the same arguments against the drone fleet is the same against the atomic bomb. What something is designed for (death in both cases) is not always their effect. For example, the atomic bombs were used to incredible devastation and death when used but it could be argued they prevented the next war with Russia since a war between two nuclear powers meant total destruction on both sides.
I'll venture into prediction here. Do you think a regional warlord or rogue state ( ISIS or whatever comes after it ) would enter a conflict with another state that was backed by the US? They might, knowing that the US would be unlikely to do more than give airstrike and strategic support. But what if the US had a drone army/fleet that could do close air-support, block to block firefighting, differentiate combatants and non-combatants? It could mean a tougher fight for a group like that since little but money is risked on the side of the US.
Seems to me that at the moment there are a number of state and non state actors who seem happy to pull that tail of the US tiger, knowing that the consequences of the US reacting badly is the significant destruction of their country. Doesn't seem to deter them.
Expecting terrorist orginisations or rogue states to act in a rational way is the same as expecting the US to back down when their pride or national interest is threatened.
You're thinking about it backwards. It's not a "better MUNI". There's no turnstiles or gates, just bays. Not 4 or 6 like a train station but 40 to 60. Boarding a few people or more likely 1 takes less than 30s. That's 2/second. Plenty of bandwidth. And these stations are smaller and more dense, not every 15 blocks in the city but every few blocks, maybe in a large building's lobby. There's no swiping, it's on your smartphone and automated ( Open app, click "go home", app says "bay 21, approx, 2 min, pod #123, 1 other passenger"). Doors close when all the passengers are present. Pod has "pad requires service" button on console if there is a cleanliness issue.
This is attractive to the NIMBY crowd, fewer cars, less non-resident parking, less noise ( electric motors ) less local pollution. Who wouldn't want local rapid transit? They're not putting in Walmarts.
> There's no swiping, it's on your smartphone and automated ( Open app, click "go home", app says "bay 21, approx, 2 min, pod #123, 1 other passenger").
And in this hypothetical world, absolutely everyone who uses public transit has a smartphone?
Let's imagine the system engineers are smarter than that: if you have a smart phone, you can use the app. If you don't, there'd be a terminal in the station you could use. I'd imagine the engineers for this could have thought of that.
Easy enough to just assume people have smart phones and only have it in cities where mostly people will have them even the poorer people. A cheap smart phone isn't that expensive any more.
It's not just the cost, really: I know I can have a second hand smartphone for peanuts. There'll probably always be some people who don't use smartphones, for whatevre reason.
there's some hope here -- if they use Widevine for their DRM platform, and you're okay with using Google Chrome to view. if they go with Adobe Primetime/Flash Access (or any other DRM platform), we're basically screwed
It does use Widevine. Sling is basically the Move Networks technology EchoStar (DISH) bought three or four years ago, combined with some amendments for digital to EchoStars existing distribution deals.
Heck, if you check DNS they are even still using the old Move CDN configs:
~> host www.sling.com
www.sling.com is an alias for cdn.prod.movetv.com.c.footprint.net.
Why not? Hosting is cheap and my goal isn't to maximize revenue, it's to maximize personal gratification. I get the latter from free readers as well as paid ones.
Maybe the free version cannibalizes sales, but I'm certain the book is much higher profile and reached a much larger number of potential customers because I gave (and continue to give) the web version away for free.
I would argue that providing the book content for free as a website will sell more books vs only having the for-sale version.
Especially with a niche like this, until you're an established author that people will just buy because it was written by you, people will require some sort of evidence that you know what you're talking about. Is the book worth it? Reviews are good. Better? being able to skim or read the book before buying.
Due to how temporary websites are - I think the physical copies and the ebooks are a sound purchase for people that will want to be refer to this book at some point in the future.
Good to see they started from scratch instead of trying to simplify another heavier framework. It's a desperately needed reboot of Java web app development, very refreshing.
Here's a nice concrete example. You start a content/news blog/site. Instead of selling adspace you charge for your content by the pageview. Now how much are people willing to spend per pageview ? Probably not very much. Let's say < 1 cent. You start looking around for ways to charge people < 1 cent. Turns out it's ridiculous idea, no credit/online banking proposition is interested in < 1 cent transactions, it just doenst exist because of transactions costs. Hola Bitcoin. I can send you < 1 cent for every pageview I consume with 0 transaction costs.
The tools to do this are currently in the pipeline or are really not that hard to devise. This is what bitcoin offers that others don't. Forget anonymity or libertarian arguments, 0 transaction costs are extremely disruptive.
This is an application of Bitcoin. It says, "well, people want something that promises what Bitcoin promises; therefore, Bitcoin must be intrinsically valuable". But it's obvious why that isn't true. Flitcoin promises precisely the same things.
i'm not really worried about the intrinsic value of bitcoin, it goes up, it goes down, it doesn't matter. You don't have to store your wealth in bitcoin, USD goes in USD goes out when you want it to at usually 0.5% transaction cost ( or less some places ). And there's no reason Flitcoin can't succeed in the same places. I'm not sure why that would have anything to do with intrinsic value or why intrinsic value is of paramount importance.
In other words, you're content to ride out the "greater fool" theory, confident that you'll be able to jump out before the market spirals down to zero. And that's fine, but it doesn't address the question that roots this thread.
you can jump out whenever you get bitcoins. You don't have to hold onto bitcoins more than a few minutes after a transaction is confirmed. You can tie goods/service to the market rate and sell your bitcoins whenever you get them. It won't matter what the price is, $30 or $0.30. No fooling going on. And tell me again what the question is that roots this thread?
In other words, you're ignoring all problems about value transfer systems like gold and cash while assigning basic problems like that nobody trades food for gold when starving to BTC alone.
Gold for instance, seems to be a fool's buy, because there are few truly-useful non-technical things to do with it (you can't eat it) but actually works well as a basis for some value transfers. In a crash your bitcoins would depreciate wildly because nobody would part with anything of value for some bits - or a piece of paper - or some shiny metal.
This is just inherent in trading - there has to be a difference in value or the trade wouldn't happen, and if there's a difference in value the values may not relatively correspond at all points.
To some people, at some times, a token may be a useful marker in trade, as cash is now. With World of Warcraft healthy, there can be a good market in magic swords. With a healthy world economy, cash can be useful. When either fails, current holders will suffer. Gold will suffer differently, it won't be counterfeit or lost, but it won't be liquid. Ditto for BTC, they just become irrelevant relative to food.
Gold is anonymous, but can't practically be traded that way in large quantities. Cash is only pseudonymous like BTC as usually used - bills are scanned when dispensed and deposited. It's not globally visible, just to the most likely and well funded enemy - your own government.
It really seems like you should be harshing on representational value systems in general, or something.
