Are you sure you're understanding the post correctly?
If I buy a REIT at $15 per share, and it appreciates to 20/share, I currently don't pay taxes on the capital gains unless I sell. He's saying I should pay tax on $5 per share, my profit, even if I didn't actually "realize" the gain by selling the shares.
If the REIT is still only worth 15/share at the end of the year (their prices really usually do not appreciate rapidly, since they pay out 90% of their earnings), then I don't pay any capital gains taxes, only the taxes on the dividend income.
He also suggests "only publicly traded stock would be marked to market," so your non-fungible shopping mall example would be excluded until the gains were realized. Even if it were somehow included, the tax would be based on the appreciation in value. If it's not worth more than you spent on it, then there is no capital gain.
A "wealth tax" is, for example, a property tax (which already exists in the US in many states). A wealth tax requires you to pay a percent of the total value of the property.
I'm not saying mark-to-market is without problems, or even that it's the right solution, but where exactly is the argument that it's a wealth tax?
I realize many feel this way, but this sentiment isn't well founded. Facebook is much more secure than your other user/pass auth mechanisms.
You're worried about facebook being a "skeleton key" of the internet. The fact is, if I could hack into your email account I could just go to almost every website you use and re-set your password. You would have little recourse even after you changed your email password. At least with facebook, if someone gets into your account you can verify your identity by identifying friends in pictures, among other mechanisms facebook has implemented, before having a new password sent to your primary email.... and if I think my facebook/google/openID/whatever password has somehow been compromised, I can re-set it in one (or a few) place(s) instead of 100 places. They've really done a very good job with this stuff.
The flaw described here wasn't a flaw in the implementation of Facebook Connect. What happened with Hulu is not any less likely to happen with a user/password implementation. They just mixed up the relationship between userID's and data in their own database (or something to that effect).
Regarding control of data,... when you use Facebook Connect, the website has to request permission to any data of yours it wants to receive. For most blogs/forums/etc, it shouldn't need anything except "basic information" (name, gender, and unfortunately friend list but maybe you can make that private). If it asks for more hit "refuse" and choose one of the OpenID options. If you login with google's open ID they don't even get your name or google ID... they basically get no identifying information at all whatsoever.
You say you use a strong password for all websites, but where do you store all those passwords? In your browser, viewable by anyone who uses your computer for a few minutes, and which can't easily be shared with other computers (work/home) or onto your phone (my blackberry certainly doesn't)? Or do you store your passwords in lastpass, which has already once accidentally leaked its user data (sure the leaked data was encrypted, but it can be brute forced)? There really isn't an easy answer, and these openID/oauth mechanisms are both really nice and far more secure than existing u/p methods. I wish more websites would start offering them.
I made a simple webpage (pilotpad.com) to try out single-signon mechanisms. What I learned encouraged me that it really is more secure... but even close friends were afraid of what my site would do to them if they clicked that frightening "connect with facebook" button... in practice, sites that want to acquire users still need to support user/pass type auth for the time being, but I really hope this will change.
This could be about percent of new monthly recurring revenue... bringing in new business is worth the commission. "20% commission" doesn't necessarily mean "20% of all revenue."
Speaking as someone with a degree in English Literature, I can safely say that I've only used math two times in my life: when learning it in school, when counting my kids at night, and when doing my taxes.
umm.... that was *three* times. ugh. This article makes me sad.:-(
no... it wouldn't "look through" all 50 TB of data. Actually reading all 50 TB of data would make it take a long long time to see your inbox.
I don't know what their architecture is exactly, but they probably something like $mysql_host = 'sqlhosts' + ($friend_id MODULUS 1000);
Sure, 100 friends might be on 100 different servers. That doesn't mean they need to scan through every row checking to see if it's a friend of yours. It's the same thing as using indexes, but distributed.
I don't know much about this,... and never really developed phone apps,... I'm curious as much as anything.
there's that QTopia,... a QT platform for phones?... and, you can compile it for windows mobile right? and it's owned by nokia so presumably there will be nokia devices running it, right? and it runs on the openmoko too, doesn't it? and I imagine it should run on various other mobile devices / netbooks / tablets like the asus eee pc and the nokia n800.
I've never used qtopia,... maybe it's more complicated than I'm making this sound... no one else seems to be mentioning it,.. so what have I got wrong?
I mean, my impression is you could right it in qtopia but be "targeting" windows mobile,... and then just potentially get a couple of other devices for free... as opposed to developing for windows mobile using.net, and never having much possibility of portability?
I'm sure there are far more windows mobile devices out there than there are iphones, regardless of the recent popularity of the iphone. does a home-buyer want to be required to be a mac-guy? aside from web-based, my impression is that something writen in qt / qtopia would run on the largest number of devices.
I agree with the rest of them. Ideas are cheap. implementation is expensive. Most ideas have been thought up a million times before.
There are how many billion people on the planet? everyone thinks up a few ideas here and there. Actually implementing those ideas takes work. A lot of it.
Someone probably already even has a patent on his idea.
plus, lots of half-baked "ideas" I've seen have self-contradictory requirements. People capable of seeing the self-contradiction are often the same people who can program.
Even technical ability doesn't do it though. Work does it.... and I wouldn't be surprised if *that* was the difference between the artists you mention, vs more the more technically adept.
I've known lots of people who were looking for "the next great idea" so they could create some amazing software that would get them rich so they'd never have to work. One guy I know, actually a decent programmer, now lives in his car.
I've also seen "great ideas" that made millions of dollars. The difference wasn't the quality of the idea (or even necessarily technical ability),... it was the amount of time, work, and money that went into implementing that idea.
I live on a boat. the paint I use on the bottom is toxic stuff. It's designed to kill anything. The best stuff is illegal in the US.
Even way back when, people put copper in paint. Copper has anti-bacterial properties. I've also seen people add mold and mildew remover to their paint.
I suppose that this being some fancy nano-technology is new,... but fundamentally, paint with anti-biotic properties seems like old news.
I don't care if it's "traceable",... I just want to find a way to get my contacts synced from my phone! I tried the software on the nokia site, but it just doesn't work.
Where can I buy one of these things??
and why, if they can build that, can't any cell phone company (that I've found) seem to build a simple phone that will let me import my contacts to my computer???
I bought a "smart" phone, but I can't imagine it being any dumber.
You're right that the average Chinese citizen can't VPN out. Not only do they not know how, but they don't have a box in the US to VPN to, don't realize what site it is they're missing, and possibly can't even read the English on the site anyways.
BUT, I've been living here for a year studying Chinese, and most of the Chinese people I've talked to DO know what happened in 1989. I mean, it wasn't even all that long ago. People would remember that kind of stuff, even if it wasn't discussed in their schools. I do get the impression that it is in fact discussed in schools, though I'm sure their spin on it is a bit different then ours.
umm.... who ever said XP was worse than 2000? I seem to have missed that.
I never used 2000, but I seem to remember people saying it sucked too. xp wasn't so bad, and I don't remember ever hearing anyone say it was worse than 2000. 95 and 98 weren't terrible. really. vista sucks.
after vista, and the failed yahoo deal,... I'm hearing some news sites suggesting that balmer could even get fired. people bitching about vista aren't imagining things. vista was a failure.
sure, if you have a high draw appliance and a long wiring run, you'd need unmanageably large wires...
but the suggestion was to add a 12 or 24 volt (or maybe even 36 volt which would further lesson the voltage drop issues) dc system along side the existing AC system. you're not going to find DC microwaves anywhere anyways.
I've seen plenty of people with solar powered DC systems,... often in poor island countries, but also on boats. he could just buy a solar panel, a deep cycle battery, maybe a regulator, and some relatively low draw appliances like lights and such.
maybe he has a work shed or garage in the back yard, maybe even a shed that currently doesn't have power. He could have lights in the shed, and some cigarette-lighter style plugs. he could plug in cell phones and laptops and lights and cigarette lighter like fans that you buy in automotive or marine shops, etc. I try to buy as many appliances as possible with cigarette lighter plugs, because I often live on a boat.
I mean, just a solar panel, battery, regulator, some cigarette-lighter-style outlets, and some lights and such could be set up for under a grand,... maybe even under $500.
and, for low draw AC appliances (i.e., it won't run your microwave, and he wouldn't want to run a 6amp power tool,... but he would be able to plug-in and charge cordless power tools that didn't have car-adapter plugs),... he could just get a cheap lower-end inverter that plugs into one of the cigarette-lighter plugs. such an inverter would only be maybe a hundred bucks.
and,... even in larger scales... DC doesn't have to be 12 volt. tesla and edison argued for ages about whether electrical systems should be AC or DC. we moved to AC because it made more sense in terms of distributing power long distances from isolated generators. the last US DC system was shut down just in the past year in new york... they used to be common. there's a slashdot article about it somewhere.
In the future, we may see a move back towards DC systems. maybe they'd be 36volt... maybe more.... but more and more power might be getting generated locally in the future, with more and more roof top solar panels,... maybe the future will bring some kind of solar-pavements and paints, etc etc. if power is always coming from somewhere close, some of the advantages of AC will lessen in value.
and it would be a start. he could run some lights and laptop and charge his cordless powertools and such at first,... and have bought a solar panel,... and then after playing around a little bit with it as a hobby, getting used to it, maybe eventually he buys more solar panels and a bigger inverter.
umm... a constitutional republic is a form of democracy.
and you're incorrect in that the post you reply to (kryten_nl) is certainly not referring to a constitutional republic, but pure representative democracy. A constitutional republic would be more inclined to protect the interests of minorities from "mobocracy," unlike, as is described, the ideal of pure representative democracy. Maybe you yourself don't know the difference?
I'm just confused why your post is modded so high when it seems irrelevant.
Or, who are you replying to? did you mean to reply to delire's post and hit the wrong button? but.. I'm not so sure "Describing America in the context of a 'constitutional republic' becomes increasingly difficult" would have been a sensible/understandable statement, especially since no one generally would have described America "in the context of a constitutional republic." Sure maybe that's because most people don't know what it is, nor the advantages it *should* provide since the US supposedly is one... but who cares? Delire gets his/her point across just fine, and kryten_nl certainly ads to that point.
Really though it's not a question of political systems, it's a question of value systems. Those of us in America, grew up being taught to think of individual rights as being the superior good. Those who grew up in China, grew up being taught that the advancement of a society as a whole is the superior good. When those two values come into conflict, Chinese people, (if given the chance), would probably have voted based on the later value system, whereas Americans would have voted based on the individuality based value system.
For example, if the Chinese government could afford socialized public healthcare, they would have it. They plan to have it by 2020, when they probably will be able to afford it given their rapid economic development. In America, we could have afforded it (not so sure now with war debts), yet we whole-heartedly reject anything that infringes upon our ability to independently choose what portion of our finances go into our personal health care. Unfortunately as well, Americans fail to see that an insurance company is not much different from a governing agency: that in buying into health insurance you've essentially bought into a citizenry in a private governing agency that takes away all of your individual health care choice rights anyways, but with less concern for your well being than a government health care program would have.
More recently as far as I can tell, Chinese are gaining in individual freedoms, whereas Americans as a whole, partly just due to fear, are letting go of their hold on such individual rights. Though they may have a lot of internet censorship in China that we would consider ridiculous (in that they'll censor porn and anti-government posts, all the while telling you that they are doing it, while we'll censor 75 year old "copyrighted" material from being circulated, and quietly tap into your communications), regardless, the internet has recently opened them up to a wealth of information access. I think they're also seeing the society-wide advantages that often are the result of "special economic zones" and free trade. The Chinese seem to be dealing with two (occasionally conflicting) value systems, both of which they derive benefits from.
The Americans in contrast, losing their value of individual freedoms, turn to what? Value of safety? A fall of Americans from valuing strong defense of individual rights, to the current greatest concern of protection of basic physical safety, can only be seen as a sharp decline in moral and living standards.
It's kind of like a maslov's hierarchy of needs thing though too. American's are so fearing of basic safety (irrationally would be the opinion of most of us on slashdot) that they can't be bothered to think about any kind of freedom or real values anymore. What it says to me is "don't go home." (I'm in China now).
I think the real change will have to start with YOU. Web developers in China should be writing code that conforms to web standards, and then there won't be "IE only code." Firefox in many cases isn't the one who is wrong.
If Firefox changes to support non-standard otherwise-IE-only code, it will further confuse the compatibility problems. If people like you write universally compatible code designed to follow web standards, then your code will run in IE, Firefox, Opera, etc, along with other web devices that are growing in popularity. If people like you are writing correct code, then users will be free to choose the best way to view those pages.
If you keep writing IE only code, what happens when you need your page to display properly on someone's cell phone or PDA? What if a blind person wants to view your page with a text reader? What if Firefox does catch on and you're site is one of the few incompatible ones? What if linux and/or mac takes off there? Are you going to re-write your page from scratch? As China grows, and fancier technology like cellphone-based internet becomes prevalent, and as your standard of living improves, there are numerous long-term consequences you could take care of now, ahead of time, by following standards. Following standards won't adversely affect the IE experience, isn't significantly more difficult than writing IE specific code, and will save you time and money in the long run.
I guess if you keep writing crappy code though, it will be easy to find a job fixing it later:-)
well, I think you're in luck with these things. I've been doing my research (looking at the hanlin, cybook, sony, and iliad) and I'm eager to buy one or the other, leaning towards the cybook so far. They all support at least some form of non-drm content like pdfs, txt, and HTML as far as I can tell. Most also support GIFs and JPGs and some support MP3's.
I don't think they'd get away with ONLY selling DRM content, though I'll want GOOD drm content available for when I do feel the urge to pay for a book. What I'm finding is that I'm going to want the best available DRM content, which makes me shy away from sony's device with it's proprietary service that will only run on the sony device. I wish there was an eink device that would read the palm books, drm pdfs, sony's propreitary books, AND mobipocket books, so I'd know that I could always buy any book if I feel the need to buy a DRM book, and that if one DRM format goes out of style I'll still be able to read books in whatever the hot-new format is.
"Mobipocket" seems to be the best one out there in terms of what devices are supported (also runs on a palm, or on your computer, or a blackberry, or in various other ebook reading devices like the cybook, and hanlin has a contract to develop support that format on their devices). Amazon bought mobibook, so the kindle looks hopeful in that sense. I'm really eagerly awaiting this announcement, unless the thing is coming out quickly I'll probably buy some other mobi-pocket-supporting eink device.
If the kindle doesn't support non drm content then they'll just crash+burn. It'd be silly to buy one when there are other comparable options that will be able to read thousands of non-copyrighted books freely downloadable from the gutenberg project or wherever else.
The problem with PDFs is the size. Most are fixed format 8.5/11 with no font changes or reflow, so if you zoom in you have to scroll back and forth (very annoying on a screen with such slow refresh as these eink devices), and if you fit-to-screen the text is too small. If you can get PDFs that are formatted to the right size you'll be fine, but that's not always the case. Personally, I hate PDFs.
I think most of these eink devices support (non drm) pdfs to some extent, it's just an issue of them looking like crap. If you can at least rotate the screen 90% and have fully adjustable zoom you get a slightly better view. DRM pdf's are actually harder to support.
My big fear is that it's going to be tightly coupled with (and require a subscription to) this phone service thing that I don't want. I'll gladly plug it into a USB port, but I'm not in the US and don't plan to use some funny cellphone based internet service.
I've never read an electronic book, but I'm thrilled about this eink stuff and I can't wait to get my hands on one so I can get started. LCDs hurt my eyes quite a bit. I spend most of my time living on a boat, which sails quite poorly because the v-berth is so full of books. One of these things could save me needing a bigger boat.
A lot of Asian governments seem to be wary of depending on the US based software giant. They had to bargain to get Chinese to use MS at one point, selling windows at cheaper prices or something to convince China to put up with anti-piracy efforts or blahblahblah. I can't remember exactly what the details were and I can't find a link. oh well. maybe ignore that part since I can't verify what I'm saying. There was something interesting that happened though.
Anyways. My 5 RMB (certainly not dollars) is on China + Asian Linux
"Following an agreement inked last year, government officials from South Korea, China and Japan met in Beijing in April to discuss how they can create an open-source alternative to Microsoft Windows, honing in on issues such as the setting of standards, areas of joint technical development and work force exchange."
And now oracle is supporting it. I don't know much about it, but.
China is a country that, as a country, can make a decision and execute it. To read here, you memorize 5,000+ characters. When the Chinese government wants it to be a little easier, they change the character set. What happens? Everyone uses the new characters. I mean, radicals change so it's not *that* hard, but in the US, we can't even change to the metric system. They can build a wall *that* long. They can censor the INTERNET across an entire country. they can....
If China commits itself to using a better operating system, I really believe they could home-grow an OS from scratch better than Winblows or OSX relatively quickly. Not that I think that's saying much.
They care because they get paid for each month of ATT service used through an iPhone, not just a one time deal of selling locked phones. If you can use the phone elsewhere, they don't get the extra revenue.
In my opinion, it should be illegal to sell locked phones in the US too. It seems to violate our concept of anti-trust laws, though I'm no lawyer. I don't understand why they can get away with this. I really believe it's detrimental to the economy, the amount of money that goes into developing hardware that just ends up locked out of more widespread use.
I mean, I'm in China. Two months ago I was in the Philippines. It's a quadband phone. Can I even use one here? I'm assuming not unless I "unlock" it, and thus become liable to turn it into a $300 brick. If I can't use it here, it seems it doesn't even satisfy implied warranties of fitness for intended use... and telling me that a quadband phone isn't "intended" for use outside the country I bought it in doesn't sound reasonable to me.
I'm feeling really irritated with Apple. I'm pretty irritated with windows vista too but that's another story. People keep talking about user-friendly interfaces and how this stuff is designed not for me, but for the simple minded users who just want something that works,... but that's really not what it is. I know so many "average" users who have nothing but problems with crap like the iPod.
I know a sixty-something year old guy in the Philippines who likes music. CD's aren't still really practical in this day and age. He bought an iPod and spent $700 on iTunes to load it up with songs. He doesn't have a computer, he used a friends. He goes to another friends house, plugs in his iPod, a window pops up, he clicks the wrong button, and all his music is gone. For those of us who are traveling, and relying on internet cafe's, What can we do when the popup is in a language we don't understand? The "average" users I've met seem to have enough trouble with it in English! He does not remember his iTunes password, so he can't just re-download the music. I know so many people like this. *HE* is the average consumer, and he's not the guy posting favorable recommendations on slashdot.
So many people who have mp3's burnt onto their computer from CD's they paid for. They copy them onto the iPod in hard-drive mode and wonder why it doesn't work. Eventually some apple-loving geek roommate or friend "fixes" it for them. They blame the problems on their own "stupidity," and think their iPod isn't so bad, but none of this should be necessary. The user was not the one at fault here.
I had the same kinds of problems. I have an iPod, but my computer died. I wanted nothing more than to download a free chinese lesson mp3 from chinesepod.com every day, and copy it onto my ipod from an internet cafe. It's not possible to do this unless I install some kind of special non-apple pain-in-the-ass ipod software onto the internet cafe's computer. Yes, I could do this. I have a degree in computer science. It's not rocket science. but it's a pain in the ass to do in every internet cafe I go to, and to call this an intuitive-user-interface is complete bullshit. The "mp3 player" does not satisfy the basic requirement of being able to just play an mp3 I give it.
Apple (nor anyone else) seems to care about the customers. All they care about is deals with phone and record companies.
I think the US consumer protection agencies should be revamped and strengthened. It's not like anyone's out lobbying for such improvements though. It would be nice if anyone just gave a shit about customers though.
So,... does this mean the pentagon is admitting that the Iraq war is a war for oil? No more calling it "operation Iraqi freedom?"
I'm also a little curious about the atmospheric affects of beaming large amounts of energy from space. I've heard of this solar energy idea before, in regard to setting up solar arrays on the moon to beam energy down to us... and no one seems to mention this issue. Is it an issue? Do they care? The 10mw is just a prototype, they're talking about running giga-watts of energy in from space later. If we take into account the effect of the energy passing through the atmosphere, plus all the energy required to launch the system, could the grand total amount to nearly as much atmospheric damage than continuing to burn oil on the ground? Does anyone know what the effects are of beaming gigawatts of energy through the atmosphere? I'm curious...
and, as other people have pointed out about the amount of energy that would be required to launch such a system, I get the impression that the department of "defense" is far more concerned with delivering energy to the battlefield (or later using the technology to develop a giant death-ray?) than they are with benefiting society, harnessing a new energy source, or reducing the effects of global warming.
Either way, I'm not complaining. I'd love to see them build us a space elevator or something. I'm a big fan of the comment on new settlements for the human race. Even if we do solve the oil crisis somehow, it's not like we can spend an eternity on earth and not go extinct. I feel like space development, and more focus on the idea of protecting our planet, could help unite waring countries towards a common goal. I feel like war is partly just boredom. At least it would give people a better cause than trying to kill each other.
why are people saying this is useless? it's just what I need, and I was suprised when I went looking and couldn't find it when I first wanted it.
I cruise around in a sailboat. my longest passage was 35 days. how I would have LOVED to have been able to read wikipedia articles on that passage, even if they were a few weeks old. What do I care if an article is a few weeks old? 35 days at sea I'd have read a paper encyclopedia if I had one, but my boat isn't big enough to carry the weight of a paper encyclopedia. It sails like shit as it is from how many books I have stuffed in my V-berth.
and sometimes I'm on some random little island with no internet access for a periods of time... hanging out with a bunch of other sailors, and of course we get into discussions that leave us wishing we could go google something.
Even in Bora Bora, they had internet but it was 24$/hour, on crappy old computers! this would have been great!
and now! now I'm in China! They block parts of wikipedia. yeah I can setup and SSH tunnel when I happen to have internet access available, but how great it is to have a local (though somewhat outdated) copy of wikipedia, including any blocked articles!
'from an external viewer's point it takes an infinite amount of time to form an event horizon and that the clock for the objects falling into the black hole appears to slow down to zero,'
huh? time doesn't slow down to an external viewer. this doesn't make any sense to me. fine, if *I* get thrown into a black hole, maybe I'll accelerate to close to the speed of light, and so time will slow down in my frame of reference, and so it will seem that I will never reach the... event horizon, or whatever. But, if I'm outside, far from the effects of the black hole's gravitational field, why would I be affected? Can anyone explain this?
Slashdot Mirror
If I buy a REIT at $15 per share, and it appreciates to 20/share, I currently don't pay taxes on the capital gains unless I sell. He's saying I should pay tax on $5 per share, my profit, even if I didn't actually "realize" the gain by selling the shares.
If the REIT is still only worth 15/share at the end of the year (their prices really usually do not appreciate rapidly, since they pay out 90% of their earnings), then I don't pay any capital gains taxes, only the taxes on the dividend income.
He also suggests "only publicly traded stock would be marked to market," so your non-fungible shopping mall example would be excluded until the gains were realized. Even if it were somehow included, the tax would be based on the appreciation in value. If it's not worth more than you spent on it, then there is no capital gain.
A "wealth tax" is, for example, a property tax (which already exists in the US in many states). A wealth tax requires you to pay a percent of the total value of the property.
I'm not saying mark-to-market is without problems, or even that it's the right solution, but where exactly is the argument that it's a wealth tax?
You're worried about facebook being a "skeleton key" of the internet. The fact is, if I could hack into your email account I could just go to almost every website you use and re-set your password. You would have little recourse even after you changed your email password. At least with facebook, if someone gets into your account you can verify your identity by identifying friends in pictures, among other mechanisms facebook has implemented, before having a new password sent to your primary email.... and if I think my facebook/google/openID/whatever password has somehow been compromised, I can re-set it in one (or a few) place(s) instead of 100 places. They've really done a very good job with this stuff.
The flaw described here wasn't a flaw in the implementation of Facebook Connect. What happened with Hulu is not any less likely to happen with a user/password implementation. They just mixed up the relationship between userID's and data in their own database (or something to that effect).
Regarding control of data, ... when you use Facebook Connect, the website has to request permission to any data of yours it wants to receive. For most blogs/forums/etc, it shouldn't need anything except "basic information" (name, gender, and unfortunately friend list but maybe you can make that private). If it asks for more hit "refuse" and choose one of the OpenID options. If you login with google's open ID they don't even get your name or google ID... they basically get no identifying information at all whatsoever.
You say you use a strong password for all websites, but where do you store all those passwords? In your browser, viewable by anyone who uses your computer for a few minutes, and which can't easily be shared with other computers (work/home) or onto your phone (my blackberry certainly doesn't)? Or do you store your passwords in lastpass, which has already once accidentally leaked its user data (sure the leaked data was encrypted, but it can be brute forced)? There really isn't an easy answer, and these openID/oauth mechanisms are both really nice and far more secure than existing u/p methods. I wish more websites would start offering them.
I made a simple webpage (pilotpad.com) to try out single-signon mechanisms. What I learned encouraged me that it really is more secure... but even close friends were afraid of what my site would do to them if they clicked that frightening "connect with facebook" button... in practice, sites that want to acquire users still need to support user/pass type auth for the time being, but I really hope this will change.
This could be about percent of new monthly recurring revenue... bringing in new business is worth the commission. "20% commission" doesn't necessarily mean "20% of all revenue."
Speaking as someone with a degree in English Literature, I can safely say that I've only used math two times in my life: when learning it in school, when counting my kids at night, and when doing my taxes.
umm.... that was *three* times. ugh. This article makes me sad. :-(
no... it wouldn't "look through" all 50 TB of data. Actually reading all 50 TB of data would make it take a long long time to see your inbox.
I don't know what their architecture is exactly, but they probably something like $mysql_host = 'sqlhosts' + ($friend_id MODULUS 1000);
Sure, 100 friends might be on 100 different servers. That doesn't mean they need to scan through every row checking to see if it's a friend of yours. It's the same thing as using indexes, but distributed.
as far as I know, the Japanese have way better phones. I thought they didn't like the iPhone?
They'd probably just keep their email on their "cool" phone, and get their friends to carry their "lame" iphone to class.
but will it be better than XP?
I don't know much about this, ... and never really developed phone apps, ... I'm curious as much as anything.
... a QT platform for phones? ... and, you can compile it for windows mobile right? and it's owned by nokia so presumably there will be nokia devices running it, right? and it runs on the openmoko too, doesn't it? and I imagine it should run on various other mobile devices / netbooks / tablets like the asus eee pc and the nokia n800.
... maybe it's more complicated than I'm making this sound... no one else seems to be mentioning it, .. so what have I got wrong?
... and then just potentially get a couple of other devices for free... as opposed to developing for windows mobile using .net, and never having much possibility of portability?
there's that QTopia,
I've never used qtopia,
I mean, my impression is you could right it in qtopia but be "targeting" windows mobile,
I'm sure there are far more windows mobile devices out there than there are iphones, regardless of the recent popularity of the iphone. does a home-buyer want to be required to be a mac-guy? aside from web-based, my impression is that something writen in qt / qtopia would run on the largest number of devices.
haha... from a guy named lysergic acid.
... and I wouldn't be surprised if *that* was the difference between the artists you mention, vs more the more technically adept.
... it was the amount of time, work, and money that went into implementing that idea.
I agree with the rest of them. Ideas are cheap. implementation is expensive. Most ideas have been thought up a million times before.
There are how many billion people on the planet? everyone thinks up a few ideas here and there. Actually implementing those ideas takes work. A lot of it.
Someone probably already even has a patent on his idea.
plus, lots of half-baked "ideas" I've seen have self-contradictory requirements. People capable of seeing the self-contradiction are often the same people who can program.
Even technical ability doesn't do it though. Work does it.
I've known lots of people who were looking for "the next great idea" so they could create some amazing software that would get them rich so they'd never have to work. One guy I know, actually a decent programmer, now lives in his car.
I've also seen "great ideas" that made millions of dollars. The difference wasn't the quality of the idea (or even necessarily technical ability),
"the possibility of killing bacteria with paint"
... but fundamentally, paint with anti-biotic properties seems like old news.
I live on a boat. the paint I use on the bottom is toxic stuff. It's designed to kill anything. The best stuff is illegal in the US.
Even way back when, people put copper in paint. Copper has anti-bacterial properties. I've also seen people add mold and mildew remover to their paint.
I suppose that this being some fancy nano-technology is new,
"it should fold up its tent and tell the world to switch to Apple." ?!?!? what about ubuntu??
I don't care if it's "traceable", ... I just want to find a way to get my contacts synced from my phone! I tried the software on the nokia site, but it just doesn't work.
Where can I buy one of these things??
and why, if they can build that, can't any cell phone company (that I've found) seem to build a simple phone that will let me import my contacts to my computer???
I bought a "smart" phone, but I can't imagine it being any dumber.
You're right that the average Chinese citizen can't VPN out. Not only do they not know how, but they don't have a box in the US to VPN to, don't realize what site it is they're missing, and possibly can't even read the English on the site anyways.
BUT, I've been living here for a year studying Chinese, and most of the Chinese people I've talked to DO know what happened in 1989. I mean, it wasn't even all that long ago. People would remember that kind of stuff, even if it wasn't discussed in their schools. I do get the impression that it is in fact discussed in schools, though I'm sure their spin on it is a bit different then ours.
umm.... who ever said XP was worse than 2000? I seem to have missed that.
... I'm hearing some news sites suggesting that balmer could even get fired. people bitching about vista aren't imagining things. vista was a failure.
I never used 2000, but I seem to remember people saying it sucked too. xp wasn't so bad, and I don't remember ever hearing anyone say it was worse than 2000. 95 and 98 weren't terrible. really. vista sucks.
after vista, and the failed yahoo deal,
these are very common in china, ... personally, I couldn't do it. the water is never quite hot enough. ... and you can only shower in the afternoon.
sure, if you have a high draw appliance and a long wiring run, you'd need unmanageably large wires...
... often in poor island countries, but also on boats. he could just buy a solar panel, a deep cycle battery, maybe a regulator, and some relatively low draw appliances like lights and such.
... maybe even under $500.
... but he would be able to plug-in and charge cordless power tools that didn't have car-adapter plugs), ... he could just get a cheap lower-end inverter that plugs into one of the cigarette-lighter plugs. such an inverter would only be maybe a hundred bucks.
... even in larger scales... DC doesn't have to be 12 volt. tesla and edison argued for ages about whether electrical systems should be AC or DC. we moved to AC because it made more sense in terms of distributing power long distances from isolated generators. the last US DC system was shut down just in the past year in new york... they used to be common. there's a slashdot article about it somewhere.
... but more and more power might be getting generated locally in the future, with more and more roof top solar panels, ... maybe the future will bring some kind of solar-pavements and paints, etc etc. if power is always coming from somewhere close, some of the advantages of AC will lessen in value.
... and have bought a solar panel, ... and then after playing around a little bit with it as a hobby, getting used to it, maybe eventually he buys more solar panels and a bigger inverter.
but the suggestion was to add a 12 or 24 volt (or maybe even 36 volt which would further lesson the voltage drop issues) dc system along side the existing AC system. you're not going to find DC microwaves anywhere anyways.
I've seen plenty of people with solar powered DC systems,
maybe he has a work shed or garage in the back yard, maybe even a shed that currently doesn't have power. He could have lights in the shed, and some cigarette-lighter style plugs. he could plug in cell phones and laptops and lights and cigarette lighter like fans that you buy in automotive or marine shops, etc. I try to buy as many appliances as possible with cigarette lighter plugs, because I often live on a boat.
I mean, just a solar panel, battery, regulator, some cigarette-lighter-style outlets, and some lights and such could be set up for under a grand,
and, for low draw AC appliances (i.e., it won't run your microwave, and he wouldn't want to run a 6amp power tool,
and,
In the future, we may see a move back towards DC systems. maybe they'd be 36volt... maybe more.
and it would be a start. he could run some lights and laptop and charge his cordless powertools and such at first,
umm... a constitutional republic is a form of democracy.
and you're incorrect in that the post you reply to (kryten_nl) is certainly not referring to a constitutional republic, but pure representative democracy. A constitutional republic would be more inclined to protect the interests of minorities from "mobocracy," unlike, as is described, the ideal of pure representative democracy. Maybe you yourself don't know the difference?
I'm just confused why your post is modded so high when it seems irrelevant.
Or, who are you replying to? did you mean to reply to delire's post and hit the wrong button? but.. I'm not so sure "Describing America in the context of a 'constitutional republic' becomes increasingly difficult" would have been a sensible/understandable statement, especially since no one generally would have described America "in the context of a constitutional republic." Sure maybe that's because most people don't know what it is, nor the advantages it *should* provide since the US supposedly is one... but who cares? Delire gets his/her point across just fine, and kryten_nl certainly ads to that point.
Really though it's not a question of political systems, it's a question of value systems. Those of us in America, grew up being taught to think of individual rights as being the superior good. Those who grew up in China, grew up being taught that the advancement of a society as a whole is the superior good. When those two values come into conflict, Chinese people, (if given the chance), would probably have voted based on the later value system, whereas Americans would have voted based on the individuality based value system.
For example, if the Chinese government could afford socialized public healthcare, they would have it. They plan to have it by 2020, when they probably will be able to afford it given their rapid economic development. In America, we could have afforded it (not so sure now with war debts), yet we whole-heartedly reject anything that infringes upon our ability to independently choose what portion of our finances go into our personal health care. Unfortunately as well, Americans fail to see that an insurance company is not much different from a governing agency: that in buying into health insurance you've essentially bought into a citizenry in a private governing agency that takes away all of your individual health care choice rights anyways, but with less concern for your well being than a government health care program would have.
More recently as far as I can tell, Chinese are gaining in individual freedoms, whereas Americans as a whole, partly just due to fear, are letting go of their hold on such individual rights. Though they may have a lot of internet censorship in China that we would consider ridiculous (in that they'll censor porn and anti-government posts, all the while telling you that they are doing it, while we'll censor 75 year old "copyrighted" material from being circulated, and quietly tap into your communications), regardless, the internet has recently opened them up to a wealth of information access. I think they're also seeing the society-wide advantages that often are the result of "special economic zones" and free trade. The Chinese seem to be dealing with two (occasionally conflicting) value systems, both of which they derive benefits from.
The Americans in contrast, losing their value of individual freedoms, turn to what? Value of safety? A fall of Americans from valuing strong defense of individual rights, to the current greatest concern of protection of basic physical safety, can only be seen as a sharp decline in moral and living standards.
It's kind of like a maslov's hierarchy of needs thing though too. American's are so fearing of basic safety (irrationally would be the opinion of most of us on slashdot) that they can't be bothered to think about any kind of freedom or real values anymore. What it says to me is "don't go home." (I'm in China now).
I think the real change will have to start with YOU. Web developers in China should be writing code that conforms to web standards, and then there won't be "IE only code." Firefox in many cases isn't the one who is wrong.
:-)
If Firefox changes to support non-standard otherwise-IE-only code, it will further confuse the compatibility problems. If people like you write universally compatible code designed to follow web standards, then your code will run in IE, Firefox, Opera, etc, along with other web devices that are growing in popularity. If people like you are writing correct code, then users will be free to choose the best way to view those pages.
If you keep writing IE only code, what happens when you need your page to display properly on someone's cell phone or PDA? What if a blind person wants to view your page with a text reader? What if Firefox does catch on and you're site is one of the few incompatible ones? What if linux and/or mac takes off there? Are you going to re-write your page from scratch? As China grows, and fancier technology like cellphone-based internet becomes prevalent, and as your standard of living improves, there are numerous long-term consequences you could take care of now, ahead of time, by following standards. Following standards won't adversely affect the IE experience, isn't significantly more difficult than writing IE specific code, and will save you time and money in the long run.
I guess if you keep writing crappy code though, it will be easy to find a job fixing it later
well, I think you're in luck with these things. I've been doing my research (looking at the hanlin, cybook, sony, and iliad) and I'm eager to buy one or the other, leaning towards the cybook so far. They all support at least some form of non-drm content like pdfs, txt, and HTML as far as I can tell. Most also support GIFs and JPGs and some support MP3's.
I don't think they'd get away with ONLY selling DRM content, though I'll want GOOD drm content available for when I do feel the urge to pay for a book. What I'm finding is that I'm going to want the best available DRM content, which makes me shy away from sony's device with it's proprietary service that will only run on the sony device. I wish there was an eink device that would read the palm books, drm pdfs, sony's propreitary books, AND mobipocket books, so I'd know that I could always buy any book if I feel the need to buy a DRM book, and that if one DRM format goes out of style I'll still be able to read books in whatever the hot-new format is.
"Mobipocket" seems to be the best one out there in terms of what devices are supported (also runs on a palm, or on your computer, or a blackberry, or in various other ebook reading devices like the cybook, and hanlin has a contract to develop support that format on their devices). Amazon bought mobibook, so the kindle looks hopeful in that sense. I'm really eagerly awaiting this announcement, unless the thing is coming out quickly I'll probably buy some other mobi-pocket-supporting eink device.
If the kindle doesn't support non drm content then they'll just crash+burn. It'd be silly to buy one when there are other comparable options that will be able to read thousands of non-copyrighted books freely downloadable from the gutenberg project or wherever else.
The problem with PDFs is the size. Most are fixed format 8.5/11 with no font changes or reflow, so if you zoom in you have to scroll back and forth (very annoying on a screen with such slow refresh as these eink devices), and if you fit-to-screen the text is too small. If you can get PDFs that are formatted to the right size you'll be fine, but that's not always the case. Personally, I hate PDFs.
I think most of these eink devices support (non drm) pdfs to some extent, it's just an issue of them looking like crap. If you can at least rotate the screen 90% and have fully adjustable zoom you get a slightly better view. DRM pdf's are actually harder to support.
My big fear is that it's going to be tightly coupled with (and require a subscription to) this phone service thing that I don't want. I'll gladly plug it into a USB port, but I'm not in the US and don't plan to use some funny cellphone based internet service.
I've never read an electronic book, but I'm thrilled about this eink stuff and I can't wait to get my hands on one so I can get started. LCDs hurt my eyes quite a bit. I spend most of my time living on a boat, which sails quite poorly because the v-berth is so full of books. One of these things could save me needing a bigger boat.
I believe the China part, I duno about MS though.
A lot of Asian governments seem to be wary of depending on the US based software giant. They had to bargain to get Chinese to use MS at one point, selling windows at cheaper prices or something to convince China to put up with anti-piracy efforts or blahblahblah. I can't remember exactly what the details were and I can't find a link. oh well. maybe ignore that part since I can't verify what I'm saying. There was something interesting that happened though.
Anyways. My 5 RMB (certainly not dollars) is on China + Asian Linux
http://www.news.com/Asian-Linux-gaining-momentum/2100-1011_3-5278304.html
"Following an agreement inked last year, government officials from South Korea, China and Japan met in Beijing in April to discuss how they can create an open-source alternative to Microsoft Windows, honing in on issues such as the setting of standards, areas of joint technical development and work force exchange."
And now oracle is supporting it. I don't know much about it, but.
China is a country that, as a country, can make a decision and execute it. To read here, you memorize 5,000+ characters. When the Chinese government wants it to be a little easier, they change the character set. What happens? Everyone uses the new characters. I mean, radicals change so it's not *that* hard, but in the US, we can't even change to the metric system. They can build a wall *that* long. They can censor the INTERNET across an entire country. they can....
If China commits itself to using a better operating system, I really believe they could home-grow an OS from scratch better than Winblows or OSX relatively quickly. Not that I think that's saying much.
They care because they get paid for each month of ATT service used through an iPhone, not just a one time deal of selling locked phones. If you can use the phone elsewhere, they don't get the extra revenue.
... but that's really not what it is. I know so many "average" users who have nothing but problems with crap like the iPod.
In my opinion, it should be illegal to sell locked phones in the US too. It seems to violate our concept of anti-trust laws, though I'm no lawyer. I don't understand why they can get away with this. I really believe it's detrimental to the economy, the amount of money that goes into developing hardware that just ends up locked out of more widespread use.
I mean, I'm in China. Two months ago I was in the Philippines. It's a quadband phone. Can I even use one here? I'm assuming not unless I "unlock" it, and thus become liable to turn it into a $300 brick. If I can't use it here, it seems it doesn't even satisfy implied warranties of fitness for intended use... and telling me that a quadband phone isn't "intended" for use outside the country I bought it in doesn't sound reasonable to me.
I'm feeling really irritated with Apple. I'm pretty irritated with windows vista too but that's another story. People keep talking about user-friendly interfaces and how this stuff is designed not for me, but for the simple minded users who just want something that works,
I know a sixty-something year old guy in the Philippines who likes music. CD's aren't still really practical in this day and age. He bought an iPod and spent $700 on iTunes to load it up with songs. He doesn't have a computer, he used a friends. He goes to another friends house, plugs in his iPod, a window pops up, he clicks the wrong button, and all his music is gone. For those of us who are traveling, and relying on internet cafe's, What can we do when the popup is in a language we don't understand? The "average" users I've met seem to have enough trouble with it in English! He does not remember his iTunes password, so he can't just re-download the music. I know so many people like this. *HE* is the average consumer, and he's not the guy posting favorable recommendations on slashdot.
So many people who have mp3's burnt onto their computer from CD's they paid for. They copy them onto the iPod in hard-drive mode and wonder why it doesn't work. Eventually some apple-loving geek roommate or friend "fixes" it for them. They blame the problems on their own "stupidity," and think their iPod isn't so bad, but none of this should be necessary. The user was not the one at fault here.
I had the same kinds of problems. I have an iPod, but my computer died. I wanted nothing more than to download a free chinese lesson mp3 from chinesepod.com every day, and copy it onto my ipod from an internet cafe. It's not possible to do this unless I install some kind of special non-apple pain-in-the-ass ipod software onto the internet cafe's computer. Yes, I could do this. I have a degree in computer science. It's not rocket science. but it's a pain in the ass to do in every internet cafe I go to, and to call this an intuitive-user-interface is complete bullshit. The "mp3 player" does not satisfy the basic requirement of being able to just play an mp3 I give it.
Apple (nor anyone else) seems to care about the customers. All they care about is deals with phone and record companies.
I think the US consumer protection agencies should be revamped and strengthened. It's not like anyone's out lobbying for such improvements though. It would be nice if anyone just gave a shit about customers though.
am I wrong?
"'and avoid future conflicts over oil by....'"
... does this mean the pentagon is admitting that the Iraq war is a war for oil? No more calling it "operation Iraqi freedom?"
So,
I'm also a little curious about the atmospheric affects of beaming large amounts of energy from space. I've heard of this solar energy idea before, in regard to setting up solar arrays on the moon to beam energy down to us... and no one seems to mention this issue. Is it an issue? Do they care? The 10mw is just a prototype, they're talking about running giga-watts of energy in from space later. If we take into account the effect of the energy passing through the atmosphere, plus all the energy required to launch the system, could the grand total amount to nearly as much atmospheric damage than continuing to burn oil on the ground? Does anyone know what the effects are of beaming gigawatts of energy through the atmosphere? I'm curious...
and, as other people have pointed out about the amount of energy that would be required to launch such a system, I get the impression that the department of "defense" is far more concerned with delivering energy to the battlefield (or later using the technology to develop a giant death-ray?) than they are with benefiting society, harnessing a new energy source, or reducing the effects of global warming.
Either way, I'm not complaining. I'd love to see them build us a space elevator or something. I'm a big fan of the comment on new settlements for the human race. Even if we do solve the oil crisis somehow, it's not like we can spend an eternity on earth and not go extinct. I feel like space development, and more focus on the idea of protecting our planet, could help unite waring countries towards a common goal. I feel like war is partly just boredom. At least it would give people a better cause than trying to kill each other.
-brian
why are people saying this is useless? it's just what I need, and I was suprised when I went looking and couldn't find it when I first wanted it.
I cruise around in a sailboat. my longest passage was 35 days. how I would have LOVED to have been able to read wikipedia articles on that passage, even if they were a few weeks old. What do I care if an article is a few weeks old? 35 days at sea I'd have read a paper encyclopedia if I had one, but my boat isn't big enough to carry the weight of a paper encyclopedia. It sails like shit as it is from how many books I have stuffed in my V-berth.
and sometimes I'm on some random little island with no internet access for a periods of time... hanging out with a bunch of other sailors, and of course we get into discussions that leave us wishing we could go google something.
Even in Bora Bora, they had internet but it was 24$/hour, on crappy old computers! this would have been great!
and now! now I'm in China! They block parts of wikipedia. yeah I can setup and SSH tunnel when I happen to have internet access available, but how great it is to have a local (though somewhat outdated) copy of wikipedia, including any blocked articles!
sounds great!
'from an external viewer's point it takes an infinite amount of time to form an event horizon and that the clock for the objects falling into the black hole appears to slow down to zero,' huh? time doesn't slow down to an external viewer. this doesn't make any sense to me. fine, if *I* get thrown into a black hole, maybe I'll accelerate to close to the speed of light, and so time will slow down in my frame of reference, and so it will seem that I will never reach the ... event horizon, or whatever. But, if I'm outside, far from the effects of the black hole's gravitational field, why would I be affected? Can anyone explain this?
I think I can, I might, and I would prefer to, follow my job to India, than to move to rural america.
I'm not worried about outsourcing either way though.