Apple pays an estimated 70 cents of every dollar it collects per song to the record companies responsible for each track. The record companies turn over nine cents to the music publishers who control the copyrights to these tunes.
In other words, if you are a music artist as you seem to imply, you would get more money per song from this. The only question is where it comes from.
Essentially, I'm guessing the RIAA will pressure Apple into releasing or updating their client software to not decrypt the DRM'd songs (non iTunes Plus tracks) until the user coughs up the additional six cents.
Um, what? Are you trying to spin it such that people who bought the songs at 0.99 would have to pay another 0.06 in order to continue playing songs that they already licensed? That's not going to happen. Aside from violating the existing license, it would trigger a massive lawsuit against apple. The license for the existing songs has been paid, the terms can't be changed.
The bail out package that was proposed is not supposed to buy the mortgages at "face value". They are supposed to buy them below "face value" and below "real value". How to evaluate that what the "real value" is, is part of what this whole thing is designed to do. Additionally, there was the provision in the House Bill (and the Senate Bill as well), that a tax would be imposed on the financial industry in five years if the government lost any money.
Warren Buffet (Liberal, not Conservative BTW), believes that the government will come out on top of this in the end, even without the tax. The only reason he doesn't do it himself (in his own words) is that he doesn't have $700 Billion.
Or a big tech industry could pop up right across the street and the value skyrocket. In the latter case, the bank would be praying for him to default because they'd make money on the deal...Indeed, that's likely a chunk of the reasoning behind the above prime rate mortgages; banks wanting to repo an appreciating asset.
Over all, the only quibble I have is with this portion. Current law is such that if someone defaults on a house and owes the bank $200,000 and the bank is able to sell the house for $300,000 then the Bank *has* to pay the defaulter $100,000. The Bank receives no benefit to the borower defaulting.
With some clever signal processing you could distinguish roughly the shape and size of the vehicle.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to then see that if you could gather data from enough of these sensors, you could track a particular vehicle over the course of many miles.
That is a big if. Those sensors are not very precise and I'm not sure it could do much between differentiation of vehicles. I have been stopped at a light and had at least three near identical cars of very close length and weight right around me. I don't believe that the sensors would be able to differentiate between models that are even four years apart from each other.
Um... That says the diesel gets 6.0 litre/100km. Tha's 39.2mpg, not 'over 100 mpg'. The US gasoline version is listed at 36 mpg. My Honda Accord gets 37 mpg and has much more room. Why should I go with a car that is so much smaller, costs more for fuel and uses 25% more crude per gallon for a paltry 6% mileage increase?
At 1.4kw/m^2 and 20% efficiency (which is currently available), 143m^2 of solar panels. However, they would have to be constantly in sunlight, would loose efficiency due to dust kicked up from micro-meteor impacts, lose efficiency over their lifetime (10-20 years) and would be prone to damage if a micro-meteor hit them (as opposed to a burried reactor). Then there is the DC conversion equipment for hooking it all together.
The volume of the reactor is supposed to be that of a small office trashcan. The pannels at that area would be much, much larger. Figure 2 inches thick, and it's several times more volume.
Weight is a tossup as I can't estimate how much the reactor would weigh. However, it might actually be less.
Also, the only way to maintain the constant power with the panels would be to place them at the poles. Where as the reactor may be placed anywhere.
Some people are currently stealing the mufflers for the platinum in them. Google Don't put it past them to steal the batter packs some time in the future as well.
The way the use tax passes constitutional muster is for two reasons.
1) When the package travels to you, it is still using the state roads and other things to get to you. This needs to be paid for.
2) The use tax is the same as the state sales tax. At least, everywhere I've been it has. If it were more, then there would be a problem.
One word: Latency. Packet routing networks have inconsistent routing. Inconsistent latency causes spacing in the sound in the conversation. Think about the quality of a phone call where you lose every other 1/8th second of sound.
As I understand it, the lines would require no alterations. The main change would come with the need to change the equipment at the locations where they step up or down the voltage and for the last mile where they will need to convert the DC to AC.
Now, as to if it is 'worthwhile' or not, that depends on how you define worthwhile. It is going to be costly to convert over to DC, even if done slowly. However, it is also costly to maintain the syncrhonization and to build new power lines. I'm not sure which would cost less. Personally, I think we should start moving the backbone of the grid to DC.
There are two other advantages of HVDC over HVAC. You have a 40% higher capacity by using DC and you do not have the problem of maintaining synchronization of the AC phase over the distances. Consequently, it is much more stable than AC.
With DC, there is zero loss due to Capacitance between the lines. While this affects AC, it does not affect DC. Additionally, as DC is continuous at full voltage, as opposed to AC, the capacity is approximately 30% higher for a DC line than an AC line. So, for the same line, you have no line loss due to capacitance as well as a higher wattage capacity.
My cellphone subscription is cheaper than my landline subscription, but I do pay a lot more for international calls, unfortunately. More expensive subscriptions may make international calls closer to the price of land lines.
Makes me wonder if part of the reason Cell Phones aren't dominant in the US is that most people have no need to call international then.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple pays an estimated 70 cents of every dollar it collects per song to the record companies responsible for each track. The record companies turn over nine cents to the music publishers who control the copyrights to these tunes.
In other words, if you are a music artist as you seem to imply, you would get more money per song from this. The only question is where it comes from.
Essentially, I'm guessing the RIAA will pressure Apple into releasing or updating their client software to not decrypt the DRM'd songs (non iTunes Plus tracks) until the user coughs up the additional six cents.
Um, what? Are you trying to spin it such that people who bought the songs at 0.99 would have to pay another 0.06 in order to continue playing songs that they already licensed? That's not going to happen. Aside from violating the existing license, it would trigger a massive lawsuit against apple. The license for the existing songs has been paid, the terms can't be changed.
The bail out package that was proposed is not supposed to buy the mortgages at "face value". They are supposed to buy them below "face value" and below "real value". How to evaluate that what the "real value" is, is part of what this whole thing is designed to do. Additionally, there was the provision in the House Bill (and the Senate Bill as well), that a tax would be imposed on the financial industry in five years if the government lost any money.
Warren Buffet (Liberal, not Conservative BTW), believes that the government will come out on top of this in the end, even without the tax. The only reason he doesn't do it himself (in his own words) is that he doesn't have $700 Billion.
Or a big tech industry could pop up right across the street and the value skyrocket. In the latter case, the bank would be praying for him to default because they'd make money on the deal...Indeed, that's likely a chunk of the reasoning behind the above prime rate mortgages; banks wanting to repo an appreciating asset.
Over all, the only quibble I have is with this portion. Current law is such that if someone defaults on a house and owes the bank $200,000 and the bank is able to sell the house for $300,000 then the Bank *has* to pay the defaulter $100,000. The Bank receives no benefit to the borower defaulting.
Yeah, interesting that. Especially given that 'sarah palin alaska' does give results.
Ah, thank you. Mailtrust was who I was thinking of and I knew they had been bought by Rackspace. I just couldn't remember their name.
Check out Rackspace. You can get just email from them or email and server space if you want. http://www.rackspace.com/solutions/mail/index.php
With some clever signal processing you could distinguish roughly the shape and size of the vehicle.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to then see that if you could gather data from enough of these sensors, you could track a particular vehicle over the course of many miles.
That is a big if. Those sensors are not very precise and I'm not sure it could do much between differentiation of vehicles. I have been stopped at a light and had at least three near identical cars of very close length and weight right around me. I don't believe that the sensors would be able to differentiate between models that are even four years apart from each other.
Um... That says the diesel gets 6.0 litre/100km. Tha's 39.2mpg, not 'over 100 mpg'. The US gasoline version is listed at 36 mpg. My Honda Accord gets 37 mpg and has much more room. Why should I go with a car that is so much smaller, costs more for fuel and uses 25% more crude per gallon for a paltry 6% mileage increase?
At 1.4kw/m^2 and 20% efficiency (which is currently available), 143m^2 of solar panels. However, they would have to be constantly in sunlight, would loose efficiency due to dust kicked up from micro-meteor impacts, lose efficiency over their lifetime (10-20 years) and would be prone to damage if a micro-meteor hit them (as opposed to a burried reactor). Then there is the DC conversion equipment for hooking it all together.
The volume of the reactor is supposed to be that of a small office trashcan. The pannels at that area would be much, much larger. Figure 2 inches thick, and it's several times more volume.
Weight is a tossup as I can't estimate how much the reactor would weigh. However, it might actually be less.
Also, the only way to maintain the constant power with the panels would be to place them at the poles. Where as the reactor may be placed anywhere.
Some people are currently stealing the mufflers for the platinum in them. Google Don't put it past them to steal the batter packs some time in the future as well.
EEPROM and EPROM have been around a long time. EEPROM since 1983 and EPROM since 1971. Both are flash memmory.
The way the use tax passes constitutional muster is for two reasons.
1) When the package travels to you, it is still using the state roads and other things to get to you. This needs to be paid for.
2) The use tax is the same as the state sales tax. At least, everywhere I've been it has. If it were more, then there would be a problem.
Does MIR mean "Mail In Rebate"? It's not an acronym I'm used to seeing, so I wanted to check.
Why couldn't it work like packet routing?
One word: Latency. Packet routing networks have inconsistent routing. Inconsistent latency causes spacing in the sound in the conversation. Think about the quality of a phone call where you lose every other 1/8th second of sound.
Chevy did that and is running with it. Go to gm-volt.com some time. Warning, fan boy site, but it's useful.
Which lets both of them produce as much CO2 as they want with no need for reductions.
Nope US is still leading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CO2-by-country--1990-2025.png
Sorry, but that is out of date. http://www.google.com/search?q=china+overtakes+US+co2
Sorry, I must have missed the memo where Palin was running for President.
Somehow, I doubt it is that hard to find copies. I came across photograph copies in my College Library the other day.
As I understand it, the lines would require no alterations. The main change would come with the need to change the equipment at the locations where they step up or down the voltage and for the last mile where they will need to convert the DC to AC.
Now, as to if it is 'worthwhile' or not, that depends on how you define worthwhile. It is going to be costly to convert over to DC, even if done slowly. However, it is also costly to maintain the syncrhonization and to build new power lines. I'm not sure which would cost less. Personally, I think we should start moving the backbone of the grid to DC.
There are two other advantages of HVDC over HVAC. You have a 40% higher capacity by using DC and you do not have the problem of maintaining synchronization of the AC phase over the distances. Consequently, it is much more stable than AC.
With DC, there is zero loss due to Capacitance between the lines. While this affects AC, it does not affect DC. Additionally, as DC is continuous at full voltage, as opposed to AC, the capacity is approximately 30% higher for a DC line than an AC line. So, for the same line, you have no line loss due to capacitance as well as a higher wattage capacity.
Who needs a USB 5.25"? I've got the real things with a computer that reads them AND an ethernet port.
My cellphone subscription is cheaper than my landline subscription, but I do pay a lot more for international calls, unfortunately. More expensive subscriptions may make international calls closer to the price of land lines.
Makes me wonder if part of the reason Cell Phones aren't dominant in the US is that most people have no need to call international then.
Nowadays it's the landline that's a luxury.
Scary, but true.