This is exactly what suppliers to Walmart have to contend with - Walmart says we paid you $1.50 last month, this month it is $1.40 and you'll take it and like it because we sold 90% of your production output last year. And the year before.
If you are a Walmart supplier, they pretty much dictate how much you are going to charge them. And then you go back to your company and lay off some people so you can keep making the stuff at the price Walmart is willing to pay. Or move the whole operation to China.
Because the cost of a paper book isn't the paper - it is the editing and production of the content.
OK, I guess you could say there is no reason for an artsy cover for an ebook - except the book cover is still used for promotion and advertising purposes. So no less cost there.
Editing? Nope, no savings there. I have seen some ebooks that were author-published without an editor and they were predictably awful.
Promotion? Nope, if nobody hears about it, the book doesn't sell. Have to pass some around to reviewers and such. No savings there.
Printing? Sure, but understand it costs about $1 to print your average book these days in quantities that book publishers are interested in. If you want to print 10 copies of your book that is a different matter - the publisher isn't interested in any book they aren't going to print at least 100,000 of unless it is a smallish tech book publisher.
Shipping? Sure, but it costs about $0.25 to ship a book in a box with other books in the box.
Bookstore margin? Yes, but I am guessing that Amazon, Apple or whomever wants that margin. They might take a bit of a cut, but it isn't going away completely.
I can see a savings of $1.25 a book here. Maybe if you stretched it you could sequeeze out $2 a book. So why again should ebooks be much cheaper than physical books? What I see for $0.99 on Amazon are self-published books that haven't ever seen an editor have been promoted solely on FaceBook. Nobody knows about them outside of the local chapter of the Vampire Virgins club, and nobody else is ever going to find out about them. What I do see is a consistent difference of a few dollars between a hardcover book and the ebook on day 1 of publication with a pretty steady decline in the price as the "newness" of the book wears off - and the fact that Amazon is competing against their own lending program, libraries and pirates. When the book isn't quite so new the price drops off real fast.
Sorry, but I'm not sure we ever have had "legislative force" behind doctor certification and licensing. What we have today, and have had since the beginning of any sort of real medicine is peer review and peer boards of review. A doctor that screws up enough has his buddies tell him he needs to spend more time at the golf course.
Yes, there are doctors that are legally sanctioned today, but the hurdle to reach that point is unbelievable. We aren't talking just gross negligence but obvious and complete incompetence.
The problem with the peer review is there is a huge amount of inertia to overcome and the tendency for the doctors to stand together. If a doctor screws up badly enough you can get your malpractice claim but the next week the doctor is back doing the same stuff again. And any attempt by the general public to intefere with review boards and such generally just makes them stand together all the more so.
So if you are thinking the practice of medicine is "regulated" by some set of laws, you are wrong. The regulation that is there is the AMA and state medical boards whose rules the AMA wrote. What laws that are in place require doctors to submit to the state medical board and AMA rules.
And while the AMA doesn't like to admit it, the last thing they want is for a doctor to be removed from practice - perhaps unless they are an embarrassment to the AMA itself. Because every time a doctor is kicked out it just brings more pressure and greater expectations onto the rest of the doctors. You can see this clearly when someone dies in a hospital. Even if the patient was clearly suffering from a terminal disease everyone acts like something wrong happened and they have to cover for each other. A lot of times this is borne out because the family does sue because the patient died.
The US will shortly be requiring all government-approved health care insurance plans to include payment for homeopathy. I believe this is already a requirement in California, so this change will simply be to make it nationwide.
Acupuncture, which may have some actual validity as a treatment beyond placebo, will also be required to be paid for. Acupressure, a variant with significantly less theoretical and clinical evidence of efficacy, will certainly be required to be paid for.
I suspect certain treatments consisting of one or more people in a circle chanting proscribed phrases may be included soon. The US is moving from insurance coverage being determined by individual states to one single nationwide decisionmaker - and it will be so much easier to lobby that one group (or maybe individual!) than 50 different state insurance boards. It will also be so much more rewarding because one decision gets you the whole nation in one go.
The problem with this is very simple. The current model for health coverage in the US is the employer pays. Well, come 2014 when the nationwide standards go into effect insurance costs to companies will rise significantly and everyone I have talked to says they are dropping coverage and pushing their employees onto the government-subsidized plans which are pretty much paid by the government instead of the employers. Sure, the employers will have to pay a fine, but the fines are absurdly low - $2500 per employee capped at something line $15,000 instead of $20,000 for insurance coverage. This means they can save 80-90% of the cost of insurance by paying the fine and the employee loses nothing because the government steps in a picks up the tab.
Adding coverage for homeopathy, acupuncture and chanting simply drives the plan cost up for the nation as a whole and makes the whole system completely untenable. Single payer will be the only possible solution with some new taxes to cover it. Probably lots of new taxes that will mean anyone with a job will be heavily taxed to support the millions that don't. While today there are a few places where welfare, food stamps and other programs add up to more than many low-wage jobs the new taxes will probably make this a nationwide reality. Why work when you get more from the government for doing nothing except maybe applying for a job once a month?
Except that holding onto an existing customer has a pretty well known cost and benefit - but the costs of getting new customers are greater if you don't have an edge and the benefits of obtaining new customers are significantly better. So nearly all businesses will fall all over themselves to get a new customer and do next to nothing to keep an existing customer.
Face it, the old customer already bought what they needed. The new customer is a new opportunity and almost always a much better one. Especially with services like cable TV - you aren't going to leave unless you are really, really unhappy because it is a significant disruption in your life.
I think a closer reading of this will show you that it is not intended for consumers but for distributors and resellers that suffer loss of opportunity or competitive hardship because of being charged a different price than a larger distributor or reseller. Sales to a consumer specifically are not going to be affected by this and it would be impossible for a consumer to show they suffered competitive harm by being charged a higher price.
And you better believe the dockside shops aren't going to be having any sales when a cruise ship come into port.
I suspect the key for Google with this is their immense store of information and ties with many, many web merchants. Do a search on Global Industrial Supply, for example, and you will start seeing ads pop up for what you were searching for on any web site where Google is displaying graphic ads.
I recall reading a story many years ago involving a computer system that could detect from the way someone typed who they were. You can start expecting Google to be hooked into your computer sufficiently to be able to identify different users soon. Just another feature of the Google toolbar, right?
Understand that while some companies might want to abandon physical media, others are being dragged there because "DVD are the past" and other such insightful comments.
If you want someone to store your stuff for you, you are going to pay for it. It doesn't matter that the service offered of that storage has a negligable cost associated with it for the storer - it opens the door for providing a service and charging for it.
Just like if you go to a restaurant and the waiter scrapes crumbs from the tablecloth with a little metal "crumb scraper". It doesn't really cost a lot more for the waiter to do this and those tools aren't all that expensive, but you will not find any crumb scrapers at Denny's. You can expect to be paying $50 a person or more to get the "service" of having your crumbs scraped. If you ask the restaurant why their prices are so high, you may get an answer that nowhere are you going to get crumbs scraped for any less.
Choosing a nice slice of cherry pie over a shit sandwich is also being "discriminating".
Discrimation is a fact of life and while governments can try to outlaw choosing people based on religion, disability (or lack thereof) and race it doesn't mean that all discrimination is some evil thing. A lack of discrimination is what gives promiscuity a bad name.
Generally, allowing the resale will also allow replication. That means that while Fred may be scrupulously honest and would never, ever retain a copy of something he was selling, Susan isn't so uptight and sees an opportunity when it arrives.
A couple of weeks after this policy goes into effect there would be no more sales. Fred? He sits on the sidelines and wonders why and who wrecked things for everyone. Susan on the other hand is gloating that she was instrumental in bringing down not just some nasty little boy but an entire corporation.
Personal profit isn't the only motivation at work, although if you can grab some cash, why not? But the fame and glory associated with destroying what many perceive as the downfall of civilization - a business - is not something to sneer at. And then there is the whole idea of destroying the revenue model for everything and suddenly everything will be free - somehow.
Retail stores have been operating with the known fact that 10% of the people that walk in are shoplifters and will steal something if given half a chance. This is why the guy is checking receipts at the door - they don't catch all of the 10% but they can knock it down to 2-3%. About time the rest of the world caught up with this knowledge. A lot of shoplifters aren't doing it out of need, they are doing it for the fun. Same thing happens in the online world as well.
What we got with Obamacare was a guaranteed one-way trip to a single payer plan where the Government is picking up the tab for everyone. And the government spending several trillion more a year to do so.
You thought single payer wasn't in there? No, it isn't, but it is the only possible outcome now. What happens in 2014 now is every single major employer (50 people or more) will simply drop their health insurance coverage for employees. Yes, that means that they will have to pay a fine for doing so - I think it is capped at around $15,000 no matter how many employees you have. The other alternative is to be paying $15,000 to $20,000 a year per employee for health care coverage. I have been to some meetings and other people I know have been to others. Universally, everyone with employees (large and small) is saying they are pulling the plug.
So what happens? The workers get government-subsidized health insurance. However, the costs for this haven't been discussed because the assumption has been (and all the cost estimates based upon) employers just keep paying no matter how the costs per employee go up. With the government picking up the tab now so people do not go without health insurance, it is an easy out for employers.
There you have it. By June of 2014 the government will be paying for around 90% of the health insurance coverage in the US. That may be as close to single-payer as we are going to get, but my guess is they just go the whole way and shut down all the insurance companies and add those people to the government welfare roles. According to some estimates I have seen, the spending will be around 3.5 to 4.0 trillion a year for this. All of it financed by China, Saudia Arabia and anyone else they can get to buy the bonds.
Anyone notice the increasing lack of civility and cooperation in politics?
There is one simple answer. The local Democratic offices start passing out rifles to loyal Democrat voters with the clear message that the Republicans are so utterly vile and disgusting that there can never be any peace. The only solution to save the country from utter ruin is to start shooting Republicans. Because every Democrat today knows that Republicans aren't really human and have no human feelings eliminating them can be done like taking out the trash. With the split currently around 40/40/10 the 40% of the country that identifies themselves could easily bag enough Republicans to make sure the problem goes away forever.
Of course, the local Republican offices have to the same thing - distribute rifles, handguns and shotguns to loyal Republicans because allowing a single Democrat to be elected is the road to sure ruin of the country. Pay some Democrats back for all those Chimpy McBush comments.
The end result of this is (a) a lot of rifles on the ground next to dead bodies, (b) truely civil political discourse because everyone sees what happens when you lose that, and (c) about 1/10th the current population in the US meaning problems with unemployment, pollution, traffic jams, crime and everything else virtually disappears overnight. Going from 300 million people to 30 million means Social Security is funded through the year 802,701 and everyone has a job.
I believe this program could be instituted quickly and bring about a solution to all of the nation's woes before the next election.
Yeah, great. But what is the difference between a valid bitcoin and a made-up value that isn't really a bitcoin?
Would someone be able to sit down and in five minutes (or less) have a PRNG churn out a list of things that purports to be bitcoin identifiers but aren't really? How would someone receiving a million individual items be able to check that all of them are actually valid? Sounds like the right approach would be to turn over a list of said identifiers on paper so they have to be keyed in individually, all million of them, while demanding the documents and all copies "right now!!!"
It might take a couple of years to validate all million identifiers. I suppose you stop with the first invalid one and say that this is all a scam and they were ripped off.
Difference here being that the difference between a valid and a forged $1 bill is one that passes certain proscribed tests and if those tests are passed, the $1 bill is valid and would be accepted anywhere.
Look, with less than half of the American people paying income taxes the solution is simple - 100% taxation. You send it all in to the government.
Then, if you qualify (and everyone will, then) for assistance the government gives you back something to live on. With the firm understanding that if you do not vote for the "right" people your funding will be cut off. The "right" people will be explained to you just before the election.
This eliminates the idea of "rich" people, because anyone with any assets at all will simply move out of the country. So no more rich or poor people, everyone living on what the government gives them.
I think a guy named Lenin tried this program around 1921 or so. It has been awhile and people don't really read much about history anymore, and when they do it doesn't make any sense to them. So by all means, we should try it again.
Unfortunately, BlackBerry has made some strategic errors and the result has been organizations deciding not to go with the BES model. So yes, you end up with a choice between some Android phone or an iPhone.
One solution is a small Bluetooth keyboard. They are cheap and easy to deal with and much smaller than a full-size keyboard. These work with both Android and iPhone equally well.
I think RIM has turned the wrong corner in not making it clear to customers the difference between the BES + encrypted device security model and the locking employed by both Android and iPhone. A demo at a BlackHat event would get people talking about how easy it is to image an iPhone compared to what it takes to get anything usable from a BlackBerry. Sad to say, RIM hasn't done this and most people do not know the difference.
But a lot of government agencies are still using BlackBerry and will be until the company completely tanks. This isn't just because they are stuck in a rut.
The problem is, it was clearly shown in the 1970s that the government was doing the patients a disservice by holding them in hospitals where care was minimal and there was abuse and cruelty. So the logical decision was made (???) that the right thing to do was to close the hospitals down and move the patients to smaller neighborhood centers.
So you can say that the government was being cruel and inhumane to the mentally ill by holding them in these hospitals. Which was why they were closed down.
Sure it was a mistake. But be clear about when it happened - it was over long before Reagan took office. This decision was made mostly at the state level and the hospitals were state-run. It is just that after enough reports of abuse and movies like The Snake Pit everyone was pretty well convinced that the hospitals were doing more harm than good. You see the date on The Snake Pit? This wasn't a new revelation by any means - everyone thought the state hospitals were something straight out of a horror movie.
It was easy to get them shut down, but it wasn't to save money, it was to improve "care" such as it was. The problem is there was no care and nobody wanted these people. Especially not in neighborhood centers like the one that was across from a large neighborhood park.
Having been through this, it was a lot more Ford-era and Carter-era than Reagan when the state hospitals were emptied. There was adequate proof that the hospitals were not necessarily doing their inmates a real service but what people missed was they were doing the rest of us a real service by keeping these people off the streets. Admittedly, they may not have been doing the patients any good other than simply providing a roof over their heads, but in booting them out even the roof disappeared.
Yup, they just took those people and put them out on the street. Many of them ended up in long-term nursing facilities which were completely unable to care for these people. There was nowhere else for them to go.
But blaming Reagan for this is completely wrong. Most of it was over long before he entered office. I had a girlfriend that lived next door to one of these long term nursing care facilities and they got a bunch of new faces around 1976 or so. It might have taken until 1978 before the job was completely done and all the hospitals were closed down. These people were clearly straight from a state hospital and were not like the elderly folks that were the sole residents there before that. It was rather distressing to see how they were mismanaged but as I mentioned, it didn't last long. None of the nursing care facilities could handle these new patients and they probably knew that going in. Meanwhile, the government folks were talking about how much better care could be given in these smaller and more responsive facilities.
I suspect the government folks knew going in how it was going to turn out because it shouldn't have been a surprise at all. Now this is not to say the hospitals were doing their job properly. No, the reports that came out around that time showing patient abuse and outright cruelty were correct - that was happening. But pushing the people out on the street made potential victims of every passerby as well as the former patients. And it certainly didn't help anyone - no one got better because of being booted out of the hospitals.
The UDID is not related to encryption on iDevices. Knowing the UDID will not help unlock a device if you have it.
The original function of the UDID was to allow stateless connections (like HTTP) to be able to coordinate sessions with the same device. Thus, you ask for something and cell data connection drops. The device connects back up and gets the response and everyone knows they are still talking to the same device. However, Apple has seen too many applications use this in inappropriate ways and has come out officially saying the API to retrieve it may be retired shortly.
There are other ways to make sure you are talking to the same device consistently and one thing that Apple wants is multiple device transparency when one account is involved. So I can make a request on my iPhone and retrieve the results on my iPad as well as having 100% of the data shared between the devices. The UDID isn't conducive to that at all.
So there are likely apps out there that have collected massive UDID databases... but have no idea what to do with the information. It is not externally visible. It could be used to do various types of tracking but mostly your app author isn't all that interested. I have no idea what the FBI might do with a database of maybe 1% of the iDevices out there but it isn't all that useful.
Forensic software for iDevices exists and much of it will work on locked devices. It will not decrypt otherwise encrypted data that is stored by applications in an encrypted form, but that is actually pretty rare. And again, having the UDID before you plug the device in is of no value and once you do plug it in, you have the UDID. So if an iPhone is confiscated by some law enforcement agency, they probably have access to the "right" software for dumping out the contents of the phone. Completely. If they are really up on things, they may have a portable device which will image the phone in minutes in the field. Your ability with an iPhone or Android phone to keep things out of law enforcement hands is (today) approximately zero. This was not previously the case but all the latest high-end cell phone forensic tools handle iDevices just fine.
An encrypted Blackberry remains a device that cannot be successfully examined - I believe you can get an image from the device but it is encrypted at a level that makes cracking the encryption unlikely. Once the device has been imaged, I believe trying selected passwords is possible without the "10 wrong guesses wipes the device" problem. But still, for the most part an encrypted Blackberry is secure. Any Blackberry device can be encrypted, BIS or BES, but it is sufficiently troublesome that only people required to do so - because of a BES profile - are going to do it. You can bet government Blackberries are set with the profile requiring encryption. The encryption is part of the device locking which then requires a password (text) to unlock and access the device.
Unless we are talking about a three-person station here, this is absurd. How much power is required for something large with 100-200 people? Megawatts, I am sure. For thermal stability you will want the entire complex to be underground - the surface of the moon swings between +200F in sunlight to -200F without sunlight, either in shadows or during the night period.
So we are talking about lighting for 200 people. And ventilation. And water pumps for drinking water, toilets, etc. So, thousands of large, heavy RTGs does not sound like a practical answer at all.
Some kind of solar collection might make sense, except you are building a huge infrastructure that only works half the time. Sure, it would be possible to heat some buried stuff up and run off that for a while, but you will find accumulated losses over a two week period add up to be a lot. Possibly more than you can accumulate when it is sunny outside. Same thing goes for batteries - the accumulated losses over a two week period are going to add up to a huge number.
Think about your personal electrical requirements today. Ignoring transportation, how many watt-hours do you use for personal care, lighting while awake, meal preparation, work and entertainment? Even with the most efficient devices you are using at least 3-4KWh per day. An environment where there is no transportation but lighting is required 24x7 in common areas would require at least that. Communication would be a huge draw as well with high bandwidth requirements and running 24x7 as well.
A fusion generator would be nice, but we don't have one just yet and we should have started this 30 years ago. Waiting around for fusion isn't an answer. Fission for now, fusion later. A suitable fission-based thermal generator (you know, boil water, make steam, run turbine, recycle steam) is going to be a big facility but it can operate without human intervention for decades. Designed properly, such a system can be remote from the living quarters and need no attention at all. Waste heat? I don't see any at all because those 100-200 people are going to need to raise the temperature of their living quarters quite a bit as well as doing other heat-intensive operations. If you do need to get rid of some heat, a black fin in shadow makes for an awfully good radiator and it is pretty much impossible to raise the temperature of empty space.
It would make sense to run the smelter from a solar collector and run it only two weeks at a time, but it would not make any sense to try to squeeze electric power out during the two weeks of night from some barely adequate storage system.
Good luck with trying to sue Apple in a different venue. In the US almost certainly you will find that buried at the end of each and every Apple agreement you have agreed to (or they will not allow you to even begin using an Apple device) there is the clause that you have agreed to the venue of California for all legal actions against Apple.
No company ever does anything without claiming the right to set the venue. If you find someone that has omitted that rather important detail you can bankrupt them by simply suing them in some out-of-the-way place that they have to spend a fortune to travel to, stay there and have local representation.
You will find that suing them in a foreign country will have its problems because for the most part unless they have major business operations there the courts will simply tell you to get lost because they do not have jurisdiction over whereever it is that Apple is. So for example, you will not succeed in suing Apple from Grenada because the courts in Grenada will not have jurisdiction over any part of Apple's business.
Encrypted file? Hardly. It is just a file system that your computer doesn't understand.
Get the right software and you can access those files. There are a number of Windows and Apple tools for accessing the individual files on a iPod, iPhone or iPad.
You have never "bought" any music in your life. Face it, nobody has.
You buy a CD, you have purchased a license with limited rights. Take that CD and play it through a PA system to a crowd at a beach and you have violated your license and may be subject to civil action. Buy some sheet music and play it through that PA system and you will find a whole raft of licenses that you didn't think you needed to buy that you have violated. Buy a DVD and play a movie for a big crowd charging each person $1 to view it and again you have violated the license.
All of these examples relate to the fact that you do not have a license for public performance of any of the music or movies that you buy. Here is another one - you do not have a license to make copies. If you had actually "purchased music" all rights including reproduction, public performance and so on and so forth would be yours.
Nope, sorry, you haven't bought music although you might think you have.
Now, if I record an original work my son-in-law plays on the piano and I get him to sign over all rights to this then I "own" some music. Obviously that does not apply if he is merely performing a work that someone else has written, so I better be sure that this is indeed an original work and not even something that has previously influenced him in a way so that his original work is in fact a copy of that other work. That has tripped up even very big names in the past.
What everyone seems to have here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.
I have an Amazon account. My wife and daughter have Kindles on this account and my daughter uses the account actively. There is no question that the account will survive me. Neither Amazon nor Apple has the concept of an individual, only the account. Now, there may be specific reasons why Mr. Willis does not wish to share his account with his daughters and instead would prefer to transfer the contents of the account - and not the account itself - and that has led to the situation described.
However, it should be clearly noted for all that the only contractual entity involved in a transaction with Amazon or Apple is "the account", and not specifically an individual. I know of no restriction whatsoever that limits an account to a single individual or even a single family. I do know with Amazon it would be uncomfortable for the account to be shared too widely because it does have purchasing authority with my credit card.
With Apple devices there is also the issue of an account enclosing all of the email settings and everything else - it does not make sense for multiple people to share an account under most circumstances. However, having the account information known to others and maintaining activity in the account is probably a good plan.
Both Amazon and Apple allow for editing of an account and changing all aspects of an account, including name, address, email addresses, credit cards, etc. at any time. This effectively makes even an unshared account "transferrable" in a unrevokable manner.
Are the items under an account transferrable? No, not today and quite probably not forever. Is the entire account transferrable? Clearly it is, whether it is the intent of the organization the account is with or not.
I think we should consider - seriously - that anyone who is infringing the rights of others, including the right to freely spend their money the way they see fit, can be killed without recourse.
Baby in the womb inconvenient? Kill it.
Two-year old noisey and whiney? Kill it.
Child needing lots of expensive stuff? Kill it.
Teenager in trouble with the law? Kill it.
Old person needing care? Kill it.
I think that is enough consideration. So that doesn't work very well. OK, so we want to limit this to just the first item listed and eliminate without the possibility of expansion the others from being considered. I think about the only way to do that is with some very strong definitions about what an abortion is and when it is permitted. I am specifically not in favor of my offspring from coming back in 30 years and deciding that I am burdensome to them and they wish to avail themselves of a government sanctioned way to eliminate this burden.
Unfortunately, I believe many of the proponents of abortion do not see the connection between a viable baby and any other person needing care.
I'd like to offer that someone who has a debilitating illness and is dependent on the care of another is pretty much in the same boat. As far as I know, it is currently illegal to kill off your mother because taking care of her is a pain in the ass.
What is somewhat scary is the justifications I see here for why it is OK for a pregnant woman to terminate the pregnancy work just as well for why it is OK to kill Mom when she isn't getting around so good anymore.
Are you sure you are OK with that? Because humans love to justify their actions and we are not far from a point where it will be economically burdensome to take care of sick old people. Should we just kill them before they cost us lots of money? Can you envision a situation where a person uses the infringement of rights argument in court as to why it was OK for them to kill off Mom? Would you be OK with them getting off because the court accepted that defense?
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This is exactly what suppliers to Walmart have to contend with - Walmart says we paid you $1.50 last month, this month it is $1.40 and you'll take it and like it because we sold 90% of your production output last year. And the year before.
If you are a Walmart supplier, they pretty much dictate how much you are going to charge them. And then you go back to your company and lay off some people so you can keep making the stuff at the price Walmart is willing to pay. Or move the whole operation to China.
Nobody wants to be in that situation.
Because the cost of a paper book isn't the paper - it is the editing and production of the content.
OK, I guess you could say there is no reason for an artsy cover for an ebook - except the book cover is still used for promotion and advertising purposes. So no less cost there.
Editing? Nope, no savings there. I have seen some ebooks that were author-published without an editor and they were predictably awful.
Promotion? Nope, if nobody hears about it, the book doesn't sell. Have to pass some around to reviewers and such. No savings there.
Printing? Sure, but understand it costs about $1 to print your average book these days in quantities that book publishers are interested in. If you want to print 10 copies of your book that is a different matter - the publisher isn't interested in any book they aren't going to print at least 100,000 of unless it is a smallish tech book publisher.
Shipping? Sure, but it costs about $0.25 to ship a book in a box with other books in the box.
Bookstore margin? Yes, but I am guessing that Amazon, Apple or whomever wants that margin. They might take a bit of a cut, but it isn't going away completely.
I can see a savings of $1.25 a book here. Maybe if you stretched it you could sequeeze out $2 a book. So why again should ebooks be much cheaper than physical books? What I see for $0.99 on Amazon are self-published books that haven't ever seen an editor have been promoted solely on FaceBook. Nobody knows about them outside of the local chapter of the Vampire Virgins club, and nobody else is ever going to find out about them. What I do see is a consistent difference of a few dollars between a hardcover book and the ebook on day 1 of publication with a pretty steady decline in the price as the "newness" of the book wears off - and the fact that Amazon is competing against their own lending program, libraries and pirates. When the book isn't quite so new the price drops off real fast.
Why have the politicians at all if the scientists are telling them what to do?
Do you really believe that "scientists" do not have an opinion on the right way to solve all of the problems out there?
Sorry, but I'm not sure we ever have had "legislative force" behind doctor certification and licensing. What we have today, and have had since the beginning of any sort of real medicine is peer review and peer boards of review. A doctor that screws up enough has his buddies tell him he needs to spend more time at the golf course.
Yes, there are doctors that are legally sanctioned today, but the hurdle to reach that point is unbelievable. We aren't talking just gross negligence but obvious and complete incompetence.
The problem with the peer review is there is a huge amount of inertia to overcome and the tendency for the doctors to stand together. If a doctor screws up badly enough you can get your malpractice claim but the next week the doctor is back doing the same stuff again. And any attempt by the general public to intefere with review boards and such generally just makes them stand together all the more so.
So if you are thinking the practice of medicine is "regulated" by some set of laws, you are wrong. The regulation that is there is the AMA and state medical boards whose rules the AMA wrote. What laws that are in place require doctors to submit to the state medical board and AMA rules.
And while the AMA doesn't like to admit it, the last thing they want is for a doctor to be removed from practice - perhaps unless they are an embarrassment to the AMA itself. Because every time a doctor is kicked out it just brings more pressure and greater expectations onto the rest of the doctors. You can see this clearly when someone dies in a hospital. Even if the patient was clearly suffering from a terminal disease everyone acts like something wrong happened and they have to cover for each other. A lot of times this is borne out because the family does sue because the patient died.
The US will shortly be requiring all government-approved health care insurance plans to include payment for homeopathy. I believe this is already a requirement in California, so this change will simply be to make it nationwide.
Acupuncture, which may have some actual validity as a treatment beyond placebo, will also be required to be paid for. Acupressure, a variant with significantly less theoretical and clinical evidence of efficacy, will certainly be required to be paid for.
I suspect certain treatments consisting of one or more people in a circle chanting proscribed phrases may be included soon. The US is moving from insurance coverage being determined by individual states to one single nationwide decisionmaker - and it will be so much easier to lobby that one group (or maybe individual!) than 50 different state insurance boards. It will also be so much more rewarding because one decision gets you the whole nation in one go.
The problem with this is very simple. The current model for health coverage in the US is the employer pays. Well, come 2014 when the nationwide standards go into effect insurance costs to companies will rise significantly and everyone I have talked to says they are dropping coverage and pushing their employees onto the government-subsidized plans which are pretty much paid by the government instead of the employers. Sure, the employers will have to pay a fine, but the fines are absurdly low - $2500 per employee capped at something line $15,000 instead of $20,000 for insurance coverage. This means they can save 80-90% of the cost of insurance by paying the fine and the employee loses nothing because the government steps in a picks up the tab.
Adding coverage for homeopathy, acupuncture and chanting simply drives the plan cost up for the nation as a whole and makes the whole system completely untenable. Single payer will be the only possible solution with some new taxes to cover it. Probably lots of new taxes that will mean anyone with a job will be heavily taxed to support the millions that don't. While today there are a few places where welfare, food stamps and other programs add up to more than many low-wage jobs the new taxes will probably make this a nationwide reality. Why work when you get more from the government for doing nothing except maybe applying for a job once a month?
Except that holding onto an existing customer has a pretty well known cost and benefit - but the costs of getting new customers are greater if you don't have an edge and the benefits of obtaining new customers are significantly better. So nearly all businesses will fall all over themselves to get a new customer and do next to nothing to keep an existing customer.
Face it, the old customer already bought what they needed. The new customer is a new opportunity and almost always a much better one. Especially with services like cable TV - you aren't going to leave unless you are really, really unhappy because it is a significant disruption in your life.
I think a closer reading of this will show you that it is not intended for consumers but for distributors and resellers that suffer loss of opportunity or competitive hardship because of being charged a different price than a larger distributor or reseller. Sales to a consumer specifically are not going to be affected by this and it would be impossible for a consumer to show they suffered competitive harm by being charged a higher price.
And you better believe the dockside shops aren't going to be having any sales when a cruise ship come into port.
I suspect the key for Google with this is their immense store of information and ties with many, many web merchants. Do a search on Global Industrial Supply, for example, and you will start seeing ads pop up for what you were searching for on any web site where Google is displaying graphic ads.
I recall reading a story many years ago involving a computer system that could detect from the way someone typed who they were. You can start expecting Google to be hooked into your computer sufficiently to be able to identify different users soon. Just another feature of the Google toolbar, right?
Understand that while some companies might want to abandon physical media, others are being dragged there because "DVD are the past" and other such insightful comments.
If you want someone to store your stuff for you, you are going to pay for it. It doesn't matter that the service offered of that storage has a negligable cost associated with it for the storer - it opens the door for providing a service and charging for it.
Just like if you go to a restaurant and the waiter scrapes crumbs from the tablecloth with a little metal "crumb scraper". It doesn't really cost a lot more for the waiter to do this and those tools aren't all that expensive, but you will not find any crumb scrapers at Denny's. You can expect to be paying $50 a person or more to get the "service" of having your crumbs scraped. If you ask the restaurant why their prices are so high, you may get an answer that nowhere are you going to get crumbs scraped for any less.
Choosing a nice slice of cherry pie over a shit sandwich is also being "discriminating".
Discrimation is a fact of life and while governments can try to outlaw choosing people based on religion, disability (or lack thereof) and race it doesn't mean that all discrimination is some evil thing. A lack of discrimination is what gives promiscuity a bad name.
Generally, allowing the resale will also allow replication. That means that while Fred may be scrupulously honest and would never, ever retain a copy of something he was selling, Susan isn't so uptight and sees an opportunity when it arrives.
A couple of weeks after this policy goes into effect there would be no more sales. Fred? He sits on the sidelines and wonders why and who wrecked things for everyone. Susan on the other hand is gloating that she was instrumental in bringing down not just some nasty little boy but an entire corporation.
Personal profit isn't the only motivation at work, although if you can grab some cash, why not? But the fame and glory associated with destroying what many perceive as the downfall of civilization - a business - is not something to sneer at. And then there is the whole idea of destroying the revenue model for everything and suddenly everything will be free - somehow.
Retail stores have been operating with the known fact that 10% of the people that walk in are shoplifters and will steal something if given half a chance. This is why the guy is checking receipts at the door - they don't catch all of the 10% but they can knock it down to 2-3%. About time the rest of the world caught up with this knowledge. A lot of shoplifters aren't doing it out of need, they are doing it for the fun. Same thing happens in the online world as well.
What we got with Obamacare was a guaranteed one-way trip to a single payer plan where the Government is picking up the tab for everyone. And the government spending several trillion more a year to do so.
You thought single payer wasn't in there? No, it isn't, but it is the only possible outcome now. What happens in 2014 now is every single major employer (50 people or more) will simply drop their health insurance coverage for employees. Yes, that means that they will have to pay a fine for doing so - I think it is capped at around $15,000 no matter how many employees you have. The other alternative is to be paying $15,000 to $20,000 a year per employee for health care coverage. I have been to some meetings and other people I know have been to others. Universally, everyone with employees (large and small) is saying they are pulling the plug.
So what happens? The workers get government-subsidized health insurance. However, the costs for this haven't been discussed because the assumption has been (and all the cost estimates based upon) employers just keep paying no matter how the costs per employee go up. With the government picking up the tab now so people do not go without health insurance, it is an easy out for employers.
There you have it. By June of 2014 the government will be paying for around 90% of the health insurance coverage in the US. That may be as close to single-payer as we are going to get, but my guess is they just go the whole way and shut down all the insurance companies and add those people to the government welfare roles. According to some estimates I have seen, the spending will be around 3.5 to 4.0 trillion a year for this. All of it financed by China, Saudia Arabia and anyone else they can get to buy the bonds.
Anyone notice the increasing lack of civility and cooperation in politics?
There is one simple answer. The local Democratic offices start passing out rifles to loyal Democrat voters with the clear message that the Republicans are so utterly vile and disgusting that there can never be any peace. The only solution to save the country from utter ruin is to start shooting Republicans. Because every Democrat today knows that Republicans aren't really human and have no human feelings eliminating them can be done like taking out the trash. With the split currently around 40/40/10 the 40% of the country that identifies themselves could easily bag enough Republicans to make sure the problem goes away forever.
Of course, the local Republican offices have to the same thing - distribute rifles, handguns and shotguns to loyal Republicans because allowing a single Democrat to be elected is the road to sure ruin of the country. Pay some Democrats back for all those Chimpy McBush comments.
The end result of this is (a) a lot of rifles on the ground next to dead bodies, (b) truely civil political discourse because everyone sees what happens when you lose that, and (c) about 1/10th the current population in the US meaning problems with unemployment, pollution, traffic jams, crime and everything else virtually disappears overnight. Going from 300 million people to 30 million means Social Security is funded through the year 802,701 and everyone has a job.
I believe this program could be instituted quickly and bring about a solution to all of the nation's woes before the next election.
Yeah, great. But what is the difference between a valid bitcoin and a made-up value that isn't really a bitcoin?
Would someone be able to sit down and in five minutes (or less) have a PRNG churn out a list of things that purports to be bitcoin identifiers but aren't really? How would someone receiving a million individual items be able to check that all of them are actually valid? Sounds like the right approach would be to turn over a list of said identifiers on paper so they have to be keyed in individually, all million of them, while demanding the documents and all copies "right now!!!"
It might take a couple of years to validate all million identifiers. I suppose you stop with the first invalid one and say that this is all a scam and they were ripped off.
Difference here being that the difference between a valid and a forged $1 bill is one that passes certain proscribed tests and if those tests are passed, the $1 bill is valid and would be accepted anywhere.
Look, with less than half of the American people paying income taxes the solution is simple - 100% taxation. You send it all in to the government.
Then, if you qualify (and everyone will, then) for assistance the government gives you back something to live on. With the firm understanding that if you do not vote for the "right" people your funding will be cut off. The "right" people will be explained to you just before the election.
This eliminates the idea of "rich" people, because anyone with any assets at all will simply move out of the country. So no more rich or poor people, everyone living on what the government gives them.
I think a guy named Lenin tried this program around 1921 or so. It has been awhile and people don't really read much about history anymore, and when they do it doesn't make any sense to them. So by all means, we should try it again.
What? You mean we already started doing that?
Unfortunately, BlackBerry has made some strategic errors and the result has been organizations deciding not to go with the BES model. So yes, you end up with a choice between some Android phone or an iPhone.
One solution is a small Bluetooth keyboard. They are cheap and easy to deal with and much smaller than a full-size keyboard. These work with both Android and iPhone equally well.
I think RIM has turned the wrong corner in not making it clear to customers the difference between the BES + encrypted device security model and the locking employed by both Android and iPhone. A demo at a BlackHat event would get people talking about how easy it is to image an iPhone compared to what it takes to get anything usable from a BlackBerry. Sad to say, RIM hasn't done this and most people do not know the difference.
But a lot of government agencies are still using BlackBerry and will be until the company completely tanks. This isn't just because they are stuck in a rut.
The problem is, it was clearly shown in the 1970s that the government was doing the patients a disservice by holding them in hospitals where care was minimal and there was abuse and cruelty. So the logical decision was made (???) that the right thing to do was to close the hospitals down and move the patients to smaller neighborhood centers.
So you can say that the government was being cruel and inhumane to the mentally ill by holding them in these hospitals. Which was why they were closed down.
Sure it was a mistake. But be clear about when it happened - it was over long before Reagan took office. This decision was made mostly at the state level and the hospitals were state-run. It is just that after enough reports of abuse and movies like The Snake Pit everyone was pretty well convinced that the hospitals were doing more harm than good. You see the date on The Snake Pit? This wasn't a new revelation by any means - everyone thought the state hospitals were something straight out of a horror movie.
It was easy to get them shut down, but it wasn't to save money, it was to improve "care" such as it was. The problem is there was no care and nobody wanted these people. Especially not in neighborhood centers like the one that was across from a large neighborhood park.
Having been through this, it was a lot more Ford-era and Carter-era than Reagan when the state hospitals were emptied. There was adequate proof that the hospitals were not necessarily doing their inmates a real service but what people missed was they were doing the rest of us a real service by keeping these people off the streets. Admittedly, they may not have been doing the patients any good other than simply providing a roof over their heads, but in booting them out even the roof disappeared.
Yup, they just took those people and put them out on the street. Many of them ended up in long-term nursing facilities which were completely unable to care for these people. There was nowhere else for them to go.
But blaming Reagan for this is completely wrong. Most of it was over long before he entered office. I had a girlfriend that lived next door to one of these long term nursing care facilities and they got a bunch of new faces around 1976 or so. It might have taken until 1978 before the job was completely done and all the hospitals were closed down. These people were clearly straight from a state hospital and were not like the elderly folks that were the sole residents there before that. It was rather distressing to see how they were mismanaged but as I mentioned, it didn't last long. None of the nursing care facilities could handle these new patients and they probably knew that going in. Meanwhile, the government folks were talking about how much better care could be given in these smaller and more responsive facilities.
I suspect the government folks knew going in how it was going to turn out because it shouldn't have been a surprise at all. Now this is not to say the hospitals were doing their job properly. No, the reports that came out around that time showing patient abuse and outright cruelty were correct - that was happening. But pushing the people out on the street made potential victims of every passerby as well as the former patients. And it certainly didn't help anyone - no one got better because of being booted out of the hospitals.
The UDID is not related to encryption on iDevices. Knowing the UDID will not help unlock a device if you have it.
The original function of the UDID was to allow stateless connections (like HTTP) to be able to coordinate sessions with the same device. Thus, you ask for something and cell data connection drops. The device connects back up and gets the response and everyone knows they are still talking to the same device. However, Apple has seen too many applications use this in inappropriate ways and has come out officially saying the API to retrieve it may be retired shortly.
There are other ways to make sure you are talking to the same device consistently and one thing that Apple wants is multiple device transparency when one account is involved. So I can make a request on my iPhone and retrieve the results on my iPad as well as having 100% of the data shared between the devices. The UDID isn't conducive to that at all.
So there are likely apps out there that have collected massive UDID databases... but have no idea what to do with the information. It is not externally visible. It could be used to do various types of tracking but mostly your app author isn't all that interested. I have no idea what the FBI might do with a database of maybe 1% of the iDevices out there but it isn't all that useful.
Forensic software for iDevices exists and much of it will work on locked devices. It will not decrypt otherwise encrypted data that is stored by applications in an encrypted form, but that is actually pretty rare. And again, having the UDID before you plug the device in is of no value and once you do plug it in, you have the UDID. So if an iPhone is confiscated by some law enforcement agency, they probably have access to the "right" software for dumping out the contents of the phone. Completely. If they are really up on things, they may have a portable device which will image the phone in minutes in the field. Your ability with an iPhone or Android phone to keep things out of law enforcement hands is (today) approximately zero. This was not previously the case but all the latest high-end cell phone forensic tools handle iDevices just fine.
An encrypted Blackberry remains a device that cannot be successfully examined - I believe you can get an image from the device but it is encrypted at a level that makes cracking the encryption unlikely. Once the device has been imaged, I believe trying selected passwords is possible without the "10 wrong guesses wipes the device" problem. But still, for the most part an encrypted Blackberry is secure. Any Blackberry device can be encrypted, BIS or BES, but it is sufficiently troublesome that only people required to do so - because of a BES profile - are going to do it. You can bet government Blackberries are set with the profile requiring encryption. The encryption is part of the device locking which then requires a password (text) to unlock and access the device.
Unless we are talking about a three-person station here, this is absurd. How much power is required for something large with 100-200 people? Megawatts, I am sure. For thermal stability you will want the entire complex to be underground - the surface of the moon swings between +200F in sunlight to -200F without sunlight, either in shadows or during the night period.
So we are talking about lighting for 200 people. And ventilation. And water pumps for drinking water, toilets, etc. So, thousands of large, heavy RTGs does not sound like a practical answer at all.
Some kind of solar collection might make sense, except you are building a huge infrastructure that only works half the time. Sure, it would be possible to heat some buried stuff up and run off that for a while, but you will find accumulated losses over a two week period add up to be a lot. Possibly more than you can accumulate when it is sunny outside. Same thing goes for batteries - the accumulated losses over a two week period are going to add up to a huge number.
Think about your personal electrical requirements today. Ignoring transportation, how many watt-hours do you use for personal care, lighting while awake, meal preparation, work and entertainment? Even with the most efficient devices you are using at least 3-4KWh per day. An environment where there is no transportation but lighting is required 24x7 in common areas would require at least that. Communication would be a huge draw as well with high bandwidth requirements and running 24x7 as well.
A fusion generator would be nice, but we don't have one just yet and we should have started this 30 years ago. Waiting around for fusion isn't an answer. Fission for now, fusion later. A suitable fission-based thermal generator (you know, boil water, make steam, run turbine, recycle steam) is going to be a big facility but it can operate without human intervention for decades. Designed properly, such a system can be remote from the living quarters and need no attention at all. Waste heat? I don't see any at all because those 100-200 people are going to need to raise the temperature of their living quarters quite a bit as well as doing other heat-intensive operations. If you do need to get rid of some heat, a black fin in shadow makes for an awfully good radiator and it is pretty much impossible to raise the temperature of empty space.
It would make sense to run the smelter from a solar collector and run it only two weeks at a time, but it would not make any sense to try to squeeze electric power out during the two weeks of night from some barely adequate storage system.
Good luck with trying to sue Apple in a different venue. In the US almost certainly you will find that buried at the end of each and every Apple agreement you have agreed to (or they will not allow you to even begin using an Apple device) there is the clause that you have agreed to the venue of California for all legal actions against Apple.
No company ever does anything without claiming the right to set the venue. If you find someone that has omitted that rather important detail you can bankrupt them by simply suing them in some out-of-the-way place that they have to spend a fortune to travel to, stay there and have local representation.
You will find that suing them in a foreign country will have its problems because for the most part unless they have major business operations there the courts will simply tell you to get lost because they do not have jurisdiction over whereever it is that Apple is. So for example, you will not succeed in suing Apple from Grenada because the courts in Grenada will not have jurisdiction over any part of Apple's business.
Encrypted file? Hardly. It is just a file system that your computer doesn't understand.
Get the right software and you can access those files. There are a number of Windows and Apple tools for accessing the individual files on a iPod, iPhone or iPad.
You have never "bought" any music in your life. Face it, nobody has.
You buy a CD, you have purchased a license with limited rights. Take that CD and play it through a PA system to a crowd at a beach and you have violated your license and may be subject to civil action. Buy some sheet music and play it through that PA system and you will find a whole raft of licenses that you didn't think you needed to buy that you have violated. Buy a DVD and play a movie for a big crowd charging each person $1 to view it and again you have violated the license.
All of these examples relate to the fact that you do not have a license for public performance of any of the music or movies that you buy. Here is another one - you do not have a license to make copies. If you had actually "purchased music" all rights including reproduction, public performance and so on and so forth would be yours.
Nope, sorry, you haven't bought music although you might think you have.
Now, if I record an original work my son-in-law plays on the piano and I get him to sign over all rights to this then I "own" some music. Obviously that does not apply if he is merely performing a work that someone else has written, so I better be sure that this is indeed an original work and not even something that has previously influenced him in a way so that his original work is in fact a copy of that other work. That has tripped up even very big names in the past.
What everyone seems to have here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem.
I have an Amazon account. My wife and daughter have Kindles on this account and my daughter uses the account actively. There is no question that the account will survive me. Neither Amazon nor Apple has the concept of an individual, only the account. Now, there may be specific reasons why Mr. Willis does not wish to share his account with his daughters and instead would prefer to transfer the contents of the account - and not the account itself - and that has led to the situation described.
However, it should be clearly noted for all that the only contractual entity involved in a transaction with Amazon or Apple is "the account", and not specifically an individual. I know of no restriction whatsoever that limits an account to a single individual or even a single family. I do know with Amazon it would be uncomfortable for the account to be shared too widely because it does have purchasing authority with my credit card.
With Apple devices there is also the issue of an account enclosing all of the email settings and everything else - it does not make sense for multiple people to share an account under most circumstances. However, having the account information known to others and maintaining activity in the account is probably a good plan.
Both Amazon and Apple allow for editing of an account and changing all aspects of an account, including name, address, email addresses, credit cards, etc. at any time. This effectively makes even an unshared account "transferrable" in a unrevokable manner.
Are the items under an account transferrable? No, not today and quite probably not forever. Is the entire account transferrable? Clearly it is, whether it is the intent of the organization the account is with or not.
I think we should consider - seriously - that anyone who is infringing the rights of others, including the right to freely spend their money the way they see fit, can be killed without recourse.
Baby in the womb inconvenient? Kill it.
Two-year old noisey and whiney? Kill it.
Child needing lots of expensive stuff? Kill it.
Teenager in trouble with the law? Kill it.
Old person needing care? Kill it.
I think that is enough consideration. So that doesn't work very well. OK, so we want to limit this to just the first item listed and eliminate without the possibility of expansion the others from being considered. I think about the only way to do that is with some very strong definitions about what an abortion is and when it is permitted. I am specifically not in favor of my offspring from coming back in 30 years and deciding that I am burdensome to them and they wish to avail themselves of a government sanctioned way to eliminate this burden.
Unfortunately, I believe many of the proponents of abortion do not see the connection between a viable baby and any other person needing care.
I'd like to offer that someone who has a debilitating illness and is dependent on the care of another is pretty much in the same boat. As far as I know, it is currently illegal to kill off your mother because taking care of her is a pain in the ass.
What is somewhat scary is the justifications I see here for why it is OK for a pregnant woman to terminate the pregnancy work just as well for why it is OK to kill Mom when she isn't getting around so good anymore.
Are you sure you are OK with that? Because humans love to justify their actions and we are not far from a point where it will be economically burdensome to take care of sick old people. Should we just kill them before they cost us lots of money? Can you envision a situation where a person uses the infringement of rights argument in court as to why it was OK for them to kill off Mom? Would you be OK with them getting off because the court accepted that defense?