The black box downloads movies/shows onto the hard drive during off-peak hours. They (Netflix, Amazon, whoever) can encrypt the hell out of it...I don't care. I sit down with my popcorn and get to pick from my list. For ~$10/month I have access to the ENTIRE collection of titles and NOT just those licensed for streaming. I think an argument could be made that delivering an encrypted (just for my personal key) copy of the movie is no different then mailing me a blue ray.
No stuttering. No ISP problems. No extortion $$$ to Comcast.
If you want to interpret the Constitution as a document/contract which has to spell out everything the Government CAN'T do then you have a serious problem...
The biggest flaw with the Constitution is that it spelled out CAN as well as CAN'T and after 200+ years of lawyers arguing one way and then another it is just about useless now. You don't take your car in for service and tell the mechanic what they CAN'T do just like you don't tell your dentist what she CAN'T do. You tell him to change your oil and rotate your tires...you tell her to just clean your teeth.
Anything beyond the enumerated powers spelled out in black and white is against the Constitution, illegal, and needs to stop.
How about we stop creating a list of things they CAN'T do and instead enforce the list of things we 'supposedly' told them they CAN do?
This is my fundamental problem with the Constitution...you do NOT create a document which says you can do this and can't do that but yes to this and no to that. That just creates a system for loopholes and misinterpretation.
Imagine if you had to create a list of the things you did NOT want your mechanic to do when you dropped off your car for an oil change...
Also, I say 'supposedly' because nobody has granted any authority to the US Constitution since the original signers. How much is an unsigned contract worth again? Can you be born into a contract?
Cars and trucks are incredibly wasteful when you consider all the weight which has to be moved from point A to point B along with your fat ass. Increasing MPG does very little to solve the real problem of too many cars/people and not enough geography.
How many lanes can really fit into an area? I've driven on 5 lane highways which did little or nothing to increase traffic flow and forget about rush hour...its still a parking lot.
Imagine a 'network' of Skytran pods being able to haul people within 1/2 mile of any destination. The business advantages are immense when you consider a manufacturing company which builds their own hub and has pods deliver their materials. FedEx and UPS would no longer be the only game in town.
Look at the advances which the public road system does for humanity and then increase that exponentially with a SkyTran system...:)
I have done this numerous times over the last ~10 years. It started with small business phone systems (~$350) which provided the auto-attendant feature and support for analog phones. When those systems died I switched to Linux boxes running Asterisk and Digium hardware for around the same price. It was overkill to have a PC running in my basement but I never...EVER...had a scum sucking telemarketer or solicitor get through. Did I mention that this is major pet peeve of mine?...:)
I did have many people/callers complement me on my setup and ask me about it for themselves. But, a Linux box running in the basement is beyond the skill set of the non Slashdot crowd and the price was still way to high to compete with "just let the answering machine get it".
I have been continuously researching hardware and embedded systems over the years waiting for prices to come down. I do have a prototype running and mostly functional but its not ready for the masses yet. It could net me the $50k so I'm off to RTFA...;)
Slashdot Mirror
The black box downloads movies/shows onto the hard drive during off-peak hours. They (Netflix, Amazon, whoever) can encrypt the hell out of it...I don't care. I sit down with my popcorn and get to pick from my list. For ~$10/month I have access to the ENTIRE collection of titles and NOT just those licensed for streaming. I think an argument could be made that delivering an encrypted (just for my personal key) copy of the movie is no different then mailing me a blue ray.
No stuttering. No ISP problems. No extortion $$$ to Comcast.
I have a dream...:)
If you want to interpret the Constitution as a document/contract which has to spell out everything the Government CAN'T do then you have a serious problem...
The biggest flaw with the Constitution is that it spelled out CAN as well as CAN'T and after 200+ years of lawyers arguing one way and then another it is just about useless now. You don't take your car in for service and tell the mechanic what they CAN'T do just like you don't tell your dentist what she CAN'T do. You tell him to change your oil and rotate your tires...you tell her to just clean your teeth.
Anything beyond the enumerated powers spelled out in black and white is against the Constitution, illegal, and needs to stop.
How about we stop creating a list of things they CAN'T do and instead enforce the list of things we 'supposedly' told them they CAN do? This is my fundamental problem with the Constitution...you do NOT create a document which says you can do this and can't do that but yes to this and no to that. That just creates a system for loopholes and misinterpretation.
Imagine if you had to create a list of the things you did NOT want your mechanic to do when you dropped off your car for an oil change...
Also, I say 'supposedly' because nobody has granted any authority to the US Constitution since the original signers. How much is an unsigned contract worth again? Can you be born into a contract?
Its time to start over...
I backed this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/clintgc/space-monkey-taking-the-cloud-out-of-the-datacente
I like it a lot better then any of the standard 'cloud data' offerings and plan to use it for sharing TrueCrypt drives and as an easy to sync method.
Its time to break our addiction to the car and get serious about transportation:
http://www.skytran.net/
Cars and trucks are incredibly wasteful when you consider all the weight which has to be moved from point A to point B along with your fat ass. Increasing MPG does very little to solve the real problem of too many cars/people and not enough geography.
How many lanes can really fit into an area? I've driven on 5 lane highways which did little or nothing to increase traffic flow and forget about rush hour...its still a parking lot.
Imagine a 'network' of Skytran pods being able to haul people within 1/2 mile of any destination. The business advantages are immense when you consider a manufacturing company which builds their own hub and has pods deliver their materials. FedEx and UPS would no longer be the only game in town.
Look at the advances which the public road system does for humanity and then increase that exponentially with a SkyTran system...:)
I will check those out and add this one as well: http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
Shameless self promotion: http://robocall.challenge.gov/submissions/13334-the-phone-cop
I have done this numerous times over the last ~10 years. It started with small business phone systems (~$350) which provided the auto-attendant feature and support for analog phones. When those systems died I switched to Linux boxes running Asterisk and Digium hardware for around the same price. It was overkill to have a PC running in my basement but I never...EVER...had a scum sucking telemarketer or solicitor get through. Did I mention that this is major pet peeve of mine?...:)
I did have many people/callers complement me on my setup and ask me about it for themselves. But, a Linux box running in the basement is beyond the skill set of the non Slashdot crowd and the price was still way to high to compete with "just let the answering machine get it".
I have been continuously researching hardware and embedded systems over the years waiting for prices to come down. I do have a prototype running and mostly functional but its not ready for the masses yet. It could net me the $50k so I'm off to RTFA...;)