But the problem is that politicians are not just one person where those contradictions would seem idiotic and impossible. No, politicians are a group, and while some want scientific advance at all possible costs, others want nothing more than to circle the wagons, curry favor, and leave the status quo.
Hence, our cynicism is well placed, since both are actually occurring.
Cocal Cola, for years, has made a big deal about it's recipe being a secret. Year there are enough companies out there who spent the money to reverse engineer it by either chemical analysis or simply mixing the ingredients to create knock offs. A trade secret, in many respects is better than a patent, because at least you have some idea that a competitor B has spent just as much money as you have to produce a competing product, versus one who has just taken your patent, made token improvements, and gotten his own patent thus making your lawsuit ineffectual.
It worked for the first 5000 years of human civilization, it'd work for the remainder. History will look back on us and call this the Age of Superconglomerates. They will pity us.
I can take any patent, make an improvement in it, and repatent it. Nothing about the patent system prevents me from doing exactly what you said above. The only problem is that my patent must be an improvement on yours, which is almost never hard.
Patents are a waste of time and money.
For example: my dad has a patent. Plastic regrind for aquarium gravel. For a short while his product was pretty hot shit. A knock off popped up a few years later that was very obviously plastic regrind, but didn't have several traits that my pops' product did (excellent gem-like luster, small relatively uniform shape, generally good to look at).
Someone took a patent, made some changes, patented it, and created a knock-off. The knock-off failed in the marketplace, my dad's now selling shit to Walmart.
I did a bit more reading on the subject after posting, and it appears that there are at least 4 recorded events of jet aircraft making water landings with survivors and one suspected (KAL 007). Apparently the high speed aspect of the landing and the concrete like surface of the water at high speed can actually contribute to safe water landings.
Assuming the wings remain intact, the fuel or empty fuel tanks will contribute to keeping the aircraft afloat.
As a parent, I can say I'd never charge my kid rent unless I DESPERATELY needed it (like I was out of a job and he was 18+ and making decent money) and had to make a mortgage payment. Pay utilities, pay a food share, maybe.
And it'd be with the expectation that the kid would at least save some of his/her money (IRA, 401K, CD's) to have a chance to get a nice financial cushion under themselves, because I'm not cosigning loans for them. I consider their education my problem, not theirs, and I'd expect them to do well, demand it.
I lived at home until I was 21. Mostly a fear of living on my own as I never went to college and my parents never gave me crap about girls staying over. My parents gave me the opportunity to bank 10's of thousands while at living at home, and I squandered it. With all the money I've thrown away on entertainment, DVD's, music and fast food, I could own my own home now...
You, sir, have obviously never sat on the gloriously calm ocean on a great fall day drinking beers, reeling in a jig full of meter-long sea bass, drank another beer, gutted your fish, drank another beer, caught another two-dozen bass but had to throw em back because they're a centimeter or two too small, gone home, fried em up on the barby, laid the pipe in the poor wife next door who's hubby is more interested in golf than her and had another beer before sitting down to watch the Patriots work up to yet another Superbowl win...:-)
Bowling is NEVER cool unless your playing with a squad of naked cheerleaders.
ABC needs to fire their Monday Night Football sound effects guy (effects volume crushes the commentators), and quit with the damned animations. No wonder we have a nation of ADD afflicted freaks.
I'll give a somewhat personal insight into that comment: Senior year of high school. Went 10 out of 12 trimesters of English scoring an average 96%. Midterms of 11th trimester I dropped to the 60% in a sports literature class I despised (100% my fault, not trying to blame the system here). But only halfway into the trimester, a computer could have, and should have caught such a catastrophic drop in performance.
I had similar drops from my junior year in algebra 2 and precalculus senior year... I'm not a math guy.
I'm not the type to ask for help, it's hard for me professionally today, but the fact that I'm paid to do it lessons the blow a bit, but as a 16 year old, I couldn't ask anyone for help. A quick inquiry from a guidance counselor or some such might surely have boosted my own self-interest enough to improve my grades.
How much of America's poor educational performance is the simple effect of our kids not thinking anyone gives a shit if they pass or fail?
Even 20 years ago you could correlate this sort of data on TRS-80s, there was no excuse for it in the mid-90's. I was never one who needed lots of help learning, so I can't comment on the performance of the school in helping those students out, but when a kick in the ass, or a simple inquistive person might have been useful, they were nowhere to be found.
I don't know where you go to school, but in Central Massachusetts, Millis in particular, teachers start around $35,000USD per year for 40 weeks worth of work. Most average $40-$45,000 per year. I know in 1994 my shop teachers were making $67,000 per year. Granted, those were shop teachers with specialized knowledge (architecture and mechanical engineering) but teachers in suburban America are NOT underpaid.
Rural or Urban areas like NYC or Boston or Northern Maine, maybe. Not Millis, and certainly not Natick or Wellesley.
It's starting off slow, but it's starting to happen in the US. In the Northeast, I've seen a marked increase in young, 15-25 year old, females obsessed with "texting". I've yet to know a single guy who's into it, with the possible exception of myself and my PalmOS Verichat client.
Texting sure beats passing notes in class. Give it time. The female market will bring many of these gadgets across the pond.
Note the phrase, "In the event of a water LANDING". I don't know too many passengers jets who've landed on water, and I'm not sure a 747's stall speed is slow enough to make it happen without shredding on the air/water interface except in a really fast headwind. But that brings it's own issues with turbulence and wave action... A 747 isn't a ship, I'm not sure it could survive 6-10m swells.
I've been agonizing over it for a few weeks now, and once I feel comfortable with MIDP 2.0 on the Palm, I'll probably give Superwaba a try. The simple fact that it can access Palm Databases natively is fairly attractive to me (something the Sun MIDP profile cannot do).
Remember that it's a touch sensitive 8x10" panel, in most cases. Those aren't cheap. Even at a full retail OEM price of $200 for XP Pro that doesn't explain Tablet PC costs in the range of $1200-$1500 USD.
What I meant was a standard LCD connection that would let you plug an aftermarket 18" LCD panel into the laptop, and hence, buy a laptop without an attached display.
Ala PCMCIA/Cardbus with expansion cards. Yes, it's possible. Not, it's not economical or marketable, which is why it doesn't exist.
You have to understand manufacturing. If you become a competitor to your resellers, and you are a noname like Transmeta, then your competitors have no reason to push your products for you. If you go off and create competition for your resellers by getting more resellers, some of whom may serve similar markets, you [can] encourage your reseller to drop your products.
If it was an established and profitable reseller, only by offering discounts and freebies to serve a new market can you guarantee that you won't end up losing volume. It's a tight line to walk, and at a certain volume, Transmeta won't have to walk it.
But there is only so much they can do if they don't want to hurt their profitable markets.
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But the problem is that politicians are not just one person where those contradictions would seem idiotic and impossible. No, politicians are a group, and while some want scientific advance at all possible costs, others want nothing more than to circle the wagons, curry favor, and leave the status quo.
Hence, our cynicism is well placed, since both are actually occurring.
I disagree vehemently with this premise.
Cocal Cola, for years, has made a big deal about it's recipe being a secret. Year there are enough companies out there who spent the money to reverse engineer it by either chemical analysis or simply mixing the ingredients to create knock offs. A trade secret, in many respects is better than a patent, because at least you have some idea that a competitor B has spent just as much money as you have to produce a competing product, versus one who has just taken your patent, made token improvements, and gotten his own patent thus making your lawsuit ineffectual.
It worked for the first 5000 years of human civilization, it'd work for the remainder. History will look back on us and call this the Age of Superconglomerates. They will pity us.
I can take any patent, make an improvement in it, and repatent it. Nothing about the patent system prevents me from doing exactly what you said above. The only problem is that my patent must be an improvement on yours, which is almost never hard.
Patents are a waste of time and money.
For example: my dad has a patent. Plastic regrind for aquarium gravel. For a short while his product was pretty hot shit. A knock off popped up a few years later that was very obviously plastic regrind, but didn't have several traits that my pops' product did (excellent gem-like luster, small relatively uniform shape, generally good to look at).
Someone took a patent, made some changes, patented it, and created a knock-off. The knock-off failed in the marketplace, my dad's now selling shit to Walmart.
Right, those same people who'd pay $50 US for a DVD player or even $15 for a DVD? Mmm... read the concern in my eyes...
Which is why frameworks like ACE, Boost, wxWidgets and others exist. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel at each project.
Problem is, everyone is suffering from NIH syndrome, so nothing ever changes.
COM fixed that little problem on Windows, mostly.
Child rapists are the scum of the Earth, dude.
Drug dealers barely even mention a nod, particular those truly "non-violent" ones.
I did a bit more reading on the subject after posting, and it appears that there are at least 4 recorded events of jet aircraft making water landings with survivors and one suspected (KAL 007). Apparently the high speed aspect of the landing and the concrete like surface of the water at high speed can actually contribute to safe water landings.
Assuming the wings remain intact, the fuel or empty fuel tanks will contribute to keeping the aircraft afloat.
As a parent, I can say I'd never charge my kid rent unless I DESPERATELY needed it (like I was out of a job and he was 18+ and making decent money) and had to make a mortgage payment. Pay utilities, pay a food share, maybe.
And it'd be with the expectation that the kid would at least save some of his/her money (IRA, 401K, CD's) to have a chance to get a nice financial cushion under themselves, because I'm not cosigning loans for them. I consider their education my problem, not theirs, and I'd expect them to do well, demand it.
I lived at home until I was 21. Mostly a fear of living on my own as I never went to college and my parents never gave me crap about girls staying over. My parents gave me the opportunity to bank 10's of thousands while at living at home, and I squandered it. With all the money I've thrown away on entertainment, DVD's, music and fast food, I could own my own home now...
Honestly, if you're never home, what's the big deal? Other than getting some nookie while your mom is down the hall which is just a bit disturbing...
You, sir, have obviously never sat on the gloriously calm ocean on a great fall day drinking beers, reeling in a jig full of meter-long sea bass, drank another beer, gutted your fish, drank another beer, caught another two-dozen bass but had to throw em back because they're a centimeter or two too small, gone home, fried em up on the barby, laid the pipe in the poor wife next door who's hubby is more interested in golf than her and had another beer before sitting down to watch the Patriots work up to yet another Superbowl win... :-)
Bowling is NEVER cool unless your playing with a squad of naked cheerleaders.
Except the guys driving the honey wagons who are bribing the politicians not to improve the situation...
ABC needs to fire their Monday Night Football sound effects guy (effects volume crushes the commentators), and quit with the damned animations. No wonder we have a nation of ADD afflicted freaks.
I'll give a somewhat personal insight into that comment: Senior year of high school. Went 10 out of 12 trimesters of English scoring an average 96%. Midterms of 11th trimester I dropped to the 60% in a sports literature class I despised (100% my fault, not trying to blame the system here). But only halfway into the trimester, a computer could have, and should have caught such a catastrophic drop in performance.
I had similar drops from my junior year in algebra 2 and precalculus senior year... I'm not a math guy.
I'm not the type to ask for help, it's hard for me professionally today, but the fact that I'm paid to do it lessons the blow a bit, but as a 16 year old, I couldn't ask anyone for help. A quick inquiry from a guidance counselor or some such might surely have boosted my own self-interest enough to improve my grades.
How much of America's poor educational performance is the simple effect of our kids not thinking anyone gives a shit if they pass or fail?
Even 20 years ago you could correlate this sort of data on TRS-80s, there was no excuse for it in the mid-90's. I was never one who needed lots of help learning, so I can't comment on the performance of the school in helping those students out, but when a kick in the ass, or a simple inquistive person might have been useful, they were nowhere to be found.
I don't know where you go to school, but in Central Massachusetts, Millis in particular, teachers start around $35,000USD per year for 40 weeks worth of work. Most average $40-$45,000 per year. I know in 1994 my shop teachers were making $67,000 per year. Granted, those were shop teachers with specialized knowledge (architecture and mechanical engineering) but teachers in suburban America are NOT underpaid.
Rural or Urban areas like NYC or Boston or Northern Maine, maybe. Not Millis, and certainly not Natick or Wellesley.
It's starting off slow, but it's starting to happen in the US. In the Northeast, I've seen a marked increase in young, 15-25 year old, females obsessed with "texting". I've yet to know a single guy who's into it, with the possible exception of myself and my PalmOS Verichat client.
Texting sure beats passing notes in class. Give it time. The female market will bring many of these gadgets across the pond.
Note the phrase, "In the event of a water LANDING". I don't know too many passengers jets who've landed on water, and I'm not sure a 747's stall speed is slow enough to make it happen without shredding on the air/water interface except in a really fast headwind. But that brings it's own issues with turbulence and wave action... A 747 isn't a ship, I'm not sure it could survive 6-10m swells.
Same way we always did, bigger guns...
Now you know what the ABM shield is really for. Suicidal rocket pilots.
I stand corrected...
No shit.
Thanks for the link. I'd spent some time looking for one two months ago when I got my Kyocera, but I never found one.
Palm compatibility, anyone? For $100 it's almost worth the experiment...
I've been agonizing over it for a few weeks now, and once I feel comfortable with MIDP 2.0 on the Palm, I'll probably give Superwaba a try. The simple fact that it can access Palm Databases natively is fairly attractive to me (something the Sun MIDP profile cannot do).
Remember that it's a touch sensitive 8x10" panel, in most cases. Those aren't cheap. Even at a full retail OEM price of $200 for XP Pro that doesn't explain Tablet PC costs in the range of $1200-$1500 USD.
Try buying a laptop without a display?
What I meant was a standard LCD connection that would let you plug an aftermarket 18" LCD panel into the laptop, and hence, buy a laptop without an attached display.
Ala PCMCIA/Cardbus with expansion cards. Yes, it's possible. Not, it's not economical or marketable, which is why it doesn't exist.
And the difference between what you just said and practical reality is the difference between E=mc^2 and the Manhattan Project.
Go in peace.
You have to understand manufacturing. If you become a competitor to your resellers, and you are a noname like Transmeta, then your competitors have no reason to push your products for you. If you go off and create competition for your resellers by getting more resellers, some of whom may serve similar markets, you [can] encourage your reseller to drop your products.
If it was an established and profitable reseller, only by offering discounts and freebies to serve a new market can you guarantee that you won't end up losing volume. It's a tight line to walk, and at a certain volume, Transmeta won't have to walk it.
But there is only so much they can do if they don't want to hurt their profitable markets.
Sucks, being a slave to your resellers...
What's stopping people from putting WiFi and flash memory on one SD card??