The competitors of the traditional Radio Shack were not the likes of Ace Hardware, and only marginally were they stores like BestBuy or CompUSA. Radio Shack didn't sell hardware for mechanical engineering, like an Ace Hardware store; it sold hardware for electr(ical|onic) engineering. Its competitors were other electronics hobbyist and surplus stores, like Dow Electronics, Marvac Electronics, HSE Electronics, and so on.
Truth be told, though, Radio Shack's biggest competition came from the atrophy of that market. Over the last three decades, steadily more people have become consumers of electronics and stopped being creators or engineers of it. That is why Radio Shack transitioned from selling components to selling "pre-fab" products; they couldn't compete with those other stores in a dwindling market, and some of those other hobbyist stores have disappeared altogether. Could they have created an advertising campaign that would single-handedly have reinvigorated the hobbyist component market? I doubt it.
That said, this alleged re-branding is even more idiotic than Pacific Bell spending $750,000 to re-brand itself as Pacific Telesis Group (that was just the bill from the ad agency that came up with the name, not the total cost of the name change). "The Shack" isn't edgy or funny, it's just weird and dumb, especially because it will say NOTHING descriptive about the current business model or product offerings.
One of the primary reasons that traffic jams occur and persist is precisely because people selfishly "jam", deliberately following so closely that it prevents lane movements of any kind, whether those lane movements are reasonable and necessary or not. Traffic jams are a collective exclusionary tactic... sound like familiar human group(think) behavior?
Don't get me started on traffic signals, which are alleged to promote safer crossings than roundabouts, but which "drive" these same rule-breaking drivers to risk everyone's life and limb trying to beat the arbitrary traffic lights, and cause the rest of us to stop thus ruining the efficiency of transit for everyone.
It's not rule-breakers "livening things up" that we need: it's better collective cooperation and less selfishness. A machine doesn't work very well if the individual gears in it don't work in perfect unison. Don't disrespect "The Process"!
There was a point to my joke, though: maybe he's not a complete whackjob and there's some real physiological reason why his body is affected by that EMR. Everyone's bodies of course RECEIVE this EMR, but perhaps his is actually responding to it for some reason. Of course that begs the questions, why ONLY 2.4 GHz wi-fi signals? Can he stand to use a microwave oven? What about being in the vicinity of a big TV or radio broadcast tower? What about cell phones?
If he could actually do something with the wi-fi signals his "antenna" is receiving, it would be useful!
There was a point to my joke, though: maybe he's not a complete whackjob and there's some real physiological reason why his body is affected by that EMR. Everyone's bodies of course RECEIVE this EMR, but perhaps his is actually responding to it for some reason. Of course that begs the questions, why ONLY 2.4 GHz wi-fi signals? Can he stand to use a microwave oven? What about being in the vicinity of a big TV or radio broadcast tower? What about cell phones?
I stopped writing cursive in eighth grade (1978?), not by accident nor out of laziness but as a subconscious decision. I realized years later that I had subconsciously concluded that cursive was too "personal", imprecise, and non-discrete, so I quit using it. Manuscript, as TFA describes it, just suits my Vulcan-ish neurology much better. Of course with the ubiquity of computers and printers I don't do much handwriting these days anyway, which suits me just fine. I always strove for perfect readability, and mechanically printing my words is more readable than even my OCD-controlled hands could produce.
If readability is or was ever a goal, we shouldn't be mourning the death of cursive or handwriting in general, we should be celebrating it!
Those scenarios aren't at all the same: the goal in your scenario is to kill people, period, end of story, while in TFA's it's to disable infrastructure, which is only useful if it's a prelude to something else that does kill (or enslave?) people.
Since TFA's theorized scenario requires an ICBM at a minimum for delivery, how do you suppose a terrorist group will ever develop the economy or infrastructure of its own to build such a thing? Even if they could afford it, I doubt that an ICBM could go missing without someone noticing. Further, an incoming ICBM would be noticed and tracked in the moments before it triggered, so we would still at least know its point of origin. If the origin was a sub, well, again, what terrorist group has that kind of infrastructure? If it was launched from the ground, we'd know exactly where to strike when the shock and awe was over.
No, TFA's scenario is clearly something only a nation, at least a small one, could perpetrate. If a nation did such a thing, it wouldn't be the endgame in itself, it would be a prelude or opening salvo, like artillery bombardment of old. Maybe you think that COBRA or SPECTRE really exist and are plotting to do nothing more than wreck our infrastructure for a while?
The scenario suggested is stupid and unrealistic: if you're gonna hit a nation with an EMP nuke, exactly what are ya gonna do when the effect wears off, hmmmm? You'd better be equipped to INVADE on the heels of that EMP blast, otherwise you'll still be toast soon enough.
I think you have that slightly confused: beer has triglyceride value, but I don't think triglyceride counts as "food" except to cells. The reverse might also depend on what food you eat... rumcake? Pasta with wine sauce?:-)
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm sayin': I put the microwave in the room, and I put the other computers in the closet, under the bed, and under the sink in the bathroom, because there's all this wonderful tech that lets me access and control them even when they're not in front of me! Can you do *that* with a microwave?
I wrote a longer-winded answer a moment ago and then lost it, but the short reply is that you didn't do your homework as well as you think you did. I do indeed have warts that stay warm with no load. Perhaps yours are all so new they're all of the switching type. Not many of mine are yet. The brick for my Dell laptop will nearly fry an egg regardless whether the battery is fully charged or not, even though it probably is a switching type.
Dude, you're not a Slashdot geek... your microwave isn't in the same room as your PC. You mean you have to walk to another room on another floor in order to get yer grub?! Who can live with that sorta distraction?
It probably didn't make that distinction; I skimmed the PDF file and saw mention of no-load states in it, though. It also estimated the average CA home had 5-10 of them (in 2004), but I have over twice the higher amount... is that because I'm a geek? One of the biggest problems with them, which should be old history by now, is that "linear" ones convert far more of the power drawn into waste heat than "switching" types; the switching ones are also much smaller than linear ones. Anyway, here is the email reply I got as a followup to the phone conversation; I can't attach the case study PDF for obvious reasons:
Hi Mark, I found the old PG&E case study that was used for a basis for our regulations. I have attached a copy to this e-mail. Page 9 estimates statewide energy usage for external power supplies. It looks like in 2003 they used to consume around 5,548 GWh per year (5,548,000,000 kilowatt hours). Lets assume that 5,000 GWh/year of that is consumed in a residential setting.
The EIA (Energy Information Administration) estimates california residential electricity demand to be 89,826 GWh/year in 2006. If we use these numbers (5,000/89,826) the result is that external power supplies were responsible for aproximately 5.6% of residential energy consumption BEFORE regulation. The percentage of household use currently attributable to external power supplies would be difficult to estimate. I hope you find this information useful.
-Ken
Kenneth Rider Buildings and Appliances Office California Energy Commission
The study was done *by* PG&E, but it was done *for* the CPUC. The regulations he mentions have been intended to take some of the sting out of these critters, both when they're actually being used (and making heat) and when inactive. Back in the Nineties I had seen an article that used a figure of 8%, so perhaps these regulations are actually making a small difference. As Ken had said when I talked to him, the CPUC, at least, is far from done regulating them.
PG&E (utility in California) has estimated that at least 6% of its customers' electricity usage is due to wall warts. That's an average that doesn't account for hardcore geeks with two dozen of the critters like I have.
Does 6% or more of your electricity bill sound like something that shouldn't concern you?
"With respect to adapters, don't worry about their power draw, it's quite negligible."
I call bullshit. You really should do your homework before you make pronouncements like this.
The estimate of PG&E is that these wall warts comprise six to eight percent of the average household electricity consumption.
Unlike you, I'm not yanking this out of my ass; I actually spoke to a CPUC guy who e-mailed me a copy of the information he had on file from PG&E. Does even six percent sound "negligible" to you? That six percent might even be an unreasonably low estimate for hardcore geeks. This is precisely why unnecessary wall wart proliferation is such a huge problem: they don't just cause clutter and waste space, combined they also waste a LOT of electricity.
... to outlaw passengers that can talk while the car is moving. I have no doubt that the conclusion is correct, that both hands and hands-free phone conversations pose equal risks to focus and ability, but given that fact means that ALL OTHER forms of conversation also pose an equal risk, including having a chatty passenger. Are we ready to take that step, after a century of tolerance? Can you hear the mutiny that would result? How would we enforce it, without resorting to something indistinguishable from Big Brother?
I think we now have to accept the fact that people will try to multitask, even though research has proven that the human brain isn't truly capable of doing it well; that multitasking will include the process of driving. That ship sailed a century ago and it's too late to call it back to port for a refit. The person too stupid and unobservant to "recognize his limitations", as Dirty Harry put it, are simply going to die more often on the road, and sometimes take a few of the rest of us with them in the process. The best and truly observant drivers will spot these rolling risks and avoid them and survive, so hopefully some genetic trait for better awareness will get carried forward with the survivors?
Slashdot Mirror
The competitors of the traditional Radio Shack were not the likes of Ace Hardware, and only marginally were they stores like BestBuy or CompUSA. Radio Shack didn't sell hardware for mechanical engineering, like an Ace Hardware store; it sold hardware for electr(ical|onic) engineering. Its competitors were other electronics hobbyist and surplus stores, like Dow Electronics, Marvac Electronics, HSE Electronics, and so on.
Truth be told, though, Radio Shack's biggest competition came from the atrophy of that market. Over the last three decades, steadily more people have become consumers of electronics and stopped being creators or engineers of it. That is why Radio Shack transitioned from selling components to selling "pre-fab" products; they couldn't compete with those other stores in a dwindling market, and some of those other hobbyist stores have disappeared altogether. Could they have created an advertising campaign that would single-handedly have reinvigorated the hobbyist component market? I doubt it.
That said, this alleged re-branding is even more idiotic than Pacific Bell spending $750,000 to re-brand itself as Pacific Telesis Group (that was just the bill from the ad agency that came up with the name, not the total cost of the name change). "The Shack" isn't edgy or funny, it's just weird and dumb, especially because it will say NOTHING descriptive about the current business model or product offerings.
GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! Look up there, at the hovering gravball eyes: we now get to be on TV 24/7! Wave to the eyes!
One of the primary reasons that traffic jams occur and persist is precisely because people selfishly "jam", deliberately following so closely that it prevents lane movements of any kind, whether those lane movements are reasonable and necessary or not. Traffic jams are a collective exclusionary tactic... sound like familiar human group(think) behavior?
Don't get me started on traffic signals, which are alleged to promote safer crossings than roundabouts, but which "drive" these same rule-breaking drivers to risk everyone's life and limb trying to beat the arbitrary traffic lights, and cause the rest of us to stop thus ruining the efficiency of transit for everyone.
It's not rule-breakers "livening things up" that we need: it's better collective cooperation and less selfishness. A machine doesn't work very well if the individual gears in it don't work in perfect unison. Don't disrespect "The Process"!
... will be filing a lawsuit shortly to block this attempted copyright infringement.
No, it's not.
There was a point to my joke, though: maybe he's not a complete whackjob and there's some real physiological reason why his body is affected by that EMR. Everyone's bodies of course RECEIVE this EMR, but perhaps his is actually responding to it for some reason. Of course that begs the questions, why ONLY 2.4 GHz wi-fi signals? Can he stand to use a microwave oven? What about being in the vicinity of a big TV or radio broadcast tower? What about cell phones?
If he could actually do something with the wi-fi signals his "antenna" is receiving, it would be useful!
There was a point to my joke, though: maybe he's not a complete whackjob and there's some real physiological reason why his body is affected by that EMR. Everyone's bodies of course RECEIVE this EMR, but perhaps his is actually responding to it for some reason. Of course that begs the questions, why ONLY 2.4 GHz wi-fi signals? Can he stand to use a microwave oven? What about being in the vicinity of a big TV or radio broadcast tower? What about cell phones?
Surgery, that's what he needs, to remove that honkin' piece of shrapnel in his head left over from the (a) war.
I stopped writing cursive in eighth grade (1978?), not by accident nor out of laziness but as a subconscious decision. I realized years later that I had subconsciously concluded that cursive was too "personal", imprecise, and non-discrete, so I quit using it. Manuscript, as TFA describes it, just suits my Vulcan-ish neurology much better. Of course with the ubiquity of computers and printers I don't do much handwriting these days anyway, which suits me just fine. I always strove for perfect readability, and mechanically printing my words is more readable than even my OCD-controlled hands could produce.
If readability is or was ever a goal, we shouldn't be mourning the death of cursive or handwriting in general, we should be celebrating it!
Those scenarios aren't at all the same: the goal in your scenario is to kill people, period, end of story, while in TFA's it's to disable infrastructure, which is only useful if it's a prelude to something else that does kill (or enslave?) people.
Since TFA's theorized scenario requires an ICBM at a minimum for delivery, how do you suppose a terrorist group will ever develop the economy or infrastructure of its own to build such a thing? Even if they could afford it, I doubt that an ICBM could go missing without someone noticing. Further, an incoming ICBM would be noticed and tracked in the moments before it triggered, so we would still at least know its point of origin. If the origin was a sub, well, again, what terrorist group has that kind of infrastructure? If it was launched from the ground, we'd know exactly where to strike when the shock and awe was over.
No, TFA's scenario is clearly something only a nation, at least a small one, could perpetrate. If a nation did such a thing, it wouldn't be the endgame in itself, it would be a prelude or opening salvo, like artillery bombardment of old. Maybe you think that COBRA or SPECTRE really exist and are plotting to do nothing more than wreck our infrastructure for a while?
The scenario suggested is stupid and unrealistic: if you're gonna hit a nation with an EMP nuke, exactly what are ya gonna do when the effect wears off, hmmmm? You'd better be equipped to INVADE on the heels of that EMP blast, otherwise you'll still be toast soon enough.
Are you listening, Lichtenstein?
Hey, what's wrong with Rent-A-Center? ;-)
I think you have that slightly confused: beer has triglyceride value, but I don't think triglyceride counts as "food" except to cells. The reverse might also depend on what food you eat... rumcake? Pasta with wine sauce? :-)
Oh, and I forgot about the last one in the attic crawlspace, that's my pr0n server....
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm sayin': I put the microwave in the room, and I put the other computers in the closet, under the bed, and under the sink in the bathroom, because there's all this wonderful tech that lets me access and control them even when they're not in front of me! Can you do *that* with a microwave?
I wrote a longer-winded answer a moment ago and then lost it, but the short reply is that you didn't do your homework as well as you think you did. I do indeed have warts that stay warm with no load. Perhaps yours are all so new they're all of the switching type. Not many of mine are yet. The brick for my Dell laptop will nearly fry an egg regardless whether the battery is fully charged or not, even though it probably is a switching type.
No, you may not! Didn't your momma ever teach you not to proxy^H^H^H^H^Hcough in public?
They sound more like wannabe whores to me. How is this blatant soul-selling behavior legal and prostitution is not?
... is what she said!
Dude, you're not a Slashdot geek... your microwave isn't in the same room as your PC. You mean you have to walk to another room on another floor in order to get yer grub?! Who can live with that sorta distraction?
It probably didn't make that distinction; I skimmed the PDF file and saw mention of no-load states in it, though. It also estimated the average CA home had 5-10 of them (in 2004), but I have over twice the higher amount... is that because I'm a geek? One of the biggest problems with them, which should be old history by now, is that "linear" ones convert far more of the power drawn into waste heat than "switching" types; the switching ones are also much smaller than linear ones. Anyway, here is the email reply I got as a followup to the phone conversation; I can't attach the case study PDF for obvious reasons:
The study was done *by* PG&E, but it was done *for* the CPUC. The regulations he mentions have been intended to take some of the sting out of these critters, both when they're actually being used (and making heat) and when inactive. Back in the Nineties I had seen an article that used a figure of 8%, so perhaps these regulations are actually making a small difference. As Ken had said when I talked to him, the CPUC, at least, is far from done regulating them.
... have finally found a way to pay that 3.6 million dollar judgement from the trial, eh? Unlike TPB, this has a subscription fee to use it.
PG&E (utility in California) has estimated that at least 6% of its customers' electricity usage is due to wall warts. That's an average that doesn't account for hardcore geeks with two dozen of the critters like I have.
Does 6% or more of your electricity bill sound like something that shouldn't concern you?
I call bullshit. You really should do your homework before you make pronouncements like this.
The estimate of PG&E is that these wall warts comprise six to eight percent of the average household electricity consumption.
Unlike you, I'm not yanking this out of my ass; I actually spoke to a CPUC guy who e-mailed me a copy of the information he had on file from PG&E. Does even six percent sound "negligible" to you? That six percent might even be an unreasonably low estimate for hardcore geeks. This is precisely why unnecessary wall wart proliferation is such a huge problem: they don't just cause clutter and waste space, combined they also waste a LOT of electricity.
... to outlaw passengers that can talk while the car is moving. I have no doubt that the conclusion is correct, that both hands and hands-free phone conversations pose equal risks to focus and ability, but given that fact means that ALL OTHER forms of conversation also pose an equal risk, including having a chatty passenger. Are we ready to take that step, after a century of tolerance? Can you hear the mutiny that would result? How would we enforce it, without resorting to something indistinguishable from Big Brother?
I think we now have to accept the fact that people will try to multitask, even though research has proven that the human brain isn't truly capable of doing it well; that multitasking will include the process of driving. That ship sailed a century ago and it's too late to call it back to port for a refit. The person too stupid and unobservant to "recognize his limitations", as Dirty Harry put it, are simply going to die more often on the road, and sometimes take a few of the rest of us with them in the process. The best and truly observant drivers will spot these rolling risks and avoid them and survive, so hopefully some genetic trait for better awareness will get carried forward with the survivors?