How does this differ from any product or service that most people don't buy? I doubt that most people buy suspenders, but that doesn't mean there isn't a market or the product shouldn't be sold.
Should the only thing a company sells be something that most people buy? Kiss all those niche market items goodbye, then.
Yes except that literally half the cars that are sold on the market are more expensive
You think the cost of ownership is just the price you pay when you buy it. How cute.
Now you will probably recite other "cost of ownership" factors, like oil/gas/etc maintenance. Also how cute.
The deciding factor for me is not the cost of the vehicle. It is not the cost of the electricity. It is not that I don't pay for gas. Those are all factors in favor of the EV.
But there are factors that weigh against it, heavily. Style of vehicle is one. I drive a Forester. It goes into the woods fine. It climbs hills, has ground clearance. That's a factor.
Also, if I go out in the woods and run out of gas, someone can bring me a can of gas and I'm good to go. Or since I'm usually out with a dozen other people, and there's probably a couple of quads too, already with a couple of gas cans, I can use that gas. Who brings me a can of "electrons" to recharge my nice EV?
If I leave the house in the morning and see I'm low on gas, I can stop in any of a dozen places and get a five minute full "recharge". Where do I go to get that five minute EV recharge?
And finally, when I need to drive across the state, there are "five minute recharge" stations all along the route for gas. Not for EV.
Those are all costs associated with the EV, and until those are solved, an EV is still too expensive.
Tax code simplification should be about making itemized deductions unnecessary for the vast majority of people,
I think they already are. I don't know the numbers, but I think it is not a majority who use the itemized. Maybe not a vast majority don't.
The important factor is HOW you make the itemized deductions unnecessary. Do you do it by making the standard deduction cover more things, (i.e., bigger), or by removing things you can itemize? The latter is a horrible way to do it. And making the standard bigger means more people are getting deductions for things they aren't doing. So that's a bad way, too.
Itemized deductions are probably the best way of managing the issue. They really aren't that hard, for the most part, and the most common ones are line items.
and to limit how much people can game their taxes.
What needs to be eliminated is the attitude that obeying the law is somehow "gaming their taxes". If the US congress, under its constitutional power to levy taxes, has decided the taxpayers can deduct the amount they pay in mortgage interest from their income when calculating their income tax, then doing that is NOT "gaming their taxes", it is obeying the tax law as written and intended.
The mortgage interest deduction is only useful if you are making yourself house poor.
No, the mortgage interest deduction applies if you buy a house with a mortgage, and have enough total deductions to gain by using the itemized. I don't have any idea what you mean by "house poor".
If you aren't being reckless with the size of your mortgage, that deduction doesn't do squat for you.
It does apply as a deduction, which in many cases will reduce your overall tax burden. I'd call that better than "doing squat".
It doesn't do squat for me for this very reason. I would have had to have spent about double on my house for it to make sense to itemize.
Well, then, you get the standard deduction, which is larger than the itemized for you. Maybe you need to donate more to charity?
So what if it doesn't do squat for you? The purposed behind it does not change, and the fact that it is an example of social engineering via tax code doesn't change, either. Are you confused by thinking that every person who files a tax return must take advantage of a tax rebate for it to be social engineering?
Have you never heard of brick and mortars pulling the same stuff.
Of course a brick and mortar can restock a returned item that is defective. The shopper gets to LOOK at the item before buying it. There's also a concern by the store that it wastes a LOT of money to do that, and burns a lot of customer good-will. Customers that may just buy it online the next time and not come back.
I know this is an old anecdote, but I remember when my Dad worked at Monkey Wards. People returned all kinds of things that weren't actually broken, and some of the broken stuff was easily fixable. He brought home really inexpensive stuff that way, because MW didn't want to spend the money to fix it and wouldn't/couldn't sell it as new.
When an online store does that, you can't see that it is defective until it arrives and you have to return it.
No, the GP is correct. It has nothing to do with free shipping. Free shipping is why a lot of people shop online. A higher percentage of returns than b&m is totally due to the inability to look at what you are buying before you do.
I was looking for prices on "anvils" at Amazon. Amazing, they carry them. I mean real, smack a hammer on metal anvils. They had one that looked just like the real thing, until you read the description carefully. It was a jewler's anvil, and a very small one at that. And eBay (another "online") is sometimes even worse, since the seller is trying to sell his thing and knows that certain versions are less desirable, shall we say? The description may miss certain key elements, and a return is necessary.
since when is social engineering people to buy things that will cause chunks of the US not to be under water, not for the common good?
You missed quite a few words there. "Pay for services" plays a crucial role. No, "take from Peter to give to Paul" isn't a "service", nor is "stop drinking that diet soda". (I was amazed that the Chicago tax, intended to prevent obesity by reducing the intake of sugary pop, applied to EVERYTHING, not just sugary pop. Baby, bathwater, gurgle gurgle...)
And I hate to burst the bubble, but the EV rebate isn't going to stop global crises. There's enough carbon used in building and using these things that they're still adding to the problem. Just not as fast. We kinda need to have methods to sequester what we've already put out before the handbasket will stop approaching hell.
Social engineering through the tax code is exactly why we have a tax code!
Sorry, but that's revisionist history. Taxes are intended to pay for the services that are for the common good, not to promote specific industries and get us to "live right".
If you want to eliminate that incentive, the place to start is mortgage interest and property tax deductions.
Mortgage interest deductions are one example of social engineering, but the goal is to make home ownership more affordable. It applies to everyone, not just people who can afford to buy or make use of an EV. And it's nothing like the Chicago "soda tax" (75 cents a bottle, IIRC) that is intended to stop people from drinking even diet sodas.
The reason why eliminating mortgage interest deductions now is bad is that many many people have made long-term financial decisions based on that deduction. They may be one year into a 20 year mortgage, repaying a loan they made considering what the total cost would be. This shafts a lot of medium and low income people.
Property tax deductions are quite valid, since it is rather unfair to tax people on income that isn't really income. They don't get to spend that money, they have to pay it as taxes. Same for state taxes.
You cannot "get rid of... retirement funds".
Medical insurance premiums, now that it is mandatory, fall under the same umbrella as property and state income taxes. It is inherently unfair to tax someone on money that you're forcing them to spend the way you want them to.
By introducing this subsidy we force the industry to push us along the battery experience curve faster.
Industry cannot push. Consumers pull. The rebate is intended to pull industry into producing EV by increasing sales, even if the battery technology is still expensive.
In other words, it is relieving market pressure on battery cost because it allows people to buy higher priced cars based on higher prices batteries.
Removing the subsidy will force industry to come up with cheaper solutions, which is what will drive battery development even harder.
Long story short - it's known that batteries will be more viable than oil in the market at some point.
That is probably true but for which of the two possible reasons? Is it because batteries will become so wonderful that they are viable, and all the "refueling" issues will be solved as well as pollution from manufacture and disposal? Or will it be because oil becomes such a short commodity that its price goes above the value?
I'll note that a subsidy NOW for EV does nothing to push us towards the latter result, and the former result does not need subsidy to get there. In fact, removing pressure to improve batteries by subsidizing their sales will slow us down.
i can attest that with a few acres of corn you can become a millionaire from corn based subsidies.
Here: "Direct payments of subsidies are limited to $40,000 per person or $80,000 per couple." And: "However, the federal ethanol subsidy expired December 31, 2011."
It's hard to become a millionaire on $40,000 per year. But let's try using the old rules. Same cite: "and federal crop subsidies that can bring the total to 85 cents per gallon or more." From this: "Based on these figures, one acre of corn would produce about 423 gallons/acre." That calculates out to $360/acre in subsidies. "A few"? Ten? A hundred? A hundred acres would get you $36,000 a year in subsidies.
Again, hard to become a millionaire on $36,000 a year.
Farm land that for decades sold for (c) $3K per acre is now going for as high as $17K per acre.
Welcome to something called "supply and demand". Land is a fixed resource, and every town that expands into surrounding land means there is less land to farm on. You think it is unusual for a limited resource that is being reduced in quantity might go up in price?
Corn is being distilled into ethanol
Welcome to the law of unintended consequences. Creating a huge market for corn to create ethanol-based fuels means, through the law of supply and demand again, that the price of corn goes up. This is not a subsidy, so blaming greedy farmers isn't right. It's the bone-headed politicians who thought they could ease petroleum demand by using ethanol who didn't think far enough ahead to wonder where all that magical ethanol would come from.
Don't be too hard on them, thought. Lots of people don't think about scalability of their perfect solution to a problem before trying to get it mandated. Like oops, we've pushed so hard for people to get electric vehicles that the gas taxes no longer cover the cost of fixing the roads!
I don't think that's a reasonable point at all. EVs can be had for pretty incredibly low rates (e.g. eGlofs are advertised at around $49 a month on lease). These are far from rich people's toys.
Since the alleged goal of a tax rebate is to promote the sales of these vehicles, if they are that cheap then they don't need rebates anymore.
It's social engineering using the tax code, which is not one of the valid reasons to tax something.
it's to encourage the manufacturers to build these cars,
That's a side effect. The prime goal is to get people to buy more of them, which will drive production...
and in doing so cause us to build a crap ton more batteries.
Yes, support for battery development was a goal of the administration. It was a good pot of money to hand to supporters.
Offer me commercial free packages, or subsidize MY BILL off of the ad revenue.
Guess what? They already do. Just like print media is subsidized by ad revenue.
To put it another way, if I'm paying for access to your network, and you turn around and rent my eyeballs to 3rd parties for 50% of the time I'm using it,
You're back to blaming the cable company instead of the content provider. The cable company is not putting in anywhere close to 50% ads, and they aren't creating the ad breaks when they do get a local avail, they're using an existing ad time.
It's the content provider that determines how many ads there are.
Change or die.
The cable company cannot change the number of ads you see on a program served via cable. What would they replace them with, dead air? Would you prefer being shown three minutes of cute kitten videos instead?
Nobody has any sympathy for old broken business models.
Everyone paying for every bit of content is not a really good new business model, either. You want to pay the entire bill for everything you view, that's ok. I doubt that most viewers would want to do that. I know I don't. My "newer better business model" is that I DVR anything I really want to watch, and five to seven mouse clicks get me through the entire ad block.
I'd like to hear some unbiased numbers for the CBS/Discovery nonsense. Is the program profitable just from the diehard fans paying for the CBS stream? That's an example of your new business model, and I wonder how well it's doing. Would it do as well for any of the mainstream programming, like sitcoms? The only reason it works for sports is because they charge huge fees -- something I bet would put it beyond what you want to pay. Imagine that kind of price for every program you do want to watch.
Just get an HDTV antenna on Amazon for less than $50 and you can pick up 100 HD 1080p, HD 720p, and SD signals.
I'm glad you live in a good coverage area. Not everybody does.
The reason they're going broke is they keep paying for the NFL that we don't want.
Many people do. I would bet that more people want NFL than want the limited services you would want to pay for. The premise is that people who pay for NFL don't want to watch other things that other people pay for. Everyone's money goes into a big pot and buys programming. That's just like everyone's income tax dollars go into a big pot and some of it goes to pay for X and some goes for Y...
Perfectly happy using the HD Telmundo and Univision broadcasts and turning on SAP to listen to the English version, thanks. It's built into your set.
Not if you don't have a broadcaster transmitting a Univision or Telemundo signal in your area.
I'd be on cable like white on rice if they'd get rid of the damn commercials
The commercials come from the content provider, not Comcast. The content provider can sell Comcast "local avails" into which Comcast can insert local advertising, but if Comcast didn't use those slots they'll be ads from the content provider anyway.
Blaming Comcast for the ads is like blaming Santa Clause for snow.
The other difference is that cars routinely operate within a closing distance where a collision avoidance system on planes would be shrieking.
That is a difference in a threshold value, not a significant technical difference. The basic concepts are the same. The technology isn't all that new.
In fact, if anything, constricting the problem to fixed roadways and one elevation makes the problem simpler, not harder. TCAS has to deal with horizontal AND vertical tracks; car TCAS has only horizontal to worry about.
Stack that against commercial for profit use of a professional photographers work in a way that renders it valueless to the owner. Man on the scene current events photography only has value while the even is written about, and can't be sold to more than one news outlet except in exceptional circumstances.
Let's look at what few facts are provided in TFA. (A fine example of journalism, huh?)
The photos were taken in Sep and Dec of 2016, published to Facebook. Are newpapers going to pay for month-old football photos after they appear in a public forum? Probably not. They're a month old, and you point out that the value is gone a month after they were taken. Nobody is writing about a month-old football game at a high school.
So, the commercial value of the pictures has vaporized.
Second, the author claims he was given the photos by the player. He didn't scrape them from Facebook, he got them from the subject.
And third, the author claims that photo credit was given.
They offered to credit him?
Photo credits appear all the time in various media. They claim they did it. Why is it important to credit photos unless it's to promote the sale of other photos from that photographer?
when that very act from CBS ruined the sale-ability of that photo
I'd say that posting it to Facebook ruined the "sale-ability", and was a sign that the photographer wasn't trying to sell it anywhere. The fact it was three month and one month old football photos tanked the remaining value.
while advertising him as a source of free photographer work you don't have to pay for
I'm sorry, but how do you get from seeing a photo credit on a picture to "free photographer"? I see such credits all the time for work that is clearly not free. Even if you could make that enormous leap, how do you assume that a photographer giving away one photo means all the rest are free for the taking?
No, I'd look at that credit and think "hmm, this guy was at the games, maybe he has photos of other players I need to put on a story about the team or the other players. I'll call him to see how much we wants for them..."
This is all moot. You admit that fair use is an affirmative defense, and I agree. What is important to realize is that "affirmative defense" means you can still to to court over it. And the only point I'm trying to make is that we don't know all the facts, so the arguments being used to make CBS look really bad and the photog an innocent party are not valid.
Pretty simple really, CBS used the entirety of his work for commercial purposes.
I don't see where that is claimed in the fine article. They used two, and it is very likely they cropped the original, but we don't know either way.
He used a single frame to comment on a commercial work.
Single frames are still covered by copyright.
But the point I am trying to make is not whether CBS or whoever was wrong for doing whatever. It's that claiming "they used the entire work" is not a fact that we know, and that even single frames from a TV show have copyright attached. The argument of "part of the work" and thus "ok" runs into the same argument for the photos, probably. We assume, but don't know.
TCAS technology is different, radar based. Larger planes have radar and look for other objects.
Larger aircraft have weather radar. TCAS operates bases on the Mode S transponder signals that are interrogated either by ground radar or by the TCAS unit itself. The only significant difference between TCAS and this "cars talk to each other" system is that one is in the air and the other is on the ground.
Most planes (even gliders these days) have transponders that respond with a ping to being hit with radar. But they do not broadcast a position.
TCAS does not depend on ground radar. And yes, with the coming mandate for ADS-B Out, aircraft DO broadcast their positions.
Many pilots consider TCAS to be a nuisance because they are obliged to follow its instructions even though they can see the other plane and know that it is safe.
That would clear the conflict, then.
This can actually lead to more dangerous behaviour.
Then it would be the pilot increasing the danger, since safety-of-flight is a reason not to obey an RA.
They used his photos - a photo is an entire work - they didn't use part of a photo.
We do not know they used the entire photo, and photos are often part of a series. "Entire work" is not a fact in evidence.
He used screen shots of TV shows - a screen shot is not an entire work,
A "TV show" consists of a series of photographs displayed in relatively rapid sequence. A screenshot is one photo from the series. Once again, "entire work" is an interesting phrase but not completely relevant.
and should be subject to fair use.
"Fair use" depends not on the source but on the use. Is "getting revenge on CBS" one of the fair use exceptions?
Very petty since everyone shares screenshots and screenshots are not photos.
No, not everyone shares screenshots. And digital images are not photos, they are a digital representation of an image. Everyone shares "photos", so why is the photographer's suit not harassment, too?
I think "live by the sword, die by the sword" is an applicable saying.
For preventing traffic accidents, the technology to let cars talk to each other is far behind self-driving car tech.
Not true. Such technology is mandatory in larger aircraft, where it is called TCAS. It is considered to be accurate enough that pilots are instructed to obey the TCAS warnings over the instructions of the human air traffic controllers.
Slashdot Mirror
"Just leave it at the door" And if the package is lost, I am not responsible for it.
You just authorized and instructed the delivery person to leave it in the open where it can be stolen. Guess who becomes responsible now?
Should the only thing a company sells be something that most people buy? Kiss all those niche market items goodbye, then.
How many Bangladeshi or Chinese brands do you buy shoes from?
How many shoes come in "XL"? There are already standard show sizes, and "XL" isn't one of them. The complaint was that "XL" isn't the same worldwide.
Yes except that literally half the cars that are sold on the market are more expensive
You think the cost of ownership is just the price you pay when you buy it. How cute.
Now you will probably recite other "cost of ownership" factors, like oil/gas/etc maintenance. Also how cute.
The deciding factor for me is not the cost of the vehicle. It is not the cost of the electricity. It is not that I don't pay for gas. Those are all factors in favor of the EV.
But there are factors that weigh against it, heavily. Style of vehicle is one. I drive a Forester. It goes into the woods fine. It climbs hills, has ground clearance. That's a factor.
Also, if I go out in the woods and run out of gas, someone can bring me a can of gas and I'm good to go. Or since I'm usually out with a dozen other people, and there's probably a couple of quads too, already with a couple of gas cans, I can use that gas. Who brings me a can of "electrons" to recharge my nice EV?
If I leave the house in the morning and see I'm low on gas, I can stop in any of a dozen places and get a five minute full "recharge". Where do I go to get that five minute EV recharge?
And finally, when I need to drive across the state, there are "five minute recharge" stations all along the route for gas. Not for EV.
Those are all costs associated with the EV, and until those are solved, an EV is still too expensive.
Tax code simplification should be about making itemized deductions unnecessary for the vast majority of people,
I think they already are. I don't know the numbers, but I think it is not a majority who use the itemized. Maybe not a vast majority don't.
The important factor is HOW you make the itemized deductions unnecessary. Do you do it by making the standard deduction cover more things, (i.e., bigger), or by removing things you can itemize? The latter is a horrible way to do it. And making the standard bigger means more people are getting deductions for things they aren't doing. So that's a bad way, too.
Itemized deductions are probably the best way of managing the issue. They really aren't that hard, for the most part, and the most common ones are line items.
and to limit how much people can game their taxes.
What needs to be eliminated is the attitude that obeying the law is somehow "gaming their taxes". If the US congress, under its constitutional power to levy taxes, has decided the taxpayers can deduct the amount they pay in mortgage interest from their income when calculating their income tax, then doing that is NOT "gaming their taxes", it is obeying the tax law as written and intended.
The mortgage interest deduction is only useful if you are making yourself house poor.
No, the mortgage interest deduction applies if you buy a house with a mortgage, and have enough total deductions to gain by using the itemized. I don't have any idea what you mean by "house poor".
If you aren't being reckless with the size of your mortgage, that deduction doesn't do squat for you.
It does apply as a deduction, which in many cases will reduce your overall tax burden. I'd call that better than "doing squat".
It doesn't do squat for me for this very reason. I would have had to have spent about double on my house for it to make sense to itemize.
Well, then, you get the standard deduction, which is larger than the itemized for you. Maybe you need to donate more to charity?
So what if it doesn't do squat for you? The purposed behind it does not change, and the fact that it is an example of social engineering via tax code doesn't change, either. Are you confused by thinking that every person who files a tax return must take advantage of a tax rebate for it to be social engineering?
My wife, OTOH, returns stuff all the time. She is on a first name basis with all the UPS drivers.
Ohh, don't say that out loud or all the women will start using that as the excuse. "Yeah, he picks up all my returned items" wink wink.
Or maybe we should standardize sizes, so an XL from one vendor is the same as an XL from another vendor.
Ooh, more laws. Cool.
How do you get Bangladesh to follow the same laws that China or the other cheap clothing sources don't?
Have you never heard of brick and mortars pulling the same stuff.
Of course a brick and mortar can restock a returned item that is defective. The shopper gets to LOOK at the item before buying it. There's also a concern by the store that it wastes a LOT of money to do that, and burns a lot of customer good-will. Customers that may just buy it online the next time and not come back.
I know this is an old anecdote, but I remember when my Dad worked at Monkey Wards. People returned all kinds of things that weren't actually broken, and some of the broken stuff was easily fixable. He brought home really inexpensive stuff that way, because MW didn't want to spend the money to fix it and wouldn't/couldn't sell it as new.
When an online store does that, you can't see that it is defective until it arrives and you have to return it.
No, the GP is correct. It has nothing to do with free shipping. Free shipping is why a lot of people shop online. A higher percentage of returns than b&m is totally due to the inability to look at what you are buying before you do.
I was looking for prices on "anvils" at Amazon. Amazing, they carry them. I mean real, smack a hammer on metal anvils. They had one that looked just like the real thing, until you read the description carefully. It was a jewler's anvil, and a very small one at that. And eBay (another "online") is sometimes even worse, since the seller is trying to sell his thing and knows that certain versions are less desirable, shall we say? The description may miss certain key elements, and a return is necessary.
You seem to be confused -
hardly.
since when is social engineering people to buy things that will cause chunks of the US not to be under water, not for the common good?
You missed quite a few words there. "Pay for services" plays a crucial role. No, "take from Peter to give to Paul" isn't a "service", nor is "stop drinking that diet soda". (I was amazed that the Chicago tax, intended to prevent obesity by reducing the intake of sugary pop, applied to EVERYTHING, not just sugary pop. Baby, bathwater, gurgle gurgle...)
And I hate to burst the bubble, but the EV rebate isn't going to stop global crises. There's enough carbon used in building and using these things that they're still adding to the problem. Just not as fast. We kinda need to have methods to sequester what we've already put out before the handbasket will stop approaching hell.
Social engineering through the tax code is exactly why we have a tax code!
Sorry, but that's revisionist history. Taxes are intended to pay for the services that are for the common good, not to promote specific industries and get us to "live right".
If you want to eliminate that incentive, the place to start is mortgage interest and property tax deductions.
Mortgage interest deductions are one example of social engineering, but the goal is to make home ownership more affordable. It applies to everyone, not just people who can afford to buy or make use of an EV. And it's nothing like the Chicago "soda tax" (75 cents a bottle, IIRC) that is intended to stop people from drinking even diet sodas.
The reason why eliminating mortgage interest deductions now is bad is that many many people have made long-term financial decisions based on that deduction. They may be one year into a 20 year mortgage, repaying a loan they made considering what the total cost would be. This shafts a lot of medium and low income people.
Property tax deductions are quite valid, since it is rather unfair to tax people on income that isn't really income. They don't get to spend that money, they have to pay it as taxes. Same for state taxes.
You cannot "get rid of ... retirement funds".
Medical insurance premiums, now that it is mandatory, fall under the same umbrella as property and state income taxes. It is inherently unfair to tax someone on money that you're forcing them to spend the way you want them to.
By introducing this subsidy we force the industry to push us along the battery experience curve faster.
Industry cannot push. Consumers pull. The rebate is intended to pull industry into producing EV by increasing sales, even if the battery technology is still expensive.
In other words, it is relieving market pressure on battery cost because it allows people to buy higher priced cars based on higher prices batteries.
Removing the subsidy will force industry to come up with cheaper solutions, which is what will drive battery development even harder.
Long story short - it's known that batteries will be more viable than oil in the market at some point.
That is probably true but for which of the two possible reasons? Is it because batteries will become so wonderful that they are viable, and all the "refueling" issues will be solved as well as pollution from manufacture and disposal? Or will it be because oil becomes such a short commodity that its price goes above the value?
I'll note that a subsidy NOW for EV does nothing to push us towards the latter result, and the former result does not need subsidy to get there. In fact, removing pressure to improve batteries by subsidizing their sales will slow us down.
i can attest that with a few acres of corn you can become a millionaire from corn based subsidies.
Here: "Direct payments of subsidies are limited to $40,000 per person or $80,000 per couple." And: "However, the federal ethanol subsidy expired December 31, 2011."
It's hard to become a millionaire on $40,000 per year. But let's try using the old rules. Same cite: "and federal crop subsidies that can bring the total to 85 cents per gallon or more." From this: "Based on these figures, one acre of corn would produce about 423 gallons/acre." That calculates out to $360/acre in subsidies. "A few"? Ten? A hundred? A hundred acres would get you $36,000 a year in subsidies.
Again, hard to become a millionaire on $36,000 a year.
Farm land that for decades sold for (c) $3K per acre is now going for as high as $17K per acre.
Welcome to something called "supply and demand". Land is a fixed resource, and every town that expands into surrounding land means there is less land to farm on. You think it is unusual for a limited resource that is being reduced in quantity might go up in price?
Corn is being distilled into ethanol
Welcome to the law of unintended consequences. Creating a huge market for corn to create ethanol-based fuels means, through the law of supply and demand again, that the price of corn goes up. This is not a subsidy, so blaming greedy farmers isn't right. It's the bone-headed politicians who thought they could ease petroleum demand by using ethanol who didn't think far enough ahead to wonder where all that magical ethanol would come from.
Don't be too hard on them, thought. Lots of people don't think about scalability of their perfect solution to a problem before trying to get it mandated. Like oops, we've pushed so hard for people to get electric vehicles that the gas taxes no longer cover the cost of fixing the roads!
I don't think that's a reasonable point at all. EVs can be had for pretty incredibly low rates (e.g. eGlofs are advertised at around $49 a month on lease). These are far from rich people's toys.
Since the alleged goal of a tax rebate is to promote the sales of these vehicles, if they are that cheap then they don't need rebates anymore.
It's social engineering using the tax code, which is not one of the valid reasons to tax something.
it's to encourage the manufacturers to build these cars,
That's a side effect. The prime goal is to get people to buy more of them, which will drive production ...
and in doing so cause us to build a crap ton more batteries.
Yes, support for battery development was a goal of the administration. It was a good pot of money to hand to supporters.
Offer me commercial free packages, or subsidize MY BILL off of the ad revenue.
Guess what? They already do. Just like print media is subsidized by ad revenue.
To put it another way, if I'm paying for access to your network, and you turn around and rent my eyeballs to 3rd parties for 50% of the time I'm using it,
You're back to blaming the cable company instead of the content provider. The cable company is not putting in anywhere close to 50% ads, and they aren't creating the ad breaks when they do get a local avail, they're using an existing ad time.
It's the content provider that determines how many ads there are.
Change or die.
The cable company cannot change the number of ads you see on a program served via cable. What would they replace them with, dead air? Would you prefer being shown three minutes of cute kitten videos instead?
Nobody has any sympathy for old broken business models.
Everyone paying for every bit of content is not a really good new business model, either. You want to pay the entire bill for everything you view, that's ok. I doubt that most viewers would want to do that. I know I don't. My "newer better business model" is that I DVR anything I really want to watch, and five to seven mouse clicks get me through the entire ad block.
I'd like to hear some unbiased numbers for the CBS/Discovery nonsense. Is the program profitable just from the diehard fans paying for the CBS stream? That's an example of your new business model, and I wonder how well it's doing. Would it do as well for any of the mainstream programming, like sitcoms? The only reason it works for sports is because they charge huge fees -- something I bet would put it beyond what you want to pay. Imagine that kind of price for every program you do want to watch.
Just get an HDTV antenna on Amazon for less than $50 and you can pick up 100 HD 1080p, HD 720p, and SD signals.
I'm glad you live in a good coverage area. Not everybody does.
The reason they're going broke is they keep paying for the NFL that we don't want.
Many people do. I would bet that more people want NFL than want the limited services you would want to pay for. The premise is that people who pay for NFL don't want to watch other things that other people pay for. Everyone's money goes into a big pot and buys programming. That's just like everyone's income tax dollars go into a big pot and some of it goes to pay for X and some goes for Y...
Perfectly happy using the HD Telmundo and Univision broadcasts and turning on SAP to listen to the English version, thanks. It's built into your set.
Not if you don't have a broadcaster transmitting a Univision or Telemundo signal in your area.
I'd be on cable like white on rice if they'd get rid of the damn commercials
The commercials come from the content provider, not Comcast. The content provider can sell Comcast "local avails" into which Comcast can insert local advertising, but if Comcast didn't use those slots they'll be ads from the content provider anyway.
Blaming Comcast for the ads is like blaming Santa Clause for snow.
I'd even pay more than cable costs now for that.
I doubt that most people would.
The other difference is that cars routinely operate within a closing distance where a collision avoidance system on planes would be shrieking.
That is a difference in a threshold value, not a significant technical difference. The basic concepts are the same. The technology isn't all that new.
In fact, if anything, constricting the problem to fixed roadways and one elevation makes the problem simpler, not harder. TCAS has to deal with horizontal AND vertical tracks; car TCAS has only horizontal to worry about.
Stack that against commercial for profit use of a professional photographers work in a way that renders it valueless to the owner. Man on the scene current events photography only has value while the even is written about, and can't be sold to more than one news outlet except in exceptional circumstances.
Let's look at what few facts are provided in TFA. (A fine example of journalism, huh?)
The photos were taken in Sep and Dec of 2016, published to Facebook. Are newpapers going to pay for month-old football photos after they appear in a public forum? Probably not. They're a month old, and you point out that the value is gone a month after they were taken. Nobody is writing about a month-old football game at a high school.
So, the commercial value of the pictures has vaporized.
Second, the author claims he was given the photos by the player. He didn't scrape them from Facebook, he got them from the subject.
And third, the author claims that photo credit was given.
They offered to credit him?
Photo credits appear all the time in various media. They claim they did it. Why is it important to credit photos unless it's to promote the sale of other photos from that photographer?
when that very act from CBS ruined the sale-ability of that photo
I'd say that posting it to Facebook ruined the "sale-ability", and was a sign that the photographer wasn't trying to sell it anywhere. The fact it was three month and one month old football photos tanked the remaining value.
while advertising him as a source of free photographer work you don't have to pay for
I'm sorry, but how do you get from seeing a photo credit on a picture to "free photographer"? I see such credits all the time for work that is clearly not free. Even if you could make that enormous leap, how do you assume that a photographer giving away one photo means all the rest are free for the taking?
No, I'd look at that credit and think "hmm, this guy was at the games, maybe he has photos of other players I need to put on a story about the team or the other players. I'll call him to see how much we wants for them..."
This is all moot. You admit that fair use is an affirmative defense, and I agree. What is important to realize is that "affirmative defense" means you can still to to court over it. And the only point I'm trying to make is that we don't know all the facts, so the arguments being used to make CBS look really bad and the photog an innocent party are not valid.
Pretty simple really, CBS used the entirety of his work for commercial purposes.
I don't see where that is claimed in the fine article. They used two, and it is very likely they cropped the original, but we don't know either way.
He used a single frame to comment on a commercial work.
Single frames are still covered by copyright.
But the point I am trying to make is not whether CBS or whoever was wrong for doing whatever. It's that claiming "they used the entire work" is not a fact that we know, and that even single frames from a TV show have copyright attached. The argument of "part of the work" and thus "ok" runs into the same argument for the photos, probably. We assume, but don't know.
TCAS technology is different, radar based. Larger planes have radar and look for other objects.
Larger aircraft have weather radar. TCAS operates bases on the Mode S transponder signals that are interrogated either by ground radar or by the TCAS unit itself. The only significant difference between TCAS and this "cars talk to each other" system is that one is in the air and the other is on the ground.
Most planes (even gliders these days) have transponders that respond with a ping to being hit with radar. But they do not broadcast a position.
TCAS does not depend on ground radar. And yes, with the coming mandate for ADS-B Out, aircraft DO broadcast their positions.
Many pilots consider TCAS to be a nuisance because they are obliged to follow its instructions even though they can see the other plane and know that it is safe.
That would clear the conflict, then.
This can actually lead to more dangerous behaviour.
Then it would be the pilot increasing the danger, since safety-of-flight is a reason not to obey an RA.
They used his photos - a photo is an entire work - they didn't use part of a photo.
We do not know they used the entire photo, and photos are often part of a series. "Entire work" is not a fact in evidence.
He used screen shots of TV shows - a screen shot is not an entire work,
A "TV show" consists of a series of photographs displayed in relatively rapid sequence. A screenshot is one photo from the series. Once again, "entire work" is an interesting phrase but not completely relevant.
and should be subject to fair use.
"Fair use" depends not on the source but on the use. Is "getting revenge on CBS" one of the fair use exceptions?
Very petty since everyone shares screenshots and screenshots are not photos.
No, not everyone shares screenshots. And digital images are not photos, they are a digital representation of an image. Everyone shares "photos", so why is the photographer's suit not harassment, too?
I think "live by the sword, die by the sword" is an applicable saying.
For preventing traffic accidents, the technology to let cars talk to each other is far behind self-driving car tech.
Not true. Such technology is mandatory in larger aircraft, where it is called TCAS. It is considered to be accurate enough that pilots are instructed to obey the TCAS warnings over the instructions of the human air traffic controllers.