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1601

Living Room / Re: FCC ruling on ringtones is... shortsighted

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 06:13 PM »

How is that solving the underlying problem?

-wraith808 (June 24, 2014, 02:55 PM)

I think the FCC did as much as they could. They can't directly order the companies to fix problems. They're a regulatory agency. All they can do is pass a regulation and threaten enforcement action if it's ignored. But they're not the cops. And they're also (as they are sometimes forcefully reminded) a creature of Congress. They serve at the pleasure of the Congress. They can have their authority revoked at the stroke of the same pen that created them. So much like the Federal Reserve, they have influence and some narrowly defined authority - but not the final word.

It's up to the courts to rule on whether or not an agency exceeds its mandate or authority - and it's almost entirely up to the Executive Branch and the discretion of the Justice Department whether or not to prosecute or enforce a regulation or law. It's their call. And if there's not sufficient political will and public support (or awareness) behind a law - it often doesn't get enforced. You can't even sue in court to force the government to enforce a law. Ronald Regan wrote the book on that when he simply ordered the Justice Department not to enforce certain laws his administration disagreed with. And the courts ruled he was within the legal authority of his office even though they had a lot of negative comments to make about a President behaving in that manner.

Such is the power of the Executive Office.

So right now, I think the FCC did as much as they could by focusing awareness and drawing attention to where the problem is - and more importantly, who is responsible. If there is sufficient public outcry, it will eventually force our government to do something more concrete. And hopefully address the root of the problem. But until then, don't hold your breath. There's a lot of telco lobby money leaning on Congress and the Senate. And the Congress and the Senate are leaning on the FCC as a result. And it is an election year...
 

1602

Living Room / Re: FCC ruling on ringtones is... shortsighted

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 02:12 PM »

It's mostly to give advantage to the land-line die hards.

-wraith808 (June 24, 2014, 10:21 AM)

I don't think it's so much landline diehards. All the big telcos want out of landline with NO requirement to provide alternative services unless they can sock their customers for a very expensive replacement system.

Cell towers to provide full coverage were supposed to be in place nationwide years ago. But the wireless phone folks concentrated on the areas that gave them the most revenue and dragged their feet about the rest they promised, choosing instead to pocket the cash rather than invest a healthy amount back into their networks. That reinvestment was something they originally promised - and were legally obligated to do. And when it finally hit the fan, rather than just getting it done, these same telcos lobbied Congress and the FCC to be released from the obligations they previously agreed to - and which were a condition of getting the frequency bands that were awarded to them.

All this reg is doing is making it obvious where the delays in getting an actual connection are occurring. It's also a safety issue. Suppose you were checking up on an ageing parent and you worried something bad had happened because nobody answered the phone, not knowing the call never reached them because it was hung up in your wireless carrier’s inadequate and under-provisioned network.  

That's not government meddling. That's just common decency. And a reminder to these companies that they've been handed a fairly free ride, and been allowed to operate as actual and near-monopolies in exchange for their promise to provide reliable telecommunications to ALL users in ALL regions of the country

That was the deal. I hope they succeed in making them stick to it.

1603

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a decent youtube downloader?

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 12:09 PM »

Get the youtubecenter plugin,

-Shades (June 23, 2014, 06:39 PM)

I have it installed in FF 28.0. It doesn't seem to be there however. How do you use it?

1604

Living Room / Re: FCC ruling on ringtones is... shortsighted

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 10:57 AM »

When you can't sort out important issues (like net neutrality) find a little diddley issue you can "solve" more easily.

Although in this case, I think because it's originating in response to an issue surrounding rural area phone customers (whom all the major carriers are doing their absolute damnedest not to be required to serve any longer) there's probably a larger and more significant consideration behind this ruling.

1605

Living Room / Re: 50 Percent of the Energy Produced in Germany Is Solar: New Record

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 10:39 AM »

Side note: I'm really happy they're also going with a decentralized per-household approach rather than just a small group of giant sun farms.

Here in New England, we have an abundance of water power. Prior to WWII Connecticut was noted for it. There were these little unmanned generating stations all over the place with 5 or 6 foot dams on relatively small but fast rivers. After the Depression and prior to WWII however, the state (fuelled by federal project money) started building massive centralized power stations. Mostly coal fired generators located on what used to be beautiful coastline.

The argument was that the small dams were "inefficient" and lacked an economy of scale, whereas central power stations were easier to maintain and far more efficient. What fell out of the new equation was that these small stations also provided redundancy, were more robust by virtue of being decentralized, and non-polluting. But they didn't give the electric utilities the same hard-on as seeing a gigantic monster power plant with their logo on it sitting by the seashore with it's half dozen (or more) 200' stacks belching a cloud of smoke into the sky. Muy macho! I like!!!

It's that grand old smog
It's that low lying smog
You can tell by the stench and the pall...
Though it clouds our skies
And it burns our eyes,
It means there Employment for All...

Sad thing is, half of those little dams are still there and could be put back in operation with relatively little effort.

Had a school chum. His family spent their summers up in New Hampshire. His father had one of those little power dams on this huge parcel of land he owned. On a lark the old man did some research (he was a PE by trade) and gradually restored and recommissioned the thing. More as a hobby project than anything else. It wound up generating all the power he ever needed for the summer house he had built there and then some. They actually had to run it far below it's capacity because they couldn’t use anywhere near as much power as it was capable of generating. He did have a minor flap with the county regulators over it initially. All in the name of "public safety" and "fire codes" of course. But in the end (NH being the "Live Free of Die!" state) my buddy's old man won out. AFAIK that little power station is still in operation to this day.

When I was actively involved in a lot of what has since come to be called "integral urban" and "sustainable living," one of the things that used to get thrown at us "commune" and "ecology freaks" was that we were trying to "Send the country back to the stone age." (Horrors!) But that wasn't true at all. We were just trying to roll things back to the 1930s with its right-sized population and technology levels. Because right after WWII, the USA began transitioning over to its current global industrial-economic model - and stopped being self-sufficient when it came to food, water, natural resources, and energy.

Big mistake IMHO - but so it goes.  

1606

Living Room / Re: 50 Percent of the Energy Produced in Germany Is Solar: New Record

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 09:58 AM »

Nope!

It's progress period. Twenty years ago it wasn't happening at all.

The key to this stuff is realizing it's going to happen incrementally rather than by a seismic shift. Which is probably a good thing. Because rapid major change usually only occurs in response to some horrible crisis.

As long as it keeps happening, I'll be happy to +1 with the tortoise: Slow but steady wins the race.

1607

Living Room / Re: 50 Percent of the Energy Produced in Germany Is Solar: New Record

« Last post by 40hz on June 24, 2014, 09:45 AM »

It's very good news. But hitting a 50% peak is not the same thing as getting 50% of your energy from the sun on an ongoing basis - which that headline might lead some to think.

Still...it's a start - and I'm an apocaloptimist (I just found out w/thx to Wraith for my enlightenment) so I'll take it when and where I get it.

1608

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by 40hz on June 23, 2014, 02:21 PM »

Here's the lovely scene from the movie Once where we get to hear the song Falling Slowly.

Some background: The film is about a Dublin vacuum repairman and street busker (know only as "the guy" in the script) who dreams of putting a demo recording together and making a stab at a music career in London "once" he's ready.

While performing a few of his songs on the street he is approached by a woman (a Czech immigrant worker known only as "the girl" in the script) who annoys him by asking several questions about his songs. When he tells her he's really only a busker, and is actually an appliance repairman, the girl is delighted. She has a broken vacuum cleaner and asks him to repair it. After tugging her canister vacuum across Dublin the next day to his repair shop and getting it fixed she mentions that she is a musician too. When the guy asks if he can hear her play, she explains she's a pianist and doesn't have the money to buy an instrument. But she tells him there's a music store not too far away that lets her play the store instruments from time to time. They set off, him carrying his guitar and she dragging her vacuum cleaner behind her. When they arrive at the music store the following scene takes place as he shows her one of his songs - and to his surprise sees her quickly master it, sparking a near perfect duet...

I particularly enjoyed this because anybody who has ever played music seriously has a similar experience sooner or later. It doesn't even have to be this romantic - and it's usually not. But there are those magic moments when you're playing along with someone else and something suddenly clicks - and real music springs into existence.

It's one of the most gratifying experiences ever. And the thing that absolutely makes all the lonely and frustrating years of study and practice feel like a bargain - the best you ever had.

1609

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Copy massive folder/file directory....

« Last post by 40hz on June 23, 2014, 12:25 PM »

+1 w/Miles on RichCopy. I do some massive file moves for clients. It's never failed me.

However, I think part of the problem might be going from partition to partition on the same drive. You might be maxing the data buss or some internal scratch file Windows is using to keep track of what's going on. If that's what's actually happening, Windows is doing another one of those "graceful degradation & fails" you sometimes hear about.



You might try dumping the file onto an external drive first and then copying back over to the partition you want it on.

Another alternative might be to boot off a Windows or Linux 'live' rescue-type CD/DVD and see if you can get the copy operation to work that way. Since they're running as minimalist OSes, these tools have very little overhead and few if any 'distractions' running in the background. That may allow your copy to complete without interruption.

Luck!

1610

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt alternative

« Last post by 40hz on June 22, 2014, 10:17 PM »

In the end I strongy suspect there'll be nothing at all mysterious or sinister behind any of this. I'm guessing they were simply hired by somebody, and were either required to ditch their old opus as a condition of employment/contract - or they did it on their own as a gesture of goodwill to whomever. Probably either Microsoft or Uncle Sam.
 

1611

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a decent youtube downloader?

« Last post by 40hz on June 22, 2014, 12:58 PM »

I've found the FlashGot extension running under FF (in conjunction with the DownThemAll download manager for some extra capabilities) has yet to fail me grabbing a YouTube (or Vimeo) video. It's all running locally (and AFAIK transparently to the hosting site) so nobody is aware of the fact you're saving. Big plus since some sites will truncate a feed if they detect some of the better known download tools in operation.

1612

Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

« Last post by 40hz on June 22, 2014, 12:46 PM »

Well done K-Man!

Guess I'm gonna have to wait like Mouser for the Author's Cave write-up.

I'm in the "I don't do Facebook*" group too.

(*or Twitter, or Google+, or... )

1613

Living Room / Re: Soccer World Cup 2014

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 10:57 PM »

Much as I've tried, I just can't get into soccer.

Or watching any sporting event on TV for that matter.

Wish I could sometimes. But there you have it.

Anybody else have this same problem?

1614

Living Room / Re: Accent Tour Videos

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 10:53 PM »

I feel like I'm being a fussy beggar if I say this, but I cant let it go:
if she's including Irish accents with the video title "British Accents", she may as well throw in American, Canadian, Caribbean, Indian, Australian, and a bunch of others...

-tomos (June 21, 2014, 05:57 PM)

Maybe you would have preferred she called it "accents of the British Isles?"

1615

Living Room / Re: Has anyone notices Youtube bandwidth requirements just increased?

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 04:31 PM »

I think everybody is jockeying for position and creating as big a annoyance as possible prior to the FCC issuing it's new net gangbang "neutrality" regs.

Sure looks like a little political posturing and hanky-panky to me!

1616

Living Room / Re: Accent Tour Videos

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 03:38 PM »

@Mouser - thx for sharing that. Being a closet anglophile (i.e. New Englander) I'm always anxious to learn more about that funny island nation we have so much - and also so very little - in common with.

1617

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 03:34 PM »

@IainB - Glad you liked it! I found the article particularly resonant since (in one of my former incarnations) I was an avid urban/hidden/lost-places explorer. I got started in 1973. But it really took off after the film The Last Wave came out in 1977 and people learned about some of the locations found in the movie. More on hidden/lost places here and here.

It also reminded me a little of the scene in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness where the exploration team first enters an eon dead, frozen city in Antarctica and begins to piece out it's history from the murals on the walls. (Good read if you haven't btw. I've included the link to an electronic edition.)

Ia! Cthulhu ftaghn!

1618

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 01:51 PM »

Remember reading Shelly's famous sonnet Ozymandias back in school?

In case you don't

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Think about Shelly's words while taking a look at this article.

1619

DC Gamer Club / Re: Possibly interesting blog post from a pirate/Steam gamer

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 11:26 AM »

Good article with many valid points. When the cost in effort to pirate something genuinely exceeds the monetary savings gained by doing so, it will stop. Or so says the arguments behind implementing DRM. Steam makes DRM as painless as possible.

But I still think GoG has a better approach.

1620

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt alternative

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 11:21 AM »

...because Apple is an incorporated, for-profit legal person and is obliged to act in that regard at all times.

-IainB (June 21, 2014, 02:01 AM)

Not really. There's no legal requirement they do so, contrary to the erroneous but widely held belief there is. That Apple (and other corporations) may, in practice, act as if there is such a requirement, is a separate issue.

An article over at the Washington Post by Neil Irwin has a good discussion about the myths and issues surrounding the notion of "maximizing shareholder value." Find it here.

From the article:

...There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list. In most states, corporations can be formed for any lawful purpose. Cornell University law professor Lynn Stout has been looking for years for a corporate charter that even mentions maximizing profits or share price. She hasn’t found one.

Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders. The fiduciary duty, in fact, is owed simply to the corporation, which is owned by no one, just as you and I are owned by no one — we are all “persons” in the eyes of the law. Shareholders, however, have a contractual claim to the “residual value” of the corporation once all its other obligations have been satisfied — and even then directors are given wide latitude to make whatever use of that residual value they choose, as long they’re not stealing it for themselves.

It is true that only shareholders have the power to select a corporation’s directors. But it requires the peculiar imagination of a corporate lawyer to leap from that to a broad mandate that those directors have a duty to put the interests of shareholders above all others...

I think it's important to keep in mind that companies do what they do for their own reasons. There are no laws which compel them to behave in an immoral or abusive manner. That some in business attempt to claim there are such laws is simply a smokescreen put up in the attempt to avoid culpability for acts which often are illegal. So let's not get taken in by it.
 

1621

General Software Discussion / Re: Good bye. (originally About buying books, etc., especially at amazon's)

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2014, 06:43 AM »

But of course, unless you're just posting to get things down, it can feel lonely after a while as no one responds if no one reads.

That of course, is the most cruel and ironic problem with writing long posts -- sometimes the more work you put into writing a long post, the less likely it is that others will be able to absorb it all and be able to respond..

-mouser (June 20, 2014, 10:56 PM)

I think therein lies the fundamental difference between posting in a forum and posting for a blog.

Forums are a conversation. Blogs are more a meditation, lecture, ramble.

If you want to go long, get a blog.

1622

Living Room / Re: Switzerland-based ProtonMail, yet another secure email service

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2014, 10:13 PM »

One inference that could be drawn from all of that is that it might be difficult to distinguish/separate the "corrupt roots" from ourselves and our inherent nature as a species.

-IainB (June 20, 2014, 09:14 PM)

This.

It is in the nature of all things human to go from bad to worse - and (given sufficient time) from worse to merde.

1623

Living Room / Re: 58 Cognitive Biases That Screw Up Everything We Do

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2014, 10:08 PM »

So what would it be like to live with no irrational cognitive biases?  Boring?  Enlightened?  Insane?  I really wonder...

-Edvard (June 20, 2014, 09:18 PM)

Inhuman. 

1624

Living Room / Re: Supreme Court Invalidates Software Patent...

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2014, 09:58 PM »

That's called: capitalism at work.  

-40hz (June 20, 2014, 02:29 PM)

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

-Renegade (June 20, 2014, 08:11 PM)

Seems more to me that you keep missing some deliberate sarcasm when you hear it.

(@Ren - For the record I have enough formal and informal education in economic theory to know all six of the major accepted definitions/schools of capitalism along with another six or seven neo-capitalist riffs on it. Ditto enough mathematical background to go beyond a purely humanities-level understanding of the topic. Hope that will put your mind at rest going forward. )

The "poverty level" moves as needed for the benefit of those controlling the system.

-Stoic Joker (June 20, 2014, 02:22 PM)

+1

-Renegade (June 20, 2014, 08:11 PM)

Not really.

It is a lousy metric to be sure. It was never intended (by the people who originally came up with it) to be a metric driving 90% of US social programs. One story goes it was put together quickly (during a lunch break - on the back of a piece of paper) in response to the question: "Exactly what is poverty? How are we defining it?" The fact it was a quick & dirty un-vetted calculation didn't stop it from being adopted by the agency that has since become the Office of Management and Budget.

So yes...is it a half-baked standard that needs to be replaced? Probably. But capricious and changeable? Hardly. Because it's methodology and formula for determining the official "federal poverty level" has remained virtually unchanged since it was first introduced in 1963. The last edit to it was made back in 1981 when farm and female-headed households were eliminated as separate categories with their own poverty thresholds. They are now lumped in with everything else.

Corporations lobbying for new regulations isn't "capitalism".

Go look up the definition for "Corporate Capitalism."

Creating a law doesn't make anything moral/ethical

I doubt anybody over the age of twelve seriously thinks it does. Law is law - it's its own virtual reality - with its own agenda. Ethics and morality may be an influence on the legal system - or serve as an overall justification for one. But they're not the product of that system. They're more what you'd call guidelines.

It pays to remember Oliver Wendell Holmes famous quote about a 'court of law' vs a 'court of justice.' It's an important distinction. And that distinction is why the third branch of the US government is called The Judicial Branch rather than the Justice Branch. If a court actually succeeds in delivering justice, it's purely a side affect of interpreting and enforcing the law.

Wish it weren't so. But that's the way it rolls in this country.

1625

General Software Discussion / Re: Good bye. (originally About buying books, etc., especially at amazon's)

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2014, 08:41 PM »

Am I the only reader here who is utterly confused by this entire thread?

Unlikely.

-mouser (June 20, 2014, 08:56 AM)

FWIW, although it required noticeable effort to read for me (he he, getting old), I found the content understandable and interesting.

-ewemoa (June 20, 2014, 07:22 PM)

Excellent! Going forward, you can be our 'official' Rosetta Stone.