever it suits them.. they've already got a similar thing where they remotely turned on the OnStar phone to spy on some suspected drug dealer... the courts view was that "there wasn't a law against it" expect the same treatment for these "voluntary" insurance cameras.
To be fair China is still a Command economy that let's "Capitalism" play because it's a useful way to get people to work harder.. they are a long way from the idea of "Free Markets". This is where it's not a "round" world.. The Chinese government has their eye on the 50 year game and is more than willing to tie up all of a natural resource... and throw people in jail when the "free market" price goes up.
While the US punishes "intervention" by state banks in places like Japan and Korea for making sure their chip makers don't go under, China is stacking the deck on a NATIONAL level for resources... setting prices that corporations are allowed to SELL to China for.. and nobody is really stopping them. Just last week China "decided" they weren't going to be exporting any more rare earth metals (needed for high power magnets in electronics) They just issued a directive it wasn't allowed to be exported anymore....for any price. Back in 2007 one of the things that knocked US auto makers on their butts was China using scrap US steel instead of imported ore. It nearly doubled the price of scrap here (ironically bought with trade surplus dollars no less!) and made it even harder to complete with Asian companies... it was the straw that caused a good deal of the auto maker meltdown earlier this year. China manipulates their currency by not allowing dollars to be converted into Chinese money except for specific state-sponsored investments, and they don't allow US companies to take their Chinese profits OUT of the country either. It sets up a situation where they pile up money in US banks to buy US resources... but US companies can't pull their capital profits OUT of China...
China is playing the long game, highly protectionist and stacking the deck with our own money and resources against us. It's economic "war" played at the highest level and the US government has no grasp that the "invisible hand' won't save them.
in most states you have to pay the same gas tax on alternative fuels or your a "tax evader" That is one of the big problems with bio-diesel is that small home units are "too small" to properly inspect so they won't grant tax stamps... but you have to have the stamp tax to legally drive the vehicle or pay a fine (and of course the fine is more...) States used to play the same game with alcohol taxes too for home brewing too.. it wasn't "illegal" to brew at home, but you had no legal way to pay the tax for that single batch of beverage you brewed... so you were "moonshining".
I see per mile as a waste of time as well. The market has proven that Gas needs to be about $3+ per gallon before consumers really start paying attention to their driving habits. Today it's about $2.50 so the Feds and States should each take a quarter (that would MORE than double the highest gas tax in the country) and call it good. Commercial vehicles get tax reductions by paying a flat fee anyway but they may need to extend that to gas powered commercial trucks (UPS, Fed EX, contractors, fleets) but it's easy to even it out and not crush businesses.
Things you have to get at a pump like CNG, Ethanol, etc have tax built in already. Electric power has some difficulty, but it requires amperage beyond what most homes can provide without professional wiring installed by the utility/electrician, so there's your in to tag that specific meter with a tax code. BioDiesel and such are too rare and low volume to deal with right now.. grandfather them in.. as soon as somebody SELLS that fuel they would have to pay all the normal station taxes... problem solved.
That was more about lead poisoning from the tin-lead solder joints. Bottled water has it's own problems. It's basically city tap water or well water, filtered, in a bottle. Which means you have all the same problems you could have at home combine that they run the equipment with almost zero regulation other than the content of the water put in the bottle (and not the content after it's sat on a shelf 3 months) Also, the bottles aren't thick enough (like glass ones) to make the water "sanitary" and the stored water can easily absorb gaseous toxins from where ever it's stored (i.e. on a shipper's truck loading dock exposed to diesel fumes/exhaust all day).