I don't think it was so much their own talent, though they were decent singers. What they had were good songwriters, producers, and studio musicians, so they ended up actually doing some good music.
Well, you should also blame the corporations and their lobbyists for bribing them. God, I can't believe you right wing fasciss and libertarians, defending the crimes of SBC and the corporations. Now I know why Marx and Stalin wanted to kill you assholes.
Well, I agree with most of what you say (except sinking Chinese ships, I'm anti-violence). The point is, why should American workers be forced to compete with the Chinese workers who labor under a ruthless dictatorship which quells dissent, and which the workers have little rights, and little power. They are practically slave labor. The American Government should be fighting for American workers, but in reality, the government is the enemy of the American worker. Their main mission is to do the bidding of the multinational corporations. The corporations want to use cheap slave labor in China at the expense of American workers, and so the American Government enables it. Ever since Reagan, the government has been fostering economic policies which make the rich richer and the middle class poorer. Dumb fuck Americans are too stupid to see what's going on.
And how often do people use these new features? Wouldn't it make more sense to save documents in an older, more universal format, unless use of a new feature makes it necessary to break compatibility by using a new format?
I just spent well over $250 on CDs, mainly to get some new tracks for my mp3 player. Since I've already bought most all of the CDs I know are good, I was mainly getting older, classic rock stuff, with songs I always wanted, but never had the albums. Some of these were imports, costing over $25.
Well, I found the same thing you usually find on newer albums. The few songs you know off the albums are usually the only good ones. Once you get away from the best all time groups (Beatles, Stones, and a few dozen others), this is often the case. On the worst set of albums, I basically paid $100 for five or six songs. Well, I won't be buying too many more CDs after this.
I've found through the years that the only way to know if a CD is worth the money is if you already know most of the CD, or if its a group your familiar with and trust. Buying CDs for one or two songs usually means paying $15 for one two songs. I also can't trust reviews. I bought a couple of these albums based on reviews, and I'm surprised how mediocre they are. Of course, I've always found this to be true. Back in the day, Rolling Stone magazine would rave about an album, and I'd hear it or buy it, and think it totally sucked. And my tastes are pretty mainstream classic rock.
In short, it just isn't worth the money to buy CDs, unless you already know they are good and fit your taste. It isn't worth the money to pay $15 for one or two songs. I personally don't download illegally, but perhaps part of the reason peaople do is CDs which are 9/10ths crap aren't worth the money. There aren't many quality artists anymore, of the stature that the Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Who, Dylan, Stones, Beatles, etc. were in their heyday.
I think when people buy four or five album and find they just paid $50 for four songs, it drives them to filesharing. Its pretty painful when you pay more then what you paid for you mp3 player for 6 good songs.
He cherry-picks information, manipulates and molds the facts to point rather unceremoniously to a conclusion he wants you to come to (rather than showing the facts and letting the public decide)... Not unlike other documentary filmmakers, but still....
This may be true to a degree, but the whole of American media is like this. Everything we see and hear is cherry-picked information, manipulated and molded facts to point rather unceremoniously to a conclusion they wants us to come to. Almost every word emanating from the White house and the Government is like this. Do you really think Fox News is telling you the whole unvarnished story? Do you think the media and Government is giving us the complete unbiased story about what the American Government is really doing in the world? The American people are among the most brainwashed people on earth. At least the residents of the Soviet Union realized they were being fed constant propaganda by the media.
Well, for my setup, HD DVD is an improvement. I have a DLP 720P front projector which I project onto a 92 inch diagonal screen. At that size, the increased resolution makes a difference. With regular DVDs, I have this vague feeling I'm watching a giant screen TV. With HD DVDs, I feel like I'm watching a movie in a movie theater.
Do you speed quickly the the next red light just to stop, or do you slowly coast to it, even if all the other cars are 'rushing' to the red?
This comment made me laugh. When I approach a red light, I alway take my foot of the gas and coast to the light, but most people seem to speed towards the red light at top speed. People always ride my bumber when I coast to a red light. I get the feeling they're irritated at me.
Well, I guess the arms manufacturers are obviously more evil then Microsoft. And arguably the oil companies and the drug companies.
But really, you Microsoft defenders are a joke. I guess you all work for Microsoft, or are stockholders or otherwise benefit from them.
Right now, I'm fighting the crippleware that is Vista, trying to get everything to work. Video Card, HDTV card, all not working properly because of Microsoft's DRM. Hours of my time wasted because of Microsoft's DRM. I should be able to bill them for it, but I can't. Guess I'll revert back to XP or 2000. In fact, I'd ditch Windows in a minute and go to Linux if I didn't have thousands of dollars of software that's Windows only. Most software is made for Windows because its an (undeserved) monopoly. I say undeserved because the monopoly was handed to them on a silver platter by IBM, and made possible by Intel's brillance, the resourcefullness of the clone manufacturers, the rise of the Internet, and copying Apple. Sure Microsoft deserves some credit, but they didn't earn the windfall they've ended up with. They're really sucessful because they won the lottery.
You know, I was going to mention that Wall Street article as an exception. I was going to say, that is, except among investors. Of course they admire Microsoft. They'ed admire Hitler if he made them money. The Wall Street Journal, what a great cross section of the IT industry.
I guess I'm going on anecdotial evidence though. Everyone I know (that's tech savvy) hates Microsoft. Most tech sites I go to has a strong dislike of Microsoft; especially, the posters in the forums. Some article writers like Microsoft, but many dislike Microsoft. Many of them are forced to feign a respect for Microsoft to ensure their support.
I'm sure I could find many examples of the dislike for Microsoft if I'd take time to Google for them. But negative comments and attitudes towards Microsoft are so common, that if your unaware of them in the imaginary world you live in, who am I to disagree?
The fundamentalists distort the bible to come up with their 5000 year theory. For starters, in Peter's Epistle, 3:8 it says to God a thousand years is but a day and a days is a thousand years. That indicates the days in Genisis for the creation are metaphorical, and are at least a thousand years. But Peter was just giving an example, and he could have easily have said to God a million years is but a day, or a billion years is but a day. You can't put human perceptions on God's perception of time.
Furthmore, the Bible is full of parables, symbology, and methaphor. Jesus himself often used parables to describe even realtivley simple things, because the people of the time were unable to grasp much of his teachings. Since Jesus used parables to decribe realively simple things, it is likely the case, in fact certain that God used parables to describe the creation. Do you think primitive tribesmen would have been able to grasp something as complicated as the creation? No, they couldn't, therefore God used parables. When Jesus used parables, he was giving us a lesson on understanding the word of God.
It might also be said that time, in prophecy, is frequently given in symbolic terms. That is, expressed in unconvential means because the time itself is meant symbolically. In Daniel 8, 2,300 evenings and mornings is given as time until the time of the end; seventy sevens is given in Daniel 9 to mean the same thing. A time, times, and half a time is an expression used for the length of time of the reign of the Beast. Jesus's forty days in the desert is linked to the Jews forty years wandering in the desert under Moses. Since time is used symbolically
so frequently in the Bible, it is plausible that the days for creation in Genisis are sybmolic.
When it comes to interpeting the Bible, fundmentalists can't see the forest for the trees.
As far as I'm concerned, Christianity has actually harmed morality. Many Christians believe that you are saved not by works, but by faith. So whether or not you "walk with God" depends not on whether or not you help the poor, show kindness, or are decent, but purely on whether you have accepted Jesus as your savior.
Well, this bit about saved by faith not works was never said by Jesus, but by Paul, and if you read carefully all the epistles where Paul brings this up, he is talking about the specific problem where Jews were telling gentile converts they must follow the law of Moses, which had things like stoning adulters, stoning people who broke the Sabath, etc., all things Jesus repudiated by his actions and teachings.
What Paul is really saying in the epistles is, it is not by works based on law of Moses you are saved, but by faith in God's promise of the messiah, given by Moses and the prophets, and as Moses said, when the prophet (messiah) comes, do everything he tells you.
What Martin Luther and the churches have done is twist this around, and what they are saying is one is not saved by doing the works Jesus said to do, but by faith in Jesus. Something Paul never said or meant, and something which ultimately makes no sense. Its like being stuck in the Jungles of Nam, surrounded by Viet Cong and outnumbered ten to one. But fortunately, you have the greatest soldier of them all, Rambo, to lead out of this mess. But you need to rally the troops to follow him in order to escape from this mess. So you have one soldier going around saying to the men, do whatever Rambo tells you (his works), and another going around saying, we will not be saved by obeying the orders (doing the works) Rambo tell us to do, but by faith in Rambo. Its nonsense.
Jesus never said this distortion of Paul, and in fact says the opposite. In Matthew 25, 31-48, he welcomes into his kingdom those who have helped the sick, fed the poor, and clothed the naked, and he condemns the hypocrites who praised his name in synogues but did none of this.
To me the hypocrites he condemns sums up many evangelicals and other Christians.
Most Christians do not follow Christ. If you knew anything about Christ's teachings, you would realize this. These evangelicals who are big Bush supportors and all in favor spending money on war and giveing big tax breaks to the rich, but are opposed to spending anything on aid to the poor are no more Christian and no more follow Christ then some hard core nazi the went to church every Sunday during WW II, then went out and killed people the rest of the week.
Well, I get around comercials for the few TV programs I like to watch by renting them from Netflix. No comercials, and watch a season at a time. But how am I going to get around comercials in games? There will be no comercial free DVD I can rent or buy...bummer. I know, I'll gouge out my eyeballs!
I would never buy a Microsoft mouse for the same reason. I've read that in order to fully enable all the deluxe featuures, you have to go online. Who needs this kind of crap? Microsoft is going to find out that the bad reputation they've built up over the years is going to come back and and bite them in the ass.
I've wondered about this point myself. I used to program as a hobby, graphic routines in assembly language. I came up with what I thought were some pretty good routines. And I thought, this is clever, I wonder if anyone has done this before. My point is, if I invent a way of doing something on my own, and it turns out someone had the same idea a few years before me, I can be stopped from using my own idea in my programs. To me this is wrong. I invented it myself, and didn't steal it, so I should have the right to use it. To me, intellectual property rights go to far when they tell me I can't use ideas I've thought of myself without outside influence. That's bullshit. Intellectual property rights are an artificial and arbitrary concept anyway, and if someone invents something on their own, they should have the right to use it, even if someone else had the same idea before.
Software patients in general are a bad idea. Its absurd when you can patent every trivial concept under the sun.
Let me add this. I wouldn't even want to switch out my single 12 volt battery every time I fill up, let alone several sets of battery packs. I tell you what. To prove your point, why don't you put a spare 12 volt battery in your trunk, and every time you fill up, switch batteries for, say, the next 6 months. Then let me know how convenient you think it is. Switching out one battery should be much easier then switching out a slew of them. So it should be a breeze according to your scenerio.
Well, the Prius also has a gasoline engine. Those batteries wouldn't be near sufficent to power an all electric vehical, or else we'd already have one. And even following your scenerio, do think people are going to pull into a station, and swap out four 25 lb battery packs on their own every time they fill up? Not going to happen. Most people will not do that. And I guarentee, insurance will forbid it. What if someone doesn't secure the crane to the battery pack properly and drops a battery pack on their foot? What if they drop it and the battery splits open? What if they drop it on their fender and damage their car? With these things being swapped out millions of time a day, every day, the chances of accidents is very great.
But hey, if you think grandma's going to switch out a hundred or two hundred pounds of batteries every time she fills up, well then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
So? The cells could still be packaged in one or two large packs. They would be heavy, so some sort of automation would be required to do the swapping, but that's doable.
Well, you'd need a crane to lift out a couple hundred pounds of batteries, and the batteries would have to be easily accessable for a rapid switch, which would put constraints on the designs of cars. The danger of swinging a couple hunderd pounds of batteries on a crane would lead to huge insurance costs if you let granny and junior and Joe 6 pack do it. So you'd have to bring back gas station attendants to handle the switch, which would also increase cost of a fillup. Its doable, sure, but multiplied by the millions of fillups everyday in the U.S. alone, I don't thinks its an especially convenient or practical way to get a fillup.
Basically, the cost of a "fill up" would be the price of the installed battery (based on its lifecycle stage) less the price of your battery plus the price of the juice in the installed battery.
This idea sounds good in theory, but in reality, this is not some convenient, clear cut transaction, but a somewhat arbitrary confusing mess. In transactions like this, the consumer always gets the short end of the stick. You are not going to come up with a fair, workable system to switch out a set of new $10000 bateries for an old $500 set. I mean, suppose your switching an old set of batteries for a new set. Are you going to get a $7000 bill on your credit card? Can you honestly say you'd be willing to switch out a $10000 set from a brand new car for a $1000 worn out set? I wouldn't. I think a lot of people would be unwilling to do this. Batteries are too expensive and too variable in quality for this to be practical.
And how about the station owners? Are they going to make a transaction which might entail paying you $5000 plus, or charging you $5000 or more, gratis, with no additional fee? I don't know of any business that would do this. All in all, with fees, and a station attendant to switch out batteries, this is looking to be a very expensive fillup.
I think this whole idea is one that may sound good in concept, but has a whole lot of problems standing in the way of being a practical real world solution. Is it doable? Perhaps. Is it easy and practical and cost efficient enough to satisfy consumers and business? In my opinion, no.
The reason this would be impractical is you need a lot of batteries to power a car. Its not like swapping out one convential 12 volt battery, its swapping out a whole bunch of them. Plus, batteries are expensive. Do you want to trade your set of brand new batteries for a five year old set? Would a service station want to trade out a new set of batteries for the five year old set in your car?
And trust me, any 130 year old farmhouse is a tinderbox, especially if it still has heart pine flooring/ceiling joists.
Yep, I'm familair with those those kinds of buildings. They are basically kindling.
Re:I got the burn...
on
Plasma or LCD?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This reminds me of a local news station in St. Louis, that has a consumer watchdog reporter. They did a segment on a family having a problem with plamsa burn in, and what was burned into the plasma was their own station screen logo. The family was apprantly unaware of the burn in problem, so they just left it on that station all day long. No one from the station apologized for ruining their expensive plasma with their constant broadcast of the logo. Instead they contacted the store it was purchased at and the manufacturer to see if they would help with the problem.
On screen logos are one of the reasons I don't watch much TV, even though I have a HD receiver. On my DLP front projector system and 92" screen, a logo which is mildly annoying on a small screen, becomes hugely distracting. I can pick up Smallville in High Definition, but the local station has a large obnoxious yellow logo, which makes it unwatchable. So I just buy or rent the discs of TV shows I want to watch.
That's interesting. I once posted on a thread about ebooks that I thought they wouldn't take off because they'ed be DRMed to death, and your example is what I meant. I was modded down (I think labled a troll) for that comment. I often see this on Slashdot, someone with a reasonable but negative comment on something being modded down or labled a troll. Well, glad you got modded up.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think it was so much their own talent, though they were decent singers. What they had were good songwriters, producers, and studio musicians, so they ended up actually doing some good music.
Interesting post. I'd mod you up if I had mod points. And on topic, unlike the above discussion of the iphone. But here you are, stuck at zero.
Well, you should also blame the corporations and their lobbyists for bribing them. God, I can't believe you right wing fasciss and libertarians, defending the crimes of SBC and the corporations. Now I know why Marx and Stalin wanted to kill you assholes.
Well, I agree with most of what you say (except sinking Chinese ships, I'm anti-violence). The point is, why should American workers be forced to compete with the Chinese workers who labor under a ruthless dictatorship which quells dissent, and which the workers have little rights, and little power. They are practically slave labor. The American Government should be fighting for American workers, but in reality, the government is the enemy of the American worker. Their main mission is to do the bidding of the multinational corporations. The corporations want to use cheap slave labor in China at the expense of American workers, and so the American Government enables it. Ever since Reagan, the government has been fostering economic policies which make the rich richer and the middle class poorer. Dumb fuck Americans are too stupid to see what's going on.
And how often do people use these new features? Wouldn't it make more sense to save documents in an older, more universal format, unless use of a new feature makes it necessary to break compatibility by using a new format?
I just spent well over $250 on CDs, mainly to get some new tracks for my mp3 player. Since I've already bought most all of the CDs I know are good, I was mainly getting older, classic rock stuff, with songs I always wanted, but never had the albums. Some of these were imports, costing over $25.
Well, I found the same thing you usually find on newer albums. The few songs you know off the albums are usually the only good ones. Once you get away from the best all time groups (Beatles, Stones, and a few dozen others), this is often the case. On the worst set of albums, I basically paid $100 for five or six songs. Well, I won't be buying too many more CDs after this.
I've found through the years that the only way to know if a CD is worth the money is if you already know most of the CD, or if its a group your familiar with and trust. Buying CDs for one or two songs usually means paying $15 for one two songs. I also can't trust reviews. I bought a couple of these albums based on reviews, and I'm surprised how mediocre they are. Of course, I've always found this to be true. Back in the day, Rolling Stone magazine would rave about an album, and I'd hear it or buy it, and think it totally sucked. And my tastes are pretty mainstream classic rock.
In short, it just isn't worth the money to buy CDs, unless you already know they are good and fit your taste. It isn't worth the money to pay $15 for one or two songs. I personally don't download illegally, but perhaps part of the reason peaople do is CDs which are 9/10ths crap aren't worth the money. There aren't many quality artists anymore, of the stature that the Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Who, Dylan, Stones, Beatles, etc. were in their heyday.
I think when people buy four or five album and find they just paid $50 for four songs, it drives them to filesharing. Its pretty painful when you pay more then what you paid for you mp3 player for 6 good songs.
He cherry-picks information, manipulates and molds the facts to point rather unceremoniously to a conclusion he wants you to come to (rather than showing the facts and letting the public decide)... Not unlike other documentary filmmakers, but still....
This may be true to a degree, but the whole of American media is like this. Everything we see and hear is cherry-picked information, manipulated and molded facts to point rather unceremoniously to a conclusion they wants us to come to. Almost every word emanating from the White house and the Government is like this. Do you really think Fox News is telling you the whole unvarnished story? Do you think the media and Government is giving us the complete unbiased story about what the American Government is really doing in the world? The American people are among the most brainwashed people on earth. At least the residents of the Soviet Union realized they were being fed constant propaganda by the media.
Well, for my setup, HD DVD is an improvement. I have a DLP 720P front projector which I project onto a 92 inch diagonal screen. At that size, the increased resolution makes a difference. With regular DVDs, I have this vague feeling I'm watching a giant screen TV. With HD DVDs, I feel like I'm watching a movie in a movie theater.
Do you speed quickly the the next red light just to stop, or do you slowly coast to it, even if all the other cars are 'rushing' to the red?
This comment made me laugh. When I approach a red light, I alway take my foot of the gas and coast to the light, but most people seem to speed towards the red light at top speed. People always ride my bumber when I coast to a red light. I get the feeling they're irritated at me.
Great way to get mod points. Advertise your a girl using Linux on Slashdot. Brilliant!
Well, I guess the arms manufacturers are obviously more evil then Microsoft. And arguably the oil companies and the drug companies.
But really, you Microsoft defenders are a joke. I guess you all work for Microsoft, or are stockholders or otherwise benefit from them.
Right now, I'm fighting the crippleware that is Vista, trying to get everything to work. Video Card, HDTV card, all not working properly because of Microsoft's DRM. Hours of my time wasted because of Microsoft's DRM. I should be able to bill them for it, but I can't. Guess I'll revert back to XP or 2000. In fact, I'd ditch Windows in a minute and go to Linux if I didn't have thousands of dollars of software that's Windows only. Most software is made for Windows because its an (undeserved) monopoly. I say undeserved because the monopoly was handed to them on a silver platter by IBM, and made possible by Intel's brillance, the resourcefullness of the clone manufacturers, the rise of the Internet, and copying Apple. Sure Microsoft deserves some credit, but they didn't earn the windfall they've ended up with. They're really sucessful because they won the lottery.
You know, I was going to mention that Wall Street article as an exception. I was going to say, that is, except among investors. Of course they admire Microsoft. They'ed admire Hitler if he made them money. The Wall Street Journal, what a great cross section of the IT industry.
I guess I'm going on anecdotial evidence though. Everyone I know (that's tech savvy) hates Microsoft. Most tech sites I go to has a strong dislike of Microsoft; especially, the posters in the forums. Some article writers like Microsoft, but many dislike Microsoft. Many of them are forced to feign a respect for Microsoft to ensure their support.
I'm sure I could find many examples of the dislike for Microsoft if I'd take time to Google for them. But negative comments and attitudes towards Microsoft are so common, that if your unaware of them in the imaginary world you live in, who am I to disagree?
You can't be one of the most hated companies in the world without some negative effects.
The fundamentalists distort the bible to come up with their 5000 year theory. For starters, in Peter's Epistle, 3:8 it says to God a thousand years is but a day and a days is a thousand years. That indicates the days in Genisis for the creation are metaphorical, and are at least a thousand years. But Peter was just giving an example, and he could have easily have said to God a million years is but a day, or a billion years is but a day. You can't put human perceptions on God's perception of time.
Furthmore, the Bible is full of parables, symbology, and methaphor. Jesus himself often used parables to describe even realtivley simple things, because the people of the time were unable to grasp much of his teachings. Since Jesus used parables to decribe realively simple things, it is likely the case, in fact certain that God used parables to describe the creation. Do you think primitive tribesmen would have been able to grasp something as complicated as the creation? No, they couldn't, therefore God used parables. When Jesus used parables, he was giving us a lesson on understanding the word of God.
It might also be said that time, in prophecy, is frequently given in symbolic terms. That is, expressed in unconvential means because the time itself is meant symbolically. In Daniel 8, 2,300 evenings and mornings is given as time until the time of the end; seventy sevens is given in Daniel 9 to mean the same thing. A time, times, and half a time is an expression used for the length of time of the reign of the Beast. Jesus's forty days in the desert is linked to the Jews forty years wandering in the desert under Moses. Since time is used symbolically so frequently in the Bible, it is plausible that the days for creation in Genisis are sybmolic.
When it comes to interpeting the Bible, fundmentalists can't see the forest for the trees.
As far as I'm concerned, Christianity has actually harmed morality. Many Christians believe that you are saved not by works, but by faith. So whether or not you "walk with God" depends not on whether or not you help the poor, show kindness, or are decent, but purely on whether you have accepted Jesus as your savior.
Well, this bit about saved by faith not works was never said by Jesus, but by Paul, and if you read carefully all the epistles where Paul brings this up, he is talking about the specific problem where Jews were telling gentile converts they must follow the law of Moses, which had things like stoning adulters, stoning people who broke the Sabath, etc., all things Jesus repudiated by his actions and teachings.
What Paul is really saying in the epistles is, it is not by works based on law of Moses you are saved, but by faith in God's promise of the messiah, given by Moses and the prophets, and as Moses said, when the prophet (messiah) comes, do everything he tells you.
What Martin Luther and the churches have done is twist this around, and what they are saying is one is not saved by doing the works Jesus said to do, but by faith in Jesus. Something Paul never said or meant, and something which ultimately makes no sense. Its like being stuck in the Jungles of Nam, surrounded by Viet Cong and outnumbered ten to one. But fortunately, you have the greatest soldier of them all, Rambo, to lead out of this mess. But you need to rally the troops to follow him in order to escape from this mess. So you have one soldier going around saying to the men, do whatever Rambo tells you (his works), and another going around saying, we will not be saved by obeying the orders (doing the works) Rambo tell us to do, but by faith in Rambo. Its nonsense.
Jesus never said this distortion of Paul, and in fact says the opposite. In Matthew 25, 31-48, he welcomes into his kingdom those who have helped the sick, fed the poor, and clothed the naked, and he condemns the hypocrites who praised his name in synogues but did none of this.
To me the hypocrites he condemns sums up many evangelicals and other Christians.
Most Christians do not follow Christ. If you knew anything about Christ's teachings, you would realize this. These evangelicals who are big Bush supportors and all in favor spending money on war and giveing big tax breaks to the rich, but are opposed to spending anything on aid to the poor are no more Christian and no more follow Christ then some hard core nazi the went to church every Sunday during WW II, then went out and killed people the rest of the week.
Well, I get around comercials for the few TV programs I like to watch by renting them from Netflix. No comercials, and watch a season at a time. But how am I going to get around comercials in games? There will be no comercial free DVD I can rent or buy...bummer. I know, I'll gouge out my eyeballs!
I would never buy a Microsoft mouse for the same reason. I've read that in order to fully enable all the deluxe featuures, you have to go online. Who needs this kind of crap? Microsoft is going to find out that the bad reputation they've built up over the years is going to come back and and bite them in the ass.
I've wondered about this point myself. I used to program as a hobby, graphic routines in assembly language. I came up with what I thought were some pretty good routines. And I thought, this is clever, I wonder if anyone has done this before. My point is, if I invent a way of doing something on my own, and it turns out someone had the same idea a few years before me, I can be stopped from using my own idea in my programs. To me this is wrong. I invented it myself, and didn't steal it, so I should have the right to use it. To me, intellectual property rights go to far when they tell me I can't use ideas I've thought of myself without outside influence. That's bullshit. Intellectual property rights are an artificial and arbitrary concept anyway, and if someone invents something on their own, they should have the right to use it, even if someone else had the same idea before.
Software patients in general are a bad idea. Its absurd when you can patent every trivial concept under the sun.
Let me add this. I wouldn't even want to switch out my single 12 volt battery every time I fill up, let alone several sets of battery packs. I tell you what. To prove your point, why don't you put a spare 12 volt battery in your trunk, and every time you fill up, switch batteries for, say, the next 6 months. Then let me know how convenient you think it is. Switching out one battery should be much easier then switching out a slew of them. So it should be a breeze according to your scenerio.
Well, the Prius also has a gasoline engine. Those batteries wouldn't be near sufficent to power an all electric vehical, or else we'd already have one. And even following your scenerio, do think people are going to pull into a station, and swap out four 25 lb battery packs on their own every time they fill up? Not going to happen. Most people will not do that. And I guarentee, insurance will forbid it. What if someone doesn't secure the crane to the battery pack properly and drops a battery pack on their foot? What if they drop it and the battery splits open? What if they drop it on their fender and damage their car? With these things being swapped out millions of time a day, every day, the chances of accidents is very great.
But hey, if you think grandma's going to switch out a hundred or two hundred pounds of batteries every time she fills up, well then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
So? The cells could still be packaged in one or two large packs. They would be heavy, so some sort of automation would be required to do the swapping, but that's doable.
Well, you'd need a crane to lift out a couple hundred pounds of batteries, and the batteries would have to be easily accessable for a rapid switch, which would put constraints on the designs of cars. The danger of swinging a couple hunderd pounds of batteries on a crane would lead to huge insurance costs if you let granny and junior and Joe 6 pack do it. So you'd have to bring back gas station attendants to handle the switch, which would also increase cost of a fillup. Its doable, sure, but multiplied by the millions of fillups everyday in the U.S. alone, I don't thinks its an especially convenient or practical way to get a fillup.
Basically, the cost of a "fill up" would be the price of the installed battery (based on its lifecycle stage) less the price of your battery plus the price of the juice in the installed battery.
This idea sounds good in theory, but in reality, this is not some convenient, clear cut transaction, but a somewhat arbitrary confusing mess. In transactions like this, the consumer always gets the short end of the stick. You are not going to come up with a fair, workable system to switch out a set of new $10000 bateries for an old $500 set. I mean, suppose your switching an old set of batteries for a new set. Are you going to get a $7000 bill on your credit card? Can you honestly say you'd be willing to switch out a $10000 set from a brand new car for a $1000 worn out set? I wouldn't. I think a lot of people would be unwilling to do this. Batteries are too expensive and too variable in quality for this to be practical. And how about the station owners? Are they going to make a transaction which might entail paying you $5000 plus, or charging you $5000 or more, gratis, with no additional fee? I don't know of any business that would do this. All in all, with fees, and a station attendant to switch out batteries, this is looking to be a very expensive fillup.
I think this whole idea is one that may sound good in concept, but has a whole lot of problems standing in the way of being a practical real world solution. Is it doable? Perhaps. Is it easy and practical and cost efficient enough to satisfy consumers and business? In my opinion, no.
The reason this would be impractical is you need a lot of batteries to power a car. Its not like swapping out one convential 12 volt battery, its swapping out a whole bunch of them. Plus, batteries are expensive. Do you want to trade your set of brand new batteries for a five year old set? Would a service station want to trade out a new set of batteries for the five year old set in your car?
And trust me, any 130 year old farmhouse is a tinderbox, especially if it still has heart pine flooring/ceiling joists.
Yep, I'm familair with those those kinds of buildings. They are basically kindling.
This reminds me of a local news station in St. Louis, that has a consumer watchdog reporter. They did a segment on a family having a problem with plamsa burn in, and what was burned into the plasma was their own station screen logo. The family was apprantly unaware of the burn in problem, so they just left it on that station all day long. No one from the station apologized for ruining their expensive plasma with their constant broadcast of the logo. Instead they contacted the store it was purchased at and the manufacturer to see if they would help with the problem.
On screen logos are one of the reasons I don't watch much TV, even though I have a HD receiver. On my DLP front projector system and 92" screen, a logo which is mildly annoying on a small screen, becomes hugely distracting. I can pick up Smallville in High Definition, but the local station has a large obnoxious yellow logo, which makes it unwatchable. So I just buy or rent the discs of TV shows I want to watch.
That's interesting. I once posted on a thread about ebooks that I thought they wouldn't take off because they'ed be DRMed to death, and your example is what I meant. I was modded down (I think labled a troll) for that comment. I often see this on Slashdot, someone with a reasonable but negative comment on something being modded down or labled a troll. Well, glad you got modded up.