You can see a lot through windows, too. Or by doing a bogus door-to-door campaign. Or by...
It just seems like a lot of work. If you have an open floor plan, religiously shutter your windows, and keep a lot of valuables lying around - then yeah, maybe this service is too risky for you.
So long as you can hook up more than one camera to your network, you aren't "locked in". If they are the only ones doing this, then the point is moot anyway.
A prerequisite of this system is a camera, so presumably you'd be able to tell if they were spending an inordinate amount of time in your house. I already have an electronic lock on my side door, and it technically works with Z-Wave, but I'd still have work to do to make this feasible. First I'd need to buy the Amazon camera. Then I'd need to get a different lock, because this one isn't compatible with Amazon's camera despite supporting Z-Wave. Then I'd need to buy the Z-Wave module for my Napco burglar alarm and rig it up somehow so that the delivery guy doesn't set off my alarm. Uh, no thanks... too much work and too much expense for something (lost packages) that Amazon currently covers.
If you call that a 'centrally planned rate structure',
No, that what I'm calling the fact that rates are mandated to be progressive. That is the exact reverse of what a free market would do... when does buying smaller amounts of something result in a cheaper per-unit price? Never in a free market, unless you are buying so much that you start manipulating the market - and even then the price would go up for everyone.
It's self-evident that there is not a free market - otherwise the rates would converge on those of its direct neighbors. If there were a free market in Italy, I could go make a fortune in arbitrage right now by running a giant extension cord into neighboring countries and then reselling the power.
Well how about that! Good for them. But there seems to be something wrong with the market in Italy. From this paper:
On the spot power market, Italy is one of only two European countries (with the UK) where prices on the power exchange have not shown some higher degree of convergence over the 2011-2014 period. Electricity usually trades at a premium compared to most continental peers due to high dependence on natural gas.
This indicates pretty strongly that market forces are not in fact at work. This is probably one reason:
In 2014, there still exists a regulated tariff for households and SMEs.
And finally, it looks like they tax the hell out of it to support renewables - plus the rates are dictated by the government to increase with consumption:
The general tendency of electricity prices to rise for final consumers is mainly driven by grid costs and increasing taxes to support renewables development, as well as additional measures to promote energy efficiency. Furthermore, the energy component of consumer electricity bills is influenced by the peculiar Italian electricity mix, which is based mostly on gas. The electricity bill for all final consumers increased in the last few years, but not uniformly, with wide differences between consumers depending on the amount of their consumption. No provisions are in place to reduce charges to electricity-intensive consumers, unlike in most other countries. The price dynamic for industrial users also raises competitive issues for the economy: as an example, a mid-size industrial company with two similar producing facilities in Finland and in Italy will receive an electricity bill of 75 €/MWh from Finland and of more than 200 €/MWh from Italy
So while there may be more of a market than there was 30 years ago, it's still heavily regulated and the rate structure is centrally planned.
I really don't know anything about Italy's power system. But from what I know of Europe, I'd be absolutely floored to find out it was a free market. If I had to guess I'd say it was either a state-owned company or well-connected private monopoly that couldn't care less what it pays for power because it passes the generation fees along to the consumer.
Your post assumes that there is a free market in place. If there is not, and energy is centrally-planned, then any change in the mix would need to come from the central planner rather than the non-existent or limited market.
I wasn't trying to get into a pissing contest, I was trying to explain the motivations behind potentially reactivating a very expensive and obsolete program. Other than sending a signal, I'm not sure how it could be relevant to N. Korea - especially in the near-term. Even in the long term, it seems very unlikely that N. Korea will be able to afford the upkeep on anything but a small deterrent force which makes the importance of instant retaliation even lower - a N. Korean 1st strike would not be debilitating. A Russian first strike could be, even today.
Ah, sorry, that did read kind of hostile even with the smiley. Despite directly replying to you, the "you" in that sentence was directed to everyone:)
Despite my libertarian tendencies, I actually think the Singapore model works pretty well. People from a very wide range of income levels and ethnicities are essentially forced to live amongst one another. The people there definitely have their complaints, and their practice of busing in huge numbers of Malay laborers everyday distorts the picture significantly. But they do have a pretty good handle on things like mixing low-income housing with market-rate housing, preventing the growth of ghettos/slums, and to some extent rich people fleeing social problems.
The vast majority of people don't actually "own" their apartment, but instead lease it from the state with a term of 99 years. They do buy and sell the leases as if they were real estate, though. The government owns almost the entire island and builds most of the housing. Before you get too indignant, see how long you can live in your own house in the US without paying the government your rent, er, property tax:)
It's a tiny little island. To buy a car, you must first win an auction for a car registration (maybe the wrong word). They allow cars in based on the design capacity of the road system. To date, they have been adding to the road capacity and thus increasing the number of registrations that they auction off. Now they have decided to stop expanding the capacity of the roads and limit the total number of registrations to the current amount.
Fortunately for the locals, the public transit system is pretty fantastic.
Suspicion for you and me, sure. I'm fairly certain that the US military or intelligence has found a way to ascertain the tested/designed range of a production missile system. Speculation is all we can do - and in fact is the whole point of this article and the comments under it.
But they've also indicated that they won't intervene on NK's behalf if NK shoots first.
(They'd probably still rush forces into NK to take as much of the country as possible before the American and S. Korean forces arrive - they still want their little buffer country.)
It could be a signal to N. Korea, or it could be a signal to Russia. Russia has been violating the 1987 IMF treaty for a few years now, and perhaps Trump has decided to take a more aggressive stance.
The point I was trying to make in my original reply to jonr was that a phone makes a terrible desktop replacement, especially for the uses he listed (compiling files and running a development environment). For that kind of use, you NEED a keyboard and - unless you want to go nuts - you need a big monitor... preferably two. Even laptops are less than ideal to develop on. So what we were talking about is a monitor or two, a dock of some kind, and a keyboard and mouse. You have steered the conversation to exclude the monitor. If you are happy with the 6" or whatever screen that you have, that's great - but it's not the context that my first comment was made in.
It's still better than knowing how to make it themselves. And this is over the intervening period since the Soviet collapse. A bunch of out of work weapons guys was a serious problem at one time - that's the only point I was trying to make. This was the main impetus behind the whole program of cooperation between NASA and Russia from that era.
Well it sounds like you are already all set and don't need a "Desktop" version of your phone. Again, that's my point - the market for this is tiny. You can already cast to a TV/monitor. You can already use corded or cordless keyboards and mice. You can already run Sentio Desktop if you want your phone to look like a Desktop computer. But frankly this sucks as a "desktop" unless you are doing trivial office tasks - or just typing up your screenplay or something. Coding, spreadsheets, video editing, photo manipulation and organizing all suck on a tiny screen. This is why even craptacular office PCs now come with a 19" monitor and "netbooks" grew up into 13" laptops.
You can "mirror" the screen to the TV via casting. You can also run something like Sentio Desktop to run a full-fledged Desktop-like environment. The novelty wears off quickly:)
I think most people just cast things like YouTube to the TV or music to the speakers.
I don't mean Putin... he's bad, but not really any worse than the old Soviets. Actually he's better, because we almost never worry about a Russian nuclear launch anymore. We do worry about a N. Korean launch, or one from Iran. Those are the regimes that I was referring to.
You can already cast to a TV (at least with Android), and you can already pair a mouse and keyboard via Bluetooth. You don't need to use Bluetooth - you can also use USB OTG - I know for a fact that this works because I've done it for ha-has... a little pointer appears.
But people don't really do it very often, even though it is available right now for no added cost. I just don't see the market for a dock that replicates this, but to a fixed location. And if people desired this capability, they could do it right now using an OTB-capable charging dock (I have one, don't typically use the OTB part) which has a keyboard and mouse plugged in. For the monitor you can either cast to it or use a USB-to-HDMI adapter. I guess what I'm saying is I've never heard of anyone doing this on a regular basis even though it is already possible and fairly convenient.... the only thing missing is an automatic action to turn on the mirroring when the phone is slipped into the dock. The mouse and keyboard are already automatically detected.
Slashdot Mirror
Lemonade stands are notoriously Windows-centric.
You can see a lot through windows, too. Or by doing a bogus door-to-door campaign. Or by...
It just seems like a lot of work. If you have an open floor plan, religiously shutter your windows, and keep a lot of valuables lying around - then yeah, maybe this service is too risky for you.
So long as you can hook up more than one camera to your network, you aren't "locked in". If they are the only ones doing this, then the point is moot anyway.
I don't know what you keep in your foyer, but perhaps you could have your butler hide it before the Amazon delivery guy comes?
So long as my house is protected by nothing more than thin panes of glass, that seems like a lot of work to get to #4...
Not really - it seems to need a single Amazon-branded camera and a compatible lock.
A prerequisite of this system is a camera, so presumably you'd be able to tell if they were spending an inordinate amount of time in your house. I already have an electronic lock on my side door, and it technically works with Z-Wave, but I'd still have work to do to make this feasible. First I'd need to buy the Amazon camera. Then I'd need to get a different lock, because this one isn't compatible with Amazon's camera despite supporting Z-Wave. Then I'd need to buy the Z-Wave module for my Napco burglar alarm and rig it up somehow so that the delivery guy doesn't set off my alarm. Uh, no thanks... too much work and too much expense for something (lost packages) that Amazon currently covers.
If you call that a 'centrally planned rate structure',
No, that what I'm calling the fact that rates are mandated to be progressive. That is the exact reverse of what a free market would do... when does buying smaller amounts of something result in a cheaper per-unit price? Never in a free market, unless you are buying so much that you start manipulating the market - and even then the price would go up for everyone.
It's self-evident that there is not a free market - otherwise the rates would converge on those of its direct neighbors. If there were a free market in Italy, I could go make a fortune in arbitrage right now by running a giant extension cord into neighboring countries and then reselling the power.
Well how about that! Good for them. But there seems to be something wrong with the market in Italy. From this paper:
This indicates pretty strongly that market forces are not in fact at work. This is probably one reason:
And finally, it looks like they tax the hell out of it to support renewables - plus the rates are dictated by the government to increase with consumption:
So while there may be more of a market than there was 30 years ago, it's still heavily regulated and the rate structure is centrally planned.
I really don't know anything about Italy's power system. But from what I know of Europe, I'd be absolutely floored to find out it was a free market. If I had to guess I'd say it was either a state-owned company or well-connected private monopoly that couldn't care less what it pays for power because it passes the generation fees along to the consumer.
We should definitely criticize them for not fighting harder in support of the Nazis. ~
Your post assumes that there is a free market in place. If there is not, and energy is centrally-planned, then any change in the mix would need to come from the central planner rather than the non-existent or limited market.
I wasn't trying to get into a pissing contest, I was trying to explain the motivations behind potentially reactivating a very expensive and obsolete program. Other than sending a signal, I'm not sure how it could be relevant to N. Korea - especially in the near-term. Even in the long term, it seems very unlikely that N. Korea will be able to afford the upkeep on anything but a small deterrent force which makes the importance of instant retaliation even lower - a N. Korean 1st strike would not be debilitating. A Russian first strike could be, even today.
Ah, sorry, that did read kind of hostile even with the smiley. Despite directly replying to you, the "you" in that sentence was directed to everyone :)
Despite my libertarian tendencies, I actually think the Singapore model works pretty well. People from a very wide range of income levels and ethnicities are essentially forced to live amongst one another. The people there definitely have their complaints, and their practice of busing in huge numbers of Malay laborers everyday distorts the picture significantly. But they do have a pretty good handle on things like mixing low-income housing with market-rate housing, preventing the growth of ghettos/slums, and to some extent rich people fleeing social problems.
The vast majority of people don't actually "own" their apartment, but instead lease it from the state with a term of 99 years. They do buy and sell the leases as if they were real estate, though. The government owns almost the entire island and builds most of the housing. Before you get too indignant, see how long you can live in your own house in the US without paying the government your rent, er, property tax :)
It's a tiny little island. To buy a car, you must first win an auction for a car registration (maybe the wrong word). They allow cars in based on the design capacity of the road system. To date, they have been adding to the road capacity and thus increasing the number of registrations that they auction off. Now they have decided to stop expanding the capacity of the roads and limit the total number of registrations to the current amount.
Fortunately for the locals, the public transit system is pretty fantastic.
Suspicion for you and me, sure. I'm fairly certain that the US military or intelligence has found a way to ascertain the tested/designed range of a production missile system. Speculation is all we can do - and in fact is the whole point of this article and the comments under it.
But they've also indicated that they won't intervene on NK's behalf if NK shoots first.
(They'd probably still rush forces into NK to take as much of the country as possible before the American and S. Korean forces arrive - they still want their little buffer country.)
It could be a signal to N. Korea, or it could be a signal to Russia. Russia has been violating the 1987 IMF treaty for a few years now, and perhaps Trump has decided to take a more aggressive stance.
The point I was trying to make in my original reply to jonr was that a phone makes a terrible desktop replacement, especially for the uses he listed (compiling files and running a development environment). For that kind of use, you NEED a keyboard and - unless you want to go nuts - you need a big monitor... preferably two. Even laptops are less than ideal to develop on. So what we were talking about is a monitor or two, a dock of some kind, and a keyboard and mouse. You have steered the conversation to exclude the monitor. If you are happy with the 6" or whatever screen that you have, that's great - but it's not the context that my first comment was made in.
It's still better than knowing how to make it themselves. And this is over the intervening period since the Soviet collapse. A bunch of out of work weapons guys was a serious problem at one time - that's the only point I was trying to make. This was the main impetus behind the whole program of cooperation between NASA and Russia from that era.
Well it sounds like you are already all set and don't need a "Desktop" version of your phone. Again, that's my point - the market for this is tiny. You can already cast to a TV/monitor. You can already use corded or cordless keyboards and mice. You can already run Sentio Desktop if you want your phone to look like a Desktop computer. But frankly this sucks as a "desktop" unless you are doing trivial office tasks - or just typing up your screenplay or something. Coding, spreadsheets, video editing, photo manipulation and organizing all suck on a tiny screen. This is why even craptacular office PCs now come with a 19" monitor and "netbooks" grew up into 13" laptops.
You can "mirror" the screen to the TV via casting. You can also run something like Sentio Desktop to run a full-fledged Desktop-like environment. The novelty wears off quickly :)
I think most people just cast things like YouTube to the TV or music to the speakers.
I don't mean Putin... he's bad, but not really any worse than the old Soviets. Actually he's better, because we almost never worry about a Russian nuclear launch anymore. We do worry about a N. Korean launch, or one from Iran. Those are the regimes that I was referring to.
You can already cast to a TV (at least with Android), and you can already pair a mouse and keyboard via Bluetooth. You don't need to use Bluetooth - you can also use USB OTG - I know for a fact that this works because I've done it for ha-has... a little pointer appears.
But people don't really do it very often, even though it is available right now for no added cost. I just don't see the market for a dock that replicates this, but to a fixed location. And if people desired this capability, they could do it right now using an OTB-capable charging dock (I have one, don't typically use the OTB part) which has a keyboard and mouse plugged in. For the monitor you can either cast to it or use a USB-to-HDMI adapter. I guess what I'm saying is I've never heard of anyone doing this on a regular basis even though it is already possible and fairly convenient.... the only thing missing is an automatic action to turn on the mirroring when the phone is slipped into the dock. The mouse and keyboard are already automatically detected.