Are you implying that electric cars don't do well in the cold? Because if you are, you're misinformed. Li Ion based batteries do poorly in heat, but the cold doesn't bother them anywhere near as much as the heat does. Also, Tesla basically has a cooling/heating system just for the batteries to keep them at an optimum temp.
Norway already has the highest number of electric vehicles per capita in the world -- mostly Teslas... and the people love them.
Newtonian physics won't allow nuclear fusion or photosynthesis. Superposition is what allows quantum tunneling which is vital to both of those processes.
Nuclear fusion takes so much energy that even with the intense pressure and heat from massive stars, the odds of a proton striking a nuclei at exactly the right angle with enough energy to fuse is extremely low, so it borrows energy from the vacuum and tunnels into the nucleus and stays as it's a lower ground state. Stars would have to be so massive to maintain stable fusion without tunneling, that they'd instead become black holes.
Since a universe without quantum mechanics would have to have completely different physics than ours, why would they bother to create an universe so unlike their own, and why would they care if the ants in it figured out they're in an ant farm? Why bother to hide any glitches with a system restore or memory wipe?
All computers have glitches -- a stray cosmic ray could flip a RAM bit or two and cause havoc on a database. If we're in a program, I wouldn't call it a simulation... because those "bugs" you mention are quantum properties of things like LEDs, other various computer parts, plantlife, and the life cycle of stars that would not work as well or at all without them. We can't be a simulation if the "real" universe is nothing like us. We'd be more like a video game with its own physics-defying rules.
Except the theory that we're in a simulation makes zero sense. The very quantum mechanical oddities that people who embrace this idea call upon as being inherent to a simulation are also critical to important natural processes -- like fusion in the heart of stars which depends on quantum tunneling of protons. Photosynthesis depends on quantum-tunneling as well. If the quantum nature of the universe is some sort of evidence that we're a simulation, then what exactly are we simulating if the "real world" outside of the simulation does not depend on the exact same quantum processes? Obviously the hypothetical "real world" MUST have different physics if our quantum physical laws are merely side-effects of the limitations of our simulation. So... How does fusion happen in the "real world?" What about photosynthesis? How about LEDs, solar cells, and various computer components that all rely on quantum effects?
It's absurd to think any of those things would be possible without our very specific physics. The only possible explanation if we're in a simulation would be that the "real world" has completely different physics than ours. That makes me wonder why beings living in such a universe would bother to simulate a fantasy world where physics not only doesn't work the way it does in the "real world," but would also bother to create an entire universe populated by sentient beings just to see how such fake physics would play out. Oddly, we'd be like a video game instead of a simulation.
Sooner or later, every computer program generates a flaw. Even if it's not a bug in programming, a single bit flip from a cosmic ray could cause havoc. One would think with a simulation our size running for this long would have produced more than a few noticeable bugs, and it would be a serious pain to roll back the universe from a saved state just so that the beings living on a slimy spec of rock around an average main sequence star in an uninteresting galaxy in a not especially special cluster of galaxies wouldn't remember the glitch and be self-aware that they're in a simulation. Oh, gee... I guess we all just signed Elon's death warrant now that we all let the beans spill that he's in on our simulation masters' secret.
Not file names -- file PATHs longer than 260 characters.
As in:
"C:\Users\Fubar\Pictures\Vacation\2013\Hawaii\Dole Plantation\Silly Photo with Sister 023.jpg"
Obviously, that's under 260 characters, but if you try copying an entire user profile to another computer's desktop folder "C:\Users\Foo\Desktop\old profile", you get an even longer character path... and some people have very elaborate Documents folders for work and school projects that are many nested folders deep and lots of characters for descriptions.
I've hit the character limit more than once myself -- especially with MP3 files with full band and song titles in the name and a few project files, but I've hit it multiple times copying entire profiles to servers as backups before swapping out a machine.
That sounds like a solution looking for a problem. My uncle and grandfather work(ed) for the railroad. For freight, you're never going to make a dent with this plan. Freight is all about momentum, not speed. Starting and stopping cargo are the hardest parts. You need a powerful engine just to move 1 fully loaded car, but that same engine can pull lots of cars -- it just hast to pick up speed over time. You're never going to pick up serious speed before you get to a populated area where you have to slow down -- because railways cross roadways. Stopping even a single car quickly requires a bag of sand to be dropped on the steel railing and makes enough friction to ruin the wheels. You're not going to get cars carrying tons of cargo to go faster than the current system. Worse -- breaking up a single locomotive train w/ tens of cars into lots of smaller cars means lots and lots of wasteful engines that have to pull those smaller cars. They'd also have to have a much larger space between each car to be able to reasonably slow down in time should one have a problem. You'd need to increase the number of tracks to make up for the wasted space to push the same amount of cargo over time. In short, there's reasons why they do things the way they do them now... mostly physics and logistics reasons.
Assuming you could update the patchwork of decades old systems properly, it wouldn't give you much savings as humans will likely be required for safety reasons well into the future - just like pilots still fly passenger planes even though autopilot does most of the work between take-offs and landings... even subway trains have conductors. We're talking about miles of track that cross public roadways with children on bikes -- not going to go fully automatic anytime soon.
Even if you re-designed the entire system to be above-ground mag-lev freight with novel breaking systems to achieve this insane acceleration/deceleration, you'd have such massive construction and power issues, it would be super-expensive. The average weight for a freight rail car is around 130 tons fully loaded. A fully loaded passenger maglev car is between 50 and 70 tons. It's not impossible... and one could often just split the cargo between multiple cars if needed. It'd be expensive, though. You'd still need to use trucks to get from the train station to the final destination.
The hyperloop is for extremely fast passenger travel to replace airlines. It has lightweight cargo (people and maybe luggage), and can be built on railways above ground with cheaper construction than the support needed for heavy freight. Above-ground tubing can be safe enough to be an automated system. It's horribly expensive because of the land purchase, construction, maintenance, safety, etc... but, once it's built, it could offer transportation faster and safer than air travel. Should eventually be cheaper, too -- and no need to worry about hijackers as it's on a track... and there's no explosive fuel to blow up a building with even if it went off-track.
Basically, the hyperloop is the replacement for air travel over land. It could also carry cargo/freight in addition to passengers if the weight and space constraints allow. A hyperloop or maglev train system might solve other problems with the freight industry as well.
Impressive, but difficult to judge. Speed is one factor, but angle of impact is important, too. 110 mph head-on into a concrete barrier will kill anyone. Even if the cabin is intact, the deceleration would liquefy and/or rupture organs. This incident appears to have the vehicle smack the wall at an angle, then ricochet and smack another wall at another angle, then continue farther before stopping at a tree. That's a lot of force transferred over time and would have decelerated the vehicle quite a lot before coming to a stop. Tearing off the front wheels in the process likely helped some in slowing the vehicle as well.
I can't really say this was any better or worse than another car striking the same barriers at the same speeds an angles, though. I think the regular industry crash tests are more telling that Tesla's design is superior to other vehicles.
I'm guessing you're recalling this semi-famous crash. Reports varied, but it was likely going 120 mph, and it only rolled once -- more like flipped over, skid upside down for 100 yards, then flipped back when it was stopped and the roof was torn off. It was a Mercedes SL, and was a hard-top convertible. The hard top was tough, but not 3 roll accident tough. The weight and momentum of the car would have crushed that top if it had rolled 3 times.
There are other fields of study that confirm we are constantly processing information -- analyzing and filtering it at a subconscious level, which is why people are often advised to "go with their instincts" or that their first impression or choice is usually the correct one (even in multiple choice tests). It's as if our basic programming gives us great contextual advice, but if given enough time, our conscious mind may argue our way out of following that advice -- often because we don't WANT to believe it or trust ourselves enough to go with what we perceive as a rash judgement.
The subconscious is believed to work very much like a computer with simple, fact-based answers to stimuli (though sometimes those "facts" are just really ingrained personal biases or misinformation)... but, unfortunately the subconscious usually doesn't communicate well with the conscious mind outside of the perception of instinctive reactions, emotions, and dreams unless one's under hypnosis.
I'll try -- though I'm not a Clinton or Trump fan, fair warnings that I actually lean politically more towards Clinton.
There are a few main issues this election cycle -- gun control, health care (including abortion access), and immigration reform. There are lots of other issues (like gay rights, environmental issues, corporate taxes and rights, the economy, international trade, war on terror, privacy, etc), but guns, health care, and immigration are the biggest right now.
The next president will likely get to choose at least one Supreme Court Justice -- possibly as many as three. Those new justices will influence federal law for decades, and Republicans fear a Democratic-leaning SCOTUS will crush their ability to control the political landscape for a very long time. A Democratic president would also solidify Obamacare making it entrenched and only removable by something better (the horror!) while also furthering leftist gun control, equality for gays, and a better path for citizenship for immigrants. A Democratic president will also likely push for a higher minimum wage, higher corporate taxes with fewer loopholes, and possibly higher taxes for its wealthiest citizens (most of whom are enjoying the lowest tax rates they've ever paid since just after Reagan's first huge tax cut for the rich in the 1980s)
Many Republicans were hoping for a Republican-leaning supreme court -- one that would be pro-corporation, anti-abortion, and pro-government surveillance in the long term. An anti-gay marriage court ruling was the hope of many as well. Some were even rooting for pro-torture of terrorists and permanent detention of terrorists without trial in Gitmo. That was the dream, but really, most would have settled for a slightly republican-leaning court if not a stacked court in their favor.
They were hoping for a Republican president to overturn Obamacare -- especially before all of its provisions are phased in. Their predictions of the sky falling haven't come to pass yet, and if the sky doesn't fall before everything is fully working, they might have to admit they were wrong. I'm the first to admit Obamacare is flawed legislation -- single payer would have been far better, but the insurance industry is too powerful to allow the congress critters to do that.
A Republican president could also help overturn gay marriage, but that's unlikely as only a constitutional amendment could overturn the SCOTUS ruling unless there were another SCOTUS challenge.
Another strong reason Republicans wanted to win is they have a different view of the USA's role in the world as a super-power. They don't care what other nations think of them as long as the USA is feared, respected, and seen as powerful enough to bend you to their will. Also, we have a huge war profiteering industry chomping at the bit to attack any random place that defies us -- especially if we can prove some terrorists might be there (so long as they have natural resources to exploit -- if there's nothing to exploit, then we ignore the pleas for help even when we're asked to intervene). Republicans tend to do well in elections during wartime and tend to get lots of financial incentives from oil companies and defense contractors.
The autobahn is just the German version of the USA's interstate system. Half of it has speed limits below 81 mph, and the other half has an "advisory limit" of about 81 mph. The sections with speed limits are dispersed, so it's not like you can go for very long before hitting one which slows all the traffic down. If you go over 81 mph in the areas with "advisory limits" only and you have an accident, you're automatically considered partially if not completely at fault. The fastest 6 lane free-flowing section of the autobahn averages about 88 mph. That's because it really isn't safe to drive most cars faster than that. The aerodynamics make it difficult, but a side-wind can push the broad side of the car hard enough to make steering against it quickly enough to counter-act the push very difficult as well. Imagine an 18-wheeler 3 feet to your left on a curved road as a strong wind blows you towards it while you're driving 90 mph. Most people that drive on the autobahn just want to get from A to B, not use it as a drag strip or you know... die because they were driving foolishly.
How would Teslas which have a max speed of about 130 mph make any difference? There are plenty of hybrids on the roads in Atlanta, GA -- and to see someone driving under 80 mph on the interstates near Atlanta is really rare. It's understood everyone goes at least 10 mph over the posted limit around Atlanta. The same goes for parts of Knoxville, TN. In those parts, the majority of Americans are driving the same if not faster than they would be on the Autobahn.
If anything, hybrids and electrics are an improvement -- especially over old POS cars like a 1950s or 1960s oldsmobile with a top speed of 97 mph that burns gas so fast, you'd think there was a hole in the tank. A 2002/2003 Ford Taurus with a top speed of 139 mph technically could beat a Tesla (after it catches up) in a long stretch, but it would burn through fuel and need a pit-stop before the Tesla... assuming it didn't fly off the road first as it becomes very hard to control over 90 mph since it lacks the aerodynamics of a Tesla.
I get that a lot of initial hybrid users stared at their dashboard trying to hypermile and that used to slow everyone to a crawl, but I think that fad is pretty much over -- especially now that hybrids are more mainstream and gas prices have plummeted.
There's no defending the design of this Homer-mobile of fighter jets. It was designed specifically to replace a wide variety of planes in multiple services -- knowing that it would be a jack of all trades, master of none. This was done specifically to reduce maintenance costs by having one basic design to service across multiple services for multiple purposes. Instead of multiple crafts tailor-made for specific purposes, they chose to make one that will do everything, yet poorly. No other fighter jet in history had this as a constraint.
The project is more akin to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle than any other jet. Case in point -- the body was designed to accommodate vertical take-off engines which only one service will actually use. The other services will not have vertical take-off capability, but the fat rear body of the plane still exists because it's the same frame. The F-35 was supposed to replace the A-10. Yeah, that will never happen. The A-10 is a plane built around a huge gat gun -- with the ammo, fuel, and maneuverability to support ground troops for extended periods. The F-35 flies too fast, burns too much fuel, can't hover, and hasn't got the ground support firepower to sustain the cover of the Warthog. The A-10 got a service extension AND they're designing a plane specifically to replace the A-10 as they now admit the F-35 will never be able to replace it.
Beyond that, it was designed for stealth, speed, and more automated systems (along with the bulky vertical take-off design) rather than maneuverability for air to air combat or sustained presence for ground troop support. Stealth is a complete joke -- designers themselves admit any modern radar system will pick up the plane just fine -- just perhaps a slight delay before they notice the small bird flying at Mach 2. All the head's up displays and sensors won't help in a dogfight or in sustaining ground troop support when you have to fly very, very fast (which leads to poor steering) just to stay in the air because of your frame with small wings and crappy aerodynamics due to the stealth paneling.
The designers of the F-16s crap all over the F-35's in very public forums like youtube. I went to school with a couple of engineers at LM, and those old friends gave up any pretense of polishing this turd a long time ago.
Intel is at 14nm and working hard to push out 10nm after many setbacks, but not long after that, they're done. Did you not read the whole explanation about why Intel is stopping at 7nm on silicon and/or 5nm with other materials? 7nm is 14 silicon atoms wide. Any smaller, and quantum tunneling becomes such a serious issue, they need new materials. With other materials, they MIGHT be able to go as small as 5nm. That's it, though. Any smaller and you basically either need an optical computer or a quantum computer. Even with those, you'll be limited to the size of an atom per transistor at best which is 0.2nm for silicon.
So, what you're saying is that any successful attempt merely needs to be duplicated with at least another disk, another player, and/or IP address/account. Then the outputs can be compared and the watermarking obfuscated or removed. In addition, rips are seldom 1:1 copies and involve new compression which removes and alters data -- including potential watermarks.
The analog hole still exists for taking video and audio recordings with a camcorder in front of a screen, and with a bit of machine learning and multiple samples from different sources, an adequate copy could be reconstructed. The audio may need more work with multiple microphones near each sound source and a way to block extraneous sounds, but it's doable. (Say, each speaker in its own sound-proof box with a microphone to a mixer.) Given enough data, in the hands of a skilled programmer and sound/lighting/media expert, perhaps even a perfect copy could be made. It'd be a lot of work, but it could be done. Once it's done, it's ready for mass pirating on the cheap.
Not that I condone any of that, but it's simply a technical problem that can and will be overcome by those with the skills, time, inclination, and a small investment in hardware.
Fear not. The foundation will continue to sell all versions of the boards as long as decent demand exists. But, you should expect further integration on newer models of all sorts of features. The Pi is intended to be a "jack of all trades" for educational purposes -- mostly for children. The foundation recommends the 1A board for integrated hobbyist projects and the newer 2B for educational institutions and kids (their core target their corporate charter says they exist to serve) exactly because it is more versatile.
I don't see how a low cost, low power file-serving is a huge leap for the Pi. Snap Servers have existed for at least a decade. If the new Pi had a faster USB to go along with the integrated wireless, I'd buy one along with a simple USB to SATA II connector and a 1TB SSD to make a pretty sweet (and very quiet) streaming media server that I could hook directly up to my main TV through HDMI as well.
Wait... are you seeing polls and demographics the rest of the country doesn't have access to? Curious how you came up with the notion that "Republicans... know they have a pretty good chance of getting a Republican President..." Is Faux News showing "unskewed *wink wink* polls" again?
I ask because if the SAME proportion of demographics show up to vote as in 2012, the election goes to the Dems. The population change among demographics has shifted further in favor of Dems in 4 years as well.
Here, you can play with the sliders yourself and see what t'd take for Reps to win. It's not going to be easy for them: http://projects.fivethirtyeigh...
Now, I get that there's this myth of the swing voter out there, but polls and statistics show there are very few of them as the nation is largely polarized. It's just a matter of voter turnout for each demographic. There is a slight possibility that the younger demographic and the African American demographic may not have as large a turnout as with Obama's second term, but it's unlikely.
Horribly insecure code that's too complex (or obfuscated or just plain badly written and possibly poorly commented) for most people to bother looking at, much less fixing & for those that DO bother, they submit a fix/patch which goes ignored or rejected by the maintainer. This, of course, followed by no one bothering to fork the project b/c no one has time for that. This is where most open-source users whine and complain about features, design flaws, and bugs while devs and fanboys tell them "If you don't like it, fork it and do it YOUR way." as if that were a trivial thing just anyone can do in their spare time... b/c we all have such amazing coding skills and free time to take on such an enormous effort by ourselves.
LENR is most useful for nuclear waste cleanup and NASA missions as it primarily generates heat. The best we can get out is something like 3x the energy put in -- which is great, but considering it's heat and not electricity, there's loss in capturing that energy and putting it to use. (unless you actually only want heat) In space, it's perfect -- especially for say... Mars exploration. Still, NASA can use good old radio-isotopes instead just fine. Why bother with a LENR setup when plutonium will work without any fancy LENR reactor?
LENR seems to depend on neutron capture and electron capture (to create neutrons from protons) followed by some neutron decay back into protons which effectively transmutes some metals into other heavier metals. This isn't fully understood, but it's not surprising either. Our atmosphere converts Nitrogen into Carbon 14 from cosmic neutron bombardment all the time. I can only guess that there is some chemistry which coupled with pressure and electricity allows the proper alignment of electrical fields between some elements and deuterium to induce a form of fusion.
Some alkali and alkaline metals, given enough energy, may more readily transmute than others. Most of the experiments involve deuterium permeating an alkaline metal at high pressure under an electric current.
The reason it's done at low temp and has little usable output is b/c it doesn't involve directly fusing protons or nuclei with protons -- it's all neutron capture, electron capture, or nuclear decay / radioactivity. There's also very little fission.
LENR is fascinating, but I have serious doubts it could ever be used as a large scale power generator. It's not exactly easy to create or maintain compared to a nuclear fission reactor, and it'd have to be enormous to match the output. We'd be better off using solar panels and solar heat collectors for the effort.
I don't know about this. Clearly, she directed an aide to strip the classified header off of something, but that was AFTER the aide tried to send it multiple times through other approved channels (secure fax). We don't know whether it was actually done or even if the header was appropriate to begin with. If anything, this shows that the correct way to send it was attempted several times before resorting to this measure -- so, it wasn't that stripping the header and sending it unsecurely was the status quo -- at least at that point from the aide's perspective.
I don't condone that in any way, but it alone doesn't sound like a pattern of intentional malfeasance. I do agree that the personal control of the server was intended to dodge FOIA requests and perhaps severely hinder and possibly circumvent the Federal Records Act and National Archives regulations. It's still to be determined if she knowingly sent or received classified info via the personal e-mail server. As for whether or not it was more secure on her system or the government's system... well.. the government's system WAS hacked -- so, arguably, classified info might have been more secure on her personal server than the government's. Regardless, if it was KNOWINGLY stored on her personal system, it would be a violation.
Keep in mind that often things that are not classified get stamped as classified to go through certain channels b/c those channels are ONLY for classified documents. (like say... a secure fax or internal e-mail system) It's possible the info was not of a classified nature to begin with. It's anecdotal, but interviews from govt officials privy to such things have stated their superiors would ask for info via a certain system that is only for classified info, so they gave that info a classified heading just to send it the way their superior preferred, not because it was actually classified. The govt has multiple systems for relaying different levels of info and apparently many are lazy and just want everything sent via the highest security classified system.... or they like that it has more restricted access and makes them feel superior, etc.
The problem isn't even that -- the root problem is the entire reason for the market segmentation is to extract as much money as possible from individuals around the globe who have different disposable incomes in terms of US Dollars. The content creators/distributors would be happy to release everything globally simultaneously if it meant that they'd still get the same amount of money or more from the deal. Thing is, they won't. People in Russia, China, and other various countries in Africa an Asia aren't going to pay the same for a DVD in US Dollars as someone in the USA, parts of the EU, or Australia -- or rather some would, but not the same percentage of the population as in those countries. As long as the content is released globally simultaneously with no regional restrictions, you're essentially saying that there will only be one price -- because anyone can shop around to buy it at the lowest price if prices are set differently (except for perhaps shipping).
Price affects the number of people who buy your product or service. Generally, if you raise it, you lose customers, drop it, you gain... but maybe not enough to make up for the loss in volume. They are happy to segment the world so that those with larger disposable incomes pay more for the exact same product which they'll also sell at a lower price in another area to extract the most money from that area as well and so on.
Price discrimination is an ancient technique for extracting money from customers. Just look at your local theater - perhaps it has regular price for adults, cheaper tickets for children, and also cheaper tickets for students, veterans, and/or elderly. It's the same service, but with different pricing in an attempt to get the most money from different market segments. Global distribution without location restrictions would dissolve price discrimination -- except perhaps unless they were to release only the languages and subtitles for a region and require higher payments for wealthier regions. Say, you want the English version w/ English audio and subtitles... well, that's $50 for a Blu Ray of that. If you want the Portuguese version, that's cheaper, but there will be no English track or dubbing included so the USA will still pay $50 for theirs while Brazil likely pays less for the Portuguese version, etc.
Wouldn't the proper way of describing this event be something more like "African portion of Internet splits away briefly?" My understanding is that the continent's infrastructure was separated from the rest of the global web, but that doesn't necessarily equal NO internet access. It's entirely possible many in South Africa and other countries barely noticed the disruption.
If North America's internet connections to other continents went down, we'd likely say that international services "went down" as many of us would still have access to everything we regularly access every day. I'd still be able to access Gmail, Netflix, my online services from most businesses, etc. We wouldn't be writing about how North America's internet "went down."
Israel has no official religion, and its demographics include a 16% Muslim population and a 20% secular (atheist) Jewish population. It's hardly a theocracy with over a third of voters not identifying as Jewish (religion-wise) -- America is predominantly Christian and fits the bill a bit better than Israel.
However, I do agree that it was a huge time bomb to plant the Jews in the heart of the middle eastern holy lands surrounded by Muslim nations. But, that was intentional. Christians NEED Israel to exist so that the temple can be rebuilt as a harbinger for the apocalypse. Christians have a vested interest in keeping Israel around because the New Testament's end-times prophesies mention its existence. That's why the Republicans (largely evangelicals) strongly support Israel. It's not about the money or the oil in the region (we use Saudi Arabia, Egypt,and others for that). It's all about keeping the holy land in Jewish hands as a self-fulfilling prophesy of the Bible.
That's really odd considering that NZ is the same region code as Australia, Mexico, and all of South America for DVD and Blu Ray. A lot of new release Blu Rays are selling for about $15 US in Mexico (about 50% less than the same title in Region 1 USA/Canada). My guess is that shipping is a big factor... but, then again, they probably make those Blu Ray disks in Asia, so shipping to Oceania shouldn't be an issue.
Maybe NZ is just wealthy enough to pay more?!?!? Try buying from Mexico or Brazil on E-bay instead since you're the same region.:)
That's not a good definition of ironic. Being incorrect while thinking you were correct just because that's how you learned it isn't irony --unless there's more to the story that you aren't telling us. Expecting to be right when you're in fact wrong alone isn't ironic. Otherwise we'd be drowning in irony every time we make a mistake.
If you had used "intensive" instead of the proper "intents an purposes" (which is a common mistake btw, no worries) while purporting to be an English professor who hates when people can't express themselves properly, THAT would have been irony. (because a snobby supposed know-it-all being wrong about something they should be an expert at is ironic)
Here's a better definition: "happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this."
A marriage counselor filing for divorce would be an example of one type of irony.
A lot of sarcasm is another form of irony -- b/c of the opposite meaning of the words said. There's also situational irony, dramatic irony, and others.
Business 101 -- try to extract the most money possible from each customer. This works best when you segregate customers. IE -- get the rich guy to pay more if you can.
Give you an example:
A lot of college books sold in the USA are hardback books that cost upwards of $75. (sometimes as high as $125). You can get a used one for cheaper... OR you can find a paperback "international version" online that's being used in India. Same book, just paperback vs hardback and a slightly different title. Sometimes pictures in the book are black 'n white instead of full color, but that's rare. So, you can get this paperback international version through say... ebay for only $35 including shipping.... from some random bookstore in India which is likely making a killing in profits even w/ that low price.
So, why the 2 prices and 2 different versions?!?!? Because in the USA, college is expensive and paying that much for a book is relatively small amt compared to the cost of room, board, and tuition. In India, the book publisher would not sell any books if they sold only hardbacks at the full price, so they make cheaper paperbacks that are a bit smaller, lighter, cheaper to make... but have the same content. They still sell them for a profit, but not as high a profit as the hardback versions in the USA.
Same for lots of things. Different regions are willing to pay different prices even for the same quality, and if you can restrict selling between regions, you can extract exactly however much each is willing to pay so long as you make a profit.
Say I make something for $5, and I can sell it to Americans for $50, Australians for $45, Europeans for $40, Asians for $20, and a few other countries for only $7. I still profit from each region, and you might think I'm making more from the Americans than the Asians... but you'd probably be wrong. Sure, each American gives me $45 profit and each Asian only $15, but there are a billion more Asians than Americans. You have to factor in price and volume. You may ask why even bother to sell to some countries for only $7 -- well... b/c if the choice is don't sell to them at all or make a small profit, why not make a small profit? As long as the countries I sell it to for $7 can't re-sell it to Americans or others that regularly pay more, then they aren't cutting into my profits.
Because it's not the content provider's faults necessarily. Writers, actors, directors, musicians all have contracts which usually spell out at length how the content provider can distribute the work. If something says it's explicitly for US distribution only with an option to discuss pricing for other regions... well... they're going to restrict its distribution to the US only -- at least unless it's worth their time to call up everyone involved in the production that has a stake in it & negotiate pricing with them for the new region or distribution channel.
Say you have the TV show "Friends." Well, the actors got paid so much per episode plus they get so much EACH time the episode is played in syndication (usually starts 5 to 6 years after the first viewing) on US television. Plus, they'll get paid a percentage of the DVDs domestic and global... and so much in syndication in EU and other countries (different amts per country). Then, you have streaming rights per country... and if those rights weren't negotiated up-front, then you have to call everyone in the show and have them agree to a new contract for that new method.
I swear, it's that complicated. Hulu once had 7 seasons of a show online, but was missing one episode -- because a song was in that episode and they couldn't get the rights to the song for streaming that episode, so they left the whole episode out. Good luck w/ the multinational stuff as just streaming rights alone are complicated.
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The same way they always have?
Are you implying that electric cars don't do well in the cold? Because if you are, you're misinformed. Li Ion based batteries do poorly in heat, but the cold doesn't bother them anywhere near as much as the heat does. Also, Tesla basically has a cooling/heating system just for the batteries to keep them at an optimum temp.
Norway already has the highest number of electric vehicles per capita in the world -- mostly Teslas... and the people love them.
Newtonian physics won't allow nuclear fusion or photosynthesis. Superposition is what allows quantum tunneling which is vital to both of those processes.
Nuclear fusion takes so much energy that even with the intense pressure and heat from massive stars, the odds of a proton striking a nuclei at exactly the right angle with enough energy to fuse is extremely low, so it borrows energy from the vacuum and tunnels into the nucleus and stays as it's a lower ground state. Stars would have to be so massive to maintain stable fusion without tunneling, that they'd instead become black holes.
Since a universe without quantum mechanics would have to have completely different physics than ours, why would they bother to create an universe so unlike their own, and why would they care if the ants in it figured out they're in an ant farm? Why bother to hide any glitches with a system restore or memory wipe?
All computers have glitches -- a stray cosmic ray could flip a RAM bit or two and cause havoc on a database. If we're in a program, I wouldn't call it a simulation... because those "bugs" you mention are quantum properties of things like LEDs, other various computer parts, plantlife, and the life cycle of stars that would not work as well or at all without them. We can't be a simulation if the "real" universe is nothing like us. We'd be more like a video game with its own physics-defying rules.
Except the theory that we're in a simulation makes zero sense. The very quantum mechanical oddities that people who embrace this idea call upon as being inherent to a simulation are also critical to important natural processes -- like fusion in the heart of stars which depends on quantum tunneling of protons. Photosynthesis depends on quantum-tunneling as well. If the quantum nature of the universe is some sort of evidence that we're a simulation, then what exactly are we simulating if the "real world" outside of the simulation does not depend on the exact same quantum processes? Obviously the hypothetical "real world" MUST have different physics if our quantum physical laws are merely side-effects of the limitations of our simulation. So... How does fusion happen in the "real world?" What about photosynthesis? How about LEDs, solar cells, and various computer components that all rely on quantum effects?
It's absurd to think any of those things would be possible without our very specific physics. The only possible explanation if we're in a simulation would be that the "real world" has completely different physics than ours. That makes me wonder why beings living in such a universe would bother to simulate a fantasy world where physics not only doesn't work the way it does in the "real world," but would also bother to create an entire universe populated by sentient beings just to see how such fake physics would play out. Oddly, we'd be like a video game instead of a simulation.
Sooner or later, every computer program generates a flaw. Even if it's not a bug in programming, a single bit flip from a cosmic ray could cause havoc. One would think with a simulation our size running for this long would have produced more than a few noticeable bugs, and it would be a serious pain to roll back the universe from a saved state just so that the beings living on a slimy spec of rock around an average main sequence star in an uninteresting galaxy in a not especially special cluster of galaxies wouldn't remember the glitch and be self-aware that they're in a simulation. Oh, gee... I guess we all just signed Elon's death warrant now that we all let the beans spill that he's in on our simulation masters' secret.
Not file names -- file PATHs longer than 260 characters.
As in:
"C:\Users\Fubar\Pictures\Vacation\2013\Hawaii\Dole Plantation\Silly Photo with Sister 023.jpg"
Obviously, that's under 260 characters, but if you try copying an entire user profile to another computer's desktop folder "C:\Users\Foo\Desktop\old profile", you get an even longer character path... and some people have very elaborate Documents folders for work and school projects that are many nested folders deep and lots of characters for descriptions.
I've hit the character limit more than once myself -- especially with MP3 files with full band and song titles in the name and a few project files, but I've hit it multiple times copying entire profiles to servers as backups before swapping out a machine.
That sounds like a solution looking for a problem. My uncle and grandfather work(ed) for the railroad. For freight, you're never going to make a dent with this plan. Freight is all about momentum, not speed. Starting and stopping cargo are the hardest parts. You need a powerful engine just to move 1 fully loaded car, but that same engine can pull lots of cars -- it just hast to pick up speed over time. You're never going to pick up serious speed before you get to a populated area where you have to slow down -- because railways cross roadways. Stopping even a single car quickly requires a bag of sand to be dropped on the steel railing and makes enough friction to ruin the wheels. You're not going to get cars carrying tons of cargo to go faster than the current system. Worse -- breaking up a single locomotive train w/ tens of cars into lots of smaller cars means lots and lots of wasteful engines that have to pull those smaller cars. They'd also have to have a much larger space between each car to be able to reasonably slow down in time should one have a problem. You'd need to increase the number of tracks to make up for the wasted space to push the same amount of cargo over time. In short, there's reasons why they do things the way they do them now... mostly physics and logistics reasons.
Assuming you could update the patchwork of decades old systems properly, it wouldn't give you much savings as humans will likely be required for safety reasons well into the future - just like pilots still fly passenger planes even though autopilot does most of the work between take-offs and landings... even subway trains have conductors. We're talking about miles of track that cross public roadways with children on bikes -- not going to go fully automatic anytime soon.
Even if you re-designed the entire system to be above-ground mag-lev freight with novel breaking systems to achieve this insane acceleration/deceleration, you'd have such massive construction and power issues, it would be super-expensive. The average weight for a freight rail car is around 130 tons fully loaded. A fully loaded passenger maglev car is between 50 and 70 tons. It's not impossible... and one could often just split the cargo between multiple cars if needed. It'd be expensive, though. You'd still need to use trucks to get from the train station to the final destination.
The hyperloop is for extremely fast passenger travel to replace airlines. It has lightweight cargo (people and maybe luggage), and can be built on railways above ground with cheaper construction than the support needed for heavy freight. Above-ground tubing can be safe enough to be an automated system. It's horribly expensive because of the land purchase, construction, maintenance, safety, etc... but, once it's built, it could offer transportation faster and safer than air travel. Should eventually be cheaper, too -- and no need to worry about hijackers as it's on a track... and there's no explosive fuel to blow up a building with even if it went off-track.
Basically, the hyperloop is the replacement for air travel over land. It could also carry cargo/freight in addition to passengers if the weight and space constraints allow. A hyperloop or maglev train system might solve other problems with the freight industry as well.
Impressive, but difficult to judge. Speed is one factor, but angle of impact is important, too. 110 mph head-on into a concrete barrier will kill anyone. Even if the cabin is intact, the deceleration would liquefy and/or rupture organs. This incident appears to have the vehicle smack the wall at an angle, then ricochet and smack another wall at another angle, then continue farther before stopping at a tree. That's a lot of force transferred over time and would have decelerated the vehicle quite a lot before coming to a stop. Tearing off the front wheels in the process likely helped some in slowing the vehicle as well.
I can't really say this was any better or worse than another car striking the same barriers at the same speeds an angles, though. I think the regular industry crash tests are more telling that Tesla's design is superior to other vehicles.
*citation needed
I'm guessing you're recalling this semi-famous crash. Reports varied, but it was likely going 120 mph, and it only rolled once -- more like flipped over, skid upside down for 100 yards, then flipped back when it was stopped and the roof was torn off. It was a Mercedes SL, and was a hard-top convertible. The hard top was tough, but not 3 roll accident tough. The weight and momentum of the car would have crushed that top if it had rolled 3 times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There are other fields of study that confirm we are constantly processing information -- analyzing and filtering it at a subconscious level, which is why people are often advised to "go with their instincts" or that their first impression or choice is usually the correct one (even in multiple choice tests). It's as if our basic programming gives us great contextual advice, but if given enough time, our conscious mind may argue our way out of following that advice -- often because we don't WANT to believe it or trust ourselves enough to go with what we perceive as a rash judgement.
The subconscious is believed to work very much like a computer with simple, fact-based answers to stimuli (though sometimes those "facts" are just really ingrained personal biases or misinformation)... but, unfortunately the subconscious usually doesn't communicate well with the conscious mind outside of the perception of instinctive reactions, emotions, and dreams unless one's under hypnosis.
I'll try -- though I'm not a Clinton or Trump fan, fair warnings that I actually lean politically more towards Clinton.
There are a few main issues this election cycle -- gun control, health care (including abortion access), and immigration reform. There are lots of other issues (like gay rights, environmental issues, corporate taxes and rights, the economy, international trade, war on terror, privacy, etc), but guns, health care, and immigration are the biggest right now.
The next president will likely get to choose at least one Supreme Court Justice -- possibly as many as three. Those new justices will influence federal law for decades, and Republicans fear a Democratic-leaning SCOTUS will crush their ability to control the political landscape for a very long time. A Democratic president would also solidify Obamacare making it entrenched and only removable by something better (the horror!) while also furthering leftist gun control, equality for gays, and a better path for citizenship for immigrants. A Democratic president will also likely push for a higher minimum wage, higher corporate taxes with fewer loopholes, and possibly higher taxes for its wealthiest citizens (most of whom are enjoying the lowest tax rates they've ever paid since just after Reagan's first huge tax cut for the rich in the 1980s)
Many Republicans were hoping for a Republican-leaning supreme court -- one that would be pro-corporation, anti-abortion, and pro-government surveillance in the long term. An anti-gay marriage court ruling was the hope of many as well. Some were even rooting for pro-torture of terrorists and permanent detention of terrorists without trial in Gitmo. That was the dream, but really, most would have settled for a slightly republican-leaning court if not a stacked court in their favor.
They were hoping for a Republican president to overturn Obamacare -- especially before all of its provisions are phased in. Their predictions of the sky falling haven't come to pass yet, and if the sky doesn't fall before everything is fully working, they might have to admit they were wrong. I'm the first to admit Obamacare is flawed legislation -- single payer would have been far better, but the insurance industry is too powerful to allow the congress critters to do that.
A Republican president could also help overturn gay marriage, but that's unlikely as only a constitutional amendment could overturn the SCOTUS ruling unless there were another SCOTUS challenge.
Another strong reason Republicans wanted to win is they have a different view of the USA's role in the world as a super-power. They don't care what other nations think of them as long as the USA is feared, respected, and seen as powerful enough to bend you to their will. Also, we have a huge war profiteering industry chomping at the bit to attack any random place that defies us -- especially if we can prove some terrorists might be there (so long as they have natural resources to exploit -- if there's nothing to exploit, then we ignore the pleas for help even when we're asked to intervene). Republicans tend to do well in elections during wartime and tend to get lots of financial incentives from oil companies and defense contractors.
The autobahn is just the German version of the USA's interstate system. Half of it has speed limits below 81 mph, and the other half has an "advisory limit" of about 81 mph. The sections with speed limits are dispersed, so it's not like you can go for very long before hitting one which slows all the traffic down. If you go over 81 mph in the areas with "advisory limits" only and you have an accident, you're automatically considered partially if not completely at fault. The fastest 6 lane free-flowing section of the autobahn averages about 88 mph. That's because it really isn't safe to drive most cars faster than that. The aerodynamics make it difficult, but a side-wind can push the broad side of the car hard enough to make steering against it quickly enough to counter-act the push very difficult as well. Imagine an 18-wheeler 3 feet to your left on a curved road as a strong wind blows you towards it while you're driving 90 mph. Most people that drive on the autobahn just want to get from A to B, not use it as a drag strip or you know... die because they were driving foolishly.
How would Teslas which have a max speed of about 130 mph make any difference? There are plenty of hybrids on the roads in Atlanta, GA -- and to see someone driving under 80 mph on the interstates near Atlanta is really rare. It's understood everyone goes at least 10 mph over the posted limit around Atlanta. The same goes for parts of Knoxville, TN. In those parts, the majority of Americans are driving the same if not faster than they would be on the Autobahn.
If anything, hybrids and electrics are an improvement -- especially over old POS cars like a 1950s or 1960s oldsmobile with a top speed of 97 mph that burns gas so fast, you'd think there was a hole in the tank. A 2002/2003 Ford Taurus with a top speed of 139 mph technically could beat a Tesla (after it catches up) in a long stretch, but it would burn through fuel and need a pit-stop before the Tesla... assuming it didn't fly off the road first as it becomes very hard to control over 90 mph since it lacks the aerodynamics of a Tesla.
I get that a lot of initial hybrid users stared at their dashboard trying to hypermile and that used to slow everyone to a crawl, but I think that fad is pretty much over -- especially now that hybrids are more mainstream and gas prices have plummeted.
There's no defending the design of this Homer-mobile of fighter jets. It was designed specifically to replace a wide variety of planes in multiple services -- knowing that it would be a jack of all trades, master of none. This was done specifically to reduce maintenance costs by having one basic design to service across multiple services for multiple purposes. Instead of multiple crafts tailor-made for specific purposes, they chose to make one that will do everything, yet poorly. No other fighter jet in history had this as a constraint.
The project is more akin to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle than any other jet. Case in point -- the body was designed to accommodate vertical take-off engines which only one service will actually use. The other services will not have vertical take-off capability, but the fat rear body of the plane still exists because it's the same frame. The F-35 was supposed to replace the A-10. Yeah, that will never happen. The A-10 is a plane built around a huge gat gun -- with the ammo, fuel, and maneuverability to support ground troops for extended periods. The F-35 flies too fast, burns too much fuel, can't hover, and hasn't got the ground support firepower to sustain the cover of the Warthog. The A-10 got a service extension AND they're designing a plane specifically to replace the A-10 as they now admit the F-35 will never be able to replace it.
Beyond that, it was designed for stealth, speed, and more automated systems (along with the bulky vertical take-off design) rather than maneuverability for air to air combat or sustained presence for ground troop support. Stealth is a complete joke -- designers themselves admit any modern radar system will pick up the plane just fine -- just perhaps a slight delay before they notice the small bird flying at Mach 2. All the head's up displays and sensors won't help in a dogfight or in sustaining ground troop support when you have to fly very, very fast (which leads to poor steering) just to stay in the air because of your frame with small wings and crappy aerodynamics due to the stealth paneling.
The designers of the F-16s crap all over the F-35's in very public forums like youtube. I went to school with a couple of engineers at LM, and those old friends gave up any pretense of polishing this turd a long time ago.
Intel is at 14nm and working hard to push out 10nm after many setbacks, but not long after that, they're done. Did you not read the whole explanation about why Intel is stopping at 7nm on silicon and/or 5nm with other materials? 7nm is 14 silicon atoms wide. Any smaller, and quantum tunneling becomes such a serious issue, they need new materials. With other materials, they MIGHT be able to go as small as 5nm. That's it, though. Any smaller and you basically either need an optical computer or a quantum computer. Even with those, you'll be limited to the size of an atom per transistor at best which is 0.2nm for silicon.
Moore's Law is dead.
So, what you're saying is that any successful attempt merely needs to be duplicated with at least another disk, another player, and/or IP address/account. Then the outputs can be compared and the watermarking obfuscated or removed. In addition, rips are seldom 1:1 copies and involve new compression which removes and alters data -- including potential watermarks.
The analog hole still exists for taking video and audio recordings with a camcorder in front of a screen, and with a bit of machine learning and multiple samples from different sources, an adequate copy could be reconstructed. The audio may need more work with multiple microphones near each sound source and a way to block extraneous sounds, but it's doable. (Say, each speaker in its own sound-proof box with a microphone to a mixer.) Given enough data, in the hands of a skilled programmer and sound/lighting/media expert, perhaps even a perfect copy could be made. It'd be a lot of work, but it could be done. Once it's done, it's ready for mass pirating on the cheap.
Not that I condone any of that, but it's simply a technical problem that can and will be overcome by those with the skills, time, inclination, and a small investment in hardware.
Fear not. The foundation will continue to sell all versions of the boards as long as decent demand exists. But, you should expect further integration on newer models of all sorts of features. The Pi is intended to be a "jack of all trades" for educational purposes -- mostly for children. The foundation recommends the 1A board for integrated hobbyist projects and the newer 2B for educational institutions and kids (their core target their corporate charter says they exist to serve) exactly because it is more versatile.
I don't see how a low cost, low power file-serving is a huge leap for the Pi. Snap Servers have existed for at least a decade. If the new Pi had a faster USB to go along with the integrated wireless, I'd buy one along with a simple USB to SATA II connector and a 1TB SSD to make a pretty sweet (and very quiet) streaming media server that I could hook directly up to my main TV through HDMI as well.
Wait... are you seeing polls and demographics the rest of the country doesn't have access to? Curious how you came up with the notion that "Republicans... know they have a pretty good chance of getting a Republican President..." Is Faux News showing "unskewed *wink wink* polls" again?
I ask because if the SAME proportion of demographics show up to vote as in 2012, the election goes to the Dems. The population change among demographics has shifted further in favor of Dems in 4 years as well.
Here, you can play with the sliders yourself and see what t'd take for Reps to win. It's not going to be easy for them:
http://projects.fivethirtyeigh...
Now, I get that there's this myth of the swing voter out there, but polls and statistics show there are very few of them as the nation is largely polarized. It's just a matter of voter turnout for each demographic. There is a slight possibility that the younger demographic and the African American demographic may not have as large a turnout as with Obama's second term, but it's unlikely.
You're forgetting the 3rd option:
Horribly insecure code that's too complex (or obfuscated or just plain badly written and possibly poorly commented) for most people to bother looking at, much less fixing & for those that DO bother, they submit a fix/patch which goes ignored or rejected by the maintainer. This, of course, followed by no one bothering to fork the project b/c no one has time for that. This is where most open-source users whine and complain about features, design flaws, and bugs while devs and fanboys tell them "If you don't like it, fork it and do it YOUR way." as if that were a trivial thing just anyone can do in their spare time... b/c we all have such amazing coding skills and free time to take on such an enormous effort by ourselves.
LENR is most useful for nuclear waste cleanup and NASA missions as it primarily generates heat. The best we can get out is something like 3x the energy put in -- which is great, but considering it's heat and not electricity, there's loss in capturing that energy and putting it to use. (unless you actually only want heat) In space, it's perfect -- especially for say... Mars exploration. Still, NASA can use good old radio-isotopes instead just fine. Why bother with a LENR setup when plutonium will work without any fancy LENR reactor?
LENR seems to depend on neutron capture and electron capture (to create neutrons from protons) followed by some neutron decay back into protons which effectively transmutes some metals into other heavier metals. This isn't fully understood, but it's not surprising either. Our atmosphere converts Nitrogen into Carbon 14 from cosmic neutron bombardment all the time. I can only guess that there is some chemistry which coupled with pressure and electricity allows the proper alignment of electrical fields between some elements and deuterium to induce a form of fusion.
Some alkali and alkaline metals, given enough energy, may more readily transmute than others. Most of the experiments involve deuterium permeating an alkaline metal at high pressure under an electric current.
The reason it's done at low temp and has little usable output is b/c it doesn't involve directly fusing protons or nuclei with protons -- it's all neutron capture, electron capture, or nuclear decay / radioactivity. There's also very little fission.
LENR is fascinating, but I have serious doubts it could ever be used as a large scale power generator. It's not exactly easy to create or maintain compared to a nuclear fission reactor, and it'd have to be enormous to match the output. We'd be better off using solar panels and solar heat collectors for the effort.
I don't know about this. Clearly, she directed an aide to strip the classified header off of something, but that was AFTER the aide tried to send it multiple times through other approved channels (secure fax). We don't know whether it was actually done or even if the header was appropriate to begin with. If anything, this shows that the correct way to send it was attempted several times before resorting to this measure -- so, it wasn't that stripping the header and sending it unsecurely was the status quo -- at least at that point from the aide's perspective.
I don't condone that in any way, but it alone doesn't sound like a pattern of intentional malfeasance. I do agree that the personal control of the server was intended to dodge FOIA requests and perhaps severely hinder and possibly circumvent the Federal Records Act and National Archives regulations. It's still to be determined if she knowingly sent or received classified info via the personal e-mail server. As for whether or not it was more secure on her system or the government's system... well.. the government's system WAS hacked -- so, arguably, classified info might have been more secure on her personal server than the government's. Regardless, if it was KNOWINGLY stored on her personal system, it would be a violation.
Keep in mind that often things that are not classified get stamped as classified to go through certain channels b/c those channels are ONLY for classified documents. (like say... a secure fax or internal e-mail system) It's possible the info was not of a classified nature to begin with. It's anecdotal, but interviews from govt officials privy to such things have stated their superiors would ask for info via a certain system that is only for classified info, so they gave that info a classified heading just to send it the way their superior preferred, not because it was actually classified. The govt has multiple systems for relaying different levels of info and apparently many are lazy and just want everything sent via the highest security classified system.... or they like that it has more restricted access and makes them feel superior, etc.
The problem isn't even that -- the root problem is the entire reason for the market segmentation is to extract as much money as possible from individuals around the globe who have different disposable incomes in terms of US Dollars. The content creators/distributors would be happy to release everything globally simultaneously if it meant that they'd still get the same amount of money or more from the deal. Thing is, they won't. People in Russia, China, and other various countries in Africa an Asia aren't going to pay the same for a DVD in US Dollars as someone in the USA, parts of the EU, or Australia -- or rather some would, but not the same percentage of the population as in those countries. As long as the content is released globally simultaneously with no regional restrictions, you're essentially saying that there will only be one price -- because anyone can shop around to buy it at the lowest price if prices are set differently (except for perhaps shipping).
Price affects the number of people who buy your product or service. Generally, if you raise it, you lose customers, drop it, you gain... but maybe not enough to make up for the loss in volume. They are happy to segment the world so that those with larger disposable incomes pay more for the exact same product which they'll also sell at a lower price in another area to extract the most money from that area as well and so on.
Price discrimination is an ancient technique for extracting money from customers. Just look at your local theater - perhaps it has regular price for adults, cheaper tickets for children, and also cheaper tickets for students, veterans, and/or elderly. It's the same service, but with different pricing in an attempt to get the most money from different market segments. Global distribution without location restrictions would dissolve price discrimination -- except perhaps unless they were to release only the languages and subtitles for a region and require higher payments for wealthier regions. Say, you want the English version w/ English audio and subtitles... well, that's $50 for a Blu Ray of that. If you want the Portuguese version, that's cheaper, but there will be no English track or dubbing included so the USA will still pay $50 for theirs while Brazil likely pays less for the Portuguese version, etc.
Wouldn't the proper way of describing this event be something more like "African portion of Internet splits away briefly?" My understanding is that the continent's infrastructure was separated from the rest of the global web, but that doesn't necessarily equal NO internet access. It's entirely possible many in South Africa and other countries barely noticed the disruption.
If North America's internet connections to other continents went down, we'd likely say that international services "went down" as many of us would still have access to everything we regularly access every day. I'd still be able to access Gmail, Netflix, my online services from most businesses, etc. We wouldn't be writing about how North America's internet "went down."
Israel has no official religion, and its demographics include a 16% Muslim population and a 20% secular (atheist) Jewish population. It's hardly a theocracy with over a third of voters not identifying as Jewish (religion-wise) -- America is predominantly Christian and fits the bill a bit better than Israel.
However, I do agree that it was a huge time bomb to plant the Jews in the heart of the middle eastern holy lands surrounded by Muslim nations. But, that was intentional. Christians NEED Israel to exist so that the temple can be rebuilt as a harbinger for the apocalypse. Christians have a vested interest in keeping Israel around because the New Testament's end-times prophesies mention its existence. That's why the Republicans (largely evangelicals) strongly support Israel. It's not about the money or the oil in the region (we use Saudi Arabia, Egypt,and others for that). It's all about keeping the holy land in Jewish hands as a self-fulfilling prophesy of the Bible.
That's really odd considering that NZ is the same region code as Australia, Mexico, and all of South America for DVD and Blu Ray. A lot of new release Blu Rays are selling for about $15 US in Mexico (about 50% less than the same title in Region 1 USA/Canada). My guess is that shipping is a big factor... but, then again, they probably make those Blu Ray disks in Asia, so shipping to Oceania shouldn't be an issue.
Maybe NZ is just wealthy enough to pay more?!?!? Try buying from Mexico or Brazil on E-bay instead since you're the same region. :)
That's not a good definition of ironic. Being incorrect while thinking you were correct just because that's how you learned it isn't irony --unless there's more to the story that you aren't telling us. Expecting to be right when you're in fact wrong alone isn't ironic. Otherwise we'd be drowning in irony every time we make a mistake.
If you had used "intensive" instead of the proper "intents an purposes" (which is a common mistake btw, no worries) while purporting to be an English professor who hates when people can't express themselves properly, THAT would have been irony. (because a snobby supposed know-it-all being wrong about something they should be an expert at is ironic)
Here's a better definition: "happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this."
A marriage counselor filing for divorce would be an example of one type of irony.
A lot of sarcasm is another form of irony -- b/c of the opposite meaning of the words said. There's also situational irony, dramatic irony, and others.
Business 101 -- try to extract the most money possible from each customer. This works best when you segregate customers. IE -- get the rich guy to pay more if you can.
Give you an example:
A lot of college books sold in the USA are hardback books that cost upwards of $75. (sometimes as high as $125). You can get a used one for cheaper... OR you can find a paperback "international version" online that's being used in India. Same book, just paperback vs hardback and a slightly different title. Sometimes pictures in the book are black 'n white instead of full color, but that's rare. So, you can get this paperback international version through say... ebay for only $35 including shipping.... from some random bookstore in India which is likely making a killing in profits even w/ that low price.
So, why the 2 prices and 2 different versions?!?!? Because in the USA, college is expensive and paying that much for a book is relatively small amt compared to the cost of room, board, and tuition. In India, the book publisher would not sell any books if they sold only hardbacks at the full price, so they make cheaper paperbacks that are a bit smaller, lighter, cheaper to make... but have the same content. They still sell them for a profit, but not as high a profit as the hardback versions in the USA.
Same for lots of things. Different regions are willing to pay different prices even for the same quality, and if you can restrict selling between regions, you can extract exactly however much each is willing to pay so long as you make a profit.
Say I make something for $5, and I can sell it to Americans for $50, Australians for $45, Europeans for $40, Asians for $20, and a few other countries for only $7. I still profit from each region, and you might think I'm making more from the Americans than the Asians... but you'd probably be wrong. Sure, each American gives me $45 profit and each Asian only $15, but there are a billion more Asians than Americans. You have to factor in price and volume. You may ask why even bother to sell to some countries for only $7 -- well... b/c if the choice is don't sell to them at all or make a small profit, why not make a small profit? As long as the countries I sell it to for $7 can't re-sell it to Americans or others that regularly pay more, then they aren't cutting into my profits.
Because it's not the content provider's faults necessarily. Writers, actors, directors, musicians all have contracts which usually spell out at length how the content provider can distribute the work. If something says it's explicitly for US distribution only with an option to discuss pricing for other regions... well... they're going to restrict its distribution to the US only -- at least unless it's worth their time to call up everyone involved in the production that has a stake in it & negotiate pricing with them for the new region or distribution channel.
Say you have the TV show "Friends." Well, the actors got paid so much per episode plus they get so much EACH time the episode is played in syndication (usually starts 5 to 6 years after the first viewing) on US television. Plus, they'll get paid a percentage of the DVDs domestic and global... and so much in syndication in EU and other countries (different amts per country). Then, you have streaming rights per country... and if those rights weren't negotiated up-front, then you have to call everyone in the show and have them agree to a new contract for that new method.
I swear, it's that complicated. Hulu once had 7 seasons of a show online, but was missing one episode -- because a song was in that episode and they couldn't get the rights to the song for streaming that episode, so they left the whole episode out. Good luck w/ the multinational stuff as just streaming rights alone are complicated.