As a Dutch person I find the spelling completely obvious:)
What I do dislike is the triple name (17.10 + Artful + Aardvark), it makes it less obvious what to search on and e.g. for deb lines I can never remember which adjective is which release.
(sorry for the self-reply. Maybe slashdot should wake up to the 21st Century and allow edits, at least within e.g. 5 minutes of posting. Or maybe I should think before I submit)
In addition to forcing Netflix to not produce their own content, all content providers should be forced to do non-discriminatory licensing. So if the allow Netflix to show X for Y$ per view or month or whatever, they should offer those terms to any interested distributor.
I am all for free markets, but companies don't necessarily act in a way that is good for the market. As Adam Smith famously said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together [..] but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
I disagree, I think it's a really bad development that the streaming service providers are starting to license exclusive content.
In an ideal world, the fact that digital content is not naturally scarce should lead to an environment where I can pay X$ per year and get access to "all" available content. Spotify is pretty close to this model, and I know some people who have huge CD and record collections who prefer to listen via spotify because it is just easier.
The value of X is hard to determine, but the 'old' model was to create artificial scarcity by charging very high prices for content (20 euro for a CD, for example), thus causing most people not to have access to most content. However, if we have multiple streaming service providers who each negotiate with the various content right owners the market might be able to determine a sensible price per month that allows most people to view most content while giving decent renumeration to the rights owners and (hopefully) content creators. This model is not perfect, but a lot better than pricing individual items that cost near zero to reproduce. The goal of free market capitalism is to allocate capital and other scarce goods in a good way to maximize (some measure of) utility, not to create artificial scarcity and hence lower global utility.
However, if the streaming providers become right owners or have exclusive licensing deals, suddenly the market is no longer a commodity market where it doesn't really matter if I subscribe to service X or Y. Of course, this is exactly what Netflix et al want, because commodity markets don't have the kind of profits they would like.
I would be in favor of government action to force Netflix et al to be simple distributors, i.e. forcefully decouple content creation from content distribution.
Yeah. It's not just Trump, and it's been going on for longer. I've been visiting the US regularly for work and tourism for at least the past 15 years, have lived there for half a year and had an American girlfriend for a while. Although every state has the right to subject foreign visitors to whatever restrictions and procedure they please, if they don't make me feel welcome it won't help convincing me to come again and spend money. My gripes:
- The ESTA procedure, where we have to fill out some stupid web form in advance. It's not so much bother, but I'm a frequent traveller to many countries and it is easy to forget. Just give me the option to fill it in at the airport and let me run the (negligible) risk of not being admitted once I get there, or at least send me reminder emails between booking my flight and getting approval.
- With the ESTA procedure, the US is the only developed/"western" country I have to pay to get in. I expect that kind of nonsense from Turkey or Vietnam, not the US...
- Since living in Israel (a staunch US ally) for a semester and visiting tourist sites in nearby Jordan (with whom the US has friendly relations) I am frequently picked out of the line for extra questioning, often adding 30-60 minutes to my time to get through immigration. I can understand it the first time, but after having determined that I'm bona fide, just put a frigging note in my case file and leave me alone next time. Also, for me it is mosly annoying and sometimes amusing, but if I were non-white or had an arabic name I'm sure it would go from bad to worse pretty quickly.
There must be a much smarter way to reduce risk of incoming visitors without annoying legimitate travelers, but it seems that the people in charge just don't care / don't see the real economic effects of current policy.
Our local supermarket started having self-service kiosks, with one employer servicing 6 kiosks (for age verification and random issues). I always take them unless there is no line at the regular checkout, because even if checkout takes a minute longer (I don't know where every barcode is on every product, a good cashier does) skipping the line is worth it and personally I'd rather do something than wait. Also, placing items directly in my bag after scanning them seems a lot more efficient that the whole basket -> belt -> collection area -> bag thing.
I can imagine that a lot depends on implementation though, and I'm sure some people "accidentally" forget to scan items sometimes, even with some plausible deniability...
People are more likely to "eat out" than ever before, and I doubt if many people would want to be waited on by a robot.
I'm not sure about your experience, but I would so much rather order and pay with my mobile than wait for a waiter in 90%+ of the places I've visited. Humans are probably the cheapest way to bring stuff to your table, but they're pretty bad at most of the rest of the process. And interrupting my conversation five times to ask me whether everything is OK and I want another drink? Non, merci!
The only places where I really like the human contact is the local places or bars where you actually get to chat with the owner or long-time waiter, or expensive places where the waiter actually knows what he's doing. Everything in between, just give me an app already.
(and no I don't hate humans, I would just prefer to spend time with the person I went to the restaurant with, not the person "waiting" on me there, especially since I'm usually waiting for them...)
Actually my marina in the Netherlands use sa very simple electric "cart" to launch boats. They use to use a big tractor, but that was more expensive and error prone as you can see what you're doing as well. Now, the operator has a simple "remote control" with two buttons (forward / backward) connected to an electric engine on a chain from an anchor point.
These things will not become self driving because it would be pointless, no two boats are the same and you want to stand there to watch anyway, boats are just really darn expensive compared to the 15-30 minutes of labour required to launch one...
On the other hand, if you live in Hong Kong for less than 750 USD weekly rent (1) you're not really living in Hong Kong and (2) I can see how you get a 40 minute commute:).
For the first 700 of those years, there were no crusades. But there were the invasions of North Africa, Gaul (Spain), Byzantium and Sicily, not to mention Israel. All Islamic
622 - start of Islamic calendar 715 - conquest of Spain 1096 - First crusade arrives in the Levant
So if with 700 years, you mean about 400... sure:-)
(a 300 year difference might not feel like much in this context, but note that the US declaration of independence was well less than 300 years ago...)
(Please also note that Israel was founded in 1948 so is well outside this timeline, and if you mean the biblical Jewish kingdoms, they were conquered by the Romans well before the Muslims. AFAIK there were no jewish-ruled territories conquered by the Muslims, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)
>There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.
The IRS mileage rate is supposed to be an average cost for operating a vehicle. It is 53.5 cents per mile. Uber pays about twice that per mile in San Francisco. So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor.
(1) You're assuming all miles and hours are 'billable', while in reality you would be driving empty towards a pickup and waiting for the next pickup. (2) 60MPH in San Francisco is going to get you some pretty bad fines most of the time:). But even if you drive only on highways that allow those speeds, your average speed is going to be much lower, probably closer to 30MPH for realistic cases.
So, let's assume you spend every hour waiting for 10 minutes, driving 30MPH to the pickup for 10 minutes, and driving a customer at 30MPH for 40 minutes, your average hourly gross income is 20$ (40/60*30*1$) and your expenses are $13.375 (50/60*30*.535), giving you a real income of under 7$ per hour. Good luck finding a house and food for that in SF area...
How many solar systems is that. 1000? So thats going to take some time. Better rain down with one sun first and then evaluate if more sun raining is needed?
This reaction is exactly why we can't have great things anymore!
Although I agree with you on the need to check out 3d party libraries before making your code dependent on it, it sounds like you might err on the side of rewriting. The biggest issue with code isn't writing it, it's maintaining it; and if a 3d party library is actively used and developed it means that in general someone else will be doing the maintenance, even if the codebase might not be the best ever. Writing and maintaining a new sockets/csv/oauth library is not what I want to spend my time on...
And you've pretty much outed yourself here as not knowing what you're doing. A Thai taxi or Tuk Tuk driver will only use the meter when they've spotted a fresh off the plane tourist. They do this because everyone else knows the meter is rigged to run at three times (or more) the normal speed and that you negotiate the rate. There are very few areas that are exceptions to this rule, in Thailand for example you'd never trust a meter in Phuket but a Bangkok taxi driver is fairly trustworthy. This is because the Bangkok taxi authority runs regular checks of taxi's and will strip the license from anyone caught with a dodgy meter whilst the Phuket drivers pay the politicians to look the other way.
Yeah my Thaiand experience is limited to BKK, but there the metered fares are much lower than the negotiated prices, and I've been refused multiple times when I demanded a taxi use the meter.
In Saigon it's the same in my experience, if you get a metered fare from any of the big companies you'll get there for pennies; if they quote a price (to a white guy) it will be 3-4 times overcharged . Of course, real men rent a motorbike:)
If taxi cost uncertainty is making you that nervous, we already have solutions like private hire cars where they'll happily service you for a fixed fee. For the reasons I've mentioned above this is always going to be more expensive than a taxi. However that is not your problem, whatever issues you can give me about taxis and the taxi industry, they still look like saints compared to Uber. Cost apprehension is not the reason you're running into the arms of a company even worse than the industry you complain about.
It's not just cost uncertainty though. I've used taxis in a lot of countries and until you've been somewhere for a while it's always uncertain how to minimize fare, how much to expect, whether a taxi will accept credit card and/or have change for big notes, whether the driver speaks English, whether the driver actually understood you, etc. Of course, you can research all of that, Internet has the information etc, but if I just arrived from a 10 hour flight the last thing I want to do is spend 15 minutes researching local taxi culture. I just want to get to my minibar:)
I would be much more willing to use taxis if they could get their act together and launch a sort of decentralized uber app. Preferably globally, but per country/city if need be. It might reduce scamming opportunities, but on the whole it could well increase taxi usage and help taxis get more rides.
It would be really cool if this was done with an (micro) auction system: you post a route (plus specials like luggage, #people etc) and all registered taxis can bid on the route. You see all bids plus review scores and you pick the ride for that guaranteed price. That would be much nicer than the queue system you normally see in busy places like airports.
TFA and the linked Dutch source are not very specific, but I'm pretty sure this is a claim in civil court, not in public/administrative court, using the "damages from illegitimate acts" (BW6 art 162).
Note that the Dutch High Court rules that the blank-CD levy is not a compensation for illegal downloading, and that an EU ruling in 2014 (?) made downloading illegal. However, the government didn't really do anything with that, and the goal of the lawsuit is presumably to prod the government into action against downloading.
* Loosely translated: "(1) if you commit an illegitimate act you have to pay any damages that someone suffers from it; (2) an illegitimate act is a breach of someone's rights or an acting or failing to act in violation of legal duty or societal norms"
Pretending you don't understand someone because of a trivial mistake doesn't make you look smart, it makes you look like a pedantic smart-ass.
This is especially true since we're discussing Norway, so there's a good chance that the GP is Norwegian and it is actually spelled with an "o" in Norwegian and most other Germanic languages. You should appreciate the fact that people from other parts of the world learn your language and contribute to your knowledge of things outside the US, not annoy them with your stupid pedantry.
(and if you actually wanted to help him improve his English, that's very nice of you, but adopting a different tone will help you get your message across in the future...)
This comment does have merit. One of the really annoying things about traditional taxis is the uncertainty cost. - You almost never know beforehand because the cost is calculated en route - in some countries (thailand, vietnam, probably more) they try to avoid using the meter if you don't know what you're doing - After the journey seemingly random extras can get added for luggage, toll roads, airport fees etc. In civilized countries most are probably legit, but as a visitor how do you know? - Tips add to the uncertainty. If you travel a lot, you need to learn tipping customs for each country you visit.
With uber, you see the total price on the app, including service and all extras, before you book the ride. I hate their business model and their disrespect for local laws and practice, but in Europe I almost totally avoid cabs because of the reasons above, and a decent app would go a long way towards making me use taxis more often.
Our cat was whining every morning, and seemed to have more patience than us at keeping up the game.
We bought a spray bottle, and sprayed generously when he whined in the mornings. It didn't hurt him (obviously), but he completely stopped the behaviour after three applications.
Slashdot Mirror
Ludwig, is that you? :P
As a Dutch person I find the spelling completely obvious :)
What I do dislike is the triple name (17.10 + Artful + Aardvark), it makes it less obvious what to search on and e.g. for deb lines I can never remember which adjective is which release.
(sorry for the self-reply. Maybe slashdot should wake up to the 21st Century and allow edits, at least within e.g. 5 minutes of posting. Or maybe I should think before I submit)
In addition to forcing Netflix to not produce their own content, all content providers should be forced to do non-discriminatory licensing. So if the allow Netflix to show X for Y$ per view or month or whatever, they should offer those terms to any interested distributor.
I am all for free markets, but companies don't necessarily act in a way that is good for the market. As Adam Smith famously said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together [..] but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
I disagree, I think it's a really bad development that the streaming service providers are starting to license exclusive content.
In an ideal world, the fact that digital content is not naturally scarce should lead to an environment where I can pay X$ per year and get access to "all" available content. Spotify is pretty close to this model, and I know some people who have huge CD and record collections who prefer to listen via spotify because it is just easier.
The value of X is hard to determine, but the 'old' model was to create artificial scarcity by charging very high prices for content (20 euro for a CD, for example), thus causing most people not to have access to most content. However, if we have multiple streaming service providers who each negotiate with the various content right owners the market might be able to determine a sensible price per month that allows most people to view most content while giving decent renumeration to the rights owners and (hopefully) content creators. This model is not perfect, but a lot better than pricing individual items that cost near zero to reproduce. The goal of free market capitalism is to allocate capital and other scarce goods in a good way to maximize (some measure of) utility, not to create artificial scarcity and hence lower global utility.
However, if the streaming providers become right owners or have exclusive licensing deals, suddenly the market is no longer a commodity market where it doesn't really matter if I subscribe to service X or Y. Of course, this is exactly what Netflix et al want, because commodity markets don't have the kind of profits they would like.
I would be in favor of government action to force Netflix et al to be simple distributors, i.e. forcefully decouple content creation from content distribution.
Yeah. It's not just Trump, and it's been going on for longer. I've been visiting the US regularly for work and tourism for at least the past 15 years, have lived there for half a year and had an American girlfriend for a while. Although every state has the right to subject foreign visitors to whatever restrictions and procedure they please, if they don't make me feel welcome it won't help convincing me to come again and spend money. My gripes:
- The ESTA procedure, where we have to fill out some stupid web form in advance. It's not so much bother, but I'm a frequent traveller to many countries and it is easy to forget. Just give me the option to fill it in at the airport and let me run the (negligible) risk of not being admitted once I get there, or at least send me reminder emails between booking my flight and getting approval.
- With the ESTA procedure, the US is the only developed/"western" country I have to pay to get in. I expect that kind of nonsense from Turkey or Vietnam, not the US...
- Since living in Israel (a staunch US ally) for a semester and visiting tourist sites in nearby Jordan (with whom the US has friendly relations) I am frequently picked out of the line for extra questioning, often adding 30-60 minutes to my time to get through immigration. I can understand it the first time, but after having determined that I'm bona fide, just put a frigging note in my case file and leave me alone next time. Also, for me it is mosly annoying and sometimes amusing, but if I were non-white or had an arabic name I'm sure it would go from bad to worse pretty quickly.
There must be a much smarter way to reduce risk of incoming visitors without annoying legimitate travelers, but it seems that the people in charge just don't care / don't see the real economic effects of current policy.
Our local supermarket started having self-service kiosks, with one employer servicing 6 kiosks (for age verification and random issues). I always take them unless there is no line at the regular checkout, because even if checkout takes a minute longer (I don't know where every barcode is on every product, a good cashier does) skipping the line is worth it and personally I'd rather do something than wait. Also, placing items directly in my bag after scanning them seems a lot more efficient that the whole basket -> belt -> collection area -> bag thing.
I can imagine that a lot depends on implementation though, and I'm sure some people "accidentally" forget to scan items sometimes, even with some plausible deniability...
People are more likely to "eat out" than ever before, and I doubt if many people would want to be waited on by a robot.
I'm not sure about your experience, but I would so much rather order and pay with my mobile than wait for a waiter in 90%+ of the places I've visited. Humans are probably the cheapest way to bring stuff to your table, but they're pretty bad at most of the rest of the process. And interrupting my conversation five times to ask me whether everything is OK and I want another drink? Non, merci!
The only places where I really like the human contact is the local places or bars where you actually get to chat with the owner or long-time waiter, or expensive places where the waiter actually knows what he's doing. Everything in between, just give me an app already.
(and no I don't hate humans, I would just prefer to spend time with the person I went to the restaurant with, not the person "waiting" on me there, especially since I'm usually waiting for them...)
Paris agreement signed / ratified:
CHINA 22 Apr 2016 3 Sep 2016
INDIA* 22 Apr 2016 2 Oct 2016
http://unfccc.int/paris_agreem...
Actually my marina in the Netherlands use sa very simple electric "cart" to launch boats. They use to use a big tractor, but that was more expensive and error prone as you can see what you're doing as well. Now, the operator has a simple "remote control" with two buttons (forward / backward) connected to an electric engine on a chain from an anchor point.
These things will not become self driving because it would be pointless, no two boats are the same and you want to stand there to watch anyway, boats are just really darn expensive compared to the 15-30 minutes of labour required to launch one...
And those responsible for sacking the writers of GP are also sacked (as is anyone else who confuses moose and lamas)!
Grapes actually have the required yeast on their skins, so essentially all you need is sunshine and some catalysts like grape seed...
The majority of coders can actually be better than the mean (average) coder. The median coder, though...
On the other hand, if you live in Hong Kong for less than 750 USD weekly rent (1) you're not really living in Hong Kong and (2) I can see how you get a 40 minute commute :).
For the first 700 of those years, there were no crusades. But there were the invasions of North Africa, Gaul (Spain), Byzantium and Sicily, not to mention Israel. All Islamic
622 - start of Islamic calendar
715 - conquest of Spain
1096 - First crusade arrives in the Levant
So if with 700 years, you mean about 400... sure :-)
(a 300 year difference might not feel like much in this context, but note that the US declaration of independence was well less than 300 years ago...)
(Please also note that Israel was founded in 1948 so is well outside this timeline, and if you mean the biblical Jewish kingdoms, they were conquered by the Romans well before the Muslims. AFAIK there were no jewish-ruled territories conquered by the Muslims, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)
>There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.
The IRS mileage rate is supposed to be an average cost for operating a vehicle. It is 53.5 cents per mile. Uber pays about twice that per mile in San Francisco. So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor.
(1) You're assuming all miles and hours are 'billable', while in reality you would be driving empty towards a pickup and waiting for the next pickup. :). But even if you drive only on highways that allow those speeds, your average speed is going to be much lower, probably closer to 30MPH for realistic cases.
(2) 60MPH in San Francisco is going to get you some pretty bad fines most of the time
So, let's assume you spend every hour waiting for 10 minutes, driving 30MPH to the pickup for 10 minutes, and driving a customer at 30MPH for 40 minutes, your average hourly gross income is 20$ (40/60*30*1$) and your expenses are $13.375 (50/60*30*.535), giving you a real income of under 7$ per hour. Good luck finding a house and food for that in SF area...
How many solar systems is that. 1000? So thats going to take some time. Better rain down with one sun first and then evaluate if more sun raining is needed?
This reaction is exactly why we can't have great things anymore!
Although I agree with you on the need to check out 3d party libraries before making your code dependent on it, it sounds like you might err on the side of rewriting. The biggest issue with code isn't writing it, it's maintaining it; and if a 3d party library is actively used and developed it means that in general someone else will be doing the maintenance, even if the codebase might not be the best ever. Writing and maintaining a new sockets/csv/oauth library is not what I want to spend my time on...
And you've pretty much outed yourself here as not knowing what you're doing. A Thai taxi or Tuk Tuk driver will only use the meter when they've spotted a fresh off the plane tourist. They do this because everyone else knows the meter is rigged to run at three times (or more) the normal speed and that you negotiate the rate. There are very few areas that are exceptions to this rule, in Thailand for example you'd never trust a meter in Phuket but a Bangkok taxi driver is fairly trustworthy. This is because the Bangkok taxi authority runs regular checks of taxi's and will strip the license from anyone caught with a dodgy meter whilst the Phuket drivers pay the politicians to look the other way.
Yeah my Thaiand experience is limited to BKK, but there the metered fares are much lower than the negotiated prices, and I've been refused multiple times when I demanded a taxi use the meter.
In Saigon it's the same in my experience, if you get a metered fare from any of the big companies you'll get there for pennies; if they quote a price (to a white guy) it will be 3-4 times overcharged . Of course, real men rent a motorbike :)
If taxi cost uncertainty is making you that nervous, we already have solutions like private hire cars where they'll happily service you for a fixed fee. For the reasons I've mentioned above this is always going to be more expensive than a taxi. However that is not your problem, whatever issues you can give me about taxis and the taxi industry, they still look like saints compared to Uber. Cost apprehension is not the reason you're running into the arms of a company even worse than the industry you complain about.
It's not just cost uncertainty though. I've used taxis in a lot of countries and until you've been somewhere for a while it's always uncertain how to minimize fare, how much to expect, whether a taxi will accept credit card and/or have change for big notes, whether the driver speaks English, whether the driver actually understood you, etc. Of course, you can research all of that, Internet has the information etc, but if I just arrived from a 10 hour flight the last thing I want to do is spend 15 minutes researching local taxi culture. I just want to get to my minibar :)
I would be much more willing to use taxis if they could get their act together and launch a sort of decentralized uber app. Preferably globally, but per country/city if need be. It might reduce scamming opportunities, but on the whole it could well increase taxi usage and help taxis get more rides.
It would be really cool if this was done with an (micro) auction system: you post a route (plus specials like luggage, #people etc) and all registered taxis can bid on the route. You see all bids plus review scores and you pick the ride for that guaranteed price. That would be much nicer than the queue system you normally see in busy places like airports.
TFA and the linked Dutch source are not very specific, but I'm pretty sure this is a claim in civil court, not in public/administrative court, using the "damages from illegitimate acts" (BW6 art 162).
Note that the Dutch High Court rules that the blank-CD levy is not a compensation for illegal downloading, and that an EU ruling in 2014 (?) made downloading illegal. However, the government didn't really do anything with that, and the goal of the lawsuit is presumably to prod the government into action against downloading.
* Loosely translated: "(1) if you commit an illegitimate act you have to pay any damages that someone suffers from it; (2) an illegitimate act is a breach of someone's rights or an acting or failing to act in violation of legal duty or societal norms"
Pretending you don't understand someone because of a trivial mistake doesn't make you look smart, it makes you look like a pedantic smart-ass.
This is especially true since we're discussing Norway, so there's a good chance that the GP is Norwegian and it is actually spelled with an "o" in Norwegian and most other Germanic languages. You should appreciate the fact that people from other parts of the world learn your language and contribute to your knowledge of things outside the US, not annoy them with your stupid pedantry.
(and if you actually wanted to help him improve his English, that's very nice of you, but adopting a different tone will help you get your message across in the future...)
This comment does have merit. One of the really annoying things about traditional taxis is the uncertainty cost.
- You almost never know beforehand because the cost is calculated en route
- in some countries (thailand, vietnam, probably more) they try to avoid using the meter if you don't know what you're doing
- After the journey seemingly random extras can get added for luggage, toll roads, airport fees etc. In civilized countries most are probably legit, but as a visitor how do you know?
- Tips add to the uncertainty. If you travel a lot, you need to learn tipping customs for each country you visit.
With uber, you see the total price on the app, including service and all extras, before you book the ride. I hate their business model and their disrespect for local laws and practice, but in Europe I almost totally avoid cabs because of the reasons above, and a decent app would go a long way towards making me use taxis more often.
BTW: At the company I work for, we already replaced SHA-2 with SHA-3 for security reasons. Better safe than sorry.
In my country, we kicked out the Shas and migrated to Ayatollahs, who have a unique uniqueness guarantee!
Our cat was whining every morning, and seemed to have more patience than us at keeping up the game.
We bought a spray bottle, and sprayed generously when he whined in the mornings. It didn't hurt him (obviously), but he completely stopped the behaviour after three applications.
+1 :)