Re:Remember the Sonic Cruiser?
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 1
shoot, they probably couldn't make the stupid thing work. there was a lot of talk about the thing, but most in the industry were VERY skeptical about the technical claimes boeing was making with regards to their drag predictions in the transonic regime.
Lets not forget the fact that the thing would SHATTER WINDOWS flying over the continental US. Sonic booms do damage, which is why there is a max speed airplanes can fly over the US
way, way oversimplified. sonic booms don't automatically shatter windows- there are different degrees of booms; i live near edwards air force base, and we've been boomed by sr-71's, f22's, f15's, and god knows what else, and i've never had a shattered window. some of the booms you hardly notice, but some are literally earth shaking. =)
-How is it infringing on their "right" to privacy if the FBI had obtained a warrant to listen in on the service? For starters, there is no "right to privacy".).
yes, there IS a "right to privacy". the supreme court has interpreted the constitution as such, many times over the years.
-The Bill of Rights enumerates a number of rights that, taken in summary, give what amounts to a "right" of privacy, but no specific right to privacy itself. ).
Amendment IX-
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
in other words, just because they don't spell it out certain rights, it doesn't mean you don't have them.
it's not till you get to the third fastest that you get to machines used to design weapons of mass destruction or all the things the nuke guys do that they pretend aren't quite directly weapons-related
uhh, those are only unclassified systems; you have no idea whether there are any classified systems that would rank or not. =)
San Francisco...When he is lucky he gets a temporary job answering phones or testing video games, nothing that ever pays more than $10 an hour
c'mon, if this is the case, he's just slacking. i'm up in silicon valley every month or so, and i constantly see signs at fast food joints looking to hire at more than $10/hr.
What parts of web development require one process to still be using up your CPU when you've switched to another app? I do web development/programming for a living and I never have more than one program actively doing anything at one time, with the exception of ftp'ing an entire directory in the background.
so you're doing mostly static pages? more web *design* than development if that's the case. if you're actually coding pages, you can chew up the cpu pretty well.
get a freakin' job, take out the loans, and quit your belly-aching. first, why are you so hung up on what your *parents* can afford? be a man and buck up to it yourself. why does financial aid suck? you should be glad they're helping you at all! this sense of entitlement is absolute bullshit; if you can't afford it, don't go. if it's worth it to you, make the sacrifices.
i worked through college and paid my own way (yes, i still have some loans, but they're worth it because of the opportunities they've opened up), and you know what? taking care of the bills yourself rather than burdening your parents will make your education worth that much more to you.
you're missing the point- you're comparing the post office to a private, for profit company, and only looking at the advantages it has in operation without looking at the disadvantages.
"But unlike private companies, the Postal Service is exempt from federal, state and local taxes and fees.
As would be those private companies if they were non-profits.
Likewise, most zoning laws are of no consequence to this monopoly,
incorrect
and it can ignore parking tickets and vehicle licensing fees.
yep
The post office also has access to taxpayer- subsidized government credit and preferential customs agreements.
an organization the size of the post office could easily negotiate these itself if it had to so it's not a big deal
"Private companies are prohibited from charging anything less than twice the post office's price for the same service."
there's a very good reason for this; private companies only serve profitable areas. the post office is required by law to serve *every* area in the US, including the ones that are in the middle of east podunk nowhere. w/out this requirement, folks living in rural areas would either have no regular access to mail, or it would cost an arm and a leg since the private carriers ignore those areas. do you think fed'ex would/could/want to deliver a letter from west podunk oregon to east podunk maine for $0.37 and consistently make a profit?
USPS uses predatory pricing to undercut other businesses: "The USPS lost $200 million in 2000, $1.7 billion in 2001, and $676 million in 2002, but continues to operate. Such losses would likely have driven a private firm into bankruptcy."
again, incorrect. we all know that companies routinely are in the red but are still in business. look at amazon, amd, etc, etc, etc. not to mention in the first half of FY2003 it's $1.65Billion in the black.
"exempt from paying investors an expected rate of return on their invested capital. "
again, they operate as a non-profit. what rate of return do you expect from other non-profits? =}
1- must be nice to be a business that doesn't have to pay property taxes- the post office is a non-profit. non profits generally don't pay property taxes anyways. nor do they typically pay sales and use taxes.
2- gets government sponsored building & vehicle contracts, vehicle contracts, and a slew of other normal corporate hurdles.- I'm not sure what you're saying here regarding "gov't sponsored" contracts. any organization the size of the post office would be getting ridiculous vehicle discounts anyways. when the post office want to buy / rent property, they have to do it the same way as anyone else (they sure as heck did in town here, where they built a new building last year, and leased another one. when they were buying the land for the building, they kept the locations of interest secret to avoid price inflation).
sure, a fixed ip would work for it. but the point is, you don't need it to do that. there's other ways to do the same thing, so the shortage isn't critical for that crap.
regarding your second point, i sure as heck don't think i want the entire telecommunications infrastructure to be ip based. the telco infrastructure is incredibly robust compared to the ip infrastructure, and will be for the forseable future. tell me, how often do your phones at work go down, versus the computer network?
hey, i must be a hotshot to your way of thinking! i *do* have multiple devices at home, behind a gateway, that i access via names rather than ip addresses and port numbers, all with a dynamic ip address on my gateway! it ain't that complicated skippy.
umm, what, you can't accept incoming calls on your cell phone w/out an ip address? or are you for some god awful reason actually suggesting you want to use VOIP for a cell phone, even though the network is already designed for voice?
you would kind of like the Internet protocols to be at least as flexible as the phone network?
soooo, you think the phone network is more flexible than the phone network, but you want to take your cell phone, using "the phone network", and accept incoming calls with the internet protocls that you think are less flexible? the convoluted thinking here is just mind boggling!
requires very bizarre architectures involving reflectors owned and run by third parties (or at least port forwarding)
umm, so it *doesn't* require what you say it requires... =) i've written some small p2p software on contract, and it's not exactly rocket science (especially with port forwarding).
yeah, i pay waaaay too much in taxes. close to $20k in federal income taxes alone last year. and on $14k income, you're not paying $2k in social security taxes- social security taxes is 6.2% and medicare taxes 1.45%. that's $868 + 203 = $1071. and yes, i know the employer matched it, but you weren't going to see that money anyways. add $600 for your federal income tax for a total of $1671 / year. state income tax- not every state has it, but if you're making minimum wage, i have a tough time believing you're going to be paying more than a couple hundred max. vat taxes are on discretionary spending, so how much you pay is up to you.
the context was about what you saw in your paycheck, therefore it's obviously talking about income tax. sales tax a) isn't universal, and b) is largely limited to discretionary items. payroll taxes nobody sees so is basically irrelevant to the context here. property taxes most likely aren't an issue for those making minimum wage...
dude, if your making minimum wage, you're basically not paying any taxes. if you're single, and make up to ~$14,000 a year, you pay a whopping $600 a year in taxes.
you can decrypt the signal all you like. you just can't use that signal to steal services, or distribute devices or knowledge to others to do the same.
i would very, very strongly doubt that. working for the gov't as a contractor, and providing them the code is not distributing it. the gov't essentially wrote and owns the code at that point.
you are grossly misinformed about the gpl license then; if you wish to keep the *internal* software solutions a secret, you can still use the gpl. there is no requirement to share your modifications to gpl code if you're not redistributing it outside your organization.
My unstated point was that (and I guess I should have taken the time to include it) the political process and pork-barrelling have interfered with the way that we currently attempt space missions.
when you're dealing with billions of tax payer dollars, of course the "political process and pork-barreling" is part of it; that's the job of the politicians- to look out for their constituents! the money's being spent, might as well as have it make some jobs in your district! =)
as far as self-powered launches, that was *NOT* being explored in the early programs. simply wasn't feasible technologically. hell, we still can't do it today.;)
But it didn't have to be that way. And it still doesn't.
sure it doesn't have to be that way, but that's the way it is. which you seem to be acknowledging, so i don't know why you had problems with my initial statement...
--me-- except launching something into space has very, very little to do with flight!
--you-- Do a little research on manned space flight...
that's just it- manned space "flight" isn't "flight". massive thrust to get it up into orbit, with no pilot control, and a controlled fall, with little pilot control. manuvers in space hardly falls into the "flight" realm.
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shoot, they probably couldn't make the stupid thing work. there was a lot of talk about the thing, but most in the industry were VERY skeptical about the technical claimes boeing was making with regards to their drag predictions in the transonic regime.
Lets not forget the fact that the thing would SHATTER WINDOWS flying over the continental US. Sonic booms do damage, which is why there is a max speed airplanes can fly over the US
way, way oversimplified. sonic booms don't automatically shatter windows- there are different degrees of booms; i live near edwards air force base, and we've been boomed by sr-71's, f22's, f15's, and god knows what else, and i've never had a shattered window. some of the booms you hardly notice, but some are literally earth shaking. =)
-How is it infringing on their "right" to privacy if the FBI had obtained a warrant to listen in on the service? For starters, there is no "right to privacy".).
yes, there IS a "right to privacy". the supreme court has interpreted the constitution as such, many times over the years.
-The Bill of Rights enumerates a number of rights that, taken in summary, give what amounts to a "right" of privacy, but no specific right to privacy itself. ).
Amendment IX- The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
in other words, just because they don't spell it out certain rights, it doesn't mean you don't have them.
it's not till you get to the third fastest that you get to machines used to design weapons of mass destruction or all the things the nuke guys do that they pretend aren't quite directly weapons-related
uhh, those are only unclassified systems; you have no idea whether there are any classified systems that would rank or not. =)
San Francisco...When he is lucky he gets a temporary job answering phones or testing video games, nothing that ever pays more than $10 an hour
c'mon, if this is the case, he's just slacking. i'm up in silicon valley every month or so, and i constantly see signs at fast food joints looking to hire at more than $10/hr.
What parts of web development require one process to still be using up your CPU when you've switched to another app? I do web development/programming for a living and I never have more than one program actively doing anything at one time, with the exception of ftp'ing an entire directory in the background.
so you're doing mostly static pages? more web *design* than development if that's the case. if you're actually coding pages, you can chew up the cpu pretty well.
get a freakin' job, take out the loans, and quit your belly-aching. first, why are you so hung up on what your *parents* can afford? be a man and buck up to it yourself. why does financial aid suck? you should be glad they're helping you at all! this sense of entitlement is absolute bullshit; if you can't afford it, don't go. if it's worth it to you, make the sacrifices.
i worked through college and paid my own way (yes, i still have some loans, but they're worth it because of the opportunities they've opened up), and you know what? taking care of the bills yourself rather than burdening your parents will make your education worth that much more to you.
you're missing the point- you're comparing the post office to a private, for profit company, and only looking at the advantages it has in operation without looking at the disadvantages.
"But unlike private companies, the Postal Service is exempt from federal, state and local taxes and fees.
As would be those private companies if they were non-profits.
Likewise, most zoning laws are of no consequence to this monopoly,
incorrect
and it can ignore parking tickets and vehicle licensing fees.
yep
The post office also has access to taxpayer- subsidized government credit and preferential customs agreements.
an organization the size of the post office could easily negotiate these itself if it had to so it's not a big deal
"Private companies are prohibited from charging anything less than twice the post office's price for the same service."
there's a very good reason for this; private companies only serve profitable areas. the post office is required by law to serve *every* area in the US, including the ones that are in the middle of east podunk nowhere. w/out this requirement, folks living in rural areas would either have no regular access to mail, or it would cost an arm and a leg since the private carriers ignore those areas. do you think fed'ex would/could/want to deliver a letter from west podunk oregon to east podunk maine for $0.37 and consistently make a profit?
USPS uses predatory pricing to undercut other businesses: "The USPS lost $200 million in 2000, $1.7 billion in 2001, and $676 million in 2002, but continues to operate. Such losses would likely have driven a private firm into bankruptcy."
again, incorrect. we all know that companies routinely are in the red but are still in business. look at amazon, amd, etc, etc, etc. not to mention in the first half of FY2003 it's $1.65Billion in the black.
"exempt from paying investors an expected rate of return on their invested capital. "
again, they operate as a non-profit. what rate of return do you expect from other non-profits? =}
haha, you have no idea what you're talking about!
1- must be nice to be a business that doesn't have to pay property taxes- the post office is a non-profit. non profits generally don't pay property taxes anyways. nor do they typically pay sales and use taxes.2- gets government sponsored building & vehicle contracts, vehicle contracts, and a slew of other normal corporate hurdles.- I'm not sure what you're saying here regarding "gov't sponsored" contracts. any organization the size of the post office would be getting ridiculous vehicle discounts anyways. when the post office want to buy / rent property, they have to do it the same way as anyone else (they sure as heck did in town here, where they built a new building last year, and leased another one. when they were buying the land for the building, they kept the locations of interest secret to avoid price inflation).
access from outside, dynamic dns, and port forwarding.
So, the fridge example does work.
sure, a fixed ip would work for it. but the point is, you don't need it to do that. there's other ways to do the same thing, so the shortage isn't critical for that crap.
regarding your second point, i sure as heck don't think i want the entire telecommunications infrastructure to be ip based. the telco infrastructure is incredibly robust compared to the ip infrastructure, and will be for the forseable future. tell me, how often do your phones at work go down, versus the computer network?
hey, i must be a hotshot to your way of thinking! i *do* have multiple devices at home, behind a gateway, that i access via names rather than ip addresses and port numbers, all with a dynamic ip address on my gateway! it ain't that complicated skippy.
umm, what, you can't accept incoming calls on your cell phone w/out an ip address? or are you for some god awful reason actually suggesting you want to use VOIP for a cell phone, even though the network is already designed for voice?
you would kind of like the Internet protocols to be at least as flexible as the phone network?
soooo, you think the phone network is more flexible than the phone network, but you want to take your cell phone, using "the phone network", and accept incoming calls with the internet protocls that you think are less flexible? the convoluted thinking here is just mind boggling!
requires very bizarre architectures involving reflectors owned and run by third parties (or at least port forwarding)
umm, so it *doesn't* require what you say it requires... =) i've written some small p2p software on contract, and it's not exactly rocket science (especially with port forwarding).
do cell phones, refirgerators, and other "appliances" really need a dedicated static i.p. address? why can't they use NAT and private addresses?
yeah, i pay waaaay too much in taxes. close to $20k in federal income taxes alone last year. and on $14k income, you're not paying $2k in social security taxes- social security taxes is 6.2% and medicare taxes 1.45%. that's $868 + 203 = $1071. and yes, i know the employer matched it, but you weren't going to see that money anyways. add $600 for your federal income tax for a total of $1671 / year. state income tax- not every state has it, but if you're making minimum wage, i have a tough time believing you're going to be paying more than a couple hundred max. vat taxes are on discretionary spending, so how much you pay is up to you.
the context was about what you saw in your paycheck, therefore it's obviously talking about income tax. sales tax a) isn't universal, and b) is largely limited to discretionary items. payroll taxes nobody sees so is basically irrelevant to the context here. property taxes most likely aren't an issue for those making minimum wage...
dude, if your making minimum wage, you're basically not paying any taxes. if you're single, and make up to ~$14,000 a year, you pay a whopping $600 a year in taxes.
you can decrypt the signal all you like. you just can't use that signal to steal services, or distribute devices or knowledge to others to do the same.
i would very, very strongly doubt that. working for the gov't as a contractor, and providing them the code is not distributing it. the gov't essentially wrote and owns the code at that point.
you are grossly misinformed about the gpl license then; if you wish to keep the *internal* software solutions a secret, you can still use the gpl. there is no requirement to share your modifications to gpl code if you're not redistributing it outside your organization.
My unstated point was that (and I guess I should have taken the time to include it) the political process and pork-barrelling have interfered with the way that we currently attempt space missions.
when you're dealing with billions of tax payer dollars, of course the "political process and pork-barreling" is part of it; that's the job of the politicians- to look out for their constituents! the money's being spent, might as well as have it make some jobs in your district! =)
as far as self-powered launches, that was *NOT* being explored in the early programs. simply wasn't feasible technologically. hell, we still can't do it today. ;)
But it didn't have to be that way. And it still doesn't.
sure it doesn't have to be that way, but that's the way it is. which you seem to be acknowledging, so i don't know why you had problems with my initial statement...
--me-- except launching something into space has very, very little to do with flight!
--you-- Do a little research on manned space flight...
280,000 feet? I don't think it flew that high... that's even higher than the blackbird.
it flew that high- you gotta remember the blackbird is air breathing and the x-15 was rocket propelled...
Do a little research on manned space flight.
that's just it- manned space "flight" isn't "flight". massive thrust to get it up into orbit, with no pilot control, and a controlled fall, with little pilot control. manuvers in space hardly falls into the "flight" realm.