PDAs leave an unsightly bulge in my pants. If I could install Skype on something like that and use it as a cellphone when rolled up - I'd have everything I'd ever need in a communications device - for reals.
I set up a bunch of laptops at work once and used a Linux live CD to create a mesh network. Why can't cell phones be used for something similar. Maybe 10% of a phones wireless bandwidth could be dedicated to anonymous routing. It'd be encrypted of course.
If everybody had HDCP monitors there would be less demand for independent films that don't subscribe to that DRM system. If you can only watch Bruckheimer's latest blockbuster at 320x200 or alternatively some independent, thoughful documentary in all its HD glory people may choose the latter.
OK good points, when reading comments that assume "big corporations" are evil I get a little worked up. I agree that aggregations of power lead to corruption, be it in government or in industry but if a business happens to be more efficient due to it's size, economies of scale, etc, AND it has competition then I think it has every right to exist.
My point is that in a real monopoly your cable company could raise rates until you simply decided to go without the internet. You have alternatives even if they aren't quite as fast.
Studies have shown that when the government takes over for businesses in an industry prices go up roughly 30%. Of course they'll call it "free internet!!" but your taxes go up $65/month instead of the cable company's fee of $50 and you then have a real monopoly which means there is no incentive for the telcos to roll out FIOS because they can't compete with free.
Yeah, the combination violence and socialism have lead the world to record levels of employment. Impatience is the big problem here. Consumers aren't content with Moore's Law, they want their gigabit internet NOW and they'll kill free markets to get it.
If you really want the likes of G.Bush running your telco then go right ahead and interfere with businesses. It's not like they have free market competition (FIOS, DSL, Cable, Satellite, broadband over power lines, WiFi, dialup).
Opposed to what, a sterile, buisness-suited present where food production is controlled by large corporations who are more concerned about the bottom line than the welfare of either the customers or the animals used to make the food?
Riigght, and if people start dying from toxic Tyson chicken their evil bottom line isn't going to suffer? Arguing economics with a socialist is like arguing intelligent design with the Kansas school board.
"The efficiencies of good modern Otto-cycle engines range between 20 and 25 percent (in other words, only this percentage of the heat energy of the fuel is transformed into mechanical energy). "
And
"Electricity ranges from about 5 - 10 cents per kW, so a gallon of gas (more than $2) has as much energy as $1.65 - $3.30 of electricity."
At first glance it looks like gas power and wall power are the same price but gas engines are only 20% efficient so using a plug from the side of your house would be 5 times cheaper. So only about 7kWh of that 36 goes to turning the wheels.
A bit is a bit is a bit, ink and graphite are fairly different. This is like the government kicking Frank's Yeller Pencil business out of the Ticonderoga factory. Maybe Ticonderoga will invest more in their infrastructure if they know they'll be the sole users. To say there is no competition is disingenuous because DSL prices are kept low by cable, satellite and soon wifi and FIOS.
I was channel surfing last night, waiting for water to boil, and came across a hearing on patent reform. Dean Kaymen, inventor of the uber-hyped Segway, explained the need for massive patent reform. There was some disagreement among the panel of experts about what needed to be done. The corporate IP lawyers argued that they were unable to defend against frivolous lawsuits from what are known as patent squatters and therefore damages needed to be capped. The small inventors argued that damages should not be capped simply because the government wasn't doing its job. Considering the importance of this hearing for the future of capitalism I was surprised to find only two articles covering it. Kaymen argued in favor of the little guys but didn't mention trends. The Longtail/Democratization of Innovation trend could have been used to argue that the small guys will increasingly need protection as they become the main producers of intellectual property. The big guys have an ulterior motive with their push for damage caps. If the big corps do accidentally violate a patent they can't be held fully acountable because of the government's inability to decide which patent suits are frivolous. I don't think anybody bought the argument.
Everybody seemed to agree that the patent office is underfunded and that judges aren't fairly handling cases. It was kind of nice to watch these inventors that I've read about actually teaching our legislators a thing or two about the realities of doing business. And the legislators were eagerly listening! I'm generally disenfranchised with what the government has devolved into but moments like this rekindle that weird sense of patriotism that sometimes rears its bald head. There's a good overview on Patently-O.
the desktop OS will become obsolete in favor of a Web based one
I think a better way of looking at this is to say that web apps will develop desktop like features. Ajax uses client side javascript afterall and I prefer not to have my RAM in kansas thankyouverymuch.
Two points here. I work with kids from a very low income school district in San Diego. The problem according to the teacher I talked to yesterday is poor parenting.
300 million Chinese have clawed their way out of poverty since the 70's because we've been buying chinese products. They don't think we're assholes. Millions of people were helped by private US donations and by our big evil military after the tsunamis. They don't think we're assholes. The French sent one broken down air craft carrier weeks late.
As for evidence that we don't have the best education system you can choose to continue to ignore the data:
"This study has burst another myth," said William Schmidt, an educational statistician from Michigan State University who coordinated the American portion of the study. "Our best students in mathematics and science are simply not world class. Even the very small percentage of students taking advanced placement courses are not among the world's best." "
Unlike checkers, the global economy isn't a zero sum game. The description "may threaten the economic position of the United States" is flawed. If I get a 50% raise but my neighbor gets a 75% raise am I worse off? That's what the wording of this article would have you believe. We may get richer but if someone else is #1 then our "position" has been compromised. America is hated largely because we are number one in terms of GDP, freedom, etc. I say let someone else take that spot at the top (at least in GDP) so the rest of the world can hate them for a while.
America spends more per student than France. France! The problem with education in America isn't a lack of funding regardles of what the angelic teachers unions would have you believe. Maybe the problem is that as the richest country in the world, parents have simply gotten lazy because they know their kids aren't going to starve here no matter what they do.
In this case it's not a question of if free markets can or cannot do something it's a matter of how long it will take. The Internet is doing more to break up these monopolies faster and better than any government bureaucracy.
Don't get me wrong, I got a good chuckle out of that but CEOs make a lot of money because they're worth a lot of money. If you run a business and you under pay your top people they will go elsewhere and you will no longer be a business.
Some people are all gung ho when it comes to embracing diversity of all shapes and forms (which is good) unless it comes to pay and then they toss around a few "evil corporate greed"s and "multinational overlords" to justify their general distaste for capitalism.
"Thank you for your interest in Time Warner Cable's Broadband TV product trial. Please confirm that you are using Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher. If so, we regret to inform you, however, that you live outside the service area in which the trial is taking place. We sincerely appreciate your interest and hope you will continue to embrace Time Warner Cable products and services as they are developed.
Thank you again - we appreciate your business and value you as a customer!"
Gahhh, IE requirement but I'm going to get home and try it tonight (I have Timewarner in San Diego). I wonder how much they could increase the bandwidth if all of the analog frequencies were dedicated to cable modem bandwidth. I care because I shall never relinquish my beloved Padres in glorious HD which uses roughly 15Mbits/second.
I have the HD DVR and love it but I hate having two computers plugged into my 2405FPW (one being the DVR).
What you really need is a tool to separate the good from the bad. Blogdex does this for websites. There will always be crap out there or even good stuff that only you consider crap. I don't think the world should be stuck with ten channels of crap YOU find interesting which, based on your apparent intolerance, would probably include that fishing show on fox and "You might be a redneck if..."
We've had this debate in the driving simulator community for years. How do you know if the car is behaving as it should if you can't see the code?
Hence stuff like this./shameless plug
...to the first person to send me a virus I can use to explode the pigeons above my driveway that crap on my friggen convertible. Of course exploded pigeon may be harder to clean off the upholstery.
He's 40,000 years old. Deep within an Arctic glacier they found him preserved by a miracle of nature, brought back to life by a miracle of science.
Now medical science wants to exploit him in the name of research. One man wants to stop them...in the name of humanity. But he'll need more than a miracle to survive... he'll need a friend.
In case anybody is thinking this would make a good movie, it's been done.
Slashdot Mirror
PDAs leave an unsightly bulge in my pants. If I could install Skype on something like that and use it as a cellphone when rolled up - I'd have everything I'd ever need in a communications device - for reals.
I set up a bunch of laptops at work once and used a Linux live CD to create a mesh network. Why can't cell phones be used for something similar. Maybe 10% of a phones wireless bandwidth could be dedicated to anonymous routing. It'd be encrypted of course.
If everybody had HDCP monitors there would be less demand for independent films that don't subscribe to that DRM system. If you can only watch Bruckheimer's latest blockbuster at 320x200 or alternatively some independent, thoughful documentary in all its HD glory people may choose the latter.
OK good points, when reading comments that assume "big corporations" are evil I get a little worked up. I agree that aggregations of power lead to corruption, be it in government or in industry but if a business happens to be more efficient due to it's size, economies of scale, etc, AND it has competition then I think it has every right to exist.
My point is that in a real monopoly your cable company could raise rates until you simply decided to go without the internet. You have alternatives even if they aren't quite as fast.
Studies have shown that when the government takes over for businesses in an industry prices go up roughly 30%. Of course they'll call it "free internet!!" but your taxes go up $65/month instead of the cable company's fee of $50 and you then have a real monopoly which means there is no incentive for the telcos to roll out FIOS because they can't compete with free.
If you want access to the internet you can go with FIOS, DSL, Cable, Satellite, broadband over power lines, WiFi, dialup.
I'm interested to hear your definition of Monopoly.
"Beating the incumbent telco into shape."
Yeah, the combination violence and socialism have lead the world to record levels of employment. Impatience is the big problem here. Consumers aren't content with Moore's Law, they want their gigabit internet NOW and they'll kill free markets to get it.
If you really want the likes of G.Bush running your telco then go right ahead and interfere with businesses. It's not like they have free market competition (FIOS, DSL, Cable, Satellite, broadband over power lines, WiFi, dialup).
Mod me down, I think socialism is dumb.
A bit is a bit is a bit, ink and graphite are fairly different. This is like the government kicking Frank's Yeller Pencil business out of the Ticonderoga factory. Maybe Ticonderoga will invest more in their infrastructure if they know they'll be the sole users. To say there is no competition is disingenuous because DSL prices are kept low by cable, satellite and soon wifi and FIOS.
From my blog, 'cause I'm too lazy to retype it.
I was channel surfing last night, waiting for water to boil, and came across a hearing on patent reform. Dean Kaymen, inventor of the uber-hyped Segway, explained the need for massive patent reform. There was some disagreement among the panel of experts about what needed to be done. The corporate IP lawyers argued that they were unable to defend against frivolous lawsuits from what are known as patent squatters and therefore damages needed to be capped. The small inventors argued that damages should not be capped simply because the government wasn't doing its job. Considering the importance of this hearing for the future of capitalism I was surprised to find only two articles covering it. Kaymen argued in favor of the little guys but didn't mention trends. The Longtail/Democratization of Innovation trend could have been used to argue that the small guys will increasingly need protection as they become the main producers of intellectual property. The big guys have an ulterior motive with their push for damage caps. If the big corps do accidentally violate a patent they can't be held fully acountable because of the government's inability to decide which patent suits are frivolous. I don't think anybody bought the argument. Everybody seemed to agree that the patent office is underfunded and that judges aren't fairly handling cases. It was kind of nice to watch these inventors that I've read about actually teaching our legislators a thing or two about the realities of doing business. And the legislators were eagerly listening! I'm generally disenfranchised with what the government has devolved into but moments like this rekindle that weird sense of patriotism that sometimes rears its bald head. There's a good overview on Patently-O.
From the header:
"grab your package"
"fill long-standing functionality gaps"
"mind-blowing... 1.0 release"
Yeah, I peel the labels off my open source beer bottles.
300 million Chinese have clawed their way out of poverty since the 70's because we've been buying chinese products. They don't think we're assholes. Millions of people were helped by private US donations and by our big evil military after the tsunamis. They don't think we're assholes. The French sent one broken down air craft carrier weeks late.
As for evidence that we don't have the best education system you can choose to continue to ignore the data:
Unlike checkers, the global economy isn't a zero sum game. The description "may threaten the economic position of the United States" is flawed. If I get a 50% raise but my neighbor gets a 75% raise am I worse off? That's what the wording of this article would have you believe. We may get richer but if someone else is #1 then our "position" has been compromised. America is hated largely because we are number one in terms of GDP, freedom, etc. I say let someone else take that spot at the top (at least in GDP) so the rest of the world can hate them for a while.
America spends more per student than France. France! The problem with education in America isn't a lack of funding regardles of what the angelic teachers unions would have you believe. Maybe the problem is that as the richest country in the world, parents have simply gotten lazy because they know their kids aren't going to starve here no matter what they do.
In this case it's not a question of if free markets can or cannot do something it's a matter of how long it will take. The Internet is doing more to break up these monopolies faster and better than any government bureaucracy.
Don't get me wrong, I got a good chuckle out of that but CEOs make a lot of money because they're worth a lot of money. If you run a business and you under pay your top people they will go elsewhere and you will no longer be a business. Some people are all gung ho when it comes to embracing diversity of all shapes and forms (which is good) unless it comes to pay and then they toss around a few "evil corporate greed"s and "multinational overlords" to justify their general distaste for capitalism.
I care because I shall never relinquish my beloved Padres in glorious HD which uses roughly 15Mbits/second.
I have the HD DVR and love it but I hate having two computers plugged into my 2405FPW (one being the DVR).
U R Still Dumb. It tracks things that blogers link to. Last I checked blogs aren't restricted to only linking to other blogs?
U R Dumb. Go to blogdex, most of it is from news websites or other things. Some blogs are linked to but less than half.
We've had this debate in the driving simulator community for years. How do you know if the car is behaving as it should if you can't see the code? Hence stuff like this. /shameless plug
...to the first person to send me a virus I can use to explode the pigeons above my driveway that crap on my friggen convertible. Of course exploded pigeon may be harder to clean off the upholstery.
Anybody still want the government as their ISP?