I stopped watching Google Tech Talks after they moved form Google Video to YouTube. Back on GV, I could download a fairly high quality AVI that I could easily play on my TV. Now that they're on YouTube, downloading isn't quite as easy and the video quality is nowhere near as good.
The you can't claim that it can access ALL the internet. There's probably no device that can claim to access all the internet (both it's protocols & content).
what are Americans going to do to make sure the government and the military practices what they preach? They are practicing what they preach - most of those practices are in various stages of implementation right now in the USA.
Of course, this must mean that there is some insurgency underway in the US, but the media (i'm guessing under government suppression) isn't telling anyone about it.
Do you know how many suburb-dwellers spend their time desperately trying to convince the world and themselves that they're not racist or sexist or discriminating in any way
Except that with the anonymity of the ballot box, that guilt disappears. If somebody asks who you're going to/did vote for, just say Obama. No one will know if you really voted McCain. You might have to rationalize why you voted that way to yourself, but that's fairly easy.
What do you expect from the BBC? They're state TV. That's why they need so much propaganda to try and convince people that they're not.
You're never going to get informed debate from them. Most issues will be nebulously reported. Some will be championed (remeber how the BBC went on and on about how great it would be to host the Olympics - any one who didn't think it was a great idea had thier sanity and patriotism questioned). Occasionally, they'll appear to be violently oppossed to a single issue that they know is going to be unpopular (like the war) so that they can appear independant.
You might trust the people in power now, but what about the government 10-20 years down the line?
It seems like not even Labour MPs trust the government these days. I would expect the government in 10 to 20 years time to be a Conservative one in it's second and third parliaments. By which time it too will be appearing corrupt and inept after a few years of initial success. As for the Labour party 15 - 20 years from now, they'll just be becomming electable again. I guess the Lib Dems will still be around in much the same way they are now. The only thing I'm not certain of in 10 -20 years is if I'm talking about a UK parliament or an English one.
No, it wouldn't. There'd be little point nuking your enemy, as you'd be nuking the very resources you're fighting for. At worst, you might get a suicide nuke, where the loosing side nukes itself the keep their enemy getting their resources, but I don't see that happening either.
The argument that technology always saves us doesn't look back very far
But agriculture is technology. From the original tools used to dig up the earth, the first plow attached to an animal, the first irrigation system, etc. All technology.
Humans wouldn't be here if it wasn't for technology.
If you look at the graphic on that page, 47% of people in Finland have a mobile but no landline. While not really "almost everybody" it's still almost a majority. The EU average is 18%.
My TomTom device has mapshare built in, I'd be astonished if Garmin did not
My Garmin doesn't. Maybe some of the higher end models do, but not mine. It also has a habit of sending me down narrow country roads because it's convinced I can do 60 mph (the generic limit for out of town roads in the UK) down them even though anything above 15 would be suicide.
If the tax on gasoline was 100% (because almost all of the gas is used up on *public* roads), we'd cut traffic and have more money for public transit
I live in the UK, petrol prices are high (about US$ 8 for a US gallon) and most of that is tax. It doesn't stop people from driving, as most people who drive do so because they have no other choice. If the price doubled, they'd still pay it and there would still be as many people on the road. You could keep doubling and doubling and eventually you would price petrol so high as to drive people off the roads, but you'd be driving them off the roads and straight onto the unemployment line, as it would no longer be worth it to go to work. Not only might it not be worth it, in many circumstances it would be impossible to even get to work without a car.
There are fundamental limits to public transport, no matter how much money you throw at it. Unlike the car, it can't go everywhere at anytime. There comes a point where it becomes inefficient. What's the point of running a bus (or worse, a train) that is only going to have a single passenger or a handful of passengers - but if public transport really is supposed to provide a decent alternative to the car for most journeys then that's exactly what it would end up having to do at a cost less than or equal to a car journey.
He was pretty set on the idea of a miles-driven based tax rather than a gas tax.
But a gas tax is a miles driven tax - the more miles you drive, the more gas you use, the more tax you pay. It even encourages more environmentally friendly cars that use less petrol per mile.
I don't believe for a second that if a miles driven tax was implemented then fuel taxes would be cut - especially if it comes in under the guise of a "congestion charge" (especially easy to do if the rate changes depending on the time of day).
Maintaining the infrastructure we have while charging the people who actually use it for the construction/upkeep (and all the negative externalities associated with their use, which congestion pricing tries to do) seems eminently fair.
It's not, because most people don't have a choice of when they can travel to work/work from home/etc. If the boss says be in for 9am, then you have to be in for 9am and the cost of getting in by 9am is going to only be felt by the employee who has no choice. The only way to make it fair would be to require employers to pay for their employee's commute separately from their wages (then the employer might change their policies to lower their costs) - though even if this happens you can bet that employers will just lower pay to cover the costs and, lo and behold, the employee is still bearing the brunt of the costs of commuting.
but the Government did the wrong thing in guaranteeing saver's deposits
I don't think they had much of a choice. The Government has been actively encouraging people to save for years. If a lot of people lost their savings a lot of blame would be directed at the Government for their blind encouragement of saving.
I think it all comes down which would look worse in the media - the situation we have now, or the situation that would have happened had the government not backed up peoples savings.
In many markets (such as energy) the UK is actually free-er than the US and has been for quite a while. You'd be hard pressed to find a market that is less free in the UK than the US. Even markets that have large government backed players, such as TV and Health care, also have a thriving free market. Most markets, such as energy, telecoms, transport and water (except in Scotland) have little, if any government involvement outside of basic regulation.
As for the BBC producing TV for the elite, maybe at one time but not now. It is the home of Pop (American) Idol and Eastenders. While BBC 4 might be considered TV for the elite (though I'd consider it TV for people who are having trouble getting to sleep), the crap on BBC 3 certainly isn't.
The Net Book Agreement was not a law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement), it was a collusion between publishers and sellers to keep book prices artificially high.
It ended when such collusion was ruled to be illegal. If smaller shops disappeared, it's because they had previously only existed by unfairly exploiting the consumer.
Are you sure that wasn't one of their processing, packaging, and shipping locations?
Not sure at all - it just looked like a warehouse.
If they don't hold stock, I'd love to know how they do their guaranteed next day delivery. It's 7pm and with some of their books I still have 13 1/2 hours left to buy them and still have them delivered tomorrow (so I could order them at 7am and get it same day). That would be one hell of a Just In Time system.
They also make this claim: "In stock. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.". The UK has fairly strict misrepresentation laws, so it's hard to see how they could claim that and not actually own the stock. Maybe their system is so good nobody's noticed.
So they give the publishers a lot of price setting power, in order to protect the niche products that wouldn't get made otherwise.
But why? "Cultural Importance"? If few people actually want to buy the "culturally important" products than how can those products be called "culturally important"? LOTR, HP, etc are the truly culturally import products, because they are actually read by the people who make up the culture.
Why should money and effort be spent on making products almost nobody wants? More importantly, why should products that people actually do want be made more expensive in order to fund the products almost nobody wants? It's a huge waste.
In my opinion it is much more fun browsing trough stacks of books in a book store, than clicking my way through an online book store.
My opinion is the exact opposite. Amazon is a lot more fun browsing than trudging down to a bookstore. For the sorts of books I'm into (mostly computing and science books) I can browse at Amazon - most local bookstores are sorely lacking in these subject areas. I've found books I didn't know existed by browsing at Amazon. At a bookstore, I'll find 8 books on Word, 7 on Excel, a few "How to use a computer" books and maybe "HTML for Dummies" and that's about it.
I don't about Amazon in the US, but I have driven by a very large Amazon.co.uk warehouse on several occasions (conveniently located next to a depot of one of the companies they use for shipping). I'm assuming the warehouse isn't empty.
Slashdot Mirror
I stopped watching Google Tech Talks after they moved form Google Video to YouTube. Back on GV, I could download a fairly high quality AVI that I could easily play on my TV. Now that they're on YouTube, downloading isn't quite as easy and the video quality is nowhere near as good.
What if my computer can't run Real Player?
The you can't claim that it can access ALL the internet. There's probably no device that can claim to access all the internet (both it's protocols & content).
This could be a money making scam -
1) Post fake lurid posts on social networking site
2) wait for press to pick up on lurid posts
3) claim the posts are fake and sue for defamation.
4) Profit
No ??? needed.
Anyone can download the iPhone SDK today.
What's the URL for the version that'll run on Linux?Of course, this must mean that there is some insurgency underway in the US, but the media (i'm guessing under government suppression) isn't telling anyone about it.
Do you know how many suburb-dwellers spend their time desperately trying to convince the world and themselves that they're not racist or sexist or discriminating in any way
Except that with the anonymity of the ballot box, that guilt disappears. If somebody asks who you're going to/did vote for, just say Obama. No one will know if you really voted McCain. You might have to rationalize why you voted that way to yourself, but that's fairly easy.
What do you expect from the BBC? They're state TV. That's why they need so much propaganda to try and convince people that they're not.
You're never going to get informed debate from them. Most issues will be nebulously reported. Some will be championed (remeber how the BBC went on and on about how great it would be to host the Olympics - any one who didn't think it was a great idea had thier sanity and patriotism questioned). Occasionally, they'll appear to be violently oppossed to a single issue that they know is going to be unpopular (like the war) so that they can appear independant.
You might trust the people in power now, but what about the government 10-20 years down the line?
It seems like not even Labour MPs trust the government these days. I would expect the government in 10 to 20 years time to be a Conservative one in it's second and third parliaments. By which time it too will be appearing corrupt and inept after a few years of initial success. As for the Labour party 15 - 20 years from now, they'll just be becomming electable again. I guess the Lib Dems will still be around in much the same way they are now. The only thing I'm not certain of in 10 -20 years is if I'm talking about a UK parliament or an English one.
a war for resources would most likely be nuclear
No, it wouldn't. There'd be little point nuking your enemy, as you'd be nuking the very resources you're fighting for. At worst, you might get a suicide nuke, where the loosing side nukes itself the keep their enemy getting their resources, but I don't see that happening either.
The argument that technology always saves us doesn't look back very far
But agriculture is technology. From the original tools used to dig up the earth, the first plow attached to an animal, the first irrigation system, etc. All technology.
Humans wouldn't be here if it wasn't for technology.
Of course Gates & MS disagree with the GPL. They have since the 1978 computer-club letter
Um, how could they disagree with something that hadn't been invented yet?
http://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/
The computer club letter was about software piracy, not free software.
In 8.04, you can use the Windows based installer (Wubi) instead.
And (in the UK) some grocery stores also do ISP and telecoms. Like Tesco, who do internet, mobile, landline, VOIP as well as banking and insurance.
If you look at the graphic on that page, 47% of people in Finland have a mobile but no landline. While not really "almost everybody" it's still almost a majority. The EU average is 18%.
My TomTom device has mapshare built in, I'd be astonished if Garmin did not
My Garmin doesn't. Maybe some of the higher end models do, but not mine. It also has a habit of sending me down narrow country roads because it's convinced I can do 60 mph (the generic limit for out of town roads in the UK) down them even though anything above 15 would be suicide.
OSM already has those features - they're called tags (not layers)
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Map_Features
If the tax on gasoline was 100% (because almost all of the gas is used up on *public* roads), we'd cut traffic and have more money for public transit
I live in the UK, petrol prices are high (about US$ 8 for a US gallon) and most of that is tax. It doesn't stop people from driving, as most people who drive do so because they have no other choice. If the price doubled, they'd still pay it and there would still be as many people on the road. You could keep doubling and doubling and eventually you would price petrol so high as to drive people off the roads, but you'd be driving them off the roads and straight onto the unemployment line, as it would no longer be worth it to go to work. Not only might it not be worth it, in many circumstances it would be impossible to even get to work without a car.
There are fundamental limits to public transport, no matter how much money you throw at it. Unlike the car, it can't go everywhere at anytime. There comes a point where it becomes inefficient. What's the point of running a bus (or worse, a train) that is only going to have a single passenger or a handful of passengers - but if public transport really is supposed to provide a decent alternative to the car for most journeys then that's exactly what it would end up having to do at a cost less than or equal to a car journey.
He was pretty set on the idea of a miles-driven based tax rather than a gas tax.
But a gas tax is a miles driven tax - the more miles you drive, the more gas you use, the more tax you pay. It even encourages more environmentally friendly cars that use less petrol per mile.
I don't believe for a second that if a miles driven tax was implemented then fuel taxes would be cut - especially if it comes in under the guise of a "congestion charge" (especially easy to do if the rate changes depending on the time of day).
Maintaining the infrastructure we have while charging the people who actually use it for the construction/upkeep (and all the negative externalities associated with their use, which congestion pricing tries to do) seems eminently fair.
It's not, because most people don't have a choice of when they can travel to work/work from home/etc. If the boss says be in for 9am, then you have to be in for 9am and the cost of getting in by 9am is going to only be felt by the employee who has no choice. The only way to make it fair would be to require employers to pay for their employee's commute separately from their wages (then the employer might change their policies to lower their costs) - though even if this happens you can bet that employers will just lower pay to cover the costs and, lo and behold, the employee is still bearing the brunt of the costs of commuting.
but the Government did the wrong thing in guaranteeing saver's deposits
I don't think they had much of a choice. The Government has been actively encouraging people to save for years. If a lot of people lost their savings a lot of blame would be directed at the Government for their blind encouragement of saving.
I think it all comes down which would look worse in the media - the situation we have now, or the situation that would have happened had the government not backed up peoples savings.
In many markets (such as energy) the UK is actually free-er than the US and has been for quite a while. You'd be hard pressed to find a market that is less free in the UK than the US. Even markets that have large government backed players, such as TV and Health care, also have a thriving free market. Most markets, such as energy, telecoms, transport and water (except in Scotland) have little, if any government involvement outside of basic regulation.
As for the BBC producing TV for the elite, maybe at one time but not now. It is the home of Pop (American) Idol and Eastenders. While BBC 4 might be considered TV for the elite (though I'd consider it TV for people who are having trouble getting to sleep), the crap on BBC 3 certainly isn't.
The Net Book Agreement was not a law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement), it was a collusion between publishers and sellers to keep book prices artificially high.
It ended when such collusion was ruled to be illegal. If smaller shops disappeared, it's because they had previously only existed by unfairly exploiting the consumer.
Are you sure that wasn't one of their processing, packaging, and shipping locations?
Not sure at all - it just looked like a warehouse.
If they don't hold stock, I'd love to know how they do their guaranteed next day delivery. It's 7pm and with some of their books I still have 13 1/2 hours left to buy them and still have them delivered tomorrow (so I could order them at 7am and get it same day). That would be one hell of a Just In Time system.
They also make this claim: "In stock. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.". The UK has fairly strict misrepresentation laws, so it's hard to see how they could claim that and not actually own the stock. Maybe their system is so good nobody's noticed.
So they give the publishers a lot of price setting power, in order to protect the niche products that wouldn't get made otherwise.
But why? "Cultural Importance"? If few people actually want to buy the "culturally important" products than how can those products be called "culturally important"? LOTR, HP, etc are the truly culturally import products, because they are actually read by the people who make up the culture.
Why should money and effort be spent on making products almost nobody wants? More importantly, why should products that people actually do want be made more expensive in order to fund the products almost nobody wants? It's a huge waste.
In my opinion it is much more fun browsing trough stacks of books in a book store, than clicking my way through an online book store.
My opinion is the exact opposite. Amazon is a lot more fun browsing than trudging down to a bookstore. For the sorts of books I'm into (mostly computing and science books) I can browse at Amazon - most local bookstores are sorely lacking in these subject areas. I've found books I didn't know existed by browsing at Amazon. At a bookstore, I'll find 8 books on Word, 7 on Excel, a few "How to use a computer" books and maybe "HTML for Dummies" and that's about it.
But I do wonder why they don't just ship books to France from outside of France but still within the EU.
I don't about Amazon in the US, but I have driven by a very large Amazon.co.uk warehouse on several occasions (conveniently located next to a depot of one of the companies they use for shipping). I'm assuming the warehouse isn't empty.