The carbon is certainly the major problem. Perhaps when it comes to using hydrocarbons for fuel we need a new definiton of "perfect". A reaction where the carbon by-product is a solid not a gas, might be of more long term interest than maximum energy extraction.
Is #3 really insurance fraud, or just advice on what insurance not to buy? Maybe telling the world that most laptop lines are only supported for two years is more than Dell would like to admit, but it's not like any informed consumer think that any laptop is going to up to date for more than a few years. This was no great secret.
It's only bizarre if you are thinking that this part of the legislative process is intended to be clear and concise. But if you look at it as a part of the process intended to allow for the quiet incorporation of personal agendas, it makes perfect sense.
I would like to see reform go even farther. How about, "only one specific topic per bill" no tagging anything on any bill, ever. There would be no need for a line item veto, because there would ever only be one line item. With the enormous bloat of our legislation we don't need to worry about the efficiency with which more law can be passed. But we do need to have clarity in what is being proposed, and voted on.
And a very significant part of the electoral process is haveing a voting system you can count on. From the proposed changes to the law, it looks like MS would like to make voting software from "off the shelf" Windows components. Why would they push for a differentiation between primarly-for-voteing or not, unless they were not going to be building this 100% custom? Do we really want our voting software to be compatible with home PCs? Do we want that software even based on a system that many many people have years of experience in finding weaknesses? Hell, if we are going to vote that way, just make the presidential election a web survey.
That too is a technology if sorts, and we are making progress in that area. Globalisation (while bringing other drawbacks) reduces the likelyhood of a WWIII, because the large powerful nations are growing ever more interdependent. The slow erosion of racsim is another area of "living together in peace" that shows long term progress. Countries now secure themselves against small groups, more than enemy nations. (again a mixed blessing) Of course, I too would like to see faster progress in this area, but I do think progress is being made.
CC on some videos. It really is up to the studio to provide the CC
At this point I think the lion's share of the effort is in the transcribing the audio into text. This is viable for movies and TV because of the large viewership, but if you are talking about CC for YouTube, you're out of luck for now, except perhaps a few directors videos. I suppose it would be possible to create a program/plug-in that would do real time transcribing, but it's gonna be one mother of a complex program to decypher home-video quality sound.
His arguement is sound if you want to talk about space colonies in the next 50 to 100 years, but of course the advanced tech we will have in 100-150 years will look like magic from our prospective. Almost every technology we have today would get you burned for witchcraft in 1857. Automated factories, mobile phones, television, airplanes, nukes... all the magic from a pre-industrial revolution viewpoint. Add to that the increaseing pace of progress (singularity or not) and I fully expect there will be some "magic wands" before the end of the century. And as of the times when he brings up economic reasons: What does "cost effective" matter if humanity starts to agree vicerally with Hawkins, that colonization is necessary for the susvival of the species?
Anyway, that '100's of billions of dollars' comment annoys me because... "The total annual gross revenues of the music industry today are estimated at $11 billion."http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_w p.php
So the music industry is just bullshitting to be talking about loses that are an order of magnitude higher than the total industry gross. While if you want to talk about Hundreds of Billions being stolen we should talk about things like insurance fraud, corporate embezzelment, and public corruption.
So smaller vehicles are the answer......guess we need semis and trains the size of pickup trucks.
That, or we need to be as strict with the licensing for every car as we currently are with the license for a semi or train. If you are going to drive a vehicle that is that dangerous to everyone else on the road, shouldn't you have to meet much stricter requirements?
"Dear US Attorney,
How dare you point out the fact that the Emperor has no case!
You sir, do NOT know how to properly game the system, and if that isn't bad enough, you're trying to stop us from doing it too?
You shall be punished.
Signed,
Alberto Gonzales
Funny how little simular those situations look. By funny, I mean sad.
the difference between a driver talking on a hands-free cell phone and the same driver having a conversation with a passenger.
The difference is mainly involved in visualization of the person you are talking to. You aren't just listening to words, you are imagining the person, their expressions, their gestures, etc. Found an interesting study here: http://spotlight.siu.edu/03082006/Hands-freeconver sations.html
What about all the bluetooth headset providers? Most people bought the headsets specifically for driving.
Headsets or speaker phones being safer while driving is a myth.
"The principal findings for this experiment are that: (a) SPs that engaged in cell phone conversations missed twice as many simulated traffic signals as when they were not talking on the cell phone, (b) SPs took longer to react to those signals that they did detect, and (c) these deficits were equivalent for both hand-held and hands-free cell phone users." http://www.nsc.org/issues/idrive/inincell.htm
While I would like to agree with your optimism about the Democrats in 2009, I can't. Politicians aren't in the buisness of giving up power, and if we get a Democratic president, then signing statements etc will become "useful tools in the right hands". I have to wonder if our nations great experiment in Democracy is showing it's flaws they way Communism did in the late 80s. Our founding fathers knew that this was the weakness in our system, and perhaps that would explain the rather elitist requirements originally need for voter eligibilty. Maybe we need to make some new requirements for voters, like a current events and history exam. Maybe a required logic course. Perhaps some critical thinking and depth of knowledge in the voter, would produce some critical thinking and depth in the candidates.
No no no, I didn't mean that the soccer moms would be driving the Fortwo, but that the Fortwo would have to contend with giant SUVs. And do not doubt SUVs are killers.
For every one life saved by driving an SUV, five others will be taken. Government researchers have found that a behemoth like the four-ton Chevy Tahoe kills 122 people for every 1 million models on the road; by comparison, the Honda Accord only kills 21. Injuries in SUV-related accidents are likewise more severe.Part of the reason for the high kill rate is that cars offer very little protection against an SUV hitting them from the side -- not because of the weight, but because of the design. When a car is hit from the side by another car, the victim is 6.6 times as likely to die as the aggressor. But if the aggressor is an SUV, the car driver's relative chance of dying rises to 30 to 1, because the hood of an SUV is so high off the ground. Rather than hitting the reinforced doors of a car with its bumper, an SUV will slam into more vulnerable areas and strike a car driver in the head or chest, where injuries are more life-threatening.
Yeah, being able to park nose in between two parallel parked cars on the street would be great for cities. But what the crash test video didn't show was what happens when you get hit by someone in a big SUV. The biggest selling point of the big cars these days is still safety for the people inside. Soccer mom don't give a shit about gas milage when it comes to protecting their babies.
Now if all 5 operators agree to not connect to Truphone, then you have an effective monopoly. If only T-Moblie refuses, then you have 2 carriers with partial service. T-mobile and Truphone. Now if Truphone does something terribly clever, like marketing heavily to teens (who only need to be able to call their parents and other teens) then T-mobile is the one losing face. T-mobile can't do that because their customer base is already too large. Kids getting their first mobile can be made to see T-mobile phones as the ones that "don't work" and their parents will go along with the Truphone trendyness because of a lower price on the phone bill. Remember T-mobile is only about 10 years old, they could vanish from the scene as quickly as they arrived.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, "
hmmm I don't see any mention of citizenship there. The GP must not have read the writings that inspried our becoming "the US" or he would understand that those rights and protections under the law are granted to every one. Of course it took our country a long time to recogize that those rights (naturally) belong to blacks and women and gays. Maybe someday they will belong to foreigners too.
Congress can also remove old stupid laws. Maybe if they spent odd numbered years getting rid of old laws, then the laws we keep might have a bit more dignity. Or maybe if they really paired down our "Code of Law" to under 5000 pages or so our judicial system wouldn't be such a "game" played by lawyers, and could actually return to being about justice. Wouldn't that be novel.
The sections talking about a la carte service are there to distract people from the real meat of the legislation,
just as most "educational funding" and "protect the children" bills are just vehicles to get all of the add-ons passed. No bill passed would every be over 20 pages, except that their several hundred pages obscure most of the self serving gluttony and power grabbing of our government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
But it's only being applied to foreigners, so it will be ok with enough short sighted fools to get pushed through before there is any real thought or debate on the issue. Then it will be extended to include Americains who are considered "threats". Then the definition of who consistutes a "threat" will be expanded. Then it will include everyone, but likely be automated, via the purchase of your plane tickets being automatically entered into a Homeland Security tracking database.
I wish this all sounded more paranoid than probable.
As much as everyone likes to talk about Kyoto. It is merely a gesture in the right direction. Kyoto only call for lowering the GHG emissions by 5% by 2008. In terms of actually slowing or reversing human influence on the climate Kyoto is a joke. The atmosphere is much more than 5% or 10% out of balance.
The measurements taken at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory showed CO2 levels had jumped 2.5 ppm from 2002 to 2003 to a level of 376 ppm. This increase went well past the annual increase that might have been anticipated from human energy emissions, land use change and deforestation. Normally CO2 levels increase about 1.5 ppm annually. http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/co2jump.shtm l
Maybe if there were a treaty to reduce GHG emissions by 50% I could feel it was a serious attempt to address the issue. But no one is going to want to make the necessary level of changes until Folrida and Calcutta are under water.
People predisposed to addiction CAN get addicted to all kinds of things you might not expect. Should we write them off?
Yes, and no. No, we shouldn't leave them without sympathy, help, or dignity. Yes, we should write them off of any discussion of things than cause addicition. Especially since addicitive things tend to get rapidly crimialized. If someone is doomed to be addicited, any repeated strong stimulous is going to be a problem. Video games just happen to be popular. No more addicitve than Soap Operas, but more of a boogie man to people who didn't grow up with them.
public safety or security or whatever you want to call it, it's all just a big "OBEY ME" button modern politicians use on the easily spooked masses. It's like a barking dog herding cattle, the only reason the cattle obey the dog is habit and panic.
Slashdot Mirror
The carbon is certainly the major problem. Perhaps when it comes to using hydrocarbons for fuel we need a new definiton of "perfect". A reaction where the carbon by-product is a solid not a gas, might be of more long term interest than maximum energy extraction.
Is #3 really insurance fraud, or just advice on what insurance not to buy? Maybe telling the world that most laptop lines are only supported for two years is more than Dell would like to admit, but it's not like any informed consumer think that any laptop is going to up to date for more than a few years. This was no great secret.
It's only bizarre if you are thinking that this part of the legislative process is intended to be clear and concise. But if you look at it as a part of the process intended to allow for the quiet incorporation of personal agendas, it makes perfect sense.
I would like to see reform go even farther. How about, "only one specific topic per bill" no tagging anything on any bill, ever. There would be no need for a line item veto, because there would ever only be one line item. With the enormous bloat of our legislation we don't need to worry about the efficiency with which more law can be passed. But we do need to have clarity in what is being proposed, and voted on.
The real cure is electoral reform,
And a very significant part of the electoral process is haveing a voting system you can count on. From the proposed changes to the law, it looks like MS would like to make voting software from "off the shelf" Windows components. Why would they push for a differentiation between primarly-for-voteing or not, unless they were not going to be building this 100% custom? Do we really want our voting software to be compatible with home PCs? Do we want that software even based on a system that many many people have years of experience in finding weaknesses? Hell, if we are going to vote that way, just make the presidential election a web survey.
how we can all live together in peace.
That too is a technology if sorts, and we are making progress in that area. Globalisation (while bringing other drawbacks) reduces the likelyhood of a WWIII, because the large powerful nations are growing ever more interdependent. The slow erosion of racsim is another area of "living together in peace" that shows long term progress. Countries now secure themselves against small groups, more than enemy nations. (again a mixed blessing) Of course, I too would like to see faster progress in this area, but I do think progress is being made.
CC on some videos. It really is up to the studio to provide the CC
At this point I think the lion's share of the effort is in the transcribing the audio into text. This is viable for movies and TV because of the large viewership, but if you are talking about CC for YouTube, you're out of luck for now, except perhaps a few directors videos. I suppose it would be possible to create a program/plug-in that would do real time transcribing, but it's gonna be one mother of a complex program to decypher home-video quality sound.
His arguement is sound if you want to talk about space colonies in the next 50 to 100 years, but of course the advanced tech we will have in 100-150 years will look like magic from our prospective. Almost every technology we have today would get you burned for witchcraft in 1857. Automated factories, mobile phones, television, airplanes, nukes ... all the magic from a pre-industrial revolution viewpoint. Add to that the increaseing pace of progress (singularity or not) and I fully expect there will be some "magic wands" before the end of the century. And as of the times when he brings up economic reasons: What does "cost effective" matter if humanity starts to agree vicerally with Hawkins, that colonization is necessary for the susvival of the species?
Anyway, that '100's of billions of dollars' comment annoys me because ... w p.php
"The total annual gross revenues of the music industry today are estimated at $11 billion."http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_
So the music industry is just bullshitting to be talking about loses that are an order of magnitude higher than the total industry gross. While if you want to talk about Hundreds of Billions being stolen we should talk about things like insurance fraud, corporate embezzelment, and public corruption.
"White-collar crimes cost the United States more than $300 billion annually according to the FBI."http://www.karisable.com/crwc.htm
innocent victem being wounded or killed during a torrent of mp3s?
I don't know if I would call a MIAA witchhunt, wounding, but certainly damaging. Lives have been seriously disrupted.
So smaller vehicles are the answer......guess we need semis and trains the size of pickup trucks.
That, or we need to be as strict with the licensing for every car as we currently are with the license for a semi or train. If you are going to drive a vehicle that is that dangerous to everyone else on the road, shouldn't you have to meet much stricter requirements?
"Dear US Attorney,
How dare you point out the fact that the Emperor has no case! You sir, do NOT know how to properly game the system, and if that isn't bad enough, you're trying to stop us from doing it too? You shall be punished.
Signed,
Alberto Gonzales
Funny how little simular those situations look. By funny, I mean sad.
the difference between a driver talking on a hands-free cell phone and the same driver having a conversation with a passenger.
r sations.html
The difference is mainly involved in visualization of the person you are talking to. You aren't just listening to words, you are imagining the person, their expressions, their gestures, etc. Found an interesting study here: http://spotlight.siu.edu/03082006/Hands-freeconve
Headsets or speaker phones being safer while driving is a myth.
While I would like to agree with your optimism about the Democrats in 2009, I can't. Politicians aren't in the buisness of giving up power, and if we get a Democratic president, then signing statements etc will become "useful tools in the right hands". I have to wonder if our nations great experiment in Democracy is showing it's flaws they way Communism did in the late 80s. Our founding fathers knew that this was the weakness in our system, and perhaps that would explain the rather elitist requirements originally need for voter eligibilty. Maybe we need to make some new requirements for voters, like a current events and history exam. Maybe a required logic course. Perhaps some critical thinking and depth of knowledge in the voter, would produce some critical thinking and depth in the candidates.
Just look at Fortwo, taller than it is wide, and figure out what happens when someone runs a red light.
Yeah, being able to park nose in between two parallel parked cars on the street would be great for cities. But what the crash test video didn't show was what happens when you get hit by someone in a big SUV. The biggest selling point of the big cars these days is still safety for the people inside. Soccer mom don't give a shit about gas milage when it comes to protecting their babies.
Now if all 5 operators agree to not connect to Truphone, then you have an effective monopoly. If only T-Moblie refuses, then you have 2 carriers with partial service. T-mobile and Truphone. Now if Truphone does something terribly clever, like marketing heavily to teens (who only need to be able to call their parents and other teens) then T-mobile is the one losing face. T-mobile can't do that because their customer base is already too large. Kids getting their first mobile can be made to see T-mobile phones as the ones that "don't work" and their parents will go along with the Truphone trendyness because of a lower price on the phone bill. Remember T-mobile is only about 10 years old, they could vanish from the scene as quickly as they arrived.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, "
hmmm I don't see any mention of citizenship there. The GP must not have read the writings that inspried our becoming "the US" or he would understand that those rights and protections under the law are granted to every one. Of course it took our country a long time to recogize that those rights (naturally) belong to blacks and women and gays. Maybe someday they will belong to foreigners too.
Congress can also remove old stupid laws. Maybe if they spent odd numbered years getting rid of old laws, then the laws we keep might have a bit more dignity. Or maybe if they really paired down our "Code of Law" to under 5000 pages or so our judicial system wouldn't be such a "game" played by lawyers, and could actually return to being about justice. Wouldn't that be novel.
The sections talking about a la carte service are there to distract people from the real meat of the legislation,
just as most "educational funding" and "protect the children" bills are just vehicles to get all of the add-ons passed. No bill passed would every be over 20 pages, except that their several hundred pages obscure most of the self serving gluttony and power grabbing of our government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."
But it's only being applied to foreigners, so it will be ok with enough short sighted fools to get pushed through before there is any real thought or debate on the issue. Then it will be extended to include Americains who are considered "threats". Then the definition of who consistutes a "threat" will be expanded. Then it will include everyone, but likely be automated, via the purchase of your plane tickets being automatically entered into a Homeland Security tracking database.
I wish this all sounded more paranoid than probable.
As much as everyone likes to talk about Kyoto. It is merely a gesture in the right direction. Kyoto only call for lowering the GHG emissions by 5% by 2008. In terms of actually slowing or reversing human influence on the climate Kyoto is a joke. The atmosphere is much more than 5% or 10% out of balance.
m l
The measurements taken at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory showed CO2 levels had jumped 2.5 ppm from 2002 to 2003 to a level of 376 ppm. This increase went well past the annual increase that might have been anticipated from human energy emissions, land use change and deforestation. Normally CO2 levels increase about 1.5 ppm annually. http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/co2jump.sht
Maybe if there were a treaty to reduce GHG emissions by 50% I could feel it was a serious attempt to address the issue. But no one is going to want to make the necessary level of changes until Folrida and Calcutta are under water.
People predisposed to addiction CAN get addicted to all kinds of things you might not expect. Should we write them off?
Yes, and no. No, we shouldn't leave them without sympathy, help, or dignity. Yes, we should write them off of any discussion of things than cause addicition. Especially since addicitive things tend to get rapidly crimialized. If someone is doomed to be addicited, any repeated strong stimulous is going to be a problem. Video games just happen to be popular. No more addicitve than Soap Operas, but more of a boogie man to people who didn't grow up with them.
public safety or security or whatever you want to call it, it's all just a big "OBEY ME" button modern politicians use on the easily spooked masses. It's like a barking dog herding cattle, the only reason the cattle obey the dog is habit and panic.