Would not it be better to change the application, so the startup sequence will be very short and the application will be immediately useable?
A very warm, fuzzy suggestion that will get you an 'A' when you provide it to your teacher. However, in the real world, any non-trivial app is going to take at least a couple of seconds to launch. So to take you up on your suggestion, they'd have to strip features from the GIMP.
Another classic example of the sharp disparity between the academic world, and the real world.
Lazy initialization can only buy you so much. If the underlying engine itself is non-trivial (which in the case of the GIMP, it would be), then you'll still experience a couple seconds of delay in loading. Keep in mind that users need immediate feedback, or they'll double-click the icon again. Unless you can spring up your MDI, with menus and windows initialized (even if no actual plugins are loaded) within half a second of launch, then your suggestion is impractical.
It is possible to have a small, efficient splash screen. One with no image
Are you really claiming that loading a 100 kb image from a modern hard disk produces a noticeable delay? Surely you realize that such an image could be loaded and displayed in literally microseconds. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with you about Adobe. I loathe launching Photoshop on Windows. Every couple of seconds, the splash screen steals focus back from whatever else it is I'm trying to do until Photoshop has finished loading (at least 5 - 10 seconds). It's annoying as hell.
Cohen legally owns the site, there is no way for Apple to legally take over the site unless cohen agrees to sell.
You're wrong. If it can be proven that Apple registered the trademark before Cohen registered the domain, then it is an open and shut case of cybersquatting, and the domain must be surrendered to Apple.
Consider what the logical resolution would be if a new company sprouted up and registered their trademark as "Claria", but didn't get around to registered the domain name until a week later, only to discover that I had registered it 3 days after they registered their trademark. Now, would you say "You own the website, there's nothing they can do?" Of course not, that's stupid. If a company obtains a trademark, then they get dibs on the domain name too, especially when it is a non-real word that they've coined and thus, the domain registrant could have no possible other legitimate interest in the domain.
I do not condone it, I believe that you need to be forced to waste 4 years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars just like I did so you can gain that piece of paper that really does not way [sic] anything about your abilities.
I disagree that getting a degree does not "way" ("say"?) anything about a person's abilities. It says they are capable of learning. It says they can get the work done when needed. It says they can perform under pressure. It says they are dedicated, committed, and organized.
Of course, depending on the degree, not all of these attributes will be guaranteed in high doses, but a lazy idiot with poor work ethic is not capable of getting a BSc. from an accredited university.
This is one of the most unabashadly biased and slanted articles I've ever read from the Register. Between the misplaced blind support of the self-described snot-nosed teen "Dotcom Millionaire" and the blatant ad hominem and non sequitur attacks on Apple ("Apple has so far refused to comment on the case. Although it is currently being investigated by the authorities for price fixing with its iTunes service, so it probably has its hands full."), I don't know how anyone can take this article seriously.
If one can successfully pull away all the spin and red herrings, here are the facts:
- Cohen registered "itunes.co.uk" on Nov. 7, 2000. - Apple published the "iTunes" trademark in the Trade Marks Journal on Dec. 6, 2000, about a month later.
So Cohen had the site slightly before Apple trademarked the name. Seems like pretty coincidental timing. What did Cohen do with this site? He forwarded it to another online music site that he ran, with a totally different name. Why would he register a domain as obscure and nonsensical as "iTunes", but not go after the trademark itself, or market any products or services using the name? And how come the timing was so close?
It seems clear to me that Cohen knew what Apple was doing, and saw an opportunity to profit from Apple's marketing (by deceiving web surfers into accidentally stumbling onto his own service), or extorting money from Apple.
I hope this punk loses, and I wish the Register would grow a little backbone and show some objectivity.
Hey, as long as you're happy being in severe debt, that's cool. Don't need to justify it to me. Just be aware that you are a part of the problem, and why houses are so expensive, because "you can just finance it anyways!"
What solution would you propose? Honestly, what do you think people should do instead of signing a mortgage? Save up the $250,000 and buy the house flat-out? Move somewhere cheaper, where it may be harder for them to find a job in their field, or take them away from their family? Find a (non-existant) house in the $25,000 range instead?
How old are you? Where do you live presently? You clearly do not own your own home, and you have an obvious lack of understanding regarding the realities of home ownership and personal financial planning. For most people, their home is their best investment. For most people, if they didn't have a home/mortgage, they wouldn't have the discipline to have any savings at all. A home is a forced investment for many people, and pays off dearly in the end.
Heh, if you're already that far in debt that a few measly interest points matters, you're already fucked.
Are you really that ignorant? I'd really like to be there when you buy your first house! Say a house is $250,000. You make a $25,000 down payment, leaving you with a mortgage of $225,000. If your mortgage rate is 5.45%, then you'll pay roughly $12,000 in interest in the first year. If your rate is 3.00%, however, you'll pay $6,750 in interest in the first year, a savings of roughly $5,250. That's nothing to sneeze at, kid.
Go ahead let advertising rule you.
I didn't buy a house because "adversing told me to." I bought it because you've got to live somewhere, and it's a heck of a lot better investment than paying rent (i.e., throwing your money out the window).
You're a consumer and proud of it!
Uhm, sure, whatever. I bought a house because I like consuming things. I should smarten up, not buy a house, and instead live out my years in my parents' basement, like you, right?
the networks would have to go to a channel subscription model and nobody would like that.
Are you kidding me? I would like that! I'm so sick of the CRTC and the FCC mandating what channels I'm "allowed" to view, and cable companies forcing "bundles" down my throat. Gee, for $35 a month, I can get ABC, NBC, BET, MTV, the shopping network, the weather channel, LIFE, PRIDE, and a ton of other crap. Of those, I will watch NBC and ABC. But I'm forced to pay for the other crap that nobody ever watches, and would die if they weren't forced into a bundle with GOOD channels. Well, those channels should die. If the audience isn't big enough to support the cost of the channels, then they should die. That's capitalism. That's supply and demand. And it's being circumvented by this archaic "bundling" model.
I would be perfectly happy to pay $5 per channel for ad-free viewing, because there are only maybe 10 channels I care about. Currently, I pay about the same ($50/month), but I get 200 channels, with commercials, and I never ever watch the vast majority of those channels. I don't care if they go away. I don't care if they have to shut down because too many people like me jumped at the chance to dump them and pay extra for the ad-free good channels.
Sadly, it'll be a hot day in Nunavut before the CRTC allows us to pick and choose individual channels, without considering Canadian content rules or "bundling."
if you think that the little freebie papers that get thrown in peoples' driveways all over the U.S. could exist without advertising, you're wrong.
In truth, no publication can exist without advertising. Curiously, MAD magazine was the last vestige of ad-free, totally-subscription-supported media, and even they gave up a few years ago and started running ads.
There is no such thing as a magazine/newspaper you can subscribe to, ad-free. They ALL have ads. Advertising makes unviable (yet useful and interesting) products viable.
I'm not interested in any ads. If I need something, I'll buy it. If I don't, I don't need anyone trying to convince me I do.
What if something could help you, but you don't know it exists, and shun all advertising, so thus don't know about it? Perfect example: My mortgage interest rate was 5.45%. I heard an ad on the radio telling me that CIBC was offering 5 year variable-rate mortgages at half a point below prime, which at that time, was 3.25%. I spoke with a CIBC rep, my existing bank made a counter-offer, and CIBC offered me three-quarters of a point below prime. So my mortgage interest rate dropped from 5.45% to 3.00%. This will save me tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of my mortgage. I would not have know about it if I hadn't heard the ad.
GPS or Global Positioning System would definitely not have been created if not for space exploration. And the advent of having accurate positioning data available and the ability to navigate by satellite has generated huge advances in productivity.
A good effort, but I disagree. Ignoring the argument of whether GPS was a result of space exploration, or whether space exploration was driven by the vision of GPS, there's the outstanding question of how it has saved us money. How has GPS provided the boost in "productivity" you cite? While I agree it has made flying planes and docking ships easier, I don't see how it has saved anyone any money. Planes were navigating and boats were docking just fine long before GPS came along. It's made their jobs easier, and probably safer, but has it saved any money? Has it saved enough money to offset the multi-billion-dollar pricetag of GPS?
GPS was not created to meet a demand and make money. It is a military system that the government permits civilian systems to piggyback, to try and offset the huge cost of creating and maintaining the system. If it were not for the US military, GPS would not exist. I disagree that it's benefits generate enough revenue to make the system on the whole viable, but I concede that I don't have any numbers to back me up. If you can link to a report proving that the licensing fees from GPS have surpassed the initial cost, and actually generate a profit for someone, then I'll give you GPS as a valid counterargument to my original point.
That's just one.
Yes, that's my point. It's difficult to come up with even one, let alone several, because there are so few (indeed, I surmise that there are precisely zero) legitimate advances that were borne of space exploration and whose benefit surpasses the cost of their discovery.
But if you listen to older people talk about the moon landings, well, there's something worthwhile that I wouldn't mind being able to tell my grandkids about.
Nostalgia? You're holding up nostalgia as an argument defending the cost of space exploration? I asked for examples where the benefit to society is demonstrably greater than the cost of their discovery, specifically related to space exploration. "Nostalgia" is so obviously subjective and unquantifiable that I can't take this point seriously.
I re-assert my position that space exploration, while undeniably cool, is not cost effective, and that not a single invention has been produced by space exploration that is worth more than it cost to discover.
There are MANY reasons that we should colonize outer space.. From asteroids, diseases, war, terrorism, etc, etc. Its like the old eggs in the same basket saying.
Diseases, war, and terrorism will follow you to the next planet, or hook up with you there. Asteroids will be just as much a problem there as they are here (ever see a space photo of a planet that wasn't pocked with craters?), and it's a lot cheaper to develop tech to defend us from asteroids here than it would be to go to another planet, then need to come up with the same technology. Besides, here on Earth, we already have more than half of the "planet-killers" mapped, and they're not a threat. We should have them completely plotted in the next decade, and if any pose a risk, you can be sure that programs will be put in place to deal with them in time. A gentle nudge, 15 years before expected impact, would be more than enough to cause it to miss us by a huge margin.
And that's a lot cheaper than convoying it to another star system.
Space technology will repay itself in technological advance. Always has.
Really? Name one single invention that would not have been created without space exploration, and explain how it has generated or saved more money than the cost of the space exploration that led to its discovery.
The message to gamers: "We're making everything, similar and cheaper, and there will be little to no innovation. We will continue to charge you full price,"
Uh.... how is this any different from what's been happening over the past decade? What's to innovative about Halo 2 that wasn't already created in Halo 1, Quake 1, 2, 3, Doom, Duke Nukem, Battlefield 1942, Counterstrike, or any other FPS? Oh but that's right, there's that whole field of innovative sports games that all look the same (except the hockey net is replaced with an upright goal post, and the "ice" changes to a football field. Of course, we can't forget the wild innovation in Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, Diablo, Diablo 2, and Starcraft (again, which all look the same).
When's the last time a really new, refreshing model for a game came onto the scene? All gaming companies are already producing cookie-cutter, templated FPS games and sports variants. Innovation in game design ended long ago. Competition is fierce. There's no room for innovation if you want to be profitable. Last I heard there were only 2 gaming companies in the whole industry who were actually turning a profit (EA and Blizzard). Everyone else, if they have any prayer of making money, will just stick to the tried-and-true FPS template that's guaranteed to at least break even.
$30K is a nice amount to be earning for essentially doing nothing while the original investment builds into a nice inheritance for the offspring.
First of all, to heck with the "offspring," they can save up their own nest egg. If you hand them a multi-million dollar inheritance when you die, you teach them a horrible lesson about the value of money and condemn them to a life of materialism. Let them earn their own millions.
Secondly, while $30,000 is indeed a nice sum of money for "doing nothing," it is also just the right amount to continue "doing nothing," because you could not afford to do much else.
If you would have trouble living on $575 clear per week in this hypothetical scenario I'd suggest that you move somewhere more affordable
You're right that one should not have much trouble surviving off of $575/week, however I disagree that there would be much "living" going on. Keep in mind that we're talking about retirement here. People will have nothing but time on their hands. They'll want to golf, go on a cruise, take up woodworking, restore a classic car, help out grandkids with university costs, donate to charity, and a litany of other things. $575/week most certainly does not grant one the luxury of doing many of those things, after you pay for property taxes, groceries, utilities, and medical bills (which will no doubt be very hefty, keeping in mind that we are talking about our twilight years here).
As for moving someplace more "affordable," I doubt anyone will be satisfied with saving up their entire life to retire and live in an "affordable" retirement community in the middle of Butt-F*ck-Nowhere, Idaho for their remaining 20 years. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't know about you, but I'm going to want to live someplace warm and sunny, with lots to do, not some friggin' potato-farming state where property is cheap and the biggest recreational activity is the annual bake-off at the town rec center.
First of all, there are resonably rational arguments for legalizing heroin - the most important being that use only directly affects the person who chose to take it. Indirect results affect everyone, but you can only reasonably regulate certain activity.
The reason heroin and other hard drugs remain illegal in the face of arguments such as yours is that your argument would only hold true in a perfect world, in which everyone makes smart decisions. The sad reality is that there is a non-trivial segment of society that is incapable of making wise choices, and thus must be protected from themselves, and negative influences. This is a fundamental guiding principle of socialist (read: liberal/democratic) values.
Sure, we should be allowed to choose whether or not to use cocaine, and in a perfect society, we'd all recognize that we have too much to lose by getting ourselves hooked on crack/smack/E/whatever, and no one would ever use it. But it's that 0.05% of society that chooses wrong that is causing almost all the crime, virtually all the burglary, theft, and property damage, and quite a bit of the violence that our police have to deal with.
99% of us choose to use a few soft drugs responsibly, and we never have problems with the police. It's that 1% that aren't smart enough to act in their own best interests that are the reason the rest of us have to pay so much in taxes to fund the police forces, to keep them in check. It's sad, but it's true.
People, in general, aren't as smart as you give them credit for. The typical Slashdot demographic tends to have above-average intelligence, and thus, whether we realize it or not, tend to surround ourselves with people of comparable intellect. If you do this consistently enough, you begin to believe that everyone is capable of the same, rational decision making as yourself and your colleagues, but the truth is, there are a great many people out there who are not. There are a lot of people out there who, left to their own devices, will self-destruct, and will take your daughter, your Rolex, and your credit card with them.
But the GlobalFlyer is such a wonderful glider that it would be a challenge to descend fast enough to find breathable air."
Can you imagine the panic in trying to get a plane to go down fast enough that you can breathe but not so fast that you lose control. Glad that's not me then...
I'm a licensed glider pilot. There are a few tricks that can be used to lose altitude rapidly in a high-glide-ratio aircraft such as this. The simplest is plain-old spoilers. The SGS 2-32s we learned on had mechanically operated (i.e., no hydraulics. You just pull the lever, and the connecting rods cause the action) spoilers that popped out of the top and bottoms of the wings, spoiling the lift and causing a rapid loss in altitude. In our aircraft, these spoilers were only a foot or two long, but if necessary for emergency, I'm sure spoilers spanning most of the wing would cause an even more rapid loss in altitude.
The real "fun" way to lose altitude though was through what's called a "forward slip." This is also a good way to freak out your passengers.:) Basically, you roll the aircraft to one side, while applying opposite rudder. This causes the aircraft to remain heading straight forward, but at an awkward attitude such that the wings are not producing nearly as much lift as they would be in a straight-on attitude. It's kind of like leaning forward, rolling to the side, and pushing into the wind with your shoulder. If you do this, combined with full spoilers, you drop like a rock! Plus, it's pretty cool.
Finally, the problem with going too fast isn't "losing control." Rather, the opposite is true. The faster the air flows over the control surfaces, the more control you have. However, aircraft are engineered to have maximum speeds, above which they are not certified to operate. The speed is called the VNE, or "Never Exceed Velocity." The plane is not designed to be able to survive the extreme stresses on the control surfaces that will result from exceeding this speed, and you risk the plane being ripped apart.
Incidentally, that $2 million would most certainly not constitute "neverending investment income." First of all, he's going to pay almost half of it in income taxes, straight off the top. Figure he'll take home about $1.6 million that he'll actually get to keep.
Now, say he invests that $1.6 million in a stable investment vehicle. Unless he's feeling risky with his retirement, the best a "stable" investment vehicle will return is maybe 4-5%. Now, to keep up with inflation (roughly 2%), he'll have to leave in enough to compensate (otherwise his spending power will be decreasing every year, forever), which leaves him with, optimistically, 3% of $1.6 million to live off of every year. In the first year, that's only $48,000. Now, keep in mind that investment interest income is taxable, so he'll have to pay tax on that $48,000. Granted, at a much lower marginal rate than his original winnings, but that will still only leave him with say $30,000 to live off of for an entire year. Of course, that amount will increase a little each year, to keep up with inflation (since we left in 2% of our 5% annual gain to compensate), but the buying power will remain the same.
Could you live off of $30,000/year? Do you think that would make you "rich?"
Something to think about as you plan your retirement. Unless you've got a job that will give you a nice corporate pension, you'd better aim a lot higher than $1 million for retiring.
We need such fast networks so we can parcel the total bandwidth out amoung many consumers.
The existing network is more than adequate for that goal. You missed my point entirely.
Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along
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SCO.com Defaced
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· Score: 5, Funny
Defacing SCO's site doesn't do any damage to SCO, in fact the opposite because they can now cast "The Linux" community in a negative light.
It obviously was not a member of the Linux community, a fact which can be easily proven. The defaced image contains absolutely zero typos. Clearly, it was an inside job.
This is great and all, but has anyone stopped to ask why we need such fast networks? The stock-frenzy driven surplus of unneeded bandwidth was a major contributing factor to the dot-com bust. I remember when I was working on a multi-gigabit, next-generation optical switch, and the project manager was assuring us that in just a few years, people would be downloading their movies from Blockbuster instead of actually traveling there to pick up a DVD. We were all supposed to be videoconferencing left and right by now, with holographic communications just around the corner. A massive growth in online gaming was supposed to cripple the existing legacy networks, forcing providers to upgrade or perish. All of this was supposed to generate a huge demand for bandwidth, which were were poised to deliver.
Well, as we all know, that demand never materialized. We had way more bandwidth than the market needed, and when the bandwidth finally became stressed, providers opted to cap bandwidth and push less-intensive services rather than pay for expensive upgrades to their infrastructures.
I think we should instead be focusing on technologies that can a) generate real new revenue to the providers that we're trying to sell these ultra-fast networks to, b) have obvious and legitimate research or quality of life improvements, and c) are sure-fire hits to attract consumer attention (and $$$).
Don't get me wrong, this is very cool and all, but until Netflix actually lives up to its moniker and sends me my rented movies through my phone/cable line rather than UPS, then it doesn't really matter to me if the network is capable of 5 Gbps or 500 Gbps. Slashdot will still load in a second or 2 either way. We need real products to take advantage of this massive bandwidth, and that revenue will drive research even further, faster. I fear we're going to stall out unless we find a way to embrace these faster networks and make money off of them.
Yup, I'm a digital customer, because you have to be in order to get the PVR. I really like the way the PVR has changed the way my wife and I watch TV, but the current version is too buggy for me to consider paying the $700 to buy it outright.
Welcome to Japan. It's weird, but it's common to see women wearing skirts (sometimes while outdoors) even during the winter - especially where I am where we get craploads of snow.
Isn't it also the country where you can walk down the street and see a vendor with his table set up on the sidewalk, selling ziplock baggies containing a pair of panties, and a photo of a Japanese girl wearing (usually just) those very same panties?
Slashdot Mirror
Would not it be better to change the application, so the startup sequence will be very short and the application will be immediately useable?
A very warm, fuzzy suggestion that will get you an 'A' when you provide it to your teacher. However, in the real world, any non-trivial app is going to take at least a couple of seconds to launch. So to take you up on your suggestion, they'd have to strip features from the GIMP.
Another classic example of the sharp disparity between the academic world, and the real world.
Lazy initialization can only buy you so much. If the underlying engine itself is non-trivial (which in the case of the GIMP, it would be), then you'll still experience a couple seconds of delay in loading. Keep in mind that users need immediate feedback, or they'll double-click the icon again. Unless you can spring up your MDI, with menus and windows initialized (even if no actual plugins are loaded) within half a second of launch, then your suggestion is impractical.
It is possible to have a small, efficient splash screen. One with no image
Are you really claiming that loading a 100 kb image from a modern hard disk produces a noticeable delay? Surely you realize that such an image could be loaded and displayed in literally microseconds. That said, I wholeheartedly agree with you about Adobe. I loathe launching Photoshop on Windows. Every couple of seconds, the splash screen steals focus back from whatever else it is I'm trying to do until Photoshop has finished loading (at least 5 - 10 seconds). It's annoying as hell.
Why does my computer keep going to gay porn sites now that I hooked up this brain control device? I'm not gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Cohen legally owns the site, there is no way for Apple to legally take over the site unless cohen agrees to sell.
You're wrong. If it can be proven that Apple registered the trademark before Cohen registered the domain, then it is an open and shut case of cybersquatting, and the domain must be surrendered to Apple.
Consider what the logical resolution would be if a new company sprouted up and registered their trademark as "Claria", but didn't get around to registered the domain name until a week later, only to discover that I had registered it 3 days after they registered their trademark. Now, would you say "You own the website, there's nothing they can do?" Of course not, that's stupid. If a company obtains a trademark, then they get dibs on the domain name too, especially when it is a non-real word that they've coined and thus, the domain registrant could have no possible other legitimate interest in the domain.
I do not condone it, I believe that you need to be forced to waste 4 years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars just like I did so you can gain that piece of paper that really does not way [sic] anything about your abilities.
I disagree that getting a degree does not "way" ("say"?) anything about a person's abilities. It says they are capable of learning. It says they can get the work done when needed. It says they can perform under pressure. It says they are dedicated, committed, and organized.
Of course, depending on the degree, not all of these attributes will be guaranteed in high doses, but a lazy idiot with poor work ethic is not capable of getting a BSc. from an accredited university.
This is one of the most unabashadly biased and slanted articles I've ever read from the Register. Between the misplaced blind support of the self-described snot-nosed teen "Dotcom Millionaire" and the blatant ad hominem and non sequitur attacks on Apple ("Apple has so far refused to comment on the case. Although it is currently being investigated by the authorities for price fixing with its iTunes service, so it probably has its hands full."), I don't know how anyone can take this article seriously.
If one can successfully pull away all the spin and red herrings, here are the facts:
- Cohen registered "itunes.co.uk" on Nov. 7, 2000.
- Apple published the "iTunes" trademark in the Trade Marks Journal on Dec. 6, 2000, about a month later.
So Cohen had the site slightly before Apple trademarked the name. Seems like pretty coincidental timing. What did Cohen do with this site? He forwarded it to another online music site that he ran, with a totally different name. Why would he register a domain as obscure and nonsensical as "iTunes", but not go after the trademark itself, or market any products or services using the name? And how come the timing was so close?
It seems clear to me that Cohen knew what Apple was doing, and saw an opportunity to profit from Apple's marketing (by deceiving web surfers into accidentally stumbling onto his own service), or extorting money from Apple.
I hope this punk loses, and I wish the Register would grow a little backbone and show some objectivity.
Hey, as long as you're happy being in severe debt, that's cool. Don't need to justify it to me. Just be aware that you are a part of the problem, and why houses are so expensive, because "you can just finance it anyways!"
What solution would you propose? Honestly, what do you think people should do instead of signing a mortgage? Save up the $250,000 and buy the house flat-out? Move somewhere cheaper, where it may be harder for them to find a job in their field, or take them away from their family? Find a (non-existant) house in the $25,000 range instead?
How old are you? Where do you live presently? You clearly do not own your own home, and you have an obvious lack of understanding regarding the realities of home ownership and personal financial planning. For most people, their home is their best investment. For most people, if they didn't have a home/mortgage, they wouldn't have the discipline to have any savings at all. A home is a forced investment for many people, and pays off dearly in the end.
Heh, if you're already that far in debt that a few measly interest points matters, you're already fucked.
Are you really that ignorant? I'd really like to be there when you buy your first house! Say a house is $250,000. You make a $25,000 down payment, leaving you with a mortgage of $225,000. If your mortgage rate is 5.45%, then you'll pay roughly $12,000 in interest in the first year. If your rate is 3.00%, however, you'll pay $6,750 in interest in the first year, a savings of roughly $5,250. That's nothing to sneeze at, kid.
Go ahead let advertising rule you.
I didn't buy a house because "adversing told me to." I bought it because you've got to live somewhere, and it's a heck of a lot better investment than paying rent (i.e., throwing your money out the window).
You're a consumer and proud of it!
Uhm, sure, whatever. I bought a house because I like consuming things. I should smarten up, not buy a house, and instead live out my years in my parents' basement, like you, right?
the networks would have to go to a channel subscription model and nobody would like that.
Are you kidding me? I would like that! I'm so sick of the CRTC and the FCC mandating what channels I'm "allowed" to view, and cable companies forcing "bundles" down my throat. Gee, for $35 a month, I can get ABC, NBC, BET, MTV, the shopping network, the weather channel, LIFE, PRIDE, and a ton of other crap. Of those, I will watch NBC and ABC. But I'm forced to pay for the other crap that nobody ever watches, and would die if they weren't forced into a bundle with GOOD channels. Well, those channels should die. If the audience isn't big enough to support the cost of the channels, then they should die. That's capitalism. That's supply and demand. And it's being circumvented by this archaic "bundling" model.
I would be perfectly happy to pay $5 per channel for ad-free viewing, because there are only maybe 10 channels I care about. Currently, I pay about the same ($50/month), but I get 200 channels, with commercials, and I never ever watch the vast majority of those channels. I don't care if they go away. I don't care if they have to shut down because too many people like me jumped at the chance to dump them and pay extra for the ad-free good channels.
Sadly, it'll be a hot day in Nunavut before the CRTC allows us to pick and choose individual channels, without considering Canadian content rules or "bundling."
if you think that the little freebie papers that get thrown in peoples' driveways all over the U.S. could exist without advertising, you're wrong.
In truth, no publication can exist without advertising. Curiously, MAD magazine was the last vestige of ad-free, totally-subscription-supported media, and even they gave up a few years ago and started running ads.
There is no such thing as a magazine/newspaper you can subscribe to, ad-free. They ALL have ads. Advertising makes unviable (yet useful and interesting) products viable.
I'm not interested in any ads. If I need something, I'll buy it. If I don't, I don't need anyone trying to convince me I do.
What if something could help you, but you don't know it exists, and shun all advertising, so thus don't know about it? Perfect example: My mortgage interest rate was 5.45%. I heard an ad on the radio telling me that CIBC was offering 5 year variable-rate mortgages at half a point below prime, which at that time, was 3.25%. I spoke with a CIBC rep, my existing bank made a counter-offer, and CIBC offered me three-quarters of a point below prime. So my mortgage interest rate dropped from 5.45% to 3.00%. This will save me tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of my mortgage. I would not have know about it if I hadn't heard the ad.
GPS or Global Positioning System would definitely not have been created if not for space exploration. And the advent of having accurate positioning data available and the ability to navigate by satellite has generated huge advances in productivity.
A good effort, but I disagree. Ignoring the argument of whether GPS was a result of space exploration, or whether space exploration was driven by the vision of GPS, there's the outstanding question of how it has saved us money. How has GPS provided the boost in "productivity" you cite? While I agree it has made flying planes and docking ships easier , I don't see how it has saved anyone any money. Planes were navigating and boats were docking just fine long before GPS came along. It's made their jobs easier, and probably safer, but has it saved any money? Has it saved enough money to offset the multi-billion-dollar pricetag of GPS?
GPS was not created to meet a demand and make money. It is a military system that the government permits civilian systems to piggyback, to try and offset the huge cost of creating and maintaining the system. If it were not for the US military, GPS would not exist. I disagree that it's benefits generate enough revenue to make the system on the whole viable, but I concede that I don't have any numbers to back me up. If you can link to a report proving that the licensing fees from GPS have surpassed the initial cost, and actually generate a profit for someone, then I'll give you GPS as a valid counterargument to my original point.
That's just one.
Yes, that's my point. It's difficult to come up with even one, let alone several, because there are so few (indeed, I surmise that there are precisely zero) legitimate advances that were borne of space exploration and whose benefit surpasses the cost of their discovery.
But if you listen to older people talk about the moon landings, well, there's something worthwhile that I wouldn't mind being able to tell my grandkids about.
Nostalgia? You're holding up nostalgia as an argument defending the cost of space exploration? I asked for examples where the benefit to society is demonstrably greater than the cost of their discovery, specifically related to space exploration. "Nostalgia" is so obviously subjective and unquantifiable that I can't take this point seriously.
I re-assert my position that space exploration, while undeniably cool, is not cost effective, and that not a single invention has been produced by space exploration that is worth more than it cost to discover.
There are MANY reasons that we should colonize outer space.. From asteroids, diseases, war, terrorism, etc, etc. Its like the old eggs in the same basket saying.
Diseases, war, and terrorism will follow you to the next planet, or hook up with you there. Asteroids will be just as much a problem there as they are here (ever see a space photo of a planet that wasn't pocked with craters?), and it's a lot cheaper to develop tech to defend us from asteroids here than it would be to go to another planet, then need to come up with the same technology. Besides, here on Earth, we already have more than half of the "planet-killers" mapped, and they're not a threat. We should have them completely plotted in the next decade, and if any pose a risk, you can be sure that programs will be put in place to deal with them in time. A gentle nudge, 15 years before expected impact, would be more than enough to cause it to miss us by a huge margin.
And that's a lot cheaper than convoying it to another star system.
Space technology will repay itself in technological advance. Always has.
Really? Name one single invention that would not have been created without space exploration, and explain how it has generated or saved more money than the cost of the space exploration that led to its discovery.
The message to gamers: "We're making everything, similar and cheaper, and there will be little to no innovation. We will continue to charge you full price,"
Uh.... how is this any different from what's been happening over the past decade? What's to innovative about Halo 2 that wasn't already created in Halo 1, Quake 1, 2, 3, Doom, Duke Nukem, Battlefield 1942, Counterstrike, or any other FPS? Oh but that's right, there's that whole field of innovative sports games that all look the same (except the hockey net is replaced with an upright goal post, and the "ice" changes to a football field. Of course, we can't forget the wild innovation in Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, Diablo, Diablo 2, and Starcraft (again, which all look the same).
When's the last time a really new, refreshing model for a game came onto the scene? All gaming companies are already producing cookie-cutter, templated FPS games and sports variants. Innovation in game design ended long ago. Competition is fierce. There's no room for innovation if you want to be profitable. Last I heard there were only 2 gaming companies in the whole industry who were actually turning a profit (EA and Blizzard). Everyone else, if they have any prayer of making money, will just stick to the tried-and-true FPS template that's guaranteed to at least break even.
$30K is a nice amount to be earning for essentially doing nothing while the original investment builds into a nice inheritance for the offspring.
First of all, to heck with the "offspring," they can save up their own nest egg. If you hand them a multi-million dollar inheritance when you die, you teach them a horrible lesson about the value of money and condemn them to a life of materialism. Let them earn their own millions.
Secondly, while $30,000 is indeed a nice sum of money for "doing nothing," it is also just the right amount to continue "doing nothing," because you could not afford to do much else.
If you would have trouble living on $575 clear per week in this hypothetical scenario I'd suggest that you move somewhere more affordable
You're right that one should not have much trouble surviving off of $575/week, however I disagree that there would be much "living" going on. Keep in mind that we're talking about retirement here. People will have nothing but time on their hands. They'll want to golf, go on a cruise, take up woodworking, restore a classic car, help out grandkids with university costs, donate to charity, and a litany of other things. $575/week most certainly does not grant one the luxury of doing many of those things, after you pay for property taxes, groceries, utilities, and medical bills (which will no doubt be very hefty, keeping in mind that we are talking about our twilight years here).
As for moving someplace more "affordable," I doubt anyone will be satisfied with saving up their entire life to retire and live in an "affordable" retirement community in the middle of Butt-F*ck-Nowhere, Idaho for their remaining 20 years. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't know about you, but I'm going to want to live someplace warm and sunny, with lots to do, not some friggin' potato-farming state where property is cheap and the biggest recreational activity is the annual bake-off at the town rec center.
First of all, there are resonably rational arguments for legalizing heroin - the most important being that use only directly affects the person who chose to take it. Indirect results affect everyone, but you can only reasonably regulate certain activity.
The reason heroin and other hard drugs remain illegal in the face of arguments such as yours is that your argument would only hold true in a perfect world, in which everyone makes smart decisions. The sad reality is that there is a non-trivial segment of society that is incapable of making wise choices, and thus must be protected from themselves, and negative influences. This is a fundamental guiding principle of socialist (read: liberal/democratic) values.
Sure, we should be allowed to choose whether or not to use cocaine, and in a perfect society, we'd all recognize that we have too much to lose by getting ourselves hooked on crack/smack/E/whatever, and no one would ever use it. But it's that 0.05% of society that chooses wrong that is causing almost all the crime, virtually all the burglary, theft, and property damage, and quite a bit of the violence that our police have to deal with.
99% of us choose to use a few soft drugs responsibly, and we never have problems with the police. It's that 1% that aren't smart enough to act in their own best interests that are the reason the rest of us have to pay so much in taxes to fund the police forces, to keep them in check. It's sad, but it's true.
People, in general, aren't as smart as you give them credit for. The typical Slashdot demographic tends to have above-average intelligence, and thus, whether we realize it or not, tend to surround ourselves with people of comparable intellect. If you do this consistently enough, you begin to believe that everyone is capable of the same, rational decision making as yourself and your colleagues, but the truth is, there are a great many people out there who are not. There are a lot of people out there who, left to their own devices, will self-destruct, and will take your daughter, your Rolex, and your credit card with them.
But the GlobalFlyer is such a wonderful glider that it would be a challenge to descend fast enough to find breathable air."
:) Basically, you roll the aircraft to one side, while applying opposite rudder. This causes the aircraft to remain heading straight forward, but at an awkward attitude such that the wings are not producing nearly as much lift as they would be in a straight-on attitude. It's kind of like leaning forward, rolling to the side, and pushing into the wind with your shoulder. If you do this, combined with full spoilers, you drop like a rock! Plus, it's pretty cool.
Can you imagine the panic in trying to get a plane to go down fast enough that you can breathe but not so fast that you lose control. Glad that's not me then...
I'm a licensed glider pilot. There are a few tricks that can be used to lose altitude rapidly in a high-glide-ratio aircraft such as this. The simplest is plain-old spoilers. The SGS 2-32s we learned on had mechanically operated (i.e., no hydraulics. You just pull the lever, and the connecting rods cause the action) spoilers that popped out of the top and bottoms of the wings, spoiling the lift and causing a rapid loss in altitude. In our aircraft, these spoilers were only a foot or two long, but if necessary for emergency, I'm sure spoilers spanning most of the wing would cause an even more rapid loss in altitude.
The real "fun" way to lose altitude though was through what's called a "forward slip." This is also a good way to freak out your passengers.
Finally, the problem with going too fast isn't "losing control." Rather, the opposite is true. The faster the air flows over the control surfaces, the more control you have. However, aircraft are engineered to have maximum speeds, above which they are not certified to operate. The speed is called the VNE, or "Never Exceed Velocity." The plane is not designed to be able to survive the extreme stresses on the control surfaces that will result from exceeding this speed, and you risk the plane being ripped apart.
Why use so many extra lines?
copyright_bit!=0 ? return song_name : return COPYRIGHT_ERROR
Yours is still not optimal, and I don't know of any language in which yours would be legal, compileable syntax. I think what you were going for was:
return copyright_bit ? song_name : COPYRIGHT_ERROR;
2MM for neverending investment income.
Incidentally, that $2 million would most certainly not constitute "neverending investment income." First of all, he's going to pay almost half of it in income taxes, straight off the top. Figure he'll take home about $1.6 million that he'll actually get to keep.
Now, say he invests that $1.6 million in a stable investment vehicle. Unless he's feeling risky with his retirement, the best a "stable" investment vehicle will return is maybe 4-5%. Now, to keep up with inflation (roughly 2%), he'll have to leave in enough to compensate (otherwise his spending power will be decreasing every year, forever), which leaves him with, optimistically, 3% of $1.6 million to live off of every year. In the first year, that's only $48,000. Now, keep in mind that investment interest income is taxable, so he'll have to pay tax on that $48,000. Granted, at a much lower marginal rate than his original winnings, but that will still only leave him with say $30,000 to live off of for an entire year. Of course, that amount will increase a little each year, to keep up with inflation (since we left in 2% of our 5% annual gain to compensate), but the buying power will remain the same.
Could you live off of $30,000/year? Do you think that would make you "rich?"
Something to think about as you plan your retirement. Unless you've got a job that will give you a nice corporate pension, you'd better aim a lot higher than $1 million for retiring.
We need such fast networks so we can parcel the total bandwidth out amoung many consumers.
The existing network is more than adequate for that goal. You missed my point entirely.
Defacing SCO's site doesn't do any damage to SCO, in fact the opposite because they can now cast "The Linux" community in a negative light.
It obviously was not a member of the Linux community, a fact which can be easily proven. The defaced image contains absolutely zero typos. Clearly, it was an inside job.
This is great and all, but has anyone stopped to ask why we need such fast networks? The stock-frenzy driven surplus of unneeded bandwidth was a major contributing factor to the dot-com bust. I remember when I was working on a multi-gigabit, next-generation optical switch, and the project manager was assuring us that in just a few years, people would be downloading their movies from Blockbuster instead of actually traveling there to pick up a DVD. We were all supposed to be videoconferencing left and right by now, with holographic communications just around the corner. A massive growth in online gaming was supposed to cripple the existing legacy networks, forcing providers to upgrade or perish. All of this was supposed to generate a huge demand for bandwidth, which were were poised to deliver.
Well, as we all know, that demand never materialized. We had way more bandwidth than the market needed, and when the bandwidth finally became stressed, providers opted to cap bandwidth and push less-intensive services rather than pay for expensive upgrades to their infrastructures.
I think we should instead be focusing on technologies that can a) generate real new revenue to the providers that we're trying to sell these ultra-fast networks to, b) have obvious and legitimate research or quality of life improvements, and c) are sure-fire hits to attract consumer attention (and $$$).
Don't get me wrong, this is very cool and all, but until Netflix actually lives up to its moniker and sends me my rented movies through my phone/cable line rather than UPS, then it doesn't really matter to me if the network is capable of 5 Gbps or 500 Gbps. Slashdot will still load in a second or 2 either way. We need real products to take advantage of this massive bandwidth, and that revenue will drive research even further, faster. I fear we're going to stall out unless we find a way to embrace these faster networks and make money off of them.
Yup, I'm a digital customer, because you have to be in order to get the PVR. I really like the way the PVR has changed the way my wife and I watch TV, but the current version is too buggy for me to consider paying the $700 to buy it outright.
Welcome to Japan. It's weird, but it's common to see women wearing skirts (sometimes while outdoors) even during the winter - especially where I am where we get craploads of snow.
Isn't it also the country where you can walk down the street and see a vendor with his table set up on the sidewalk, selling ziplock baggies containing a pair of panties, and a photo of a Japanese girl wearing (usually just) those very same panties?
Creepy.