Except that airplanes are not all identical (just mostly identical),
Same with cars. Look at them closely enough and they're not identical, of course, but they are assembled from interchangeable parts. Individual examples can be designed by selecting from different sets of options, but it's not as if there's an architect designing each individual one.
are still hand-built (for the most part) while on the 'assembly line' (which isn't really an assembly line like in a car factory at all)
Ever seen a picture of one? It's very similar.
and that they aren't produced en-masse (but built-to-order in small quantities).
As I said, the volume is lower. Other than that, it's exactly the same.
If you are taking off from and landing on special purpose airstrips/airports/airpads it becomes and easier task but then they are just planes not "flying cars".
Who says that the flying cars would necessarily take off or land under automatic control from anything but special purpose airstrips or pads?
You can already get planes, and that means you'd still need some other vehicle to get you to your workplace or shopping mall.
I've got news for you: Every commercial airliner you'll fly in during your life will have been "mass-produced."
The hallmark of mass production is assembly line production of identical products made from interchangeable parts.
Skyscrapers and cruise ships are "hand made," by contrast (after all, they get individually architected in advance and don't have "model numbers"), but airplanes come off an assembly line not significantly different than cars, or Dells, or TV sets - the volume is simply lower than most consumer goods.
The purpose of the Great Firewall is to simply keep people from accidentally surfing to the "wrong" sites. If you are pure in heart, you wouldn't want to go places where Big Brother says you oughtn't to go.
If you're not pure in heart, then you get to go visit room 101. You'll get to go there when you manage to get your hands on the firewall evasion software written by Emmanuel Goldstein (and here I'm specifically referring to the character in the book, not Eric Corley).
What you've gone on to describe is exactly what I was saying - you are attempting to exploit a short term variance to overcome the long term house edge.
You are skillfully determining the existence of such a variance, that's all.
There is one and only one way of winning in gamling. Luck.
I don't know about gamling, but gambling is different.
It all depends on the type of gambling involved. If you are playing against the house, then the only path for success is to attempt to exploit short term variance, because the long term odds always favor the house.
However, if you're playing against other players - that is, if you're playing poker or you're a parimutuel player, then you can succeed simply by being more skillful than your opponents.
Hint: The object of poker is not to win or lose the pot at hand. The object of poker is to make the correct decision at every opportunity. If every decision you make has the most positive expected value possible, then you will succeed.
Before you answer, compare and contrast how a golf tournament works to how a poker tournament works and tell me how the former is fundamentally different from the latter.
"Check out this great new way to heat our oceans using our datacenters!"
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We're going to have datacenters (the fact that you're posting to/. makes you a hypocrite otherwise). So which is worse? Cooling them with electrically powered air-conditioning? Or using something else as a heat sink?
I thought the greeniacs were all up ons about nuclear plants using seawater for cooling because the heated exhaust invariably caused altered conditions at the point of discharge. And far be it from us horrible ebil humans to actually change the environment. That's just wrong.
The finesse for radar detectors is that if you're an amateur radio operator, several of the radar bands are co-allocated to the amateur service. So a radar detector is part of a federally licensed radio service's station's equipment. That way trumps state laws on the matter.
I'm really impressed by those protesters during '08 who warned me again and again that if I voted for McCain nothing would change. Boy were they right. I voted for McCain, and sure enough!
(yes, the first time this joke came up it was Goldwater, but it still applies)
There are still Model T Fords being driven today, so from that perspective you could say that, no, no operating system is ever likely to truly go extinct.
There are, however, some that likely are only in use by hobbyists, collectors or historians (probably via emulation). I would say that list at least includes Apple's DOS (and alies, such as ProntoDOS), Pro-DOS, SOS as well as TRS-DOS and NewDOS.
Supposedly, in the study, you would only be taxed for driving in the state of Oregon
Oh, that's easy for a govmint agency to finesse: all miles are assumed to be within the state of Oregon unless you file form fmx99382c in triplicate with a complete log of your out-of-state miles, with itemized proofs, notarized.
What's the purpose of Neilsen counting audience members?
The purpose is to determine how many eyeballs are there watching the advertisements so that the channels/stations know how much to charge the advertisers.
Why else would anyone pay Neilsen for that information? If Neilsen wasn't being paid for it, why would they compile it?
Can anyone seriously suggest that even a measurable minority of those DVR viewers aren't merely skipping over all that advertising? If they don't, then should they count, for the purposes of determining how much to charge advertisers for their spots?
Let's not forget the number one dirty little secret of the broadcasting industry:
You, the viewer are not the customer.
The advertisers are the customer.
You, the viewer, are the product being sold.
The TV stations / networks have almost exactly as much interest in keeping you happy as a shepherd has in keeping his flock happy.
the point about the compass is spot-on. I completely forgot about that, and it really is a must-have for good turn-by-turn, otherwise you have to rely strictly on location, which won't be as useful.
I know of no standalone GPS unit that has a compass. It's not necessary at all for turn-by-turn navigation. When you're moving, the GPS knows exactly which way you're moving and simply assumes the direction of travel is also the direction the front of the car is pointing. When you're not moving, it assumes you are pointing the same direction you were when you were last moving.
Moreover, I have a 3GS, and the compass is fairly inaccurate when you're inside a big metal box like a car, train or bus. I find it's accurate to +/- 45 degrees or so. That's perhaps good enough to know which direction on the street you're facing, but I'm not sure it's good enough for the much-touted "augmented reality camera view overlay" stuff people are talking about.
That's because the 2G doesn't have GPS at all. Location services on the 2G are limited to cell tower and WiFi triangulation.
The 3G and 3GS both have A-GPS. Whether that counts as "true" or not is up to you. But if you attempt to get a fix in an area without cell service, I believe it won't work because the A in A-GPS stands for "assisted" - that is, the phone has to get a rough location, get the current time and download the almanac from the cell towers, THEN it can find the satellites.
and a mechanical safety system which causes it to 100% reliably stop dead in its tracks if there's a mechanical problem,
I'd say that is responsible for the majority of the improvement in the safety of elevators, but manual elevators were still more prone to cause injuries than automatic ones - mostly from when the operator failed to stop the car exactly even with the floor, which caused people to trip over the threshold despite them saying, "watch your step." Automatic control has virtually eliminated that formerly common occurrence.
Manual control was also responsible for system failure even when no injury was necessarily involved - mostly jams due to operator error. The sort of thing that has been almost entirely eliminated with modern automatic control.
Perhaps it is beginning to be time to ask not if aircraft under manual and automatic control ("manned" and "unmanned" to use the terminology of TFA) can commingle, but rather why aircraft need to be manually controlled at all.
The single safest mode of human locomotion today in terms of injuries per passenger-mile is the elevator ("lift" for those in the UK). Apart from museum pieces and some industrial models, they have been virtually exclusively under automatic control for at least 50 years now. The latest designs in modern aircraft no longer mechanically link the pilot to the control surfaces. And when called upon to do so, they can, in fact, automatically perform every flight maneuver required from take-off to landing (adding automatic taxiing would be obviously trivial).
All it takes is for someone to compare the rates of failure due to human error (or intrigue - the September 11th incident would have been impossible with automatically controlled aircraft), minus the rate at which human intervention prevents failures, with the expected rate of failure of the automatic control system. When the latter no longer exceeds the former, then the next generation of commercial aircraft will simply no longer have a cockpit at all.
Commercial aircraft operate under IFR. IFR is itself a precursor to an automatic control regimen. The flight plan calls for the aircraft to perform a series of maneuvers, with updates to the list of maneuvers supplied via radio from the ground by ATC. If contact with ATC is lost, everybody on the ground or in the air knows what the plane will do because of what the flight plan says.
There will always be a place for VFR and manual pilotage. But at this point, that is beginning to be a lot like saying there will always be a place for morse code in radio.
Though the pretty colorful text on the screen says "Buy this song for 99 cents!"... you ain't. You are buying a license to access the file (regardless of whether or not it is DRM'ed).
That depends.
When you buy a CD, it doesn't come in a shrinkwrap license. You are buying a copy of the digital content of that CD. The fact that it comes bound in plastic and the organization is by something called a "track" instead of a "file" is irrelevant.
The only thing that governs what you can do with that copy is copyright law. Copyright law, in particular the AHRA, allows you to format-shift that content for your personal use as much as you'd like. The DMCA takes that right away if there is an effective mechanism for access control, but for Red Book audio CDs there isn't one.
Unless you created the file (AND THE CONTENT), you don't own it.
You have greatly misunderstood the difference between owning a copy and owning the copyright.
I own a copy of every CD and DVD I've ever purchased that I still possess. A license can be negotiated in any transaction that involves click-through or shrink-wrap licensing, but that has never happened with regards to any CD or DVD purchase I've ever made.
Well, except that the same servers that serve out licensing for iTMS music (which is no longer sold encumbered) are the same ones that handle licensing for iTMS video, which is still being sold encumbered. So long as that is true, there is little or no incremental cost to Apple to keep supporting the licensing for Fair Play encumbered music.
I would expect that before Apple disabled access to encumbered iTMS music content that they'd have a fire sale on the iTunes Plus upgrades for those tracks, at least for those they could make available. They might even eventually make them free upgrades.
Slashdot Mirror
You've said nothing at all.
Except that airplanes are not all identical (just mostly identical),
Same with cars. Look at them closely enough and they're not identical, of course, but they are assembled from interchangeable parts. Individual examples can be designed by selecting from different sets of options, but it's not as if there's an architect designing each individual one.
are still hand-built (for the most part) while on the 'assembly line' (which isn't really an assembly line like in a car factory at all)
Ever seen a picture of one? It's very similar.
and that they aren't produced en-masse (but built-to-order in small quantities).
As I said, the volume is lower. Other than that, it's exactly the same.
If you are taking off from and landing on special purpose airstrips/airports/airpads it becomes and easier task but then they are just planes not "flying cars".
Who says that the flying cars would necessarily take off or land under automatic control from anything but special purpose airstrips or pads?
You can already get planes, and that means you'd still need some other vehicle to get you to your workplace or shopping mall.
The quintessential flying car is both in one.
I've got news for you: Every commercial airliner you'll fly in during your life will have been "mass-produced."
The hallmark of mass production is assembly line production of identical products made from interchangeable parts.
Skyscrapers and cruise ships are "hand made," by contrast (after all, they get individually architected in advance and don't have "model numbers"), but airplanes come off an assembly line not significantly different than cars, or Dells, or TV sets - the volume is simply lower than most consumer goods.
The purpose of the Great Firewall is to simply keep people from accidentally surfing to the "wrong" sites. If you are pure in heart, you wouldn't want to go places where Big Brother says you oughtn't to go.
If you're not pure in heart, then you get to go visit room 101. You'll get to go there when you manage to get your hands on the firewall evasion software written by Emmanuel Goldstein (and here I'm specifically referring to the character in the book, not Eric Corley).
they can also be used [for] enforcing acceptable use policies.
I dunno, somehow it seems just wrong to say that on /.
What you've gone on to describe is exactly what I was saying - you are attempting to exploit a short term variance to overcome the long term house edge.
You are skillfully determining the existence of such a variance, that's all.
There is one and only one way of winning in gamling. Luck.
I don't know about gamling, but gambling is different.
It all depends on the type of gambling involved. If you are playing against the house, then the only path for success is to attempt to exploit short term variance, because the long term odds always favor the house.
However, if you're playing against other players - that is, if you're playing poker or you're a parimutuel player, then you can succeed simply by being more skillful than your opponents.
Hint: The object of poker is not to win or lose the pot at hand. The object of poker is to make the correct decision at every opportunity. If every decision you make has the most positive expected value possible, then you will succeed.
So is the PGA a gambling organization?
Before you answer, compare and contrast how a golf tournament works to how a poker tournament works and tell me how the former is fundamentally different from the latter.
Chrome Frame will end in growing fragmentation and loss of control for most of us
You say that like it's a bad thing.
To the extent that there is any "control," shouldn't it rest with the authors of the spec?
"Check out this great new way to heat our oceans using our datacenters!"
You say that like it's a bad thing.
We're going to have datacenters (the fact that you're posting to /. makes you a hypocrite otherwise). So which is worse? Cooling them with electrically powered air-conditioning? Or using something else as a heat sink?
I thought the greeniacs were all up ons about nuclear plants using seawater for cooling because the heated exhaust invariably caused altered conditions at the point of discharge. And far be it from us horrible ebil humans to actually change the environment. That's just wrong.
So what makes this different?
they are legal in my country
Good for you. Just for the record, they are not legal in the United States.
The finesse for radar detectors is that if you're an amateur radio operator, several of the radar bands are co-allocated to the amateur service. So a radar detector is part of a federally licensed radio service's station's equipment. That way trumps state laws on the matter.
I'm really impressed by those protesters during '08 who warned me again and again that if I voted for McCain nothing would change. Boy were they right. I voted for McCain, and sure enough!
(yes, the first time this joke came up it was Goldwater, but it still applies)
Cue the car analogy!
There are still Model T Fords being driven today, so from that perspective you could say that, no, no operating system is ever likely to truly go extinct.
There are, however, some that likely are only in use by hobbyists, collectors or historians (probably via emulation). I would say that list at least includes Apple's DOS (and alies, such as ProntoDOS), Pro-DOS, SOS as well as TRS-DOS and NewDOS.
Imagine in 20 years if _every_ car were 100% electric (won't happen, I know). That would be a _huge_ drop in taxes earned through gasoline sales
That's actually one of the goals of gasoline taxes: to encourage increased efficiency and use of alternative fuels.
Supposedly, in the study, you would only be taxed for driving in the state of Oregon
Oh, that's easy for a govmint agency to finesse: all miles are assumed to be within the state of Oregon unless you file form fmx99382c in triplicate with a complete log of your out-of-state miles, with itemized proofs, notarized.
There. Still no GPS needed.
Wow. If you want to get people to buy your product, nothing could exude less confidence than,
"Those capabilities will determine whether [...] Microsoft decides to keep selling its own music player."
Wow! Where can I buy a $100+ tech gadget that the manufacturer may wash its hands of real soon? I must have one!
What's the purpose of Neilsen counting audience members?
The purpose is to determine how many eyeballs are there watching the advertisements so that the channels/stations know how much to charge the advertisers.
Why else would anyone pay Neilsen for that information? If Neilsen wasn't being paid for it, why would they compile it?
Can anyone seriously suggest that even a measurable minority of those DVR viewers aren't merely skipping over all that advertising? If they don't, then should they count, for the purposes of determining how much to charge advertisers for their spots?
Let's not forget the number one dirty little secret of the broadcasting industry:
You, the viewer are not the customer.
The advertisers are the customer.
You, the viewer, are the product being sold.
The TV stations / networks have almost exactly as much interest in keeping you happy as a shepherd has in keeping his flock happy.
the point about the compass is spot-on. I completely forgot about that, and it really is a must-have for good turn-by-turn, otherwise you have to rely strictly on location, which won't be as useful.
I know of no standalone GPS unit that has a compass. It's not necessary at all for turn-by-turn navigation. When you're moving, the GPS knows exactly which way you're moving and simply assumes the direction of travel is also the direction the front of the car is pointing. When you're not moving, it assumes you are pointing the same direction you were when you were last moving.
Moreover, I have a 3GS, and the compass is fairly inaccurate when you're inside a big metal box like a car, train or bus. I find it's accurate to +/- 45 degrees or so. That's perhaps good enough to know which direction on the street you're facing, but I'm not sure it's good enough for the much-touted "augmented reality camera view overlay" stuff people are talking about.
The A-GPS used by the 2G is subpar to true GPS.
That's because the 2G doesn't have GPS at all. Location services on the 2G are limited to cell tower and WiFi triangulation.
The 3G and 3GS both have A-GPS. Whether that counts as "true" or not is up to you. But if you attempt to get a fix in an area without cell service, I believe it won't work because the A in A-GPS stands for "assisted" - that is, the phone has to get a rough location, get the current time and download the almanac from the cell towers, THEN it can find the satellites.
and a mechanical safety system which causes it to 100% reliably stop dead in its tracks if there's a mechanical problem,
I'd say that is responsible for the majority of the improvement in the safety of elevators, but manual elevators were still more prone to cause injuries than automatic ones - mostly from when the operator failed to stop the car exactly even with the floor, which caused people to trip over the threshold despite them saying, "watch your step." Automatic control has virtually eliminated that formerly common occurrence.
Manual control was also responsible for system failure even when no injury was necessarily involved - mostly jams due to operator error. The sort of thing that has been almost entirely eliminated with modern automatic control.
Perhaps it is beginning to be time to ask not if aircraft under manual and automatic control ("manned" and "unmanned" to use the terminology of TFA) can commingle, but rather why aircraft need to be manually controlled at all.
The single safest mode of human locomotion today in terms of injuries per passenger-mile is the elevator ("lift" for those in the UK). Apart from museum pieces and some industrial models, they have been virtually exclusively under automatic control for at least 50 years now. The latest designs in modern aircraft no longer mechanically link the pilot to the control surfaces. And when called upon to do so, they can, in fact, automatically perform every flight maneuver required from take-off to landing (adding automatic taxiing would be obviously trivial).
All it takes is for someone to compare the rates of failure due to human error (or intrigue - the September 11th incident would have been impossible with automatically controlled aircraft), minus the rate at which human intervention prevents failures, with the expected rate of failure of the automatic control system. When the latter no longer exceeds the former, then the next generation of commercial aircraft will simply no longer have a cockpit at all.
Commercial aircraft operate under IFR. IFR is itself a precursor to an automatic control regimen. The flight plan calls for the aircraft to perform a series of maneuvers, with updates to the list of maneuvers supplied via radio from the ground by ATC. If contact with ATC is lost, everybody on the ground or in the air knows what the plane will do because of what the flight plan says.
There will always be a place for VFR and manual pilotage. But at this point, that is beginning to be a lot like saying there will always be a place for morse code in radio.
Though the pretty colorful text on the screen says "Buy this song for 99 cents!"... you ain't. You are buying a license to access the file (regardless of whether or not it is DRM'ed).
That depends.
When you buy a CD, it doesn't come in a shrinkwrap license. You are buying a copy of the digital content of that CD. The fact that it comes bound in plastic and the organization is by something called a "track" instead of a "file" is irrelevant.
The only thing that governs what you can do with that copy is copyright law. Copyright law, in particular the AHRA, allows you to format-shift that content for your personal use as much as you'd like. The DMCA takes that right away if there is an effective mechanism for access control, but for Red Book audio CDs there isn't one.
Unless you created the file (AND THE CONTENT), you don't own it.
You have greatly misunderstood the difference between owning a copy and owning the copyright.
I own a copy of every CD and DVD I've ever purchased that I still possess. A license can be negotiated in any transaction that involves click-through or shrink-wrap licensing, but that has never happened with regards to any CD or DVD purchase I've ever made.
Well, except that the same servers that serve out licensing for iTMS music (which is no longer sold encumbered) are the same ones that handle licensing for iTMS video, which is still being sold encumbered. So long as that is true, there is little or no incremental cost to Apple to keep supporting the licensing for Fair Play encumbered music.
I would expect that before Apple disabled access to encumbered iTMS music content that they'd have a fire sale on the iTunes Plus upgrades for those tracks, at least for those they could make available. They might even eventually make them free upgrades.