I've had quite an argument with a professor of economics and she felt that S&D said exactly that. For a low enough price it should effectively 'create demand'. She used free pins advertising causes of all sorts as a 'perfect example' where people take them just because they are free. And if you were talking about my mom or grandmother who are/were packrats then yes it's sort of true. However I have no need or desire for a useless piece of metal even when they are free and would turn it down. My argument was that in some niche aspect: yes, some people may 'buy' it. However this group is composed solely of 'I'd take anything that was free' and I think we can rule that out of being an effective part of the economy.
I already get comments that I'm to inexperienced for anything else. Just to tide me over from the draught I applied to places like the local pizza shop... Who turned me down for 'lack of restaurant experience'. The same sort of thing happened all around when I tried to find 'regular' work. Heck factories told me that my history in IT made me a high risk of leaving when something better came up and somehow factory employers want people to commit long term.
In the end I did get a part time job... With the US Post Office as rural carrier sub. Ironically they have lots of older workers and most 'younger' people aren't willing to put in the immense amount of work required and quit. The oldest in my local office are a couple years from retirement, the youngest are 4 or 5 years younger than me. It's not a fun job, but it pays well (heck starting it pays better as an hourly rate then my last IT job) and part-time still has some benefits (though not the most useful ones like vacation or sick time). If the market here doesn't improve I can even apply for a job at another branch in whatever city I want to move to and work there while looking for a tech job.
I live in Northwest PA, which is not exactly a tech mecha... But in the past their has always been a good number of jobs as their are any number of companies around which, of course, run all sorts of computer systems. Now the market just seems dead. A few postings exist, but most are ones I've interviewed for and who knows exactly what they want because they are still there (and are from names you'd recognize).
The interest I do get always seems to be 'why haven't you gone into management if your any good?', which is funny since my last network admin job I was the top of the heap in the IT department and so the defacto CIO without the title. My resume actually explains that with lots of mentioning of doing budgets, long term planning, etc... However I don't think a human ever reads my resume.
I find modern economics, which is what leads to the disaster we have when it comes to government and the actual economy, to be an absurd house of cards. Most of their basic concepts are ok as abstract concepts, but then they apply math on the basis of 'if everything else is the same'. With a blissful ignorance that the factors they chose to look at may not be the only factors in question.
Even 'simple' concepts like 'supply and demand' have some exterior items that can mean more than price (which is all the concept looks at). So you've made a product, what if no one cares about your product and has no use for it? Well S&D says a low enough price and lots of people should want to buy it, but if your 'audience' is so small that even at cost you can't get more than a handful of people to buy them then your going out of business.
The same holds true for the idea that somehow not taxing corporations (where the majority of money is 'owned') will somehow magically make them stop hording money and instead spend more. A corporation will always hold to it's own interests as a collective entity and that interest is in ways to make more money, not so much to spend it. While spending some money to make more money is also a basic principle, a corporation that is successful will minimize expenses any way it can. If we already understand they will spend as little as possible, then how in the world can this idea ever ever ever work?
Having been looking (and not finding) a new tech job in my area (within 100 miles of my home) for over a year... He's probably not wrong. I just don't see the jobs on 'job sites' anymore.
And everyone says it's all moving to social media, but even there I just don't get much interest. I get hits on things like linked in, but since I'm now 37 I regularly get asked why I'm still in IT. When I say I still want to work in it because I like it and I'm good at it I never hear back.
Dude, I don't know what you did, but I have edited many spreadsheets and documents (heck I wrote a fricking book on it and used to take class notes when I went back to take some college classes). I had zero issues doing those things. Heck I even edited video on it (that I took with a USB enabled camcorder). Maybe you just chose very bad software (apps)?
I would agree the trackpad was useless, but it had a USB port and I connected wireless mice to it from time to time if I needed a 'real' pointing device beyond my finger. It worked just fine with a real mouse, though it didn't understand 'right clicking', but then neither do most Macs so...
I commented on it elsewhere, but my tablet is a Asus Transformer Prime TF-201 from 2011 and it had a detachable keyboard with a hinged 'flip' to it. By default it had a micro-SD card slot, headphone jack, micro-HDMI, and an 8 hour battery among other things. The keyboard held a second battery with nearly the same charge as the main one, full-size USB and SD card slot, and the keyboard itself wasn't cramped (and so you could type at full speed). Heck do to USB I could even connect mice or a desktop keyboard and use them, and I've read/played things from/formatted USB drives with it. I've done everything from video editing to writing on it, so it could do anything I'd possibly want to do on a laptop. Sadly the gorilla glass screen and durable aluminum body construction haven't saved it from eventually getting cracks and dents, though these haven't made it stop working... yet. However it running Android 4.1.1 is both a blessing and a curse. It was still 'designed with tablets in mind', but it is outdated and the software doesn't exactly play well with it anymore.
I have zero Apple products, so an Ipad is not tempting at all for me. Even if it was the wireless keyboards always seem to have more issues than I'd like to hear about and most don't seem all that good. Windows 'tablets' that I've looked at feel slow and clumsy and I just can't end up liking 'windows lite' apps. I dislike them even on Windows on desktops or laptops.
I hadn't even heard of the Pixel C. Looking at it though it lacks USB and does the same silly 'no cords man!' thing that the Ipad and most MS tablets do. Even so it looks closer than most to what I'd want.
Some tablets did have (very nice) keyboards. Some people would also love to replace their now antique tablets from 2011... But we can't because no one makes those anymore. The rush towards the bottom happened and 'high end' tablets became dinosaurs. Btw I never considered the android OS on my old tablet 'crippled', it did everything I could want form a tablet and even everything I needed for a laptop. I know not all tablets were like that, but it's been my experience.
It's also different people wanting vastly different things. I commented on this when the Dell news hit. Some are fine with a smart phone and the now rather larger screens on those for all their mobile needs. Other want something bigger, but tend to opt towards a laptop (especially the newer small form laptops and 'slates'). Personally I still want a viable replacement for my Asus Transformer Prime TF-201. It was every bit as viable as a laptop, while running the Android OS instead of being burdened with windows. This gave it battery life over 8 hours on it's own and with the keyboard battery it nearly had 18 hours of charge. It's downfall was horribly bad advertising on the part of Asus and it's price of around $500 which makes it compete with low end laptops. Personally I thought it was way better than any low end laptop I ever used, but most people looking at it purely by price would think the laptop might be the way to go.
While I agree that the Tesla accident coverage has, and likely will continue to be, insanely overstated in comparison to anyone else who makes cars (including other 'semi-autonomous' cars). I do not agree that the entire cause is "the news is in the pockets of Big Auto". It's far more likely that it's other factors like: Tesla being fairly new in public perception (It is 13 years old, but I can't recall even their first roadsters being 'out' over a decade ago), highly visible due to hype, 'cutting edge', and most of all someone that can be easily sensationalized and get them views/reads.
Tesla is hardly the only one to make jumped up cruise control for their cars, just the only one who have software updates which seems to get them to add more and more features. I mean normal car companies like BMW and well just about anything from Europe offer cruise control that has added features like distance following of the car in front (or at least auto breaking if you get to close during normal cruise) and things like the ability to park themselves. None of these is as high profile and it's pretty well always understood still that the driver is responsible for whatever happens. It also helps that these features are exclusive to the high end, typically luxury, offerings from the companies. I'm sure some of these have failed as well, but good luck finding stories and federal investigations about those.
It's also because they hire like 1 or 2 guys to handle the entire IT department for a hospital including associated doctor's offices. I applied at one and it was 2 guys to cover both the main campus and 12 satellite locations... How can 2 guys possibly deal with every issue that pops up in a given day and work on security and make sure ever hole is patched? Worse from what I saw the IT head was at the shim of the other department heads as to what software and services they needed to offer.
Are you planning to pay for mail delivery of only what's important to you? At least in the US, the sender pays the cost to send mail. If you'd like to reverse that so you only get what you want then you'll need to make it recipient pays. Then you can have your couple of important items and stand some vague chance of actually getting this to work.
Even with that I think the government would like to see certain kinds of mail get to people, so... I still doubt it would be practical, but it would be closer to workable at least. Just be prepared for the costs of this mail delivery system you want.
Sadly being elected they usually have to take the 'tough on crime' stance... Which for their position means 'hammer anyone they can'. What the public actually tends to want is certain crimes punished harshly (which ones can vary a bit) and the rest they care little about. However the elected judges and others in that chain can't skimp on even one or their opponents will try to claim they aren't 'tough on crime'. So nothing goes over lightly if they can avoid it. So it's not entirely what the voters want, it's the political twist on what they want.
Sadly companies learned how to buy those who created 'culture' well before the tools existed to do an end run around them. That said not all mass media is horribly bad, some gems slip through which have very good ideas that should live on past the entities that spawned them... Except for IP. While the inetrnet has done wonders for creating means for avoiding mass media, the owners of that mass media seek to close down our options. Hence the crazy issues on youtube for instance. What we create is influenced by what we have been exposed to.
So for instance if you enjoyed and adopted Star Trek culturally (this is an example because trekkies are easy to pick on for this) then what you yourself create may be based on that in large or small part. So for example take the Axamar (sp?) guys who wanted to create the biggest budget fan trek production ever... Star Trek is part of their collective culture and they want to build on the ideas found in the original series to create something powerful. In the past (before I was born at this point) the original star trek would be out of copyright by now and so open to use to create derivative works, instead CBS tried to argue everything from the Klingon language, costume appearance, insignia, and specific names are all part of 'IP' of the collective star trek 'properties'. What they were creating can, arguably, be considered completely new material. However to fit in with their cultural identity it needs to use things which fit that and CBS at least feels are protected and owned by it. I heard a lot of arguments that they should have made something 'all new', however how much sci-fi can get away from some of the concepts of shows like Star Trek? Even Firefly has some hints at what came before it in the genre. 'Warp Drive' for instance is seen all over (and claimed by CBS btw) and one scientist (Alcubierre) even created an entire theory on propulsion based on the series as inspiration. Avoiding the efforts of mass media gets harder and harder as they try to locks away concepts well beyond the scope of law.
'Culture' in this sense is a collective expression of ideas and thoughts. It is composed of all forms of media (from songs and stroytelling to video games and tv) and simply the composite of the general populous as it stands at a point in time. It is not 'western' or 'eastern' or anything else, those are simply facets of the collective 'culture' of the moment. It is however built on what came before the moment itself, much like people the collective builds experience from everything that happens. It is also always changing since it is simply the collective of current concepts.
As an example: '9/11' is part of modern culture because people alive 'lived' through it or at least during it. It may even be recorded sufficiently as to live on past the 'living memory' of the event. It may not carry the same weight over time though and it's meaning can change. In the US for instance 'Christianity' is part of the culture (it's imparted on everything from currency 'in god we trust' to the way our laws are written, however not everyone in the US is Christian. Instead they only carry those aspects of collective culture from it. If those aspects were removed it would no longer be a part of modern culture once those who remember it from before the change pass on.
I think the biggest issue is the expansion of 'IP'. Culture builds on what comes before it, it always has and always will. However in 'modern' times we (or more specifically companies) keep trying to lock culture away behind walls of laws about 'IP'. Culture however will do as culture always does and build on what has come before, laws be damned. I have news for the companies as well: Culture will win in the end.
Though I personally find Trent's comments funny since Youtube's copyright claim system is so badly abused that certain youtuber's, like Jim Sterling, can get companies to fight over the IP shown in brief snippests (most of which is review or satire and so technically protected) within their videos. Look up Jim's 'Copyright Deadlock' video as an example. Or heck look into E3 videos based on the Twitch streams. ItmeJP commented that his Youtube videos got multiple claims within minutes of being uploaded even though the video stream was provided to commentators for use.
Um, no. Their are 2 transformer series of devices from Asus. One is a series of laptops with 'tablet' style features. The other are Tablets with laptop style functions (through the keyboard/battery attachment).
Cyanogenmod doesn't support the transformer series, most likely due to the custom interface (which includes a locking mechanism to hold it in place) for the keyboard/battery attachment. Though for the TF201 specifically the GPS chip is also not supported at all.
If you want a tablet you can get work done on, I'd look at the Asus Transformer tablets. I own an ancient TF201, and not the shiny new TF701T, but it's been simply great with an attachable 'fullsized' keyboard that folds up with it and includes a second battery should ~8 hours not be enough (or you want to run the screen fairly bright all the time). I've done everything from writing novels, updating spreadsheets, and a couple times even video editing with it. Sadly from a quick look Asus doesn't seem to sell the TF701T on their website anymore and few places seem to carry it. Sad for such a great product that they simply never marketed well.
I own a Asus Transformer TF201 , which must not be a 'media consumption tablet' as I do a lot of 'media creation tasks' on it. Heck I've done video editing on it a few times, though recent updates have made that more painful. But I balance my checkbook (spreadsheet), keep notes, have written a couple novels (at least in part, though that has more to do with the limitations of formating in the app I had that made it cross platform with PC and autosynced it wirelessly). That said I do read a lot on it and watch Twitch and Youtube on it a good bit while using my PC even, so I do consume a lot as well. However at least my tablet is flexible and while it was fairly expensive (around $500 for the tablet itself when I bought it), it has been more than worth it.
I don't own a smartphone so I know I'm an odd duck, but my tablet goes with me everywhere and has for five years now. It's much smaller and easier to take with me than a laptop (of which mine is gathering dust and was a giant paper weight and internet tv long before that). Mine lasts more than 8 hours on a charge (even now five years on), has a keyboard which is nicely sized (no squished fingers trying to type on it) which even has a extra battery should I need it, Is perfectly fine to write things on or even do light spreadsheet work with (I balance my checkbook on it and import it to PC), and is perfect for listening to music or even watching video. I also have a large collection of books on it (from manuals to comics). So no, for me it wasn't a waste of money and I've loved it every since I got it.
I still don't own a a smartphone and instead use a very old now Asus Transformer TF201. I don't own a smartphone because even basic plans cost me around $90/month and I just don't need mobile data much at all (I almost entirely use wireless at home and use the tablet when I do). My talk and text is astronomically low to the point I have over a 'thousand minutes' built up on my pay as you go feature phone and I spend like $22 every 3 months. However I take my tablet everywhere and have for years with ~8 hours of life as long as I keep the screen brightness down and if I need it I have the keyboard with a second battery in it. My mom actually complains about how I take it with me everywhere so I can read books, play video, tap into open wifi to look things up online, listen to music, take notes, write a novel, and perform all sorts of other tasks. It's more than paid for itself, though it did cost ~$700 brand new with the keyboard. So it could have bought a laptop, but I have a laptop and barely use it because it's to big to take with me easy and overkill for most of what I need. Instead a tablet with a keyboard attachment is basically perfect. Sadly it's getting long in the tooth now running an ancient version of android and it's certainly never going to see an upgrade to a newer version. It's taken a lot of abuse over the years as well and is still ticking, though it's chipped and even has a crack from the hundreds of times it's fallen off of something I lay it on and fallen onto numerous floors including some absurdly hard tiles.
Since most pay pay absurd amounts for a mobile phone each month and already have a smartphone which has grown larger and larger over the years, I'm not surprised most people don't look at tablets. I know I'm so not the typical consumer, but then most people don't know what they are missing either. My parents have wanted a tablet like mine for quite awhile instead of the laptop they got (and which has numerous odd issues). I think they would appeal more to the older generation, but they aren't targeted at that market and so a lot of people who would enjoy them never hear of them (not even the Ipad, which is probably the best known of them).
Again... Get far enough south even around here and you see plenty of old cars. Near Columbus or Pittsburgh they don't get snow (it got a very light dusting in Columbus once in the 3 and a half years I lived there), though plenty enough rain all year round. So you do see a lot of old cars. Most commonly the big boats, like old caddies, my grandmother could have owned. They have very... Creative modifications like a 2x4 for a replacement bumper held on by rope and who knows what. Lots of antique VW bugs (some old enough to have been built right after WW II) as well and they have not been treated well. Oh and the old 'A-team' style cargo vans... Some real antiques there. I once saw a classic cargo van that had plywood sheets lining the back because the walls had two foot holes in them...
PA started annual vehicle inspections on all cars when I was in high school, so you see less of them in PA. Though even up in the north of PA right along Lake Erie I still sometimes see some real antique cars somehow kept on the road and it's not from multi-thousand dollar vehicle maintenance (though there is plenty of that as well). However last I knew Ohio had lots of loop holes for older vehicles. As I recall the first five years of ownership did not require an inspection, so you transfer the title every few years and otherwise go about your business. They may have finally changed that, but I haven't spent long enough in OH since then to know for sure.
My own vehicle is a '99 (so 17 or 18 years old depending on when it was built specifically), but without a garage the weather has started to eat the tender underbelly and it's unlikely to pass PA's inspection next year. It still looks very nice, a few very small bits of rust (not more than half an inch) to mar the outside, and since I've had things like the transmission rebuilt and the engine replaced it still runs well. Those damn road salts seem to have eaten important parts like the floorboards instead.
You don't need to go to Cuba to see that. Most of Ohio and lots of rural parts of PA do all sorts of things to keep older cars running. Lower Ohio has it better than where I live as winter road salts and general ice and snow cause damage to cars here. I lived in Columbus OH for a few years though and it was funny you'd see expensive brand new Dodge Vipers and Porsche 911's drive next to 1950's and 1960's era beaters. I'm sure other places are much the same, I just haven't seen them to say myself.
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I've had quite an argument with a professor of economics and she felt that S&D said exactly that. For a low enough price it should effectively 'create demand'. She used free pins advertising causes of all sorts as a 'perfect example' where people take them just because they are free. And if you were talking about my mom or grandmother who are/were packrats then yes it's sort of true. However I have no need or desire for a useless piece of metal even when they are free and would turn it down. My argument was that in some niche aspect: yes, some people may 'buy' it. However this group is composed solely of 'I'd take anything that was free' and I think we can rule that out of being an effective part of the economy.
I already get comments that I'm to inexperienced for anything else. Just to tide me over from the draught I applied to places like the local pizza shop... Who turned me down for 'lack of restaurant experience'. The same sort of thing happened all around when I tried to find 'regular' work. Heck factories told me that my history in IT made me a high risk of leaving when something better came up and somehow factory employers want people to commit long term.
In the end I did get a part time job... With the US Post Office as rural carrier sub. Ironically they have lots of older workers and most 'younger' people aren't willing to put in the immense amount of work required and quit. The oldest in my local office are a couple years from retirement, the youngest are 4 or 5 years younger than me. It's not a fun job, but it pays well (heck starting it pays better as an hourly rate then my last IT job) and part-time still has some benefits (though not the most useful ones like vacation or sick time). If the market here doesn't improve I can even apply for a job at another branch in whatever city I want to move to and work there while looking for a tech job.
I live in Northwest PA, which is not exactly a tech mecha... But in the past their has always been a good number of jobs as their are any number of companies around which, of course, run all sorts of computer systems. Now the market just seems dead. A few postings exist, but most are ones I've interviewed for and who knows exactly what they want because they are still there (and are from names you'd recognize).
The interest I do get always seems to be 'why haven't you gone into management if your any good?', which is funny since my last network admin job I was the top of the heap in the IT department and so the defacto CIO without the title. My resume actually explains that with lots of mentioning of doing budgets, long term planning, etc... However I don't think a human ever reads my resume.
I find modern economics, which is what leads to the disaster we have when it comes to government and the actual economy, to be an absurd house of cards. Most of their basic concepts are ok as abstract concepts, but then they apply math on the basis of 'if everything else is the same'. With a blissful ignorance that the factors they chose to look at may not be the only factors in question.
Even 'simple' concepts like 'supply and demand' have some exterior items that can mean more than price (which is all the concept looks at). So you've made a product, what if no one cares about your product and has no use for it? Well S&D says a low enough price and lots of people should want to buy it, but if your 'audience' is so small that even at cost you can't get more than a handful of people to buy them then your going out of business.
The same holds true for the idea that somehow not taxing corporations (where the majority of money is 'owned') will somehow magically make them stop hording money and instead spend more. A corporation will always hold to it's own interests as a collective entity and that interest is in ways to make more money, not so much to spend it. While spending some money to make more money is also a basic principle, a corporation that is successful will minimize expenses any way it can. If we already understand they will spend as little as possible, then how in the world can this idea ever ever ever work?
Having been looking (and not finding) a new tech job in my area (within 100 miles of my home) for over a year... He's probably not wrong. I just don't see the jobs on 'job sites' anymore.
And everyone says it's all moving to social media, but even there I just don't get much interest. I get hits on things like linked in, but since I'm now 37 I regularly get asked why I'm still in IT. When I say I still want to work in it because I like it and I'm good at it I never hear back.
Dude, I don't know what you did, but I have edited many spreadsheets and documents (heck I wrote a fricking book on it and used to take class notes when I went back to take some college classes). I had zero issues doing those things. Heck I even edited video on it (that I took with a USB enabled camcorder). Maybe you just chose very bad software (apps)?
I would agree the trackpad was useless, but it had a USB port and I connected wireless mice to it from time to time if I needed a 'real' pointing device beyond my finger. It worked just fine with a real mouse, though it didn't understand 'right clicking', but then neither do most Macs so...
I commented on it elsewhere, but my tablet is a Asus Transformer Prime TF-201 from 2011 and it had a detachable keyboard with a hinged 'flip' to it. By default it had a micro-SD card slot, headphone jack, micro-HDMI, and an 8 hour battery among other things. The keyboard held a second battery with nearly the same charge as the main one, full-size USB and SD card slot, and the keyboard itself wasn't cramped (and so you could type at full speed). Heck do to USB I could even connect mice or a desktop keyboard and use them, and I've read/played things from/formatted USB drives with it. I've done everything from video editing to writing on it, so it could do anything I'd possibly want to do on a laptop. Sadly the gorilla glass screen and durable aluminum body construction haven't saved it from eventually getting cracks and dents, though these haven't made it stop working... yet. However it running Android 4.1.1 is both a blessing and a curse. It was still 'designed with tablets in mind', but it is outdated and the software doesn't exactly play well with it anymore.
I have zero Apple products, so an Ipad is not tempting at all for me. Even if it was the wireless keyboards always seem to have more issues than I'd like to hear about and most don't seem all that good. Windows 'tablets' that I've looked at feel slow and clumsy and I just can't end up liking 'windows lite' apps. I dislike them even on Windows on desktops or laptops.
I hadn't even heard of the Pixel C. Looking at it though it lacks USB and does the same silly 'no cords man!' thing that the Ipad and most MS tablets do. Even so it looks closer than most to what I'd want.
Some tablets did have (very nice) keyboards. Some people would also love to replace their now antique tablets from 2011... But we can't because no one makes those anymore. The rush towards the bottom happened and 'high end' tablets became dinosaurs. Btw I never considered the android OS on my old tablet 'crippled', it did everything I could want form a tablet and even everything I needed for a laptop. I know not all tablets were like that, but it's been my experience.
It's also different people wanting vastly different things. I commented on this when the Dell news hit. Some are fine with a smart phone and the now rather larger screens on those for all their mobile needs. Other want something bigger, but tend to opt towards a laptop (especially the newer small form laptops and 'slates'). Personally I still want a viable replacement for my Asus Transformer Prime TF-201. It was every bit as viable as a laptop, while running the Android OS instead of being burdened with windows. This gave it battery life over 8 hours on it's own and with the keyboard battery it nearly had 18 hours of charge. It's downfall was horribly bad advertising on the part of Asus and it's price of around $500 which makes it compete with low end laptops. Personally I thought it was way better than any low end laptop I ever used, but most people looking at it purely by price would think the laptop might be the way to go.
While I agree that the Tesla accident coverage has, and likely will continue to be, insanely overstated in comparison to anyone else who makes cars (including other 'semi-autonomous' cars). I do not agree that the entire cause is "the news is in the pockets of Big Auto". It's far more likely that it's other factors like: Tesla being fairly new in public perception (It is 13 years old, but I can't recall even their first roadsters being 'out' over a decade ago), highly visible due to hype, 'cutting edge', and most of all someone that can be easily sensationalized and get them views/reads.
Tesla is hardly the only one to make jumped up cruise control for their cars, just the only one who have software updates which seems to get them to add more and more features. I mean normal car companies like BMW and well just about anything from Europe offer cruise control that has added features like distance following of the car in front (or at least auto breaking if you get to close during normal cruise) and things like the ability to park themselves. None of these is as high profile and it's pretty well always understood still that the driver is responsible for whatever happens. It also helps that these features are exclusive to the high end, typically luxury, offerings from the companies. I'm sure some of these have failed as well, but good luck finding stories and federal investigations about those.
It's also because they hire like 1 or 2 guys to handle the entire IT department for a hospital including associated doctor's offices. I applied at one and it was 2 guys to cover both the main campus and 12 satellite locations... How can 2 guys possibly deal with every issue that pops up in a given day and work on security and make sure ever hole is patched? Worse from what I saw the IT head was at the shim of the other department heads as to what software and services they needed to offer.
Are you planning to pay for mail delivery of only what's important to you? At least in the US, the sender pays the cost to send mail. If you'd like to reverse that so you only get what you want then you'll need to make it recipient pays. Then you can have your couple of important items and stand some vague chance of actually getting this to work.
Even with that I think the government would like to see certain kinds of mail get to people, so... I still doubt it would be practical, but it would be closer to workable at least. Just be prepared for the costs of this mail delivery system you want.
Sadly being elected they usually have to take the 'tough on crime' stance... Which for their position means 'hammer anyone they can'. What the public actually tends to want is certain crimes punished harshly (which ones can vary a bit) and the rest they care little about. However the elected judges and others in that chain can't skimp on even one or their opponents will try to claim they aren't 'tough on crime'. So nothing goes over lightly if they can avoid it. So it's not entirely what the voters want, it's the political twist on what they want.
Sadly companies learned how to buy those who created 'culture' well before the tools existed to do an end run around them. That said not all mass media is horribly bad, some gems slip through which have very good ideas that should live on past the entities that spawned them... Except for IP. While the inetrnet has done wonders for creating means for avoiding mass media, the owners of that mass media seek to close down our options. Hence the crazy issues on youtube for instance. What we create is influenced by what we have been exposed to.
So for instance if you enjoyed and adopted Star Trek culturally (this is an example because trekkies are easy to pick on for this) then what you yourself create may be based on that in large or small part. So for example take the Axamar (sp?) guys who wanted to create the biggest budget fan trek production ever... Star Trek is part of their collective culture and they want to build on the ideas found in the original series to create something powerful. In the past (before I was born at this point) the original star trek would be out of copyright by now and so open to use to create derivative works, instead CBS tried to argue everything from the Klingon language, costume appearance, insignia, and specific names are all part of 'IP' of the collective star trek 'properties'. What they were creating can, arguably, be considered completely new material. However to fit in with their cultural identity it needs to use things which fit that and CBS at least feels are protected and owned by it. I heard a lot of arguments that they should have made something 'all new', however how much sci-fi can get away from some of the concepts of shows like Star Trek? Even Firefly has some hints at what came before it in the genre. 'Warp Drive' for instance is seen all over (and claimed by CBS btw) and one scientist (Alcubierre) even created an entire theory on propulsion based on the series as inspiration. Avoiding the efforts of mass media gets harder and harder as they try to locks away concepts well beyond the scope of law.
'Culture' in this sense is a collective expression of ideas and thoughts. It is composed of all forms of media (from songs and stroytelling to video games and tv) and simply the composite of the general populous as it stands at a point in time. It is not 'western' or 'eastern' or anything else, those are simply facets of the collective 'culture' of the moment. It is however built on what came before the moment itself, much like people the collective builds experience from everything that happens. It is also always changing since it is simply the collective of current concepts.
As an example: '9/11' is part of modern culture because people alive 'lived' through it or at least during it. It may even be recorded sufficiently as to live on past the 'living memory' of the event. It may not carry the same weight over time though and it's meaning can change. In the US for instance 'Christianity' is part of the culture (it's imparted on everything from currency 'in god we trust' to the way our laws are written, however not everyone in the US is Christian. Instead they only carry those aspects of collective culture from it. If those aspects were removed it would no longer be a part of modern culture once those who remember it from before the change pass on.
I think the biggest issue is the expansion of 'IP'. Culture builds on what comes before it, it always has and always will. However in 'modern' times we (or more specifically companies) keep trying to lock culture away behind walls of laws about 'IP'. Culture however will do as culture always does and build on what has come before, laws be damned. I have news for the companies as well: Culture will win in the end.
Though I personally find Trent's comments funny since Youtube's copyright claim system is so badly abused that certain youtuber's, like Jim Sterling, can get companies to fight over the IP shown in brief snippests (most of which is review or satire and so technically protected) within their videos. Look up Jim's 'Copyright Deadlock' video as an example. Or heck look into E3 videos based on the Twitch streams. ItmeJP commented that his Youtube videos got multiple claims within minutes of being uploaded even though the video stream was provided to commentators for use.
Um, no. Their are 2 transformer series of devices from Asus. One is a series of laptops with 'tablet' style features. The other are Tablets with laptop style functions (through the keyboard/battery attachment).
This is what I own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or go here for the original page: https://www.asus.com/Tablets/E...
Asus seems to have been brain dead when creating the marketing for these, which has lead to the confusion.
Cyanogenmod doesn't support the transformer series, most likely due to the custom interface (which includes a locking mechanism to hold it in place) for the keyboard/battery attachment. Though for the TF201 specifically the GPS chip is also not supported at all.
If you want a tablet you can get work done on, I'd look at the Asus Transformer tablets. I own an ancient TF201, and not the shiny new TF701T, but it's been simply great with an attachable 'fullsized' keyboard that folds up with it and includes a second battery should ~8 hours not be enough (or you want to run the screen fairly bright all the time). I've done everything from writing novels, updating spreadsheets, and a couple times even video editing with it. Sadly from a quick look Asus doesn't seem to sell the TF701T on their website anymore and few places seem to carry it. Sad for such a great product that they simply never marketed well.
I own a Asus Transformer TF201 , which must not be a 'media consumption tablet' as I do a lot of 'media creation tasks' on it. Heck I've done video editing on it a few times, though recent updates have made that more painful. But I balance my checkbook (spreadsheet), keep notes, have written a couple novels (at least in part, though that has more to do with the limitations of formating in the app I had that made it cross platform with PC and autosynced it wirelessly). That said I do read a lot on it and watch Twitch and Youtube on it a good bit while using my PC even, so I do consume a lot as well. However at least my tablet is flexible and while it was fairly expensive (around $500 for the tablet itself when I bought it), it has been more than worth it.
I don't own a smartphone so I know I'm an odd duck, but my tablet goes with me everywhere and has for five years now. It's much smaller and easier to take with me than a laptop (of which mine is gathering dust and was a giant paper weight and internet tv long before that). Mine lasts more than 8 hours on a charge (even now five years on), has a keyboard which is nicely sized (no squished fingers trying to type on it) which even has a extra battery should I need it, Is perfectly fine to write things on or even do light spreadsheet work with (I balance my checkbook on it and import it to PC), and is perfect for listening to music or even watching video. I also have a large collection of books on it (from manuals to comics). So no, for me it wasn't a waste of money and I've loved it every since I got it.
I still don't own a a smartphone and instead use a very old now Asus Transformer TF201. I don't own a smartphone because even basic plans cost me around $90/month and I just don't need mobile data much at all (I almost entirely use wireless at home and use the tablet when I do). My talk and text is astronomically low to the point I have over a 'thousand minutes' built up on my pay as you go feature phone and I spend like $22 every 3 months. However I take my tablet everywhere and have for years with ~8 hours of life as long as I keep the screen brightness down and if I need it I have the keyboard with a second battery in it. My mom actually complains about how I take it with me everywhere so I can read books, play video, tap into open wifi to look things up online, listen to music, take notes, write a novel, and perform all sorts of other tasks. It's more than paid for itself, though it did cost ~$700 brand new with the keyboard. So it could have bought a laptop, but I have a laptop and barely use it because it's to big to take with me easy and overkill for most of what I need. Instead a tablet with a keyboard attachment is basically perfect. Sadly it's getting long in the tooth now running an ancient version of android and it's certainly never going to see an upgrade to a newer version. It's taken a lot of abuse over the years as well and is still ticking, though it's chipped and even has a crack from the hundreds of times it's fallen off of something I lay it on and fallen onto numerous floors including some absurdly hard tiles.
Since most pay pay absurd amounts for a mobile phone each month and already have a smartphone which has grown larger and larger over the years, I'm not surprised most people don't look at tablets. I know I'm so not the typical consumer, but then most people don't know what they are missing either. My parents have wanted a tablet like mine for quite awhile instead of the laptop they got (and which has numerous odd issues). I think they would appeal more to the older generation, but they aren't targeted at that market and so a lot of people who would enjoy them never hear of them (not even the Ipad, which is probably the best known of them).
Again... Get far enough south even around here and you see plenty of old cars. Near Columbus or Pittsburgh they don't get snow (it got a very light dusting in Columbus once in the 3 and a half years I lived there), though plenty enough rain all year round. So you do see a lot of old cars. Most commonly the big boats, like old caddies, my grandmother could have owned. They have very... Creative modifications like a 2x4 for a replacement bumper held on by rope and who knows what. Lots of antique VW bugs (some old enough to have been built right after WW II) as well and they have not been treated well. Oh and the old 'A-team' style cargo vans... Some real antiques there. I once saw a classic cargo van that had plywood sheets lining the back because the walls had two foot holes in them...
PA started annual vehicle inspections on all cars when I was in high school, so you see less of them in PA. Though even up in the north of PA right along Lake Erie I still sometimes see some real antique cars somehow kept on the road and it's not from multi-thousand dollar vehicle maintenance (though there is plenty of that as well). However last I knew Ohio had lots of loop holes for older vehicles. As I recall the first five years of ownership did not require an inspection, so you transfer the title every few years and otherwise go about your business. They may have finally changed that, but I haven't spent long enough in OH since then to know for sure.
My own vehicle is a '99 (so 17 or 18 years old depending on when it was built specifically), but without a garage the weather has started to eat the tender underbelly and it's unlikely to pass PA's inspection next year. It still looks very nice, a few very small bits of rust (not more than half an inch) to mar the outside, and since I've had things like the transmission rebuilt and the engine replaced it still runs well. Those damn road salts seem to have eaten important parts like the floorboards instead.
You don't need to go to Cuba to see that. Most of Ohio and lots of rural parts of PA do all sorts of things to keep older cars running. Lower Ohio has it better than where I live as winter road salts and general ice and snow cause damage to cars here. I lived in Columbus OH for a few years though and it was funny you'd see expensive brand new Dodge Vipers and Porsche 911's drive next to 1950's and 1960's era beaters. I'm sure other places are much the same, I just haven't seen them to say myself.