I've seen them advertised several times. They aren't exactly what you're talking about, but they are in the ballpark. Not sure how well they actually work. I would expect this to become a lot more feasible now with bluetooth phones. You'd just need to plug your phone into a charger sitting near the "base" (or the base itself).
Funny comment, but a serious response. I think a pretty high percentage of/.ers (actually, a pretty high percentage of Americans, Europeans, etc.) have switched their primary phone to their mobile. These days most standard plans in the US are basically all you can use.
While I don't like the somehow bigoted tone of the post, I do agree that there is a kernel of truth. A very interesting book that touches on this is Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. It's set in a world where automation has replaced all jobs other than intellectual labor. Public assistance covers everyone and allows the vast masses of unemployed to live right on the boundary between middle class and poor.
If you're going to post in the thread, probably best to read the whole thing. Then you would have seen where I wrote There are a lot of Americans that do hard work, but they are generally the poor who either have to do it or starve (and sometimes starve anyway). I never said NO Americans work hard. But you have to admit that number is a very low minority. If you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t10.htm), you can see a breakdown of the ~140 million American workers. Management, professional and Sales and Office make up 87 million alone. Unfortunately, they don't have a breakdown of "physically demanding" work. But even in the millions, that's a small minority of the 140 million workers total.
Once again, though, I have to restate my original point. The original poster claimed Americans are the hardest working people in the world. A small minority of Americans do or have ever done hard work. In comparison, many other countries have workforces where the majority of the work done is hard work. Therefore, such a claim that somehow Americans are harder workers is fairly outrageous.
I also posted in my followup that I believe Americans are CAPABLE of hard work just like any other people. It all depends on how badly they need the money. And yes, there are jobs that involve dangerous and backbreaking work that pay outrageous sums (crab boats, for example). But to claim that that tiny minority is somehow representing a huge majority is just bad logic.
As far as projecting - that's laughable. I grew up on a livestock farm with a father who also did construction. Believe me, I know what hard work is.
In conclusion, "we" (all Americans) DON'T work hard when you average out the difficulty of all jobs done by Americans across the workforce. However, we (any American) CAN work hard if we have no other choice.
(BTW, I don't know where that comment about illegal hiring of illegal immigrants came from. Seems like a strawman you are trying to set up, since I never even mentioned it in any way.)
You need to get out more. If they were anywhere near being able to machine-pick the fruit that is now hand-picked, they would do it. It's not doable, or at least not doable cheaper. Even if you could build a $1,000,000 machine to paint houses, it doesn't make much sense when you could spent 1/10th of the price on 100 years worth of human-done paint jobs.
Stressful work != Hard work
You take a person and you let them do hard physical work for a year. I'm talking about the kind of work that you know will leave you a broken husk once you're in your 60s. Then you give them a year of stressful paper pushing. Then you let them choose what they want to do the rest of their life. Care to wager?
First of all Americans are the hardest working people in the world.
The fact that you could write that sentence betrays how little most Americans know of "hard" work. Yeah, we'll put in 80 hours at the office. Pushing PAPER. You don't see a lot of Americans putting in 80 hours picking fruit, cleaning toilets or digging ditches. There are a lot of Americans that do hard work, but they are generally the poor who either have to do it or starve (and sometimes starve anyway). I think the same is true about just about any people, anywhere. So since most Americans are in no danger of starving, they're also in no danger of getting near any hard work.
I think you're wrong on both of your major points.
First, he has every reason to lie and everything to gain. Outsourcing is nowhere near the cheap labor solution it seems on the surface. Having your developers here rather than thousands of miles away makes a world of difference. And being able to screen your developers rather than just take whatever bunch got hired in an impoverished nation also makes a difference. Tax breaks only make sense if you get a good enough return on that investment.
Second, just because Bill Gates has more money than he could possibly ever need in several lifetimes does not prevent him from lying. He does it all the time. Just read last years worth of public statements by him. Or just look at the bald-faced lies he's told about how wonderful each version of Windows is. How they're secure and stable. In reality, he had enough money by the Win 3.1 days to never HAVE to shovel this BS again. Yet he still keeps on doing it. He is, at heart, a cut-throat businessman. Look into his personal history and the kind of upbringing he had. Business is a "game", and each round brings new ways to win. The money is irrelevant to him at this point.
Now, I've not said I disagree with what he says in all cases. Many times he says the same things everyone else already knows (we need to spend more money on education and research - WOW!). What I'm saying is that people shouldn't say "Well, Bill Gates thinks that and he's a very successful businessman, therefore he would only recommend something if it was in the country's best interest." Bill Gates and Microsoft have a history of doing things that are good for Bill Gates and Microsoft, regardless of the consequences to employees and the country.
For years, Microsoft has loved hiring "permatemps" - supposedly temporary employees with no benefits that are kept on the job for years (they recently paid almost $100 million to settle that one). Ask yourself why that would be? In a market where there supposedly aren't enough applicants to fill the positions, how could you possibly keep employees in a permatemp position with no benefits? The answer is that there ARE plenty of applicants. Even so, businesses like Microsoft simply do not want to pay the going rate for employees and want to shortcut it by bringing in cheaper labor. Gates has been a force behind this at Microsoft for quite some time.
Bill Gates's public statements on immigration are about as credible as his public statements on Google's business plan. The man has a history of boldly lying when it suits his business interests. Why would anyone seriously consider his claims on this topic?
Unfortunately, it also increases OUR planning overhead, OUR budget overhead, and OUR coordination overhead. WE also have to acquire more information from more sources, and design and manufacture additional equipment.
All to prevent an incredibly low probability attack. I doubt the serious terrorists still consider airplanes to be a useful target. Maybe only the crackpots that got kicked out of terrorist boot camp for being unable to complete a simple plan. They're moving on to newer, more accessible pastures. I'm much more worried about a ground-based plan to simultaneously blow up large numbers of people.
Well, the statement "Its mostly racism that motivates these 'Turkey not in EU' plebs." is fairly inflammatory. I would have said more Flamebait than Troll. But it's basically saying "you only disagree because you're a racist." I don't think the moderation is that far off the mark.
While I feel that IS a sad thing, I don't really get all that bent out of shape about it. Clearly, this is not a law that will be used to cover up the government or the people's past misdeeds. It's also a stretch to cast it as a law that will be used to silence the governments critics.
But isn't that because most laptops are much more powerful than this thing? What's keeping them from just making a laptop form-factor with nearly the same components? You'd make the screen bigger and have to add a bump in the hardware to up the resolution (though not a ton, since this isn't going to be a high performance machine). And you'd add a bigger keyboard. But surely that would keep it below 2 lbs.
I think the problem is that there really isn't that much of a market for this feature set, whether its a 1.5lb FlipStart or a 2lb laptop form factor. People really dislike feeling like an expensive laptop (even the cheap ones are expensive) is horribly underpowered. Maybe if they sold it in the 2lb laptop form factor for less than $500, I'd see some people buying it. Still not a lot, though.
A blanket law like the one Turkey has is even WORSE than a specific one about the Armenian genocide. It can be used to silence anyone the state doesn't like.
FYI, flag burning is and has always been legal in the US. There have been laws passed to try to make it illegal, but those have all been struck down by our highest court. It would take an amendment to our constitution to allow making it illegal. That has also been attempted many times for over a decade, but it has always failed.
So 50 years from now, it will be fine for Germany to pass a law to outlaw saying Germans massacred Jews in WWII? I think it's clear to most of the rest of the civilized world why Turkey is in the wrong here. It's certainly clear to ME, and I wouldn't even know how to be an anti-Turkish racist.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen them advertised several times. They aren't exactly what you're talking about, but they are in the ballpark. Not sure how well they actually work. I would expect this to become a lot more feasible now with bluetooth phones. You'd just need to plug your phone into a charger sitting near the "base" (or the base itself).
Funny comment, but a serious response. I think a pretty high percentage of /.ers (actually, a pretty high percentage of Americans, Europeans, etc.) have switched their primary phone to their mobile. These days most standard plans in the US are basically all you can use.
I think you must have accidentally clicked reply on the wrong thread, considering busy you're demolishing arguments I never made.
Have fun, though.
Guess I'll hold off on switching to Vonage for a little bit longer...
While I don't like the somehow bigoted tone of the post, I do agree that there is a kernel of truth. A very interesting book that touches on this is Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. It's set in a world where automation has replaced all jobs other than intellectual labor. Public assistance covers everyone and allows the vast masses of unemployed to live right on the boundary between middle class and poor.
If you're going to post in the thread, probably best to read the whole thing. Then you would have seen where I wrote There are a lot of Americans that do hard work, but they are generally the poor who either have to do it or starve (and sometimes starve anyway). I never said NO Americans work hard. But you have to admit that number is a very low minority. If you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t10.htm), you can see a breakdown of the ~140 million American workers. Management, professional and Sales and Office make up 87 million alone. Unfortunately, they don't have a breakdown of "physically demanding" work. But even in the millions, that's a small minority of the 140 million workers total.
Once again, though, I have to restate my original point. The original poster claimed Americans are the hardest working people in the world. A small minority of Americans do or have ever done hard work. In comparison, many other countries have workforces where the majority of the work done is hard work. Therefore, such a claim that somehow Americans are harder workers is fairly outrageous.
I also posted in my followup that I believe Americans are CAPABLE of hard work just like any other people. It all depends on how badly they need the money. And yes, there are jobs that involve dangerous and backbreaking work that pay outrageous sums (crab boats, for example). But to claim that that tiny minority is somehow representing a huge majority is just bad logic.
As far as projecting - that's laughable. I grew up on a livestock farm with a father who also did construction. Believe me, I know what hard work is.
In conclusion, "we" (all Americans) DON'T work hard when you average out the difficulty of all jobs done by Americans across the workforce. However, we (any American) CAN work hard if we have no other choice.
(BTW, I don't know where that comment about illegal hiring of illegal immigrants came from. Seems like a strawman you are trying to set up, since I never even mentioned it in any way.)
You need to get out more. If they were anywhere near being able to machine-pick the fruit that is now hand-picked, they would do it. It's not doable, or at least not doable cheaper. Even if you could build a $1,000,000 machine to paint houses, it doesn't make much sense when you could spent 1/10th of the price on 100 years worth of human-done paint jobs.
Stressful work != Hard work
You take a person and you let them do hard physical work for a year. I'm talking about the kind of work that you know will leave you a broken husk once you're in your 60s. Then you give them a year of stressful paper pushing. Then you let them choose what they want to do the rest of their life. Care to wager?
Thanks for the quick response. I think that clears up where you stand compared to 99% of the population.
WHY WON'T YOU TELL ME?!
So we should have an open border, then, right? Because that would be the most free. By your "simple" logic, that would be the most good.
I wholeheartedly agree. They don't realize that #1 means that if he needs to lie to give himself an advantage, he'll do it.
I think you're wrong on both of your major points.
First, he has every reason to lie and everything to gain. Outsourcing is nowhere near the cheap labor solution it seems on the surface. Having your developers here rather than thousands of miles away makes a world of difference. And being able to screen your developers rather than just take whatever bunch got hired in an impoverished nation also makes a difference. Tax breaks only make sense if you get a good enough return on that investment.
Second, just because Bill Gates has more money than he could possibly ever need in several lifetimes does not prevent him from lying. He does it all the time. Just read last years worth of public statements by him. Or just look at the bald-faced lies he's told about how wonderful each version of Windows is. How they're secure and stable. In reality, he had enough money by the Win 3.1 days to never HAVE to shovel this BS again. Yet he still keeps on doing it. He is, at heart, a cut-throat businessman. Look into his personal history and the kind of upbringing he had. Business is a "game", and each round brings new ways to win. The money is irrelevant to him at this point.
Now, I've not said I disagree with what he says in all cases. Many times he says the same things everyone else already knows (we need to spend more money on education and research - WOW!). What I'm saying is that people shouldn't say "Well, Bill Gates thinks that and he's a very successful businessman, therefore he would only recommend something if it was in the country's best interest." Bill Gates and Microsoft have a history of doing things that are good for Bill Gates and Microsoft, regardless of the consequences to employees and the country.
For years, Microsoft has loved hiring "permatemps" - supposedly temporary employees with no benefits that are kept on the job for years (they recently paid almost $100 million to settle that one). Ask yourself why that would be? In a market where there supposedly aren't enough applicants to fill the positions, how could you possibly keep employees in a permatemp position with no benefits? The answer is that there ARE plenty of applicants. Even so, businesses like Microsoft simply do not want to pay the going rate for employees and want to shortcut it by bringing in cheaper labor. Gates has been a force behind this at Microsoft for quite some time.
Bill Gates's public statements on immigration are about as credible as his public statements on Google's business plan. The man has a history of boldly lying when it suits his business interests. Why would anyone seriously consider his claims on this topic?
Unfortunately, it also increases OUR planning overhead, OUR budget overhead, and OUR coordination overhead. WE also have to acquire more information from more sources, and design and manufacture additional equipment.
All to prevent an incredibly low probability attack. I doubt the serious terrorists still consider airplanes to be a useful target. Maybe only the crackpots that got kicked out of terrorist boot camp for being unable to complete a simple plan. They're moving on to newer, more accessible pastures. I'm much more worried about a ground-based plan to simultaneously blow up large numbers of people.
Well, the statement "Its mostly racism that motivates these 'Turkey not in EU' plebs." is fairly inflammatory. I would have said more Flamebait than Troll. But it's basically saying "you only disagree because you're a racist." I don't think the moderation is that far off the mark.
While I feel that IS a sad thing, I don't really get all that bent out of shape about it. Clearly, this is not a law that will be used to cover up the government or the people's past misdeeds. It's also a stretch to cast it as a law that will be used to silence the governments critics.
But isn't that because most laptops are much more powerful than this thing? What's keeping them from just making a laptop form-factor with nearly the same components? You'd make the screen bigger and have to add a bump in the hardware to up the resolution (though not a ton, since this isn't going to be a high performance machine). And you'd add a bigger keyboard. But surely that would keep it below 2 lbs.
I think the problem is that there really isn't that much of a market for this feature set, whether its a 1.5lb FlipStart or a 2lb laptop form factor. People really dislike feeling like an expensive laptop (even the cheap ones are expensive) is horribly underpowered. Maybe if they sold it in the 2lb laptop form factor for less than $500, I'd see some people buying it. Still not a lot, though.
A blanket law like the one Turkey has is even WORSE than a specific one about the Armenian genocide. It can be used to silence anyone the state doesn't like.
FYI, flag burning is and has always been legal in the US. There have been laws passed to try to make it illegal, but those have all been struck down by our highest court. It would take an amendment to our constitution to allow making it illegal. That has also been attempted many times for over a decade, but it has always failed.
So 50 years from now, it will be fine for Germany to pass a law to outlaw saying Germans massacred Jews in WWII? I think it's clear to most of the rest of the civilized world why Turkey is in the wrong here. It's certainly clear to ME, and I wouldn't even know how to be an anti-Turkish racist.
Not true. His ads aren't in the summary. No one on slashdot RTFAs.
Did you bother even looking at the summary? The poster clearly asks about laptops with MORE than 4GB of RAM.
To loosely quote the Supreme Court of the United States - "She's wrong."
Even better, as posted in the other reply: the sign in broad daylight in context of where it was hung
Please, for the love of all that is sane and logical, admit that this looks nothing like a random collection of LEDs, no matter who you are.