While I enjoy your comment, I'd like to point out that 30 hp is a lot of power. I managed to get up Baldwin Street on a bicycle -- that's 2/3 horsepower
Fair enough. What was your MPH though?
there aren't steeper streets in Vermont or anywhere else
There are some that look a bit steeper, and they don't go straight up, they go diagonally. I will admit though these are the exception in Vermont, and you only encounter them going up to a mountain town / resort... but at the same time we have a decent skiing industry here too that many people will drive to VT to experience.
Granted, the bike and I, together, only weigh 70 kilos, but with 45x more power, and lower gearing, it'd do just fine... at the expense of speed.
Ahh, that's what I thought. I don't have anything like the link you posted, but there are some pretty significant inclines on my way to and from work. Enough that semis slow to about 40. This is an interstate, where the legal lower limit is 40 MPH. I don't think such a car as the Tata would work here. Even Burlington itself has some pretty steep streets (Main Street, for one).
So the problem isn't that it can't go up hills with heavy loads, it's that fatass American families won't buy a car that can only do 4 mph up the hill to their home when they've packed the back with useless junk they bought at the mall and stuck their enormous selves in every seat.
I think this is going a bit far. Not everything is useless junk after all. Some people load up drywall and other building supplies for home improvement projects. Also, having some cars that can only go 4 MPH uphill on an interstate is asking for trouble. Do you really think the car gets 56 MPG if it has a top speed of 4 MPH going up an incline?
Cars get better gas millage in Florida than they would here.
I guess that depends on if a one HP motor really is the equiovlent of a horse. Of course then, some horses are stronger than others too. It also depends on how much a wagon weights compared to today's car (the Tata in particular). I couldn't find its weight in the article.
"If I enabled wireless security on my network and someone hacked it, I would have a far harder time proving my innocence"
His theory. I didn't hear him claim the lawyer told him that.
Like you, I'm pretty terrified of the accusation, so my network is locked down as tight as I can get it. I use WPA with a strong password, MAC address filtering, I renumbered the subnet from the default, I set a strong administrator password, and disabled DHCP... and if I can think of anything else I can do to lock it down, I'll probably do it, out of fear that somebody will do something nefarious with it.
No, from what I've seen in legal cases is that you have to at least show it was likely someone else used your property to commit the crime. It's not enough to say "someone else was driving my car" you have to explain who it could have been and know reasonably where it was.
If you really want to lock things down, no need to disable DHCP. Just setup a RADIUS server and get an AP that supports it. Breaking into your network requires two steps then; breaking the encryption, AND compromsing the RADIUS server.. both of which would need to be done to use the network in the first place.
On the other hand, if I do get hacked (somehow), all that work will probably hang me. Couple that with the fact that I have an advanced degree in computer science (which to the average slashdot reader seems to mean I now *nothing* about computers, but would surely impress a jury of my "peers" that I'm impervious to being hacked), and if my network is used against me, I'm getting the death penalty.
They'd have to prove more than just your network was used. They'd need to find it on one of your computers somewhere, which there shouldn't be, because you didn't do it. Also, keeping logs can help if you can find in the logs that something weird happened that looks like a security breach.
I bet that a significant portion of those accidents are caused by drivers who are speeding, driving under influence or a combination of both.
Ahh speeding. You mean going above the artifically low limit set by government and the insurance industry so that they can generate more reveue? If all the driver is doing is speeding, than it's impossible for a pedistrian to be hit unless they disobey a crossing signel or cross against traffic.
As for DUI, I think I may have encountered two other drivers that may have been intoxicated in some way. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of other cars I've been in traffic with, that number is small, which is where part of my 1% comes in.
Compare that with peds that do whatever they want, which happens daily almost anytime one of them crosses the street. I don't think it's helping the situtation here when we have crossing guards that run out with their stop signs an expect everything to stop RIGHT NOW so that kids don't have to stop walking for a few minutes.. not exactly setting a great example.
The medical community says 65% of Americans are overweight. It was reported on the news last night. But go ahead, believe what you want. I just know that looking around my neighborhood, I was suprised they said the number was so low.
Well, the actual article is pretty silly. His response to "if you're accused of downloading child porn you're better off pleading that going to court?" Ya, just want I want to do, have that on my record.
Fine. Go to said person and tell them "your network is not secured, so I'm using it to read my mail." Tell me if they care or not then. Seriously, just because someone doesn't know their WiFi is not secured doesn't mean they won't care that you're using. They just don't know.
Correct. The reason I still blame the peds is because 99% of the time they are crossing illegally. Against the light, or more often (almost every intersection has a crosswalk signal), against the crosswalk signal. I'm not sure if its the same where you live, but that's how it is here.
The photos I've seen of Germany in that era didn't show fatass Germans. They seemed to be of healthy weight. Compare to the average American today; over-weight by at least 50 lbs.
And given that the vast majority of driving that the vast majority of people seem to do is driving alone or with a single passenger in the car... it makes a lot more sense to move to motorcycles.
No, it doesn't. You're more likely to die if you're in an accident on a cycle. Also, I don't think a motorcylce is a good idea in bad weather, snow in pariticular, nor do I want to show up for work soaked.
They are also smaller, can park 3 in a normal parking space
Which is illegal in almost every state, I believe.
can even carry your groceries home....
Really? My wife and I can carry home $300 worth of groceries split over two motorcycles? Please explain how. I currently fill about 75% my 03 Acura TL trunk.
I think it makes a lot of sense for me to have a motorcycle for the warm months, and a car for when I need to carry larger items, more passengers, or there is snow on the ground.
Well for me the "warmer months" are at most five months, depending on your definition of warm. We certainly can get snow in April, and although rare its been known to snow in May as well. At any rate, once you figure in extra insurance and maintence costs, I'm not sure it makes sense to have a car and cycle.
Your last statement though is pretty telling; YOU haven't had a need for more than a Jetta. Some people do.
Honestly, I think its disgusting that people drive around using SUVs, Minivans, and four by fours as their normal commuting vehicle when 90% of the time its just them.
Such a waste. Not to mention road hazard. Those vehicles do far more damage to anything they hit than a motorcycle or smaller car. They are a menace to everyone around them.
Again, while I more or less agree, the edge case can come up pretty often. Do I normally have more than two people in my car? No, but it happens often enough that I'm glad I have enough space.
I personally find the ribbon to be crap but that's just me. However I would think one of the reason for OO is to provide an open source alternative for Microsoft monopoly on word processing. Given that it could be necessary to have an option in OO to have an alternate ribbon UI for those wanting to migrate from Office to OO. This option has now been permanently banned by Microsoft because they want to be a monoploy.
Why would having a ribbon or not make an impact in migration? We're not talking about file formats here (which IMO is more important than whether the UI is similar when talking about migration). It's a different UI, one that you have to relearn anyway when moving to OOo.
The ribbon isn't innovation it has been done many times before in other applications. Having software and UI patentable is just insane, computer methods can always be mapped into doing something using just pen and paper, adding a computer into it doesn't make it innovative. Software is also just a mathematical construct and you don't patent math. Just imagine how far we would be behind times if math was patentable.
Really? What applications? Not any I've seen. Whether or not patents should be valid is a whole other argument. While patents CAN be gotten for software, I can't fault MS for getting patents. IBM and Sun also patent quite a bit as well. I don't think any of those companies really want software to be patentable though. MS is paying quite a bit in royalties, as are the other companies.
Yes exactly because Hollywood needs it, what about the wishes of the users that buy the system? If the chinese government wanted Microsoft to implement filters at the OS level to censor information then you would just be okay with that? Unfortunately the bribing can't be proven, but that doesn't you mean you can't draw your own conclusions from the episode. Just the same way as O.J was not guilty everyone knows what actually happened.
What is really ironic about Hollywood today with all their DRM and DVD price fixing is that it all started with them breaking the law and refusing to pay patent royalties to Edison.
Well if MS doesn't implement it, you probably won't be able to legally watch movies on your PC at all. So if the choice is play movies, but be restricted, or NOT be able to play movies at all on your PC, I think most users would opt to have the option, even if restricted.
The hippocracy of the MPAA is not relevent to this discussion; MS' users want to watch movies, and the only way MS can provide that is to play ball. I believe they've also come out against DRM as well... but until they win that battle, they want to provide an OS that at least allows restricted viewing.
So just because you use MS technology you are just okay with them taking away all your rights? What about the freedom to use YOUR computer the way you want to? Remember they can cripple your computer anytime they like either because they want to or because of simple bugs. It saddens me that you don't seem to have critical thinking just because you get paid.
I'm sorry, you're way off base. I haven't lost all my rights. I can use the computer the way I want. I actually felt more restricted when running Linux; jumping through hoops just for simple maintence or updating, not being able to buy hardware without checking lists. And Linux had plenty of bugs too. I've had more crashes in the years I was running Linux on my desktop than I have on Windows since I switched back.
Being a big company or a government doesn't mean you are always right. Was McCarthyism just okay because it was the government doing it? What about slavery? You may say "well that was a long time ago" yes but that doesn't mean everything right now is just okay. In a 100 years people will say the same things about some of the stuff now. For example terrorism is at the same level now as communism was once. If you want to mess up someones life and credibility you just label them terrorists like you onc
That may be true, but as far as information goes, there's nothing that you can't get into the country on a laptop hard disk that you couldn't just as easily bring over the internet. Worse, this only applies to people crossing at checkpoints. Mexicans seem to have no problem crossing almost anywhere there ISN'T check point
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't matter until the end of the lease program. During the lease term, you are in fact leasing, and I would think qualify for all the tax benefits related to leasing.
What happens to businesses which lease cars? Do they not have lease tax benefits if they are offered a chance to own the car at the end of the lease? I wouldn't think so, but tax code is crazy anyway.
SciAm has a good article in the January 2008 issue. "A Solar Grand Plan" details how solar power can provide 69% of the US's electricity and 35% of it's energy by 2050.
Good, that would be a good replacement for nuclear in 40 years than. We can probably get 10 reactors online within five years though, and if we use reactor technology like that in France probably produce more than enough power for decades to come, and much safter than even the reactors running today. Plus, nuclear offers other benefits.. like not depending on a steady stream of sunny days (which I haven't seen here in Vermont for MONTHS now), but you can have a nuclear reactor powering a city block for seven years in a small no-maintenance needed unit. It was on/. recently I believe.
As far as not being able to support 10% of EVs, I'm not sure that's accurate. Electricty usage drops VERY dramatically at night, and if EVs are similar to Tesla motors system, usage from charging EVs would hardly rise at all.
True, but I'm sure you could build an exact Model T car VERY cheaply today. But you won't have leather seats, A/C, power doors, windows, or locks, airbags, seatbelts, any electronics, etc.
I'm sorry, where the program require that you finance through someone else? I didn't see that mentioned in the announcement, perhaps you can point me toward it.
Why do I want my appliances talking back to any service provider? I value my privacy and I don't want my TV reporting my viewing habits any more than I want a smart fridge reporting my eating habits.
Perhaps then your favorite show won't be canceled, because current methods to determine ratings are inaccurate?
What's wrong with the push method of content distribution? I am skeptical as to what value this really adds to my viewing experience. I get the feeling its not about improving the user's experience at all, but more for gathering data on viewing habits to better price advertising time. I guess I'm at a loss as to what compelling technical problem this solves. The only thing the article really mentions is a lack of standardization for how these devices can acheive 2 way communication, but it never states why that is even necessary.
Well, I for one like having on demand. I'd rather have more movies to choose from than 30 movie channels all showing something I don't care to watch. Free up the bandwidth for other applications / channels.
Open is a very hot word right now. Value has always been a hot word, and in some specific situations Subscription can be a hot word. Open is the big buzzword in here, and it is there to associate their product with things like Open Source products, which are very hot right now.
Huh? How do you jump from your first use of "Open" (which predates Open Source, BTW) with this statement? Do you really think putting Open in the title is an attempt to say they have something that's open source? I think that says more about how YOU think than other people think..
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While I enjoy your comment, I'd like to point out that 30 hp is a lot of power. I managed to get up Baldwin Street on a bicycle -- that's 2/3 horsepower
Fair enough. What was your MPH though?
there aren't steeper streets in Vermont or anywhere else
There are some that look a bit steeper, and they don't go straight up, they go diagonally. I will admit though these are the exception in Vermont, and you only encounter them going up to a mountain town / resort... but at the same time we have a decent skiing industry here too that many people will drive to VT to experience.
Granted, the bike and I, together, only weigh 70 kilos, but with 45x more power, and lower gearing, it'd do just fine... at the expense of speed.
Ahh, that's what I thought. I don't have anything like the link you posted, but there are some pretty significant inclines on my way to and from work. Enough that semis slow to about 40. This is an interstate, where the legal lower limit is 40 MPH. I don't think such a car as the Tata would work here. Even Burlington itself has some pretty steep streets (Main Street, for one).
So the problem isn't that it can't go up hills with heavy loads, it's that fatass American families won't buy a car that can only do 4 mph up the hill to their home when they've packed the back with useless junk they bought at the mall and stuck their enormous selves in every seat.
I think this is going a bit far. Not everything is useless junk after all. Some people load up drywall and other building supplies for home improvement projects. Also, having some cars that can only go 4 MPH uphill on an interstate is asking for trouble. Do you really think the car gets 56 MPG if it has a top speed of 4 MPH going up an incline?
Cars get better gas millage in Florida than they would here.
I guess that depends on if a one HP motor really is the equiovlent of a horse. Of course then, some horses are stronger than others too. It also depends on how much a wagon weights compared to today's car (the Tata in particular). I couldn't find its weight in the article.
"If I enabled wireless security on my network and someone hacked it, I would have a far harder time proving my innocence"
His theory. I didn't hear him claim the lawyer told him that.
Like you, I'm pretty terrified of the accusation, so my network is locked down as tight as I can get it. I use WPA with a strong password, MAC address filtering, I renumbered the subnet from the default, I set a strong administrator password, and disabled DHCP... and if I can think of anything else I can do to lock it down, I'll probably do it, out of fear that somebody will do something nefarious with it.
No, from what I've seen in legal cases is that you have to at least show it was likely someone else used your property to commit the crime. It's not enough to say "someone else was driving my car" you have to explain who it could have been and know reasonably where it was.
If you really want to lock things down, no need to disable DHCP. Just setup a RADIUS server and get an AP that supports it. Breaking into your network requires two steps then; breaking the encryption, AND compromsing the RADIUS server.. both of which would need to be done to use the network in the first place.
On the other hand, if I do get hacked (somehow), all that work will probably hang me. Couple that with the fact that I have an advanced degree in computer science (which to the average slashdot reader seems to mean I now *nothing* about computers, but would surely impress a jury of my "peers" that I'm impervious to being hacked), and if my network is used against me, I'm getting the death penalty.
They'd have to prove more than just your network was used. They'd need to find it on one of your computers somewhere, which there shouldn't be, because you didn't do it. Also, keeping logs can help if you can find in the logs that something weird happened that looks like a security breach.
I bet that a significant portion of those accidents are caused by drivers who are speeding, driving under influence or a combination of both.
Ahh speeding. You mean going above the artifically low limit set by government and the insurance industry so that they can generate more reveue? If all the driver is doing is speeding, than it's impossible for a pedistrian to be hit unless they disobey a crossing signel or cross against traffic.
As for DUI, I think I may have encountered two other drivers that may have been intoxicated in some way. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of other cars I've been in traffic with, that number is small, which is where part of my 1% comes in.
Compare that with peds that do whatever they want, which happens daily almost anytime one of them crosses the street. I don't think it's helping the situtation here when we have crossing guards that run out with their stop signs an expect everything to stop RIGHT NOW so that kids don't have to stop walking for a few minutes.. not exactly setting a great example.
The medical community says 65% of Americans are overweight. It was reported on the news last night. But go ahead, believe what you want. I just know that looking around my neighborhood, I was suprised they said the number was so low.
Well, the actual article is pretty silly. His response to "if you're accused of downloading child porn you're better off pleading that going to court?" Ya, just want I want to do, have that on my record.
No thanks, I'll lock down my network.
Fine. Go to said person and tell them "your network is not secured, so I'm using it to read my mail." Tell me if they care or not then. Seriously, just because someone doesn't know their WiFi is not secured doesn't mean they won't care that you're using. They just don't know.
Correct. The reason I still blame the peds is because 99% of the time they are crossing illegally. Against the light, or more often (almost every intersection has a crosswalk signal), against the crosswalk signal. I'm not sure if its the same where you live, but that's how it is here.
The photos I've seen of Germany in that era didn't show fatass Germans. They seemed to be of healthy weight. Compare to the average American today; over-weight by at least 50 lbs.
And given that the vast majority of driving that the vast majority of people seem to do is driving alone or with a single passenger in the car... it makes a lot more sense to move to motorcycles.
No, it doesn't. You're more likely to die if you're in an accident on a cycle. Also, I don't think a motorcylce is a good idea in bad weather, snow in pariticular, nor do I want to show up for work soaked.
They are also smaller, can park 3 in a normal parking space
Which is illegal in almost every state, I believe.
can even carry your groceries home....
Really? My wife and I can carry home $300 worth of groceries split over two motorcycles? Please explain how. I currently fill about 75% my 03 Acura TL trunk.
I think it makes a lot of sense for me to have a motorcycle for the warm months, and a car for when I need to carry larger items, more passengers, or there is snow on the ground.
Well for me the "warmer months" are at most five months, depending on your definition of warm. We certainly can get snow in April, and although rare its been known to snow in May as well. At any rate, once you figure in extra insurance and maintence costs, I'm not sure it makes sense to have a car and cycle.
Your last statement though is pretty telling; YOU haven't had a need for more than a Jetta. Some people do.
Honestly, I think its disgusting that people drive around using SUVs, Minivans, and four by fours as their normal commuting vehicle when 90% of the time its just them.
Such a waste. Not to mention road hazard. Those vehicles do far more damage to anything they hit than a motorcycle or smaller car. They are a menace to everyone around them.
Again, while I more or less agree, the edge case can come up pretty often. Do I normally have more than two people in my car? No, but it happens often enough that I'm glad I have enough space.
Ya, because that's useful if you have any sort of items you need to take with you, or in the snow or other inclement weather.
Likewise, the handling and braking on a $2500 car can't be all that good. Pedestrian injuries seem extremely likely.
Unless the pedestrian is on a sidewalk when hit, I place the blame firmly on the pedistrian.
No. I doubt that the 30 HP engine could climb some of the hills and mountains we have here in Vermont.
Also, lets be real. How effective is a 30HP car going to be moving a family of fatass American families weighing in at ~1000lbs total.
Or, they'll roll it out, say its 160MBit connection, but oh, opps, it's not guaranteed.
I personally find the ribbon to be crap but that's just me. However I would think one of the reason for OO is to provide an open source alternative for Microsoft monopoly on word processing. Given that it could be necessary to have an option in OO to have an alternate ribbon UI for those wanting to migrate from Office to OO. This option has now been permanently banned by Microsoft because they want to be a monoploy.
Why would having a ribbon or not make an impact in migration? We're not talking about file formats here (which IMO is more important than whether the UI is similar when talking about migration). It's a different UI, one that you have to relearn anyway when moving to OOo.
The ribbon isn't innovation it has been done many times before in other applications. Having software and UI patentable is just insane, computer methods can always be mapped into doing something using just pen and paper, adding a computer into it doesn't make it innovative. Software is also just a mathematical construct and you don't patent math. Just imagine how far we would be behind times if math was patentable.
Really? What applications? Not any I've seen. Whether or not patents should be valid is a whole other argument. While patents CAN be gotten for software, I can't fault MS for getting patents. IBM and Sun also patent quite a bit as well. I don't think any of those companies really want software to be patentable though. MS is paying quite a bit in royalties, as are the other companies.
Yes exactly because Hollywood needs it, what about the wishes of the users that buy the system? If the chinese government wanted Microsoft to implement filters at the OS level to censor information then you would just be okay with that? Unfortunately the bribing can't be proven, but that doesn't you mean you can't draw your own conclusions from the episode. Just the same way as O.J was not guilty everyone knows what actually happened.
What is really ironic about Hollywood today with all their DRM and DVD price fixing is that it all started with them breaking the law and refusing to pay patent royalties to Edison.
Well if MS doesn't implement it, you probably won't be able to legally watch movies on your PC at all. So if the choice is play movies, but be restricted, or NOT be able to play movies at all on your PC, I think most users would opt to have the option, even if restricted.
The hippocracy of the MPAA is not relevent to this discussion; MS' users want to watch movies, and the only way MS can provide that is to play ball. I believe they've also come out against DRM as well... but until they win that battle, they want to provide an OS that at least allows restricted viewing.
So just because you use MS technology you are just okay with them taking away all your rights? What about the freedom to use YOUR computer the way you want to? Remember they can cripple your computer anytime they like either because they want to or because of simple bugs. It saddens me that you don't seem to have critical thinking just because you get paid.
I'm sorry, you're way off base. I haven't lost all my rights. I can use the computer the way I want. I actually felt more restricted when running Linux; jumping through hoops just for simple maintence or updating, not being able to buy hardware without checking lists. And Linux had plenty of bugs too. I've had more crashes in the years I was running Linux on my desktop than I have on Windows since I switched back.
Being a big company or a government doesn't mean you are always right. Was McCarthyism just okay because it was the government doing it? What about slavery? You may say "well that was a long time ago" yes but that doesn't mean everything right now is just okay. In a 100 years people will say the same things about some of the stuff now. For example terrorism is at the same level now as communism was once. If you want to mess up someones life and credibility you just label them terrorists like you onc
That may be true, but as far as information goes, there's nothing that you can't get into the country on a laptop hard disk that you couldn't just as easily bring over the internet. Worse, this only applies to people crossing at checkpoints. Mexicans seem to have no problem crossing almost anywhere there ISN'T check point
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't matter until the end of the lease program. During the lease term, you are in fact leasing, and I would think qualify for all the tax benefits related to leasing.
What happens to businesses which lease cars? Do they not have lease tax benefits if they are offered a chance to own the car at the end of the lease? I wouldn't think so, but tax code is crazy anyway.
SciAm has a good article in the January 2008 issue. "A Solar Grand Plan" details how solar power can provide 69% of the US's electricity and 35% of it's energy by 2050.
/. recently I believe.
Good, that would be a good replacement for nuclear in 40 years than. We can probably get 10 reactors online within five years though, and if we use reactor technology like that in France probably produce more than enough power for decades to come, and much safter than even the reactors running today. Plus, nuclear offers other benefits.. like not depending on a steady stream of sunny days (which I haven't seen here in Vermont for MONTHS now), but you can have a nuclear reactor powering a city block for seven years in a small no-maintenance needed unit. It was on
As far as not being able to support 10% of EVs, I'm not sure that's accurate. Electricty usage drops VERY dramatically at night, and if EVs are similar to Tesla motors system, usage from charging EVs would hardly rise at all.
True, but I'm sure you could build an exact Model T car VERY cheaply today. But you won't have leather seats, A/C, power doors, windows, or locks, airbags, seatbelts, any electronics, etc.
So please explain how the program as described isn't a lease.
I'm sorry, where the program require that you finance through someone else? I didn't see that mentioned in the announcement, perhaps you can point me toward it.
Why do I want my appliances talking back to any service provider? I value my privacy and I don't want my TV reporting my viewing habits any more than I want a smart fridge reporting my eating habits.
Perhaps then your favorite show won't be canceled, because current methods to determine ratings are inaccurate?
What's wrong with the push method of content distribution? I am skeptical as to what value this really adds to my viewing experience. I get the feeling its not about improving the user's experience at all, but more for gathering data on viewing habits to better price advertising time. I guess I'm at a loss as to what compelling technical problem this solves. The only thing the article really mentions is a lack of standardization for how these devices can acheive 2 way communication, but it never states why that is even necessary.
Well, I for one like having on demand. I'd rather have more movies to choose from than 30 movie channels all showing something I don't care to watch. Free up the bandwidth for other applications / channels.
Looks neat. Too bad I'd rather slit my wrists than pay Comcast willingly. Thank god my city rolled out some competition.
Open is a very hot word right now. Value has always been a hot word, and in some specific situations Subscription can be a hot word. Open is the big buzzword in here, and it is there to associate their product with things like Open Source products, which are very hot right now.
Huh? How do you jump from your first use of "Open" (which predates Open Source, BTW) with this statement? Do you really think putting Open in the title is an attempt to say they have something that's open source? I think that says more about how YOU think than other people think..
Of course now it's more about making the customer *believe* you're listening to his needs, rather to actually listen to them...
Sadly, most companies seem to be doing that today.