Doesn't mean its okay to splash the stuff around now.
Actually it might. It is cost prohibitive (and quality of life prohibitive) to attempt to live in a 100% efficient manner. There will always be boundaries in which there is flexibility.
Heating and cooling are orders of magnitude greater than pocket electronics in terms of power consumption. To put it bluntly, you would need to charge your cell phone 300-400 times in order to match running your Air Conditioner for 1 hour.
I'd say that gives cell phones some wiggle room in the charging efficiency category. The reason why cell phones require so little power is by virtue of the fact that they are designed to be portable, and available for the entire day (or days). Televisions, DVD players, and game consoles which COULD benefit from more power efficiency (in terms of 'green') don't do so because they currently don't need to.
As a result, worrying about cell phones is just, pardon the pun, wasted energy. Their efficiency puts them so low on the energy impact scale that I probably wasted more energy typing up this post on a regular computer than my cell phone consumed playing back music at the same time.
Cell phones have a natural check to energy wastefullness that other electronic products do not have. That check is that they MUST be portable, and therefore efficiency is ALWAYS a high concern of the designers. This means that they will likely always at the bottom of any list of household power consumers. Even if the chargers become less efficient, the cell phone itself will not really require enough power to make us worry about it.
The 'waste' you are worried about is like worrying about waste energy when you walk out your front door and the AC is running. Yes, there is loss, but with respect to things we can actually worry about without impacting our quality of life, it is inconsequential.
If you make the charging contacts part of the membrane and make them withstand the environment they are to function in - then there is no reason why you should need inductive charging.
Ignoring your big IF for a moment: That will have an effect on the aesthetics(not always minor). They require the ability to maintain contact and quite often with docks, require a specific alignment/configuration. If using docks, each one must be tailored to the device which will dock in it, therefore you will likely require a separate dock for each device you own. Inductive charging allows for a single charging point to support an unlimited number of device shapes.
The big IF: Contacts require sealing if you are talking about crossing the membrane. That means seals or some type of welding of the membrane to the contact body or frame. Increased complexity.
just because it sits loosely on the base so you simply place the phone on the dock, rather than having to slot carefully into the receptor on the dock. (which essentially guides the device into the plug connector)
as I said, not a huge difference, but a nice one.
And ironically, it DOES help standardize the docking. Since you fit your phone with a special adapter, it can be performed on almost any phone.
With docks, each phone has it's own special dock, so if you have 6-7 devices (high estimate) you need 6-7 docks, each with their own cable, and each not terribly secured to the table they are on.
With this, you could modify each phone, and then swap them in and out of the same 'charger'.
Why would I ever spend $20 (for two) to go to see a movie when I can spend $1 instead?
Around hear theaters are charging $12-14 per ticket. Interesting for a format that started in Nickelodeons. Now that they are approaching levels where I can STILL get tickets to see the Philadelphia Orchestra practice (Or perform.. I get a somewhat special deal).
Devil's Advocate here, but does that mean they shouldn't be sued for their infringement?
If they can show that they caused damages even close to $2,900? Perhaps then.
The methods being employed and the shackles placed on technology means I'm not going to support the plaintiffs. A good start would be having my television not try to negotiate with my cable box to determine if I'm being a good boy.
The "peers" part continues to stick in my craw a bit. If I am arrested, how likely is it the the jury will have anyone that could be considered my peer? it is a jury of fellow citizens and nothing more.
Those are your peers. You aren't a noble being judged by commoners, and you aren't a commoner being judged by nobles. Since we don't have the concept of nobility in the United States, there IS only one group of your peers, fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Socrates ever said that. Your quote first appeared in the book Personality and Adjustment in 1953. There is no evidence of the quote before that date. See
If you want to get technical about it, there is no direct evidence of Socrates saying anything. Most of what we know about him is through second hand accounts.
Sounds good to me. If Time Warner does something I don't like I can go to.... hmmm.... FIOS isn't in my area yet. I suppose I *could* go to DSL but Verizon doesn't seem to be supporting that as well as they used to. And what if Verizon does something I don't like? No other company in my area offers high speed Internet.
Or if you are like me, and DSL isn't even offered in your area.
(offtopic: Same Jason from DSLreports? We've had some discussions there.)
So we're back to "so what makes it wrong?". You say AOL and MSN aren't good analogies, fine. But that does nothing to answer the question, which is why shouldn't your ISP be allowed to offer access packages that aren't the entire internet?
Because of a lack of competition due to the fact that there are physical limitations which prevent others from entering the market and competing against these 'premium packages'.
It is why I don't support the ESPN360 situation right now. I do NOT like ESPN. However, the choices I have between carriers are between Comcast (ESPN360 subscriber) and Verizon FIOS (ESPN360 subscriber). There are NO other equivalent broadband options available to me, and there WON'T be other options because of issues due to physical right-of-way and easements.
Thus I cannot choose to avoid paying ESPN and still have broadband internet access.
There really isn't much of a difference. Either way your business has the potential to lose assets simply because you're doing business in that environment. It's all about risk versus reward and so long as the reward for doing business in India outweighs the risks, businesses will continue their efforts there.
You are off base on this one. Consider a patent. You are explaining just how you plan to build/accomplish something and the government is recognizing it and saying to other competitors "Hands off, only this guy gets to do it this way" (for x period of time). That something is public does not mean that IP is not protected, and in this case, it isn't even as public as a patent (though more exposed than something left encrypted).
The US has very strong IP protection laws on things such as movies and novels which as presented are the exact opposite of private.
If someone's trying to call 911, I'd think the phone company should drop someone's chat with their girlfriend if there otherwise wouldn't be capacity for that 911 call.
I don't think AT&T is worried about 911 service in this case. We can build in priority for emergency services if they would like, but somehow, I doubt they would prefer that option.
So what makes it wrong? Should the old AOL and MSN "walled gardens" have been illegal? They seem to have failed just fine on their own...
They failed because there was competition. They were operated by dialing in via the phone lines. And that LITERALLY is the point. That AOL and MSN could exist at all was by virtue of the fact that the Phone Companies couldn't discriminate against them. And since there wasn't discrimination over who you could call, anyone who had the equipment and paid for the connections could set up a competing service.
Switching from AOL or MSN was as easy as calling another phone number.
Now, consider how easy it is to switch from one Cable internet provider to a different Cable internet provider. I'd bet 90% of the time if you want to try a different cable company, switching would involve selling your freaking house and moving to a different city (or state).
Hell, the NUMBER 1 factor in me chosing my current home was finding one that had decent internet services available. And I'm not kidding on this, the first thing I looked at when presented with a new place on the market was "Can I get FIOS there". Now, that's not true for everyone, but having the ability to at least switch between two comparable services was VERY VERY important to me because when you DON'T have that option, it is very easy for that option to suck.
Earlier I decided that I wanted to switch internet providers from Dial-up. If I wanted another dial-up provider all it took was 5 minutes on DSLreports.com to find a decent service. To switch to DSL... impossible, they hadn't upgraded the CO. To switch to cable... $1500 to build a new extention to my house, it took 9 months before they finally got around to it.
The point is, MSN/AOL failed because there was competition. In the broadband market, aside from a very few lucky areas, there is none.
I don't think numbers using it should affect it. If you buy a device with a feature that you use that should be enough.
Yes, we advertised that our pipes could handle 300 PSI but 99.9% of people who purchase our plumbing supplies use it at household water pressures. That someone would put a fluid at 250 PSI through our pipes is just silly.
Numbers can be justification for removing a feature from future models, but if it is sold with a feature and that feature is removed or fails to operate at that level then the manufacturer owes the buyer a refund.
AT&T says ISPs should be able to alter service levels based on how much the internal endpoint has paid or what preferences the internal endpoint has expressed. These are perfectly compatible and both make perfect sense.
Want to access youtube.com from urISP? That's an extra $10/month. Don't worry though, we comply with the law since we aren't charging youtube.com for that premium access.
Even if it is just: Youtube.com unthrottled: $1/month it's wrong.
For me? Just plain old tasty wonderful butter. I'm losing weight now because I'm just eating traditional foods. Everything tastes amazing, and is a hell of a lot easier to prepare. Watch Julia Child's Omlette segment. Butter + hot pan + eggs + a little water (I prefer a bit of milk). Twenty freaking seconds on the stove and you have a filling, tasty dish.
What is working for me is that when I don't try to substitute 'healthy' alternatives and just use basic cheeses, eggs, meats, vegtables (reduced carbs though). The result is that from a numeric standpoint it seems to be worse for you, but you end up feeling a lot more satisifed and eat more appropriate portions.
When I do have carbs it's generally in the form of low processed ones like steel-cut oats (irish oatmeal). Or choosing sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes.
Sagan's dead and Phil has launched a pilot for hopefully a new series on Discovery channel. Eventually someone's got to take up the torch Sagan left behind.
My point is that it's on the same 'line' as Christian Huygens, Isaac Newton, Johanes Kepler, Edwin Hubble, Galileo Galilei, and Copernicus.
The creator of this map has some serious 'scale' issues. Perhaps if he split the Astronomer line to cover 'Astronomy-cheerleader'/got-a-show-on-Discovery. And I'm not saying that isn't important, but it's far too pop-culture for me.
If we are going to include people like that, then I'd like to see Don Herbert (Mr. Wizard) up on the list, because a hell of a lot more people can point to him as a science role model than Phil Plait.
Was good for you. Then bad for you. Now has good cholestorol. It's the prime example of why "studies" are nothing but trash. Follow some people, draw a conclusion based on horribly imperfect information and call it science!
I've significantly increased my consumption of eggs at the recommendation of a nutritionist. In a month or so I'm due another cholesterol test, so we will see if it helped me at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Mine doesn't. I show my lack of support by not using any product requiring HDCP.
Can you point me to a television that doesn't support HDCP? My problem is that I don't have a choice in selecting my cable box.
(Not snarky, I'm curious if there are any 'good companies' out there)
Doesn't mean its okay to splash the stuff around now.
Actually it might. It is cost prohibitive (and quality of life prohibitive) to attempt to live in a 100% efficient manner. There will always be boundaries in which there is flexibility.
Heating and cooling are orders of magnitude greater than pocket electronics in terms of power consumption. To put it bluntly, you would need to charge your cell phone 300-400 times in order to match running your Air Conditioner for 1 hour.
I'd say that gives cell phones some wiggle room in the charging efficiency category. The reason why cell phones require so little power is by virtue of the fact that they are designed to be portable, and available for the entire day (or days). Televisions, DVD players, and game consoles which COULD benefit from more power efficiency (in terms of 'green') don't do so because they currently don't need to.
As a result, worrying about cell phones is just, pardon the pun, wasted energy. Their efficiency puts them so low on the energy impact scale that I probably wasted more energy typing up this post on a regular computer than my cell phone consumed playing back music at the same time.
Cell phones have a natural check to energy wastefullness that other electronic products do not have. That check is that they MUST be portable, and therefore efficiency is ALWAYS a high concern of the designers. This means that they will likely always at the bottom of any list of household power consumers. Even if the chargers become less efficient, the cell phone itself will not really require enough power to make us worry about it.
The 'waste' you are worried about is like worrying about waste energy when you walk out your front door and the AC is running. Yes, there is loss, but with respect to things we can actually worry about without impacting our quality of life, it is inconsequential.
If you make the charging contacts part of the membrane and make them withstand the environment they are to function in - then there is no reason why you should need inductive charging.
Ignoring your big IF for a moment: That will have an effect on the aesthetics(not always minor). They require the ability to maintain contact and quite often with docks, require a specific alignment/configuration. If using docks, each one must be tailored to the device which will dock in it, therefore you will likely require a separate dock for each device you own. Inductive charging allows for a single charging point to support an unlimited number of device shapes.
The big IF: Contacts require sealing if you are talking about crossing the membrane. That means seals or some type of welding of the membrane to the contact body or frame. Increased complexity.
just because it sits loosely on the base so you simply place the phone on the dock, rather than having to slot carefully into the receptor on the dock. (which essentially guides the device into the plug connector)
as I said, not a huge difference, but a nice one.
And ironically, it DOES help standardize the docking. Since you fit your phone with a special adapter, it can be performed on almost any phone.
With docks, each phone has it's own special dock, so if you have 6-7 devices (high estimate) you need 6-7 docks, each with their own cable, and each not terribly secured to the table they are on.
With this, you could modify each phone, and then swap them in and out of the same 'charger'.
It easier to use than plugging in a cable in a socket? Hardly.
It is easier when your socket is behind the breakfront.
Why would I ever spend $20 (for two) to go to see a movie when I can spend $1 instead?
Around hear theaters are charging $12-14 per ticket. Interesting for a format that started in Nickelodeons. Now that they are approaching levels where I can STILL get tickets to see the Philadelphia Orchestra practice (Or perform.. I get a somewhat special deal).
Devil's Advocate here, but does that mean they shouldn't be sued for their infringement?
If they can show that they caused damages even close to $2,900? Perhaps then.
The methods being employed and the shackles placed on technology means I'm not going to support the plaintiffs. A good start would be having my television not try to negotiate with my cable box to determine if I'm being a good boy.
By the Once and Future King!
The "peers" part continues to stick in my craw a bit. If I am arrested, how likely is it the the jury will have anyone that could be considered my peer?
it is a jury of fellow citizens and nothing more.
Those are your peers. You aren't a noble being judged by commoners, and you aren't a commoner being judged by nobles. Since we don't have the concept of nobility in the United States, there IS only one group of your peers, fellow citizens.
You mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/user/muse
You know, the official pages for actual bands where they put up videos of their own concerts and songs?
Most of which were by people who directly knew him (i.e. Plato) as opposed to someone who lived in 1953.
Yeah, that's kind of what I meant by second hand.
It's a minor complaint, but I sure wish they'd do something about it.
iSweatband. 2011.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Socrates ever said that. Your quote first appeared in the book Personality and Adjustment in 1953. There is no evidence of the quote before that date. See
If you want to get technical about it, there is no direct evidence of Socrates saying anything. Most of what we know about him is through second hand accounts.
Sounds good to me. If Time Warner does something I don't like I can go to.... hmmm.... FIOS isn't in my area yet. I suppose I *could* go to DSL but Verizon doesn't seem to be supporting that as well as they used to. And what if Verizon does something I don't like? No other company in my area offers high speed Internet.
Or if you are like me, and DSL isn't even offered in your area.
(offtopic: Same Jason from DSLreports? We've had some discussions there.)
So we're back to "so what makes it wrong?". You say AOL and MSN aren't good analogies, fine. But that does nothing to answer the question, which is why shouldn't your ISP be allowed to offer access packages that aren't the entire internet?
Because of a lack of competition due to the fact that there are physical limitations which prevent others from entering the market and competing against these 'premium packages'.
It is why I don't support the ESPN360 situation right now. I do NOT like ESPN. However, the choices I have between carriers are between Comcast (ESPN360 subscriber) and Verizon FIOS (ESPN360 subscriber). There are NO other equivalent broadband options available to me, and there WON'T be other options because of issues due to physical right-of-way and easements.
Thus I cannot choose to avoid paying ESPN and still have broadband internet access.
There really isn't much of a difference. Either way your business has the potential to lose assets simply because you're doing business in that environment. It's all about risk versus reward and so long as the reward for doing business in India outweighs the risks, businesses will continue their efforts there.
You are off base on this one. Consider a patent. You are explaining just how you plan to build/accomplish something and the government is recognizing it and saying to other competitors "Hands off, only this guy gets to do it this way" (for x period of time). That something is public does not mean that IP is not protected, and in this case, it isn't even as public as a patent (though more exposed than something left encrypted).
The US has very strong IP protection laws on things such as movies and novels which as presented are the exact opposite of private.
If someone's trying to call 911, I'd think the phone company should drop someone's chat with their girlfriend if there otherwise wouldn't be capacity for that 911 call.
I don't think AT&T is worried about 911 service in this case. We can build in priority for emergency services if they would like, but somehow, I doubt they would prefer that option.
So what makes it wrong? Should the old AOL and MSN "walled gardens" have been illegal? They seem to have failed just fine on their own...
They failed because there was competition. They were operated by dialing in via the phone lines. And that LITERALLY is the point. That AOL and MSN could exist at all was by virtue of the fact that the Phone Companies couldn't discriminate against them. And since there wasn't discrimination over who you could call, anyone who had the equipment and paid for the connections could set up a competing service.
Switching from AOL or MSN was as easy as calling another phone number.
Now, consider how easy it is to switch from one Cable internet provider to a different Cable internet provider. I'd bet 90% of the time if you want to try a different cable company, switching would involve selling your freaking house and moving to a different city (or state).
Hell, the NUMBER 1 factor in me chosing my current home was finding one that had decent internet services available. And I'm not kidding on this, the first thing I looked at when presented with a new place on the market was "Can I get FIOS there". Now, that's not true for everyone, but having the ability to at least switch between two comparable services was VERY VERY important to me because when you DON'T have that option, it is very easy for that option to suck.
Earlier I decided that I wanted to switch internet providers from Dial-up. If I wanted another dial-up provider all it took was 5 minutes on DSLreports.com to find a decent service. To switch to DSL... impossible, they hadn't upgraded the CO. To switch to cable... $1500 to build a new extention to my house, it took 9 months before they finally got around to it.
The point is, MSN/AOL failed because there was competition. In the broadband market, aside from a very few lucky areas, there is none.
If you're one of the people who either don't like Arcade Sticks (don't laugh, there are a few, apparently)
I never did. *shrug* I never got what was so great about them.
I don't think numbers using it should affect it. If you buy a device with a feature that you use that should be enough.
Yes, we advertised that our pipes could handle 300 PSI but 99.9% of people who purchase our plumbing supplies use it at household water pressures. That someone would put a fluid at 250 PSI through our pipes is just silly.
Numbers can be justification for removing a feature from future models, but if it is sold with a feature and that feature is removed or fails to operate at that level then the manufacturer owes the buyer a refund.
AT&T says ISPs should be able to alter service levels based on how much the internal endpoint has paid or what preferences the internal endpoint has expressed. These are perfectly compatible and both make perfect sense.
Want to access youtube.com from urISP? That's an extra $10/month. Don't worry though, we comply with the law since we aren't charging youtube.com for that premium access.
Even if it is just: Youtube.com unthrottled: $1/month it's wrong.
Space is relatively easy to work in. The only problem is getting out of our gravity well.
and 100 million kilometer supply chain.
Tabasco?
For me? Just plain old tasty wonderful butter. I'm losing weight now because I'm just eating traditional foods. Everything tastes amazing, and is a hell of a lot easier to prepare. Watch Julia Child's Omlette segment. Butter + hot pan + eggs + a little water (I prefer a bit of milk). Twenty freaking seconds on the stove and you have a filling, tasty dish.
What is working for me is that when I don't try to substitute 'healthy' alternatives and just use basic cheeses, eggs, meats, vegtables (reduced carbs though). The result is that from a numeric standpoint it seems to be worse for you, but you end up feeling a lot more satisifed and eat more appropriate portions.
When I do have carbs it's generally in the form of low processed ones like steel-cut oats (irish oatmeal). Or choosing sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes.
Sagan's dead and Phil has launched a pilot for hopefully a new series on Discovery channel. Eventually someone's got to take up the torch Sagan left behind.
My point is that it's on the same 'line' as Christian Huygens, Isaac Newton, Johanes Kepler, Edwin Hubble, Galileo Galilei, and Copernicus.
The creator of this map has some serious 'scale' issues. Perhaps if he split the Astronomer line to cover 'Astronomy-cheerleader'/got-a-show-on-Discovery. And I'm not saying that isn't important, but it's far too pop-culture for me.
If we are going to include people like that, then I'd like to see Don Herbert (Mr. Wizard) up on the list, because a hell of a lot more people can point to him as a science role model than Phil Plait.
Was good for you. Then bad for you. Now has good cholestorol. It's the prime example of why "studies" are nothing but trash. Follow some people, draw a conclusion based on horribly imperfect information and call it science!
I've significantly increased my consumption of eggs at the recommendation of a nutritionist. In a month or so I'm due another cholesterol test, so we will see if it helped me at all.
(Aside from losing 13 lbs over the past month.)