Anywhere you need to transmit power a long distance - you get less power loss over the distance. In Canada a decent portion of our power generation is from hydroelectric dams in the north - 1000 km from the main demands for that power. We have 450,000-volt DC lines running that distance. Any tech that makes that transmission more efficient, or reduces maintenance costs at either end would be snapped up quickly.
Sorry, I wasn't clear on that. I meant real-life protocol negotiation - we have to decide on whether to use bluetooth, email, bump,or whatever. Or, I can give them my card and be done with it.
And depending on the situation, I'd hand you your phone back, along with my card and ask you to email me later. If I'm in a group of people talking and was just introduced to you, I'm not going pull myself out of the conversation to fiddle with an unfamiliar cell phone.
Again with the fiddling - I have to make sure that the other person has a phone that can run the app, and has the app installed. Then I have to let them know I intend to use the app to transfer my contact info, and we both have to run the app. Various PDAs have had similar functionality for a while, but again with very limited use. Bluetooth is at least standardized, but takes forever to connect and transfer data. I can have my business card in your hand in less time than it takes to wake up your phone, and it requires nearly 0 effort on your part to receive it - just pocket it for now, and decide later what to do with it. It doesn't even require interrupting the flow of conversation.
Business cards give you a quick and easy way to exchange all those bits of contact info. It's either that or we both sit and stare at our phones for a while typing in names and numbers etc.. making sure spelling is correct, etc.. With a business card, I hand it over and the actual details can be handled later.
Obviously, if there was some standard way to hit a single button on phones and tap them together to exchange information, that would be easier - but at this point even everything like that just takes too much fiddling.
I had resigned myself to buying a $1000 piece of plastic from Dell, until I saw the ad. With a confluence of a bunch of coupons I ended up getting a Lenovo W700. Having used the T-series laptops at work for a while, I went with that instead.
I don't think anyone would call a new Lenovo W700 a $1000 laptop. I just happened on a confluence of separate deals at once. They're still going for $1200 used on ebay.
Trust doesn't necessarily come into play. I expect corporations to make money off of me. I'd rather they do that by presenting me with ads I'm interested in. I trust them not to steal my identity insofar as if they're already breaking the law, adding new laws isn't going to change anything. Last year I got a great deal on my laptop because whatever profiling they were doing decided that I was in the market for a laptop. Instead of paying $1000 for a $1000 laptop like I was planning, I got a $2500 laptop for $1000. As far as Im concerned it was win-win - I got a great laptop, and they got my money.
Every application, game, song, movie, image, story, or whatever that is stored in digital form is just a number - a really big number, but still just a number. You can argue that some numbers are too small to be copyrighted, but I don't think it's reasonable to say no numbers are copyrightable. For example, the text of the first three sentences in this comment could be copyrighted, and represented by the number:
Finding porn online is morally no different than renting it at the video store or visiting the local strip club (unless you're also committing copyright infringement at the same time).
If you're in one of the "healthiest of marriages", you're not going to be doing anything on facebook or elsewhere that's going to jeopardize your marriage. I'm not going to be an asshole in person, or online. If you think that something is OK online, but not in real life, then you've got problems.
You might try a different brand then - I live in Winnipeg, and I have a 26-watt flood-light outside that turns on even in -40. It does take a good 10 seconds at that temperature to warm up to full brightness, but overall I'm satisfied.
I confused... where in California would you need heating even 3 months of the year? I live in Manitoba, Canada (where it hit -40 here last night) and we don't even heat our houses 9 months of the year. I'll admit my California Geography is rudimentary at best, but even in the northern mountains, I can't imagine it's that cold anywhere where a decent number of people live.
"We" are the people who elect the government who appoints the "asshole" who decides what it should be. I don't have enough data, or training, to be able to decide what the total money supply should be, but it's my job to vote for someone I can trust to look past their ulterior motives and do what makes sense economically. If that means not voting for Liberal or Conservative (I'm Canadian), then so be it. We can protest, but for the most part, we're unqualified to have an opinion on the matter and are just respouting someone else's talking points. If we trust their opinions, then we need to try and convince them to run for office and elect them, so they can have a direct hand in policy. If, on the other hand, we wouldn't trust them in office, then maybe we shouldn't trust them out of office.
Anyway, too far off topic. Yeah.... tablets are a waste of money.
If I'm looking around to steal something to make a quick buck, tablets are an easy, value-dense prospect. They may even have the side bonus of holding credit card numbers and other information. Silver and jewelry are also easy targets of theft - hence the comparison.
It is rare, but not too rare, it is very inert, and it is easy to identify.
That's why fiat currency is so great. It's exactly as rare as we decide it should be. It can be made easy to identify and hard to forge. It's not exactly inert, but in a paper currency, that's a benefit, as the supply can be reduced through attrition. To link a paper currency to gold just removes our ability to adjust its rarity. Gold is great in a collapsed society that can't rely on a central authority to limit the money supply, but in a civilized country, it's just too limited.
The only problem comes in when people can't agree how rare the currency should be. Some people think we have too much, some think there's too little, others think there should be no choice in the matter and it should be set based on a pile of gold bars stashed away being unhelpful to anyone.
Reflection is not absorption. A piece of high-gloss tin-foil doesn't let any light through either, but absorbs very little. A material that completely absorbed all the light hitting it would always look completely black - you wouldn't be able to discern any texture.
This anti-laser would be able to admit a laser, without letting any light back out.
Yeah, I don't buy it. In Southern Manitoba - an area with half West Virginia's population, and four times the land area, there's nearly complete broadband penetration (pdf file).
Montana and Alaska are sparsely populated. The interior of Australia are sparsely populated, as is northern Canada. A good 2/3rds of West Virginia has > 10 people per sq. mile. That's practically jamming people in.
If you shine a laser on a matte-black painted surface, can you see the dot where the light hits? If so, then it's not absorbing all the light - just a portion of it.
Canadian drugs aren't subsidized. Those of low income can have their medication paid for after they've reached an annual deductible, but for most people, it's either out of pocket, or private insurance. We just have a saner insurance regime, and very strong collective buying.
Likewise, Canada is having a bit of a rough time at it, since we depend strongly on exports, and when our dollar is as high as it is right now (in comparison to the US) it hits our industry pretty hard. Yes, most consumers like it, for the cheaper goods, but it's not all rosy.
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Anywhere you need to transmit power a long distance - you get less power loss over the distance. In Canada a decent portion of our power generation is from hydroelectric dams in the north - 1000 km from the main demands for that power. We have 450,000-volt DC lines running that distance. Any tech that makes that transmission more efficient, or reduces maintenance costs at either end would be snapped up quickly.
Sorry, I wasn't clear on that. I meant real-life protocol negotiation - we have to decide on whether to use bluetooth, email, bump,or whatever. Or, I can give them my card and be done with it.
I don't want to have to deal with a protocol negotiation just to give someone my email address.
And depending on the situation, I'd hand you your phone back, along with my card and ask you to email me later. If I'm in a group of people talking and was just introduced to you, I'm not going pull myself out of the conversation to fiddle with an unfamiliar cell phone.
And how do you exchange email addresses?
Again with the fiddling - I have to make sure that the other person has a phone that can run the app, and has the app installed. Then I have to let them know I intend to use the app to transfer my contact info, and we both have to run the app. Various PDAs have had similar functionality for a while, but again with very limited use. Bluetooth is at least standardized, but takes forever to connect and transfer data. I can have my business card in your hand in less time than it takes to wake up your phone, and it requires nearly 0 effort on your part to receive it - just pocket it for now, and decide later what to do with it. It doesn't even require interrupting the flow of conversation.
Business cards give you a quick and easy way to exchange all those bits of contact info. It's either that or we both sit and stare at our phones for a while typing in names and numbers etc.. making sure spelling is correct, etc.. With a business card, I hand it over and the actual details can be handled later. Obviously, if there was some standard way to hit a single button on phones and tap them together to exchange information, that would be easier - but at this point even everything like that just takes too much fiddling.
I had resigned myself to buying a $1000 piece of plastic from Dell, until I saw the ad. With a confluence of a bunch of coupons I ended up getting a Lenovo W700. Having used the T-series laptops at work for a while, I went with that instead.
I don't think anyone would call a new Lenovo W700 a $1000 laptop. I just happened on a confluence of separate deals at once. They're still going for $1200 used on ebay.
Trust doesn't necessarily come into play. I expect corporations to make money off of me. I'd rather they do that by presenting me with ads I'm interested in. I trust them not to steal my identity insofar as if they're already breaking the law, adding new laws isn't going to change anything. Last year I got a great deal on my laptop because whatever profiling they were doing decided that I was in the market for a laptop. Instead of paying $1000 for a $1000 laptop like I was planning, I got a $2500 laptop for $1000. As far as Im concerned it was win-win - I got a great laptop, and they got my money.
Every application, game, song, movie, image, story, or whatever that is stored in digital form is just a number - a really big number, but still just a number. You can argue that some numbers are too small to be copyrighted, but I don't think it's reasonable to say no numbers are copyrightable. For example, the text of the first three sentences in this comment could be copyrighted, and represented by the number:
0x45 76 65 72 79 20 61 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 69 6f 6e 2c 20 67 61 6d 65 2c 20 73 6f 6e 67 2c 20 6d 6f 76 69 65 2c 20 69 6d 61 67 65 2c 20 73 74 6f 72 79 2c 20 6f 72 20 77 68 61 74 65 76 65 72 20 74 68 61 74 20 69 73 20 73 74 6f 72 65 64 20 69 6e 20 64 69 67 69 74 61 6c 20 66 6f 72 6d 20 69 73 20 6a 75 73 74 20 61 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 20 2d 20 61 20 72 65 61 6c 6c 79 20 62 69 67 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 2c 20 62 75 74 20 73 74 69 6c 6c 20 6a 75 73 74 20 61 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 2e 20 20 59 6f 75 20 63 61 6e 20 61 72 67 75 65 20 74 68 61 74 20 73 6f 6d 65 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 73 20 61 72 65 20 74 6f 6f 20 73 6d 61 6c 6c 20 74 6f 20 62 65 20 63 6f 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 65 64 2c 20 62 75 74 20 49 20 64 6f 6e 5c 27 74 20 74 68 69 6e 6b 20 69 74 5c 27 73 20 72 65 61 73 6f 6e 61 62 6c 65 20 74 6f 20 73 61 79 20 6e 6f 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 73 20 61 72 65 20 63 6f 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 61 62 6c 65 2e 20 20 46 6f 72 20 65 78 61 6d 70 6c 65 2c 20 74 68 65 20 74 65 78 74 20 6f 66 20 74 68 65 20 66 69 72 73 74 20 74 68 72 65 65 20 73 65 6e 74 65 6e 63 65 73 20 69 6e 20 74 68 69 73 20 63 6f 6d 6d 65 6e 74 20 63 6f 75 6c 64 20 62 65 20 63 6f 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 65 64 2c 20 61 6e 64 20 72 65 70 72 65 73 65 6e 74 65 64 20 62 79 20 74 68 65 20 6e 75 6d 62 65 72 3a
I've had no problems installing the Win 3.11 games I had as a kid on a 32-bit Windows 7 computer for my kids - using my original CDs.
Finding porn online is morally no different than renting it at the video store or visiting the local strip club (unless you're also committing copyright infringement at the same time).
If you're in one of the "healthiest of marriages", you're not going to be doing anything on facebook or elsewhere that's going to jeopardize your marriage. I'm not going to be an asshole in person, or online. If you think that something is OK online, but not in real life, then you've got problems.
You might try a different brand then - I live in Winnipeg, and I have a 26-watt flood-light outside that turns on even in -40. It does take a good 10 seconds at that temperature to warm up to full brightness, but overall I'm satisfied.
I confused... where in California would you need heating even 3 months of the year? I live in Manitoba, Canada (where it hit -40 here last night) and we don't even heat our houses 9 months of the year. I'll admit my California Geography is rudimentary at best, but even in the northern mountains, I can't imagine it's that cold anywhere where a decent number of people live.
"We" are the people who elect the government who appoints the "asshole" who decides what it should be. I don't have enough data, or training, to be able to decide what the total money supply should be, but it's my job to vote for someone I can trust to look past their ulterior motives and do what makes sense economically. If that means not voting for Liberal or Conservative (I'm Canadian), then so be it. We can protest, but for the most part, we're unqualified to have an opinion on the matter and are just respouting someone else's talking points. If we trust their opinions, then we need to try and convince them to run for office and elect them, so they can have a direct hand in policy. If, on the other hand, we wouldn't trust them in office, then maybe we shouldn't trust them out of office. Anyway, too far off topic. Yeah.... tablets are a waste of money.
This:
"tablets are highly thievable"
If I'm looking around to steal something to make a quick buck, tablets are an easy, value-dense prospect. They may even have the side bonus of holding credit card numbers and other information. Silver and jewelry are also easy targets of theft - hence the comparison.
I have an old wintel Motion tablet that uses passive cooling - that thing could probably do a decent job at thawing a frozen dinner.
It is rare, but not too rare, it is very inert, and it is easy to identify.
That's why fiat currency is so great. It's exactly as rare as we decide it should be. It can be made easy to identify and hard to forge. It's not exactly inert, but in a paper currency, that's a benefit, as the supply can be reduced through attrition. To link a paper currency to gold just removes our ability to adjust its rarity. Gold is great in a collapsed society that can't rely on a central authority to limit the money supply, but in a civilized country, it's just too limited.
The only problem comes in when people can't agree how rare the currency should be. Some people think we have too much, some think there's too little, others think there should be no choice in the matter and it should be set based on a pile of gold bars stashed away being unhelpful to anyone.
Reflection is not absorption. A piece of high-gloss tin-foil doesn't let any light through either, but absorbs very little. A material that completely absorbed all the light hitting it would always look completely black - you wouldn't be able to discern any texture. This anti-laser would be able to admit a laser, without letting any light back out.
Yeah, I don't buy it. In Southern Manitoba - an area with half West Virginia's population, and four times the land area, there's nearly complete broadband penetration (pdf file).
Montana and Alaska are sparsely populated. The interior of Australia are sparsely populated, as is northern Canada. A good 2/3rds of West Virginia has > 10 people per sq. mile. That's practically jamming people in.
If you shine a laser on a matte-black painted surface, can you see the dot where the light hits? If so, then it's not absorbing all the light - just a portion of it.
Canadian drugs aren't subsidized. Those of low income can have their medication paid for after they've reached an annual deductible, but for most people, it's either out of pocket, or private insurance. We just have a saner insurance regime, and very strong collective buying.
Likewise, Canada is having a bit of a rough time at it, since we depend strongly on exports, and when our dollar is as high as it is right now (in comparison to the US) it hits our industry pretty hard. Yes, most consumers like it, for the cheaper goods, but it's not all rosy.