Trucking and farming require big, heavy vehicles that do far more damage to the roads then small hybrids. No reason they shouldn't bear most of the burden for maintenance.
" The federal government and various state governments conduct studies to determine the
appropriate allocation of costs among classes of vehicles. These studies find that the fuel taxes
and registration fees, which provide a substantial amount of the funds for construction and
maintenance, are not levied in proportion to cost responsibility. In particular, they conclude that
heavy vehicles typically do not pay their share of the cost, while lighter vehicles tend to be taxed
for more than their share."
Metal tapes were expensive, I never knew anyone who used them. Chrome, on the other hand, didn't cost much more than a normal tape (one to two bucks each if you shopped around, compared to a buck or less for normal), and sounded way better. I had a friend give me a bunch of Zeppelin albums he recorded on normal-bias tape, the dynamic range was so bad I couldn't bear to listen to them.
No Grasshopper, this is James-Bond-villain evil. Not just any Bond villain, Christopher-Walken's-worst-performance-ever evil! I love Walken, but the evil in this plot really made me hate him. Or maybe it was just the sucky script. Roger Moore didn't help much either.
Yes, the OS is perceived as "free" by many. If you remember the dark days of Win ME, it really sucked, and a lot of people had problems with it. Yes, MS killed it as soon as they could, but that left millions of people with a crappy, poorly supported OS that developers didn't want to write apps and drivers for.
I expect people running Vista will soon be in the same boat, and the solution will be to spend $500 for a new computer or $119+ to upgrade the OS. Who wants to invest $119 in a 2-3 year old machine? MS should do the right thing and make the upgrade dirt cheap, to get all their users on the same page. But they have a near-monopoly so why should they care if they piss off millions of customers?
Honestly, Vista was pretty much just a beta for 7, asking people to pay $119+ to upgrade an OS that shouldn't have been released is an insult. I'm not an MS hater, I'm running 7 and like it pretty well so far. Did my best to like Vista but went back to XP after a few months.
Good points. But without an analysis of the energy used to produce a windmill vs. the energy produced by the windmill over it's lifetime, they don't tell us much.
There's no such thing as a calm day on a planetary level, the wind is always blowing somewhere. We would have to build a robust grid to move power to where it's needed from where it's generated, but we already do that, just a question of scale.
The EV1 was basically a limited production prototype. Nobody makes a profit on prototypes. Since they sold their patents to Texaco/Chevron who won't allow anyone to produce a NIMH battery large enough to power a car, we'll never know if they could have been profitable.
But keep in mind that there are cars running around powered by lead-acid batteries, and HIMH batteries are much lighter and efficient, while being much much cheaper than lithium-ion and other tech being pursued today. And Texaco was concerned enough to buy the patent. I'd guess that GM could have made a cost effective vehicle eventually, and it sure looks like Texaco thought so, since they won't let anyone even try.
Good post, but you missed the part where GM sold their EV patents to TEXACO after they scrapped the EV1. And Texaco used them to force Toyota to stop producing electric RAV4s, which had just started to take off.
No. But a better tool makes killing people a lot easier. And sending a robot to war is a hell of a lot easier than sending a man. So you can bet there will be a lot more killing. Fewer US troops dying, but a lot more brown people. But they don't really count.
I agree with you, but good luck marketing your appliance. The tech press will trash it for its limitations, and the techie friends they talk to before buying a computer will tell them it's junk. So they'll buy a nice hackable quad-core machine to browse the interwebs.
From the F'n summary:
"This time, Microsoft was smart not to limit the time that it's available or the number of keys. It will be up for download until July."
Funny, I never realized unlimited time ends in July. Why the hell is there an inane quote from an anonymous reader in the summary? Why not just say, "MS is making the beta available until July, much longer than earlier releases." I realize this is/., but sheesh!
Sorry pal, it's not lower taxes driving companies overseas, it's lower wages. And if you want to volunteer to have your salary reduced to make your shareholders happy, be my guest.
I'm paying Qwest 40 bucks a month to rent two twisted copper wires, that were probably installed before I was born. And a repair tech just told me my run is 3000 feet longer than their DSL specs call for, which explains my less than stellar connection speeds. At least they give me a discount for the sub-par performance----NOT!!
Don't talk to me about government being less willing to upgrade than corporate monopolies. I'd frickin kill for municipal fiber.
Telcos and cable companies have no inherent right to exist. If government can provide the same service and voters don't have a problem with it, there's no reason they shouldn't. That's called democracy, and, no, it isn't synonymous with capitalism.
Slashdot Mirror
Trucking and farming require big, heavy vehicles that do far more damage to the roads then small hybrids. No reason they shouldn't bear most of the burden for maintenance.
From http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/TD/TP_RES/docs/Reports/EffectWeightMileTax.pdf
" The federal government and various state governments conduct studies to determine the appropriate allocation of costs among classes of vehicles. These studies find that the fuel taxes and registration fees, which provide a substantial amount of the funds for construction and maintenance, are not levied in proportion to cost responsibility. In particular, they conclude that heavy vehicles typically do not pay their share of the cost, while lighter vehicles tend to be taxed for more than their share."
"time-keeping carnivorous robot overlords" is even better. More menace.
"The Post Office has a monopoly. If you deliver mail you get arrested."
Ever heard of FedEx?
Metal tapes were expensive, I never knew anyone who used them. Chrome, on the other hand, didn't cost much more than a normal tape (one to two bucks each if you shopped around, compared to a buck or less for normal), and sounded way better. I had a friend give me a bunch of Zeppelin albums he recorded on normal-bias tape, the dynamic range was so bad I couldn't bear to listen to them.
No Grasshopper, this is James-Bond-villain evil. Not just any Bond villain, Christopher-Walken's-worst-performance-ever evil! I love Walken, but the evil in this plot really made me hate him. Or maybe it was just the sucky script. Roger Moore didn't help much either.
Yes, the OS is perceived as "free" by many. If you remember the dark days of Win ME, it really sucked, and a lot of people had problems with it. Yes, MS killed it as soon as they could, but that left millions of people with a crappy, poorly supported OS that developers didn't want to write apps and drivers for.
I expect people running Vista will soon be in the same boat, and the solution will be to spend $500 for a new computer or $119+ to upgrade the OS. Who wants to invest $119 in a 2-3 year old machine? MS should do the right thing and make the upgrade dirt cheap, to get all their users on the same page. But they have a near-monopoly so why should they care if they piss off millions of customers?
Honestly, Vista was pretty much just a beta for 7, asking people to pay $119+ to upgrade an OS that shouldn't have been released is an insult. I'm not an MS hater, I'm running 7 and like it pretty well so far. Did my best to like Vista but went back to XP after a few months.
Sorry, Comcast & AT&T do not a free market make. It's called a duopoly, and it's only marginally better than a monopoly. It sure aint competition.
Good points. But without an analysis of the energy used to produce a windmill vs. the energy produced by the windmill over it's lifetime, they don't tell us much.
There's no such thing as a calm day on a planetary level, the wind is always blowing somewhere. We would have to build a robust grid to move power to where it's needed from where it's generated, but we already do that, just a question of scale.
Don't know if it's still true, but Disneyland used to prohibit their employees form having facial hair. Even though Walt sported a mustache.
The EV1 was basically a limited production prototype. Nobody makes a profit on prototypes. Since they sold their patents to Texaco/Chevron who won't allow anyone to produce a NIMH battery large enough to power a car, we'll never know if they could have been profitable.
But keep in mind that there are cars running around powered by lead-acid batteries, and HIMH batteries are much lighter and efficient, while being much much cheaper than lithium-ion and other tech being pursued today. And Texaco was concerned enough to buy the patent. I'd guess that GM could have made a cost effective vehicle eventually, and it sure looks like Texaco thought so, since they won't let anyone even try.
Good post, but you missed the part where GM sold their EV patents to TEXACO after they scrapped the EV1. And Texaco used them to force Toyota to stop producing electric RAV4s, which had just started to take off.
No. But a better tool makes killing people a lot easier. And sending a robot to war is a hell of a lot easier than sending a man. So you can bet there will be a lot more killing. Fewer US troops dying, but a lot more brown people. But they don't really count.
and I like it!
I agree with you, but good luck marketing your appliance. The tech press will trash it for its limitations, and the techie friends they talk to before buying a computer will tell them it's junk. So they'll buy a nice hackable quad-core machine to browse the interwebs.
...are willing to provide real bandwidth to their customers, this ain't happenin'.
Damn, my mod points just expired.
Heh heh. "Basketball is a peaceful planet!"
From the F'n summary: "This time, Microsoft was smart not to limit the time that it's available or the number of keys. It will be up for download until July."
/., but sheesh!
Funny, I never realized unlimited time ends in July. Why the hell is there an inane quote from an anonymous reader in the summary? Why not just say, "MS is making the beta available until July, much longer than earlier releases." I realize this is
Sorry pal, it's not lower taxes driving companies overseas, it's lower wages. And if you want to volunteer to have your salary reduced to make your shareholders happy, be my guest.
I'm paying Qwest 40 bucks a month to rent two twisted copper wires, that were probably installed before I was born. And a repair tech just told me my run is 3000 feet longer than their DSL specs call for, which explains my less than stellar connection speeds. At least they give me a discount for the sub-par performance----NOT!!
Don't talk to me about government being less willing to upgrade than corporate monopolies. I'd frickin kill for municipal fiber.
Telcos and cable companies have no inherent right to exist. If government can provide the same service and voters don't have a problem with it, there's no reason they shouldn't. That's called democracy, and, no, it isn't synonymous with capitalism.
I used Netflix' streaming for the first time last night, worked great--and I'm no fan of MS or Silverlight.
Hulu, on the other hand, often requires cursing, reboots, and sacrificing the occasional goat in order to properly display full-screen on my TV.
Thanks for posting, it's always gratifying to learn that my cynicism is not misplaced.