What if I produce my own fuel? i.e. solar panels As we move towards electric vehicles this will become much more prevalent and the 'tax' will dry up more than it is already.
Tax based on the usage of the vehicle and the impact it has (size).
What if the tax for roadway maintenance is different than the tax for general electric usage? How do you separate them when it all comes out of the same electrical spigot?
.
The best solution is still the odometer. It accurately measures the distance traveled by the vehicle. That is the burden the vehicle placed on the roadways and what any tax on it's 'usage' should be based on. Variability by vehicle type is reasonable to account for different vehicle sizes.
.
The use of 'fuel' to determine the 'cost' means that a tractor trailer powered by my own solar panels at home would pay zero tax while having a large impact on the roadway. Tax the usage not the 'efficiency' of the vehicle.
Tuesday, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, reported that Hannity's coverage of last week's Michelle Bachmann 'Press (cough Rally cough) Conference' blatantly used archived footage of Glenn Beck's 9/12 march and claimed it was live coverage showing 40,000+ people attending. OOPS
So Fox News is once again caught FALSIFYING it's coverage to hype the message it wants to spread.
While I'll agree there are many fanatics on both sides, to me it just seems like the Dems/libs seem to be based a lot more in actual facts and substance.
"Why can a Republican not use the liberal tactics?"
The the substance of the attacks and manner of attacks prevent Republicans from doing so.
First, Democrats attacked Bush on actual issues and facts (and largely have been proven right as information dribbled out). GOP is literally making stuff up to scare the crap out of people so they won't be smashed into oblivion in 10 years when people realize that national single payer health care is a very good thing. Much like Medicare which Republicans said would end our medical system as we know it. Funny we still have one and Medicare is pretty dang popular. Why should we listen to them now with the same old rants let alone fabrications?
These are the tactics the GOP uses, not actual arguments based on facts. There was an episode of Bill Maher's show recently that had fmr Sen. Bill Frist (a doctor) on talking about the H1N1 vaccine. It was a very telling scene when Frist says, "For once you're the crazy person and I've got facts on my side" because Maher has questions about whether *any* vaccine is a good idea. The implication being that the GOP is usually spouting craziness in the face of facts.
But please provide some evidence for your point of view...that you seem to haven't done yet...
the relevant section:
"material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
It would seem that a file on a hard disk is still a 'physical' copy. That file is represented by bits of material either with or without a magnetic charge which translate into 1s and 0s which are read by the computer and turned into music.
That to me is still a 'physical' representation of the song.
for your first point. Please, by all means, point out where Dems are calling GOP'ers 'unamerican' or 'traitors' for voicing criticism? Hell you have Cheney himself out there publicly undermining the Office of the President. Had Gore done that in Feb 2001, you can bet the howls of treason would have been fast and furious from the Right for Nothing party.
Mostly I hear the Dems saying the GOP is blatantly distorting or outright lying about the actual details of bills and policies. "Death Panels" come to mind and "they're going to pull the plug on Grandma" knowing full well they were lying all while pretending to negotiate in good faith. Calling such disingenuous behavior unfair or dangerous is a far cry from explicitly calling such action unamerican or aiding al-Quaeda, both of which explicit were said many many times during the run up to the war.
Or calling out the GOP when they cry foul over deficits. Um, really? after the last 8 years, NOBODY in the GOP has any credibility on fiscal governance.
How about Ari Fleischer? in 2001, after GOP losses in an off year election, he's on the WH podium claiming that Governor's races and special elections are about local issues and not indicative of a national mood. And guess what, now he's a paid shill on CNN claiming that, by golly, the GOP wins in VA and NJ really are referendums on Obama despite polls showing that most people said it was about local issues.
Who attended the Tea Bag parties is of little consequence to me. They were quite small and frankly pretty laughable.
My point was that Fox 'News' spent over a week promoting them on air. News agencies generally don't 'hype' upcoming events incessantly for a week. Without Fox 'News' telling everybody about them every single hour, the already tepid turnout would have been even smaller.
You had Hannity caught on camera lying about turnouts. He's told off air that the attendance was 2000-3500, and then he goes on air and says 15000-25000 easily.
The 'grass roots' movements Fox was supposedly reporting on have basically been unmasked as Freedom Works and other DC based lobbying efforts. Led by Dick Armey and other former GOP bigwigs with contributions from undisclosed sources, they even bused people into different events make it look like more people actually showed up than really did. Except that Fox didn't unmask them...why? because they supported the propaganda they were pushing.
Actually 'Right for nothing' sounds like a great catch phrase!
If Fox News did any reasonable journalism, frankly I wouldn't have an issue with them. It's the blatant hypocrisy and fear mongering that doesn't help the national discourse.
Any criticism of Bush and his policies was met with cries of 'traitor' and 'unamerican'. Now that the GOP has lost control of the WH and Congress, they seem to be quite happy to do nothing but criticize Obama and his policies.
The Tea Bagger 'movement' was utterly and completely promoted by Fox News. That's not 'journalism', that's propoganda.
You have the Fox pundits like Beck calling the President a racist and then Murdoch agreeing with him. Then there's O'Reilly's ambush interviewings; literally following a blogger on vacation 4 hours away in order to try and catch her off guard.
Sorry, Fox 'News' is not a news organization any more.
that shortening of the yellow can happen whether or not there's a red light camera present. They can have a cop sitting there waiting for violators too.
If someone shortened the yellow below the determined safe threshold, then frankly a law was already broken. It would be a threat to public safety.
The implementation details are certainly an issue, but they aren't the fault of the system, just the owner/operators. And that can be mitigated with proper oversight.
Whether the T-bones are included as part of the total number of crashes is an interesting question. Goes to getting actual independent data on the subjects rather than studies funded by one side or another. Something that seems harder and harder to do these days.
As you point out it's the time differential between the opposing traffic directions. From a standing start, yes there isn't much chance unless someone is coming through at a significant delay. But when the opposing traffic is moving with knowledge of when the light will turn green, whether based on local knowledge or whatever, your margin for error is much smaller.
No yellow lights at all? I'd say that's not really a good plan. Giving people warning is usually better than not doing so.
Also, by only having red lights, you would make people more accustom to driving through red lights since it is now a perfectly legal thing to do depending on how long it's been red. Not exactly encouraging the desired behavior IMO.
and Dick Armey is such a reputable source. He's an anti-government zealot who got fired from his law firm job because of his supposed 'grass roots' Freedom Works fear mongering and propoganda. How bad are you when *lawyers* feel like you're giving them a bad name?
Pair being anti-gov with opposing new law enforcement activities and of course he's going to be all over it.
Red light running either is or is not a serious issue. I tend to think it is. If it isn't, we really don't have much to discuss. The systems should obviously not be 'tweaked' to increase revenue, no should the contractors/operators of the system be given a 'cut' of any revenue.
I don't know of a single study that had drivers 'train' to use the new system and then tested how properly trained drivers would react. That's a key key point that is usually glossed over or ignored completely. Currently you have very few intersections with the cameras, and a public that doesn't really know how they work. That leads to snap decisions to slam on the brakes causing rear-end collisions by cars following too closely in the first place.
If yellow lights are too short, by all means increase them. But catching people who run red-lights is still a worthy goal.
You're dead on with the behavior angle. Of course accidents will go up...in the short run.
They haven't retrained the tens of thousands of drivers who go through the intersections as to how to respond to the new devices. Given the abject minimum of training drivers in the US receive, *any* significant change is going to cause issues.
Crashes are also much less severe than the t-bones that were previously being caused.
As people are aware of the cameras behaviors will change, but because they are few and far between right now, it's an "oh crap" realization and people slam on the brakes causing rearend accidents.
The original article also points out that they feel the costs would be higher because of Florida's significant elderly population. My guess is those elderly would also significantly increase costs associated with t-bone crashes too - so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison they are drawing.
The issues with illegal shortening of yellow light times as well as giving contractors a percentage of the revenue are all serious issues. But they are 'implementation' issues, not systemic faults with the system or technology. Those can be easily corrected.
As people understand how the cameras work and they exist in a majority of intersections the result will be marked decrease in red-light running. Until enforcement is uniform enough nothing will significantly change. It's still the "oh crap" reaction that causes the people following too closely to cause the accident.
Books and other published materials are a different thing. Once they are 'read' they don't really have value anymore. Reference materials etc perhaps an exception, but the 'use' is a much more one time type thing. I also think the publishing industry has much more strict, no pay for play, traditions which have been learned over many years. Blogging by nature is very decentralized and not subject a larger controlling industry.
Reviewing something means having it in your possession. The duration of that possession becomes the issue.
If a car reviewer was given a free car to continue to use after the review was complete, that's a pretty big bias in play.
If the bloggers simply try out a device and then give it back, there isn't any issue. It's the continued use of the freebie they are reviewing that causes the appearance of loss of objectivity.
"It seems like it's the other way around and they feel the need to say so when they AREN'T being paid to endorse the product."
This is exactly the point. An endorsement that isn't being purchased is obviously worth more than someone just paid to say 'this is great!'. When appearing in an ad, it's assumed the actor/athlete/whoever was paid for their time. Bloggers aren't appearing in ads, they are just writing and commenting. Athlete's get endorsement deals so that they will actually use the products (Nike shoes, golf clubs, etc). That shows people that the 'pro' is using the product - and athletes get fined if they are found to be using something else too. We don't get to see a blogger using a specific printer or piece of software.
Since a blogger is commenting on products, it's perfectly reasonable to require disclosure that they were or weren't paid (whether cash or free goods) to get that comment posted.
it perhaps isn't your 'TV' directly, but your tuner. This may be in your TV, your set top box, your DVR or even your computer.
The set top, DVR, computer all have various output formats. Coax, Component, VGA, HDMI.
What the MPAA is asking for is the right to determine which outputs you are allowed to see. For 'in demand' movies, they would let you only record over the lower quality outputs, if at all.
Other requests the MPAA has made in the past are trying to close the 'analog hole'. To bar recording at all on these outputs and only let recording happen on 'approved' digital connections. Meaning the 'recorder' would follow the show's setting to whether it would be recorded or not.
Imagine if Ford wanted to determine what speed you could drive on certain roads? no warning, just makes your Mustang start working like a Pinto.
RSS
Twitter
Re: Re: oops (as pixelpusher220)
What if I produce my own fuel? i.e. solar panels As we move towards electric vehicles this will become much more prevalent and the 'tax' will dry up more than it is already.
Tax based on the usage of the vehicle and the impact it has (size).
Re: Re: electric cars (as pixelpusher220)
What if the tax for roadway maintenance is different than the tax for general electric usage? How do you separate them when it all comes out of the same electrical spigot?
.
The best solution is still the odometer. It accurately measures the distance traveled by the vehicle. That is the burden the vehicle placed on the roadways and what any tax on it's 'usage' should be based on. Variability by vehicle type is reasonable to account for different vehicle sizes.
.
The use of 'fuel' to determine the 'cost' means that a tractor trailer powered by my own solar panels at home would pay zero tax while having a large impact on the roadway. Tax the usage not the 'efficiency' of the vehicle.
Adapting (as pixelpusher220)
DRM was adapting to piracy, so I'd say wait and see what their adaptations are before being congratulatory of them.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
and just to ram the point home...
Tuesday, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, reported that Hannity's coverage of last week's Michelle Bachmann 'Press (cough Rally cough) Conference' blatantly used archived footage of Glenn Beck's 9/12 march and claimed it was live coverage showing 40,000+ people attending. OOPS
So Fox News is once again caught FALSIFYING it's coverage to hype the message it wants to spread.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
While I'll agree there are many fanatics on both sides, to me it just seems like the Dems/libs seem to be based a lot more in actual facts and substance.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
"Why can a Republican not use the liberal tactics?"
The the substance of the attacks and manner of attacks prevent Republicans from doing so.
First, Democrats attacked Bush on actual issues and facts (and largely have been proven right as information dribbled out). GOP is literally making stuff up to scare the crap out of people so they won't be smashed into oblivion in 10 years when people realize that national single payer health care is a very good thing. Much like Medicare which Republicans said would end our medical system as we know it. Funny we still have one and Medicare is pretty dang popular. Why should we listen to them now with the same old rants let alone fabrications?
Secondly, google "DidGlennBeckRapeAndMurderAYoungGirlIn1990.com"
or see this link:
http://gawker.com/5400754/glenn-beck-meets-internet-loses
These are the tactics the GOP uses, not actual arguments based on facts. There was an episode of Bill Maher's show recently that had fmr Sen. Bill Frist (a doctor) on talking about the H1N1 vaccine. It was a very telling scene when Frist says, "For once you're the crazy person and I've got facts on my side" because Maher has questions about whether *any* vaccine is a good idea. The implication being that the GOP is usually spouting craziness in the face of facts.
But please provide some evidence for your point of view...that you seem to haven't done yet...
Copies (as pixelpusher220)
the relevant section:
"material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
It would seem that a file on a hard disk is still a 'physical' copy. That file is represented by bits of material either with or without a magnetic charge which translate into 1s and 0s which are read by the computer and turned into music.
That to me is still a 'physical' representation of the song.
Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
for your first point. Please, by all means, point out where Dems are calling GOP'ers 'unamerican' or 'traitors' for voicing criticism? Hell you have Cheney himself out there publicly undermining the Office of the President. Had Gore done that in Feb 2001, you can bet the howls of treason would have been fast and furious from the Right for Nothing party.
Mostly I hear the Dems saying the GOP is blatantly distorting or outright lying about the actual details of bills and policies. "Death Panels" come to mind and "they're going to pull the plug on Grandma" knowing full well they were lying all while pretending to negotiate in good faith. Calling such disingenuous behavior unfair or dangerous is a far cry from explicitly calling such action unamerican or aiding al-Quaeda, both of which explicit were said many many times during the run up to the war.
Or calling out the GOP when they cry foul over deficits. Um, really? after the last 8 years, NOBODY in the GOP has any credibility on fiscal governance.
How about Ari Fleischer? in 2001, after GOP losses in an off year election, he's on the WH podium claiming that Governor's races and special elections are about local issues and not indicative of a national mood. And guess what, now he's a paid shill on CNN claiming that, by golly, the GOP wins in VA and NJ really are referendums on Obama despite polls showing that most people said it was about local issues.
You can't buy hypocrisy like that.
Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
Who attended the Tea Bag parties is of little consequence to me. They were quite small and frankly pretty laughable.
My point was that Fox 'News' spent over a week promoting them on air. News agencies generally don't 'hype' upcoming events incessantly for a week. Without Fox 'News' telling everybody about them every single hour, the already tepid turnout would have been even smaller.
You had Hannity caught on camera lying about turnouts. He's told off air that the attendance was 2000-3500, and then he goes on air and says 15000-25000 easily.
The 'grass roots' movements Fox was supposedly reporting on have basically been unmasked as Freedom Works and other DC based lobbying efforts. Led by Dick Armey and other former GOP bigwigs with contributions from undisclosed sources, they even bused people into different events make it look like more people actually showed up than really did. Except that Fox didn't unmask them...why? because they supported the propaganda they were pushing.
Re: Re: au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
Actually 'Right for nothing' sounds like a great catch phrase!
If Fox News did any reasonable journalism, frankly I wouldn't have an issue with them. It's the blatant hypocrisy and fear mongering that doesn't help the national discourse.
Any criticism of Bush and his policies was met with cries of 'traitor' and 'unamerican'. Now that the GOP has lost control of the WH and Congress, they seem to be quite happy to do nothing but criticize Obama and his policies.
The Tea Bagger 'movement' was utterly and completely promoted by Fox News. That's not 'journalism', that's propoganda.
You have the Fox pundits like Beck calling the President a racist and then Murdoch agreeing with him. Then there's O'Reilly's ambush interviewings; literally following a blogger on vacation 4 hours away in order to try and catch her off guard.
Sorry, Fox 'News' is not a news organization any more.
au contraire (as pixelpusher220)
"Taking News Corp. sites out of the picture doesn't help at all."
It doesn't help News Corp. but it sure as hell helps the rest of the 'thinking' world.
Re: Re: Red Light Cam Revenue! Yeah! (as pixelpusher220)
that shortening of the yellow can happen whether or not there's a red light camera present. They can have a cop sitting there waiting for violators too.
If someone shortened the yellow below the determined safe threshold, then frankly a law was already broken. It would be a threat to public safety.
The implementation details are certainly an issue, but they aren't the fault of the system, just the owner/operators. And that can be mitigated with proper oversight.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The solution is, unfortunately for Mr. Masnick, to use more cameras. . . (as pixelpusher220)
Whether the T-bones are included as part of the total number of crashes is an interesting question. Goes to getting actual independent data on the subjects rather than studies funded by one side or another. Something that seems harder and harder to do these days.
As you point out it's the time differential between the opposing traffic directions. From a standing start, yes there isn't much chance unless someone is coming through at a significant delay. But when the opposing traffic is moving with knowledge of when the light will turn green, whether based on local knowledge or whatever, your margin for error is much smaller.
No yellow lights at all? I'd say that's not really a good plan. Giving people warning is usually better than not doing so.
Also, by only having red lights, you would make people more accustom to driving through red lights since it is now a perfectly legal thing to do depending on how long it's been red. Not exactly encouraging the desired behavior IMO.
Re: Publicly-available resources (as pixelpusher220)
and Dick Armey is such a reputable source. He's an anti-government zealot who got fired from his law firm job because of his supposed 'grass roots' Freedom Works fear mongering and propoganda. How bad are you when *lawyers* feel like you're giving them a bad name?
Pair being anti-gov with opposing new law enforcement activities and of course he's going to be all over it.
Red light running either is or is not a serious issue. I tend to think it is. If it isn't, we really don't have much to discuss. The systems should obviously not be 'tweaked' to increase revenue, no should the contractors/operators of the system be given a 'cut' of any revenue.
I don't know of a single study that had drivers 'train' to use the new system and then tested how properly trained drivers would react. That's a key key point that is usually glossed over or ignored completely. Currently you have very few intersections with the cameras, and a public that doesn't really know how they work. That leads to snap decisions to slam on the brakes causing rear-end collisions by cars following too closely in the first place.
If yellow lights are too short, by all means increase them. But catching people who run red-lights is still a worthy goal.
Re: Re: (as pixelpusher220)
So if someone brings a loaded assault rifle into an elementary school, but doesn't actually fire it, it's ok with you?
obviously no harm was done.
Laws exist to reduce the 'potential' of harm not only punish people when harm is created.
Re: Re: The solution is, unfortunately for Mr. Masnick, to use more cameras. . . (as pixelpusher220)
You're dead on with the behavior angle. Of course accidents will go up...in the short run.
They haven't retrained the tens of thousands of drivers who go through the intersections as to how to respond to the new devices. Given the abject minimum of training drivers in the US receive, *any* significant change is going to cause issues.
Crashes are also much less severe than the t-bones that were previously being caused.
As people are aware of the cameras behaviors will change, but because they are few and far between right now, it's an "oh crap" realization and people slam on the brakes causing rearend accidents.
The original article also points out that they feel the costs would be higher because of Florida's significant elderly population. My guess is those elderly would also significantly increase costs associated with t-bone crashes too - so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison they are drawing.
The issues with illegal shortening of yellow light times as well as giving contractors a percentage of the revenue are all serious issues. But they are 'implementation' issues, not systemic faults with the system or technology. Those can be easily corrected.
As people understand how the cameras work and they exist in a majority of intersections the result will be marked decrease in red-light running. Until enforcement is uniform enough nothing will significantly change. It's still the "oh crap" reaction that causes the people following too closely to cause the accident.
Re: Re: Re: Re: (as pixelpusher220)
Books and other published materials are a different thing. Once they are 'read' they don't really have value anymore. Reference materials etc perhaps an exception, but the 'use' is a much more one time type thing. I also think the publishing industry has much more strict, no pay for play, traditions which have been learned over many years. Blogging by nature is very decentralized and not subject a larger controlling industry.
Reviewing something means having it in your possession. The duration of that possession becomes the issue.
If a car reviewer was given a free car to continue to use after the review was complete, that's a pretty big bias in play.
If the bloggers simply try out a device and then give it back, there isn't any issue. It's the continued use of the freebie they are reviewing that causes the appearance of loss of objectivity.
Re: Re: (as pixelpusher220)
"It seems like it's the other way around and they feel the need to say so when they AREN'T being paid to endorse the product."
This is exactly the point. An endorsement that isn't being purchased is obviously worth more than someone just paid to say 'this is great!'. When appearing in an ad, it's assumed the actor/athlete/whoever was paid for their time. Bloggers aren't appearing in ads, they are just writing and commenting. Athlete's get endorsement deals so that they will actually use the products (Nike shoes, golf clubs, etc). That shows people that the 'pro' is using the product - and athletes get fined if they are found to be using something else too. We don't get to see a blogger using a specific printer or piece of software.
Since a blogger is commenting on products, it's perfectly reasonable to require disclosure that they were or weren't paid (whether cash or free goods) to get that comment posted.
Re: Dark Helmet mistake or inflammatory language? (as pixelpusher220)
it perhaps isn't your 'TV' directly, but your tuner. This may be in your TV, your set top box, your DVR or even your computer.
The set top, DVR, computer all have various output formats. Coax, Component, VGA, HDMI.
What the MPAA is asking for is the right to determine which outputs you are allowed to see. For 'in demand' movies, they would let you only record over the lower quality outputs, if at all.
Other requests the MPAA has made in the past are trying to close the 'analog hole'. To bar recording at all on these outputs and only let recording happen on 'approved' digital connections. Meaning the 'recorder' would follow the show's setting to whether it would be recorded or not.
Imagine if Ford wanted to determine what speed you could drive on certain roads? no warning, just makes your Mustang start working like a Pinto.
Re: old vs new (as pixelpusher220)
reposting this higher in the threaded view so more can see it.
google cache of the original link that was pulled down.
http://tinyurl.com/LookHereRalph