The real problem here is not Amazon or books or even Google, it's the French mindset that things should never change, Fetishing bookshops doesn't have any emotional appeal to me - they're just buildings stacked with a small and limited selection of reading materials, which inefficiently deploy land and people. Given the rise of the e-book even large chain bookshops will likely disappear over the coming decades, and who will cry for them?
The geek as cultural imperialist.
What has no value for me has no value for you.
The French have all kinds of worthwhile ideas on larger matters. This occurred to me recently when I was strolling through my museum-like neighborhood in central Paris, and realized there were --- I kid you not --- seven bookstores within a 10-minute walk of my apartment. Granted, I live in a bookish area. But still: Do the French know something about the book business that we Americans don't?
For a few bucks off and the pleasure of shopping from bed, have we handed over a precious natural resource --- our nation's books --- to an ambitious billionaire with an engineering degree?
France, meanwhile, has just unanimously passed a so-called anti-Amazon law, which says online sellers can't offer free shipping on discounted books. The new measure is part of France's effort to promote "biblio-diversity" and help independent bookstores compete. Here, there's no big bookseller with the power to suddenly turn off the spigot. People in the industry estimate that Amazon has a 10 or 12 percent share of new book sales in France. Amazon reportedly handles 70 percent of the country's online book sales, but just 18 percent of books are sold online.
The French secret is deeply un-American: fixed book prices.
Fixing book prices may sound shocking to Americans, but it's common around the world, for the same reason. In Germany, retailers aren't allowed to discount most books at all. Six of the world's 10 biggest book-selling countries --- Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Spain and South Korea --- have versions of fixed book prices.
What underlies France's book laws isn't just an economic position --- it's also a worldview. Quite simply, the French treat books as special. Some 70 percent of French people said they read at least one book last year; the average among French readers was 15 books. Readers say they trust books far more than any other medium, including newspapers and TV. The French government classifies books as an "essential good," along with electricity, bread and water. A French friend of mine runs a charity, Libraries Without Borders, which brings books to survivors of natural disasters.
The French aren't being pretentious or fetishizing bookstores. They're giving voice to something we know in America, too. "When your computer dies, you throw it away," says Mr. Montagne of the publishers' association. "But you'll remember a book 20 years later. You've deeply entered into a story that's not your own. It's forged who you are. You'll only see later how much it has affected you. You don't keep all books, but it's not a market like others. The contents of a bookcase can define who you are."
Just tell them you are an illegal migrant operating the drone. Those people are allowed to break any laws and be upheld as the greatest citizens of the country...
There is long history --- back to the very beginning, really ---- of illegal immigrants being employed - or simply being used --- by the middle class ---- and there are few countries in the world who imprison more of their illegals and citizens both than we do.
The remarkable 16-week run atop the box-office that ''Frozen'' has enjoyed in Japan has ended, and it took Angelina Jolieâs ''Maleficent'' to do it.
''Frozen'' is the highest-grossing Disney film ever in Japan, and ranks behind only ''Titanic'' as the biggest box-office hit ever in that country.
In the run up to launching the service, which aims to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less, the online retailer is developing aerial vehicles that travel over 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour, and will carry 5pound (2.3 kilogram) payloads...
30 minutes at 50 mph = 25 miles out from the warehouse and a one hour round-trip.
It's difficult to see the market for this service as anything other than single family residence, upper class suburban.
25 miles out from the Amazon regional "distribution center" seems just about right --- and at ten runs a day per drone, you are shipping a bare 50 pounds of cargo a day per drone.
Neither the US Congress, nor the United Nations, have any jurisdiction over anything outside LEO (Low Earth Orbit)
You have de-facto jurisdiction wherever you have the power to assert it.
The American Revolution was about 150 years in the making --- population in 1776, around two million, any disruption in foreign trade wounding, but not fatal. Coastal cities vulnerable, but any penetration into the interior likely to end in disaster. (Saratoga)
The out-world colony for the foreseeable future will be and must be self-sustaining in the sense that it is in no immediate danger of running out of food or air. But it will be small and fragile --- in no position to cut its ties with the earth.
The Constitution does not say this. It states that the Federal Goverment can issue and regulate money but not that it has a moneopoly. In fact, for the majority of US history private money was very common. i.e. Bank notes issued by private banks.
with predictably disastrous results:
There were significant problems with this system, in which money often wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. In theory, a bank note derived its value from its ability to be redeemed for gold or silver at the issuing bank, but what banks could live up to that promise? Those that were poorly capitalized went to great lengths to ensure that their notes weren't redeemed. For example, the Union Bank of Tennessee issued notes only redeemable in New Orleans.
In this unpredictable environment, spending a dollar required some serious thinking. A wallet might have three, five or a dozen different bank notes -- a bull's head staring back at you from a Bull's Head Bank note, or a Marine Bank bill illustrated with ships -- not to mention foreign coins from around the world and personal checks, which also circulated as money. Most bank notes traded at a discount based on the reputation of the bank and how far the note was from where it originated.
A shop owner had even more variables to consider. When a consumer opened his wallet to pay, the proprietor turned to his local edition of ''Bicknellâ(TM)s Counterfeit Detector and Bank Note Reporter,'' or to ''Van Court's Counterfeit Detector and Bank Note List.''
Thumbing through a counterfeit detector, the store owner would try to assess the value of the bank notes at hand. He took a hard look at the person handing over the bills, judging value based on the person's race, class, dress, comportment and reputation.
Counterfeiters exploited this feature of the system, and passed themselves in addition to their notes, dressing and acting as proper ladies and gentlemen. And with so many bank notes from so many banks, counterfeiters flourished. Some simply invented whole banks. Others erased the name of a failed bank and replaced it with that of a reputable one.
Of course, as 19th-century observers frequently noted, a poorly capitalized bank that printed notes it couldn't redeem was, in the end, little different from a counterfeiting operation.
Now if you can tell me where in that line it says that ONLY congress is able to make money I will bow down to your constitutional knowledge.
Fair enough.
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
You can. of course, use foreign currencies to make ordinary purchases in the US, but no one is obliged to accept them, and you will likely be surcharged over and above the exchange rate posted at a bank.
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Often but not always ---
The truth is that the cemetery association will have the final say here --- and it won't give an inch until DC and their lawyers sign off on this. Probably not even then.
There are numerous reasons pilots can't see out real windows. Things like clouds, fog and night. Yet pilots can flight on instruments just fine and it is routine.
If I understand the idea correctly, isn't it true that all the instrumentation on board is to be integrated into this one big window?
Prior art implies that almost all of the practical problems that stand in the way of progress have already been solved. That the path ahead lies clear.
The bridge of the Enterprise.
The concept is quite carefully worked out in Heinlein's "Methuselah's Children." 1941, 1958.
The Enterprise bridge is a regression.
The New Frontiers had no mechanical switches or controls of any kind and none that could be triggered accidentally --- which is one-up on the touch screens of ST:TNG. The engineers who designed Heinlein's generation ships understood trigger guards, low voltage wiring, fuses, circuit breakers and so on.
The cost of training them to use R will be signifantly cheaper than what you are spending on the SAS licenses
And yes, while I have not used R myself, I would certainly recommend it over Python for this use case
So not having used R yourself, why do you believe it is the better and cheaper solution?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want my car calling the police on me to "take further action."
Your choice? The ambulance or the hearse?
There will be other drivers and other systems monitoring your physical condition and behavior on the road.
The Triple Zero call --- 911 in the states --- will go out. The only questioning remaining is whether you will be responsive when help arrives.
The real problem here is not Amazon or books or even Google, it's the French mindset that things should never change,
Fetishing bookshops doesn't have any emotional appeal to me - they're just buildings stacked with a small and limited selection of reading materials, which inefficiently deploy land and people. Given the rise of the e-book even large chain bookshops will likely disappear over the coming decades, and who will cry for them?
The geek as cultural imperialist.
What has no value for me has no value for you.
The French have all kinds of worthwhile ideas on larger matters. This occurred to me recently when I was strolling through my museum-like neighborhood in central Paris, and realized there were --- I kid you not --- seven bookstores within a 10-minute walk of my apartment. Granted, I live in a bookish area. But still: Do the French know something about the book business that we Americans don't?
For a few bucks off and the pleasure of shopping from bed, have we handed over a precious natural resource --- our nation's books --- to an ambitious billionaire with an engineering degree?
France, meanwhile, has just unanimously passed a so-called anti-Amazon law, which says online sellers can't offer free shipping on discounted books. The new measure is part of France's effort to promote "biblio-diversity" and help independent bookstores compete. Here, there's no big bookseller with the power to suddenly turn off the spigot. People in the industry estimate that Amazon has a 10 or 12 percent share of new book sales in France. Amazon reportedly handles 70 percent of the country's online book sales, but just 18 percent of books are sold online.
The French secret is deeply un-American: fixed book prices.
Fixing book prices may sound shocking to Americans, but it's common around the world, for the same reason. In Germany, retailers aren't allowed to discount most books at all. Six of the world's 10 biggest book-selling countries --- Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Spain and South Korea --- have versions of fixed book prices.
What underlies France's book laws isn't just an economic position --- it's also a worldview. Quite simply, the French treat books as special. Some 70 percent of French people said they read at least one book last year; the average among French readers was 15 books. Readers say they trust books far more than any other medium, including newspapers and TV. The French government classifies books as an "essential good," along with electricity, bread and water. A French friend of mine runs a charity, Libraries Without Borders, which brings books to survivors of natural disasters.
The French aren't being pretentious or fetishizing bookstores. They're giving voice to something we know in America, too. "When your computer dies, you throw it away," says Mr. Montagne of the publishers' association. "But you'll remember a book 20 years later. You've deeply entered into a story that's not your own. It's forged who you are. You'll only see later how much it has affected you. You don't keep all books, but it's not a market like others. The contents of a bookcase can define who you are."
The French Do Buy Books. Real Books.
Just tell them you are an illegal migrant operating the drone. Those people are allowed to break any laws and be upheld as the greatest citizens of the country...
There is long history --- back to the very beginning, really ---- of illegal immigrants being employed - or simply being used --- by the middle class ---- and there are few countries in the world who imprison more of their illegals and citizens both than we do.
Drone? It was a model airplane, a teleguided kiddie zeppelin, a weather balloon, a ...
If it is being used for commercial purposes, it is no longer a child's toy or an adult's R/C model aircraft.
Really? Have you SEEN western animation lately?
Japan has.
The remarkable 16-week run atop the box-office that ''Frozen'' has enjoyed in Japan has ended, and it took Angelina Jolieâs ''Maleficent'' to do it.
''Frozen'' is the highest-grossing Disney film ever in Japan, and ranks behind only ''Titanic'' as the biggest box-office hit ever in that country.
'Maleficent" Ends Incredible Box-Office Reign of 'Frozen' in Japan
PlayStation 4 ''Frozen'' Limited Edition PS 4 ''Frozen'' case mod. Available in Japan only.
10 runs a day? Where did you pull that out of? Your butt? If the delivery is 30 min or less they can do 24 runs in a day - MINIMUM.
You want that 5 pound canary yellow or blaze orange parcel drop on your front lawn while you're sleeping or away from home?
In the run up to launching the service, which aims to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less, the online retailer is developing aerial vehicles that travel over 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour, and will carry 5pound (2.3 kilogram) payloads...
30 minutes at 50 mph = 25 miles out from the warehouse and a one hour round-trip.
It's difficult to see the market for this service as anything other than single family residence, upper class suburban.
25 miles out from the Amazon regional "distribution center" seems just about right --- and at ten runs a day per drone, you are shipping a bare 50 pounds of cargo a day per drone.
Weather permitting.
How do you make this pay?
Neither the US Congress, nor the United Nations, have any jurisdiction over anything outside LEO (Low Earth Orbit)
You have de-facto jurisdiction wherever you have the power to assert it.
The American Revolution was about 150 years in the making --- population in 1776, around two million, any disruption in foreign trade wounding, but not fatal. Coastal cities vulnerable, but any penetration into the interior likely to end in disaster. (Saratoga)
The out-world colony for the foreseeable future will be and must be self-sustaining in the sense that it is in no immediate danger of running out of food or air. But it will be small and fragile --- in no position to cut its ties with the earth.
The Constitution does not say this. It states that the Federal Goverment can issue and regulate money but not that it has a moneopoly. In fact, for the majority of US history private money was very common. i.e. Bank notes issued by private banks.
with predictably disastrous results:
There were significant problems with this system, in which money often wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. In theory, a bank note derived its value from its ability to be redeemed for gold or silver at the issuing bank, but what banks could live up to that promise? Those that were poorly capitalized went to great lengths to ensure that their notes weren't redeemed. For example, the Union Bank of Tennessee issued notes only redeemable in New Orleans.
In this unpredictable environment, spending a dollar required some serious thinking. A wallet might have three, five or a dozen different bank notes -- a bull's head staring back at you from a Bull's Head Bank note, or a Marine Bank bill illustrated with ships -- not to mention foreign coins from around the world and personal checks, which also circulated as money. Most bank notes traded at a discount based on the reputation of the bank and how far the note was from where it originated.
A shop owner had even more variables to consider. When a consumer opened his wallet to pay, the proprietor turned to his local edition of ''Bicknellâ(TM)s Counterfeit Detector and Bank Note Reporter,'' or to ''Van Court's Counterfeit Detector and Bank Note List.''
Thumbing through a counterfeit detector, the store owner would try to assess the value of the bank notes at hand. He took a hard look at the person handing over the bills, judging value based on the person's race, class, dress, comportment and reputation.
Counterfeiters exploited this feature of the system, and passed themselves in addition to their notes, dressing and acting as proper ladies and gentlemen. And with so many bank notes from so many banks, counterfeiters flourished. Some simply invented whole banks. Others erased the name of a failed bank and replaced it with that of a reputable one.
Of course, as 19th-century observers frequently noted, a poorly capitalized bank that printed notes it couldn't redeem was, in the end, little different from a counterfeiting operation.
When Banks Were Able to Print Their Own Money, Literally
Now if you can tell me where in that line it says that ONLY congress is able to make money I will bow down to your constitutional knowledge.
Fair enough.
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
You can. of course, use foreign currencies to make ordinary purchases in the US, but no one is obliged to accept them, and you will likely be surcharged over and above the exchange rate posted at a bank.
Of course, if you take cash from some people and then give it to other people, well then you must be a criminal.
If you know where you stand as middle man in a criminal transaction - such as a money laundering scheme - you most certainly are a criminal yourself.
Alternatively TrueCrypt's plausible deniability works well.
I tend to start twitching a little whenever our neighborhood geek starts talking long and loudly about his "plausible deniability."
The denial is there, in spades. I'll give him that.
The plausible, not so much.
I went to the hospital a while back and they started collecting all sorts of private data. They even insisted on getting a blood sample...
Oh, poor baby.
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Often but not always ---
The truth is that the cemetery association will have the final say here --- and it won't give an inch until DC and their lawyers sign off on this. Probably not even then.
There are numerous reasons pilots can't see out real windows. Things like clouds, fog and night. Yet pilots can flight on instruments just fine and it is routine.
If I understand the idea correctly, isn't it true that all the instrumentation on board is to be integrated into this one big window?
Science Fiction is not prior art.
Prior art implies that almost all of the practical problems that stand in the way of progress have already been solved. That the path ahead lies clear.
The bridge of the Enterprise.
The concept is quite carefully worked out in Heinlein's "Methuselah's Children." 1941, 1958.
The Enterprise bridge is a regression.
The New Frontiers had no mechanical switches or controls of any kind and none that could be triggered accidentally --- which is one-up on the touch screens of ST:TNG. The engineers who designed Heinlein's generation ships understood trigger guards, low voltage wiring, fuses, circuit breakers and so on.
One step closer to 'thoughtcrime' ;(
Possession of child pornography is not a "thought crime."
It's both a pity and a blessing that Orwell did not live long enough to see how the geek would misunderstand, twist and distort what he had to say,
Geo-locking content has been declared illegal in New Zealand
New Zealand isn't a country.
It is a Hollywood back lot complete with tour guides. Film and TV Theme Tours
With a population of 4 million, New Zealand's value as a media market is less than 1/4 that of metropolitan New York City.
You're not missing anything if you don't see GoT. It's just tits and swords.
and the best writing, performance, and production values of any television series currently on air. List of awards and nominations received by Game of Thrones
And immortality wouldn't help --- evolution is powered by the failures dying off.
then what are we to make of a man like Stephen Hawking, who defies the geek's standard of physical perfection?
I would not want some advertising company to watch me while I'm in the shower, or while I'm urinating or defecating.
Then don't mount a security camera in your bathroom.
Unless you have a legally defensible reason for doing so, such as the care of a physically frail parent or grandparent.
Will somebody please start the next github in a jurisdiction untouchable by DMCA and other thuggish regulations.
The geek is forever looking for some safe haven.
I don't know where you will find one when the stakes are high enough.
I do know I'm not going to be looking eight to twelve thousand miles from home for a KIm Dotcom to protect my interests.
The cost of training them to use R will be signifantly cheaper than what you are spending on the SAS licenses
And yes, while I have not used R myself, I would certainly recommend it over Python for this use case
So not having used R yourself, why do you believe it is the better and cheaper solution?
I want an open source platform that doesn't have to be "jail broken" to make it work the way I desire
Inspections.
Insurance.
Civil and criminal liability.
The worst that can happen with a jail broken phone is that you will brick it.
I suppose listening to ham radio now is a crime.
Listening, no.
Sharing what you've heard for fun and profit, yes.