He went back into the dimensions beyond our time-space universe, a place called heaven. One day YOU will be FORCED to bow your knees and acknowledge that this GOD-MAN Jesus is the ruler of all dimensions, including this one we are presently confined to by our physical bodies.
"It is appointed for a man ONCE to die, but after that comes the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27)
Just as surely as you will die, you will face Him as your judge. At that time He will offer you only His perfect justice, based on your present life. Right now he offers mercy, if you wish to accept it, based on faith in Him and what He did. Perhaps you can stand the minute scrutiny of your entire life and come up perfect before a perfect God. I know I can't and have accepted His offer of mercy by faith in Jesus. Of all religions, only Jesus offers forgiveness and acceptance, not based on religious activity, but simply taking Him at His word by faith.
It is said of Abraham, whom Jews, Christians and Muslims assert is their ancestor, "Abraham BELIEVED God and that was accounted to him for righteousness." (Galations 3:6) You can believe, if you WANT to, or not, it is your choice.
.... I cannot freely distribute the OSX software that came with my iBook.....
Of course not, and there is no reason to do so since every Mac comes with OSX. Apple makes the whole computer and doesn't really need to take such draconian steps to prevent copying. Hardware cannot be copied for free or nearly free. There is no other product outside of computers where the entire functionality thereof is NOT provided by the manufacturer thereof. Windows PC computers are unique in this.
....In the case of a worldwide flood, though, not only have we not found evidence for it, but overwhelmingly have found a geological record that speaks directly against it.......
There is not one place on this entire planet that does NOT have evidence of having been under water at some point in time. Name ONE are where there is no evidence that water covered it at least once. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks which are formed by water actions. These sedimentary rocks are found on every continent.
So you would you say that it is impossible for all of humanity to have come from one couple, whether that was through Noah or previously through Adam and Eve? The point is that the time frames cited in the article are amazingly short in comparison the long time spans so often associated with the existence of humans on this earth.
....I do not think Apple hold much of a higher moral ground and if they had MS's market share....
This issue has really nothing to do with that, but since Apple makes its money on hardware, they don't worry about software protection and all the gyrations that MS forces users to go through. It is not cost effective to pirate a whole Mac computer. With Apple you are the owner of the computer, with MS, they own it and you are just a renter who has to abide by the lease agreement (EULA and activation) or you get evicted (computer shuts down).
.... it requires a valid windows license to dual boot.....
I wonder how this whole activation thing will work with virtualization? The virtual software hides the hardware details from the guest OS. Windows no longer has access to nor can it find out what the MAC or disk serial numbers are if it is running under OSX.
...... In a perfect world, copy and licensing protections wouldn't have to exist......
In the real, imperfect world, Apple's solution of making the hardware and software together, for each computer gives them the freedom not to have to go through all of this stupid, wasteful activation crap. It is pretty hard to make a free copy of a whole computer. This is only one good reason to prefer their computers over Windows. Apple makes it easy to replace an existing hard drive with a bigger and/or faster model and then re-installing the OS back thereon, together with all users and settings. No need for a user to phone Apple or have an internet connection.
Once MS makes it hard enough for ordinary, honest users to keep their own computers running, perhaps more and more people will begin to see the advantage of a company that makes the whole widget, all as a seamlessly operating thing that "just works". What other product is there, whose continuing functionality is at the whim of its producer, other than a computer running Windows XP or later? It seems that the attitude of MS is that THEY own your computer and therefore can "license" its use to you on terms they decide, since you are just renting it from them. Why should a car owner have to get permission from the manufacturer to replace or modify the engine or some other part of the car? Apple's model is that the user OWNS the vehicle, MS makes people passengers in a taxi, where MS, the taxi driver decides the route and fee to a destination or whether you are even allowed to go there at all. As a home owner, you are allowed to make minor structural modifications to your living space or repaint the whole place in weird colors, but as a renter, you better get permission from the landlord first. MS sees itself as the landlord of every computer running Windows.
.....Jews for Jesus is a cult and is not recognized by any mainstream denomination......
Luther and Wesley were also looked at as heretics by the then existing religious establishment. They started two mainstream denominations. Jesus Himself was accused of being demon possessed by the religious leaders of His day. Jews for Jesus are merely Jews who happen to believe that Jesus is the one their prophets wrote about, the Messiah and Savior of not only Jews, but Gentiles as well. They happen to proclaim this truth to other Jews in some unconventional ways.
.....He showed and proclaimed many times that he was God incarnate......
He did indeed! He proved who He claimed to be by rising from the dead. ALL the other founders of religions are DEAD. They don't even CLAIM the miracle of resurrection, let alone actually do it. If anyone wants to follow the one true religion, worship and become obedient to the only One who is ALIVE still today, not someone whose bones are revered, moldering in some tomb. Anyone who follows the dead ones will eventually join those dead ones in waiting for the last judgment, but the one who follows and obeys Jesus Christ will meet the living Lord. Every person on this planet can choose to be dealt with according to God's justice or His mercy, as offered through Jesus alone. I hope that some who read this will believe and choose mercy, as I have.
The study shows that our common ancestor goes back to the time of Noah, just as it is written in the holy book, the Bible.
.....We know that people first began spontaneously appearing around 4000 BCE......
According to the Bible, that would be just after the flood of Noah. The historical accuracy of these books is astounding. These are records of the doings of humanity that have never been DISPROVED by any archeological or other scientific FACTS. We have, for example never found Noah's ark, but not finding something doesn't disprove that doesn't or didn't exist. Often it was claimed by some, that certain sites or events given in these histories could not be true, because evidence for them did not exist. However, sometimes much later, such evidence was indeed found. This is especially true of the histories in the geographical area where the events happened and people of the Bible lived.
The Bible tells us that humanity started from Adam and Eve, and that all mankind except Noah's family was wiped out in the flood. All humans, according to the biblical record stem from the family of Noah. This mathematical study shows what we all know: Humans reproduce and one couple can, in a surprisingly short time, be the ancestor of everyone on Earth today. What is interesting about this study is that it puts the time back to the days of Noah, from which indeed the biblical record tells us, present day humanity branched out.
......There have been, and no doubt will continue to be, efforts to make anonymous speech - particularly anonymous speech via the Internet - illegal in the US........
Would you care to back that statement up with some facts, such as the number of a bill introduced in some legislative body? To have such a law work, there would also have to be a law against anyone to operate an unsecured wireless router. Right now, anyone could use an almost uncountable number of such access points to get on the internet. The owner/operator of such an access point would have no record on their computer(s) related to some illegal activity.
.....how much effort does it take in that kind of gov't to track you down by ip?......
Anyone can use somebody else's IP, such as an unsecured wireless router. Of course such a government could make it a crime to have an unsecured wireless router that could be accessed by some unknown user with a laptop computer.
...I can't understand why everyone assumes that Apple is anti-DRM, and that Apple is somehow "forced" by the major labels to put DRM on all of the music being sold in their store.....
The labels could sell unDRM'ed music, but they even put DRM rootkits on computers. In the beginning, before iPods became such a hit, Apple would not have put DRM on the music, except for the insistence of the RIAA companies. Even now, the labels could sell through e-music which has no DRM. Apple's contract with the labels is not an exclusive one. Apple could use this French law to test the waters for DRM free iTunes music. They cannot do this elsewhere, because their contract with the labels forbids it. If it works in France, DRM free content would likely become the norm elsewhere.
At least 90% of all music on all iPods never got there from an iTunes music store, but mostly from people's CD collections or possibly from their friend's CDs. In my own case, there are only 271 songs from the music store, out of a total of 4490 in the iTunes library. It would be interesting for someone to do a survey of what percentage of iPod songs are from the ITMS.
I don't think that Apple sells very many iPods because of the existence of the ITMS, but because the iPods themselves are well designed and "cool" and the iTunes program makes ripping CDs and the loading ipods so convenient. There isn't another system that even comes close to the combination ipod and iTunes. The ITMS is just icing on an already delicious cake.
.....the origin information could be removed as easily as any tag......
True enough, but most users would not bother or know how to do this. There is no reason for a legitimate user who legally bought the music to want to do this. Anyone who does is obviously breaking the law if they put copyrighted things out for anyone to access.
......one where each product is truly interchangable....
You mean like ordinary audio CDs from any CD maker that can be played by any CD player from any manufacturer? Like any brand of gasoline will work in any brand of car? Any kind of toaster running from any outlet toasting any bread? Why can't all downloadable music also be like this. That is in essence what the French are doing. It is the various kinds of DRM that need to be abolished. After that, downloadable music will be no different than what it was in vinyl, cassette and ordinary Cds. Blame the dinosaur music moguls for this mess.
......No, if there's one country that might, someday, have the balls to put their foot down about the ridiculous region coding, it's the United Kingdom........
They or any country could simply allow all DRM busting software to be freely available. DRM is farce and demolishing should not be protected by laws such as the DMCA. If the the media companies want to continue the cat and mouse game, let them, but the state should not interfere. Let the **AA make their DRM as mean and nasty as they can and let the hackers be free to demolish their efforts in about two seconds. Eventually DRM would just die out, as the media moguls find out they are not really losing a lot of money, especially if they charge a reasonable price and above all, make it very convenient for customers to purchase and use.
....but we don't have the rights to let you play the music....
Laws are always superior to contracts. Apple can just point to the new law and sell the same music without DRM. There is nothing the record labels can do, at least not until the present agreement expires.
....What we need is for breaking the DRM to be legal!.....
Apple could obey the new French law by simply skipping the DRM part of downloading. The AAC format as such is not proprietary. Anyone can use it. The other music services can also just skip the DRM. UndDRMed files can still have origin information to trace flagrant copyright violators who put files up on the Internet. Updating the firmware in other music players so they can play unDRMed AAC or WMA files would be their manufacturers problem. Ipods already do that.
If the labels object, they can just be told that laws are superior to private agreements and all the music services are simply obeying the law. The contract clauses about DRM are superseded by the law. Tough bananas on the labels boo-hoo! However, surprise, the labels will find out that legal music sales actually go up and they make more money.
If Apple simply stops the DRM, they'd still sell as many, if not more iPods, since now the customers of other music services could also use the iPod, which is still the best and dominant portable player being sold right now. Apple could update iTunes to work well with other music services, but still tie only the ipod tightly to iTunes. Copying music to other music players would have to be done manually or with special software provided by the maker of each other player. Apple's money is in the iPod, not the music service.
....can be used to remotely break the computer.......
If WGA really is a hook by which a computer can be disabled, then it is only a matter of time, before some nasty hacker or terrorist figures out how to use this hook and turns millions of Windows systems into doorstops.
A good reason to buy a Mac and perhaps use Windows only in a virtual window when a Windows only program MUST be run. The virtual PC can be permanently barred from using any routable network address and thus not need all those updates at all. In my case, the PC software needs no network access of any sort at all and the slowness of emulation is no problem either. Since Apple makes their money on hardware, they don't worry too much about "piracy" and don't have to resort to all the nasty shenanigans MS does. Linux is also a good option of a/. type geek not doing extensive multimedia, especially video work.
....the capacitance per foot is much higher for a buried line than for an overhead line......
Capacitance is often added to lines in order to compensate for the lagging power factor caused by inductive loads. Higher capacitance doesn't make for all that much loss. It's the heat from the resistive losses that reduces efficiency and restricts the overload capacity of all underground cables. Underground wires are hard to keep cool.
......I would suppose that Costco gets grief because it cannot compete head on with the likes of Wal-Mart.....
The day that Costco decides to compete with Walmart, is the day we will cease to be their customer. We shop at both places for different types of things.
.....what would cause a change in transmission capability between being underground or overhead?......
All wires get hot when they carry current. As they heat their resistance increases and they heat even more. If the heat cannot escape, the wires will melt. Getting the heat out of underground wires is a big problem. Insulating for higher voltage adds to the problem, because practical electrical insulators also are poor heat conductors, thus trapping the generated heat. Finding a faulty cable, especially an intermittent fault caused by leaking water is a problem and digging up the earth is expensive. Tapping into the line and locating underground transformers or making safe above ground transformer boxes or vaults costs a lot more than simply sticking a transformer on a pole, as needed. Upgrading a line to a larger wire size for higher capacity is trivial for pole mounted cables, but very expensive for anything underground.
All these and other factors combine to make underground power distribution, even long term, a much more expensive proposition. This true even in hurricane and other intense weather locations. If the long term costs of underground power distribution were lower than periodically repairing disaster ripped facilities, power companies would have under-grounded their lines long ago. The phone and cable companies have more extensively under-grounded their infrastructure, because they do not have the heat or insulation problems. Water leaking into a fiber optic cable will not even be noticed. Transformer location and human safety concerns are also non-existent for them.
Anyone who cannot or will not tolerate an occasional power loss will need to provide an alternate power source.
....your argument is that digital information itself is inherently unsuitable for archiving.......
No kind of information is inherently unsuitable for archiving, but the information is useless if it cannot be accessed. Digital information in general, especially DRM'ed data, also needs to have the keys, whether hardware or software included somehow. This is why DRM is not only bad for everyone right now, but for all practical purposes precludes future generations from finding out much of history. As time goes on, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the reading hardware and the decryption keys will be available to future generations. For example, few people would be able to retrieve the information off an encrypted cassette tape made by an old TRS80 computer. The tape itself may be preserved just fine, but it would not yield its information unless the historian also had a means of decoding and decrypting the data stores thereon. With old fashioned archiving, these last two steps are much easier and there is therefore a much higher probability that a historian would be able to interpret the information.
.....Who says paper can't be digital? Just print bar codes on it!.....
It's not only the medium, but also the means to read it. I have some 256KB 8 inch floppy disks, but how can those be read? Fortunately there are also print outs of some of the ancient data. That was only 24 years ago! The Egyptian hieroglyphics were preserved in stone, but for centuries nobody could decipher them until a key called the Rosetta stone was found which enables scholars to figure out the meaning of the ancient pictorial symbols.
So along with the printed codes, someone also better include a way to decode these into meaningful information. Preserving information in a way that requires no technology, other than what is built into each human has distinct advantages for long term storage, as long as the key to the stored symbols is also provided. An old 78 rpm record played with a cactus thorn attached to some sort of membrane may allow someone 500 years from now to access the sounds of our time, but I suspect that a CD or DVD will be a complete bafflement, even if the data thereon is still theoretically readable.
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.....He's alive today? Where is he then?......
He went back into the dimensions beyond our time-space universe, a place called heaven. One day YOU will be FORCED to bow your knees and acknowledge that this GOD-MAN Jesus is the ruler of all dimensions, including this one we are presently confined to by our physical bodies.
"It is appointed for a man ONCE to die, but after that comes the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27)
Just as surely as you will die, you will face Him as your judge. At that time He will offer you only His perfect justice, based on your present life. Right now he offers mercy, if you wish to accept it, based on faith in Him and what He did. Perhaps you can stand the minute scrutiny of your entire life and come up perfect before a perfect God. I know I can't and have accepted His offer of mercy by faith in Jesus. Of all religions, only Jesus offers forgiveness and acceptance, not based on religious activity, but simply taking Him at His word by faith.
It is said of Abraham, whom Jews, Christians and Muslims assert is their ancestor, "Abraham BELIEVED God and that was accounted to him for righteousness." (Galations 3:6) You can believe, if you WANT to, or not, it is your choice.
.... I cannot freely distribute the OSX software that came with my iBook.....
Of course not, and there is no reason to do so since every Mac comes with OSX. Apple makes the whole computer and doesn't really need to take such draconian steps to prevent copying. Hardware cannot be copied for free or nearly free. There is no other product outside of computers where the entire functionality thereof is NOT provided by the manufacturer thereof. Windows PC computers are unique in this.
....In the case of a worldwide flood, though, not only have we not found evidence for it, but overwhelmingly have found a geological record that speaks directly against it.......
There is not one place on this entire planet that does NOT have evidence of having been under water at some point in time. Name ONE are where there is no evidence that water covered it at least once. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks which are formed by water actions. These sedimentary rocks are found on every continent.
So you would you say that it is impossible for all of humanity to have come from one couple, whether that was through Noah or previously through Adam and Eve? The point is that the time frames cited in the article are amazingly short in comparison the long time spans so often associated with the existence of humans on this earth.
....then to totally ignore or deny all the evidence we DO have contrary to the Bible's account.......
Could you please give some of all that evidence there is that CONTRADICTS any biblical historical accounts?
....Do you have a solution?.....
Yes, Use MS Office for Mac. It works with files from Windows computers and you can download all the updates for free without activation.
....I do not think Apple hold much of a higher moral ground and if they had MS's market share....
This issue has really nothing to do with that, but since Apple makes its money on hardware, they don't worry about software protection and all the gyrations that MS forces users to go through. It is not cost effective to pirate a whole Mac computer. With Apple you are the owner of the computer, with MS, they own it and you are just a renter who has to abide by the lease agreement (EULA and activation) or you get evicted (computer shuts down).
.... it requires a valid windows license to dual boot.....
I wonder how this whole activation thing will work with virtualization? The virtual software hides the hardware details from the guest OS. Windows no longer has access to nor can it find out what the MAC or disk serial numbers are if it is running under OSX.
...... In a perfect world, copy and licensing protections wouldn't have to exist......
In the real, imperfect world, Apple's solution of making the hardware and software together, for each computer gives them the freedom not to have to go through all of this stupid, wasteful activation crap. It is pretty hard to make a free copy of a whole computer. This is only one good reason to prefer their computers over Windows. Apple makes it easy to replace an existing hard drive with a bigger and/or faster model and then re-installing the OS back thereon, together with all users and settings. No need for a user to phone Apple or have an internet connection.
Once MS makes it hard enough for ordinary, honest users to keep their own computers running, perhaps more and more people will begin to see the advantage of a company that makes the whole widget, all as a seamlessly operating thing that "just works". What other product is there, whose continuing functionality is at the whim of its producer, other than a computer running Windows XP or later? It seems that the attitude of MS is that THEY own your computer and therefore can "license" its use to you on terms they decide, since you are just renting it from them. Why should a car owner have to get permission from the manufacturer to replace or modify the engine or some other part of the car? Apple's model is that the user OWNS the vehicle, MS makes people passengers in a taxi, where MS, the taxi driver decides the route and fee to a destination or whether you are even allowed to go there at all. As a home owner, you are allowed to make minor structural modifications to your living space or repaint the whole place in weird colors, but as a renter, you better get permission from the landlord first. MS sees itself as the landlord of every computer running Windows.
.....Jews for Jesus is a cult and is not recognized by any mainstream denomination......
Luther and Wesley were also looked at as heretics by the then existing religious establishment. They started two mainstream denominations. Jesus Himself was accused of being demon possessed by the religious leaders of His day. Jews for Jesus are merely Jews who happen to believe that Jesus is the one their prophets wrote about, the Messiah and Savior of not only Jews, but Gentiles as well. They happen to proclaim this truth to other Jews in some unconventional ways.
.....He showed and proclaimed many times that he was God incarnate......
He did indeed! He proved who He claimed to be by rising from the dead. ALL the other founders of religions are DEAD. They don't even CLAIM the miracle of resurrection, let alone actually do it. If anyone wants to follow the one true religion, worship and become obedient to the only One who is ALIVE still today, not someone whose bones are revered, moldering in some tomb. Anyone who follows the dead ones will eventually join those dead ones in waiting for the last judgment, but the one who follows and obeys Jesus Christ will meet the living Lord. Every person on this planet can choose to be dealt with according to God's justice or His mercy, as offered through Jesus alone. I hope that some who read this will believe and choose mercy, as I have.
The study shows that our common ancestor goes back to the time of Noah, just as it is written in the holy book, the Bible.
.....We know that people first began spontaneously appearing around 4000 BCE......
According to the Bible, that would be just after the flood of Noah. The historical accuracy of these books is astounding. These are records of the doings of humanity that have never been DISPROVED by any archeological or other scientific FACTS. We have, for example never found Noah's ark, but not finding something doesn't disprove that doesn't or didn't exist. Often it was claimed by some, that certain sites or events given in these histories could not be true, because evidence for them did not exist. However, sometimes much later, such evidence was indeed found. This is especially true of the histories in the geographical area where the events happened and people of the Bible lived.
The Bible tells us that humanity started from Adam and Eve, and that all mankind except Noah's family was wiped out in the flood. All humans, according to the biblical record stem from the family of Noah. This mathematical study shows what we all know: Humans reproduce and one couple can, in a surprisingly short time, be the ancestor of everyone on Earth today. What is interesting about this study is that it puts the time back to the days of Noah, from which indeed the biblical record tells us, present day humanity branched out.
......There have been, and no doubt will continue to be, efforts to make anonymous speech - particularly anonymous speech via the Internet - illegal in the US........
Would you care to back that statement up with some facts, such as the number of a bill introduced in some legislative body? To have such a law work, there would also have to be a law against anyone to operate an unsecured wireless router. Right now, anyone could use an almost uncountable number of such access points to get on the internet. The owner/operator of such an access point would have no record on their computer(s) related to some illegal activity.
.....how much effort does it take in that kind of gov't to track you down by ip?......
Anyone can use somebody else's IP, such as an unsecured wireless router. Of course such a government could make it a crime to have an unsecured wireless router that could be accessed by some unknown user with a laptop computer.
...I can't understand why everyone assumes that Apple is anti-DRM, and that Apple is somehow "forced" by the major labels to put DRM on all of the music being sold in their store.....
The labels could sell unDRM'ed music, but they even put DRM rootkits on computers. In the beginning, before iPods became such a hit, Apple would not have put DRM on the music, except for the insistence of the RIAA companies. Even now, the labels could sell through e-music which has no DRM. Apple's contract with the labels is not an exclusive one. Apple could use this French law to test the waters for DRM free iTunes music. They cannot do this elsewhere, because their contract with the labels forbids it. If it works in France, DRM free content would likely become the norm elsewhere.
At least 90% of all music on all iPods never got there from an iTunes music store, but mostly from people's CD collections or possibly from their friend's CDs. In my own case, there are only 271 songs from the music store, out of a total of 4490 in the iTunes library. It would be interesting for someone to do a survey of what percentage of iPod songs are from the ITMS.
I don't think that Apple sells very many iPods because of the existence of the ITMS, but because the iPods themselves are well designed and "cool" and the iTunes program makes ripping CDs and the loading ipods so convenient. There isn't another system that even comes close to the combination ipod and iTunes. The ITMS is just icing on an already delicious cake.
.....the origin information could be removed as easily as any tag......
True enough, but most users would not bother or know how to do this. There is no reason for a legitimate user who legally bought the music to want to do this. Anyone who does is obviously breaking the law if they put copyrighted things out for anyone to access.
......one where each product is truly interchangable....
You mean like ordinary audio CDs from any CD maker that can be played by any CD player from any manufacturer? Like any brand of gasoline will work in any brand of car? Any kind of toaster running from any outlet toasting any bread? Why can't all downloadable music also be like this. That is in essence what the French are doing. It is the various kinds of DRM that need to be abolished. After that, downloadable music will be no different than what it was in vinyl, cassette and ordinary Cds. Blame the dinosaur music moguls for this mess.
......No, if there's one country that might, someday, have the balls to put their foot down about the ridiculous region coding, it's the United Kingdom........
They or any country could simply allow all DRM busting software to be freely available. DRM is farce and demolishing should not be protected by laws such as the DMCA. If the the media companies want to continue the cat and mouse game, let them, but the state should not interfere. Let the **AA make their DRM as mean and nasty as they can and let the hackers be free to demolish their efforts in about two seconds. Eventually DRM would just die out, as the media moguls find out they are not really losing a lot of money, especially if they charge a reasonable price and above all, make it very convenient for customers to purchase and use.
....but we don't have the rights to let you play the music....
Laws are always superior to contracts. Apple can just point to the new law and sell the same music without DRM. There is nothing the record labels can do, at least not until the present agreement expires.
....What we need is for breaking the DRM to be legal!.....
Apple could obey the new French law by simply skipping the DRM part of downloading. The AAC format as such is not proprietary. Anyone can use it. The other music services can also just skip the DRM. UndDRMed files can still have origin information to trace flagrant copyright violators who put files up on the Internet. Updating the firmware in other music players so they can play unDRMed AAC or WMA files would be their manufacturers problem. Ipods already do that.
If the labels object, they can just be told that laws are superior to private agreements and all the music services are simply obeying the law. The contract clauses about DRM are superseded by the law. Tough bananas on the labels boo-hoo! However, surprise, the labels will find out that legal music sales actually go up and they make more money.
If Apple simply stops the DRM, they'd still sell as many, if not more iPods, since now the customers of other music services could also use the iPod, which is still the best and dominant portable player being sold right now. Apple could update iTunes to work well with other music services, but still tie only the ipod tightly to iTunes. Copying music to other music players would have to be done manually or with special software provided by the maker of each other player. Apple's money is in the iPod, not the music service.
....can be used to remotely break the computer.......
/. type geek not doing extensive multimedia, especially video work.
If WGA really is a hook by which a computer can be disabled, then it is only a matter of time, before some nasty hacker or terrorist figures out how to use this hook and turns millions of Windows systems into doorstops.
A good reason to buy a Mac and perhaps use Windows only in a virtual window when a Windows only program MUST be run. The virtual PC can be permanently barred from using any routable network address and thus not need all those updates at all. In my case, the PC software needs no network access of any sort at all and the slowness of emulation is no problem either. Since Apple makes their money on hardware, they don't worry too much about "piracy" and don't have to resort to all the nasty shenanigans MS does. Linux is also a good option of a
....the capacitance per foot is much higher for a buried line than for an overhead line......
Capacitance is often added to lines in order to compensate for the lagging power factor caused by inductive loads. Higher capacitance doesn't make for all that much loss. It's the heat from the resistive losses that reduces efficiency and restricts the overload capacity of all underground cables. Underground wires are hard to keep cool.
......I would suppose that Costco gets grief because it cannot compete head on with the likes of Wal-Mart.....
The day that Costco decides to compete with Walmart, is the day we will cease to be their customer. We shop at both places for different types of things.
.....what would cause a change in transmission capability between being underground or overhead?......
All wires get hot when they carry current. As they heat their resistance increases and they heat even more. If the heat cannot escape, the wires will melt. Getting the heat out of underground wires is a big problem. Insulating for higher voltage adds to the problem, because practical electrical insulators also are poor heat conductors, thus trapping the generated heat. Finding a faulty cable, especially an intermittent fault caused by leaking water is a problem and digging up the earth is expensive. Tapping into the line and locating underground transformers or making safe above ground transformer boxes or vaults costs a lot more than simply sticking a transformer on a pole, as needed. Upgrading a line to a larger wire size for higher capacity is trivial for pole mounted cables, but very expensive for anything underground.
All these and other factors combine to make underground power distribution, even long term, a much more expensive proposition. This true even in hurricane and other intense weather locations. If the long term costs of underground power distribution were lower than periodically repairing disaster ripped facilities, power companies would have under-grounded their lines long ago. The phone and cable companies have more extensively under-grounded their infrastructure, because they do not have the heat or insulation problems. Water leaking into a fiber optic cable will not even be noticed. Transformer location and human safety concerns are also non-existent for them.
Anyone who cannot or will not tolerate an occasional power loss will need to provide an alternate power source.
....your argument is that digital information itself is inherently unsuitable for archiving.......
No kind of information is inherently unsuitable for archiving, but the information is useless if it cannot be accessed. Digital information in general, especially DRM'ed data, also needs to have the keys, whether hardware or software included somehow. This is why DRM is not only bad for everyone right now, but for all practical purposes precludes future generations from finding out much of history. As time goes on, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the reading hardware and the decryption keys will be available to future generations. For example, few people would be able to retrieve the information off an encrypted cassette tape made by an old TRS80 computer. The tape itself may be preserved just fine, but it would not yield its information unless the historian also had a means of decoding and decrypting the data stores thereon. With old fashioned archiving, these last two steps are much easier and there is therefore a much higher probability that a historian would be able to interpret the information.
.....Who says paper can't be digital? Just print bar codes on it!.....
It's not only the medium, but also the means to read it. I have some 256KB 8 inch floppy disks, but how can those be read? Fortunately there are also print outs of some of the ancient data. That was only 24 years ago! The Egyptian hieroglyphics were preserved in stone, but for centuries nobody could decipher them until a key called the Rosetta stone was found which enables scholars to figure out the meaning of the ancient pictorial symbols.
So along with the printed codes, someone also better include a way to decode these into meaningful information. Preserving information in a way that requires no technology, other than what is built into each human has distinct advantages for long term storage, as long as the key to the stored symbols is also provided. An old 78 rpm record played with a cactus thorn attached to some sort of membrane may allow someone 500 years from now to access the sounds of our time, but I suspect that a CD or DVD will be a complete bafflement, even if the data thereon is still theoretically readable.