Two problems with your theory. First, how do we add data points to the system? Wait for another airline terrorist act? Let's see, we currently have a data set of an unknown number of terrorists that hijacked three planes? There's a statistical nightmare.
Second, All it's going to take is one wrong hit on a 60 year old female (white, black, hispanic, asian, whatever) and the ACLU is going to go ape shit all over this plan. It will be declared discriminatory and unconstitutional after wasting BILLIONS of the taxpayers money.
Stupid idea overall, the American people will be all for it until the first guy taking his family to Disneyworld gets tagged and body cavity searched, the first terrorist slips through the net, or the airlines figure out that they are losing money due to their creepy security measures.
Yeah, and my first thought is that they were going to vote something a paralegal brought to them into law without checking it out???? I think that's an even worse reflection on these public officials.
Hmm... I feel kinda dumb. Guess I should read more carefully,
As for the rest of your comments. The same thing could be argued for the telephone, or the Internet. I pay more bills over the net than mail these days.
How is the mail specifically built for commerce??? I believe the mail was specifically built for communication, much like the Internet is now. I don't expect advertising in my mail any more than I expect it on my phone or email.
I'm thinking Ben Franklin didn't send a lot of boxholders or mail marked occupant when he started the USPS way back when.
Billboards on the other hand, in many parts of the country, break up incredibly BORING scenery (I-80 through Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, etc...). I think they could be restricted to so many per mile with no billboards in areas designated as scenic.
I purchased Quick Tech Pro from Ultra-X two years ago after a situation where memtest86 wasn't adequate to diagnose a memory problem.
memtest86 is a great utility, but Quick Tech Pro's has a better interface, more tests and more comprehensive test. I'm a complete Open Source supporter, but this is one instance where a $300 commercial product is worth investing in.
Also, as you may remember, there were a lot of capital gains being made during the Clinton administration. I don't care what the cap gains rate is in a bear market. People have to make capital gains for capital gains tax to work.
I believe a much more intelligent fiscal policy would be for the government to STOP SPENDING MONEY. Why do we need this huge tax base? Just so the government can regulate us to death? I'm convinced that the biggest reason there is no small business any more is because of government regulation. Only a huge corporation can afford the staff (lawyers, accountants) to keep a business running (file patents, protect copyrights, collect taxes, apply for licenses, etc...). If we could get the government off our backs, maybe people in this country could get jobs and do some actual work.
As the son of two U.S. Postal Service employees, the grandson of one U.S. Postal Service employee (ret.) and the big brother of another U.S. Postal Service employee I'm forced to tell you that it doesn't matter what you call it, it's merely semantics to us layman. There is a difference between boxholders, bulk, pre-sorted first class, etc... as far as the post office is concerned, but for most people it's just trash.
The USPS is just another bloated government agency full of people trying to preserve their jobs. Bulk mailings do not keep the cost of first class down, the force it up. Bulk mailers are given a SIGNIFICANT discount over first class letter senders, but these discounted letters are shipped all together with the first class mail. All the USPS is doing is keeping the volume of mail up so their thousands of employees can remain employed.
With the advent of cheap long distance, cheap mobile phones, email and instant messaging, personal correspondance by the postal system has dropped significantly. With online bill paying and automatic withdrawls the sending of monthly bills/statements have also dropped. If the Postal Service would stop giving discounts to all of these mass mailing credit card and home refinance companies the mail volume would drop significantly and they could cut their employees and facilities drastically.
Junk mail annoys me because the vast majority of the time it is not a good or service that I might be interested in. I like getting advertisements from local businesses that may provide a service I'm interested in. So much of the mass mail is from companies, just like email spammers, who think that if they send enough cheap mail it will pay off.
This "guru"'s story is so unrealistic that it's downright dishonest.
Absolutely
First, how is the patient identified among the millions of medical records in this miraculous database?
RFID of course
My father went through a bout with MS last year and had several MRI and CT scans done. I was surprised to learn that the local hospital doesn't keep these records past a few days. Individual images of affected areas are saved to hard copy, but there isn't even the capacity to keep the whole image.
Tell me exactly what's going to be used as a storage medium to save a full medical history that the patient can both afford and carry around? Who is going to manage all of these records? Who is going to pay for all the bandwidth? Why is it that a hospital stay is tens of thousands of dollars but they can't even manage to keep their computers reasonably current?
I think Open Office is good enough to compete with MS-Office, but most importantly it reads and writes MS-Office (word, excel) files very nicely.
Converting to Open Office will not only crack the Office suite monopoly, but it will give the Linux desktop a foothold in the corporate world. Many office users primarily require MS-Office to do their jobs. If corporate IT can move these users to Linux and using Open Office they will.
Don't forget the three hours on the phone attempting to explain to the service tech, who does not share your native tounge, how this brand new shrink-wrapped copy of XP will not automatically register, even though you did not steal it.
True, there was lots of hype, but there has been significant improvement in Linux - both kernel and applications - within the last year. I would disagree that "linux was vetted by simply being linux". Linux has been recognized as a viable, maturing tool that can finally be adopted by corporations.
Just because the corporate world has finally 'discovered' Linux does not diminish any of the qualities that brought it to this point.
I think what you're saying is true, but in the end, all that matters is that the advertisements *are there*, right? I mean, I don't care at all who they are actually *for*, just that they interrupt the primary reason I'm listening to the radio.
Sure, but these radio shows are not subscription based and have not promised users advertisment free content. Maybe subscription without advertisement will actually be a viable business model.
How is that different than when cable TV first came about? People bought it because of lack of commercials. The commercials slowly became more prevelant until ALL the basic channels had them. Exactly the same scenario.
No, not exactly. In the area where I live television reception has never been good. Most people in this area cannot get good television if they do not subscribe to cable or satellite. Of course cable and satellite offer increased content, but there are very few choices. On the other hand, radio options are quite good. I can pick up many stations in multiple genres with good signal strength and quality. I wouldn't subscribe to Sirius if I didn't feel it have benefits, and for me one of it's primary benefits is lack of advertising.
Take a spin through the dial once and compare how often you hit music as opposed to a commercial. Why will it be any more difficult to get money from advertisers in satellite radio compared to regular radio? I can't see a single reason that it will be different in any way, shape, or form. Any station that has more listeners will have more commercials at a proportionate expense to the advertiser.
Again, I can't speak for all markets, but in my local area most radio advertisements either are for local businesses, or are supplemental to a national advertising campaign. Local businesses are not going to spend a significant amount of money advertising on a satellite radio. Listen to some of the syndicated radio shows that have nationwide coverage (Paul Harvey, Rush Limbaugh, Nascar, NFL, etc..). They get some cheesey advertisements. I don't think these shows are raking in what I would call "Big Bucks".
There are a couple problems with your theory. First, the major reason many people subscribe to satellite radio is the low number of advertisements. Personally I'm a Sirius subscriber and I chose the brand specifically due to the lack of commercials vs. XM. I will drop the service if commercials are introduced.
Second, radio advertising is not generally thought to be as effective as print and television advertising. Our college marketing classes taught that radio is best as a supplement to an advertising campaign. It will be difficult for satellite radio to get big bucks from the advertisers.
Doesn't that seem counter productive. The best thing about the Internet is that there is only One. If everyone starts putting up private networks what happens to all of this great information/collaboration/infrastructure that's already there?
Will I have to have 2 or 3 connections to my house/business to get to the data I want?
I used to think, like you do, that satellite was not worth the money and no one would ever pay for radio stations. That changed last spring.
I have a vintage automobile that only had an original AM radio. I purchased a Sirius add on unit last spring and with a little creative installation put it into my car. My main motivation was cost. I didn't want to put a significant amount of money into the audio system on this car. My cost was about $120 in hardware, less than half what a good multi-disc mp3 changer would have been. I have 24hour commercial free music that works all over the country ( I have been on several road trips in this car since purchasing it ).
The best thing about it is the different genres I do get exposure to. Sirius includes several stations that are out of the mainstream. Indie rock, indie country, bluegrass, jazz, etc... I have listened to some great new music that I would never have heard listening to my own MP3s or even some random file sharing service.
One thing that very few people understand is that an ARTIST very rarely gains financially by making the album itself. Inital 'record deals' are usually good, but royalties to artists are insignificant unless the album goes gold, platinum, diamond, etc.. That's why the only artist you hear complaining about music downloads are the huge names like Metallica. Lots of performers encourage audiences to make bootleg copies at concerts and distribute them on the internet.
Artists make much more money on live performances than they do on albums. Recorded music is a creation of the record companies. The companies the RIAA represents makes the VAST majority of the revenue from the recorded music.
An album is generally a good way for an artist to get exposure, get radio airplay and pack in the live shows. Very few succesful albums have not been backed up by live tours.
Previously recording companies offered equipment and services that were difficult for an individual to acquire. Now it's relatively cost effective to build a sound studio in your basement with excellent recording equipment. Many artists record in their home studios. CDs are even easy to burn. I know several local bands that burn and sell their own CDs at their shows. All the major recording studios are offering now is marketing. To be huge these days you get signed by a major studio, they run a few MTV spots and next thing you know you sold out Madison Square Gardens and are a kazillionaire.
If we stop buying CDs, start downloading music and radio stations actually pickup stuff that independent artists produce their revenue model will go right down the tubes and no one will care - just like the ice producers.
Great point, but how many albums are there like this. You named two, I doubt all of slashdot could name more than a dozen. That's not really enough to even begin to establish a precedent.
I probably have close to 1000 CD's in my collection and there are only a handful that are better as an album. I don't know of any where the artist's 'intention' was specifically to listen to all songs together.
In our office we have the advocate (me), my problem is convincing management.
Does anyone know of any tools/tutorials that are specifically designed to convince MS Office user's to switch? I sent my manager a suggestion about OpenOffice months ago, but he hasn't had time to look at it. If I had a 15 minute tutorial that walked through the basics of the word processor and spreadsheet it might help.
Slashdot Mirror
Two problems with your theory. First, how do we add data points to the system? Wait for another airline terrorist act? Let's see, we currently have a data set of an unknown number of terrorists that hijacked three planes? There's a statistical nightmare.
Second, All it's going to take is one wrong hit on a 60 year old female (white, black, hispanic, asian, whatever) and the ACLU is going to go ape shit all over this plan. It will be declared discriminatory and unconstitutional after wasting BILLIONS of the taxpayers money.
Stupid idea overall, the American people will be all for it until the first guy taking his family to Disneyworld gets tagged and body cavity searched, the first terrorist slips through the net, or the airlines figure out that they are losing money due to their creepy security measures.
Natural selection baby. Weed out the weak ones, thin the herd.
Yeah, and my first thought is that they were going to vote something a paralegal brought to them into law without checking it out???? I think that's an even worse reflection on these public officials.
Hmm... I feel kinda dumb. Guess I should read more carefully,
As for the rest of your comments. The same thing could be argued for the telephone, or the Internet. I pay more bills over the net than mail these days.
How is the mail specifically built for commerce??? I believe the mail was specifically built for communication, much like the Internet is now. I don't expect advertising in my mail any more than I expect it on my phone or email.
I'm thinking Ben Franklin didn't send a lot of boxholders or mail marked occupant when he started the USPS way back when.
Billboards on the other hand, in many parts of the country, break up incredibly BORING scenery (I-80 through Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, etc...). I think they could be restricted to so many per mile with no billboards in areas designated as scenic.
I purchased Quick Tech Pro from Ultra-X two years ago after a situation where memtest86 wasn't adequate to diagnose a memory problem.
memtest86 is a great utility, but Quick Tech Pro's has a better interface, more tests and more comprehensive test. I'm a complete Open Source supporter, but this is one instance where a $300 commercial product is worth investing in.
Also, as you may remember, there were a lot of capital gains being made during the Clinton administration. I don't care what the cap gains rate is in a bear market. People have to make capital gains for capital gains tax to work.
I believe a much more intelligent fiscal policy would be for the government to STOP SPENDING MONEY. Why do we need this huge tax base? Just so the government can regulate us to death? I'm convinced that the biggest reason there is no small business any more is because of government regulation. Only a huge corporation can afford the staff (lawyers, accountants) to keep a business running (file patents, protect copyrights, collect taxes, apply for licenses, etc...). If we could get the government off our backs, maybe people in this country could get jobs and do some actual work.
Woo Hoo Greeley!!! My town made it on Slashdot!!
As the son of two U.S. Postal Service employees, the grandson of one U.S. Postal Service employee (ret.) and the big brother of another U.S. Postal Service employee I'm forced to tell you that it doesn't matter what you call it, it's merely semantics to us layman. There is a difference between boxholders, bulk, pre-sorted first class, etc... as far as the post office is concerned, but for most people it's just trash.
The USPS is just another bloated government agency full of people trying to preserve their jobs. Bulk mailings do not keep the cost of first class down, the force it up. Bulk mailers are given a SIGNIFICANT discount over first class letter senders, but these discounted letters are shipped all together with the first class mail. All the USPS is doing is keeping the volume of mail up so their thousands of employees can remain employed.
With the advent of cheap long distance, cheap mobile phones, email and instant messaging, personal correspondance by the postal system has dropped significantly. With online bill paying and automatic withdrawls the sending of monthly bills/statements have also dropped. If the Postal Service would stop giving discounts to all of these mass mailing credit card and home refinance companies the mail volume would drop significantly and they could cut their employees and facilities drastically.
Junk mail annoys me because the vast majority of the time it is not a good or service that I might be interested in. I like getting advertisements from local businesses that may provide a service I'm interested in. So much of the mass mail is from companies, just like email spammers, who think that if they send enough cheap mail it will pay off.
This "guru"'s story is so unrealistic that it's downright dishonest.
Absolutely
First, how is the patient identified among the millions of medical records in this miraculous database?
RFID of course
My father went through a bout with MS last year and had several MRI and CT scans done. I was surprised to learn that the local hospital doesn't keep these records past a few days. Individual images of affected areas are saved to hard copy, but there isn't even the capacity to keep the whole image.
Tell me exactly what's going to be used as a storage medium to save a full medical history that the patient can both afford and carry around? Who is going to manage all of these records? Who is going to pay for all the bandwidth? Why is it that a hospital stay is tens of thousands of dollars but they can't even manage to keep their computers reasonably current?
I think Open Office is good enough to compete with MS-Office, but most importantly it reads and writes MS-Office (word, excel) files very nicely.
Converting to Open Office will not only crack the Office suite monopoly, but it will give the Linux desktop a foothold in the corporate world. Many office users primarily require MS-Office to do their jobs. If corporate IT can move these users to Linux and using Open Office they will.
Don't forget the three hours on the phone attempting to explain to the service tech, who does not share your native tounge, how this brand new shrink-wrapped copy of XP will not automatically register, even though you did not steal it.
True, there was lots of hype, but there has been significant improvement in Linux - both kernel and applications - within the last year. I would disagree that "linux was vetted by simply being linux". Linux has been recognized as a viable, maturing tool that can finally be adopted by corporations.
Just because the corporate world has finally 'discovered' Linux does not diminish any of the qualities that brought it to this point.
I for one would welcome the chaos.
I think what you're saying is true, but in the end, all that matters is that the advertisements *are there*, right? I mean, I don't care at all who they are actually *for*, just that they interrupt the primary reason I'm listening to the radio.
Sure, but these radio shows are not subscription based and have not promised users advertisment free content. Maybe subscription without advertisement will actually be a viable business model.
How is that different than when cable TV first came about? People bought it because of lack of commercials. The commercials slowly became more prevelant until ALL the basic channels had them. Exactly the same scenario.
No, not exactly. In the area where I live television reception has never been good. Most people in this area cannot get good television if they do not subscribe to cable or satellite. Of course cable and satellite offer increased content, but there are very few choices. On the other hand, radio options are quite good. I can pick up many stations in multiple genres with good signal strength and quality. I wouldn't subscribe to Sirius if I didn't feel it have benefits, and for me one of it's primary benefits is lack of advertising.
Take a spin through the dial once and compare how often you hit music as opposed to a commercial. Why will it be any more difficult to get money from advertisers in satellite radio compared to regular radio? I can't see a single reason that it will be different in any way, shape, or form. Any station that has more listeners will have more commercials at a proportionate expense to the advertiser.
Again, I can't speak for all markets, but in my local area most radio advertisements either are for local businesses, or are supplemental to a national advertising campaign. Local businesses are not going to spend a significant amount of money advertising on a satellite radio. Listen to some of the syndicated radio shows that have nationwide coverage (Paul Harvey, Rush Limbaugh, Nascar, NFL, etc..). They get some cheesey advertisements. I don't think these shows are raking in what I would call "Big Bucks".
There are a couple problems with your theory. First, the major reason many people subscribe to satellite radio is the low number of advertisements. Personally I'm a Sirius subscriber and I chose the brand specifically due to the lack of commercials vs. XM. I will drop the service if commercials are introduced.
Second, radio advertising is not generally thought to be as effective as print and television advertising. Our college marketing classes taught that radio is best as a supplement to an advertising campaign. It will be difficult for satellite radio to get big bucks from the advertisers.
Doesn't that seem counter productive. The best thing about the Internet is that there is only One. If everyone starts putting up private networks what happens to all of this great information/collaboration/infrastructure that's already there?
Will I have to have 2 or 3 connections to my house/business to get to the data I want?
So this breaks no speed records -- but it is a nice fat pipe into some places that have very limited bandwidth to the outside world
Like my house?
Look, John Woo SUCKS. I am so highly irritated that the next Phillip K. Dick story is going to be directed by "Mr. Slow Motion" himself.
The Hulk was unusual, but failed more because it wasn't dumb enough than because it was poorly made.
I used to think, like you do, that satellite was not worth the money and no one would ever pay for radio stations. That changed last spring.
I have a vintage automobile that only had an original AM radio. I purchased a Sirius add on unit last spring and with a little creative installation put it into my car. My main motivation was cost. I didn't want to put a significant amount of money into the audio system on this car. My cost was about $120 in hardware, less than half what a good multi-disc mp3 changer would have been. I have 24hour commercial free music that works all over the country ( I have been on several road trips in this car since purchasing it ).
The best thing about it is the different genres I do get exposure to. Sirius includes several stations that are out of the mainstream. Indie rock, indie country, bluegrass, jazz, etc... I have listened to some great new music that I would never have heard listening to my own MP3s or even some random file sharing service.
One thing that very few people understand is that an ARTIST very rarely gains financially by making the album itself. Inital 'record deals' are usually good, but royalties to artists are insignificant unless the album goes gold, platinum, diamond, etc.. That's why the only artist you hear complaining about music downloads are the huge names like Metallica. Lots of performers encourage audiences to make bootleg copies at concerts and distribute them on the internet.
Artists make much more money on live performances than they do on albums. Recorded music is a creation of the record companies. The companies the RIAA represents makes the VAST majority of the revenue from the recorded music.
An album is generally a good way for an artist to get exposure, get radio airplay and pack in the live shows. Very few succesful albums have not been backed up by live tours.
Previously recording companies offered equipment and services that were difficult for an individual to acquire. Now it's relatively cost effective to build a sound studio in your basement with excellent recording equipment. Many artists record in their home studios. CDs are even easy to burn. I know several local bands that burn and sell their own CDs at their shows. All the major recording studios are offering now is marketing. To be huge these days you get signed by a major studio, they run a few MTV spots and next thing you know you sold out Madison Square Gardens and are a kazillionaire.
If we stop buying CDs, start downloading music and radio stations actually pickup stuff that independent artists produce their revenue model will go right down the tubes and no one will care - just like the ice producers.
Great point, but how many albums are there like this. You named two, I doubt all of slashdot could name more than a dozen. That's not really enough to even begin to establish a precedent.
I probably have close to 1000 CD's in my collection and there are only a handful that are better as an album. I don't know of any where the artist's 'intention' was specifically to listen to all songs together.
In our office we have the advocate (me), my problem is convincing management.
Does anyone know of any tools/tutorials that are specifically designed to convince MS Office user's to switch? I sent my manager a suggestion about OpenOffice months ago, but he hasn't had time to look at it. If I had a 15 minute tutorial that walked through the basics of the word processor and spreadsheet it might help.
Interesting. Seems like my high school teachers used overhead projectors to teach us with 'slides'. Thought I learned something...