The rules to penalize for not providing health care don't kick in until 50 employees as you noted. However, the penalty is only for every employee over 50. So if you have 52 employees, you can opt out and only pay the penalty for two employees. Most small business owners are going to be largely unaffected. Of course this will largely depend on how they define employee. Businesses with many part time employees may suffer if an employee is defined based on part/full time status but merely the fact that they worked for the employer.
There are jobs, you just have to be willing to move, and that's the catch-22. Assuming you have the potential mobility to move, I can virtually guarantee there is a job out there for you.
Of course getting your foot in the door to get them to take you seriously is the next challenge. For that excellent past performance and networking are always helpful.
Is it just way too obvious to point out that the physical copies of the books still exist? That Google is in fact not a monopoly in this regard? That any idiot with sufficient time and money could go out and replicate Google's effort?
I'd say it's a business opportunity waiting to happen. Obviously as has already been posted, the publishers were to do high quality scans of all their materials they could become great competitors to Google.
Having worked at NASA, the answer to your question is simple.
The engineers are fine, if not still some of the world's best. The problem is management, national politics (earmarks), and political in fighting between centers.
Perhaps another thing for you to consider is that much of NASA (I've heard as high as 2/3) is eligible to retire in the next five years. NASA also hasn't really had open hiring, that I'm aware of, since the early 80s. Contractors have been hired, and a lot of NASA's technical talent became contractors, but not civil servants. All of the budget shake ups over the last few years have decimated programs and often cause the contractors to go find someplace more stable to work.
Quite frankly, while there is some good management at NASA, a lot is too beholden to their political goals rather than the mission.
A friend worked for a bank with a large office building. He was able to identify after some time their procedure for layoffs. "Problem" employees were all transfered to a free floor, with some excuse of "efficiency". Once they had assembled everyone they wanted laid off on the floor, which could take weeks, they locked the elevator out, had security guards surround the floor, blocked all IT access, and promptly escorted everyone from the building with their box of belongings. From then on he knew who was being fired if they got transfered to a floor, without the rest of their group.
Having left all of my jobs under friendly terms. I have to say that you really need to read and understand company policy before you resign. I gave three weeks at my last job. I was going to give four, but thankfully someone talked me out of it. I didn't have all my access yanked, but giving your resignation really is basically asking to be ushered out the door immediately. Thankfully in all cases despite having privileged access I was allowed to stay and be productive till my last day.
But as most of the stories above point out, if you don't know your companies policies, e.g. yank privileged access immediately, you could be in for a boring few weeks, or a frog march from the building.
Actually, I would have to venture a guess that they are spending the money to test the theory. There are a lot of discoveries that are made because people re-test assumptions. One of the things I worry about as we move more and more towards computer-simulated tests, is that we have the basic programs we're running the simulations on are wrong. We'll be internally consistent, because our expected results will match what the computer throws out because it was programmed based on our faulty assumptions on the world.
So breaking out of the box and spending some R&D money to prove that the idea is lousy is probably a good investment as far as the military is concerned. It also helps that usually the people wanting to do the testing aren't complete crackpots.
An example of re-examining things comes from WWII, where the Japanese re-did the basic research on materials strength, which is how they were able to produce the zero, even though conventional physics said the materials were not strong enough to hold the stresses that they would be subjected to. Now obviously that's a niche area, but I assume that even in physics there are still a whole lot of things we don't properly understand and only by throwing research money at them are we going to understand it.
So they've patented them. It will be expensive *if* someone manages to make something useful out of the knowledge in the next 20 years, unless we stupidly allow patent timeframes to be extended. Otherwise, they've more or less guaranteed that all of this will be public domain by the time we're actually roughly ready to be able to truly and efficiently use it.
I will say that allowing them to patent it in the first place is pretty damn stupid. If they had done something new and innovative with it, then grudingly I could maybe agree. But certainly not for just discovering it. Although I do suppose if you follow patent law to it's logical end it is promoting further invention and innovation, and it's not like they have a long term lock (20 years is short compared to copyright).
Patent law is one of the areas of the so called IP regime that isn't as badly screwed up. It still has it's issues, but not as egregiously out of balance as copyright.
Growth as the only strategy
on
Ask Sid Meier
·
· Score: 1
Sid,
Having played all of your games, far more then I should have. One thing I've noticed is that with all of the turn based strategy games is that expansive growth seems to be the real option to win. You have to dominate in terms of real estate, the more cities, the more tech/money/diplomats, etc. I've never managed to win with smaller civilizations with well developed resource (good islands or limited areas with well laid out cities highly utilizing the resources around). I realize this may sound a bit off, but am I simply missing something? Or is the fantasy of being able to have a few small cities in Alpha Centauri or Civ that are able to win the game impossible?
Just something I've always wondered, since it's often been touted that you can win with a small powerful civilization.
You realize of course, that this means you can have an even larger impact, by watching (or saying that you watched) firefly on multiple tvs multiple times. "It was so good we all wanted to watch it again".
Strangely enough one of the best opportunities for Linux would be to take Apple's Human Interface Development Guidelines and apply them to Linux. Apple has done and did some of the best research on how people use computers and what's intuitive. By taking and leveraging those ideas, linux desktops could get a lot closer to useable.
This opportunity is even more stark since Apple has been abandoning these self-same guidelines in their more recent versions of the Mac OS. The finder is no longer compliant with these guidelines, it's clunky and counter-intuitive. But I'm sure if you care about apple you either have, or have read about the complaints about the finder.
Linux would do well to learn from Apple's research. GNOME and KDE are great steps for anyone programming for Linux. By using their development environments we get much closer to having a common theme we can follow, a common expectation of where to find menus, etc. These are vital components to being able to use an OS. The current batch of programs still don't have that rock solid consistency. You often still have to search for the options you need.
Why in the world would you want to pay thousands for a rock? Especially since you can get a real diamond (though manufactured).
I read the article on Wired and then saw an ad for the following company, www.diamond-essence.com , who sells manufactured diamonds. As a random example they have a ring with a 5kt diamond, and other smaller diamonds for a total of 7.5kts. Total price?
$249
DeBeers price? via Kay jewelers
1ct solitaire!
Wait for it!
$6499!!!!
Hell of a difference. See other posts for the morality of diamond mines and monopolies...
All laws must be renewed, depending on their nature. Common bad crimes (murder, theft, etc) can have a more permanent status. But most of the laws are more ephemeral so they would need review. It would be a good way to get rid of a lot of the bad laws that keep cropping up due to legislators being on the coporate take.
It also has the side benefit of keeping legislators so busy reviewing old laws, so they can keep them on the books, that they never have the opportunity to make new ones. It would also make many of the truly contentious laws easier to get rid of, since they would have to be re-verified on a reasonable schedule.
Subscription Promotional Codes
on
'Make' Premier Issue
·
· Score: 2, Informative
So the subscribe page has a section for promotional codes. Which makes me wonder if people have seen them. For $35, it's probably worth it, but if there are promotional codes... why not use them.
She specifically asks for something bad to happen to George Bush. Not just a "I wish he was dead, so I wouldn't have to deal with his shit anymore." But in fact a full blown, "God please kill George Bush." Followed by other self-described snarky comments advocating his death.
I think it looks like more of a consistency thing. She was consistently asking for someone to kill George Bush, which could technically incite someone to violence, which might be construed as a threat. (IANAL)
And while I think most people have made jokes about some president or other important official, friend, neighbor, etc dying, being assasinated, etc for the greater good. I think most people rarely couch it in terms of doing or asking someone to do it.
Perhaps the best speculative difference.
"I wish they were dead."
"God, please kill George Bush."
It's tough to say if I think it is a good/bad thing that the Secret Service checked up on this. Hopefully they also read the rest of her livejournal first. Hell that may have been why they *did* check up on her. If the rest of her livejournal had been a total peacenik LJ, they may have just gone on their way. Yet some of the other posts supported at least asking questions of whether or not she is truly a violent individual.
Wake up call. Violent ranting on the internet can be completely misconstured (much like email). Please confine all future rants to actual conversations with known audiences, so that when you make outrageous statements you audience knows you well enough to not turn you into the Secret Service.
So are we supposed to worry about the Secret Service checking up on all of us now?
I don't disagree with you. Fair use, which is a judicially granted right not a legislatively granted one, allows time shifting. I'm all for it. Unfortunately other laws and unelected commisions are able to pass bureaucratic restrictions on things relating to copyright that are bypassing fair use. Specifically everyone's favorite the DMCA, Broadcast flag, etc.
We should be more worried about fighting those and ensuring that they are repealed, removed, etc, or have very healthy and clearly defined fair use provisions carved out of them by the judiciary.
I was speaking in the currently uncontested legal space. Technically if the FCC implements a regulation that requires the CGMS-A be implemented, then it is technically illegal to sell those to the consumer so that they can implement their fair use. Because of that VOD becomes more compelling. VOD should allow what many of the other posters have specified as what they're looking for. To view the shows that run/ran at the same time, view as often as they want, etc.
Ultimately I think that content industries are getting their panties in a bunch over something that they could logically bypass. By having content un-restricted (no CSS, Broadcast flag, copy-protected CDs) the content tends to get passed around. Most people when they can afford it, will go purchase originals for value added content, simple things like: cd covers, the pretty images burned on the top of most CDs these days, DVD extra discs, commentary tracks, official extras, etc. Hell unrestricted content has potential to generate more revenue due to its ability to be passed around and make unknown items ragingly popular or at least cultly. The Grateful Dead, and early Metallica were helped by allowing bootlegs (Grateful Dead more the Metallica). Nothing excites others so much as the unknown band that someone has just let them hear on their iPod or CD player.
Yet fundamentally content producers are worried that if they allow un-restricted content that people will just copy it and never pay for it. I don't see that as the case. CDs are better qualtiy then MP3s, real DVDs are better then taped or DVR'd or downloaded tv shows and movies. The key is to have them at the right price point. DVDs seem to be. I would prefer if they dropped the CSS so I don't have to deal with issues if the DVDs get scratched, but at $5-20 they usually cost... it's not too bad. However CDs are pretty over-priced. God tapes of CDs are often cheaper (or at least used to be) even though technically it's more expensive to make a tape then a CD. CDs probably shouldn't be over $10. Hell I tend to buy significantly more CDs when I see them "on sale" at Best Buy for $10-11 then when they're at their "normal" price of $15-18.
When are they going to learn? A truly dedicated person can always make a copy of it.
I agree that VOD does make a compelling case for not needing to time shift. Unless you consider that many people time-shift and then watch things again and again if they like them. Typically VOD services have movies or shows available for a proscribed period of time and then remove them, thus making them no longer available. If, once a program was added to a VOD lineup, it never left they would have an ultimately compelling case. If I could *always* access a movie or show as long as I was subscribed to VOD, I would have no need to time-shift.
Having had both a DVR and VOD, I find convienance in both. They're both great tools. But DVRs are nice that if you really want to you can archive a show, broadcast, or movie and watch it again later.
I think they miss the point that people are willing to pay for something if it is useful, aka VOD over having to tape and timeshift. But people are not willing to be held hostage for these things, we don't want to pay the exorbitant rates of PPV movies. Witness that you can have Netflix for $20 a month, VOD for cable + Premium channel costs.
Most people only have so much money to spend. And it gets spent on those items that are price appropriately. I am still astounded that DVDs seem to be reasonably priced, especially when compared to CDs. A movie that took $100 million to produce for $19.99 or a CD that couldn't have cost more then $500,000 to produce (if you don't count artist salaries, etc... since you know... they're actually supposed to get royalties from CDs.
That assumes that driving regulations are the same everywhere. There is no longer a universal speed limit in the US. There are cases where people are speeding in a school zone, etc. It is beyond difficult to define the correct parameters to record that would allow a driver to prove innocence, (hey isn't this the country where we're innocent until proven guilty or the reverse?)
Many other posters are elaborating on this, but the how the black box is made, calibrated, and accessed are critical.
How is it calibrated? Does it get re-calibrated? (I suspect that it is unlikely to ever become so off (read 10mph+) that it would be an issue)
Who has the ability to access it? The car sensors, you, the police?
Can it be erased? should you be able to?
Can you have it retain a specific instance?
See later posts for a more elegant enumeration of the issues.
Except it won't help you at all. Specifically in the case that you mention.
Black boxes only retain the last five seconds. And if you're speeding or accused on speeding, you're not in an accident so it won't stop recording. Your true speed will vanish from the box, in oh about five seconds. Which if you have to slow down after you see the guy with the lights, and then have to pull over, will be long gone by the time you've stopped.
Black boxes are only useful in accidents, unless we want to expand their surveillance powers, and add some option to allow drivers to freeze the data on the recorder for court purposes.
It's hard to know what to think about the channel. It embodies (sometimes) much of what you would like to watch if you are a science fiction/horror/fantasy fan. Yet they have made so many inexplicable moves. For example they cancel a novel award winning show in its prime. In exchange we get Tremors the Series (crap)and a lot of made for TV movies (crap).
Yet inexeplicably they revive Andromeda over Farscape? They pass on Firefly?
It really seems as if their executives are either not as in touch with the genre as they should be, or are being overruled from above. Or quite simply are just fools.
They have had so many cool shows, that they could populate their line up with them, yet often they take and mangle a shows original spirit. Sliders being a prime example. Farscape another where rather then mangle the concept they just killed it.
Sadly the alternative networks for this kind of content aren't doing much with it. Showtime being the best example as the former owners of Stargate, and current owners of Jeremiah.
Ah where do we find good quality shows these days?
Actually technically Acura. Which is the Honda luxury subsidiary.
Acura has had the least number of quality defects per hundred vehicles of all manufactureres. It's a JD powers statistic, but seems to be held up in most of the different car magazines and reviewers.
The The Inquirer has some pretty decent (if biased) coverage of this.
Essentially there will be a single OS for the two (Intel and AMD). Unspoken is that Intel's implementation is AMD64 ISA, but a different technical architecture. If it's compatible, who cares.
Secondary confirmation via Ars Technica
Slashdot Mirror
Just to introduce some additional facts.
The rules to penalize for not providing health care don't kick in until 50 employees as you noted. However, the penalty is only for every employee over 50. So if you have 52 employees, you can opt out and only pay the penalty for two employees. Most small business owners are going to be largely unaffected. Of course this will largely depend on how they define employee. Businesses with many part time employees may suffer if an employee is defined based on part/full time status but merely the fact that they worked for the employer.
I have to agree with this 100%.
There are jobs, you just have to be willing to move, and that's the catch-22. Assuming you have the potential mobility to move, I can virtually guarantee there is a job out there for you.
Of course getting your foot in the door to get them to take you seriously is the next challenge. For that excellent past performance and networking are always helpful.
Good luck hunting.
Is it just way too obvious to point out that the physical copies of the books still exist? That Google is in fact not a monopoly in this regard? That any idiot with sufficient time and money could go out and replicate Google's effort?
I'd say it's a business opportunity waiting to happen. Obviously as has already been posted, the publishers were to do high quality scans of all their materials they could become great competitors to Google.
But clearly this is too obvious a solution.
Having worked at NASA, the answer to your question is simple.
The engineers are fine, if not still some of the world's best. The problem is management, national politics (earmarks), and political in fighting between centers.
Perhaps another thing for you to consider is that much of NASA (I've heard as high as 2/3) is eligible to retire in the next five years. NASA also hasn't really had open hiring, that I'm aware of, since the early 80s. Contractors have been hired, and a lot of NASA's technical talent became contractors, but not civil servants. All of the budget shake ups over the last few years have decimated programs and often cause the contractors to go find someplace more stable to work.
Quite frankly, while there is some good management at NASA, a lot is too beholden to their political goals rather than the mission.
Forget Wikipedia, ask the people who spend their lives trying to figure this out.
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/you/digitalmemories.html
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/guidelines.html
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/digitizing-photos.html
http://www.archives.gov/preservation/storage/
A friend worked for a bank with a large office building. He was able to identify after some time their procedure for layoffs. "Problem" employees were all transfered to a free floor, with some excuse of "efficiency". Once they had assembled everyone they wanted laid off on the floor, which could take weeks, they locked the elevator out, had security guards surround the floor, blocked all IT access, and promptly escorted everyone from the building with their box of belongings. From then on he knew who was being fired if they got transfered to a floor, without the rest of their group.
Having left all of my jobs under friendly terms. I have to say that you really need to read and understand company policy before you resign. I gave three weeks at my last job. I was going to give four, but thankfully someone talked me out of it. I didn't have all my access yanked, but giving your resignation really is basically asking to be ushered out the door immediately. Thankfully in all cases despite having privileged access I was allowed to stay and be productive till my last day.
But as most of the stories above point out, if you don't know your companies policies, e.g. yank privileged access immediately, you could be in for a boring few weeks, or a frog march from the building.
Hans Reiser.
Actually, I would have to venture a guess that they are spending the money to test the theory. There are a lot of discoveries that are made because people re-test assumptions. One of the things I worry about as we move more and more towards computer-simulated tests, is that we have the basic programs we're running the simulations on are wrong. We'll be internally consistent, because our expected results will match what the computer throws out because it was programmed based on our faulty assumptions on the world.
So breaking out of the box and spending some R&D money to prove that the idea is lousy is probably a good investment as far as the military is concerned. It also helps that usually the people wanting to do the testing aren't complete crackpots.
An example of re-examining things comes from WWII, where the Japanese re-did the basic research on materials strength, which is how they were able to produce the zero, even though conventional physics said the materials were not strong enough to hold the stresses that they would be subjected to. Now obviously that's a niche area, but I assume that even in physics there are still a whole lot of things we don't properly understand and only by throwing research money at them are we going to understand it.
So they've patented them. It will be expensive *if* someone manages to make something useful out of the knowledge in the next 20 years, unless we stupidly allow patent timeframes to be extended. Otherwise, they've more or less guaranteed that all of this will be public domain by the time we're actually roughly ready to be able to truly and efficiently use it.
I will say that allowing them to patent it in the first place is pretty damn stupid. If they had done something new and innovative with it, then grudingly I could maybe agree. But certainly not for just discovering it. Although I do suppose if you follow patent law to it's logical end it is promoting further invention and innovation, and it's not like they have a long term lock (20 years is short compared to copyright).
Patent law is one of the areas of the so called IP regime that isn't as badly screwed up. It still has it's issues, but not as egregiously out of balance as copyright.
Sid,
Having played all of your games, far more then I should have. One thing I've noticed is that with all of the turn based strategy games is that expansive growth seems to be the real option to win. You have to dominate in terms of real estate, the more cities, the more tech/money/diplomats, etc. I've never managed to win with smaller civilizations with well developed resource (good islands or limited areas with well laid out cities highly utilizing the resources around). I realize this may sound a bit off, but am I simply missing something? Or is the fantasy of being able to have a few small cities in Alpha Centauri or Civ that are able to win the game impossible?
Just something I've always wondered, since it's often been touted that you can win with a small powerful civilization.
Thanks!
You realize of course, that this means you can have an even larger impact, by watching (or saying that you watched) firefly on multiple tvs multiple times. "It was so good we all wanted to watch it again".
Strangely enough one of the best opportunities for Linux would be to take Apple's Human Interface Development Guidelines and apply them to Linux. Apple has done and did some of the best research on how people use computers and what's intuitive. By taking and leveraging those ideas, linux desktops could get a lot closer to useable.
This opportunity is even more stark since Apple has been abandoning these self-same guidelines in their more recent versions of the Mac OS. The finder is no longer compliant with these guidelines, it's clunky and counter-intuitive. But I'm sure if you care about apple you either have, or have read about the complaints about the finder.
Linux would do well to learn from Apple's research. GNOME and KDE are great steps for anyone programming for Linux. By using their development environments we get much closer to having a common theme we can follow, a common expectation of where to find menus, etc. These are vital components to being able to use an OS. The current batch of programs still don't have that rock solid consistency. You often still have to search for the options you need.
Why in the world would you want to pay thousands for a rock? Especially since you can get a real diamond (though manufactured).
I read the article on Wired and then saw an ad for the following company, www.diamond-essence.com , who sells manufactured diamonds. As a random example they have a ring with a 5kt diamond, and other smaller diamonds for a total of 7.5kts. Total price?
$249
DeBeers price? via Kay jewelers
1ct solitaire!
Wait for it!
$6499!!!!
Hell of a difference. See other posts for the morality of diamond mines and monopolies...
This is a wonderful idea.
All laws must be renewed, depending on their nature. Common bad crimes (murder, theft, etc) can have a more permanent status. But most of the laws are more ephemeral so they would need review. It would be a good way to get rid of a lot of the bad laws that keep cropping up due to legislators being on the coporate take.
It also has the side benefit of keeping legislators so busy reviewing old laws, so they can keep them on the books, that they never have the opportunity to make new ones. It would also make many of the truly contentious laws easier to get rid of, since they would have to be re-verified on a reasonable schedule.
So the subscribe page has a section for promotional codes. Which makes me wonder if people have seen them. For $35, it's probably worth it, but if there are promotional codes... why not use them.
As much as I hate to say it, I can see why.
She specifically asks for something bad to happen to George Bush. Not just a "I wish he was dead, so I wouldn't have to deal with his shit anymore." But in fact a full blown, "God please kill George Bush." Followed by other self-described snarky comments advocating his death.
I think it looks like more of a consistency thing. She was consistently asking for someone to kill George Bush, which could technically incite someone to violence, which might be construed as a threat. (IANAL)
And while I think most people have made jokes about some president or other important official, friend, neighbor, etc dying, being assasinated, etc for the greater good. I think most people rarely couch it in terms of doing or asking someone to do it.
Perhaps the best speculative difference.
"I wish they were dead."
"God, please kill George Bush."
It's tough to say if I think it is a good/bad thing that the Secret Service checked up on this. Hopefully they also read the rest of her livejournal first. Hell that may have been why they *did* check up on her. If the rest of her livejournal had been a total peacenik LJ, they may have just gone on their way. Yet some of the other posts supported at least asking questions of whether or not she is truly a violent individual.
Wake up call. Violent ranting on the internet can be completely misconstured (much like email). Please confine all future rants to actual conversations with known audiences, so that when you make outrageous statements you audience knows you well enough to not turn you into the Secret Service.
So are we supposed to worry about the Secret Service checking up on all of us now?
I don't disagree with you. Fair use, which is a judicially granted right not a legislatively granted one, allows time shifting. I'm all for it. Unfortunately other laws and unelected commisions are able to pass bureaucratic restrictions on things relating to copyright that are bypassing fair use. Specifically everyone's favorite the DMCA, Broadcast flag, etc.
We should be more worried about fighting those and ensuring that they are repealed, removed, etc, or have very healthy and clearly defined fair use provisions carved out of them by the judiciary.
I was speaking in the currently uncontested legal space. Technically if the FCC implements a regulation that requires the CGMS-A be implemented, then it is technically illegal to sell those to the consumer so that they can implement their fair use. Because of that VOD becomes more compelling. VOD should allow what many of the other posters have specified as what they're looking for. To view the shows that run/ran at the same time, view as often as they want, etc.
Ultimately I think that content industries are getting their panties in a bunch over something that they could logically bypass. By having content un-restricted (no CSS, Broadcast flag, copy-protected CDs) the content tends to get passed around. Most people when they can afford it, will go purchase originals for value added content, simple things like: cd covers, the pretty images burned on the top of most CDs these days, DVD extra discs, commentary tracks, official extras, etc. Hell unrestricted content has potential to generate more revenue due to its ability to be passed around and make unknown items ragingly popular or at least cultly. The Grateful Dead, and early Metallica were helped by allowing bootlegs (Grateful Dead more the Metallica). Nothing excites others so much as the unknown band that someone has just let them hear on their iPod or CD player.
Yet fundamentally content producers are worried that if they allow un-restricted content that people will just copy it and never pay for it. I don't see that as the case. CDs are better qualtiy then MP3s, real DVDs are better then taped or DVR'd or downloaded tv shows and movies. The key is to have them at the right price point. DVDs seem to be. I would prefer if they dropped the CSS so I don't have to deal with issues if the DVDs get scratched, but at $5-20 they usually cost... it's not too bad. However CDs are pretty over-priced. God tapes of CDs are often cheaper (or at least used to be) even though technically it's more expensive to make a tape then a CD. CDs probably shouldn't be over $10. Hell I tend to buy significantly more CDs when I see them "on sale" at Best Buy for $10-11 then when they're at their "normal" price of $15-18.
When will they understand....
When are they going to learn? A truly dedicated person can always make a copy of it.
I agree that VOD does make a compelling case for not needing to time shift. Unless you consider that many people time-shift and then watch things again and again if they like them. Typically VOD services have movies or shows available for a proscribed period of time and then remove them, thus making them no longer available. If, once a program was added to a VOD lineup, it never left they would have an ultimately compelling case. If I could *always* access a movie or show as long as I was subscribed to VOD, I would have no need to time-shift.
Having had both a DVR and VOD, I find convienance in both. They're both great tools. But DVRs are nice that if you really want to you can archive a show, broadcast, or movie and watch it again later.
I think they miss the point that people are willing to pay for something if it is useful, aka VOD over having to tape and timeshift. But people are not willing to be held hostage for these things, we don't want to pay the exorbitant rates of PPV movies. Witness that you can have Netflix for $20 a month, VOD for cable + Premium channel costs.
Most people only have so much money to spend. And it gets spent on those items that are price appropriately. I am still astounded that DVDs seem to be reasonably priced, especially when compared to CDs. A movie that took $100 million to produce for $19.99 or a CD that couldn't have cost more then $500,000 to produce (if you don't count artist salaries, etc... since you know... they're actually supposed to get royalties from CDs.
That assumes that driving regulations are the same everywhere. There is no longer a universal speed limit in the US. There are cases where people are speeding in a school zone, etc. It is beyond difficult to define the correct parameters to record that would allow a driver to prove innocence, (hey isn't this the country where we're innocent until proven guilty or the reverse?)
Many other posters are elaborating on this, but the how the black box is made, calibrated, and accessed are critical.
How is it calibrated? Does it get re-calibrated? (I suspect that it is unlikely to ever become so off (read 10mph+) that it would be an issue)
Who has the ability to access it? The car sensors, you, the police?
Can it be erased? should you be able to?
Can you have it retain a specific instance?
See later posts for a more elegant enumeration of the issues.
Except it won't help you at all. Specifically in the case that you mention.
Black boxes only retain the last five seconds. And if you're speeding or accused on speeding, you're not in an accident so it won't stop recording. Your true speed will vanish from the box, in oh about five seconds. Which if you have to slow down after you see the guy with the lights, and then have to pull over, will be long gone by the time you've stopped.
Black boxes are only useful in accidents, unless we want to expand their surveillance powers, and add some option to allow drivers to freeze the data on the recorder for court purposes.
It's hard to know what to think about the channel. It embodies (sometimes) much of what you would like to watch if you are a science fiction/horror/fantasy fan. Yet they have made so many inexplicable moves. For example they cancel a novel award winning show in its prime. In exchange we get Tremors the Series (crap)and a lot of made for TV movies (crap).
Yet inexeplicably they revive Andromeda over Farscape? They pass on Firefly?
It really seems as if their executives are either not as in touch with the genre as they should be, or are being overruled from above. Or quite simply are just fools.
They have had so many cool shows, that they could populate their line up with them, yet often they take and mangle a shows original spirit. Sliders being a prime example. Farscape another where rather then mangle the concept they just killed it.
Sadly the alternative networks for this kind of content aren't doing much with it. Showtime being the best example as the former owners of Stargate, and current owners of Jeremiah.
Ah where do we find good quality shows these days?
Actually technically Acura. Which is the Honda luxury subsidiary.
Acura has had the least number of quality defects per hundred vehicles of all manufactureres. It's a JD powers statistic, but seems to be held up in most of the different car magazines and reviewers.
Honda makes great cars.
Okay, so now they have half of the Aliens Cargo mover exo-skeleton.
;)
Which by the way seems much more efficient than a forklift.
So now they can do a bulky exo-skeleton, but can they slim it down and make it an exo-suit?
Got to love the advances of technology.
Who says sci-fi doesn't get it right.
The The Inquirer has some pretty decent (if biased) coverage of this.
Essentially there will be a single OS for the two (Intel and AMD). Unspoken is that Intel's implementation is AMD64 ISA, but a different technical architecture. If it's compatible, who cares. Secondary confirmation via Ars Technica