"I will argue your fertilizer point though. The fertilizer for soybeans isn't any better/worse than that used for corn. Soy is more widely used in the organic market, but in commercial use it isn't that far ahead."
Soy actually creates it's own nitrogen, is more hearty, uses less water, and all round mops the floor up with corn. A lot of corn farmers will alternate crops (for many reason) but soy is a good choice because it adds nitrogen to the ground with out fertalizer. Also, if Brazil had the farming technology the US does, they could provide enough soy in one year to feed the entire world for 6 years.
The T-Zero (google: TZero AC Propulsion) has 5 prototypes, the first 3 used cheaper batteries, had a 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds and a range of 50-100 miles depending on the driver. The last 2 prototypes had the more expencive Lith Ion batteries. It hit the 3.67 0-60 and had a range of up to 300 miles. All of them could be charged overnight. The tranny is actually a geo-metro with all of the gears removed. They then put a 9:1 reducer gear in and hook the motor up. The AC motor can spin at 9k rpms no problem. Unfortunaltly the first T-Zero concepts sold for ~$125k and the last two went for a cool $1/4 mill. But you can buy the full AC system (minus batteries and tranny) for $25k. A cheap battery pack (FLA) goes for $800-1200, Li Ion packs go for about $8000-12000 though. But if you want to sink $50k+ into a high end performance machine that will out accelerate anything you see in the US, it's a great option. Especially when you compare gas milage. A full 300mile range charge will cost you pennies on the dollar of 300 miles in a C06 corvette.
I would like to commend you on your excellent use of a loaded question. Although I think my favorite is still "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"
DVD Jon is not a copywrite infringer. He is a DCMA violator. His (US) cohorts from DeCCS were arrested. At the time, I beleive he was living in Sweeden where the laws are a bit more lax and he wasn't extridited to the US. Since then, he has released new tools that break actual DRMs, but I beleive it was Apple that finally just hired him on instead of pressing charges.
And lets make sure we're clear on this, DeCCS did not break a DRM. It broke a security system (albeit a really crappy one used on media). It did not track rights, it was not a management system, it was just security. Although I agree that DeCCS should have been acceptable (fair use and adaptation for Linux DVD player software).
At no point in time have I ever recommended the innocent people be persecuted. I don't think they should. Infact, I think DRMs should advance to the point where innocent people don't need to break them to use the content as desired and agreed to. As I have expressed at other time on the DRM arguement: I want the content to be associated with me. I want to buy a CD, and own that content. I want to play it on my car and home sterio, my computer, my iPod, if it is ever lost or damaged, I want to be able to download it again for free, because I own that content. I want to be able to play the content on my friend's car and home sterio, his computer and his iPod. If he can't play it when I'm not there, that's fine by me, he can buy his own damn copy.
In such a case, how would I be infringing? By having an open standard DRM interface, all of my hardware could by default claim to be me, and if I try to put someone else's content on it, it could ask for something as simple as the owner's name. So, people could still distribute illegal content but they would have to enter someone else's name, which most people would be okay with for a close group of friends and family (ie: fair use), but they would not likely try to keep an entire library of downloaded media with a list of names to match up.
The problem facing the industry is not ma, pa and little jimmy downloading a handful of songs from kazaa. The problem is the black asian market where films are ripped back to DVD on the professional level. This is where you wind up with hundreds of thousands of copies of a movie that some black market asshat is getting rich selling. And there is no DRM solution that will beat them. But setting up a solid DRM can be benifitial to the average user, especially the one who right now are 'innocent infringers'.
Correct, just going out and doing a conversion is not economical. But, if you drive an older car, and are looking to trade it in and buy a newer (used) better fuel efficiency vehicle for $10k (~$200/month), it would be cheaper in the long run to sink the $10k into a conversion kit.
Similar to integrated solar roofing. You'll never make your money back if you tear off a perfectly good roof and install solar shingles. But if you are going to replace your roof anyways, using solar shingles will cost less in the long run.
You want performance? Check out the T-Zero, 0-60 in 3.68 seconds. Tops out at 90 due to a 1 gear tranny.
And enjoy your ethanol, see how well it performs over the winter. And guess how much it costs to farm enough acrage of corn to generate a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol can offset fuel consumption, but it can not replace it. If you're going to go bio fuel, soy-diesel is a much better choice. It doesn't require nitrogen fertalizers, and it can run in more efficient, lessor poluting diesel engins also with out a conversion.
Next time you want to point the troll finger, look up some peer reviewed documents. I can search Google for proof that Bush is a freaking space alien, doesn't make it true.
Err, the weight of your vehicle has no effect on it's cost. And the weight of the vehicle is included in the power consumption (.4kWh/mile). Most electrics weigh in under 2 tons (4000lbs) which is less then most full size SUVs. In fact, you can build a full battery geo on less then 3000lbs. A new Grand Prix V6 (30+ mpg) weight in arround 3600lbs if I recall correctly.
" you'll be needing rather more than your stated 40 mile capacity in batteries so that you can still hit those necessary 40 miles as the 3-5 year range nears an end."
True which is specificly why I chose the numbers 40 miles and 3 year replacements. People can hit 100miles peek on cheap DC systems. Most people can maintain ~60 miles for the first three years of the battery pack's life. But after three years, you're probrably under the 60 mark and quickly closing in on your 40 mile limit. Thus why I used 3 years in the battery replacement yearly costs. If you want to push it 5 years, drop another $150/year off that bill.
"But I am not convinced they have ever been more cost-efficient than gas cars"
I'm sorry simple math eludes you.
"unless we get a breakthrough in solar cell technology"
Due to current limits in photovolataics, there is a theoretical maximum of 30% efficiency. Some of the new nano-tube technology is helping us get closer to that mark, but it's still going to max out at 30% of the light's energy that reaches the planets surface. you're looking at about 1kW per square meter, at 30% efficiency over an 8 hour day you can get about 2.4kwh. So for a square meter of solar cells you might get 6 miles of travel. There are some new technologies being developed to try to widen the range of light that PV cells can use, but I still haven't seen any with > 30% efficiency.
In any case, for solar power it makes much more sence to invest in distributed power generation. Or building solar cells into the roofs of every home. New technology even allows you to use solar shingles, which look similar to traditional shingles, can be layed by standard labor, and are not that expencive. Given a couple of square meters on your house you could easily build up enough of a charge to fill up your car and run much of your in house circuitry, or sell back to the grid.
The Milwuakee, WI plant will be the decision maker. WI okayed the replacement of 2 40 year old boilers with 2 newer pulverized coal buring units. Illinois sued because building pulverized coal plants is illegal there, and they are only 80 miles down wind. Michigan also sued over the mercury emissions into the lake. Switching to the more expencive process of Gasification would greatly reduce polution, mercury emissions, and water consumption, but it's expencive. If WI wins there are 120 coal plants nation wide waiting to get built. If Illinois wins, those other 120 will need to be reconsidered.
oh, and many people would consider $70/barrel no longer cheep. I consider it cheap enough for our economy to continue depending on, but this holiday buying season will show us for sure.
Interesting, I had heard that their 45mpg sticker rating was "generous". You are the first person I've seen claim over 45mpg though. But for a trade off, you'll still have to replace your battery pack, and if it goes out at 3 years, just after the warenty, you're still looking at a $1200 bill, which up's your yearly fuel costs to $1000. Which at $3/gal is only a hair under a 30mpg car. Also, a new Prius cost what, $22k+ msrp? VS a $10k conversion kit. And that electric will be cheaper from the start in fuel costs. There is a finite amount of oil on this planet, and we, not our children or grand children but you and I will see the end of cheap oil in our life times. Commuter electrics, hydrogen and bio-diesels will be the future.
Sorry for the confussion, my goal was two fold. first to show the demand of an online content delivery system. Which we both agree exists. And Second the means of a control method, a DRM. Which we don't agree on.
I would not see any point for a centralized user database, or user tracking in any case. I understand the issues of having the data in the enemy's hands, but there's no real way arround that in this case. The goal here is not to make a an inpenitrable standard. It is to make a standard where for the majority of people will use the legal means and the offenders will be easier to find. similar to DeCCS and the Apple DRM remover, where the offenders were rounded up and arrested (when applicable, I have no idea how DVD Jon has kept his ass out of jail), and any host sites were given seise and desist letters.
It's not perfect, nor does it have to be, it ust has to be good enough to make it an obvious violation of the law to break people down. While I'm sure the industry would love to shut down the Asian black market (that DOES have an impact on DVD sales), a DRM will not solve that. But online content will also have little effect on it.
-Rick
What I would recommend is a product identifier and a unit identifier on each drm.
Actually most of the electricity in the US comes from Coal. North America also has the worlds larges coal deposites in the world. So while my heating bill is likely going to be over $300/month this winter, I don't expect my electricity to raise more then a peny or so per kWh.
Electric motors theoretically have infinate torque. If you have the money, you can out perform super cars. Look up the AC Propultion T-Zero. The latest Lith ion prototype does 0-60 in 3.68 seconds and a range of 300+ miles. Most DC system do not perform that well however.
But cheap technology doesn't perform as well. Most electrics don't perform as well in the 1/4 mile because they have lower top speeds (That T-Zero tops out at 90mph). Most cheap technology doesn't perform that well, but if the vehicle is a short distance commuter you can completely ween yourself from the pump. Need to go further? Have a spare car, or car pool.
This capstone is more then a one man job. The developer who is working on the network appliance code (the PVR) hates Java with a flaming vengence, and is not a big fan of linux. So Windows MCE was his call. My work is more centered on the PDA end, the client that interacts with the "home" network.
I disagree. Papers have shown that illegal file sharing has little effect on profit margines. And as such, can be assumed to be a mitigated loss. There will always be people who break DRMs. Look at DeCCS, by your logic, every signle DVD released should have been immediately pirated and made as available as public domain. But they weren't. Why? because it's too much of a hassle. Why deal with multiple clients, crappy searchs, fake files, and days worth of waiting to get a movie that you could drive down to the video store and picked up for $2?
I'm not dreaming about a PERFECT system, I'm dreaming about a system that is good enough to provide a simple way for the majority of consumers to legally obtain content online.
Look at iTunes. Personally, I think their specific DRM sucks donkey balls. BUT, all they did was provide a way for consumers to easily and legally aquire content online. And now it is a multi-million dollar revenue source for Apple. This should be a screaming fireball of a wake up call for veture capitalist to invest in DRMs and content delivery. Because if Apple can wrap content in a crap sandwich, offer it up on a silver platter and make millions, what do you think a GOOD solution could do?
Imagine an international open standard DRM. One that has a simple API for authenticating the user, and determining the date. That API could be availible to Windows, Linux, Apple, what ever. No more of this iPod/Tunes only crap. No more DMCA violations to watch DVDs on Linux. Just one open standard DRM. You could even advance the DRM technology and maintain the standard API. So if someone ever cracks the DRM, you can patch it with out having to re-write all of the readers and delivery system.
12k @ 3% is only $360/year. and that's not likely to grow.
Gas is going to hit 4 dollars, and at that rate you will be saving over $500 a year.
My situation is slightly different though. I drive a 2 seat compact sports car for my commute (20mpg). My wife is looking to swap out her aging compact suv with a Golf TDI (45mpg Diesel). I'm looking to convert my 2 seater to electric. Drops my yearly fuel cost from $1700+ to $800. And we would still have a high efficiency vehicle that doesn't depend on crude oil.
Which brings up the next point. At some point in time, there will not be enough gas to go arround. US consumption is still growing, although not as rapidly as it had been. But China and India are exploading into their industrial revolutions and their oil consumption is skyrocketing. Going Electric saves you from the future where gas prices will surge, lines will form, and shortages will exist. Going diesel you can atleast run bio-diesel from veggie oil or soy beans.
That thing will be good for extra torque, but I doubt it would effect most people's gas milage. basic physics in play, you can't use more energy then you create. The place where it would be most advantagous is charging while the car is idleing at a stop, the energy the engine generates at that point is just wasted. But when cruising at speed, any power it takes from the drive train to charge it's battery pack can not be converted perfectly back to drive train power, so you will actually lose gas mileage. So this will be better for stop and go traffic, and for hard drivers who race to 60. But if you are a highway commuter, you'll be wasting gas.
Let's say you work over your truck to get 28mpg. You drive 40miles round trip every day to work. You driver to work 250 times a year. And for the moment, we'll put gas at $3.00.
That means every year you spend $1072 on gas. $1429 per year when gas hit's $4
Compared to a full electric. A (relatively) cheap conversion to a 9" DC motor and lead acid battery pack can easily pull a 40 mile range. And at about $8-12k it's about the same cost as a few year old decent used car. A DC system like this should run at about.4kWh per mile (AC can get as low as.18kWh)
If we use the same standards (250 40mile round trips @.4kWh/mile) and put electric at $0.10 (my last bill was $0.85/kWh). That means you're spending $400 a year on fuel. Now, with the 'el-cheapo' 6c deep cycle lead acid battery packs, you're only going to get 3-5 years out of them. So if we figure in blowing $1200 every 3 years, you're looking at $800/year in fuel. Even if electric jumps to $0.13 (a 33% jump like the gas jump $3 to $4) You're still only looking at $920/year
28mpg Gas @ $3/gal = $1072 .4kWh Electric @ $0.10/kWh = $800
28mpg Gas @ $4/gal = $1429 .4kWh Electric @ $0.13/kWh = $920
Awesome! I'm not the developer working on the MCE portion of the code, but hopefully that developer can track down the api set for grabbing the movies. Thanks!
-Rick
"Seems like you're interested in providing existing Hollywood TV and movie products. The question I throw it back at you is: why bother?"
Why bother? A $50 BILLION industry? The $30 Billion battle over DVDs, 2.6 MILLION netflix subscribers? And you say why bother? A seemless open standard DRM could open up huge markets as broadband penetration continues to rise. Having tools in place to immediately take advantage of such a DRM, and the connections/money to get in bed with the content producers (Hollywood) could put a company in excellent position to make a trimendous profit.
"Jeez, I can't watch enough of those shows on WB network, and darn it, where can I pay to download them online?"
Yet how many people have downloaded Dr. Who? Firefly? or Battleship Galactica? You may say why bother, but consumers are demanding it, and all the industry has to do is offer a legal means to get the content and people will swarm to it.
A capstone is usually a research paper and thesis for a degree. But I'm sick of doing research papers, so I talked to my dean and capstone coordinator and managed to find an alternative solution.
CIS is Computer Information Science. I have an Assoc CS degree, and the CIS degree takes that technical framework, adds other general technical knowledge and builds up managerial and entrapanurial skills.
The goal of the project is actually technology integration. Using a wireless PDA to connect to a "home" network and control network enabled appliances. The movie downloading is just a feature that alot of people I've spoken to have asked about.
Windows MCE is Windows Media Center Edition. It is a stripped down version of XP with WMP 10 installed and some extra software and a great API for providing PVR like functionality.
Cool Streaming, while neat, still works on the premise that someone has to upload copywriten content which is illegal, even if that content is originally broadcast over the air. And thus, is not an option. Video Lan is also neat, but it deals with the distribution system. My problem is not distribution, it's content.
That is exactly what I'm talking about! Thanks for the link also, it may not be as all inclusive as I had hoped, but we may be able to organize a library system that works off of different standards. (ie: a bit torrent library, a internet archives library, etc)
It really seems like this technology/business model just doesn't exist yet.
P2P sharing, lets face it, sucks. What I'm talking about is a full library where you can find almost any movie/show every made. Where regardless of the number of swarms you can get a decent download speed. Where you don't have to wait 3 days for that one guy who's sharing your movie to log back in. If that option existed, you would see A LOT of people switch to it. It would quickly become a mainstream option and would have a dramatic effect on the movie industry.
As for you other reasons, I find neither acceptable. I have not heard any claims of download only saftey in the US. In France there was a case where a kid downloaded, but did not share a lot of music, and the judge ruled it as fair use, but that still left the provider open for a lawsuit. So in the US you may or may not get sued, and the provider will likely get sued. Your other option of moving to romania for half the year is also completely unexceptable for the vast majority of the US. It's also rather ineffective as you would have to do all of your downloading in a 6 month period, including finding all of the movies from the last 6 months that are not as likely to be getting swarmed.
Slashdot Mirror
"I will argue your fertilizer point though. The fertilizer for soybeans isn't any better/worse than that used for corn. Soy is more widely used in the organic market, but in commercial use it isn't that far ahead."
Soy actually creates it's own nitrogen, is more hearty, uses less water, and all round mops the floor up with corn. A lot of corn farmers will alternate crops (for many reason) but soy is a good choice because it adds nitrogen to the ground with out fertalizer. Also, if Brazil had the farming technology the US does, they could provide enough soy in one year to feed the entire world for 6 years.
The T-Zero (google: TZero AC Propulsion) has 5 prototypes, the first 3 used cheaper batteries, had a 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds and a range of 50-100 miles depending on the driver. The last 2 prototypes had the more expencive Lith Ion batteries. It hit the 3.67 0-60 and had a range of up to 300 miles. All of them could be charged overnight. The tranny is actually a geo-metro with all of the gears removed. They then put a 9:1 reducer gear in and hook the motor up. The AC motor can spin at 9k rpms no problem. Unfortunaltly the first T-Zero concepts sold for ~$125k and the last two went for a cool $1/4 mill. But you can buy the full AC system (minus batteries and tranny) for $25k. A cheap battery pack (FLA) goes for $800-1200, Li Ion packs go for about $8000-12000 though. But if you want to sink $50k+ into a high end performance machine that will out accelerate anything you see in the US, it's a great option. Especially when you compare gas milage. A full 300mile range charge will cost you pennies on the dollar of 300 miles in a C06 corvette.
-Rick
-Rick
I would like to commend you on your excellent use of a loaded question. Although I think my favorite is still "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"
DVD Jon is not a copywrite infringer. He is a DCMA violator. His (US) cohorts from DeCCS were arrested. At the time, I beleive he was living in Sweeden where the laws are a bit more lax and he wasn't extridited to the US. Since then, he has released new tools that break actual DRMs, but I beleive it was Apple that finally just hired him on instead of pressing charges.
And lets make sure we're clear on this, DeCCS did not break a DRM. It broke a security system (albeit a really crappy one used on media). It did not track rights, it was not a management system, it was just security. Although I agree that DeCCS should have been acceptable (fair use and adaptation for Linux DVD player software).
At no point in time have I ever recommended the innocent people be persecuted. I don't think they should. Infact, I think DRMs should advance to the point where innocent people don't need to break them to use the content as desired and agreed to. As I have expressed at other time on the DRM arguement: I want the content to be associated with me. I want to buy a CD, and own that content. I want to play it on my car and home sterio, my computer, my iPod, if it is ever lost or damaged, I want to be able to download it again for free, because I own that content. I want to be able to play the content on my friend's car and home sterio, his computer and his iPod. If he can't play it when I'm not there, that's fine by me, he can buy his own damn copy.
In such a case, how would I be infringing? By having an open standard DRM interface, all of my hardware could by default claim to be me, and if I try to put someone else's content on it, it could ask for something as simple as the owner's name. So, people could still distribute illegal content but they would have to enter someone else's name, which most people would be okay with for a close group of friends and family (ie: fair use), but they would not likely try to keep an entire library of downloaded media with a list of names to match up.
The problem facing the industry is not ma, pa and little jimmy downloading a handful of songs from kazaa. The problem is the black asian market where films are ripped back to DVD on the professional level. This is where you wind up with hundreds of thousands of copies of a movie that some black market asshat is getting rich selling. And there is no DRM solution that will beat them. But setting up a solid DRM can be benifitial to the average user, especially the one who right now are 'innocent infringers'.
-Rick
Correct, just going out and doing a conversion is not economical. But, if you drive an older car, and are looking to trade it in and buy a newer (used) better fuel efficiency vehicle for $10k (~$200/month), it would be cheaper in the long run to sink the $10k into a conversion kit.
Similar to integrated solar roofing. You'll never make your money back if you tear off a perfectly good roof and install solar shingles. But if you are going to replace your roof anyways, using solar shingles will cost less in the long run.
-Rick
LOL, that was funny!
You want performance? Check out the T-Zero, 0-60 in 3.68 seconds. Tops out at 90 due to a 1 gear tranny.
And enjoy your ethanol, see how well it performs over the winter. And guess how much it costs to farm enough acrage of corn to generate a gallon of ethanol. Ethanol can offset fuel consumption, but it can not replace it. If you're going to go bio fuel, soy-diesel is a much better choice. It doesn't require nitrogen fertalizers, and it can run in more efficient, lessor poluting diesel engins also with out a conversion.
Next time you want to point the troll finger, look up some peer reviewed documents. I can search Google for proof that Bush is a freaking space alien, doesn't make it true.
-Rick
You wanted links and pics, see here: http://www.themodwiki.org/index.php/External_Water _Cooling
I actually didn't have enough in case room, so I built an external water cooler.
-Rick
"you didn't include the weight of the batteries"
Err, the weight of your vehicle has no effect on it's cost. And the weight of the vehicle is included in the power consumption (.4kWh/mile). Most electrics weigh in under 2 tons (4000lbs) which is less then most full size SUVs. In fact, you can build a full battery geo on less then 3000lbs. A new Grand Prix V6 (30+ mpg) weight in arround 3600lbs if I recall correctly.
" you'll be needing rather more than your stated 40 mile capacity in batteries so that you can still hit those necessary 40 miles as the 3-5 year range nears an end."
True which is specificly why I chose the numbers 40 miles and 3 year replacements. People can hit 100miles peek on cheap DC systems. Most people can maintain ~60 miles for the first three years of the battery pack's life. But after three years, you're probrably under the 60 mark and quickly closing in on your 40 mile limit. Thus why I used 3 years in the battery replacement yearly costs. If you want to push it 5 years, drop another $150/year off that bill.
"But I am not convinced they have ever been more cost-efficient than gas cars"
I'm sorry simple math eludes you.
"unless we get a breakthrough in solar cell technology"
Due to current limits in photovolataics, there is a theoretical maximum of 30% efficiency. Some of the new nano-tube technology is helping us get closer to that mark, but it's still going to max out at 30% of the light's energy that reaches the planets surface. you're looking at about 1kW per square meter, at 30% efficiency over an 8 hour day you can get about 2.4kwh. So for a square meter of solar cells you might get 6 miles of travel. There are some new technologies being developed to try to widen the range of light that PV cells can use, but I still haven't seen any with > 30% efficiency.
In any case, for solar power it makes much more sence to invest in distributed power generation. Or building solar cells into the roofs of every home. New technology even allows you to use solar shingles, which look similar to traditional shingles, can be layed by standard labor, and are not that expencive. Given a couple of square meters on your house you could easily build up enough of a charge to fill up your car and run much of your in house circuitry, or sell back to the grid.
-Rick
The Milwuakee, WI plant will be the decision maker. WI okayed the replacement of 2 40 year old boilers with 2 newer pulverized coal buring units. Illinois sued because building pulverized coal plants is illegal there, and they are only 80 miles down wind. Michigan also sued over the mercury emissions into the lake. Switching to the more expencive process of Gasification would greatly reduce polution, mercury emissions, and water consumption, but it's expencive. If WI wins there are 120 coal plants nation wide waiting to get built. If Illinois wins, those other 120 will need to be reconsidered.
-Rick
oh, and many people would consider $70/barrel no longer cheep. I consider it cheap enough for our economy to continue depending on, but this holiday buying season will show us for sure.
-Rick
That article proves two things. 1) Not all MIT students are smart. and 2) Engineers make poor market analysts.
The oil made from coal (gasification) is good power power production, not so useful for transportation however.
-Rick
whoops, I was thinking the Honda Civic Hybrid. It's gas milage is lower then advertised, not the prius. Sorry bout that.
-Rick
Interesting, I had heard that their 45mpg sticker rating was "generous". You are the first person I've seen claim over 45mpg though. But for a trade off, you'll still have to replace your battery pack, and if it goes out at 3 years, just after the warenty, you're still looking at a $1200 bill, which up's your yearly fuel costs to $1000. Which at $3/gal is only a hair under a 30mpg car. Also, a new Prius cost what, $22k+ msrp? VS a $10k conversion kit. And that electric will be cheaper from the start in fuel costs. There is a finite amount of oil on this planet, and we, not our children or grand children but you and I will see the end of cheap oil in our life times. Commuter electrics, hydrogen and bio-diesels will be the future.
-Rick
Sorry for the confussion, my goal was two fold. first to show the demand of an online content delivery system. Which we both agree exists. And Second the means of a control method, a DRM. Which we don't agree on.
I would not see any point for a centralized user database, or user tracking in any case. I understand the issues of having the data in the enemy's hands, but there's no real way arround that in this case. The goal here is not to make a an inpenitrable standard. It is to make a standard where for the majority of people will use the legal means and the offenders will be easier to find. similar to DeCCS and the Apple DRM remover, where the offenders were rounded up and arrested (when applicable, I have no idea how DVD Jon has kept his ass out of jail), and any host sites were given seise and desist letters.
It's not perfect, nor does it have to be, it ust has to be good enough to make it an obvious violation of the law to break people down. While I'm sure the industry would love to shut down the Asian black market (that DOES have an impact on DVD sales), a DRM will not solve that. But online content will also have little effect on it.
-Rick What I would recommend is a product identifier and a unit identifier on each drm.
Actually most of the electricity in the US comes from Coal. North America also has the worlds larges coal deposites in the world. So while my heating bill is likely going to be over $300/month this winter, I don't expect my electricity to raise more then a peny or so per kWh.
-Rick
Electric motors theoretically have infinate torque. If you have the money, you can out perform super cars. Look up the AC Propultion T-Zero. The latest Lith ion prototype does 0-60 in 3.68 seconds and a range of 300+ miles. Most DC system do not perform that well however.
But cheap technology doesn't perform as well. Most electrics don't perform as well in the 1/4 mile because they have lower top speeds (That T-Zero tops out at 90mph). Most cheap technology doesn't perform that well, but if the vehicle is a short distance commuter you can completely ween yourself from the pump. Need to go further? Have a spare car, or car pool.
-Rick
This capstone is more then a one man job. The developer who is working on the network appliance code (the PVR) hates Java with a flaming vengence, and is not a big fan of linux. So Windows MCE was his call. My work is more centered on the PDA end, the client that interacts with the "home" network.
-Rick
I disagree. Papers have shown that illegal file sharing has little effect on profit margines. And as such, can be assumed to be a mitigated loss. There will always be people who break DRMs. Look at DeCCS, by your logic, every signle DVD released should have been immediately pirated and made as available as public domain. But they weren't. Why? because it's too much of a hassle. Why deal with multiple clients, crappy searchs, fake files, and days worth of waiting to get a movie that you could drive down to the video store and picked up for $2?
I'm not dreaming about a PERFECT system, I'm dreaming about a system that is good enough to provide a simple way for the majority of consumers to legally obtain content online.
Look at iTunes. Personally, I think their specific DRM sucks donkey balls. BUT, all they did was provide a way for consumers to easily and legally aquire content online. And now it is a multi-million dollar revenue source for Apple. This should be a screaming fireball of a wake up call for veture capitalist to invest in DRMs and content delivery. Because if Apple can wrap content in a crap sandwich, offer it up on a silver platter and make millions, what do you think a GOOD solution could do?
Imagine an international open standard DRM. One that has a simple API for authenticating the user, and determining the date. That API could be availible to Windows, Linux, Apple, what ever. No more of this iPod/Tunes only crap. No more DMCA violations to watch DVDs on Linux. Just one open standard DRM. You could even advance the DRM technology and maintain the standard API. So if someone ever cracks the DRM, you can patch it with out having to re-write all of the readers and delivery system.
-Rick
12k @ 3% is only $360/year. and that's not likely to grow.
Gas is going to hit 4 dollars, and at that rate you will be saving over $500 a year.
My situation is slightly different though. I drive a 2 seat compact sports car for my commute (20mpg). My wife is looking to swap out her aging compact suv with a Golf TDI (45mpg Diesel). I'm looking to convert my 2 seater to electric. Drops my yearly fuel cost from $1700+ to $800. And we would still have a high efficiency vehicle that doesn't depend on crude oil.
Which brings up the next point. At some point in time, there will not be enough gas to go arround. US consumption is still growing, although not as rapidly as it had been. But China and India are exploading into their industrial revolutions and their oil consumption is skyrocketing. Going Electric saves you from the future where gas prices will surge, lines will form, and shortages will exist. Going diesel you can atleast run bio-diesel from veggie oil or soy beans.
-Rick
That thing will be good for extra torque, but I doubt it would effect most people's gas milage. basic physics in play, you can't use more energy then you create. The place where it would be most advantagous is charging while the car is idleing at a stop, the energy the engine generates at that point is just wasted. But when cruising at speed, any power it takes from the drive train to charge it's battery pack can not be converted perfectly back to drive train power, so you will actually lose gas mileage. So this will be better for stop and go traffic, and for hard drivers who race to 60. But if you are a highway commuter, you'll be wasting gas.
-Rick
Let's say you work over your truck to get 28mpg. You drive 40miles round trip every day to work. You driver to work 250 times a year. And for the moment, we'll put gas at $3.00.
.4kWh per mile (AC can get as low as .18kWh)
.4kWh/mile) and put electric at $0.10 (my last bill was $0.85/kWh). That means you're spending $400 a year on fuel. Now, with the 'el-cheapo' 6c deep cycle lead acid battery packs, you're only going to get 3-5 years out of them. So if we figure in blowing $1200 every 3 years, you're looking at $800/year in fuel. Even if electric jumps to $0.13 (a 33% jump like the gas jump $3 to $4) You're still only looking at $920/year
.4kWh Electric @ $0.10/kWh = $800
.4kWh Electric @ $0.13/kWh = $920
That means every year you spend $1072 on gas. $1429 per year when gas hit's $4
Compared to a full electric. A (relatively) cheap conversion to a 9" DC motor and lead acid battery pack can easily pull a 40 mile range. And at about $8-12k it's about the same cost as a few year old decent used car. A DC system like this should run at about
If we use the same standards (250 40mile round trips @
28mpg Gas @ $3/gal = $1072
28mpg Gas @ $4/gal = $1429
-Rick
Awesome! I'm not the developer working on the MCE portion of the code, but hopefully that developer can track down the api set for grabbing the movies. Thanks! -Rick
"Seems like you're interested in providing existing Hollywood TV and movie products. The question I throw it back at you is: why bother?"
Why bother? A $50 BILLION industry? The $30 Billion battle over DVDs, 2.6 MILLION netflix subscribers? And you say why bother? A seemless open standard DRM could open up huge markets as broadband penetration continues to rise. Having tools in place to immediately take advantage of such a DRM, and the connections/money to get in bed with the content producers (Hollywood) could put a company in excellent position to make a trimendous profit.
"Jeez, I can't watch enough of those shows on WB network, and darn it, where can I pay to download them online?"
Yet how many people have downloaded Dr. Who? Firefly? or Battleship Galactica? You may say why bother, but consumers are demanding it, and all the industry has to do is offer a legal means to get the content and people will swarm to it.
-Rick
Thanks for the links, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for!
-Rick
A capstone is usually a research paper and thesis for a degree. But I'm sick of doing research papers, so I talked to my dean and capstone coordinator and managed to find an alternative solution.
CIS is Computer Information Science. I have an Assoc CS degree, and the CIS degree takes that technical framework, adds other general technical knowledge and builds up managerial and entrapanurial skills.
The goal of the project is actually technology integration. Using a wireless PDA to connect to a "home" network and control network enabled appliances. The movie downloading is just a feature that alot of people I've spoken to have asked about.
Windows MCE is Windows Media Center Edition. It is a stripped down version of XP with WMP 10 installed and some extra software and a great API for providing PVR like functionality.
Cool Streaming, while neat, still works on the premise that someone has to upload copywriten content which is illegal, even if that content is originally broadcast over the air. And thus, is not an option. Video Lan is also neat, but it deals with the distribution system. My problem is not distribution, it's content.
-Rick
That is exactly what I'm talking about! Thanks for the link also, it may not be as all inclusive as I had hoped, but we may be able to organize a library system that works off of different standards. (ie: a bit torrent library, a internet archives library, etc)
It really seems like this technology/business model just doesn't exist yet.
-Rick
P2P sharing, lets face it, sucks. What I'm talking about is a full library where you can find almost any movie/show every made. Where regardless of the number of swarms you can get a decent download speed. Where you don't have to wait 3 days for that one guy who's sharing your movie to log back in. If that option existed, you would see A LOT of people switch to it. It would quickly become a mainstream option and would have a dramatic effect on the movie industry.
As for you other reasons, I find neither acceptable. I have not heard any claims of download only saftey in the US. In France there was a case where a kid downloaded, but did not share a lot of music, and the judge ruled it as fair use, but that still left the provider open for a lawsuit. So in the US you may or may not get sued, and the provider will likely get sued. Your other option of moving to romania for half the year is also completely unexceptable for the vast majority of the US. It's also rather ineffective as you would have to do all of your downloading in a 6 month period, including finding all of the movies from the last 6 months that are not as likely to be getting swarmed.
-Rick