Absolutely correct. This is the reason we won't need artificial super intelligence to destroy ourselves. Our "make the robot do it" mindset will lead to Sol III as the next Altair IV.
Really, I'm not at all sure these "hypersonic" missiles exist. The US, China, and a team of Russia and India are working on them. There have been some tests, including a Chinese test in January that caused all the news coverage. Many of these tests, including 2003-4 US tests in the X-43 program, have led to hypersonic scramjet meltdowns and explosions. This seems like something the propeller-heads need another decade to work on. If nobody can get a test vehicle to work, and even the super-well-funded US can't get a practical missile out of the technology, it seems premature to consider this particular bit of Buck Rodgers fantasy a game changer.
I have an electric car, and solar panels. The answer is still no. My electric car is so efficient that it's not the largest component of my electric bill. I have gas cooking, heating, and hot water; and the electric bill is three times the car bill, in December. In the hot summers, the AC can kick the daylights out of the Tesla in terms of power consumption.
By the way, electric car travel is NOT FREE. There is significant capital expense, just another way of financing energy usage. My solar panels spread this capital cost over their usage period (I pay an "electric bill" for the solar power I use). It's all just a financing shell game. You can make one number $0, but you can't make them all $0. As folks have said, they want to charge my electric car a "gas tax" to pay for the roads. They even want it to make noise, so kids and folks don't walk in front of it.
None of this transportation power shuffling does anything about industrial power consumption. You're not going to like the price of aluminum foil made with solar electricity. High power industries need the high power density low cost power that renewables can't provide.
Exactly true. The IT installed startup script takes 10 minutes to run. Anti-virus scans of memory and installation of proxies and filters maxes out hard disk throughput so that users see no responsiveness to their inputs. Happens once or twice, and the user never turns the machine off again. Sleep loses network connections, and re-establishing them causes all these vampire robots to fire up again. Once one user figures this out, and shows their friends, nobody puts computers to sleep again.
Now if IT didn't want to monopolize the user's computer... . Never mind, that's not going to happen.
That's exactly the point. Patents protect "new" businesses to give them time (17 years) to produce a marketplace for their products. I wouldn't have a beef with the RIAA/MPAA if they had actually come up with something useful. All their "technology" is DRM, the definition of anti-useful. Plus, they aren't satisfied with the time limits for real products, they want copyrights that last FOREVER. In the patent world, patents expire and generics flood the market. That's why real companies always have to introduce innovations to their products. You can't milk one good idea forever, unless it's a recording deal.
Exactly the problem. Comcast has dumped a lot of mail forwarders because they become popular with Comcast users. Not only does it make it "too easy", in Comcast's mind, to switch ISPs but it also doesn't ever seem to reduce SPAM as much as they expect. I have a cron job that eMails my forwarder's IP addresses to the "unblock" address every evening. But the SPAM problem on Comcast is mostly from other Comcast users, probably unsuspecting bots. They just don't want to restructure the inside of their network to get a handle on SPAM. Probably cost too much, or take too much skill.
Exactly the point!! Liquid constituents are what this particular plot involved. That doesn't make that whole state of matter dangerous. My goodness, they sell scotch on the plane. This is 40% alcohol, the same substance used to power Formula1 cars. You can make heat with water, another substance they provide, and the right metal foil. Where to get the foil? Buy US Army MREs at the local sporting goods shop. Heat, fuel, air, that's all the ingredients for combustion. So, now when you sit in First Class, order a couple of scotches with water, and head to the lav behind the cockpit you're a terrorist?? Sounds like a banker to me.
Watching TV gives you something to talk about at the water cooler the next week. If you miss episode 5 of any show, you can't follow the conversation for a week. Worse, if you miss an episode of Lost you might misunderstand something every week for the rest of the season. That's the draw of shows like Lost, 24, etc. Studios and advertizers like that, much more than they like those folks that miss a show and decide to wait to watch it on DVD. The reason is that when you're watching the DVD you're not talking about the show at the water cooler, because nobody else is watching it then.
The beauty of this sale scheme is that you can decide to check out what everybody is talking about AFTER the shows have aired and still CATCH UP. That could lead to stronger growth in high plot shows, and therein lies the pony for the folks at ABC.
The iTMS charge is just paying Apple to do something ABC doesn't want to do itself for fear of upsetting it's affiliates.
OK, I accept your description of what the EU has in mind. What you haven't addressed, to "EU Bashers" or anybody, is why this is important. Let's say China, Brazil, and Iran set up their own root servers AND somehow force everyone in their country to use them. (This MIGHT {or might not} be technically possible by blocking IP level access to all the other root servers in the universe, but I'm willing to concede it for the sake of argument.) So what? If you live in one of those countries you're not going to have unfettered access to the Internet - Duhh - these countries like fettering the lives of their populations. The rest of us don't seem to see the down side. OK, I'll also lose the prospect that the folks in those countries won't find out about all the goodness of living in the EU or US, so they won't yearn to be liberated by us. So far that doesn't sound too bad to me.
For the EU or UN to effectively convince everybody to cooperate with the likes of these three countries, we need some idea of "What's in it for me?" So far, losing access to the wealth of good ideas in Iran doesn't ring my bell. I recognize ideals that I hope are universal truths, but I'm not willing to impose them on these three countries. And vice versa. I'm more than convinced that the bulk of valuable internet content won't be on their side of the split.
Clearly movie patrons are a huge part of the problem that theaters could address with ushers - pay one teenager to throw the other ones out.
However, I think the expectations of theater owners and movie studios are the root cause of this problem. They expect huge turnout the first week, and define success as making their money back in three weeks. My local theater has 16 screens. How many movies are they showing, 6. With at least 4-5 new releases each week, most movies only show for 2-3 weeks.
How are these issues related? Kids can't keep track of what movies are out, so they go every week. There isn't any real selection, so they aren't really interested in the film. So they act badly, because that's what bored kids do. If a person wants to go to a movie they have to go the first couple of weeks, when the kids are omnipresent, or they won't get a chance. I'm not "waiting for the DVD", I'm looking for a movie that isn't around any more. The theater owners are driving me to DVD by not having any selection.
The solution, not every movie will play at every theater every hour on the hour. Theaters pick a movie and play it for 6 weeks on one screen. They could even list the times online;-). Theater owner judgement would mean that only the better crap gets a place in the multiplex. Movie studios would never accept this, and they have contracts with theater chains that outlaw this sort of judgement. Until they fix their distribution channel, and their expectations, movies are going to be better on DVD in my basement than at my local mall.
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Absolutely correct. This is the reason we won't need artificial super intelligence to destroy ourselves. Our "make the robot do it" mindset will lead to Sol III as the next Altair IV.
Really, I'm not at all sure these "hypersonic" missiles exist. The US, China, and a team of Russia and India are working on them. There have been some tests, including a Chinese test in January that caused all the news coverage. Many of these tests, including 2003-4 US tests in the X-43 program, have led to hypersonic scramjet meltdowns and explosions. This seems like something the propeller-heads need another decade to work on. If nobody can get a test vehicle to work, and even the super-well-funded US can't get a practical missile out of the technology, it seems premature to consider this particular bit of Buck Rodgers fantasy a game changer.
I have an electric car, and solar panels. The answer is still no. My electric car is so efficient that it's not the largest component of my electric bill. I have gas cooking, heating, and hot water; and the electric bill is three times the car bill, in December. In the hot summers, the AC can kick the daylights out of the Tesla in terms of power consumption. By the way, electric car travel is NOT FREE. There is significant capital expense, just another way of financing energy usage. My solar panels spread this capital cost over their usage period (I pay an "electric bill" for the solar power I use). It's all just a financing shell game. You can make one number $0, but you can't make them all $0. As folks have said, they want to charge my electric car a "gas tax" to pay for the roads. They even want it to make noise, so kids and folks don't walk in front of it. None of this transportation power shuffling does anything about industrial power consumption. You're not going to like the price of aluminum foil made with solar electricity. High power industries need the high power density low cost power that renewables can't provide.
Exactly true. The IT installed startup script takes 10 minutes to run. Anti-virus scans of memory and installation of proxies and filters maxes out hard disk throughput so that users see no responsiveness to their inputs. Happens once or twice, and the user never turns the machine off again. Sleep loses network connections, and re-establishing them causes all these vampire robots to fire up again. Once one user figures this out, and shows their friends, nobody puts computers to sleep again. Now if IT didn't want to monopolize the user's computer ... . Never mind, that's not going to happen.
That's exactly the point. Patents protect "new" businesses to give them time (17 years) to produce a marketplace for their products. I wouldn't have a beef with the RIAA/MPAA if they had actually come up with something useful. All their "technology" is DRM, the definition of anti-useful. Plus, they aren't satisfied with the time limits for real products, they want copyrights that last FOREVER. In the patent world, patents expire and generics flood the market. That's why real companies always have to introduce innovations to their products. You can't milk one good idea forever, unless it's a recording deal.
Exactly the problem. Comcast has dumped a lot of mail forwarders because they become popular with Comcast users. Not only does it make it "too easy", in Comcast's mind, to switch ISPs but it also doesn't ever seem to reduce SPAM as much as they expect. I have a cron job that eMails my forwarder's IP addresses to the "unblock" address every evening. But the SPAM problem on Comcast is mostly from other Comcast users, probably unsuspecting bots. They just don't want to restructure the inside of their network to get a handle on SPAM. Probably cost too much, or take too much skill.
Right, it was Indy Cars that switched. My bad.
Exactly the point!! Liquid constituents are what this particular plot involved. That doesn't make that whole state of matter dangerous. My goodness, they sell scotch on the plane. This is 40% alcohol, the same substance used to power Formula1 cars. You can make heat with water, another substance they provide, and the right metal foil. Where to get the foil? Buy US Army MREs at the local sporting goods shop. Heat, fuel, air, that's all the ingredients for combustion. So, now when you sit in First Class, order a couple of scotches with water, and head to the lav behind the cockpit you're a terrorist?? Sounds like a banker to me.
Watching TV gives you something to talk about at the water cooler the next week. If you miss episode 5 of any show, you can't follow the conversation for a week. Worse, if you miss an episode of Lost you might misunderstand something every week for the rest of the season. That's the draw of shows like Lost, 24, etc. Studios and advertizers like that, much more than they like those folks that miss a show and decide to wait to watch it on DVD. The reason is that when you're watching the DVD you're not talking about the show at the water cooler, because nobody else is watching it then.
The beauty of this sale scheme is that you can decide to check out what everybody is talking about AFTER the shows have aired and still CATCH UP. That could lead to stronger growth in high plot shows, and therein lies the pony for the folks at ABC.
The iTMS charge is just paying Apple to do something ABC doesn't want to do itself for fear of upsetting it's affiliates.
OK, I accept your description of what the EU has in mind. What you haven't addressed, to "EU Bashers" or anybody, is why this is important. Let's say China, Brazil, and Iran set up their own root servers AND somehow force everyone in their country to use them. (This MIGHT {or might not} be technically possible by blocking IP level access to all the other root servers in the universe, but I'm willing to concede it for the sake of argument.) So what? If you live in one of those countries you're not going to have unfettered access to the Internet - Duhh - these countries like fettering the lives of their populations. The rest of us don't seem to see the down side. OK, I'll also lose the prospect that the folks in those countries won't find out about all the goodness of living in the EU or US, so they won't yearn to be liberated by us. So far that doesn't sound too bad to me. For the EU or UN to effectively convince everybody to cooperate with the likes of these three countries, we need some idea of "What's in it for me?" So far, losing access to the wealth of good ideas in Iran doesn't ring my bell. I recognize ideals that I hope are universal truths, but I'm not willing to impose them on these three countries. And vice versa. I'm more than convinced that the bulk of valuable internet content won't be on their side of the split.
However, I think the expectations of theater owners and movie studios are the root cause of this problem. They expect huge turnout the first week, and define success as making their money back in three weeks. My local theater has 16 screens. How many movies are they showing, 6. With at least 4-5 new releases each week, most movies only show for 2-3 weeks.
How are these issues related? Kids can't keep track of what movies are out, so they go every week. There isn't any real selection, so they aren't really interested in the film. So they act badly, because that's what bored kids do. If a person wants to go to a movie they have to go the first couple of weeks, when the kids are omnipresent, or they won't get a chance. I'm not "waiting for the DVD", I'm looking for a movie that isn't around any more. The theater owners are driving me to DVD by not having any selection.
The solution, not every movie will play at every theater every hour on the hour. Theaters pick a movie and play it for 6 weeks on one screen. They could even list the times online ;-). Theater owner judgement would mean that only the better crap gets a place in the multiplex. Movie studios would never accept this, and they have contracts with theater chains that outlaw this sort of judgement. Until they fix their distribution channel, and their expectations, movies are going to be better on DVD in my basement than at my local mall.