Agreed. Whenever I have had AT&T service, the level thereof was so bad and frustrating that, to me, their brand is TOXIC. I will not buy into anything with the name AT&T on it.
This whole argument is pathetic. A panel of experts, including Doctors, determined that contraceptive should be part of a rational medical insurance plan. How is possible for a religious order to override that, stating, basically - we believe this is not the case, so we would like to ignore the law and the experts in favor of our belief? Separation of church and state? This is pretty much the exact opposite of that. Apparently we, the USA, are indeed a religious, not rational, country. The forefathers are rolling in their graves.. Insurance isn't a statement of faith - it is a product with stated basic requirements - an employer either offers a package that lives up to these or it should not offer insurance at all (and pay for its employees to use the ACA!) Disappointed but not particularly surprised..
Most of the time, my RP, coupled with a 8-Relay board ($20 on ebay,) reports (via SMS) whenever any of my house doors are opened or closed, as well the garage door. Further, it has a web server with a small app that allows me to raise/lower the garage door. A picture of the board I constructed can be seen at http://www.blacksteel.com/pics/RP.jpg - the board has since been re-arranged a bit to give me better access to the HDMI port. The software is pretty minimal - a shell script to handle periodic polling of the various magnetic reed switches on the doors, it also keeps track of all changes in a mysql database. A php script to handle opening/closing the garage door (and animating the process in an image using data from the switches!) Also, whenever I have a movie that can't be played back by my old but still working Apple TV 1 running XBMC, I use OpenElec XBMC on my RP - it's not the most responsive XBCM in the world, but it plays back high resolution MKV's whereas the ATV1 can't keep up. All in all, it's an amazing board and I have other plans for it, grin. I likely will get another one or two at some point.
A complex and fun novel with a main theme revolving around this exact question. Stop reading here to avoid spoilers..
Travel in body between star systems is not cost effective or appealing. BUT, what if you could upload your mind into a small holographic computer powered by ambient light and be shot across space towards a planet in another solar system. When there is less ambient light, processing speed and passage of time simply slows down - but the capsule continues on it's trajectory. When it gets near another star, more ambient light speeds up processing and time. Such a computer would be capsule shaped and not very large (a few feet long, less than a foot wide.) These capsules carry not one, but MANY sentient beings, from many races. What if you could create a whole lot of these capsules and send them in every direction. Many will never make it anywhere, or if they do, there may be little to nothing to see there, but a few will make it someplace interesting (specifically in the story, Earth.) In the book, these capsules have been arriving on Earth for many thousands of years, maybe many more, but humanity has never caught on to what they are till now (now being the near future.)
There is so much more to the book, of course, and most of it is interesting and fun. The main plot, though, is well handled and suggests a reasonable technological and science based solution to star travel.
Our Cell industry IS largely unregulated - we think of the FCC as performing that function - but compared to most other Western countries, they aren't doing much. Same as ISPs (which, in fact, overlap the Cell industry quite a bit.) Lobbying (and the results it produces) are a capitalist idea, and they result in bad or no regulation..
And get the same answer. Both technologies are great examples of the FAILURE OF CAPITALISM in an unregulated and greed driven free market system. I don't expect this will change till after the singularity..
Sure they will. Call and ask for global-access or something like that. Assuming you've had the phone for more than 60 days, they will unlock it and you can use a SIM card in it to get GSM/3G access when outside the US - simple and easy. They do "claim" that you can't use the SIM card while in the US - that Verizon CDMA will take preference - this may be true - I didn't test it. I sounds like the iPnone5 doesn't have that (potential) limitation. I think the unlock is permanent, or mostly so, since when I upgraded my iPhone4S to IOS6, the first message to pop up on iTunes was 'congratulations, your phone is unlocked now.'
Radio Spectrum starts out as public property - selling it, a limited resource, with unknown but extensive economic effects in the future, is a bad idea. I strongly believe we should nationalize radio spectrum and lease it out, for limited periods (a dozen years? two dozen, tops.) to companies to use as part of their product.. Given how fast technology moves, and how useful (in unknowable ways) Radio Spectrum will be in the future, we are selling away our birthright..
Rather that move things around, how about use "union" filesystem to present an optional different view of things. Heck, you could use chroot and union fs to create a completely different singular view of the same file system to different users..
Seriously? A weaponized UAV, for the police? Are they insane? Not my problem, for now, since I don't go to Texas.. Ever. It's a dangerous place where the population is drunk and armed and the cops practice more lawlessness than otherwise. Also it's a state that still murders people (Death "penalty".) Nothing good can or will come of this, for a fact.
Man, this is starting to sound more and more like the local parking enforcement and red-light camera issued tickets! Guilty without need to present evidence and little to no contesting rights. Next thing you know, the studios will have enforcement troops.
Maybe it's just me, but I think Kootol's logo looks very similar to Gooogl's logo! http://www.kootol.com/Images/Kootol_Logo.png http://www.google.com/images/logos/ssl_ps_logo.png
For a number of years, as a Netflix customer, I've been watching and thus receiving less and less DVDs a month. Two years ago I cut back to one-at-a-time. Streaming was free. Then the price went up for $2 (apparently, history being re-written, that hike was for the one-at-a-time dvd plan, the cost of the original one-at-a-time dvd plan being directed towards a streaming plan!) $10/mo still felt like a soft cost, I could absorb it, I did. Now it's going up to $16/mo. I like getting a dvd now and then, rarely, maybe 1-2 a month. I stream a movie about as often. I can live without both of those. I'll get my DVDs at the corner store or on demand and live without old movies. Netflix, a company I once thought of as great, is now just another company trying to get as much out of me as they can. Well, the pushed a bit too hard. They now get ZERO out of me and I hold grudges. Netflix: Don't expect me to return to you anytime soon EVEN if you improve your cost structure. It will cost you all the money you lose from me in the meanwhile AND the cost of re-acquiring me as a customer - buying my loyalty back, should you choose to, to get me back.
There is no safe level of radiation - there are simply levels that don't significantly increase risk. It may well be discovered that hanging out by XRay sources isn't as un-bad for your health as previously assumed (perhaps due to not actually testing..) I'm so glad my tax dollars paid for all this tech and will now pay all the large sums that will get awarded in the inevitable law suits.. Yay.
From what I recall of reading about this a year+ ago, the same tech would allow for mathematically changing focus, zoom, pan, tilt in real time on the signal from the camera or post-fact on a recording of the same signal. So, basically, a flat non-moving sensor can now emulate a PZT camera. I can imagine that with a spherical lens or one of those weird mirrors that lets a regular camera catch a 360 image, it should be possible to make a near holocam. Imagine a movie shot like this and glasses that allow you to focus on different depths at will (maybe by watching your eyes?) it would be a "real" 3d experience, none of that fuzzy background you get on stereo 3d movies.
So, knowing better than to waste my time, I called AT&T today and, as expected, "Apple still doesn't allow us to unlock iPhones." Anyone have a clue if this policy is ever going away?
I stopped consuming music years ago. I am happy with the hundreds of hours of music I already own and generally find little new music I like. I get my new music fix from the radio, pandora, and the like. The only music I actually acquire are the free weekly downloads from itunes. I stopped primarily due to DRM and crazy ass licensing. Less DRM now, but my new habits around this are established. Our copyright/IP system is entirely broken and getting more so every day. Something has to break, I am sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what goes first - the last of our civil liberties, or the insane system we have built.
If by 'Meredith's executive branch and business experience along with her exceptional relationships in Washington bring Comcast and NBCUniversal the perfect combination of skills.' they mean that she accepts bribes, er, a job offer from the people she JUST granted a favor to, then, YES.
STOP BUYING THEIR MUSIC (and don't pirate it.) Sooner or later they will die away like any meme that has become bad. Who knows, maybe the govt will force us to shop with them, grin, but I doubt it - even forcing us to buy something useful, like medical insurance, is meeting incredible resistance.
One big reason the american cell system is inherently more difficult is that it has (currently) two different radio standards and two spectrums in each standard. Meaning we (consumers) can make use of somewhere between a quarter and a half of the installed towers depending on our provider. Basic mathematics dictate that all other things equal, it is not possible for Americans to get the same level of service in this case for less than 2x+ the cost (not profit) in Europe.. Perhaps, some day, phones will be made that can switch and roam on any tower available. That day is NOT today. I've said for years that the state of the American cell network is one of the most glaring examples of utter failure of the capitalist free markets system.. Little to no government regulation around cell radio standards results in competition that, ultimately, only HURTS consumer choices in the US. Lets compare this to the electrical system in the US. It's highly regulated and has fixed profitability (at least in my state of California) imposed by the PUC. All this regulation doesn't seem to keep PG&G from making a living and occasionally spending it unwisely (e.g. arguably illegally trying to pass a state proposition 2-3 elections ago enshrining it as a monopoly!) That said, our electrical system is entirely functional by comparison. Customer service is pretty good as well (again, in my state.)
.. and with "all" those regulations (far less than in Europe) the quality of the product (cell phone network) is still pathetic compared to Europe and what it could be. tell me how unlimited profitability and limited regulatio in wireless services makes us a better market..
Too much profit (while I can't define what that is, I can say that much like obscenity, I know it when I see it) is bad. When the number of players drops - and depending on how you view this merger, the number has just dropped to one (GSM world phone ISP), each has less incentive to compete - 40bil profit indicates they are charging us a high premium on their costs - meaning our prices are higher than they could be. Now that they are about to become a monopoly, in our very unregulated country, this can only get worse. Oh, I suppose the government can step in and regulate them better - but recent history indicates this is less and less likely to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrHMBletjXg
Agreed. Whenever I have had AT&T service, the level thereof was so bad and frustrating that, to me, their brand is TOXIC. I will not buy into anything with the name AT&T on it.
This whole argument is pathetic. A panel of experts, including Doctors, determined that contraceptive should be part of a rational medical insurance plan. How is possible for a religious order to override that, stating, basically - we believe this is not the case, so we would like to ignore the law and the experts in favor of our belief? Separation of church and state? This is pretty much the exact opposite of that. Apparently we, the USA, are indeed a religious, not rational, country. The forefathers are rolling in their graves..
Insurance isn't a statement of faith - it is a product with stated basic requirements - an employer either offers a package that lives up to these or it should not offer insurance at all (and pay for its employees to use the ACA!)
Disappointed but not particularly surprised..
Most of the time, my RP, coupled with a 8-Relay board ($20 on ebay,) reports (via SMS) whenever any of my house doors are opened or closed, as well the garage door. Further, it has a web server with a small app that allows me to raise/lower the garage door.
A picture of the board I constructed can be seen at http://www.blacksteel.com/pics/RP.jpg - the board has since been re-arranged a bit to give me better access to the HDMI port. The software is pretty minimal - a shell script to handle periodic polling of the various magnetic reed switches on the doors, it also keeps track of all changes in a mysql database. A php script to handle opening/closing the garage door (and animating the process in an image using data from the switches!)
Also, whenever I have a movie that can't be played back by my old but still working Apple TV 1 running XBMC, I use OpenElec XBMC on my RP - it's not the most responsive XBCM in the world, but it plays back high resolution MKV's whereas the ATV1 can't keep up.
All in all, it's an amazing board and I have other plans for it, grin. I likely will get another one or two at some point.
A complex and fun novel with a main theme revolving around this exact question. Stop reading here to avoid spoilers..
Travel in body between star systems is not cost effective or appealing. BUT, what if you could upload your mind into a small holographic computer powered by ambient light and be shot across space towards a planet in another solar system. When there is less ambient light, processing speed and passage of time simply slows down - but the capsule continues on it's trajectory. When it gets near another star, more ambient light speeds up processing and time. Such a computer would be capsule shaped and not very large (a few feet long, less than a foot wide.) These capsules carry not one, but MANY sentient beings, from many races. What if you could create a whole lot of these capsules and send them in every direction. Many will never make it anywhere, or if they do, there may be little to nothing to see there, but a few will make it someplace interesting (specifically in the story, Earth.) In the book, these capsules have been arriving on Earth for many thousands of years, maybe many more, but humanity has never caught on to what they are till now (now being the near future.)
There is so much more to the book, of course, and most of it is interesting and fun. The main plot, though, is well handled and suggests a reasonable technological and science based solution to star travel.
One of the greatest SciFi villains of all time deserves a great actress (assuming no reboot sex change :) don't'cha think?
Our Cell industry IS largely unregulated - we think of the FCC as performing that function - but compared to most other Western countries, they aren't doing much. Same as ISPs (which, in fact, overlap the Cell industry quite a bit.)
Lobbying (and the results it produces) are a capitalist idea, and they result in bad or no regulation..
And get the same answer. Both technologies are great examples of the FAILURE OF CAPITALISM in an unregulated and greed driven free market system.
I don't expect this will change till after the singularity..
Sure they will. Call and ask for global-access or something like that. Assuming you've had the phone for more than 60 days, they will unlock it and you can use a SIM card in it to get GSM/3G access when outside the US - simple and easy. They do "claim" that you can't use the SIM card while in the US - that Verizon CDMA will take preference - this may be true - I didn't test it. I sounds like the iPnone5 doesn't have that (potential) limitation. I think the unlock is permanent, or mostly so, since when I upgraded my iPhone4S to IOS6, the first message to pop up on iTunes was 'congratulations, your phone is unlocked now.'
Radio Spectrum starts out as public property - selling it, a limited resource, with unknown but extensive economic effects in the future, is a bad idea. I strongly believe we should nationalize radio spectrum and lease it out, for limited periods (a dozen years? two dozen, tops.) to companies to use as part of their product.. Given how fast technology moves, and how useful (in unknowable ways) Radio Spectrum will be in the future, we are selling away our birthright..
Rather that move things around, how about use "union" filesystem to present an optional different view of things. Heck, you could use chroot and union fs to create a completely different singular view of the same file system to different users..
Seriously? A weaponized UAV, for the police? Are they insane? Not my problem, for now, since I don't go to Texas .. Ever. It's a dangerous place where the population is drunk and armed and the cops practice more lawlessness than otherwise. Also it's a state that still murders people (Death "penalty".)
Nothing good can or will come of this, for a fact.
Man, this is starting to sound more and more like the local parking enforcement and red-light camera issued tickets! Guilty without need to present evidence and little to no contesting rights. Next thing you know, the studios will have enforcement troops.
Maybe it's just me, but I think Kootol's logo looks very similar to Gooogl's logo!
http://www.kootol.com/Images/Kootol_Logo.png
http://www.google.com/images/logos/ssl_ps_logo.png
For a number of years, as a Netflix customer, I've been watching and thus receiving less and less DVDs a month. Two years ago I cut back to one-at-a-time. Streaming was free. Then the price went up for $2 (apparently, history being re-written, that hike was for the one-at-a-time dvd plan, the cost of the original one-at-a-time dvd plan being directed towards a streaming plan!) $10/mo still felt like a soft cost, I could absorb it, I did. Now it's going up to $16/mo. I like getting a dvd now and then, rarely, maybe 1-2 a month. I stream a movie about as often. I can live without both of those. I'll get my DVDs at the corner store or on demand and live without old movies. Netflix, a company I once thought of as great, is now just another company trying to get as much out of me as they can. Well, the pushed a bit too hard. They now get ZERO out of me and I hold grudges. Netflix: Don't expect me to return to you anytime soon EVEN if you improve your cost structure. It will cost you all the money you lose from me in the meanwhile AND the cost of re-acquiring me as a customer - buying my loyalty back, should you choose to, to get me back.
There is no safe level of radiation - there are simply levels that don't significantly increase risk. It may well be discovered that hanging out by XRay sources isn't as un-bad for your health as previously assumed (perhaps due to not actually testing..) I'm so glad my tax dollars paid for all this tech and will now pay all the large sums that will get awarded in the inevitable law suits.. Yay.
From what I recall of reading about this a year+ ago, the same tech would allow for mathematically changing focus, zoom, pan, tilt in real time on the signal from the camera or post-fact on a recording of the same signal. So, basically, a flat non-moving sensor can now emulate a PZT camera. I can imagine that with a spherical lens or one of those weird mirrors that lets a regular camera catch a 360 image, it should be possible to make a near holocam. Imagine a movie shot like this and glasses that allow you to focus on different depths at will (maybe by watching your eyes?) it would be a "real" 3d experience, none of that fuzzy background you get on stereo 3d movies.
So, knowing better than to waste my time, I called AT&T today and, as expected, "Apple still doesn't allow us to unlock iPhones." Anyone have a clue if this policy is ever going away?
I stopped consuming music years ago.
I am happy with the hundreds of hours of music I already own and generally find little new music I like. I get my new music fix from the radio, pandora, and the like. The only music I actually acquire are the free weekly downloads from itunes.
I stopped primarily due to DRM and crazy ass licensing. Less DRM now, but my new habits around this are established.
Our copyright/IP system is entirely broken and getting more so every day. Something has to break, I am sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what goes first - the last of our civil liberties, or the insane system we have built.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgHbt0ODr4
If by 'Meredith's executive branch and business experience along with her exceptional relationships in Washington bring Comcast and NBCUniversal the perfect combination of skills.' they mean that she accepts bribes, er, a job offer from the people she JUST granted a favor to, then, YES.
STOP BUYING THEIR MUSIC (and don't pirate it.) Sooner or later they will die away like any meme that has become bad.
Who knows, maybe the govt will force us to shop with them, grin, but I doubt it - even forcing us to buy something useful, like medical insurance, is meeting incredible resistance.
One big reason the american cell system is inherently more difficult is that it has (currently) two different radio standards and two spectrums in each standard. Meaning we (consumers) can make use of somewhere between a quarter and a half of the installed towers depending on our provider. Basic mathematics dictate that all other things equal, it is not possible for Americans to get the same level of service in this case for less than 2x+ the cost (not profit) in Europe.. Perhaps, some day, phones will be made that can switch and roam on any tower available. That day is NOT today.
I've said for years that the state of the American cell network is one of the most glaring examples of utter failure of the capitalist free markets system.. Little to no government regulation around cell radio standards results in competition that, ultimately, only HURTS consumer choices in the US.
Lets compare this to the electrical system in the US. It's highly regulated and has fixed profitability (at least in my state of California) imposed by the PUC. All this regulation doesn't seem to keep PG&G from making a living and occasionally spending it unwisely (e.g. arguably illegally trying to pass a state proposition 2-3 elections ago enshrining it as a monopoly!) That said, our electrical system is entirely functional by comparison. Customer service is pretty good as well (again, in my state.)
.. and with "all" those regulations (far less than in Europe) the quality of the product (cell phone network) is still pathetic compared to Europe and what it could be. tell me how unlimited profitability and limited regulatio in wireless services makes us a better market..
Too much profit (while I can't define what that is, I can say that much like obscenity, I know it when I see it) is bad. When the number of players drops - and depending on how you view this merger, the number has just dropped to one (GSM world phone ISP), each has less incentive to compete - 40bil profit indicates they are charging us a high premium on their costs - meaning our prices are higher than they could be. Now that they are about to become a monopoly, in our very unregulated country, this can only get worse. Oh, I suppose the government can step in and regulate them better - but recent history indicates this is less and less likely to happen.