Hmm. So, accoring to google, 500ml is 16.9oz, and an imperial pint is 19.2oz. Most bars here in the city sell beer in 16oz glasses, and I've been to more than a few that serve them in 12! 3 more oz in a beer... hmmm maybe we were wrong to kick out the English...
On the other hand, I don't own any stocks or shares because I'm really not that bothered about making money purely for the sake of it.
I'm just curious here. What do you plan on using for your retirement? Hopefully you have a good job that will offer you a pension. I don't believe Social Security will be around for most folks when they retire in the way that my grandparents have used it.
Aside from that, owning stocks and securities is not about only making money. I work in the financial industry as a software engineer, and I have an interesting perspective on the subject. I'm sure you enjoy innovation and the idea of starting your own company; let's say you're the good person you come across as being and have an idea to make a better product; like a new more efficient light buld. Simple example, but I'm making a point. You'll need a lot of money to get your company going and your factory started. Just giving your idea to GE or somehting won't help, because maybe they won't believe it will work. So, you go through the process of bringing your company public, and what happens is that people buy shares of your stock. Sure you can say they are just hoping to make a buck, but they're still helping you do something good. Wierd how it works, but that's it.
Even then as I write this, I'll bet you can find some holes in my argument. Fair enough, I'm sure they're there. But, how about investing in bonds. Buying more government bonds; state, local, or federal; is a way to invest in the social programs that you like. By buying them, you help the government finance those programs; whether they be roads or other programs. In fact, the people of California did that exact thing when it came to bulding the Golden Gate bridge. The government sold "bridge bonds."
Either way, my point is that buying stock is not only about making money. Most folks I know do it as a way to provide for their retirement in a way that accounts for inflation. Simply putting your extra cash in a savings account will cost you money because the interest rate will rarely be above inflation; historically speaking. It certainly isn't now. Interestingly, the federal government started offering Series-I bonds a few years ago. They offer an interest rate guarenteed to be above inflation, and that the rate is adjusted twice a year to ensure that.
Anyway, I found your comments interesting. Hopefully, you'll say the same about mine.
The article said that it can hit artillery shells and mortar shells. They only stay in the air for a few seconds, so I can't imagine a stinger type missile would be much more difficult. They're bigger and slower. Either way, if the thing is only good up to a few hundred feet in the air, then other defensive measures can protect up to that range from an airport; even here in New York. Simply having cops; mark 1 eyeballs; patrolling up to that range from an airport should be able to cover that by prohibiting people from getting that close.
"We have an incomplete theory, so you look for holes that will point to a new theory," Murphy says. Varying constants may be just such a hole.
Yes, I think that there is call for speculation on the constants varying over billions of years since the light we are observing is roughly 12 billion years old and all our observations here on earth remain static.
Not so. The universe is only 5 thousand years old. DUH!!!;P
The Casimir Effect [wikipedia.org] has been observed/measured.
A fun sci-fi book on this topic is called Warp Speed. I found it at a major online retailer not too long ago, and offer it up to the crowds as a fast, fun, light, summer read.
Right now I have a T-Mobile MDA with a 1GB SD card. I'm running Microsoft Reader and uBook Reader, and have a library of over 120 works of popular fiction in "My Library" (consuming approx 50MB of that 1GB Storage Card). It's handy, portable, functions admirably as a mobile telephone, plays media files, connects to the internet WiFi or GPRS, is a general purpose computer, and even plays games. Cost: around $400 (SD card included). Granted, a monthly cell phone service charge is levied... but you have to pay that anyway.
His excitement is really about the electronic paper that the display is made of. This stuff offers contrast and "readability" advantages over other electronic displays. While matched, more or less, by the example you offered, it's impact may in fact be more significant in other uses. I expect that if the contrast and energy efficiency numbers are true, then billboards and similiar things could be replaced with this technology. Granted, it will be years, if ever, before that would happen in most places except maybe Vegas!
Admittedly 'big TVs' are in right now, but its going to be a *long* time before everyone has one. (If ever; some people are perfectly happy with a 20", 25" or 30" set.) Plus, for someone to be won over by an HD media format, he's going to be looking at his other playback devices -- his laptop/portable dvd player, the one mounted into the back of the seats in his SUV, the one in his bedroom, the one at the summer cabin...
I thought that way until today. I just bought my first HDTV (42inch), and I love the thing. I'm a geek, so I agree I'm no "Joe Sixpack." The thing is that my step-mother stopped by to check out this new "waste of money." She sat down and said, "wow". The tv is capable of 1080p, but we were watching 1080i broadcast; some nature show on Discovery HD. After a few minutes, she was already talking about allowing my pop to buy one. Pop's a geek like me, so, like mine, his opinion is not part of my argument. I think that it's entirely likely that it will catch on, but I also agree that it will be SLOW. "Joe" is not going to drop $2000 like I just did. Looking at the quality difference between the two picture qualities makes me think that it just might catch on when combined with a big screen. No offence to the folks in appalachia, but I've been through some poor places out there with paint falling off the walls and satelite dishes (the big ones from a few years back) in the yard. My guess is that Americans like BIG, and a big tv just might be enough with the added resolution; when the prices come down and the broadcast becomes more popular. The new DVD format to support the extra resolution I think will follow that demand; again after the prices come down. After all, we like things that look good. It's often said that one of the reasons that JFK won his election was that he simply looked better in the debates. Silly, maybe, but my point is that flash sells.
That's my 2 cents. I admit I could be off the mark being that I am in Geek heaven with my new toy.
How can that be? I know my prints are on file (Top Secret clearance, cool!), but I wonder how these prints would differ. Are they storing some kind of hash with no backup of the original scan or image? Weird, but doubtful.
I think this is great technology as people get more comfortable with it. I would (and do) worry about how soon people get good at counterfeiting fingerprints. Thought I'd read a couple of articles on that very hack and that hacking fingerprints turned out not to be too very hard. Any resources on that?
The fingerprint that the police/government uses are the patterns of ridges on your skin. It's entirely possible that the fingerprint scanner used by this company is not looking for that. They could easily be using an infrared scanner that takes a look at the pattern of the blood vesscles in your finger. That, you don't leave everywhere, and would offer a level of safety against that. Basically, to steal it, someone would have to scan that pattern. As much as I don't know what they did, this is a reasonable solution to me.
This is really exciting but the prospect of swarms of any kind of robot is a bit scary - hopefully designers will build in a simple, easily exploitable flaw so that an out-of-control swarm could be easily deactivated.
how's this for a flaw... they can't reproduce on their own until that happens, i think we're okay! : )
Let's face it the industry want to protect their products from piracy but obviously DRM isn't the best way to do this. So are there any Alternatives?
Get new industry executives who don't care about "protecting" their "products"?
I don't know. I'm not sure that's the correct thing to do. Theoretically, the concept of DRM is not evil. It's people protecting their stuff. That seems reasonable; I lock my door after all. I'm an engineer with a patent or two.
The problem is what is the definition of the stuff. The public, myself included, figure the stuff we buy is the music. By that logic, I can do whatever I want with it; let my friend borrow it, put it on my PC, MP3 player, etc. I think that the RIAA, and I'll bet a few musicians too, figure that you're buying the CD. They see that your rights begin and end there. I think that was true years ago when they had their first argument when audio casets came out.
The result of that argument supported what we all here on/., and that law called, Fair Use. When the MP3 technology came out combined with the internet, it became easier to do what we were all doing before; dubbing music. The RIAA saw this as another opportunity, and ran with it to become the DCMCA 2000. We all ran fast, and the RIAA had built up a lot of animosity amongst its customers; us; by the first argument with the tapes, and the price of CDs. When they first came out, they were expensive, but they said that would only be for a short while for them to recouperate the cost of switching from tape to CD. IT seemed reasonable until the prices finally did change on CDs; they went up. That made everyone I've ever come across mad. So, they're pirates, we'll be pirates too. The only difference is that now we can do it well enough to really hurt them. Boo friggen ho.
The fact is that a middle ground can easily be found. I think that most folks have no problem paying for music. I rent some from one of the music services, and I own many CDs. The real problem is how much we pay, and for what. If the RIAA wants us to pay for each medium that we want to use the music on, fine. Add your DRM, and lower prices. I'm not, and I doubt anyone else will, pay $20 for an album on each of their pc, MP3 player, and whatever else some hotshot engineer comes up with next! Otherwise, keep the CDs at $20, and let us do what we will with them.
Sadly, I think that neither option will be taken. I see the RIAA and MPAA being foolish unlike their pc game bretherin, and will fight to maintain a revenue structure that technology has made unsupportable. I figure everyone will suffer for a long time until this all gets worked out by the Market. Eventually, they will cave, but it will likely get much worse before it does.
For the record, I went several years without paying for music. During that time, I felt I made my point, and then decided to pay the moderate price I am to rent what I rent. I consider a few dollars a month a fair price, so I decided to support that option.
The Pirate Party doesn't need to win any elections to succeed. All they need is some publicity and public support, and major parties will be forced to adopt their policies. Or, one major party adopts it in order to gain an advantage.
You've just described the history of all the successful third parties in American history.
I think the state run universities are the ones that give the entire country a bad reputation.
I disagree with you on that one. Certainly some state schools are bad, but most are not. I could give specific examples, famous folks, people I know personally, but my point is just to say that I disagree with you. I think the US's advantage in higher education is simply a size thing. If you compare say all of Europe's schools to the US, then I'll bet they are a bit bigger/better mostly due to the fact that Europe (say the EU) is bigger than the US.
I'm a US citizen and a product of a private university.
Verison, in parts of the New York area, is installing fiber for the last mile. While I agree that most places, particularly in rural areas will be fiber for a long time, the denser ones will likely get the fiber. It's the best way for the telcos to fight with Cable, so it seems logical that they'll pursue it.
Yeah, I feel dirty, but assuming my computers will support it and I can actually get the iso, I'll be attempting to install Vista this evening.
Besides making me laugh, thanks, I agree with you. I'm probably not going to install it, don't feel like messing with it; and only have 1 pc running at the moment; but I agree with your mindset 100%!
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
on
Death By DMCA
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However, I'd like to ask a simple question. If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content? The day most people have "auto-commercial-skip" is the day advertisers stop paying to be a part of the program. At that point, the networks would have to charge the consumers directly. Are you interested in paying even more for cable TV then?
One option would be greater use of product placement, like when you see a character drinking some branded softdrink(Coke, Pepsi, etc) instead of just cola. I've noticed that happening more frequently over the last few years on the shows I watch here in the US, and on the movies I watch coming out of Hollywood.
Another option is one that was illustrated in the movie Quiz Show that came out roughly 10 years ago. Back in the old days, before my time (your friendly poster here is under 30) TV shows were sponsored by products and companies. You see this from time to time on the major channels in the US, and often on PBS. My guess is that part of the "show/program" time will be taken up by key actors in the program talking about a specific product.
A third option is that simply switch to cable/satelite tv completely. People would have to pay more for the service(channels)/channel package that they receive. Most folks wouldn't like that option since I suspect most people think they aready pay too much for tv.
A last option, and this is the one that I think the content producers fear the most, is to have the public pay for content on a show by show/ movie by movie basis. My guess is that most/. folks would like this option the best.
I suspect that no matter what option remains, the revenue streams for tv/Hollywood will drop. I have no problem with this, but then I don't work in that industry. I think that most folks over there have gotten comfortable with the monopoly(oligarpoly might be a more accurate term) they've had over us(content consumers), and that they fear how technology seems to be eroding that on them. I think that most people, particularly in my generation, feel we've been over paying for content, and that's why we have no problem with stealing content. Still, I can remember when I was a kid hearing about the "adults" talking about cable descrambler boxes when they were new. The logic being if the stupid cable company is sending the signal to my house, I can do what I want with it so long as I don't effect the stream entering my house. If they don't want me to descramble it, then don't send it to me.
The US, however slowly and delayed, does finally break up monopolies and such. A hundred years ago, Standard Oil, big Sugar, and so on and so forth were broken up. (Note: The US had many monopolies in those days) Even recently, AT&T(1980) was broken up, and now the power company local monopolies are being broken up on a state by state basis. TV and Hollywood will follow; the only question is when. I'm betting on later rather than sooner.
I have not met a single soul outside of the medical and legal profession whose actual and typical workload could not be accomplished in 30-40 hours of real honest work. The problem is that most of them spend at least 2 hours a day screwing around, reading Slashdot, reading CNN, chatting in the aisles, or doing make-work while waiting for somebody else to deliver something that they need to continue their legitimate work. Now and then we get a rush ("I told the client you'd have it by tomorrow." "That's 2 weeks of work!" "Well, get started!") but by and large I don't know anybody who doesn't spend at least 2-3 hours of their 10 and 12 hour days goofing off to one degree or another. Or, more commonly, 2-3 hours of their 8 hour days, which means they have to come in the weekend. This is invariably blamed on the boss, who is also goofing around but never shows up on Saturday.
Here, here! I'm guilty of this too, but it's amazing to me as I sit back and think of all the time I waste at work. I wish I was kidding. If I just wasted a little less, I'd get a lot more done. It's a shame I was introduced to Ogame recently. Oh well, back to work
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Hmm. So, accoring to google, 500ml is 16.9oz, and an imperial pint is 19.2oz. Most bars here in the city sell beer in 16oz glasses, and I've been to more than a few that serve them in 12! 3 more oz in a beer... hmmm maybe we were wrong to kick out the English...
Yeah, that and the fact that we (humanity) fishes a lot. All that fishing has to have an effect.
I'm just curious here. What do you plan on using for your retirement? Hopefully you have a good job that will offer you a pension. I don't believe Social Security will be around for most folks when they retire in the way that my grandparents have used it.
Aside from that, owning stocks and securities is not about only making money. I work in the financial industry as a software engineer, and I have an interesting perspective on the subject. I'm sure you enjoy innovation and the idea of starting your own company; let's say you're the good person you come across as being and have an idea to make a better product; like a new more efficient light buld. Simple example, but I'm making a point. You'll need a lot of money to get your company going and your factory started. Just giving your idea to GE or somehting won't help, because maybe they won't believe it will work. So, you go through the process of bringing your company public, and what happens is that people buy shares of your stock. Sure you can say they are just hoping to make a buck, but they're still helping you do something good. Wierd how it works, but that's it.
Even then as I write this, I'll bet you can find some holes in my argument. Fair enough, I'm sure they're there. But, how about investing in bonds. Buying more government bonds; state, local, or federal; is a way to invest in the social programs that you like. By buying them, you help the government finance those programs; whether they be roads or other programs. In fact, the people of California did that exact thing when it came to bulding the Golden Gate bridge. The government sold "bridge bonds."
Either way, my point is that buying stock is not only about making money. Most folks I know do it as a way to provide for their retirement in a way that accounts for inflation. Simply putting your extra cash in a savings account will cost you money because the interest rate will rarely be above inflation; historically speaking. It certainly isn't now. Interestingly, the federal government started offering Series-I bonds a few years ago. They offer an interest rate guarenteed to be above inflation, and that the rate is adjusted twice a year to ensure that.
Anyway, I found your comments interesting. Hopefully, you'll say the same about mine.
The article said that it can hit artillery shells and mortar shells. They only stay in the air for a few seconds, so I can't imagine a stinger type missile would be much more difficult. They're bigger and slower. Either way, if the thing is only good up to a few hundred feet in the air, then other defensive measures can protect up to that range from an airport; even here in New York. Simply having cops; mark 1 eyeballs; patrolling up to that range from an airport should be able to cover that by prohibiting people from getting that close.
Happy 4th of July!
Thank you to all the French for helping out; as many of my fellow Americans tend to forget, we couldn't have done it without you!
That's my 2 cents. I admit I could be off the mark being that I am in Geek heaven with my new toy.
The problem is what is the definition of the stuff. The public, myself included, figure the stuff we buy is the music. By that logic, I can do whatever I want with it; let my friend borrow it, put it on my PC, MP3 player, etc. I think that the RIAA, and I'll bet a few musicians too, figure that you're buying the CD. They see that your rights begin and end there. I think that was true years ago when they had their first argument when audio casets came out.
The result of that argument supported what we all here on
The fact is that a middle ground can easily be found. I think that most folks have no problem paying for music. I rent some from one of the music services, and I own many CDs. The real problem is how much we pay, and for what. If the RIAA wants us to pay for each medium that we want to use the music on, fine. Add your DRM, and lower prices. I'm not, and I doubt anyone else will, pay $20 for an album on each of their pc, MP3 player, and whatever else some hotshot engineer comes up with next! Otherwise, keep the CDs at $20, and let us do what we will with them.
Sadly, I think that neither option will be taken. I see the RIAA and MPAA being foolish unlike their pc game bretherin, and will fight to maintain a revenue structure that technology has made unsupportable. I figure everyone will suffer for a long time until this all gets worked out by the Market. Eventually, they will cave, but it will likely get much worse before it does.
For the record, I went several years without paying for music. During that time, I felt I made my point, and then decided to pay the moderate price I am to rent what I rent. I consider a few dollars a month a fair price, so I decided to support that option.
no worries. your point was clear. the other guy was just trying to bait you.
I never heard of the Berserker books. They look like good sci-fi. Thanks for posting about it.
I'm a US citizen and a product of a private university.
Spoken like a true engineer. I salute you!
Verison, in parts of the New York area, is installing fiber for the last mile. While I agree that most places, particularly in rural areas will be fiber for a long time, the denser ones will likely get the fiber. It's the best way for the telcos to fight with Cable, so it seems logical that they'll pursue it.
my two cents.... i admit i could be wrong...
Besides making me laugh, thanks, I agree with you. I'm probably not going to install it, don't feel like messing with it; and only have 1 pc running at the moment; but I agree with your mindset 100%!
Another option is one that was illustrated in the movie Quiz Show that came out roughly 10 years ago. Back in the old days, before my time (your friendly poster here is under 30) TV shows were sponsored by products and companies. You see this from time to time on the major channels in the US, and often on PBS. My guess is that part of the "show/program" time will be taken up by key actors in the program talking about a specific product.
A third option is that simply switch to cable/satelite tv completely. People would have to pay more for the service(channels)/channel package that they receive. Most folks wouldn't like that option since I suspect most people think they aready pay too much for tv.
A last option, and this is the one that I think the content producers fear the most, is to have the public pay for content on a show by show/ movie by movie basis. My guess is that most
I suspect that no matter what option remains, the revenue streams for tv/Hollywood will drop. I have no problem with this, but then I don't work in that industry. I think that most folks over there have gotten comfortable with the monopoly(oligarpoly might be a more accurate term) they've had over us(content consumers), and that they fear how technology seems to be eroding that on them. I think that most people, particularly in my generation, feel we've been over paying for content, and that's why we have no problem with stealing content. Still, I can remember when I was a kid hearing about the "adults" talking about cable descrambler boxes when they were new. The logic being if the stupid cable company is sending the signal to my house, I can do what I want with it so long as I don't effect the stream entering my house. If they don't want me to descramble it, then don't send it to me.
The US, however slowly and delayed, does finally break up monopolies and such. A hundred years ago, Standard Oil, big Sugar, and so on and so forth were broken up. (Note: The US had many monopolies in those days) Even recently, AT&T(1980) was broken up, and now the power company local monopolies are being broken up on a state by state basis. TV and Hollywood will follow; the only question is when. I'm betting on later rather than sooner.
you made me laugh with that one... thanks!