When a capitalist says this, it's a hand wave. They're dismissing cost of entry into the market. And let me explain to you why cost of entry matters in telecommunications (or for that matter, any infrastructure industry)... First, limited resources. You need access to land to run cables. If you're wireless, you need to negotiate for spectrum. Both are controlled by someone else. And the law says they don't have to sell to you at a competitive price -- or any price, for that matter. They choose whether you get in the door or not... and they may just choose to charge you an arm and a leg. Municipalities sign exclusive contracts saying only your competitor can run cables in that area for a period of 5, 10, 20, even 50 years. Why, you ask? Because those companies tell the municipality if they don't agree, they won't do business with them. "Too risky. Need to protect our investment," they say.
Which is why we just need a simple law that forbids the same company from providing any two or more of content, transport, or physical/wireless media.
Company A (preferably a co-op, HOA or municipality) owns the line to your house, but any ISP can connect to the other end. Or you have one company that does nothing but provide and maintain standardized cell towers, through which any telco can provide service.
You hit on my main concern in your last paragraph -- taxpayers subsidizing the owners of the geosynch satellites. If there is one space activity which private industry has figured out how to make a profit on it's geosynchronous satellites -- if refueling them is a great idea then the owners of the satellites can invest in developing the technology to do it. Let NASA spend its money going to Mars, etc.
Well, they could actually be trying to subsidize the refueling of government craft with corporate money, too, depending on how you look at it.
In any case, I'm curious how they plan to refuel a satellite that wasn't designed to be refueled in space. It's not like you can just unscrew the gas cap and stick a hose in. (maybe that's why "repair" is included in the mission parameters? Some amount of dis/re-assembly required?)
Mine was off as well, and I don't think I've ever seen that setting before. I got the "default on" from TFA, so maybe that isn't correct?
The TFA says "default off" -- that's kind of what the article was all about, other than discussing the fact that Apple is fostering confusion by making you "enable" the feature to disable a feature.
Not to mention the setting itself is weasel-worded. "Limit" ad tracking, not "disable."
No, electronic stability control is a great idea that makes cars much safer...for most drivers.
For highly skilled drivers, it probably gets in the way more than it helps. But the vast majority of drivers aren't pros.
Even if you are a pro, the street is not a track. I have a car that I track occasionally, and the ESC *does* get in the way there, if I don't turn it off. But that only matters when you're close enough to your handling limits that you can use that wheel slip to your advantage, AND know ahead of time that you're going to do so. On the street, driving that close to your limits would take you from "pro" to "dangerous idiot," and when the time comes, you're not going to have time to study a map of the corner/avoidance manuever to plan the best line through it, or any practice laps.
ESC goes off at the track, but never on the street.
While this should be true, these devices are increasingly being connected to networks to offer integration with EHR/HIS for polling information, and especially in radiology, where images are being sent digitally to PACS. These machines often stay unpatched, yet get connected to the network for transfers. It's important to maintain a separate "medical device" network, but this only goes so far, especially when vulnerabilities bypass the Windows firewall on the medical device, allowing some infected PC/device/server to broadcast worms all over the place.
Yep. It's nigh-on impossible to isolate stuff any more, because at some point, everything needs to talk to something outside it's play pen.
I manage firewalls for a large chain of hospitals, and we have to deal with this all the time. Vendors need to VPN in to support their gear, PACS images need to go to off-hours remote radiologists, etc. We ended up having to put separate firewalls in every facility, and any "no-patch" system gets locked away in its own solitary confinement DMZ with very tight access rules (with "Internet access" very high on the "oh HELL no" list).
It's been my experience that if you didn't force kids to take science classes most wouldn't for two reasons. 1) religion, and 2) because the don't want to.
Which is a good indication that they aren't being taught properly. They SHOULD be the most fun & interesting classes available, since you can spend plenty of time doing stuff instead of listening to a teacher drone on.
Tie the RFID chip to a rat, and leave out rat treats on the floor in your favorite classes. You'll get a perfect attendance award.
(Adults are dumb.)
Nah, I'm sure it won't be long before someone figures out how to clone these. Disguise the clone tag in something innocuous - credit card, pen, anything that students might normally carry. Microwave or otherwise render unreadable your ID badge. Now you still have a valid, apparently whole ID to display, but the readable tag could be anywhere. If you put it in something like a pen, you could even get away with holding it and the ID up to a close-range reader to "verify that your ID still works."
You'd think that in today's era of streaming video, netflix, hulu, amazon and iTunes, the cable companies would be doing everything in their power to increase viewership numbers (for advertising revenue).
I'm sure they ARE doing everything in their power to make those things illegal, expensive, or inconvenient.
Not to mention that many of those "HDTV" antennas are like buying Monster cables.
My cheap ($20) Radio Shack UHF/VHF antenna in the attic pulls in every channel around here from over 40 miles away. (granted, in my area all the transmitters are within 2 degrees of each other at that range, so directional antennas don't have to compromise)
In fact, if a person wanted to be really nasty about it, the following would be trivial to do:
1.) I passively monitor your WLAN in the evening. 2.) In the morning you leave for work, taking your laptop with you. 3.) I assign YOUR mac address to my pc and go about my illicit business.
You mean while I'm at work with said laptop with a lot of witnesses and firewall logs proving that I wasn't connected to the house? That would seem to be an even better indication that there was some funny business going on.
The 99% will not care, because they'll be too busy saying "well it doesn't hurt me directly, and therefore I don't care"
Actually, since it kills every thrift store, second-hand shop, pawn shop, etc. I'm pretty sure "the 99%" are going to notice the problem pretty damn quick.
From what it sounds like, basically the entire US economy would shut down overnight. Everyone from WalMart down to the local mom-and-pop coffee shop would have to get licenses for every single thing they sell before they could continue business.
but if people would buy on fuel economy rather than power/torque we'd get a lot more bang for our oil buck.
Well, in my case, I have to make a right turn from a stop sign into insane 50 MPH traffic quite often. My 12 year old 200hp v6 Camry can barely keep up with that if I floor it. It's those (admittedly rare) situations that make me loath to buy a car with an anaemic engine.
My question is, where are the things like diesel/electric series hybrids that have the torque and a capacitor/battery bank just big enough to get you quickly up to speed (once) when you need it, then can happily average 30-50hp the rest of the time?
Bacon Shortage. Stolen Maple Syrup. Clearly there is an international threat to our wholesome breakfast way of life. But where to the Presidential Candidates stand on this issue? Clearly the moderator dropped the ball by not bringing up this vital issue of world peace and security during the debate.
At least the eggs should be safe. We've been spending way too much money on the DHS (Department of Henhouse Security) for anyone to touch our eggs! Anyone who's had to stand in line there knows how slow the DPS (Department of Pigsty Security) is, though.
My first thought on reading that it would hold 1,440 people at once... in New York City... What a tempting target for a terrorist... Yea, I've been brainwashed, I know it...
That was the first thing that jumped out at me, also, but not in the context of terrorism. As a resident of Dallas, home of one of the previous "tallest ferris wheels" (480 seating capacity), I can say the damn thing spends the majority of it's time loading/unloading instead of moving already. Guess it gives you time to look at stuff from up there, but if something happens, you'll be stuck for a LONG time.
so you want to subsidize phone calls by overcharging on data...
how is that an improvement?
No, I want data only, with two classes of service available. Let me buy enough kbps of guaranteed/low latency bandwidth to get one VOIP call through, and as much bulk bandwidth as I feel like paying for.
Honestly, I'd probably be fine with them once they're statistically safer than human drivers.
What I would be most worried about is that they're too predictable - once the rules they use are known, they can be abused. "Self-driving car baiting" would be my fear. Some ass gets road-ragey for some reason, and decides it would be funny if he takes advantage of some known method of getting another car to stand on the brakes in 70 MPH traffic, or something.
If the UN charter mentions 'protection from religious intolerance', why are the extreme demands of some religions (or lack thereof) being heeded at all? These demands sound like the very definition of religious intolerance.
Yeah, and what happens when someone stars the religion of Malsi, where the main doctrine is the denunciation of Muhammad, and venerating him is blasphemy? Will the UN sanction anyone practicing Islam?
You can't ever have the right to not be offended, because there's someone somewhere that will be offended by you taking offense, so one of you will always be offended.
Or you could stop eating beef and dairy products or buy from suppliers that use the genetically engineered low-fart cows. Or you could plant some trees or put renewable energy devices on your house or get a shorter commute or replace flying with telecommuting or make your next car electric or see if there's an option to buy renewable power in your area or phase in lower-power devices in your home or maintain/reuse things instead of replacing them...but yeah it's hopeless and there's nothing an individual could do.
The problem is, most of those suggestions are untenable for people without a lot of extra money (IOW, 95% of the world's population).
- Stop eating beef: no real downside, and health benefits, too - Plant trees: costs money - a little or a lot depending on what you plant, and whether you're responsible for keeping it watered/maintained - Add renewable energy devices: costs a lot of money - Get shorter commute - costs a lot of money (figure 10% of the value of your house if you have to sell, plus moving costs) - Replace flying with telecommuting - situational, but most companies won't pay for the peons to fly anywhere if they can teleconference any more - Electric car: costs a lot of money - Renewable power: costs more, usually - Low power devices: often cost more, or don't work as well - Maintain/reuse: these days it's often cheaper to replace rather than fix, unless you can do it yourself
So, yeah, there's stuff you "can" do, but the negative impact to the individual is way out of proportion to the positive impact it produces, so no one is going to make that choice unless forced or they have a ton of extra resources to burn.
After the point where she had your flat busted into, I would totally have gotten someone to print me up some boxes for various fictitious electronic equipment that I could "leave out for the trash" where she could see them. "Radio Mind Control Emitter," "Electromagnetic Pain Amplifier," "Molestation Beam Focusing Array," etc.:P
You can NOT delete a Facebook account. You can remove wallposts, but they remain on the database. You can deactivate the account but it will persist for several weeks. but you CANNOT delete the account!
This was my initial thought. Might actually be beneficial, though. I'd have just told the judge that FB makes it more or less impossible to delete an account, so could you please send an order to them to do it. Heck, that wouldn't be punishment, that would be a benefit.:P
If anyone sees you destroying the thing you're going to get in trouble anyway, so we are assuming the people are doing it when no one is around. In which case, wear a mask, park where the thing cant see your car, and walk right on up to it lol.
If a law enforcement officer sees you do it, maybe...
Anyone else, and they'll probably look the other way, if not cheer you on. Another case of "there were 3 dozen witnesses, but no one seems to remember who did it." (http://xkcd.com/562/)
'What can you do' and 'what will people do?' are very different matters. There are plenty of things that can be done, but most aren't politically viable because they would require large numbers of people to make sacrifices they are unwilling to make - like paying more for goods, or using the bus in preference to their own car.
Exactly. Humans, as a group, will always wait for "someone else" (or the next administration, or someone with more money, or...) to solve their looming problems before getting up and spending their own resources on them - until it becomes a crisis. Once these huge problems start coming home to roost (global warming, depletion of fossil fuels, overpopulation, etc.), I fear we'll be doomed to live in a state of perpetual crisis, probably just barely scraping by and surviving, but never really solving them soon enough. Until the one time we lose the game of chicken, anyway.
(After wrecking everything else in the area with all that kinetic energy...)
I've always said we need to tie liability insurance rates to vehicle mass. Pick a reasonable number for the denominator, like 3000lb or so (mid-size sedan territory), and use the actual vehicle weight as the numerator. Multiply the final insurance rate by the resulting fraction. Want to buy an 8000lb truck because you think it'll keep your precious brand new driver safe? Well, you'll be paying $5k+ a year to insure it.
Give them small car, and save on gas *and* insurance.
You forgot one of the most important ones: - The software industry will lobby to have any laws regarding this apply also to free software, effectively killing off free/open source software.
Yeah... Windows 7 is probably way more complicated than even something like the Space Shuttle. I can't even imagine how much it would have cost to develop if the same level of engineering, QA, etc. was used.
And even with all that, don't forget that the shuttles still had a 40% (per unit)/1.5% (per mission) critical failure rate.
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Introduce competition.
When a capitalist says this, it's a hand wave. They're dismissing cost of entry into the market. And let me explain to you why cost of entry matters in telecommunications (or for that matter, any infrastructure industry)... First, limited resources. You need access to land to run cables. If you're wireless, you need to negotiate for spectrum. Both are controlled by someone else. And the law says they don't have to sell to you at a competitive price -- or any price, for that matter. They choose whether you get in the door or not... and they may just choose to charge you an arm and a leg. Municipalities sign exclusive contracts saying only your competitor can run cables in that area for a period of 5, 10, 20, even 50 years. Why, you ask? Because those companies tell the municipality if they don't agree, they won't do business with them. "Too risky. Need to protect our investment," they say.
Which is why we just need a simple law that forbids the same company from providing any two or more of content, transport, or physical/wireless media.
Company A (preferably a co-op, HOA or municipality) owns the line to your house, but any ISP can connect to the other end.
Or you have one company that does nothing but provide and maintain standardized cell towers, through which any telco can provide service.
You hit on my main concern in your last paragraph -- taxpayers subsidizing the owners of the geosynch satellites. If there is one space activity which private industry has figured out how to make a profit on it's geosynchronous satellites -- if refueling them is a great idea then the owners of the satellites can invest in developing the technology to do it. Let NASA spend its money going to Mars, etc.
Well, they could actually be trying to subsidize the refueling of government craft with corporate money, too, depending on how you look at it.
In any case, I'm curious how they plan to refuel a satellite that wasn't designed to be refueled in space. It's not like you can just unscrew the gas cap and stick a hose in. (maybe that's why "repair" is included in the mission parameters? Some amount of dis/re-assembly required?)
Mine was off as well, and I don't think I've ever seen that setting before. I got the "default on" from TFA, so maybe that isn't correct?
The TFA says "default off" -- that's kind of what the article was all about, other than discussing the fact that Apple is fostering confusion by making you "enable" the feature to disable a feature.
Not to mention the setting itself is weasel-worded. "Limit" ad tracking, not "disable."
No, electronic stability control is a great idea that makes cars much safer ...for most drivers.
For highly skilled drivers, it probably gets in the way more than it helps. But the vast majority of drivers aren't pros.
Even if you are a pro, the street is not a track. I have a car that I track occasionally, and the ESC *does* get in the way there, if I don't turn it off. But that only matters when you're close enough to your handling limits that you can use that wheel slip to your advantage, AND know ahead of time that you're going to do so. On the street, driving that close to your limits would take you from "pro" to "dangerous idiot," and when the time comes, you're not going to have time to study a map of the corner/avoidance manuever to plan the best line through it, or any practice laps.
ESC goes off at the track, but never on the street.
While this should be true, these devices are increasingly being connected to networks to offer integration with EHR/HIS for polling information, and especially in radiology, where images are being sent digitally to PACS. These machines often stay unpatched, yet get connected to the network for transfers. It's important to maintain a separate "medical device" network, but this only goes so far, especially when vulnerabilities bypass the Windows firewall on the medical device, allowing some infected PC/device/server to broadcast worms all over the place.
Yep. It's nigh-on impossible to isolate stuff any more, because at some point, everything needs to talk to something outside it's play pen.
I manage firewalls for a large chain of hospitals, and we have to deal with this all the time. Vendors need to VPN in to support their gear, PACS images need to go to off-hours remote radiologists, etc. We ended up having to put separate firewalls in every facility, and any "no-patch" system gets locked away in its own solitary confinement DMZ with very tight access rules (with "Internet access" very high on the "oh HELL no" list).
It's been my experience that if you didn't force kids to take science classes most wouldn't for two reasons. 1) religion, and 2) because the don't want to.
Which is a good indication that they aren't being taught properly. They SHOULD be the most fun & interesting classes available, since you can spend plenty of time doing stuff instead of listening to a teacher drone on.
Tie the RFID chip to a rat, and leave out rat treats on the floor in your favorite classes. You'll get a perfect attendance award.
(Adults are dumb.)
Nah, I'm sure it won't be long before someone figures out how to clone these. Disguise the clone tag in something innocuous - credit card, pen, anything that students might normally carry. Microwave or otherwise render unreadable your ID badge. Now you still have a valid, apparently whole ID to display, but the readable tag could be anywhere. If you put it in something like a pen, you could even get away with holding it and the ID up to a close-range reader to "verify that your ID still works."
You'd think that in today's era of streaming video, netflix, hulu, amazon and iTunes, the cable companies would be doing everything in their power to increase viewership numbers (for advertising revenue).
I'm sure they ARE doing everything in their power to make those things illegal, expensive, or inconvenient.
Not to mention that many of those "HDTV" antennas are like buying Monster cables.
My cheap ($20) Radio Shack UHF/VHF antenna in the attic pulls in every channel around here from over 40 miles away. (granted, in my area all the transmitters are within 2 degrees of each other at that range, so directional antennas don't have to compromise)
In fact, if a person wanted to be really nasty about it, the following would be trivial to do:
1.) I passively monitor your WLAN in the evening.
2.) In the morning you leave for work, taking your laptop with you.
3.) I assign YOUR mac address to my pc and go about my illicit business.
You mean while I'm at work with said laptop with a lot of witnesses and firewall logs proving that I wasn't connected to the house? That would seem to be an even better indication that there was some funny business going on.
The 99% will not care, because they'll be too busy saying "well it doesn't hurt me directly, and therefore I don't care"
Actually, since it kills every thrift store, second-hand shop, pawn shop, etc. I'm pretty sure "the 99%" are going to notice the problem pretty damn quick.
From what it sounds like, basically the entire US economy would shut down overnight. Everyone from WalMart down to the local mom-and-pop coffee shop would have to get licenses for every single thing they sell before they could continue business.
but if people would buy on fuel economy rather than power/torque we'd get a lot more bang for our oil buck.
Well, in my case, I have to make a right turn from a stop sign into insane 50 MPH traffic quite often. My 12 year old 200hp v6 Camry can barely keep up with that if I floor it. It's those (admittedly rare) situations that make me loath to buy a car with an anaemic engine.
My question is, where are the things like diesel/electric series hybrids that have the torque and a capacitor/battery bank just big enough to get you quickly up to speed (once) when you need it, then can happily average 30-50hp the rest of the time?
Bacon Shortage. Stolen Maple Syrup. Clearly there is an international threat to our wholesome breakfast way of life. But where to the Presidential Candidates stand on this issue? Clearly the moderator dropped the ball by not bringing up this vital issue of world peace and security during the debate.
At least the eggs should be safe. We've been spending way too much money on the DHS (Department of Henhouse Security) for anyone to touch our eggs! Anyone who's had to stand in line there knows how slow the DPS (Department of Pigsty Security) is, though.
My first thought on reading that it would hold 1,440 people at once... in New York City... What a tempting target for a terrorist... Yea, I've been brainwashed, I know it...
That was the first thing that jumped out at me, also, but not in the context of terrorism. As a resident of Dallas, home of one of the previous "tallest ferris wheels" (480 seating capacity), I can say the damn thing spends the majority of it's time loading/unloading instead of moving already. Guess it gives you time to look at stuff from up there, but if something happens, you'll be stuck for a LONG time.
so you want to subsidize phone calls by overcharging on data...
how is that an improvement?
No, I want data only, with two classes of service available. Let me buy enough kbps of guaranteed/low latency bandwidth to get one VOIP call through, and as much bulk bandwidth as I feel like paying for.
Honestly, I'd probably be fine with them once they're statistically safer than human drivers.
What I would be most worried about is that they're too predictable - once the rules they use are known, they can be abused. "Self-driving car baiting" would be my fear. Some ass gets road-ragey for some reason, and decides it would be funny if he takes advantage of some known method of getting another car to stand on the brakes in 70 MPH traffic, or something.
If the UN charter mentions 'protection from religious intolerance', why are the extreme demands of some religions (or lack thereof) being heeded at all? These demands sound like the very definition of religious intolerance.
Yeah, and what happens when someone stars the religion of Malsi, where the main doctrine is the denunciation of Muhammad, and venerating him is blasphemy? Will the UN sanction anyone practicing Islam?
You can't ever have the right to not be offended, because there's someone somewhere that will be offended by you taking offense, so one of you will always be offended.
Or you could stop eating beef and dairy products or buy from suppliers that use the genetically engineered low-fart cows. Or you could plant some trees or put renewable energy devices on your house or get a shorter commute or replace flying with telecommuting or make your next car electric or see if there's an option to buy renewable power in your area or phase in lower-power devices in your home or maintain/reuse things instead of replacing them...but yeah it's hopeless and there's nothing an individual could do.
The problem is, most of those suggestions are untenable for people without a lot of extra money (IOW, 95% of the world's population).
- Stop eating beef: no real downside, and health benefits, too
- Plant trees: costs money - a little or a lot depending on what you plant, and whether you're responsible for keeping it watered/maintained
- Add renewable energy devices: costs a lot of money
- Get shorter commute - costs a lot of money (figure 10% of the value of your house if you have to sell, plus moving costs)
- Replace flying with telecommuting - situational, but most companies won't pay for the peons to fly anywhere if they can teleconference any more
- Electric car: costs a lot of money
- Renewable power: costs more, usually
- Low power devices: often cost more, or don't work as well
- Maintain/reuse: these days it's often cheaper to replace rather than fix, unless you can do it yourself
So, yeah, there's stuff you "can" do, but the negative impact to the individual is way out of proportion to the positive impact it produces, so no one is going to make that choice unless forced or they have a ton of extra resources to burn.
After the point where she had your flat busted into, I would totally have gotten someone to print me up some boxes for various fictitious electronic equipment that I could "leave out for the trash" where she could see them. "Radio Mind Control Emitter," "Electromagnetic Pain Amplifier," "Molestation Beam Focusing Array," etc. :P
You can NOT delete a Facebook account. You can remove wallposts, but they remain on the database. You can deactivate the account but it will persist for several weeks. but you CANNOT delete the account!
This was my initial thought. Might actually be beneficial, though. I'd have just told the judge that FB makes it more or less impossible to delete an account, so could you please send an order to them to do it. Heck, that wouldn't be punishment, that would be a benefit. :P
If anyone sees you destroying the thing you're going to get in trouble anyway, so we are assuming the people are doing it when no one is around. In which case, wear a mask, park where the thing cant see your car, and walk right on up to it lol.
If a law enforcement officer sees you do it, maybe...
Anyone else, and they'll probably look the other way, if not cheer you on. Another case of "there were 3 dozen witnesses, but no one seems to remember who did it." (http://xkcd.com/562/)
'What can you do' and 'what will people do?' are very different matters. There are plenty of things that can be done, but most aren't politically viable because they would require large numbers of people to make sacrifices they are unwilling to make - like paying more for goods, or using the bus in preference to their own car.
Exactly. Humans, as a group, will always wait for "someone else" (or the next administration, or someone with more money, or...) to solve their looming problems before getting up and spending their own resources on them - until it becomes a crisis. Once these huge problems start coming home to roost (global warming, depletion of fossil fuels, overpopulation, etc.), I fear we'll be doomed to live in a state of perpetual crisis, probably just barely scraping by and surviving, but never really solving them soon enough. Until the one time we lose the game of chicken, anyway.
(After wrecking everything else in the area with all that kinetic energy...)
I've always said we need to tie liability insurance rates to vehicle mass. Pick a reasonable number for the denominator, like 3000lb or so (mid-size sedan territory), and use the actual vehicle weight as the numerator. Multiply the final insurance rate by the resulting fraction. Want to buy an 8000lb truck because you think it'll keep your precious brand new driver safe? Well, you'll be paying $5k+ a year to insure it.
Give them small car, and save on gas *and* insurance.
You forgot one of the most important ones:
- The software industry will lobby to have any laws regarding this apply also to free software, effectively killing off free/open source software.
Are you guys crazy?
Do you realize how much bridges cost?
Yeah... Windows 7 is probably way more complicated than even something like the Space Shuttle. I can't even imagine how much it would have cost to develop if the same level of engineering, QA, etc. was used.
And even with all that, don't forget that the shuttles still had a 40% (per unit)/1.5% (per mission) critical failure rate.