You can't "terraform" a desert... you can only terraform a planet. Terraforming means drastically altering the atmosphere so that a place like the Sahara could exist. In fact if we could get Mars to be as hospitable to life as the Sahara we would have accomplished something fantastic.
If we were to try terraforming our own planet with the intention of making those areas you listed MORE habitable... we would simply end up with other areas being LESS habitable. Antarctica? You make antarctica more habitable... say goodbye to your low-lying coastal regions around the world. The various deserts of the world? And you think water shortages are bad now? Let's take our fresh water supply and spread it out over an additional billion square km of land... yeah that would be awesome.
The "real internet" never existed... not the way you're imagining it. There was a time when ISPs were small and had a few servers to support, 2 or 3 guy operations with a T1 connection... and there were Universities with T3s and a lot of computers hooked up to them... and of course dialup, Geocities, AOL and wait for it... Starcraft discussion boards on Compuserve....
Sure that all existed but it was an industry in it's infancy trying to tread water until some real money could be made... and letting people do what they wanted in the meanwhile to support the infrastructure and drive interest in the services.
Then critical mass hit... now it's The Internet, and international communications system supported by government, commercial (public and private) and not for profits as well as individuals and consumers.
It's no longer a private playground for the in-the-know crowd to chatter about things they think are important.
Actually i've sidestepped pantheism with the statement that God !== Universe. You're correct that religion rejects pantheism... because it limits God to the material world.
I'm saying that God is the material world AND the relationships that describe and influence the material world (which is best explained in terms of strange attractors which has to do with chaos theory and fractal geometries... there are built in tendencies for things to manifest in a particular way due to their inherent individual properties which interact with each other in pseudo predictable ways; as in hydrogen usually bonds with oxygen in a particular way but when another element is present may bond in another way, depending on the environment they are in, the relationships are the bonding patterns, not the elements themselves).
Next you might say I'm describing Deism, ie: in the beginning there was the algorithm, the Word of God... and it determined all things, then God stopped and rested for eternity. That's not correct either but day to day it fits 99% of what we experience. The incorrect part of it is really that time/space is not predetermined and in us humans God has an agent for change, good and bad. So we have an impact on our Universe (and if we discover other intelligent self actualizing beings out there in space somewhere, it applies to them as well) which is the result of free will.
Religion/Faith is supposed to give our free will a purpose, rather than just leave it up to random decisions or selfish desires for power and material wealth, it's the original government 'by the people, for the people' though of course like our own* democracy/republic it has had poor leaders and poor representatives. *I'm in the US
Science and Religion should be working together for the improvement of human life and i sincerely believe it is the secular political powers that create divisiveness in order to maintain their power lead over both. "Science will turn us all into robots! Religion will turn us all into Sheep! Vote for me, I'll Manage them both objectively, don't forget to pay your taxes;-p"
Did you just watch Dogma on TNT or something? or maybe Bruce Almighty? The various religions need to publish some updated press releases or something... obviously these people you're talking to went to Sunday school as a child and then never listened to anything in Church ever again.
As an educated thoughtful individual I can say I stopped believing in God as Santa Claus when I stopped believing in Santa Claus... doesn't mean I stopped believing in God but now I have a more mature adult understanding of what God is, influenced by my mature adult understanding of math, science, physics, biology, statistics and psychology.
You don't still think the Moon is made of cheese do you? or that making a wish when you blow out your candles on the birthday cake has any meaning? how about getting cooties from kissing? How about if you make a face for long enough it will stay that way?
These are all things parents tell their kids and society reinforces with cartoons and books but they are basically lies meant to shelter children from hard facts about life and to foster their imagination at the same time. That doesn't mean you should hold on to them as an adult.
The various religions may still teach God as Santa Claus to children and in regions where that is the only concept of religion the people have, but in modern societies the Religions teach Theology and Social Justice and how YOU are the hand of God and that we all together are his body.
Ask any practicing Jew if God is an old bearded Jew... they'll laugh in your face.
Ask a practicing Christian the same question, they'll probably ask you if you think He is and whether that is comforting or not... then they'll agree with your answer because they'll know that you aren't ready to learn the truth.
I can assure you that I just spent a year in adult religious education to convert to Catholicism and never was an old beardy guy mentioned.
What else did they teach you in school I wonder? Did they teach you an adult version of anything? Did you learn calculus or algebra? Did you learn the real history of the United States, complete with drug trade, slave trade and piracy which were the primary economy of the nation for 100 years? I suspect not.
If you want to learn about the adult version of something you'll have to take an adult class. Ever take comparative theology in college?
I lost you somewhere... must have been at the beginning when you skipped to the reply button;-p
Here it is again for your reading pleasure:
You can agree that light can be described as a wave or as a stream of photons, correct? This is the first part. That two things can be equal but not identical.
Light waves are equal but not identical to Light photons.
Here is the second part. First I'll include the definition of an algorithm:
an algorithm is a finite list of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task that, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state
- wikipedia:algorithm
Now I'll ask you to discern whether or not, given enough information, the Universe could be described with an algorithm... as in it had a beginning state, it iterated itself through a number of permutations of interactions, like any good chemical reaction should... and eventually will terminate itself in what will be a defined end state of some sort.
The analogy is that God is the algorithm, rather than the chemicals/elements... and yet this is the same relationship as light waves to photons, as in they are equal but not identical.
The algorithm perfectly describes the chemical reaction which created the Universe as we know it but is not the chemical reaction itself.
God/Algorithm is the beginning and the end... past/future, directs all things, created all things, is outside of us and part of us.
Except that most people who believe in God also believe that He/She/It is in effect and affect, the Universe itself (or parallel universes if you must) and so avoid that question altogether by saying "God is all around you and YOU, you can't NOT interact, detect and measure Him, it's essentially the only thing you can do."
Only children (and aetheists apparently) think of God as a big guy in the clouds or even as a separate entity from the Universe... and only because they have limited ability to think in abstractions at early ages and then it's just easier/better to let them figure it out for themselves as they mature and learn to think for themselves (unfortunately some never do figure it out).
The rest of us know that God == Universe but God !== Universe in the same way that a Light Wave == Light Photon but a Light Wave !== Light Photon
So they are equal but not identical, which is a similar concept to parallel universes coincidentally.
In any case the proof is in the relationships between the data points, not the data points themselves... it's like how an algorithm can describe or determine the behavior of a dynamic data set but is not identical to that data set.
You'd think that more people could make this connection regarding God and Universe, etc.... but it must be harder than I realize.
The main way you find a pot grower is by looking at electrical bills that are sky high in areas where they shouldn't be.... so basically pot growers are using grid energy to replace the sun and with their profit margins they can do this economically... so you could look forward to buying an ounce of wheat for $300... sound good?
Apple is in bed with Google (maps, search, youtube, etc.) and Google is in bed with Mozilla (financial contributions and other non-public contributions).
Unless Google has suddenly become disenchanted with Firefox and Mozilla, which is doubtful as they are big supporters of Microsoft competition... the chart Steve showed was a marketing ploy or a concession to Microsoft to gain some talking points when discussing Office for Mac.
Or maybe you should just be prepared for surprising results.... which can happen even if you are not adopted... what if you find that your father or mother were adopted? and your grandparents that you assumed were blood relatives, along with your aunts, uncles and cousins... are all unrelated to you?
If on the other hand you prefer not to know your ancestry, you probably shouldn't send in your DNA.
The hospital worker, like the college professor, is not getting such huge productivity increases. Widgets and software can be sold cheaply while still paying the workers well, but hospital services can not be made cheap while paying the workers well. Because everything is relative, hospital costs skyrocket.
Hmmm there is a missing value in your argument... pharmaceuticals. A large percentage of all medical expenses is the cost of drugs and chemicals/treatments for disease. This is one area of the medical industry where there have been huge gains in productivity... and use of artificial scarcity to inflate prices and margins.
Pharmaceuticals can be produced relatively cheaply, however they are allowed to be sold at inflated prices both as a reward for creating them (R&D is expensive) and as incentive to continue creating them.
There is a limit on how long they can charge such amounts though... through the life of their patents, then commodity chemical companies will produce them as generics... AND there is an upper limit on how many pharmaceuticals we will need to treat the vast majority of illnesses.
Sure there will always be a better, faster more convenient treatment just around the corner - which will have another patent lifespan of reward expenses to pay for, but the general populace will have a cheap and plentiful supply of pharmaceuticals that work(TM)
if only the government would stop the war on drugs
Not growing hemp has nothing to do with drugs.... there are plenty of varieties which produce little THC and lots of fibrous mass. It's got way more to do with lumber lobbies and oil lobbies and cotton lobbies and all the lobbies out there that don't represent hemp...
I was once a dice gamer and there was a game called Paranoia that I really enjoyed... this outline of yours sounds like the type of thing I'd create as a 'mission'... and of course you'd have to role play the whole time, with other players trying to screw up your chances while also attempting to gain the coveted device... and i'd be making you roll dice every 30 seconds for apparently no reason at all, except some times it would count and you'd get sent back to the end of the line;-p
That was a fun game...
Re:The best source of information.
on
ISS Goes Solar
·
· Score: 1
...activate the International Space Station's Starboard 3 and 4 (S3/S4) truss segment during STS-117's second spacewalk.
If you are a NASA news follower then that sentence fragment might mean something to you... otherwise it is nice to have someone rewrite the story for casual consumption, though they should have also provided a link to the nasa.gov source, oh wait... right there at the bottom of the story... a link to nasa.gov, for more information;-p
In California we are being proactive about this... as in there are efforts in legislation to put gps devices on all cars and simply track the road usage directly. This way all vehicles would be taxed evenly for road use (though a multiplier may be added based on weight), rather than unevenly based on their fuel in/efficiency.
When you look at this as an alternative the whole fuel tax thing seems like an elegant solution huh? No big-brother... no extra infrastructure to support it... pretty good deal.
Steve doesn't care if you can't run apps on the iPhone. He's not selling it to you or your company. He's selling it to your wife, girlfriend, teenagers, kids in college, etc. He's selling it to all the people who don't care about a Blackberry or a Treo but still have $600 to spend on a phone.
It's a lifestyle device, like the iPod, now with internet access.... and cellular.
That's it. It's not looking for a killer app... it is the killer app. It's phone, web, email, chat, music, photos and video in your hand. Who cares if it's doesn't let you open Excel docs or manage your finances with some 3rd party add on. Use your Blackberry to do that.. have your work pay for it. Then when you're all done doing work, grad your iPhone and head to the beach... call your friends, send directions and a map, listen to some tunes on the way over, take some pics while your there... then email them to anyone who couldn't get off work in time.
Who says it's going up against Blackberry and Treo... has there been a commercial I haven't seen that pits them against the iPhone?
I think it's a very hopeful crowd of PDA/Phone users out there who are fed up with their existing devices and looking for a way out... who are desperate, so desperate that when they look at the iPhone, they see a possible savior.
The reality is that the iPhone is not meant to replace your PDA/Phone... it's a completely different type of device. It's basically an iPod that now has network access... and since it has access, let's let it make phone calls and browse the web and send emails. That's it... it's another lifestyle device from Apple.
No matter how much you'd like it to be a Business device.. it's not. It's for women and kids and teenagers and people who do things other than work 24 hours a day. You need to do some work, pull out your work device. You want to have a good time... bring your iPhone.
Solution: Transfer based billing. I think the sender should pay for the bandwidth as it is with the web sites as well. Your incoming traffic requires also outgoing traffic and you attach the interest of the company (build as little infrastructure as economically feasible) with the interest of the client (use that infrastructure as little as economically feasible).
You need to add something to this for it to work. Clients, you and i at home, should pay a minimal access fee to pay for customer support, say $100 a year. You get 2 free visits, unlimited phone calls, with additional visits at an hourly rate. Clients also have an account via their access ISP, whom manages said account which consists of a credit/debit system attached to some electronic fund (bank account, credit card, other)... and which is debited by the Server at some rate the Server deems viable for their service.
The Server is charged some rate by their Network Provider in line with what they deem as a viable rate for said service.
So here we have the Server paying for bandwidth, the Client pays a nominal access fee... then the Server bills the Client for access to their Bandwidth.... which for most sites would be the same as what they pay but some sites with exclusive content could charge more if their visitors were willing to pay or because they (Server) could not find a cheaper Network Provider for their service (porn comes to mind)
This is an ideal situation IMHO... truly free market and competitive... also it provides a means for websites with quality content to prosper without having to dilute their offering with advertising.
It's probably a lot cheaper to print what they're using now. As in this whole thing will be printed on a large format inkjet, probably on several sheets of paper to accommodate the cavity.... then the cavity will be die-cut out as is standard and constructed using a cheap wood/plastic/alluminum frame. Sounds pretty cool to me.
It's an innovative use of the new inkjet printing of circuits technique.
Your idea does hold merit though and we at Hallmark cards will be looking into it aggressively;-p
hmmm you're argument doesn't hold water with me. If there are ways to improve upon the efficiency by using a little energy to focus the transmission field... then it's great for 'fixed installations' like your typical office cube farm, anyone's standard home and any place you're going to be sitting down working with an electronic device for more than 15 minutes. Ways to automate the configuration will be determined. That's not an if but a when.
Here's the solution space again for clarity: Put your lamps anywhere you want in your home... no need to place them near an outlet or have an electrician install one (or DIY if so inclined), no need to hardwire in your sconce lamps around the house, vacuum freely or buy a Roomba type unit that can be turned on and will simply rest in one spot for 30 minutes while recharging rather than having to return to a dock... which brings up Robotics... future robotic units will no longer need a plug to recharge, they'll just com with a local system, exchange your credit card number to pay for wattage and recharge as needed... same for electric vehicles. Each parking space could have a wire running under it that could charge your car while you shop or while at work... at work, they pay, at the shop you get a bill on your CC.
In short I think people are too short sighted about this concept... they are thinking of highly mobile small devices that are being moved around arbitrarily and in constant motion... like a cellphone in your pocket. Those devices will still need a batter but at night when resting they could recharge without a wire... just drop it where ever in your home and it will find the power source, configure itself and recharge as needed.
To counter any inefficiency it would be really nice to have all homes installed with solar power units of course but this is as true today as in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't "terraform" a desert... you can only terraform a planet. Terraforming means drastically altering the atmosphere so that a place like the Sahara could exist. In fact if we could get Mars to be as hospitable to life as the Sahara we would have accomplished something fantastic.
If we were to try terraforming our own planet with the intention of making those areas you listed MORE habitable... we would simply end up with other areas being LESS habitable. Antarctica? You make antarctica more habitable... say goodbye to your low-lying coastal regions around the world. The various deserts of the world? And you think water shortages are bad now? Let's take our fresh water supply and spread it out over an additional billion square km of land... yeah that would be awesome.
The "real internet" never existed... not the way you're imagining it. There was a time when ISPs were small and had a few servers to support, 2 or 3 guy operations with a T1 connection... and there were Universities with T3s and a lot of computers hooked up to them... and of course dialup, Geocities, AOL and wait for it... Starcraft discussion boards on Compuserve....
Sure that all existed but it was an industry in it's infancy trying to tread water until some real money could be made... and letting people do what they wanted in the meanwhile to support the infrastructure and drive interest in the services.
Then critical mass hit... now it's The Internet, and international communications system supported by government, commercial (public and private) and not for profits as well as individuals and consumers.
It's no longer a private playground for the in-the-know crowd to chatter about things they think are important.
Actually i've sidestepped pantheism with the statement that God !== Universe. You're correct that religion rejects pantheism... because it limits God to the material world.
;-p"
I'm saying that God is the material world AND the relationships that describe and influence the material world (which is best explained in terms of strange attractors which has to do with chaos theory and fractal geometries... there are built in tendencies for things to manifest in a particular way due to their inherent individual properties which interact with each other in pseudo predictable ways; as in hydrogen usually bonds with oxygen in a particular way but when another element is present may bond in another way, depending on the environment they are in, the relationships are the bonding patterns, not the elements themselves).
Next you might say I'm describing Deism, ie: in the beginning there was the algorithm, the Word of God... and it determined all things, then God stopped and rested for eternity. That's not correct either but day to day it fits 99% of what we experience. The incorrect part of it is really that time/space is not predetermined and in us humans God has an agent for change, good and bad. So we have an impact on our Universe (and if we discover other intelligent self actualizing beings out there in space somewhere, it applies to them as well) which is the result of free will.
Religion/Faith is supposed to give our free will a purpose, rather than just leave it up to random decisions or selfish desires for power and material wealth, it's the original government 'by the people, for the people' though of course like our own* democracy/republic it has had poor leaders and poor representatives. *I'm in the US
Science and Religion should be working together for the improvement of human life and i sincerely believe it is the secular political powers that create divisiveness in order to maintain their power lead over both. "Science will turn us all into robots! Religion will turn us all into Sheep! Vote for me, I'll Manage them both objectively, don't forget to pay your taxes
Did you just watch Dogma on TNT or something? or maybe Bruce Almighty? The various religions need to publish some updated press releases or something... obviously these people you're talking to went to Sunday school as a child and then never listened to anything in Church ever again.
As an educated thoughtful individual I can say I stopped believing in God as Santa Claus when I stopped believing in Santa Claus... doesn't mean I stopped believing in God but now I have a more mature adult understanding of what God is, influenced by my mature adult understanding of math, science, physics, biology, statistics and psychology.
You don't still think the Moon is made of cheese do you? or that making a wish when you blow out your candles on the birthday cake has any meaning? how about getting cooties from kissing? How about if you make a face for long enough it will stay that way?
These are all things parents tell their kids and society reinforces with cartoons and books but they are basically lies meant to shelter children from hard facts about life and to foster their imagination at the same time. That doesn't mean you should hold on to them as an adult.
The various religions may still teach God as Santa Claus to children and in regions where that is the only concept of religion the people have, but in modern societies the Religions teach Theology and Social Justice and how YOU are the hand of God and that we all together are his body.
Ask any practicing Jew if God is an old bearded Jew... they'll laugh in your face.
Ask a practicing Christian the same question, they'll probably ask you if you think He is and whether that is comforting or not... then they'll agree with your answer because they'll know that you aren't ready to learn the truth.
I can assure you that I just spent a year in adult religious education to convert to Catholicism and never was an old beardy guy mentioned.
What else did they teach you in school I wonder? Did they teach you an adult version of anything? Did you learn calculus or algebra? Did you learn the real history of the United States, complete with drug trade, slave trade and piracy which were the primary economy of the nation for 100 years? I suspect not.
If you want to learn about the adult version of something you'll have to take an adult class. Ever take comparative theology in college?
I'm not being preachy, just being argumentative.
I lost you somewhere... must have been at the beginning when you skipped to the reply button
Here it is again for your reading pleasure:
You can agree that light can be described as a wave or as a stream of photons, correct? This is the first part. That two things can be equal but not identical.
Light waves are equal but not identical to Light photons.
Here is the second part. First I'll include the definition of an algorithm:
- wikipedia:algorithm
Now I'll ask you to discern whether or not, given enough information, the Universe could be described with an algorithm... as in it had a beginning state, it iterated itself through a number of permutations of interactions, like any good chemical reaction should... and eventually will terminate itself in what will be a defined end state of some sort.
The analogy is that God is the algorithm, rather than the chemicals/elements... and yet this is the same relationship as light waves to photons, as in they are equal but not identical.
The algorithm perfectly describes the chemical reaction which created the Universe as we know it but is not the chemical reaction itself.
God/Algorithm is the beginning and the end... past/future, directs all things, created all things, is outside of us and part of us.
Except that most people who believe in God also believe that He/She/It is in effect and affect, the Universe itself (or parallel universes if you must) and so avoid that question altogether by saying "God is all around you and YOU, you can't NOT interact, detect and measure Him, it's essentially the only thing you can do."
Only children (and aetheists apparently) think of God as a big guy in the clouds or even as a separate entity from the Universe... and only because they have limited ability to think in abstractions at early ages and then it's just easier/better to let them figure it out for themselves as they mature and learn to think for themselves (unfortunately some never do figure it out).
The rest of us know that God == Universe but God !== Universe in the same way that a Light Wave == Light Photon but a Light Wave !== Light Photon
So they are equal but not identical, which is a similar concept to parallel universes coincidentally.
In any case the proof is in the relationships between the data points, not the data points themselves... it's like how an algorithm can describe or determine the behavior of a dynamic data set but is not identical to that data set.
You'd think that more people could make this connection regarding God and Universe, etc.... but it must be harder than I realize.
The main way you find a pot grower is by looking at electrical bills that are sky high in areas where they shouldn't be.... so basically pot growers are using grid energy to replace the sun and with their profit margins they can do this economically... so you could look forward to buying an ounce of wheat for $300... sound good?
Apple is in bed with Google (maps, search, youtube, etc.) and Google is in bed with Mozilla (financial contributions and other non-public contributions).
Unless Google has suddenly become disenchanted with Firefox and Mozilla, which is doubtful as they are big supporters of Microsoft competition... the chart Steve showed was a marketing ploy or a concession to Microsoft to gain some talking points when discussing Office for Mac.
Or maybe you should just be prepared for surprising results.... which can happen even if you are not adopted... what if you find that your father or mother were adopted? and your grandparents that you assumed were blood relatives, along with your aunts, uncles and cousins... are all unrelated to you?
If on the other hand you prefer not to know your ancestry, you probably shouldn't send in your DNA.
Hmmm there is a missing value in your argument... pharmaceuticals. A large percentage of all medical expenses is the cost of drugs and chemicals/treatments for disease. This is one area of the medical industry where there have been huge gains in productivity... and use of artificial scarcity to inflate prices and margins.
Pharmaceuticals can be produced relatively cheaply, however they are allowed to be sold at inflated prices both as a reward for creating them (R&D is expensive) and as incentive to continue creating them.
There is a limit on how long they can charge such amounts though... through the life of their patents, then commodity chemical companies will produce them as generics... AND there is an upper limit on how many pharmaceuticals we will need to treat the vast majority of illnesses.
Sure there will always be a better, faster more convenient treatment just around the corner - which will have another patent lifespan of reward expenses to pay for, but the general populace will have a cheap and plentiful supply of pharmaceuticals that work(TM)
530 kilometers = 2 634.61386 furlongs ...google to the rescue
Th point is that everyone can use whatever system of measurement they want... as long as a consistent conversion exists.
How about 330 miles in parsecs?
or in hands
why should we, when Google does conversions... is it really important what measurement system is used as long as it is consistent?
Not growing hemp has nothing to do with drugs.... there are plenty of varieties which produce little THC and lots of fibrous mass. It's got way more to do with lumber lobbies and oil lobbies and cotton lobbies and all the lobbies out there that don't represent hemp...
I was once a dice gamer and there was a game called Paranoia that I really enjoyed... this outline of yours sounds like the type of thing I'd create as a 'mission'... and of course you'd have to role play the whole time, with other players trying to screw up your chances while also attempting to gain the coveted device... and i'd be making you roll dice every 30 seconds for apparently no reason at all, except some times it would count and you'd get sent back to the end of the line ;-p
That was a fun game...
If you are a NASA news follower then that sentence fragment might mean something to you... otherwise it is nice to have someone rewrite the story for casual consumption, though they should have also provided a link to the nasa.gov source, oh wait... right there at the bottom of the story... a link to nasa.gov, for more information
In California we are being proactive about this... as in there are efforts in legislation to put gps devices on all cars and simply track the road usage directly. This way all vehicles would be taxed evenly for road use (though a multiplier may be added based on weight), rather than unevenly based on their fuel in/efficiency.
When you look at this as an alternative the whole fuel tax thing seems like an elegant solution huh? No big-brother... no extra infrastructure to support it... pretty good deal.
Steve doesn't care if you can't run apps on the iPhone. He's not selling it to you or your company. He's selling it to your wife, girlfriend, teenagers, kids in college, etc. He's selling it to all the people who don't care about a Blackberry or a Treo but still have $600 to spend on a phone.
It's a lifestyle device, like the iPod, now with internet access.... and cellular.
That's it. It's not looking for a killer app... it is the killer app. It's phone, web, email, chat, music, photos and video in your hand. Who cares if it's doesn't let you open Excel docs or manage your finances with some 3rd party add on. Use your Blackberry to do that.. have your work pay for it. Then when you're all done doing work, grad your iPhone and head to the beach... call your friends, send directions and a map, listen to some tunes on the way over, take some pics while your there... then email them to anyone who couldn't get off work in time.
Who says it's going up against Blackberry and Treo... has there been a commercial I haven't seen that pits them against the iPhone?
I think it's a very hopeful crowd of PDA/Phone users out there who are fed up with their existing devices and looking for a way out... who are desperate, so desperate that when they look at the iPhone, they see a possible savior.
The reality is that the iPhone is not meant to replace your PDA/Phone... it's a completely different type of device. It's basically an iPod that now has network access... and since it has access, let's let it make phone calls and browse the web and send emails. That's it... it's another lifestyle device from Apple.
No matter how much you'd like it to be a Business device.. it's not. It's for women and kids and teenagers and people who do things other than work 24 hours a day. You need to do some work, pull out your work device. You want to have a good time... bring your iPhone.
You need to add something to this for it to work. Clients, you and i at home, should pay a minimal access fee to pay for customer support, say $100 a year. You get 2 free visits, unlimited phone calls, with additional visits at an hourly rate. Clients also have an account via their access ISP, whom manages said account which consists of a credit/debit system attached to some electronic fund (bank account, credit card, other)... and which is debited by the Server at some rate the Server deems viable for their service.
The Server is charged some rate by their Network Provider in line with what they deem as a viable rate for said service.
So here we have the Server paying for bandwidth, the Client pays a nominal access fee... then the Server bills the Client for access to their Bandwidth.... which for most sites would be the same as what they pay but some sites with exclusive content could charge more if their visitors were willing to pay or because they (Server) could not find a cheaper Network Provider for their service (porn comes to mind)
This is an ideal situation IMHO... truly free market and competitive... also it provides a means for websites with quality content to prosper without having to dilute their offering with advertising.
.
We don't have an exclusive hold on stupidity... just witness /. an international community
'nuff said
It's probably a lot cheaper to print what they're using now. As in this whole thing will be printed on a large format inkjet, probably on several sheets of paper to accommodate the cavity.... then the cavity will be die-cut out as is standard and constructed using a cheap wood/plastic/alluminum frame. Sounds pretty cool to me.
;-p
It's an innovative use of the new inkjet printing of circuits technique.
Your idea does hold merit though and we at Hallmark cards will be looking into it aggressively
hmmm you're argument doesn't hold water with me. If there are ways to improve upon the efficiency by using a little energy to focus the transmission field... then it's great for 'fixed installations' like your typical office cube farm, anyone's standard home and any place you're going to be sitting down working with an electronic device for more than 15 minutes. Ways to automate the configuration will be determined. That's not an if but a when.
Here's the solution space again for clarity: Put your lamps anywhere you want in your home... no need to place them near an outlet or have an electrician install one (or DIY if so inclined), no need to hardwire in your sconce lamps around the house, vacuum freely or buy a Roomba type unit that can be turned on and will simply rest in one spot for 30 minutes while recharging rather than having to return to a dock... which brings up Robotics... future robotic units will no longer need a plug to recharge, they'll just com with a local system, exchange your credit card number to pay for wattage and recharge as needed... same for electric vehicles. Each parking space could have a wire running under it that could charge your car while you shop or while at work... at work, they pay, at the shop you get a bill on your CC.
In short I think people are too short sighted about this concept... they are thinking of highly mobile small devices that are being moved around arbitrarily and in constant motion... like a cellphone in your pocket. Those devices will still need a batter but at night when resting they could recharge without a wire... just drop it where ever in your home and it will find the power source, configure itself and recharge as needed.
To counter any inefficiency it would be really nice to have all homes installed with solar power units of course but this is as true today as in the future.
Depends on what Dawn and Vesta look like, now doesn't it...