Why are you ranting about a "totalitatian state" when the government has absolutely nothing to do with this? This is a contract dispute between the NBA and Sterling, You fucking partisan dickbags are all the same, no matter what the issue you have to make it political. If he didn't like the terms of the contract he signed, he didn't have to sign it. Nobody forced him to participate in the NBA.
Actually, as a private organization, it would be up to them to decide whether to disallow openly gay players and / or owners. Perspective owners and players would need to know of such a rule (and fans would want to know about it, too). Those who don't agree with such a stance would be free to not participate in nor support such an organization. No one's legal rights would be trampled.
As per homosexual players, I think their teammates should have the strongest word, considering that most locker rooms don't have private showers. Personally, I choose which teams to support based on performance on the field and moral conduct of its owners and players. I don't take into account sexual orientation, but will note if the owner cheats on a spouse.
That is insane. If you could do that, you could do the same to people of religion (or lack of it).
It depends. IIRC, sexual orientation is not a federally protected class. Religion IS a federally protected class so anybody denied entrance into the league because of their religion would have grounds to sue. That being said, I believe sexual orientation is a state protected class in California so the Clippers could not participate in such discrimination without running afoul of the law.
Yep, and that's the way we like it. My city also has a monopoly on sewer systems. Just because people want something doesn't mean some company has to make a buck off of it. If the people own the network then it is cheaper than a company owning because it doesn't need to pay shareholders every quarter, it just has to pay for itself. The network being owned by the city doesn't mean there isn't any competition in the ISP space, there are 15-20 different ISPs I can choose from, can you say the same?
Exactly since when have auto manufacturers standardized on anything? Go to AutoZone. Look at the oil filters. There are literally dozens, and that's a pretty common part. Hell, there's not even such a thing as a standard oil. Manufacturers have _never_ created a standard part, everything is unique by brand and model, and I just don't see this being any different. Exactly how large a battery are we talking here? Maybe, if the range was 5000km, it might be useful, because that's about the range of a severe-duty oil change interval, but I guarantee that it won't be as cheap as an oil change.
Auto manufacturers standardize when they are required to. A much better analogy would be the fuel fill port on a gasoline car. Although there are a number of different fuel door and cap designs, the design of the actual fuel fill port is the same on all unleaded-powered cars. The design of the pump nozzles that fill them is also standardized.
Swappable batteries make a lot of sense, especially if they are modular. Smaller cars could have 2 modules (with a bay for a third for longer trips), SUVs/trucks could have 3 or 4 scaling up to semi-trucks who could have 10 or 15 packs in parallel. Smaller modules would be easier to handle during swaps and would provide greater flexibility than swapping monolithic packs. This aluminium technology would fit right into such a system, before you take a long trip you could go have your day-to-day packs swapped out for some long-range aluminium packs so that you can do your whole trip without recharging.
Quick and dirty math tells me one of these batteries has on the order of 600KWh of energy to deliver to the car (to drive the distance claimed).
So, the question is, how many KWh of energy does it take to smelt, reclaim, and re-form the battery (or whatever the process order is)? That's simplified and ignores other inputs like added material, but it is a starting point. For starters, does anybody have an idea what melting 100Kg of aluminum requires? It would be interesting to see.
Well, aluminium on the US commodities market currently sells for around $0.81/pound so the maximum cost for refining 100 Kg of aluminum from bauxite is $178. Refining from alumina (the waste product of this battery) is presumably cheaper because it removes all the refining steps in the process before electrolysis.
Just trying see how you public fibre was actually funded and how much it actually cost. Since it is being paid for by a sales tax your internet is being subsidized by people who purchase things in your city but don't use Utopia.
Yes, that's why I mentioned that it was funded by sales tax in my original post. Just as they subsidize my internet connection, I susbidize many city services that other people use that I don't.
What city would that be?
I don't want to give out TOO much personal information but I live in one of the 15 cities participating in the Utopia network.
Just because I say I love my ISP you assume it is Xmission? You would be right, they are fantastic!
Being someone who is in a city who built a municipal fiber network, that is nowhere near the actual cost per resident. The network was paid for with bonds and the bonds have been serviced by a portion of sales tax revenue in member cities as well as subscriber revenue. Residents are not paying $2000 per year for it. I get internet over the network and it is much faster and much cheaper than when I used Comcast. Yes, I pay sales tax in my city so I am also indirectly paying for it elsewhere but it is nowhere near as expensive as you think it is to build a very fast network, especially if you don't have to pay your shareholders every quarter.
Fiber has enough bandwidth that you don't need fiber for every company that provides services. My city's fiber network terminates in a central NOC in which all the service providers on the network have a peering presence. When my packet hits the NOC it routes it to my ISP who contracts with tier 1/2 providers for transit across the internet. Why would I need multiple fibers to my house when any company can provide services across the existing network by peering at the central NOC? Municipal networks are the way to go, the people should own the network.
This is because Comcast is in the business of selling access to their customers. Their cable TV business charges the customer for access then they sell the customer's eyeballs to advertisers. They are used to getting paid twice for the same thing so they were mystified by the Internet because they were only getting paid by their subscribers. Fortunately, they have figured out they can start extorting money from companies providing services to their customers "It would be a shame if anything happened to that packet, Netflix". Since the FCC is packed with cable and telco insiders they certainly aren't going to do anything about it. In the end, the costs will get passed on to the consumer and Comcast stockholders will get to upgrade their yachts.
they will act like any other local utility and tell you to wait 5 years until they gather enough data that there is a demand for it, then take another few years to study the problem, then spend another 5 years begging for money in the budget and finally upgrading the network
Actually, go check out Wilson, North Carolina. They embarrassed Time Warner so badly, Time Warner strongarmed the state into making municipal broadband illegal. It creates a lot of cognitive dissonance with the "government can't do anything right" crowd.
Which is hilarious considering the current system is just government-granted monopoly anyway, yet they defend it voraciously because, uh...privatization!
That's what is happening in my state, only it is Comcast that is buying off the state legislature to try to kill Utopia. I'm so glad that these 2 companies are going to merge so that they can more efficiently purchase our elected officials.
Um after the healthcare.gov disaster you want a government organization to provide your local internet. I will pass on the bright idea.
Just because the government owns the network doesn't mean that it runs it. My city has a municipal fiber network and I couldn't be happier. Fast speeds, low price and good service from my (local) ISP. Any ISP/Phone/TV provider is welcome to provide service on it.
Right now, the network is run by the Utah Infrastructure Agency which is a quasi-government company, but the cities are currently considering a proposal by a private company to manage the network and complete the buildout to every home in the member cities. The proposal sounds like a pretty good one -- everyone in the city gets a 3 MB symmetrical connection for free (included in taxes, anyway), a little extra will get you whatever speed you want. My current connection is 30 Mb symmetrical but you can get 1 Gb if you want. So the government (which technically is the people) own the network but a private company will operate and market it. Open access, any company can provide services and they seem to be able to pull it off for less money than Comcast charges so what's the problem?
Your imagination tells you a government-owned network would be a bad thing but I am actually experiencing it and it is good. I don't want the feds to own my network but I am just fine with my city government owning it, at least there is a LITTLE accountability there. (BTW if anyone is in a Utopia city watch for public meetings for the proposed Macquarie Capital deal, Orem, Murray and Centerville are having them tomorrow. Let your voice be heard!)
The core issue is whether a government should be providing a service. But that should not be an issue.
The government should provide the pipes (fibre or copper or whatever) to the houses that it covers. Paid for by taxes.
The pipes terminate at a government facility that the government leases space at to ANY AND ALL companies that want to provide ISP services over those pipes. As cheap as possible but without allowing one company to lease ALL the space.
Then switching between ISP's should be as simple as moving a patch cord.
Your taxes pay for the pipes and their maintenance and the facility and its maintenance (minus the lease revenue).
This is how my fiber network is operated. The 15 member cities contributed to the network and their residents are seeing the benefits. I can choose what ISP I want (but I would probably never change because I LOVE my ISP) and any ISP, telephone or TV provider can provide service over the network. If my ISP starts any Comcast-style extortion shenanigans with service providers then I can simply switch, there aren't constraints on who owns the wire like private cable/telco networks.
If course Comcast and US West/Qwest/Century Link fought tooth and nail against the network and they are fighting it still. I think the last tactic was getting a bill introduced in the state legislature to prohibit the Utopia network from selling any network service in cities that border Utopia cities. This is just a long line in bills written by the cable lobbyists but so far the cities have resisted [crosses fingers].
So if 15 cities can get something like this done in Republican dominated, pro-business Utah then what's your city's excuse? It's not that hard to get something done on a city level if you can get a few voters on board. The Internet has quickly become an almost indispensible part of life and a majority of a person's day-to-day business (paying bills, communicating with friends, scheduling appointments, etc.) is conducted over the network. It has become important enough that cities should treat it like the utility that it is. Put pressure on your local elected officials to get your own network and bypass the attempted takeover of the Internet by Comcast.
I'm sure the anti-science crowd will try to point to this as an example of corruption in science but this is really an example of science working the way that it is supposed to. Scientist reports results, other scientists try to reproduce the results and if they can't then they start crying foul.
"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." -- Frank Zappa
