I wouldn't like to be arrested, period. If I go rob a bank, I wouldn't like to be arrested. But I'd expect that I would be.
I tend to agree with the prevailing opinion that if you make threats to someone in public--and, yes, if your livejournal may be read by anyone, it's public--then you may get a visit from the appropriate law enforcement authorities to investigate your intentions.
So the question is, is it unreasonable to expect to be arrested for things that you do in public even if you meant no harm?
In the United States, investing in a fleet of robots can be cheaper than supporting a hundred workers. In China, you can employ an ARMY of workers, for the investment required for a single robot.
That can depend on what you're making.
As you say, robots are an up-front investment which will pay for itself over time. How much time it will take depends on the expense of the people you employ.
The simple example: I'm making widgets. My labor costs are $5000 per month or $60,000 per year. A robot that will allow me to have labor costs of $0 will cost $150,000. That means it will take me a little less than three years to pay back that robot. Which means that I need at least a three year contract with whoever I'm making widgets for or I've lost money doing so.
Now, for me to make this kind of money, this assumes that I'm going to be stamping out x number of widgets day in and day out for three years. These widgets are not going to change at all because, if they do, I have to reprogram my robots--which requires skilled people who cost me money (which increases the cost of these robots). I'd be willing to bet that it is cheaper to retrain the army of workers.
Furthermore, suppose these widgets become immensely popular and my customers can't keep them in stock? The robots stamp out x number of widgets per day--I can't make them go faster. So I'd have to buy more robots which is another upfront cost. Conversely, I can add and remove employees according to the needs of the customer. If they need me to produce twice as many widgets to keep up with demand, I can hire some more people and add another shift or start up a new production line.
Detroit, for example, invests in robots because they pretty much make the same thing at a specific rate for 4 or 5 years. Not all industries are that predictable.
I first heard this line of reasoning on Fox News and my first reaction was "scale, people." What's funny is that our local Fox affiliate keeps sending reporters up to the beaches of Santa Barbara where there's a fairly large natural oil seep as if to say, "See? It's no big deal..."
I do most of my TV watching at home in front of my--oddly enough--TV. I also have WiFi at home. I'm not necessarily that interested in watching TV while I'm out and about because I'm doing other things like driving.
Sure, there might be exceptions. I could see watching a little TV over lunch instead of reading a newspaper. If I have jury duty or some other situation where I'm stuck waiting for a potentially long period of time, I could watch some TV. But lots of restaurants have WiFi. Even some court buildings have WiFi.
Now, I don't take mass transit (It's LA--what is this mass transit of which you speak?:^) ), so I could see it being useful there. On the other hand, again, you're slowly seeing WiFi on busses, trains, etc.
So, watching via a 3G or 4G network probably wouldn't be my first choice anyway. Add in bandwidth caps like AT&T's and I'll probably end up waiting for a WiFi network.
But how are you going to know before you do something whether it will put you over or not?
I have a Backgammon game on my iPhone. It was free--except that it puts up a banner ad. So how do I know how much a game of backgammon is going to cost me before I play it? I have Shazam on my iPhone--a very useful app. The phone "listens" to a song and tells me the name of the song. Very handy. How much bandwidth will the audio snippet take to upload? No clue. How about that game which utilizes Apple's exciting new Game Center? How much is that going to cost me? And what about iAds--those beautiful ads that Apple will be producing that are so slick and interactive and will become the new wave of advertising? How much will I be paying to watch one of those?
Basically, the problem with AT&T's App is that it's like a gas gauge. A gas gauge can tell you how much gas you have left. But it won't tell you how far you can go.
Part of the problem he has is that there is little to no need for his App in Android.
Basically, what his App does is turn the iPad into a picture frame. Floating above the picture, you can place twitter feeds, Facebook updates, weather forecasts, etc.
These are all things that you can do out of the box with Android (not to mention that there is no Android Pad device yet).
Now, please, kindly tell your story on Twitter, Facebook status updates or somewhere else no one is paying attention and quit robbing the rest of us of our mental bandwidth.
Agreed. I'm so sick of hearing these stories because Apple is wonderful and marvelous and fantastic and awesome and stories that imply that Apple may not be any of these things make me a little bit uncomfortable. I'd rather not hear about these things and just stare in a state of rapture at teh shiny that is my new iWhatever and read articles about how awesome teh shiny and how cool I must be to own one.
What if Google Maps directs you to a spot along perfectly safe routes and then says to walk along an unsafe route? You're out in the middle of nowhere and your only choice is to go back where you came and hope to stumble upon a better route. So much for Google's time-saving directions.
That said, I do agree that this is a case of lawyers casting a wide net. I've looked at Google's bicycling directions and combine them with street view to see where they expect me to go, where to turn, etc. So far, I've been pretty unimpressed with the routes that Google is coming up with.
That's for favorable genes. I believe that, from the fly's point-of-view, believing that blue light is food (and potentially causing it to fly into a human-produced trap) would be all that favorable.
I once met a University of Maryland College Park grad (B.S. in computer science) who didn't understand pointers and who couldn't grok hexadecimal math.
So... Amazon got first and only dibs to specific songs, thus restricting competition, and Apple is using monopoly power to tell music distributors not to do that?
No. Amazon wanted the ability to have some songs from the music companies one day before everyone else. The music companies agreed. Apple came along and said, "If you do, we won't sell that song at all."
Suppose Verizon had charged one dollar. Would it still be directly comparable? Must the phones be the same price in order to be compared? If Verizon started selling an Android phone for $49, would you say that those aren't "comparable" to the iPhone?
I still haven't quite figured this theory out yet.
Let's assume that's true (it's not like anyone else sells Android phones) and half of the phones were given away. Why did that happen and why is that a bad thing?
First, Verizon buys cellphones for wholesale and "sells" them at retail. So if they buy too many and don't sell them, they drop the price or include them in a buy-one-get-one free kind of deal in order to get them out of the warehouse so they can put newer and better ones in there. In this case, what they had was HTC Eris (branded by Verizon as the "Droid Eris") which is pretty wimpy by today's standards. So they gave those away.
If I'm a customer, I got an okay cellphone for "free." If I'm an Android developer, that's another Android handset out there, which means a potential customer. If I'm Google, it means one more person using Android and seeing my ads. If I'm HTC, I got paid a wholesale price for those phones that Verizon bought. So the only person I see being "screwed" by the Buy-One-Get-One-Free deal is...Verizon.
Another possibility, of course, is that it's HTC that got stuck with the huge inventory sitting in the warehouse and they decided to move those phones out so they sold them to Verizon at a deep discount, which gave them away in order to get more people to pay them $30 a month. This is the sort of thing that happens every day in a number of different businesses. Hell, even the all-mighty Apple has been known to discount last generation Macs. I even remember seeing last generation CRT iMacs being sold in CostCo! But when Apple does this, it's a good thing. When anyone else does it, it's a bad thing.
Now, if I'm an investor in HTC, it might make a difference to me (depending on how sales for the Eris were projected). But, again, as a customer, I got an okay cellphone for "free." As a developer, I have another potential customer. As Google, I have one more person who will see my advertising. As Verizon, I'm getting $30 a month from that person with the "free" cellphone. And, as HTC, I may not have made as much money on the HTC Eris as I thought I would.
I suppose my point is, why does it matter whether those phones were sold or were given away?
Hey, it works regarding gun control in the US. After all, if people are killing themselves by jumping off the roof, the smart thing to do would be to get rid of roofs. Then they'll all be happy and keep making our shinys.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, you still have to get this magic container up to the moon.
Here's a crazy idea--why don't you build this magical container on the moon? Then you don't have to transport it from Earth.
Also, I don't have to potentially void my warrantee in order to run AutoCAD on my PC.
The players are unable to communicate on the pitch in any way [...]
In real football--not soccer--we call it the 12th man.
I wouldn't like to be arrested, period. If I go rob a bank, I wouldn't like to be arrested. But I'd expect that I would be.
I tend to agree with the prevailing opinion that if you make threats to someone in public--and, yes, if your livejournal may be read by anyone, it's public--then you may get a visit from the appropriate law enforcement authorities to investigate your intentions.
So the question is, is it unreasonable to expect to be arrested for things that you do in public even if you meant no harm?
In the United States, investing in a fleet of robots can be cheaper than supporting a hundred workers. In China, you can employ an ARMY of workers, for the investment required for a single robot.
That can depend on what you're making.
As you say, robots are an up-front investment which will pay for itself over time. How much time it will take depends on the expense of the people you employ.
The simple example: I'm making widgets. My labor costs are $5000 per month or $60,000 per year. A robot that will allow me to have labor costs of $0 will cost $150,000. That means it will take me a little less than three years to pay back that robot. Which means that I need at least a three year contract with whoever I'm making widgets for or I've lost money doing so.
Now, for me to make this kind of money, this assumes that I'm going to be stamping out x number of widgets day in and day out for three years. These widgets are not going to change at all because, if they do, I have to reprogram my robots--which requires skilled people who cost me money (which increases the cost of these robots). I'd be willing to bet that it is cheaper to retrain the army of workers.
Furthermore, suppose these widgets become immensely popular and my customers can't keep them in stock? The robots stamp out x number of widgets per day--I can't make them go faster. So I'd have to buy more robots which is another upfront cost. Conversely, I can add and remove employees according to the needs of the customer. If they need me to produce twice as many widgets to keep up with demand, I can hire some more people and add another shift or start up a new production line.
Detroit, for example, invests in robots because they pretty much make the same thing at a specific rate for 4 or 5 years. Not all industries are that predictable.
I first heard this line of reasoning on Fox News and my first reaction was "scale, people." What's funny is that our local Fox affiliate keeps sending reporters up to the beaches of Santa Barbara where there's a fairly large natural oil seep as if to say, "See? It's no big deal..."
One possibility, also, is to use WiFi.
I do most of my TV watching at home in front of my--oddly enough--TV. I also have WiFi at home. I'm not necessarily that interested in watching TV while I'm out and about because I'm doing other things like driving.
Sure, there might be exceptions. I could see watching a little TV over lunch instead of reading a newspaper. If I have jury duty or some other situation where I'm stuck waiting for a potentially long period of time, I could watch some TV. But lots of restaurants have WiFi. Even some court buildings have WiFi.
Now, I don't take mass transit (It's LA--what is this mass transit of which you speak? :^) ), so I could see it being useful there. On the other hand, again, you're slowly seeing WiFi on busses, trains, etc.
So, watching via a 3G or 4G network probably wouldn't be my first choice anyway. Add in bandwidth caps like AT&T's and I'll probably end up waiting for a WiFi network.
But how are you going to know before you do something whether it will put you over or not?
I have a Backgammon game on my iPhone. It was free--except that it puts up a banner ad. So how do I know how much a game of backgammon is going to cost me before I play it? I have Shazam on my iPhone--a very useful app. The phone "listens" to a song and tells me the name of the song. Very handy. How much bandwidth will the audio snippet take to upload? No clue. How about that game which utilizes Apple's exciting new Game Center? How much is that going to cost me? And what about iAds--those beautiful ads that Apple will be producing that are so slick and interactive and will become the new wave of advertising? How much will I be paying to watch one of those?
Basically, the problem with AT&T's App is that it's like a gas gauge. A gas gauge can tell you how much gas you have left. But it won't tell you how far you can go.
Eventually...
You mean, I could walk there in 3 months?
I believe the idea is to spend 18 months on Mars and 6 months round-trip in transit.
Part of the problem he has is that there is little to no need for his App in Android.
Basically, what his App does is turn the iPad into a picture frame. Floating above the picture, you can place twitter feeds, Facebook updates, weather forecasts, etc.
These are all things that you can do out of the box with Android (not to mention that there is no Android Pad device yet).
Now, please, kindly tell your story on Twitter, Facebook status updates or somewhere else no one is paying attention and quit robbing the rest of us of our mental bandwidth.
Agreed. I'm so sick of hearing these stories because Apple is wonderful and marvelous and fantastic and awesome and stories that imply that Apple may not be any of these things make me a little bit uncomfortable. I'd rather not hear about these things and just stare in a state of rapture at teh shiny that is my new iWhatever and read articles about how awesome teh shiny and how cool I must be to own one.
It's an interesting question...
What if Google Maps directs you to a spot along perfectly safe routes and then says to walk along an unsafe route? You're out in the middle of nowhere and your only choice is to go back where you came and hope to stumble upon a better route. So much for Google's time-saving directions.
That said, I do agree that this is a case of lawyers casting a wide net. I've looked at Google's bicycling directions and combine them with street view to see where they expect me to go, where to turn, etc. So far, I've been pretty unimpressed with the routes that Google is coming up with.
But that's why it's Beta, I suppose.
Well, I'm not sure the army is much better.
That's for favorable genes. I believe that, from the fly's point-of-view, believing that blue light is food (and potentially causing it to fly into a human-produced trap) would be all that favorable.
I once met a University of Maryland College Park grad (B.S. in computer science) who didn't understand pointers and who couldn't grok hexadecimal math.
Obviously a real computer scientist.
So... Amazon got first and only dibs to specific songs, thus restricting competition, and Apple is using monopoly power to tell music distributors not to do that?
No. Amazon wanted the ability to have some songs from the music companies one day before everyone else. The music companies agreed. Apple came along and said, "If you do, we won't sell that song at all."
Steve Jobs was not a Disney boardmember until 2006. Apple started the iTunes Music Store in 2003.
Nice try.
I'm not sure about that.
Suppose Verizon had charged one dollar. Would it still be directly comparable? Must the phones be the same price in order to be compared? If Verizon started selling an Android phone for $49, would you say that those aren't "comparable" to the iPhone?
I still haven't quite figured this theory out yet.
Let's assume that's true (it's not like anyone else sells Android phones) and half of the phones were given away. Why did that happen and why is that a bad thing?
First, Verizon buys cellphones for wholesale and "sells" them at retail. So if they buy too many and don't sell them, they drop the price or include them in a buy-one-get-one free kind of deal in order to get them out of the warehouse so they can put newer and better ones in there. In this case, what they had was HTC Eris (branded by Verizon as the "Droid Eris") which is pretty wimpy by today's standards. So they gave those away.
If I'm a customer, I got an okay cellphone for "free." If I'm an Android developer, that's another Android handset out there, which means a potential customer. If I'm Google, it means one more person using Android and seeing my ads. If I'm HTC, I got paid a wholesale price for those phones that Verizon bought. So the only person I see being "screwed" by the Buy-One-Get-One-Free deal is...Verizon.
Another possibility, of course, is that it's HTC that got stuck with the huge inventory sitting in the warehouse and they decided to move those phones out so they sold them to Verizon at a deep discount, which gave them away in order to get more people to pay them $30 a month. This is the sort of thing that happens every day in a number of different businesses. Hell, even the all-mighty Apple has been known to discount last generation Macs. I even remember seeing last generation CRT iMacs being sold in CostCo! But when Apple does this, it's a good thing. When anyone else does it, it's a bad thing.
Now, if I'm an investor in HTC, it might make a difference to me (depending on how sales for the Eris were projected). But, again, as a customer, I got an okay cellphone for "free." As a developer, I have another potential customer. As Google, I have one more person who will see my advertising. As Verizon, I'm getting $30 a month from that person with the "free" cellphone. And, as HTC, I may not have made as much money on the HTC Eris as I thought I would.
I suppose my point is, why does it matter whether those phones were sold or were given away?
Well then we could trust the rail road system to....
Supertrain!
Hey, it works regarding gun control in the US. After all, if people are killing themselves by jumping off the roof, the smart thing to do would be to get rid of roofs. Then they'll all be happy and keep making our shinys.
Perhaps the workers of China should unite. After all, they have nothing to lose but their chains...
LUXURY!
Before this whole "global warming" thing, I had work in -80 CELSIUS!
You try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.