I thought of this, but in the snow cover situation, only one side thinks it's a four way stop. You'd have to have a "snow sensor" and shut down all 4 sides of the light for that to work.
No, you don't need anything like that. I'm not sure how the rules are in.US, but here in.NL traffic lights do not control who has right of way, normal rules for right of way apply even on an intersection with traffic lights, specifically because you can't assume the other guys light is working. You never enter an intersection without looking. If you run a red light and crash into someone coming from the left; you get a ticket for the red light, the other guy gets one for not giving right of way.
What traffic lights do is control access to the intersection.
it doesn't happen very often that the server(s) or other peers on the other end will offer me a combined bandwidth of more than 600kbyte/sec.
2 words: private trackers.
I've got a 120/10 Mbit connection and I regularly download torrents at 8Mbyte/second, in fact, the download speed is limited by the old 700Mhz AMD box I'm using as a download machine, the CPU maxes out at during downloads. (using only encrypted peers) plus the disks in this machine are very old/slow. It's due to be replaced as soon as I can find the budget. (My desktop is a Mac and thus not very useful for fast torrent downloads due to HFS+ not supporting sparse files)
I don't download very many linux ISO's, but the few I have downloaded weren't going any faster than 200kbyte/sec, which my connection is ample for.
I pull those in at 13Mbyte/second easy on my desktop machine, you just need to find a good server, which is not too hard (universities usually have fast connections and mirrors for most distro's). Sounds to me your ISP sold more bandwidth than they can deliver.
I still want a paper reciept for every transaction, but dealing with them each time could be a pain. It would be easier if the banks managed them and collected them to send with your statement.
You do get a paper receipt (if you still use those) of all your transactions on your bank statement. Or you can just download the PDF and archive that.
Taking it one step further, we could have a piece of paper that says how much to transfer, signed by the transferer to make it legal. Then there'd even be a paper trail that could be checked if there were any problems!
Not sure what to call something like that, maybe "instant signed bank-to-bank transfer guarantee on paper receipt" (or "isbtobtgopr" for short)?
Except that it isn't reliable, or instant, or guaranteed (when we still had cheques here, they were only guaranteed up to 300 guilders (about 125 euro). So you'd still need a whole stack of them to pay for a car, cash would be easier.)
If someone pays me via a direct online bank transfer, I can check if the money is in my account immediately, usually doesn't take more than a minute. Also, it'll show up on my and their bank statement so you do have a paper trail.
The truth is that psychologically, if you can do something with a couple clicks of a button while you sit at home eating potato chips in your living room, it doesn't feel that illegal, regardless of what the law is or isn't.
The reason it doesn't feel illegal is not that it's easy to do. It's easy to shoot someone while you sit at home eating potato chips, just point a gun at one of your family members and pull the trigger, but that DOES feel wrong, doesn't it ? Killing someone is illegal because we evolved to strongly dislike killing our own kind (not getting killed = more members of species). Same goes for stealing (not letting others steal your food = better chance of survival).
Similarly, the effects of supply and demand are quite 'instinctive'. If something is in limited supply and there is a strong demand, a higher price feels natural. For example: the most attractive girl in school will get the most attention and boys will go through quite a lot of trouble to get a date with her, would they spend the same amount of time and effort on a slutty girl who sleeps with everyone ? Simple survival instinct, if something is desirable for whatever reason (attractive => better offspring, tasty => better quality food) and there is a limited supply, our instinct tells us it's worth it to invest more to obtain it and get that advantage. If supply is limitless, then there is no need to spend resources on obtaining it.
We don't have a built-in dislike for taking something of which there is a limitless supply (copies) because there is no need for such a thing. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The story in the bible about Jesus sharing 5 loafs of bread with 5000 people is not there to warn you of the dangers of copyright violation, the guy turning 5 loafs into enough for 5000 was not the bad guy in that story. Sharing is good for the species, especially if it doesn't cost you a thing.
I would like to argue that the problem with copyright in the 'digital age' is not that copying doesn't feel wrong, it's that charging for something that can be copied with little to no cost does.
I assume the people in this treaty discussion are either funded by the executive or legislative branch. And last time I heard, there are people who ultimately answer for their actions. One of those is the president.
You assume wrong, to quote Douglas Adams: "The purpose of the office of the president is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it."
The real people in power - the corporate lobbies funding the entire operation - will not have to answer to anything.
(..) I've downloaded a fair amount of movies, music and software in my life but it's almost always been because it was too expensive, not yet released where I live or simply much more convenient to do so. (...) But a $4 iPhone game that can be downloaded in a minute at the click of a button? That seems pointless to me...
Same here, I've spent more money on software in the year I've had my iPhone than in the decade before that. If I can buy a great game like Monkey Island for a few euro's it's not even worth the effort to pirate it.
I would happily pay an honest price for (on-demand) movies and series if only it was as convenient as buying app-store apps and if it would actually be available over here. For example: the new Stargate series, it'll be years before it's on TV here, and they'll probably mess up the order (I have no clue why they do this, but they can's seem to ever show any series in the correct order over here), stop halfway through a season, broadcast it at random times, etc. It's almost as if they don't want people to follow the series.
What is the difference between a 'functional' application and a game ? A game is just as functional as any other app: it's function is to entertain.
Also, non-game applications can also contain 17+ content, the appstore contains some erotic applications that aren't games, shouldn't they be rated ? Where do you draw the line ?
allowing it to play 720p video through the optional HDMI Zune dock on a high-definition television
Yes, you can playback 720p if you buy a $90 dock, for a $219 player. Meanwhile, back in reality, this means that the Zune cannot play HD video (it's only 480x272) unless you spend a significant amount of additional money (40%). They should have called it the Zune HD-ready.
The HD in the name, however, does not refer to that feature, but to the HD-radio.
Ah, that's another brilliant piece of marketese, everyone assumes it has something to do with HD video. In reality, it refers to the Hybrid Digital FM radio.
If that is so, why not turn it around and beat them at their own game ?
If you want to play your commercial on the TV or radio you have to pay for the air time. Let all radio stations and TV channels stop broadcasting music from RIAA artists and then charge the RIAA for every time they want to have one of their songs played on the radio at the same rate other companies have to pay for advertising time. Maybe give them a wholesale discount if they buy in bulk.
The biggest problem is getting every station to cooperate, which would be nearly impossible.
I rather like to be able to call my friends who have cell phones without paying a penalty for doing so.
I'm from the Netherlands (2nd cheapest on the list) and I can say that there is no penalty for calling your friends on their mobile phone, as long as you call from another mobile phone (does anyone even use a landline anymore ?).
Add in all of these perks and break down the monthly rate by the number of minutes used and many Americans wind up paying around $0.02-$0.03 per minute for their cellular phones.
Which is only useful if you use your mobile to call people, I don't. On average, I call 1 to 2 minutes per month. I use my mobile for internet access, which is flat-fee, cheap and fast.
Sure, but they will be targeting civilized parts of the world with this service so latency shouldn't be that high. Ping times to a server in a datacenter near the major internet exchange of the country I live in (.nl) average to about 10ms (between 8 and 12, occasional spike to 14ms) at the moment. And this is over a cable modem. If they choose the location of their datacenters carefully (and they'll have to) latency shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Of course, if the operator had to provide unlock codes on request, and Apple had a mechanism in the iPhone to use them, there wouldn't be nearly as much work being done on breaking the baseband to begin with.
They already do, at least over here (The Netherlands). Operators are required to provide a SIM-unlock after 1 year. You can get one earlier but you'll have to pay for it, depending on how long you've had the phone.
they'll decide to "meet us in the middle" with the compromise of allowing jailbreaking, but rendering baseband hacking (and thus unlocking) outlawed.
I don't think they need to, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think hacking the baseband is already illegal. Since the baseband drives the radio it's subject to FCC approval. Changing it basically means you're operating an unlicensed radio on a regulated frequency.
Don't ALL cell phones, even that aren't iphones, especially those which have the capability to install software on them, have this same problem?
No, you're not able to access or change the baseband software. Also, jailbreaking the iPhone doesn't change the baseband AFAIK. Only the SIM-lock does require changing the baseband, which is a completely separate issue.
Although $20/month is a bit steep, I would consider this service were is not for a few limitations that make the service completely useless.
1) Only available in the US. Really guys, it's time to start thinking globally, the rest of the internet has for the last 10 years. 2) DRM, you don't really own the tracks, you can just play them for as long as you keep paying. 3) Can't play it on an iPod/iPhone, or any (portable) media player
If the music industry wants to get rid of piracy they have to start seeing them as competitors with a superior product. Since they cannot compete on price they have to compete on convenience and quality.
1) Make it global 2) Make sure EVERY song is there, not just the major labels 3) Allow artists to upload directly to the service, offer them the possibility to cut out the middle man. Effectively: phase out all music labels, let them fade out into oblivion. Smart music labels could re-invent themselves as companies that sell services (studio time, marketing, etc.) to artists. 4) No restrictions, no DRM, complete freedom. 5) Make it affordable so Average Joe will not even consider going through the 'effort' of pirating music. Flat-fee is preferred (e.g. $9,99/month would seem reasonable).
Slashdot Mirror
No, you don't need anything like that. I'm not sure how the rules are in .US, but here in .NL traffic lights do not control who has right of way, normal rules for right of way apply even on an intersection with traffic lights, specifically because you can't assume the other guys light is working. You never enter an intersection without looking. If you run a red light and crash into someone coming from the left; you get a ticket for the red light, the other guy gets one for not giving right of way.
What traffic lights do is control access to the intersection.
2 words: private trackers.
I've got a 120/10 Mbit connection and I regularly download torrents at 8Mbyte/second, in fact, the download speed is limited by the old 700Mhz AMD box I'm using as a download machine, the CPU maxes out at during downloads. (using only encrypted peers) plus the disks in this machine are very old/slow. It's due to be replaced as soon as I can find the budget. (My desktop is a Mac and thus not very useful for fast torrent downloads due to HFS+ not supporting sparse files)
I pull those in at 13Mbyte/second easy on my desktop machine, you just need to find a good server, which is not too hard (universities usually have fast connections and mirrors for most distro's). Sounds to me your ISP sold more bandwidth than they can deliver.
Now the game is cancelled, can they at least release the data from the motion-captured strippers ?
You do get a paper receipt (if you still use those) of all your transactions on your bank statement. Or you can just download the PDF and archive that.
As with any large sale/transaction: have a sales contract.
Except that it isn't reliable, or instant, or guaranteed (when we still had cheques here, they were only guaranteed up to 300 guilders (about 125 euro). So you'd still need a whole stack of them to pay for a car, cash would be easier.)
If someone pays me via a direct online bank transfer, I can check if the money is in my account immediately, usually doesn't take more than a minute. Also, it'll show up on my and their bank statement so you do have a paper trail.
> If I wanted to buy a car from somebody, how would I do it?
Transfer money from your bank account directly to theirs ?
Or what about: AvantGo
The reason it doesn't feel illegal is not that it's easy to do. It's easy to shoot someone while you sit at home eating potato chips, just point a gun at one of your family members and pull the trigger, but that DOES feel wrong, doesn't it ? Killing someone is illegal because we evolved to strongly dislike killing our own kind (not getting killed = more members of species). Same goes for stealing (not letting others steal your food = better chance of survival).
Similarly, the effects of supply and demand are quite 'instinctive'. If something is in limited supply and there is a strong demand, a higher price feels natural. For example: the most attractive girl in school will get the most attention and boys will go through quite a lot of trouble to get a date with her, would they spend the same amount of time and effort on a slutty girl who sleeps with everyone ? Simple survival instinct, if something is desirable for whatever reason (attractive => better offspring, tasty => better quality food) and there is a limited supply, our instinct tells us it's worth it to invest more to obtain it and get that advantage. If supply is limitless, then there is no need to spend resources on obtaining it.
We don't have a built-in dislike for taking something of which there is a limitless supply (copies) because there is no need for such a thing. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The story in the bible about Jesus sharing 5 loafs of bread with 5000 people is not there to warn you of the dangers of copyright violation, the guy turning 5 loafs into enough for 5000 was not the bad guy in that story. Sharing is good for the species, especially if it doesn't cost you a thing.
I would like to argue that the problem with copyright in the 'digital age' is not that copying doesn't feel wrong, it's that charging for something that can be copied with little to no cost does.
You assume wrong, to quote Douglas Adams: "The purpose of the office of the president is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it."
The real people in power - the corporate lobbies funding the entire operation - will not have to answer to anything.
That makes it even worse, instead of waiting 2-3 years I would have to wait at least 5.
Same here, I've spent more money on software in the year I've had my iPhone than in the decade before that. If I can buy a great game like Monkey Island for a few euro's it's not even worth the effort to pirate it.
I would happily pay an honest price for (on-demand) movies and series if only it was as convenient as buying app-store apps and if it would actually be available over here. For example: the new Stargate series, it'll be years before it's on TV here, and they'll probably mess up the order (I have no clue why they do this, but they can's seem to ever show any series in the correct order over here), stop halfway through a season, broadcast it at random times, etc. It's almost as if they don't want people to follow the series.
What is the difference between a 'functional' application and a game ? A game is just as functional as any other app: it's function is to entertain.
Also, non-game applications can also contain 17+ content, the appstore contains some erotic applications that aren't games, shouldn't they be rated ? Where do you draw the line ?
The price of a HDMI cable is not 40% of the price of the player (unless you let yourself be ripped off)
Yes, you can playback 720p if you buy a $90 dock, for a $219 player. Meanwhile, back in reality, this means that the Zune cannot play HD video (it's only 480x272) unless you spend a significant amount of additional money (40%). They should have called it the Zune HD-ready.
The HD in the name, however, does not refer to that feature, but to the HD-radio.
Ah, that's another brilliant piece of marketese, everyone assumes it has something to do with HD video. In reality, it refers to the Hybrid Digital FM radio.
Yes, really.
Did you even read the article ? Suppose not... this is slashdot after all.
The article states that prebinding (similar to prelink) was used in previous versions of OS X and has been replaced by a much faster shared cache.
If that is so, why not turn it around and beat them at their own game ?
If you want to play your commercial on the TV or radio you have to pay for the air time. Let all radio stations and TV channels stop broadcasting music from RIAA artists and then charge the RIAA for every time they want to have one of their songs played on the radio at the same rate other companies have to pay for advertising time. Maybe give them a wholesale discount if they buy in bulk.
The biggest problem is getting every station to cooperate, which would be nearly impossible.
Yes.
Purchases are not linked to the device but to your iTunes account.
I'm from the Netherlands (2nd cheapest on the list) and I can say that there is no penalty for calling your friends on their mobile phone, as long as you call from another mobile phone (does anyone even use a landline anymore ?).
Which is only useful if you use your mobile to call people, I don't. On average, I call 1 to 2 minutes per month. I use my mobile for internet access, which is flat-fee, cheap and fast.
Sure, but they will be targeting civilized parts of the world with this service so latency shouldn't be that high. Ping times to a server in a datacenter near the major internet exchange of the country I live in (.nl) average to about 10ms (between 8 and 12, occasional spike to 14ms) at the moment. And this is over a cable modem. If they choose the location of their datacenters carefully (and they'll have to) latency shouldn't be too much of a problem.
They already do, at least over here (The Netherlands). Operators are required to provide a SIM-unlock after 1 year. You can get one earlier but you'll have to pay for it, depending on how long you've had the phone.
I don't think they need to, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think hacking the baseband is already illegal. Since the baseband drives the radio it's subject to FCC approval. Changing it basically means you're operating an unlicensed radio on a regulated frequency.
No, you're not able to access or change the baseband software. Also, jailbreaking the iPhone doesn't change the baseband AFAIK. Only the SIM-lock does require changing the baseband, which is a completely separate issue.
Although $20/month is a bit steep, I would consider this service were is not for a few limitations that make the service completely useless.
1) Only available in the US. Really guys, it's time to start thinking globally, the rest of the internet has for the last 10 years.
2) DRM, you don't really own the tracks, you can just play them for as long as you keep paying.
3) Can't play it on an iPod/iPhone, or any (portable) media player
If the music industry wants to get rid of piracy they have to start seeing them as competitors with a superior product. Since they cannot compete on price they have to compete on convenience and quality.
1) Make it global /month would seem reasonable).
2) Make sure EVERY song is there, not just the major labels
3) Allow artists to upload directly to the service, offer them the possibility to cut out the middle man. Effectively: phase out all music labels, let them fade out into oblivion. Smart music labels could re-invent themselves as companies that sell services (studio time, marketing, etc.) to artists.
4) No restrictions, no DRM, complete freedom.
5) Make it affordable so Average Joe will not even consider going through the 'effort' of pirating music. Flat-fee is preferred (e.g. $9,99