Back when the publicly owned and traded phone "monopoly" was f'd up.
I'm not so sure about that "f'd up". Audio quality used to be "So clear, you can hear a pin drop". Now, it's some guy yelling into the phone "Can you hear me now?" or "Fewest dropped calls" (how about 'no' dropped calls).
To be sure, the AT&T monopoly was screwed up in it's own way. But what we have now is still screwed up, just differently. Having said that, I can get 20/5 cable, or 15/2 FIOS for under $50/month.
He pays some ridiculous amount of money monthly...
He also pays ~$7/gal for gas (the highest in Europe).
If he makes more than EUR$53,000, he pays 52% in income tax. Add on to that 6.5% for the "free" health insurance premium, a flat tax of 25% on any 'substantial business interest'. There are other taxes as well.
Holland is great. Lived there for 3 years. But there are substantial differences between Holland and the US. Differences that make a direct comparison, on narrowly selected data points, silly.
he can travel to any country in the EU without even slowing down as he drives across the border
Going from Holland to Belgium to France is quite similar to going from NY to Pennsy to Ohio. No big deal.
Think how many people could have been fed with this money.
$420 million. Enough to buy every person in the US 1 apple. Just one.
Think how many people have been fed with this money. The operative word you're looking for is jobs. Go get one. You might like it.
From what I understand, the blood flow pattern is unique making it suitable for ID purposes.
Maybe so, but not from a security/ATM/credit card standpoint. When (not if) the database containing the image, or numerical representation of the image, is hacked, you cannot request a new face.
But you can't get music on your iPod from Rhapsody, Napster, Urge, or any other music download service.
That's an issue of those download (rental) services, not the iPod. My daughter has a Mini. I'd be very surprised if she has more than 2 or 3 tracks on it that were actually bought from iTunes.
She does have a lot of tracks that came from my former eMusic subscription.
Maintenance on a lighty used beach is pretty inexpensive. Now...a beach that gets used so heavily that you literally have a hard time finding a spot for your blanket costs a lot to maintain. More per acre than the lightly used one. Maybe not more total, but more per acre. Trash pickup, lifeguards, etc.
Now imagine your local taxpaying population is outnumbered 100 to 1 in use of this beach. Who should foot the bill for the maintenance? Locals via taxes, or all users via this fee?
Maybe I completely missed the point in capitalism 101, but why do you have to pay to go to the beach?
Good beach in that area is limited. There is a population of tens of millions a few miles up the road. Even with a fee, it is still incredibly crowded.
The vast majority of beaches in the US are entirely free.
Actually, not 'better avionics', but rather 'avionics and wiring designed for'. Something that most aircraft currently flying were not designed or built for.
I was under the impression that any form of wireless communication during flight was not allowed unless throughly tested and re-tested by airline technicians, etc
You answered your own question. tested and re-tested by airline technicians
The US has ~31 people per sq km, Australia is 1/100th the density with ~0.3 people per sq km, yet 97% of the population have a choice of service providers.
And where does Australia's population live? Almost all in two narrow bands on the coasts. The interior is empty. Raw density numbers (0.3/sq km) are deceiving.
Right. But the form factor (small box w/ headphones) was specifically the Walkman. There were over the shoulder 8 track players, but few and far between.
Did you try it? If so, fine.
If not....pick one and go read a few pages. The page turning ani does not get in the way, nor is it hitting you over the head. Click/flip. Since this is a scan of the actual book, the animation pretty well represents the actual feel of the book. Or as close as you can get onscreen. I've tried reading books on the computer that were mere straight text copies, and this feels far better. (Not that I like reading novels tied to the computer)
unless you have one very, very, very long page full of text, at some point you have to click 'Next'. Might as well recreate the feel of a book as much as possible.
The are 243,023,485 (wikipedia) cars in the United States alone, monitoring all of those with GPS would be beyond a tremendous undertaking. I highly doubt it would ever come to a situation where we are all monitored -- too much money, too much man power, and the government isn't that stupid/crazy.
Not monitored in real time, but rather recorded for future perusal.
"What cars went through the intersection of Elm and Main last thursday at 19:42?" "Ok...now do a trace on all those license plates for the hour following. See where they went." And so on. Eventually they catch the guy they were looking for. But they also see a whole lot of other stuff that they normally wouldn't.
Slashdot Mirror
Back when the publicly owned and traded phone "monopoly" was f'd up.
I'm not so sure about that "f'd up". Audio quality used to be "So clear, you can hear a pin drop". Now, it's some guy yelling into the phone "Can you hear me now?" or "Fewest dropped calls" (how about 'no' dropped calls).
To be sure, the AT&T monopoly was screwed up in it's own way. But what we have now is still screwed up, just differently. Having said that, I can get 20/5 cable, or 15/2 FIOS for under $50/month.
He pays some ridiculous amount of money monthly...
He also pays ~$7/gal for gas (the highest in Europe).
If he makes more than EUR$53,000, he pays 52% in income tax. Add on to that 6.5% for the "free" health insurance premium, a flat tax of 25% on any 'substantial business interest'. There are other taxes as well.
Holland is great. Lived there for 3 years. But there are substantial differences between Holland and the US. Differences that make a direct comparison, on narrowly selected data points, silly.
he can travel to any country in the EU without even slowing down as he drives across the border
Going from Holland to Belgium to France is quite similar to going from NY to Pennsy to Ohio. No big deal.
Think how many people could have been fed with this money.
$420 million. Enough to buy every person in the US 1 apple. Just one.
Think how many people have been fed with this money. The operative word you're looking for is jobs. Go get one. You might like it.
but centralized economy if done properly has this strange property of lowering crime and fraud
Really? Where, in the last 100 years or so, has it ever been 'done properly'?
The main difference here is that in the US sentences are added up upon one another, whereas in most of the rest of the world they run concurrently.
No, that is by no means a hard and fast rule.
From what I understand, the blood flow pattern is unique making it suitable for ID purposes.
Maybe so, but not from a security/ATM/credit card standpoint. When (not if) the database containing the image, or numerical representation of the image, is hacked, you cannot request a new face.
But you can't get music on your iPod from Rhapsody, Napster, Urge, or any other music download service.
That's an issue of those download (rental) services, not the iPod. My daughter has a Mini. I'd be very surprised if she has more than 2 or 3 tracks on it that were actually bought from iTunes.
She does have a lot of tracks that came from my former eMusic subscription.
Maybe it doesn't appeal to your minimalist aesthetic tastes, but I can dial my Samsung A690 in the car without causing a major traffic accident.
How about not doing that at all. It's a car, not a phone booth.
Maintenance on a lighty used beach is pretty inexpensive. Now...a beach that gets used so heavily that you literally have a hard time finding a spot for your blanket costs a lot to maintain. More per acre than the lightly used one. Maybe not more total, but more per acre.
Trash pickup, lifeguards, etc.
Now imagine your local taxpaying population is outnumbered 100 to 1 in use of this beach. Who should foot the bill for the maintenance? Locals via taxes, or all users via this fee?
As a Texan I must say I would NEVER pay for my RIGHT to be on PUBLIC PROPERTY.
Ever pay a fee to go camping in a National Park?
Here in Michigan we have 60 times the coastline that NJ has and we dont gouge our residents by charging for beach access.
Because you have 60 times the coastline, and 1/10th the population, is the reason you don't have to charge for beach access.
Maybe I completely missed the point in capitalism 101, but why do you have to pay to go to the beach?
Good beach in that area is limited. There is a population of tens of millions a few miles up the road. Even with a fee, it is still incredibly crowded.
The vast majority of beaches in the US are entirely free.
Actually, not 'better avionics', but rather 'avionics and wiring designed for'. Something that most aircraft currently flying were not designed or built for.
I was under the impression that any form of wireless communication during flight was not allowed unless throughly tested and re-tested by airline technicians, etc
You answered your own question.
tested and re-tested by airline technicians
The US has ~31 people per sq km, Australia is 1/100th the density with ~0.3 people per sq km, yet 97% of the population have a choice of service providers.
And where does Australia's population live? Almost all in two narrow bands on the coasts. The interior is empty.
Raw density numbers (0.3/sq km) are deceiving.
I don't get why there can't be various levels of service
$$$$
Can you guarantee levels of ridership/profit before we start on the environmental impact survey?
I think it would be nice if you could just throw 2+ gigs of RAM in one of these things
As mentioned in the article, it comes with 2GB standard.
"Of course some of this improvement is no doubt due to the 2GB of memory installed..."
Right. But the form factor (small box w/ headphones) was specifically the Walkman. There were over the shoulder 8 track players, but few and far between.
Arguably the 8-track is the ancestor of what would eventually become the iPod.
No, that would be the cassette tape and the WalkMan.
Rutan already has that support. He is a regular participant in many military conferences and design studies.
Did you try it? If so, fine.
If not....pick one and go read a few pages. The page turning ani does not get in the way, nor is it hitting you over the head. Click/flip. Since this is a scan of the actual book, the animation pretty well represents the actual feel of the book. Or as close as you can get onscreen. I've tried reading books on the computer that were mere straight text copies, and this feels far better. (Not that I like reading novels tied to the computer)
unless you have one very, very, very long page full of text, at some point you have to click 'Next'. Might as well recreate the feel of a book as much as possible.
And here, they have done a very good job.
I'm skeptical about the usefulness of that. There's nothing I hate more than having to wait for some animation before I can read more content.
You could stop complaining and actually go try it, you know. It is free.
The page flipping thing is pretty instantaneous. Backwards and forwards.
Gutenberg is the raw text. This is actual scans of the pages, incl illustrations. Looks far more like a real book.
I guess if some public libraries loan out CDs, videocassettes, DVDs, or even books on tape, they might try to get involved.
Most do loan those items out. But they pay for them first. And don't make a new duplicate for each patron.
The are 243,023,485 (wikipedia) cars in the United States alone, monitoring all of those with GPS would be beyond a tremendous undertaking. I highly doubt it would ever come to a situation where we are all monitored -- too much money, too much man power, and the government isn't that stupid/crazy.
Not monitored in real time, but rather recorded for future perusal.
"What cars went through the intersection of Elm and Main last thursday at 19:42?"
"Ok...now do a trace on all those license plates for the hour following. See where they went."
And so on. Eventually they catch the guy they were looking for. But they also see a whole lot of other stuff that they normally wouldn't.
$30 phone, pay as you go. Not terribly expensive. I probably spend $10-$12/month on it.