>>>2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. >>>
Awesome! That means I can freely copy Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Colecovision, and other ancient videogames. Cool. Because my Atari died long ago (making my 60 carts unplayable), and my Commodore is also on its last legs. A couple of the floppies died too.
Good exemption. It's stupid to allow old works of art to die just because their format has passed away.
I've been in cases where spinning the wheels helped me climb snowy hills. The kinetic friction was obviously less than the static friction, but still enough to move my car upwards.
If my car had traction control (which should be properly called "anti wheel spin" control), I'd still be sitting on that snow-covered hill until spring thaw arrived. The Toyota Prius is famous for this. Many owners complain they can't get in their own drives because the traction control refuses to spin the wheels, therefore the car does not move. See consumeraffairs.com and search for Prius for more info.
I have a photo of a girl who was killed at 80 mph. She side-swiped another car, crossed into the grass strip, and slammed into a concrete toll booth. The safety belt protected her body from harm, but the impact popped her head open.
If Ford was truly serious about this, they would limit the teenager's speed to match the most-common maximum speed limit of 65. Otherwise it's still still too fast for a parent to feel secure. (At least not for me; I wouldn't want to hand my car over to my kid doing 80mph.)
10 mph slower is not significant... especially if the driver moves-over to the right two lanes where travel is slower.
And second I don't see a 75 median on the D.C. beltway. The speed limit is 55, and barring a traffic jam, most people do 50-75, with a median around 63. I recommend a teenager's top speed be 65, which is near that median speed.
Yes but by population, most citizens live under 65mph jurisdictions. In this case, it makes sense to go with the majority.
On the other hand, one could argue that most 65 states are actually 70mph enforced. (shrug) In any case, 80 is still too fast for an inexperienced teen to be going. I wouldn't want my kid driving my car at the velocity. Would you?
Yes but the subject here is minors, who don't have the same rights as adults. As an adult you can drink, smoke, drive 70-75 and get away with it. As a minor those rights don't exist. So if you're a 16-year-old, and you think a max of 70 is too slow.... "Oh well; too bad, so sad." You'll soon be an adult; just exercise some patience.
Besides it's my car, my ~$25,000 spent, my rules. When you have your own car, paid with your own money, then you can do whatever you want.
>>>Just data, which can go over a shared data line asynchronously.
Technically it's ALL data (yes even the voice call). The difference is the voice call must be handled with no delay, whereas the text message can sit in a buffer for several hours before being sent. Text also has the option, if reception is marginal, to stream across at a reduced ~1 kbit/s rate that is slower but more noise-resistant.
I don't know why texting costs more (VirginMobile - 5 cents for a few words versus 20 cents for a full minute of live conversation). I suppose they are charging you for the "effort" to setup the connection, which would be about equal whether it's text or voice.
I don't understand overclockers. With the rapid pace of computers all you need do is wait one year, buy a new machine, and you'll have a CPU, memory, et cetera that's about 1.5 times faster than your old one.
By design.
And no risk of frying either yourself or your present PC.
Why should I care if my face appears on some Facebook or Myspace page? It's no different than if I'm in the downtown square, a photographer snaps a photo of the crowd, and slaps the image on the front page of the newspaper. I see no reason to hide myself.
As for other issues like Googlemail, the phone company has already published your name, address, and number in the Yellow Pages. Avoiding google does not stop that information from being "out there" and available.
I think that we, like politicians, can be both public and private. Politicians appear on camera all day long, and yet they have private lives, often sex affairs, which we citizens know nothing about. If they can be both public & private at the same time, so too can we.
That game drives me nuts. I liked it at first, but after awhile the camera (a downfall of many games) became frustrating. I eventually sold the game since I was sick of fighting the camera.
As for music:
A lot of the modern music tends to be "elevator" in quality. It serves as noise to fill the silence, rather than being a short "ditty" as appeared in the old cartridge-based games (N64, Genesis, NES, Atari, Coleco). Due to memory limitations, cartridge games had to use relatively-short pieces.
I think the move to CD improved the sound, thanks to direct recording of orchestras, but it also downgraded the memorability of music. I think it would help a lot if composers restrained themselves to limit compositions to 3 minutes or less, rather than stretch them into slow-paced elevator themes.
>>>Or why a text message can get through when a call can't?
This is no great mystery. A test message can just sit in a buffer until your phone is within broadcast distance, and then it's sent. But a call has to be done in realtime; if reception is poor the caller gets a busy signal (and then send a text instead).
I have a photo of a girl who was killed at 80 mph. She side-swiped another car, crossed into the grass strip, and slammed into a concrete toll booth. The safety belt protected her body from harm, but the impact popped her head open.
If Ford was truly serious about this, they would limit the teenager's speed to match the most-common maximum speed limit of 65. Otherwise 80 is still too fast for a parent to feel secure. 80 can very easily kill, especially if the car/truck rolls over.
>>>on the Washington Beltway and the Dulles Toll-road here in the D.C. 'burbs if you are only going 65, you're creating a hazard.
I've driven both of those. The speed limit is 55 in most sections with a few 65 zones. I don't see how following the speed limit can be hazardous. Staying 65 or lower will certainly will help you avoid getting pulled-over by a DC motorcycle cop (as happened to me), and since I don't want my teen getting tickets, limiting her max speed to 65 sounds reasonable.
Unless you're arguing that 65 is "too slow" for the legal limit? In which case, I still have to disagree. 75 or even 85 is okay if you're driving through the empty regions of Nebraska, but 65 is perfectly appropriate for the congested D.C. area. Placing a "no faster than the legal limit" restriction on a teenager makes perfect sense.
In fact, that's a good idea right there. Make the max speed programmable by the adult key; then parents can decide for themselves how fast is too fast.
I have a photo of a girl who was killed at 80 mph. She side-swiped another car, crossed into the grass strip, and slammed into a concrete toll booth. The safety belt protected her body from harm, but the impact popped her head open.
If Ford was truly serious about this, they would limit the teenager's speed to match the most-common maximum speed limit of 65. Otherwise 80 is still too fast for a parent to feel secure.
>>>A lot of the downloading arguments on Slashdot rely on the RIAA for justification [revolting against record labels]
No. I do it because (1) my paycheck if finite and I can't afford to buy every song, (2) a lot of the music I copy purely for nostalgia reasons - people like Tiffany or Debbie Gibson or New Kids that I heard on the radio during my school years, and (3) frankly, none of it is worth buying (it's bubblegum pop). I'd rather erase it and hear it for free on the radio, than waste money on it.
I do buy music but only those artists where I think I'm getting the best "bang" for the buck, like Depeche Mode's Violater album, or Mariah Carey's "best of" album, or Duran Duran's Greatest Hits, because the cost per song is around 50 cents each.
I can't afford to buy every one-hit or two-hit wonder that comes along. (See point 1 about having a finite paycheck.)
>>>You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.
(1) Why is alcohol still legal then? Maybe we should ban that too. Along with McDonalds fries, burgers, Kentucky fried chicken,.....
(2) I don't think society should pay for healthcare. Let the durg abuser pay his own bills, rather than swipe money from his neighbors' wallets. If the drug abuser can't afford the bill, then let them pass-on to heaven. He/she will be far happier there than here.
Also backward-compatibility with the old Gameboy Advance. If Nintendo had decided to ignore the previous console, as they did with the Gamecube, then they probably would have followed Sony's path towards a mini-disc in order to save costs.
The largest cart Nintendo made for the N64 was only 64 megabytes, and the producer had to sell it for $60. The same game on the PS1, Resident Evil 2, was two discs long, covered 1400 megabytes, and only cost $50 upon release. Discs are simply cheaper than solid state devices.
It's mainly a construction issue. It's cheaper to press a couple layers of foil into a disc shape, than to etch layers out of silicon & then carefully package it inside a die, with additional external leads. Plus the disc can store the bits much more tightly than a ROM can.
>>>iTunes movies and TV shows, for example, are sold without media
Which is why I said CD or DVD. I like the permanence of having an actual disc that I can store on my shelf, plus since CD is uncompressed, and DVD is encoded at 5 megabit/s average, both these formats are superior quality to anything you'll download off Itunes. ----- I don't know what the lifespan might be. My oldest CD is almost 20 years old, and it has not deteriorated, so I fully expect it will survive until I'm dead.
For home videos I'm still using Super or standard VHS-C tape. My oldest videos are also twenty years old, and they still preserve family memories without any visible loss.
>>>you'll be running your ICE at sub-optimal efficiency practically all the time.
The Prius' constantly-varying transmission always keeps the ICE at optimum efficiency. Ditto the Civic's CVT. The Lupo, being a diesel, is pretty much at optimum condition all the time, except when RPM drops below 1500.
>>>you act like the energy used to build a car is somehow comparable to the energy used in its operation.
Neither will I ignore it. 50,000 miles of gasoline is how much energy is used to build a car. You would just throw that away and pretend it doesn't exist, but I think that amount of energy is important to consider. As does ACEEE.org which is why they include it (and disposal costs) in their analysis of the EV1, Prius, et cetera.
My insight has magnesium too, but it's only used in the exhaust system, not the rest of the car (which is aluminum). The Lupo is probably designed along the same lines.
>>>It's hard not to talk down when you're making such elementary mistakes. >>>For example, calling the Lupo a "~90mpg vehicle". >>> That's per *Imperial* gallon, not US gallon
FALSE. Germans don't use gallons. YOU are the one who is making elementary & obvious mistakes, because imperial gallons have no relevance to the 3-cylinder Lupo 3L that I am discussing. The actual website for the Lupo 3L stated it gets 2.6L/100km extra-urban which is approximately 90 miles per U.S. gallon, highway mileage. It gets around 65 city, and 80mpg overall.
You've made many, many other mistakes as well.
But I'm hungry and I'd rather go eat breakfast, and it's doubtful you'll ever read this message anyway, so I'm going to move on, but there is one more number to consider: Volkswagen took their Lupo 3L on a round-the-world trip, to see how it operated in real world conditions:
They got 101 miles per U.S. gallon.
We need more cars like that, NOW, not dreamcars that don't exist and even if they did exist, cost a ridiculous $60,000 to buy and require major upgrades in infrastructure (hydrogen fueling pumps for example). The 90mpg Lupo and the soon-to-arrive 250mpg VW two-seater are real cars that real people can drive without making huge investments of money.
>>>You're confusing engine efficiency and well-to-wheels efficiency.
No I'm not. I clearly stated the ENGINE's efficiency. I knew exactly what I was saying. ----- As for well-to-wheel efficiency, the GREET model shows no real difference between a hybrid gasoline-electric versus pure-electric car. That same model ranked a diesel-electric as superior to all other cars (even hydrogen fuel cells).
Please stop the EV evangelism. I'm an electrical engineer; I've examined how they work; I've examined all the data I could find. EVs don't live-up to the hype pushed by Greens.
Also: I will to give credit to ACEEE.org. Even though they are environmentalists, they don't lie to push an agenda. They state clearly and concisely that EV cars are no more clean than a Prius Hybrid, and less clean than a 66mpg Insight or Civic Natural Gas (GX). I admire honesty more than bias.
Please don't talk down to me. I am electrical engineer, and I have been studying electric cars for almost ten years now & driving a hybrid since 2002. I HAVE taken into account charger losses, chemical storage (batteries), et cetera, et cetera.
EVs are a beautiful technology, but I'm not going to lie to myself or other people. I have reviewed & agree with ACEEE.org's analysis that an EV1 is about the same as a Prius for cleanliness (and less clean than an Insight or a Civic GX). Also if I could buy any car in the world, it would be a 5-seat Lupo 3L that gets ~90mpg highway, or Volkwagen's soon-to-be-released 250mpg 2-seater. I consider those to be the most-efficient and cleanest cars ever made.
More-importantly, they already have the infrastructure to support them. And you can drive 500 miles without needing to stop for eight hours & recharge a battery.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive.
>>>
Awesome! That means I can freely copy Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Colecovision, and other ancient videogames. Cool. Because my Atari died long ago (making my 60 carts unplayable), and my Commodore is also on its last legs. A couple of the floppies died too.
Good exemption. It's stupid to allow old works of art to die just because their format has passed away.
I've been in cases where spinning the wheels helped me climb snowy hills. The kinetic friction was obviously less than the static friction, but still enough to move my car upwards.
If my car had traction control (which should be properly called "anti wheel spin" control), I'd still be sitting on that snow-covered hill until spring thaw arrived. The Toyota Prius is famous for this. Many owners complain they can't get in their own drives because the traction control refuses to spin the wheels, therefore the car does not move. See consumeraffairs.com and search for Prius for more info.
>>>The speed is limited to 80,
I have a photo of a girl who was killed at 80 mph. She side-swiped another car, crossed into the grass strip, and slammed into a concrete toll booth. The safety belt protected her body from harm, but the impact popped her head open.
If Ford was truly serious about this, they would limit the teenager's speed to match the most-common maximum speed limit of 65. Otherwise it's still still too fast for a parent to feel secure. (At least not for me; I wouldn't want to hand my car over to my kid doing 80mph.)
10 mph slower is not significant... especially if the driver moves-over to the right two lanes where travel is slower.
And second I don't see a 75 median on the D.C. beltway. The speed limit is 55, and barring a traffic jam, most people do 50-75, with a median around 63. I recommend a teenager's top speed be 65, which is near that median speed.
Yes but by population, most citizens live under 65mph jurisdictions. In this case, it makes sense to go with the majority.
On the other hand, one could argue that most 65 states are actually 70mph enforced. (shrug) In any case, 80 is still too fast for an inexperienced teen to be going. I wouldn't want my kid driving my car at the velocity. Would you?
>>>65 was forced by the feds
Yes but the subject here is minors, who don't have the same rights as adults. As an adult you can drink, smoke, drive 70-75 and get away with it. As a minor those rights don't exist. So if you're a 16-year-old, and you think a max of 70 is too slow.... "Oh well; too bad, so sad." You'll soon be an adult; just exercise some patience.
Besides it's my car, my ~$25,000 spent, my rules. When you have your own car, paid with your own money, then you can do whatever you want.
>>>Just data, which can go over a shared data line asynchronously.
Technically it's ALL data (yes even the voice call). The difference is the voice call must be handled with no delay, whereas the text message can sit in a buffer for several hours before being sent. Text also has the option, if reception is marginal, to stream across at a reduced ~1 kbit/s rate that is slower but more noise-resistant.
I don't know why texting costs more (VirginMobile - 5 cents for a few words versus 20 cents for a full minute of live conversation). I suppose they are charging you for the "effort" to setup the connection, which would be about equal whether it's text or voice.
I don't understand overclockers. With the rapid pace of computers all you need do is wait one year, buy a new machine, and you'll have a CPU, memory, et cetera that's about 1.5 times faster than your old one.
By design.
And no risk of frying either yourself or your present PC.
Question:
Why should I care if my face appears on some Facebook or Myspace page? It's no different than if I'm in the downtown square, a photographer snaps a photo of the crowd, and slaps the image on the front page of the newspaper. I see no reason to hide myself.
As for other issues like Googlemail, the phone company has already published your name, address, and number in the Yellow Pages. Avoiding google does not stop that information from being "out there" and available.
I think that we, like politicians, can be both public and private. Politicians appear on camera all day long, and yet they have private lives, often sex affairs, which we citizens know nothing about. If they can be both public & private at the same time, so too can we.
That game drives me nuts. I liked it at first, but after awhile the camera (a downfall of many games) became frustrating. I eventually sold the game since I was sick of fighting the camera.
As for music:
A lot of the modern music tends to be "elevator" in quality. It serves as noise to fill the silence, rather than being a short "ditty" as appeared in the old cartridge-based games (N64, Genesis, NES, Atari, Coleco). Due to memory limitations, cartridge games had to use relatively-short pieces.
I think the move to CD improved the sound, thanks to direct recording of orchestras, but it also downgraded the memorability of music. I think it would help a lot if composers restrained themselves to limit compositions to 3 minutes or less, rather than stretch them into slow-paced elevator themes.
>>>Or why a text message can get through when a call can't?
This is no great mystery. A test message can just sit in a buffer until your phone is within broadcast distance, and then it's sent. But a call has to be done in realtime; if reception is poor the caller gets a busy signal (and then send a text instead).
>>>The speed is limited to 80,
I have a photo of a girl who was killed at 80 mph. She side-swiped another car, crossed into the grass strip, and slammed into a concrete toll booth. The safety belt protected her body from harm, but the impact popped her head open.
If Ford was truly serious about this, they would limit the teenager's speed to match the most-common maximum speed limit of 65. Otherwise 80 is still too fast for a parent to feel secure. 80 can very easily kill, especially if the car/truck rolls over.
>>>on the Washington Beltway and the Dulles Toll-road here in the D.C. 'burbs if you are only going 65, you're creating a hazard.
I've driven both of those. The speed limit is 55 in most sections with a few 65 zones. I don't see how following the speed limit can be hazardous. Staying 65 or lower will certainly will help you avoid getting pulled-over by a DC motorcycle cop (as happened to me), and since I don't want my teen getting tickets, limiting her max speed to 65 sounds reasonable.
Unless you're arguing that 65 is "too slow" for the legal limit? In which case, I still have to disagree. 75 or even 85 is okay if you're driving through the empty regions of Nebraska, but 65 is perfectly appropriate for the congested D.C. area. Placing a "no faster than the legal limit" restriction on a teenager makes perfect sense.
In fact, that's a good idea right there. Make the max speed programmable by the adult key; then parents can decide for themselves how fast is too fast.
>>>The speed is limited to 80,
I have a photo of a girl who was killed at 80 mph. She side-swiped another car, crossed into the grass strip, and slammed into a concrete toll booth. The safety belt protected her body from harm, but the impact popped her head open.
If Ford was truly serious about this, they would limit the teenager's speed to match the most-common maximum speed limit of 65. Otherwise 80 is still too fast for a parent to feel secure.
>>>A lot of the downloading arguments on Slashdot rely on the RIAA for justification [revolting against record labels]
No. I do it because (1) my paycheck if finite and I can't afford to buy every song, (2) a lot of the music I copy purely for nostalgia reasons - people like Tiffany or Debbie Gibson or New Kids that I heard on the radio during my school years, and (3) frankly, none of it is worth buying (it's bubblegum pop). I'd rather erase it and hear it for free on the radio, than waste money on it.
I do buy music but only those artists where I think I'm getting the best "bang" for the buck, like Depeche Mode's Violater album, or Mariah Carey's "best of" album, or Duran Duran's Greatest Hits, because the cost per song is around 50 cents each.
I can't afford to buy every one-hit or two-hit wonder that comes along.
(See point 1 about having a finite paycheck.)
>>>so a slight negative buoyancy is augmented by some flying with the dive planes [to keep the sub from sinking like an airplane].
You just admitted that submarines fly through the water. Congrats.
>>>You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.
(1) Why is alcohol still legal then? Maybe we should ban that too. Along with McDonalds fries, burgers, Kentucky fried chicken, .....
(2) I don't think society should pay for healthcare. Let the durg abuser pay his own bills, rather than swipe money from his neighbors' wallets. If the drug abuser can't afford the bill, then let them pass-on to heaven. He/she will be far happier there than here.
Also backward-compatibility with the old Gameboy Advance. If Nintendo had decided to ignore the previous console, as they did with the Gamecube, then they probably would have followed Sony's path towards a mini-disc in order to save costs.
The largest cart Nintendo made for the N64 was only 64 megabytes, and the producer had to sell it for $60. The same game on the PS1, Resident Evil 2, was two discs long, covered 1400 megabytes, and only cost $50 upon release. Discs are simply cheaper than solid state devices.
It's mainly a construction issue. It's cheaper to press a couple layers of foil into a disc shape, than to etch layers out of silicon & then carefully package it inside a die, with additional external leads. Plus the disc can store the bits much more tightly than a ROM can.
>>>iTunes movies and TV shows, for example, are sold without media
Which is why I said CD or DVD. I like the permanence of having an actual disc that I can store on my shelf, plus since CD is uncompressed, and DVD is encoded at 5 megabit/s average, both these formats are superior quality to anything you'll download off Itunes. ----- I don't know what the lifespan might be. My oldest CD is almost 20 years old, and it has not deteriorated, so I fully expect it will survive until I'm dead.
For home videos I'm still using Super or standard VHS-C tape. My oldest videos are also twenty years old, and they still preserve family memories without any visible loss.
>>>you'll be running your ICE at sub-optimal efficiency practically all the time.
The Prius' constantly-varying transmission always keeps the ICE at optimum efficiency. Ditto the Civic's CVT. The Lupo, being a diesel, is pretty much at optimum condition all the time, except when RPM drops below 1500.
>>>you act like the energy used to build a car is somehow comparable to the energy used in its operation.
Neither will I ignore it. 50,000 miles of gasoline is how much energy is used to build a car. You would just throw that away and pretend it doesn't exist, but I think that amount of energy is important to consider. As does ACEEE.org which is why they include it (and disposal costs) in their analysis of the EV1, Prius, et cetera.
My insight has magnesium too, but it's only used in the exhaust system, not the rest of the car (which is aluminum). The Lupo is probably designed along the same lines.
>>>It's hard not to talk down when you're making such elementary mistakes.
>>>For example, calling the Lupo a "~90mpg vehicle".
>>> That's per *Imperial* gallon, not US gallon
FALSE. Germans don't use gallons. YOU are the one who is making elementary & obvious mistakes, because imperial gallons have no relevance to the 3-cylinder Lupo 3L that I am discussing. The actual website for the Lupo 3L stated it gets 2.6L/100km extra-urban which is approximately 90 miles per U.S. gallon, highway mileage. It gets around 65 city, and 80mpg overall.
You've made many, many other mistakes as well.
But I'm hungry and I'd rather go eat breakfast, and it's doubtful you'll ever read this message anyway, so I'm going to move on, but there is one more number to consider: Volkswagen took their Lupo 3L on a round-the-world trip, to see how it operated in real world conditions:
They got 101 miles per U.S. gallon.
We need more cars like that, NOW, not dreamcars that don't exist and even if they did exist, cost a ridiculous $60,000 to buy and require major upgrades in infrastructure (hydrogen fueling pumps for example). The 90mpg Lupo and the soon-to-arrive 250mpg VW two-seater are real cars that real people can drive without making huge investments of money.
>>>You're confusing engine efficiency and well-to-wheels efficiency.
No I'm not. I clearly stated the ENGINE's efficiency. I knew exactly what I was saying. ----- As for well-to-wheel efficiency, the GREET model shows no real difference between a hybrid gasoline-electric versus pure-electric car. That same model ranked a diesel-electric as superior to all other cars (even hydrogen fuel cells).
Please stop the EV evangelism. I'm an electrical engineer; I've examined how they work; I've examined all the data I could find. EVs don't live-up to the hype pushed by Greens.
Also: I will to give credit to ACEEE.org. Even though they are environmentalists, they don't lie to push an agenda. They state clearly and concisely that EV cars are no more clean than a Prius Hybrid, and less clean than a 66mpg Insight or Civic Natural Gas (GX). I admire honesty more than bias.
Please don't talk down to me. I am electrical engineer, and I have been studying electric cars for almost ten years now & driving a hybrid since 2002. I HAVE taken into account charger losses, chemical storage (batteries), et cetera, et cetera.
EVs are a beautiful technology, but I'm not going to lie to myself or other people. I have reviewed & agree with ACEEE.org's analysis that an EV1 is about the same as a Prius for cleanliness (and less clean than an Insight or a Civic GX). Also if I could buy any car in the world, it would be a 5-seat Lupo 3L that gets ~90mpg highway, or Volkwagen's soon-to-be-released 250mpg 2-seater. I consider those to be the most-efficient and cleanest cars ever made.
More-importantly, they already have the infrastructure to support them.
And you can drive 500 miles without needing to stop for eight hours & recharge a battery.