Ehhh. The $25 (or whatever) which nondrivers pay to acquire an ID is just small pennies compared to the millions of dollars collected in gasoline taxes/road tolls. I stick with my original statement and add the phrase "for all practical purposes" roads are funded by owners, not non-owners.
I'm also going to add that car owners fund the Metros and Subways in addition to funding their own "car hobby", which seems inherently unfair. I've never set foot on a Metro and yet 10% of my gasoline taxes go towards it. What bollocks. If you want to ride the Metro, pay for it yourself; don't make other people subsidize the cost.
- Use c: or USB driver for temporary storage of not-yet-viewed movies & tv shows. - if video is junk, delete it; If the video is good, buy the legal DVD or Bluray version. - if not available legally (example: Earth Final Conflict), copy on both my C: and my external USB drive, so if one fails I still have the other.
I've never felt any need to burn anything to DVD-R unless giving-away material to a friend. The advantage of this method is I don't waste a lot of money on blanks, and I can easily erase stuff off the USB drive if I decide I no longer need it.
>>>So the optical naysayers are probably right in the long term.
Disagree. Remember that the reason Nintendo abandoned cartridges was because a 8.5 gigabyte DVD was cheaper than the equivalent ROM. The same is still true today, and will be true in the future. A 50 cent disc (Bluray or otherwise) is cheaper than a $10 flash cartridge.
Precisely. It's why Sony, Sega, and later Nintendo abandoned ROM media for distribution of games. Making a cartridge was much, much more expensive that simply pressing a disc. The same cost analysis still applies today for Flash ROM vs. Bluray.
>>>can read and write data on discs with up to four data layers
(shrug). TDK already developed the ability to make 6-layer Blurays that can hold 200 gigabytes. The problem is that already-sold players do not have the ability to read more than two layers.
>>>driving it on roads that I help provide, even if I don't own a car!
Bzzz.
Roads are funded by gasoline taxes, therefore if you don't own a car, you don't fund the roads. Roads are funded strictly by the people who use them, and people don't use them, don't add anything to the Highway Treasury. (Same applies to U.S. Mail.)
Which costs about $400 per year. Pass. No thanks Comrade. Nyet. Let the corporations fund these items out of their own pocket (FCC rules require two hours per day for children's programming). I like my television to be FREE, and not be forced into an annual fee that I cannot afford to pay.
I agree with you in principle, but here's a question to consider:
- Why advertise to people (kids) you KNOW do not have any money?
The only answer I can think of also coincides with the reason the current Housing crisis exists: "Greed. Sell it at any cost even if you know they can't afford it." Just as predatory lending is abolished by law, so too should predatory advertising to persons without money, and who are not legal adults capable of entering into a transaction.
is a very effective way to deal with spoiled brats. (Reference South Park episode.)
>>>"advanced blocking technologies"
The off button. The power cord. The "surf with your kids" approach, so you can see what they see.
Also the "don't wait until their teenagers to explain where babies come from" approach. They're going to learn about this stuff eventually; now is as good as time as any to teach them. (Shocking. You mean we as parents are supposed to be teachers too??? YEP.)
Even when you whisper in their ear, they don't listen. I heard my Congressman say he had 80-to-1 calls telling him to say "no" to the bailout. Well he listened the first time, but ignored the voters on the second time, and passed the bill with a yes vote.
Considering the DOW just dropped ~500 points, back to 2003 levels, maybe the Congressman should have listened to his people. They knew the bailout wouldn't do diddly-squat.
A score of "57 out of 100" is still nothing to brag about. The reason electric cars are no cleaner than hybrids is multiple, but the main reasons are:
- Whether building an EV or hybrid, it still requires collecting the raw materials, melting them, and molding them into car-like shapes.
- Post-life disposal still has the same impact on landfills.
- ACEEE.org uses the U.S. model which consists of around 70% coal, a known-dirty material.
- The electricity generation is typically 60% efficient; however that excludes inefficiencies such as moving mountains of coal by train; transmitting; storing in a less-then-perfect container (battery); and the motor itself.
And THAT's why ACEEE.org lists electric cars (EV1 and RAV4 EV) as being little better than a Prius, inferior to an Insight, and inferior to a Civic Natural Gas (GX) car.
I don't think this harms anything. Instead it makes the readers more skeptical, which is a good thing, because even the so-called "professional" journalists are guilty of lying and/or twisting the truth.
Events like these encourage citizens to question what they hear, and force reporters to provide more sources to back-up their claims.
Well according to environmental group ACEEE.org, an EV1 car is no more clean than a Prius or Civic Hybrid. (On a hundred-point scale, they score 52, 53, and 51 respectively.) So the grandparent poster was correct that simply switching to electric does not automatically create a cleaner car.
As for ICE efficiency, Toyota says their Prius gasoline engine achieves 40% and Volkswagen determined their 3-cylinder Lupo diesel engines are at 50%.
>>>being a monopoly? Even if they weren't subsidizing the cost, why is this against the law?
Because the Apple/AT&T monopoly didn't bribe politicians. If they had followed the procedure of Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, et al, then Apple/AT&T would have greased the palms of local politicians, and be granted a government-regulated monopoly. That would make it okay.
But since they didn't grease any politicians palms, the politicians are annoyed to be left out of the pie, and this is how they get their revenge. "This'll teach them not to setup a monopoly without asking our permission first!"
What would this be appealable? According to the article:
>>>allowed the RIAA to subpoena the identities of 'persons associated by dorm room occupancy or username with the 17 IP addresses listed'
I don't see how this is any different than subpoening (sp?) the persons who are associated to a physical address (say a crakhouse). Although it's likely a lot of these people will turn-out to be innocent, that's why court rooms exist - to weed-out the guilty from the not-guilty.
>>>Sony's plans may include games for their hand-held portable, the PSP. >/b>
Question: My PSP has stopped working. I was playing Patapon when suddenly the thing just shutoff.
Now if I move the power-switch, then greenlight blinks for a second and then shutsoff. Even when I plugin my AC adapter, it only turns yellow and refuses to turn-on. I've charged it overnight and it's still the same results. Any idea what has happened to my PSP and how to fix it? Bad fuse perhaps?
>>>>>>So are you saying that our system/network resource consumption will increase to match availability
One second thought, that's not what I meant. I believe that even as sizes of floppies, CDs, and DVDs have increased storage capacity with time, so too have connection speeds increased. The two have developed separately, but concurrently, and each has kept pace with the other.
>>>So are you saying that our system/network resource consumption will increase to match availabilit
ding ding ding! Yes that's my personal belief based on experience.
.
>>>or that we will never reach technical limitations and moore's law observations will continue to infinity?
No not infinity, but I'm confident internet connections can keep-up with demand. I wouldn't be surprised to see the U.S. average connection increase from 10 megabit/s for 2008 to 500 megabit/s by the year 2020 (thanks to advances in technology). Which means a then-standard Bluray game could be downloaded in just half an hour.
>>>if he just picks two sizes that work out mathematically
We're talking about a *general* concept, not precision. Even if we assume somebody's downloading the 4-floppy Space Ace game to their Commodore Amiga PC, which would require 4 hours at then-common 2400 baud rates, it's still close to how long a game download takes today. It's within an order of magnitude.
This is in direct opposition to what many experts were saying in 1995. They claimed the internet had reached a natural speed-limit of 33k, and would not go any faster. Obviously they were wrong, but if their predictions had been accurate, then downloading a modern DVD game would require 270 hours (almost 12 days)!!!
Clearly the so-called experts of 1995 were wrong. And I think Comcast's current prognostications of "running out of internet" are equally wrong. It's just a bunch of FUD.
>>>However, we do need to invest in more infrastructure.
I have faith that private companies will, for the sake of profit, provide faster cabling..... just as they always have. I started with a 1.2k modem and without any government assistance, but merely through the profit directive, I was able to jump to 9.6k, then 56k, next 700k, and now 10,000k.
If government starts interfering, I'm afraid it will have the opposite effect of slowing things down. The last time government was involved, they granted a monopoly to AT&T and communications technology stagnated at 0.3k for nearly twenty years (1962 to 1980). It was only after government stepped-out of the way and allowed free competition, that the industry exploded, going from 0.3k to 14.4k in just ten years (1981 to 1991). And by 2000 many people were signing-up with 3000k broadband connections.
Like I said, I'm afraid if government suddenly starts interfering, it will SLOW progress, not speed it up.
>>>94% of all internet facts are made up on the spot.
Except this one is verifiable: 1988 - download of 880k floppy game over then-typical 2400 baud modem =~ 1 hour (from my own personal experience) 2008 - download of 4000 megabyte game over typical 10 Mbit/s cable =~ 1 hour (math)
Naturally the actual time will vary if your 1988 computer had a double-sized floppy (takes 2 hours) or if you are downloading a dual-sided DVD (also 2 hours). But Slashdot's signature length limit precludes me from including all that detail. The important point to note is that speeds have escalated to match demand. We have never experienced the so-called "speed limit" that certain Chicken Littles keep claiming we're going to hit. They are just blowing a lot of hot air, and have been doing so for almost 15 years now. Their claims have no merit.
Slashdot Mirror
Ehhh. The $25 (or whatever) which nondrivers pay to acquire an ID is just small pennies compared to the millions of dollars collected in gasoline taxes/road tolls. I stick with my original statement and add the phrase "for all practical purposes" roads are funded by owners, not non-owners.
I'm also going to add that car owners fund the Metros and Subways in addition to funding their own "car hobby", which seems inherently unfair. I've never set foot on a Metro and yet 10% of my gasoline taxes go towards it. What bollocks. If you want to ride the Metro, pay for it yourself; don't make other people subsidize the cost.
Old enough to look good in a bikini.
Young enough to land-you in jail, you DOMAI! ;-)
Here's my backup method:
- Use c: or USB driver for temporary storage of not-yet-viewed movies & tv shows.
- if video is junk, delete it; If the video is good, buy the legal DVD or Bluray version.
- if not available legally (example: Earth Final Conflict), copy on both my C: and my external USB drive, so if one fails I still have the other.
I've never felt any need to burn anything to DVD-R unless giving-away material to a friend. The advantage of this method is I don't waste a lot of money on blanks, and I can easily erase stuff off the USB drive if I decide I no longer need it.
>>>So the optical naysayers are probably right in the long term.
Disagree. Remember that the reason Nintendo abandoned cartridges was because a 8.5 gigabyte DVD was cheaper than the equivalent ROM. The same is still true today, and will be true in the future. A 50 cent disc (Bluray or otherwise) is cheaper than a $10 flash cartridge.
Precisely. It's why Sony, Sega, and later Nintendo abandoned ROM media for distribution of games. Making a cartridge was much, much more expensive that simply pressing a disc. The same cost analysis still applies today for Flash ROM vs. Bluray.
>>>can read and write data on discs with up to four data layers
(shrug). TDK already developed the ability to make 6-layer Blurays that can hold 200 gigabytes. The problem is that already-sold players do not have the ability to read more than two layers.
I honestly can't think of anything on television I wouldn't want a kid to watch.
I watch everything from aliens getting blown-up to naked news. It hasn't caused me psychological harm; why would it hurt a child?
>>>driving it on roads that I help provide, even if I don't own a car!
Bzzz.
Roads are funded by gasoline taxes, therefore if you don't own a car, you don't fund the roads. Roads are funded strictly by the people who use them, and people don't use them, don't add anything to the Highway Treasury. (Same applies to U.S. Mail.)
>>>licence-fee funded
Which costs about $400 per year. Pass. No thanks Comrade. Nyet. Let the corporations fund these items out of their own pocket (FCC rules require two hours per day for children's programming). I like my television to be FREE, and not be forced into an annual fee that I cannot afford to pay.
I agree with you in principle, but here's a question to consider:
- Why advertise to people (kids) you KNOW do not have any money?
The only answer I can think of also coincides with the reason the current Housing crisis exists: "Greed. Sell it at any cost even if you know they can't afford it." Just as predatory lending is abolished by law, so too should predatory advertising to persons without money, and who are not legal adults capable of entering into a transaction.
"SHUT. UP."
is a very effective way to deal with spoiled brats. (Reference South Park episode.)
>>>"advanced blocking technologies"
The off button.
The power cord.
The "surf with your kids" approach, so you can see what they see.
Also the "don't wait until their teenagers to explain where babies come from" approach. They're going to learn about this stuff eventually; now is as good as time as any to teach them. (Shocking. You mean we as parents are supposed to be teachers too??? YEP.)
Congressmen==cattle. That's cute.
Even when you whisper in their ear, they don't listen. I heard my Congressman say he had 80-to-1 calls telling him to say "no" to the bailout. Well he listened the first time, but ignored the voters on the second time, and passed the bill with a yes vote.
Considering the DOW just dropped ~500 points, back to 2003 levels, maybe the Congressman should have listened to his people. They knew the bailout wouldn't do diddly-squat.
A score of "57 out of 100" is still nothing to brag about. The reason electric cars are no cleaner than hybrids is multiple, but the main reasons are:
- Whether building an EV or hybrid, it still requires collecting the raw materials, melting them, and molding them into car-like shapes.
- Post-life disposal still has the same impact on landfills.
- ACEEE.org uses the U.S. model which consists of around 70% coal, a known-dirty material.
- The electricity generation is typically 60% efficient; however that excludes inefficiencies such as moving mountains of coal by train; transmitting; storing in a less-then-perfect container (battery); and the motor itself.
And THAT's why ACEEE.org lists electric cars (EV1 and RAV4 EV) as being little better than a Prius, inferior to an Insight, and inferior to a Civic Natural Gas (GX) car.
I don't think this harms anything. Instead it makes the readers more skeptical, which is a good thing, because even the so-called "professional" journalists are guilty of lying and/or twisting the truth.
Events like these encourage citizens to question what they hear, and force reporters to provide more sources to back-up their claims.
Well according to environmental group ACEEE.org, an EV1 car is no more clean than a Prius or Civic Hybrid. (On a hundred-point scale, they score 52, 53, and 51 respectively.) So the grandparent poster was correct that simply switching to electric does not automatically create a cleaner car.
As for ICE efficiency, Toyota says their Prius gasoline engine achieves 40% and Volkswagen determined their 3-cylinder Lupo diesel engines are at 50%.
What an excellent way to backup my photo collection! I'll get to work on it right away.
>>>being a monopoly? Even if they weren't subsidizing the cost, why is this against the law?
Because the Apple/AT&T monopoly didn't bribe politicians. If they had followed the procedure of Comcast, Time-Warner, Cox, et al, then Apple/AT&T would have greased the palms of local politicians, and be granted a government-regulated monopoly. That would make it okay.
But since they didn't grease any politicians palms, the politicians are annoyed to be left out of the pie, and this is how they get their revenge. "This'll teach them not to setup a monopoly without asking our permission first!"
What would this be appealable? According to the article:
>>>allowed the RIAA to subpoena the identities of 'persons associated by dorm room occupancy or username with the 17 IP addresses listed'
I don't see how this is any different than subpoening (sp?) the persons who are associated to a physical address (say a crakhouse). Although it's likely a lot of these people will turn-out to be innocent, that's why court rooms exist - to weed-out the guilty from the not-guilty.
>>>Sony's plans may include games for their hand-held portable, the PSP. >/b>
Question: My PSP has stopped working. I was playing Patapon when suddenly the thing just shutoff.
Now if I move the power-switch, then greenlight blinks for a second and then shutsoff. Even when I plugin my AC adapter, it only turns yellow and refuses to turn-on. I've charged it overnight and it's still the same results. Any idea what has happened to my PSP and how to fix it? Bad fuse perhaps?
P.S.
>>>>>>So are you saying that our system/network resource consumption will increase to match availability
One second thought, that's not what I meant. I believe that even as sizes of floppies, CDs, and DVDs have increased storage capacity with time, so too have connection speeds increased. The two have developed separately, but concurrently, and each has kept pace with the other.
>>>So are you saying that our system/network resource consumption will increase to match availabilit
ding ding ding! Yes that's my personal belief based on experience.
.
>>>or that we will never reach technical limitations and moore's law observations will continue to infinity?
No not infinity, but I'm confident internet connections can keep-up with demand. I wouldn't be surprised to see the U.S. average connection increase from 10 megabit/s for 2008 to 500 megabit/s by the year 2020 (thanks to advances in technology). Which means a then-standard Bluray game could be downloaded in just half an hour.
>>>if he just picks two sizes that work out mathematically
We're talking about a *general* concept, not precision. Even if we assume somebody's downloading the 4-floppy Space Ace game to their Commodore Amiga PC, which would require 4 hours at then-common 2400 baud rates, it's still close to how long a game download takes today. It's within an order of magnitude.
This is in direct opposition to what many experts were saying in 1995. They claimed the internet had reached a natural speed-limit of 33k, and would not go any faster. Obviously they were wrong, but if their predictions had been accurate, then downloading a modern DVD game would require 270 hours (almost 12 days)!!!
Clearly the so-called experts of 1995 were wrong.
And I think Comcast's current prognostications of
"running out of internet" are equally wrong. It's just a bunch of FUD.
>>>However, we do need to invest in more infrastructure.
I have faith that private companies will, for the sake of profit, provide faster cabling..... just as they always have. I started with a 1.2k modem and without any government assistance, but merely through the profit directive, I was able to jump to 9.6k, then 56k, next 700k, and now 10,000k.
If government starts interfering, I'm afraid it will have the opposite effect of slowing things down. The last time government was involved, they granted a monopoly to AT&T and communications technology stagnated at 0.3k for nearly twenty years (1962 to 1980). It was only after government stepped-out of the way and allowed free competition, that the industry exploded, going from 0.3k to 14.4k in just ten years (1981 to 1991). And by 2000 many people were signing-up with 3000k broadband connections.
Like I said, I'm afraid if government suddenly starts interfering, it will SLOW progress, not speed it up.
Especially since most "real numbers" are derived from studies with biased researchers trying to get a result that favors their political view.
>>>94% of all internet facts are made up on the spot.
Except this one is verifiable:
1988 - download of 880k floppy game over then-typical 2400 baud modem =~ 1 hour (from my own personal experience)
2008 - download of 4000 megabyte game over typical 10 Mbit/s cable =~ 1 hour (math)
Naturally the actual time will vary if your 1988 computer had a double-sized floppy (takes 2 hours) or if you are downloading a dual-sided DVD (also 2 hours). But Slashdot's signature length limit precludes me from including all that detail. The important point to note is that speeds have escalated to match demand. We have never experienced the so-called "speed limit" that certain Chicken Littles keep claiming we're going to hit. They are just blowing a lot of hot air, and have been doing so for almost 15 years now. Their claims have no merit.
How about a few hundred cases?
http://www.google.com/search?q="held+at+Guantanamo+Bay"