The dumb one steal small amounts for cash registers and banks. Easy to get caught, lots of interaction with victims. Tough sentences.
The smart ones steal huge amounts from share-holders (a la Martha), consumers (various price-fixing schemes), tax-payers (Enron extorting money from CA), and others. They don't often get caught, they make huge amounts of money, the sentences are light, and as Ed Norton says in Fight Club; if someone dies (Ford roll-overs, etc), that's ok as long as the cost of settlements is less than the cost of a recall.
I guess the a-moral of this is that to be a good criminal, work with the system, not against it.
budgetary quirks that give you a $900 toilet seat or $2000+ hammer
While I'm not saying that our [US, or any other] government is efficient, no one is spending $900 on a toilet seat. Rather, there is a budget line for a $900 toilet seat, a purchaser buys one for $20, and the other $880 get funneled into some secret DOD/CIA/NSA/etc project that they don't want to be listed on the books. Ideally, a congressional committee with the proper security clearance such as the Senate Armed Services Comittee or some other would check that the money is being well spent, then scatter its cost amongst various unrelated purchases.
I'm not saying that this practice is right, in that I'd like greater transparency in the government, but "Kingston", "Royal", and the other toilet makers aren't making [so much of] a killing on government contracts. Likewise, some value is being derived from that money which is [hopefully] being ok'd by congress.
What I find especially amusing about this is that Apple seems to get by with nary a complaint. As much as I love Apple, OSX is very bloated, yet does not scale to the hardware at all (i.e. OSX is the same whether you install it on 300Mhz G3 or 2.5Ghz G5), and Apple barely supports (if at all) any non-current version of their OS.
The same could be said for the Unices of Sun, IBM, HP, SGI, etc (though they support their old systems usually); but like Apple, none of these are Monopolies. When a company has a monopoly, then small problems get magnified as consumer choice is limited.
Check out this forum post. I had this problem on OS X, but it involved renaming a settin in the "profile.ini" file to use the old xxxxxxx.slt location instead of the new one named "default".
One solution would be to rig an old ~200MHz laptop up with two of the usb/wireless/fry-skimmer-antennas and put it on top of your hill. One could point to the source, the other home. Then the issue would be power. You mentioned solar, which would be pretty cool. Place the laptop in a weather-proof box, shaded by the solar panel, with the the two antennas sticking up and yay, access!
If I can get my grandma to ask for a pc and know that she wants Linux, and not Windows, then I think we will truly have succeeded.
Actually, my mother is begging me to install Linux the next time I visit. She just does web/email/camera stuff and the last bout of MS worms just about did her in. When Outlook express started halting on send, then sending 20 copies of the unsent message to each recipient, she broke down and started begging for something that will "just work" and not flake out every 6 months.
I think Xandros with cron set to auto-apt-get upgrade should do the trick.
honestly, why would you bother? There are so many good players available, most of which have nothing to do with redundant parasites like Real.
A couple things: The community developed RealPlayer for Linux and the OSS Helix player don't contain all the crap that the RealOnePlayer on Windows does. I've only used the Realplayer for linux and it does what's needed* and little more.
* What needed? Not a player for Ogg, mpg, avi, mov, etc, but a player for Real's closed source video streams. As much as I dislike the lack of openness in Real's formats, their tools for capturing and streaming video/audio do work quite well. As such, many places choose to use Real streaming servers. If that is the format that the content is in, I'd like a good quality OS piece of software to play it. This is what mplayer does and we love it. mplayer doesn't support Real a/v stuff, so Real is helping a project along that can do that with their video so they can sell more server software. Its good for Real if it works (and we don't get stuck with shizty players or no access to the format), if not; oh well, stream Ogg or something open.
but I think we all know that realistically it's never going to happen.
But can't we dream?!?!:-)
Seriously though, if by 1.0 they can do some of the stuff you mention and get the performance up to 10-20x slower than the host, then you might be able to get a decently usable system.
On the other hand, by that time you will be able to run KDE 6.0 that will blow OS X's UI out of the water. Maybe. I guess we just have to wait and see.
"The government is moving quickly toward a more fascistic form of rule under which persons, including citizens, can be held incommunicado indefinitely, without charges or judicial review, based solely on the president's decision."
- RWOR.org
1. You can preview (as many times as you want of the whole album) via streaming mp3. 2. When you find something you like, you choose the price that YOU want to pay for the album; pick between $4 and $16, $8 is recommended. Half goes to the artist, half to Magnatune. 3. The artist gets half of the purchase-price. 4. Upon payment you are given URLs to download MP3s, master-quality WAVs, and cover art for the album. 5. Their entire catalogue is licensed under Creative Commons licenses, so it is leagal to share them with your friends.
The system they have seems great for everyone involved. I recently asked some questions of one of the artists whose work I bought:
>>>Hi- >>> >>>I would be happy to hear Your feedback (good or bad)about my first album >>>Alchemy. (Magnatune) >>>Thanks. >>> >>>Allan. >>> >>He llo Allan, >> >>I have thoroughly enjoyed Alchemy, especially the title track and >>Ambriel. Keep up the good work. >> > > - thanks > >>My question to you: How have you found the experience of distributing >>your work under the Creative Commons license? > > > - it is all John Buckmans ( Magnatune) work. I just sent my music. > >> I have several musician >>friends who found the idea interesting, but were wary of giving up any >>control of their recordings. Do you feel that you have received more or >>less financial/critical rewards by using the Creative Commons license? > > > -I have starting to sell my music on Magnatune. I didnt make money from >my music before, thats why I cannot see the difference. > >>Thanks, I'll be listening to Vibrant as soon as I get a chance. >> >>Adam >> >Thanks for Your response. >Allan. >
OK, not an earth-shattering reply, but the artists aren't being raped ala Sony, TimeWarner, BMG, et. al.
I've been looking for that speed record for a "normal" bike for a while, but could only find info about this guy who hit something like 150mph while drafting behind a special car. Thanks for the info!
think of those of us up here in CANADA where winter can peg the thermometer at unbikeable temperatures for up to two thirds of the year
:-) I live in Vermont where the morning temps through January and February are normally -20*F to -5*F (-30*C to -20*C). This does tend to put a damper on biking. It is possible, though generally your cabling freezes causing breaks and shifting to stop working. Durring those months my short bike ride becomes a very long walk. For those further out of town biking just isn't an option part of the year. That said, just because biking/etc can't be done in snow/ice/cold/rain/thunderstorms, doesn't mean that one has to use a car exclusively.:-)
Speaking of Canada, I went up to Montreal yesterday and filled up my tank for the first time in about two months. Damned is gas expensive now! $2.29US/gal for the middle-grade stuff.
In this later post I worked out the efficiency numbers for cars, to compare them with bikes, the results:
Car: 66 Calories/km (45mpg) Walking: 0.75 Calories/km => 88x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg) Biking: 0.15 Calories/km => 440x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)
(note, the above assume that the numbers in the linked article for people, are in nutritional "C"alaries = kilocalories, instead of SI calories. If they are SI, then the bike is 440,000x more efficient than the car.)
Its not NIMBY, so much as an engineering problem. Power plants are few, and easily regulated/upgraded in comparison to cars. Additionally, they are vastly more efficent than car engines that are constrained by the need for mobility. Yeah, it would be great if we could power our grid via wind, solar, tidal power, etc, but getting rid of the little, inefficient, gasoline engines is the first step.
The big, BIG, difference with using electric vehicles is that those coal-fired power plants are highly localized sources of pollution. This is even more true for nuclear power.
By concentrating the pollution at a power plant, everyone's efficiency/pollution control can be improved by upgrading the power plant. High-tech scrubbers and other polution-reducing measures work great on power-plants, but not on small, bouncy, cars.
Additionally, gasoline engines just aren't all that efficient compared to power plants. First of all, power generation efficiency goes way up with size. Secondly, the car's engine needs to be able to supply power for a wide range of demands, cruising => acceleration, and is rarely at its most efficient point. The power plant in contrast has very slowly cycling energy loads that its engineers can tune for via putting more or less turbines/boilers/fuel on line.
No, electric is not a panacea, but removing the combustion from the vehicle goes a long way toward making the whole energy cycle more efficient.
Even better, trains.:-) If only we had them in the US outside of the DC-NYC-Boston corridor...
maybe a scene of some hot chick driving around, and it will become acceptable.
After touring about Italy, all I could think of is getting my hands on a Vespa (with a cute chick on the back).
Driving down the coast near Sorrento were thousands of young people on vespas heading to the beach, most with beautiful, bikini-clad women on them. Show some video of Italy on US TV and the things will sell out.
both are greener than a car, particularly in urban, stop-start traffic.
How much greener? See my previous post:...The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well. See link and below for numbers.
How about the efficiency of a car? Numbers from here give 45mpg to equal to 66Cal/km:
45m/gal = 19km/L with an energy density of 5.3x10^6J/L for gasoline, we get 278947J/km = 66625cal/km = 66Cal/km
Car: 66 Calories/km Walking: 0.75 Calories/km => 88x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg) Biking: 0.15 Calories/km => 440x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg) (note, the above assume that the numbers in the linked article for people, are in nutritional "C"alaries = kilocalories, instead of SI calories. If they are SI, then the bike is 440,000x more efficient.)
As an avid cyclist, I couldn't agree more. Me on a 17lb road bike can cruise at 17mph for long distances or 25mph for short distances/passing cars (really fun in my congested little town). Plus, I get good exersize while commuting.
That said, for those not young, not in good physical shape, or just lazy, the electric bike would be great. It would also be good for those who don't work for bike-friendly employers since you can arrive at work without being all sweaty and needing to change.
On another bicycle note, I recently came accross this great short essay entitled, "In Praise of the Bicycle".
Excerpts: ...Man on his feet is thermodynamically more efficient than any motorized vehicle and most animals. For his weight, he performs more work in locomotion than rats or oxen, less than horses or sturgeon.
...The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.
Its a nice read if you like cycling, commuting via bike, or are stuffed in your car in rush-hour traffic.
I then looked up the stats for the 2003 Tour and Lance Armstrong's winning finish of the 2129.4 mile race in 83h41'12" gives him an incredible average speed of 25.45miles/hour.
While a thoroughbred can run a mile averaging 40mph, a long distance speed record for the Karbarda breed or horses (the only one I could find data on) is 50km at 18.5 mph. Its pretty safe to say that attempting to ride a horse or just entering any animal in the Tour would kill it in a matter of days if not less.
Go bicycles!
In my opinion, anything that gets people out of their SUVs is a good thing for the world and these things are much better than nothing.
We are NOT......well, maybe Vermont is pint-sized -- a Ben & Jerry's pint, though!
All that said, the state government would not have to blanket its entire area in WiFi coverage. Adding free wireless access around government buildings, museums, etc where the wired access is already in place would be reasonably low-cost and could be rolled out over the course of many years. Of importance is the impetous to start doing this where feasable.
if you actually listened to it you would know that they debunk lies with *facts*.
The really cool thing about AirAmerica and "The Liberal Media" (not to be confused with Fox, ABC, etc) is that the are intelligent people who check their facts as well as provide references to things they quote. Let's see Rush to that!
face it, we are in a much better situation right now with bush than we would be with gore.
Please explain. Please give me three (or more if you choose) ways that the US or World is a better place than if Gore were president.
While I don't believe that there is even one way "the situation is better" with GW, this is an honest question as I don't have an intelligent republican on hand to ask.
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The dumb one steal small amounts for cash registers and banks. Easy to get caught, lots of interaction with victims. Tough sentences.
The smart ones steal huge amounts from share-holders (a la Martha), consumers (various price-fixing schemes), tax-payers (Enron extorting money from CA), and others. They don't often get caught, they make huge amounts of money, the sentences are light, and as Ed Norton says in Fight Club; if someone dies (Ford roll-overs, etc), that's ok as long as the cost of settlements is less than the cost of a recall.
I guess the a-moral of this is that to be a good criminal, work with the system, not against it.
budgetary quirks that give you a $900 toilet seat or $2000+ hammer
While I'm not saying that our [US, or any other] government is efficient, no one is spending $900 on a toilet seat. Rather, there is a budget line for a $900 toilet seat, a purchaser buys one for $20, and the other $880 get funneled into some secret DOD/CIA/NSA/etc project that they don't want to be listed on the books. Ideally, a congressional committee with the proper security clearance such as the Senate Armed Services Comittee or some other would check that the money is being well spent, then scatter its cost amongst various unrelated purchases.
I'm not saying that this practice is right, in that I'd like greater transparency in the government, but "Kingston", "Royal", and the other toilet makers aren't making [so much of] a killing on government contracts. Likewise, some value is being derived from that money which is [hopefully] being ok'd by congress.
What I find especially amusing about this is that Apple seems to get by with nary a complaint. As much as I love Apple, OSX is very bloated, yet does not scale to the hardware at all (i.e. OSX is the same whether you install it on 300Mhz G3 or 2.5Ghz G5), and Apple barely supports (if at all) any non-current version of their OS.
The same could be said for the Unices of Sun, IBM, HP, SGI, etc (though they support their old systems usually); but like Apple, none of these are Monopolies. When a company has a monopoly, then small problems get magnified as consumer choice is limited.
Check out this forum post. I had this problem on OS X, but it involved renaming a settin in the "profile.ini" file to use the old xxxxxxx.slt location instead of the new one named "default".
Hope that helps.
As an apendum, check out the Self Defense Forums for lots of insightful discussion on all areas of self defense.
One solution would be to rig an old ~200MHz laptop up with two of the usb/wireless/fry-skimmer-antennas and put it on top of your hill. One could point to the source, the other home. Then the issue would be power. You mentioned solar, which would be pretty cool. Place the laptop in a weather-proof box, shaded by the solar panel, with the the two antennas sticking up and yay, access!
Some links to help:
Solar Laptop
http://www.mrsolar.com/
Home-built
Radioactive Network
Please email me if you get something like this working, I'd love to set one up for my parents.
If I can get my grandma to ask for a pc and know that she wants Linux, and not Windows, then I think we will truly have succeeded.
Actually, my mother is begging me to install Linux the next time I visit. She just does web/email/camera stuff and the last bout of MS worms just about did her in. When Outlook express started halting on send, then sending 20 copies of the unsent message to each recipient, she broke down and started begging for something that will "just work" and not flake out every 6 months.
I think Xandros with cron set to auto-apt-get upgrade should do the trick.
honestly, why would you bother? There are so many good players available, most of which have nothing to do with redundant parasites like Real.
A couple things: The community developed RealPlayer for Linux and the OSS Helix player don't contain all the crap that the RealOnePlayer on Windows does. I've only used the Realplayer for linux and it does what's needed* and little more.
* What needed?
Not a player for Ogg, mpg, avi, mov, etc, but a player for Real's closed source video streams. As much as I dislike the lack of openness in Real's formats, their tools for capturing and streaming video/audio do work quite well. As such, many places choose to use Real streaming servers. If that is the format that the content is in, I'd like a good quality OS piece of software to play it. This is what mplayer does and we love it. mplayer doesn't support Real a/v stuff, so Real is helping a project along that can do that with their video so they can sell more server software. Its good for Real if it works (and we don't get stuck with shizty players or no access to the format), if not; oh well, stream Ogg or something open.
but I think we all know that realistically it's never going to happen.
:-)
But can't we dream?!?!
Seriously though, if by 1.0 they can do some of the stuff you mention and get the performance up to 10-20x slower than the host, then you might be able to get a decently usable system.
On the other hand, by that time you will be able to run KDE 6.0 that will blow OS X's UI out of the water. Maybe. I guess we just have to wait and see.
I am not a crook!
The government can throw me in Guantanamo Bay...
Not if you are a U.S. citizen!
If you are a citizen you have a right to a fair and speedy trial by your peers!
Oh, wait...
"The government is moving quickly toward a more fascistic form of rule under which persons, including citizens, can be held incommunicado indefinitely, without charges or judicial review, based solely on the president's decision."
- RWOR.org
Until there's another site like MP3.com, there's not really any suitable way to buy music.
e llo Allan,
Check out Magnatue.com.
1. You can preview (as many times as you want of the whole album) via streaming mp3.
2. When you find something you like, you choose the price that YOU want to pay for the album; pick between $4 and $16, $8 is recommended. Half goes to the artist, half to Magnatune.
3. The artist gets half of the purchase-price.
4. Upon payment you are given URLs to download MP3s, master-quality WAVs, and cover art for the album.
5. Their entire catalogue is licensed under Creative Commons licenses, so it is leagal to share them with your friends.
The system they have seems great for everyone involved. I recently asked some questions of one of the artists whose work I bought:
>>>Hi-
>>>
>>>I would be happy to hear Your feedback (good or bad)about my first album
>>>Alchemy. (Magnatune)
>>>Thanks.
>>>
>>>Allan.
>>>
>>H
>>
>>I have thoroughly enjoyed Alchemy, especially the title track and
>>Ambriel. Keep up the good work.
>>
>
> - thanks
>
>>My question to you: How have you found the experience of distributing
>>your work under the Creative Commons license?
>
>
> - it is all John Buckmans ( Magnatune) work. I just sent my music.
>
>> I have several musician
>>friends who found the idea interesting, but were wary of giving up any
>>control of their recordings. Do you feel that you have received more or
>>less financial/critical rewards by using the Creative Commons license?
>
>
> -I have starting to sell my music on Magnatune. I didnt make money from
>my music before, thats why I cannot see the difference.
>
>>Thanks, I'll be listening to Vibrant as soon as I get a chance.
>>
>>Adam
>>
>Thanks for Your response.
>Allan.
>
OK, not an earth-shattering reply, but the artists aren't being raped ala Sony, TimeWarner, BMG, et. al.
I've been looking for that speed record for a "normal" bike for a while, but could only find info about this guy who hit something like 150mph while drafting behind a special car. Thanks for the info!
think of those of us up here in CANADA where winter can peg the thermometer at unbikeable temperatures for up to two thirds of the year
:-)
:-) I live in Vermont where the morning temps through January and February are normally -20*F to -5*F (-30*C to -20*C). This does tend to put a damper on biking. It is possible, though generally your cabling freezes causing breaks and shifting to stop working. Durring those months my short bike ride becomes a very long walk. For those further out of town biking just isn't an option part of the year. That said, just because biking/etc can't be done in snow/ice/cold/rain/thunderstorms, doesn't mean that one has to use a car exclusively.
Speaking of Canada, I went up to Montreal yesterday and filled up my tank for the first time in about two months. Damned is gas expensive now! $2.29US/gal for the middle-grade stuff.
In this later post I worked out the efficiency numbers for cars, to compare them with bikes, the results:
Car: 66 Calories/km (45mpg)
Walking: 0.75 Calories/km => 88x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)
Biking: 0.15 Calories/km => 440x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)
(note, the above assume that the numbers in the linked article for people, are in nutritional "C"alaries = kilocalories, instead of SI calories. If they are SI, then the bike is 440,000x more efficient than the car.)
Please see my previous post.
Its not NIMBY, so much as an engineering problem. Power plants are few, and easily regulated/upgraded in comparison to cars. Additionally, they are vastly more efficent than car engines that are constrained by the need for mobility. Yeah, it would be great if we could power our grid via wind, solar, tidal power, etc, but getting rid of the little, inefficient, gasoline engines is the first step.
The big, BIG, difference with using electric vehicles is that those coal-fired power plants are highly localized sources of pollution. This is even more true for nuclear power.
:-)
By concentrating the pollution at a power plant, everyone's efficiency/pollution control can be improved by upgrading the power plant. High-tech scrubbers and other polution-reducing measures work great on power-plants, but not on small, bouncy, cars.
Additionally, gasoline engines just aren't all that efficient compared to power plants. First of all, power generation efficiency goes way up with size. Secondly, the car's engine needs to be able to supply power for a wide range of demands, cruising => acceleration, and is rarely at its most efficient point. The power plant in contrast has very slowly cycling energy loads that its engineers can tune for via putting more or less turbines/boilers/fuel on line.
No, electric is not a panacea, but removing the combustion from the vehicle goes a long way toward making the whole energy cycle more efficient.
Even better, trains.
If only we had them in the US outside of the DC-NYC-Boston corridor...
It was great.
Even better, with a slight downhill I can sprint at about 30-35 on my road bike. Just hop on the center line and blow by traffic!*
* This is in no way safe and is not recommended practice. Damn is it a rush though!
maybe a scene of some hot chick driving around, and it will become acceptable.
After touring about Italy, all I could think of is getting my hands on a Vespa (with a cute chick on the back).
Driving down the coast near Sorrento were thousands of young people on vespas heading to the beach, most with beautiful, bikini-clad women on them. Show some video of Italy on US TV and the things will sell out.
both are greener than a car, particularly in urban, stop-start traffic.
...The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well. See link and below for numbers.
:-)
How much greener? See my previous post:
How about the efficiency of a car? Numbers from here give 45mpg to equal to 66Cal/km:
45m/gal = 19km/L
with an energy density of 5.3x10^6J/L for gasoline, we get
278947J/km = 66625cal/km = 66Cal/km
Car: 66 Calories/km
Walking: 0.75 Calories/km => 88x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)
Biking: 0.15 Calories/km => 440x more effiecent than a car (at 45mpg)
(note, the above assume that the numbers in the linked article for people, are in nutritional "C"alaries = kilocalories, instead of SI calories. If they are SI, then the bike is 440,000x more efficient.)
The bike just rocks.
As an avid cyclist, I couldn't agree more. Me on a 17lb road bike can cruise at 17mph for long distances or 25mph for short distances/passing cars (really fun in my congested little town). Plus, I get good exersize while commuting.
...Man on his feet is thermodynamically more efficient than any motorized vehicle and most animals. For his weight, he performs more work in locomotion than rats or oxen, less than horses or sturgeon.
...The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.
That said, for those not young, not in good physical shape, or just lazy, the electric bike would be great. It would also be good for those who don't work for bike-friendly employers since you can arrive at work without being all sweaty and needing to change.
On another bicycle note, I recently came accross this great short essay entitled, "In Praise of the Bicycle".
Excerpts:
Its a nice read if you like cycling, commuting via bike, or are stuffed in your car in rush-hour traffic.
I then looked up the stats for the 2003 Tour and Lance Armstrong's winning finish of the 2129.4 mile race in 83h41'12" gives him an incredible average speed of 25.45miles/hour.
While a thoroughbred can run a mile averaging 40mph, a long distance speed record for the Karbarda breed or horses (the only one I could find data on) is 50km at 18.5 mph. Its pretty safe to say that attempting to ride a horse or just entering any animal in the Tour would kill it in a
matter of days if not less.
Go bicycles!
In my opinion, anything that gets people out of their SUVs is a good thing for the world and these things are much better than nothing.
Computer retailer's are still shipping computers with 256MB of RAM and 40GB hard disks.
;-)
If the article is for real, its just another reason for the masses to spring for Linux on the desktop which should *hopefully* be ready by then.
Immense requirements, DRM, monopoly buy-in, MS can help users away from their products without the OSS world doing more than providing alternatives.
Vermont has only the second smallest population, 616,592 (2002 estimate) after Wyoming with 493,782 (2000 census).
...well, maybe Vermont is pint-sized -- a Ben & Jerry's pint, though!
We are NOT...
All that said, the state government would not have to blanket its entire area in WiFi coverage. Adding free wireless access around government buildings, museums, etc where the wired access is already in place would be reasonably low-cost and could be rolled out over the course of many years. Of importance is the impetous to start doing this where feasable.
if you actually listened to it you would know that they debunk lies with *facts*.
The really cool thing about AirAmerica and "The Liberal Media" (not to be confused with Fox, ABC, etc) is that the are intelligent people who check their facts as well as provide references to things they quote. Let's see Rush to that!
face it, we are in a much better situation right now with bush than we would be with gore.
Please explain. Please give me three (or more if you choose) ways that the US or World is a better place than if Gore were president.
While I don't believe that there is even one way "the situation is better" with GW, this is an honest question as I don't have an intelligent republican on hand to ask.
Adam