yeah, pointless regulation and all, but I rather liked Mt Dew without caffeine, and putting the caffeine back in it kinda takes it off my list. I get plenty enough with coffee and coke, and it does not need to be in everything.
If this is really the case, then it will become a fun game. Make sure you know you are within your limits. In the lineup, talk with your spouse about all the incredibly expensive things that you bought, as well as discussing all manner of clever ways that people might get past their declaration, in hushed tones.
Declare exactly what you are bringing back. Dare them to challenge you. Overwhelm the system with false positives.
Sure it will be a bit of a hassle, but no good change ever happened in government without citizens dealing with some hassles.
I will reply with some anecdotal evidence, if I may.
My mother is now retired after a long career as a public health nurse, and recently told me the story of her start as a nurse. She was assigned to one of the two floors in the local hospital dedicated to polio treatment and rehabilitation, with hundreds of patients, as the first mass polio vaccine was being introduced. Within two years of this happening, the polio wards were empty, and in the process of being repurposed.
So, you might be right about polio being in decline, on the order of going from 100 cases to 99 for example. My mother is very proud to have been a part of the effort that took polio from 99 cases to zero.
How many times has your smartphone died by 3pm, and how much would you have paid to have it continue to run until you return to the place you normally charge it?
Its not the cost of the power that is the issue, its the convenience of having a working phone at the end of my work day.
I remember being at a trade fair of some sort shortly after Encarta came out. I had a copy and immediately saw that multimedia versions would eventually kill the paper version.
So I asked the Brittanica rep when they would have their electronic version out, and the attitude was literaly "its a passing fad, people we will always want the book version".
I think that phrase "its a passing fad" should almost qualify as investment advice. take a hard look at the passing fads, and buy in early! or even better, short the company that claims their threat is a passing fad.
Thank you! You speak to the one issue that offends me in this debate.
All of the discussions around AGW move from science to policy with frightening speed. And the policy is best describe as - We must do something - This is something - We must do this.
But all of the proposals and policies thus far have been shown to not make a difference. Agreements like Kyoto are crap.
If you want to argue that all the science that has gone into climate change has passed rigorous vetting, then you need to apply that same rigor to the proposed solutions.
Or also be willing to accept that perhaps the best response will be to do nothing, and deal with the change.
Corporations as persons is a very narrow legal standing that simplifies some transactions that corporations are involved in. Are you really trying to argue that anything that pays taxes should get a vote? Because the USA has an estate tax, that is levied on the assets of a dead person. Who gets the vote in that situation, the dead guy, or the actual assets themselves? There is a tax on cigarettes and gasoline, how on earth will we get cigarettes go hold a pen so they can check the box?
At the end of all the figuring, it is an individual who is paying the tax, either the consumer, the beneficiaries of the estate, or the shareholders of the corporation. and these people are represented, as they have been able to vote.
By allowing corporations to have a say in politics, you are actually giving individual shareholders additional say in politics. They get their same original one vote, but now they get an additional vote, and additional influence through the corporation.
We are rightly disgusted when an individual tries to bride a public figure. But we are fine with that individual forming a corporation, and allowing the corporation to do the bribing?
Well, waiting until the rights you have left are similar to the rights they have in china before you complain might not be the best strategy.
I am always amused by the sentiment that Americans still live in the land of the free, because the government does not abuse you as badly as they do in china. Eventually, they will be as bad, and people will still say "yeah, but we are doing it for a good reason... like safety or liberty or protection of democracy"
I too expect armed insurrection in the USA in my lifetime.
Because people wont press for change until armed insurrection is the only solution left available to them.
You ask the 98 doctors: "What is the treatment for this illness, what are the side effects, and is the treatment worse than the disease?" "If I elect to NOT undergo treatment, how will this affect my enjoyment of my life?" "Is the treatment expensive, and if I can't afford the treatment, what are my options?"
In medical science, you would get a wealth of information about the treatment, likely results, side effects, effects of not treating it, advanced cases, alternative cures, and the 98 doctors would pretty much all agree, referring to the existing case studies and documentation.
In climate science, the 98 doctors would all wring their hands and say that they have never had to treat this before, they have no idea about the efficacy of the proposed treatment, no idea if the treatment would actually make a difference, and no way to manage the treatment to adjust it if it turns out to be flawed. They also will not agree on what the end result of the disease is, and when it will become critical. Some significant precentage will tell you that its already too late. They will all agree that we have to do something, because that has to be better than doing nothing.
Personally, I believe that we have the disease that the 98 doctors have said we have, and that no treatment option given is better than just living with the disease, and many options proposed are far worse. This disease won't kill us, but in 300 years, it will make the average persons life very different. But I also suspect that the average persons life will be very different in 300 years, with or without treatment.
if the judge were to set precedent by deciding that RIAA was right, but that statutory damages should be in the order of 1 penny per infraction, or 0.1 cent, or 0.01 cents per.
It would probably still fulfill their goal of bankrupting limewire, and make future lawsuits for infringement far more interesting....
They need to double the price, and market it to triathletes. We seem to love having all kinds of data, and a powertap hub is like crack. Once you start getting wattage, you are lost to the world. Imagine what this would do....
Well, the really interesting thing is that this farmer in question then proceeded to "reap the benefits" of this contamination. They discovered the infringement through this farmers purchase of Round-Up, which he sprayed on the crop, a crop which would normally be killed by Round-up. So, he was fully aware of the contamination and the benefits that he would gain through this contamination.
If he had continue to grow this crop as he had always grown it, using the same fertilizers and herbicides that were used before the contamination, there would be no case. There would be no impact. There would be no controversy.
The burden is not on him to protect their patent. It is a different matter when he takes material benefit without compensating the patent holder, which is what this case was all about.
This is perfect! And I have to put this into standard slashdot form:
Step 1: Get the credit card companies to do a constant search for 'compromised' credit card numbers and disable them.
Step 2: Put up websites that randomly generate possibly valid credit card numbers so that the credit card companies can automatically invalidate them and piss off their customers!
Step 3: Profit?
Credit card fraud is probably one of the most analyzed types of fraud for a very simple reason. The party with the ability to make changes to enhance the security are the ones who will take the loss if they do not make these changes. There have been comments here about how credit card companies just charge the fraud back to the merchants, but that is not the case. If the merchant has upheld their end of the bargain, then there is no reasonable way to charge it back to them. What happens is that they have to pay higher fees, or eventually lose their merchant account if they are the source of too much fraud. Visa quotes fraud losses on their annual report, so merchants don't get it all charged back.
Lastly, I have to point you all over to Bruce Schneiers blog http://www.schneier.com/blog/ where he has made that point about security again and again, and uses the credit card companies as a good example. The best way to improve security is to make the guy who can fix the problem the one that is responsible for the possible loss. This gives the right incentive to address the problem. And they already know that the way to secure the credit cards is to focus on the security of the transaction, not the security of the card number.
Napster was clearly the pioneer in the music download business.
And they clearly forgot the old saying:
"How do you identify the pioneers?
They are the ones with arrows in their backs!"
OK, so I am a day late with this reply, but I had to add this.
I am using MythTV as 'Free' Software, to build a better TIVO. Now, the funny thing is, I have problem spent about three times as much money on the mythtv setup as I would have spent on Tivo or its brethren. The main reason for doing this? Because I dont have to worry about them changing the software under the covers on me, about features disappearing, about losing control to someone who would deny me my fair rights regarding TV content. I am in control about my Mythtv, and this give me freedom.
OK, so the cost prevented this solution from costing 4 times a Tivo, but that was never the reason to use this software in the first place.
I think you have read this wrong. The telecom industry in very capital intensive (lots of expensive equipment, millions of dollars in cables alone, etc etc). Telecom companies by their very nature have to take on large amounts of debt in order finance all this capital.
so, along comes MCI, emerging from bankruptcy, retaining all the capital/equipment/etc/etc that they need to run a telecom company, but without any of the debt.
Do you think this would allow them to be more competitive in telecom than the companies that are already up to their eyeballs in debt?
The is also lots of things that are the same between the Canon 20D and the Canon 1D Mk II. If the extra features were enabled in the 20D, there would be even less reason to pay 3 times as much for the 1D Mk II. (It also has more buffer RAM + weather sealing).
You should check it out, I hacked the firmware for my 20D, using the firmware for the 1D MKII, and it went from 5 frames per second to 8 frames per second, I now have a spotmeter, and all the plastic parts became magnesium, and, as you noted, it grew a larger buffer and rubber weather seals. The viewfinder also went from 90% coverage to 100% coverage.
seriously, you used a bad example, because in this case, the product differentiation really is in the hardware capabilities.
yes indeed, and they are now worth 86500 each..... Yes, that is 86 THOUSAND.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BRKA&d=t
Warren Buffet only wants long-term investors, not the ones who flip for a quick buck. When you have to pony up 86k for one share, you tend to pay attention to what you are buying, and to hang onto that one share.
Since this is a dutch auction format, the lowest priced successful bidder effectively sets the price for all the shares. They allocate all the shares starting at the highest priced, until they hit the one where they have allocated all the shares, and the last one is the price everyone pays.
This means that my bid of $5.00 for 1000 shares would have been successful until they reduced the # of shares.
and I love the scene where they show this, the troopers finally get it together, blow the crap out of an entire alien base, tie up and drag a brain-bug out of its cave while hundreds of the enemy fire automatic weapons, then ol' doogie howser reads its mind and states "Its Afraid".
Well, no shit, sherlock. And you needed telepathy to figure that out?
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, pointless regulation and all, but I rather liked Mt Dew without caffeine, and putting the caffeine back in it kinda takes it off my list. I get plenty enough with coffee and coke, and it does not need to be in everything.
If this is really the case, then it will become a fun game. Make sure you know you are within your limits. In the lineup, talk with your spouse about all the incredibly expensive things that you bought, as well as discussing all manner of clever ways that people might get past their declaration, in hushed tones.
Declare exactly what you are bringing back.
Dare them to challenge you.
Overwhelm the system with false positives.
Sure it will be a bit of a hassle, but no good change ever happened in government without citizens dealing with some hassles.
I will reply with some anecdotal evidence, if I may.
My mother is now retired after a long career as a public health nurse, and recently told me the story of her start as a nurse. She was assigned to one of the two floors in the local hospital dedicated to polio treatment and rehabilitation, with hundreds of patients, as the first mass polio vaccine was being introduced. Within two years of this happening, the polio wards were empty, and in the process of being repurposed.
So, you might be right about polio being in decline, on the order of going from 100 cases to 99 for example. My mother is very proud to have been a part of the effort that took polio from 99 cases to zero.
How many times has your smartphone died by 3pm, and how much would you have paid to have it continue to run until you return to the place you normally charge it?
Its not the cost of the power that is the issue, its the convenience of having a working phone at the end of my work day.
I remember being at a trade fair of some sort shortly after Encarta came out. I had a copy and immediately saw that multimedia versions would eventually kill the paper version.
So I asked the Brittanica rep when they would have their electronic version out, and the attitude was literaly "its a passing fad, people we will always want the book version".
I think that phrase "its a passing fad" should almost qualify as investment advice. take a hard look at the passing fads, and buy in early! or even better, short the company that claims their threat is a passing fad.
Thank you! You speak to the one issue that offends me in this debate.
All of the discussions around AGW move from science to policy with frightening speed. And the policy is best describe as
- We must do something
- This is something
- We must do this.
But all of the proposals and policies thus far have been shown to not make a difference. Agreements like Kyoto are crap.
If you want to argue that all the science that has gone into climate change has passed rigorous vetting, then you need to apply that same rigor to the proposed solutions.
Or also be willing to accept that perhaps the best response will be to do nothing, and deal with the change.
Corporations as persons is a very narrow legal standing that simplifies some transactions that corporations are involved in. Are you really trying to argue that anything that pays taxes should get a vote? Because the USA has an estate tax, that is levied on the assets of a dead person. Who gets the vote in that situation, the dead guy, or the actual assets themselves? There is a tax on cigarettes and gasoline, how on earth will we get cigarettes go hold a pen so they can check the box?
At the end of all the figuring, it is an individual who is paying the tax, either the consumer, the beneficiaries of the estate, or the shareholders of the corporation. and these people are represented, as they have been able to vote.
By allowing corporations to have a say in politics, you are actually giving individual shareholders additional say in politics. They get their same original one vote, but now they get an additional vote, and additional influence through the corporation.
We are rightly disgusted when an individual tries to bride a public figure. But we are fine with that individual forming a corporation, and allowing the corporation to do the bribing?
Where did it all go so wrong?
Well, waiting until the rights you have left are similar to the rights they have in china before you complain might not be the best strategy.
I am always amused by the sentiment that Americans still live in the land of the free, because the government does not abuse you as badly as they do in china. Eventually, they will be as bad, and people will still say "yeah, but we are doing it for a good reason... like safety or liberty or protection of democracy"
I too expect armed insurrection in the USA in my lifetime.
Because people wont press for change until armed insurrection is the only solution left available to them.
Sounds like the gateway drug theory, and it has already been proven that the 'gateway' drug is actually tobacco/nicotine. http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=gateway+drug+nicotine
By the same criteria, breathing and eating food is also 'associated with addiction'.
Learn to deal with life without nicotine, to coin a phrase.
University of Alberta aurora watch service:
http://corona-gw.phys.ualberta.ca/AuroraWatch/
You ask the 98 doctors:
"What is the treatment for this illness, what are the side effects, and is the treatment worse than the disease?"
"If I elect to NOT undergo treatment, how will this affect my enjoyment of my life?"
"Is the treatment expensive, and if I can't afford the treatment, what are my options?"
In medical science, you would get a wealth of information about the treatment, likely results, side effects, effects of not treating it, advanced cases, alternative cures, and the 98 doctors would pretty much all agree, referring to the existing case studies and documentation.
In climate science, the 98 doctors would all wring their hands and say that they have never had to treat this before, they have no idea about the efficacy of the proposed treatment, no idea if the treatment would actually make a difference, and no way to manage the treatment to adjust it if it turns out to be flawed. They also will not agree on what the end result of the disease is, and when it will become critical. Some significant precentage will tell you that its already too late. They will all agree that we have to do something, because that has to be better than doing nothing.
Personally, I believe that we have the disease that the 98 doctors have said we have, and that no treatment option given is better than just living with the disease, and many options proposed are far worse. This disease won't kill us, but in 300 years, it will make the average persons life very different. But I also suspect that the average persons life will be very different in 300 years, with or without treatment.
if the judge were to set precedent by deciding that RIAA was right, but that statutory damages should be in the order of 1 penny per infraction, or 0.1 cent, or 0.01 cents per. It would probably still fulfill their goal of bankrupting limewire, and make future lawsuits for infringement far more interesting....
Well, they did get some product placement, It was a DEC rainbow on Janine's desk in Ghostbusters http://www.starringthecomputer.com/feature.php?f=53
They need to double the price, and market it to triathletes. We seem to love having all kinds of data, and a powertap hub is like crack. Once you start getting wattage, you are lost to the world. Imagine what this would do....
Well, the really interesting thing is that this farmer in question then proceeded to "reap the benefits" of this contamination. They discovered the infringement through this farmers purchase of Round-Up, which he sprayed on the crop, a crop which would normally be killed by Round-up. So, he was fully aware of the contamination and the benefits that he would gain through this contamination.
If he had continue to grow this crop as he had always grown it, using the same fertilizers and herbicides that were used before the contamination, there would be no case. There would be no impact. There would be no controversy.
The burden is not on him to protect their patent. It is a different matter when he takes material benefit without compensating the patent holder, which is what this case was all about.
Step 1: Get the credit card companies to do a constant search for 'compromised' credit card numbers and disable them.
Step 2: Put up websites that randomly generate possibly valid credit card numbers so that the credit card companies can automatically invalidate them and piss off their customers!
Step 3: Profit?
Credit card fraud is probably one of the most analyzed types of fraud for a very simple reason. The party with the ability to make changes to enhance the security are the ones who will take the loss if they do not make these changes. There have been comments here about how credit card companies just charge the fraud back to the merchants, but that is not the case. If the merchant has upheld their end of the bargain, then there is no reasonable way to charge it back to them. What happens is that they have to pay higher fees, or eventually lose their merchant account if they are the source of too much fraud. Visa quotes fraud losses on their annual report, so merchants don't get it all charged back.
Lastly, I have to point you all over to Bruce Schneiers blog http://www.schneier.com/blog/ where he has made that point about security again and again, and uses the credit card companies as a good example. The best way to improve security is to make the guy who can fix the problem the one that is responsible for the possible loss. This gives the right incentive to address the problem. And they already know that the way to secure the credit cards is to focus on the security of the transaction, not the security of the card number.
Napster was clearly the pioneer in the music download business.
And they clearly forgot the old saying:
"How do you identify the pioneers? They are the ones with arrows in their backs!"
OK, so I am a day late with this reply, but I had to add this. I am using MythTV as 'Free' Software, to build a better TIVO. Now, the funny thing is, I have problem spent about three times as much money on the mythtv setup as I would have spent on Tivo or its brethren. The main reason for doing this? Because I dont have to worry about them changing the software under the covers on me, about features disappearing, about losing control to someone who would deny me my fair rights regarding TV content. I am in control about my Mythtv, and this give me freedom. OK, so the cost prevented this solution from costing 4 times a Tivo, but that was never the reason to use this software in the first place.
The olympics should really take a page from the automotive world, and split in two categories..... Stock, and Super Modified.
so, along comes MCI, emerging from bankruptcy, retaining all the capital/equipment/etc/etc that they need to run a telecom company, but without any of the debt.
Do you think this would allow them to be more competitive in telecom than the companies that are already up to their eyeballs in debt?
seriously, you used a bad example, because in this case, the product differentiation really is in the hardware capabilities.
What part of "This call may be monitored" did you not understand?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BRKA&d=t
Warren Buffet only wants long-term investors, not the ones who flip for a quick buck. When you have to pony up 86k for one share, you tend to pay attention to what you are buying, and to hang onto that one share.
This means that my bid of $5.00 for 1000 shares would have been successful until they reduced the # of shares.
Bastards! :-)
and I love the scene where they show this, the troopers finally get it together, blow the crap out of an entire alien base, tie up and drag a brain-bug out of its cave while hundreds of the enemy fire automatic weapons, then ol' doogie howser reads its mind and states "Its Afraid".
Well, no shit, sherlock. And you needed telepathy to figure that out?