and the only book necessary for an exhaustive understanding of the economy would be The Wealth of Nations.
Ah! "The Wealth of Nations". Proponents of the "frea mahkit" always fail to cite the portions where Adam Smith explains that the free market is nothing but an utopia, and that there is always a need for some sort of State intervention in the economy, most always to make sure that the market is truly free.
instead we focus on higher education in high school and college. I learned everything I needed to know about business between the ages of 13 to 15 by studying other businesses and trying things. I meet 20 year olds now who won't take a risk and start a business because "college experience is more important."
This is precisely why the USA is a worldwide laughingstock when it comes to general culture; this is why americans are widely regarded as stupid, ignorant, uneducated and bigoted. This is also why religious nutcases want to have Darwin expelled from schools, and why Dubya got re-elected.
The bourgeois like you have no need for well-educated citizens; all they want is wage slaves who will know nothing more than what's needed to do their work, and will do exactly as told, without asking themselves any questions.
Oh, and for what it is worth, I only have a high-school education and many, many, many years of work experience.
my employees make minimum wage plus a large per-project bonus. I would pay less than minimum wage if I could (and more of a bonus), because it forces workers to become more efficient, and we all benefit from this. It is a win-win situation for the customer and myself, but it causes IT employees to cry foul.
This is a very strong part of the free market -- supply and demand.
There is no such thing as a "frea mahkit", especially in the labour department.
The bourgeois make sure there is significant unemployment so they can threaten their employees with firing so they can squeeze the lemon to the hilt.
You're obviously one of those cheap-labour conservative libertarians who only want a State that will do nothing but protect you from your slaves.
Obviously for you, your employees should be "free" to choose to be enslaved to you.
You can thank hardasses like you for the very labour-protection and minimum-wage laws, because you unequivocally prove that the bourgeois do not give a flying fuck about others.
South Korea embarks on a new plan to save law enforcement costs. South Korean police will no longer make arrests. Offenders will simply recieve an email instructing them to report to their nearest police station.
You laugh, but the neighbour of a friend of mine complained about being assaulted by my friend to the police. Afterwards, the cops paid him a visit. Three months later. That did not prevent them from starting the whole inquiry and indictment rigmarole...
the US [...] wastes space with urban sprawl, huge houses that cost a fortune.
Exactly! They're so backward. Here in London we've advanced to tiny, shitty little one-bed flats that cost a fortune.
Location! Location! Location!
American choice urban locations are just as expensive as elsewhere in the world.
The thing is, elsewhere in the world, there is no room for sprawl, for when you're far enough to sprawl, you hit the next city.
But in reality, life in Europe does not costs a fortune in energy, and this is what matters in the end.
Compared to the insanely cool, science-fiction advanced consumer tech, everything from cell phones to high-speed internet available in Europe, Japan and South Korea, the US is dowdy and backwards. Cingular ain't got squat on DoMoCo, and even a Mielle washer/dryer set is lightyears ahead of the stone-age clunkers Kenmore and Maytag inflict on the American household.
That's because the US is very fond of wasting ressources. It also wastes space with urban sprawl, huge houses that cost a fortune.
In Europe, they've been forced to conserve ressources. People will expect stuff to last for 10+ years, and the stuff most of the time does.
First time I had a good look at an european washing machine (when a friend asked me to fix it) I was totally flabberghasted. It was more than 15 years ago, yet I never had dreamed I could see a microprocessor-controlled washing machine (fortunately, the trouble was just a dirty position sensor). I was able to get to the trouble spot with only a screwdriver and I did not have to move the machine: all components were near the top or the front and were accessible by removing the front or top panel. Plus the machine could take a full load, yet it was only 40 centimeter wide: the tub is set on it's side, with an axis parallel to the front.
Americans are on the "if it ain't broke, don't improve it" mode, and when it comes to shrinking ressources, they are always caught with their pants down. Witness how the US automotive industry is in a tailspin since gas prices soared. Just like 30 years ago.
Right, because making police work harder, and signing yourself up for bullshit jail time is much easier than taking personal responsibility to clean up your own damn neighborhood so that people don't automatically assume that everybody who lives there is a low-life criminal asshat.
Whohooo! A courageous soul who actually wants to clean up his neigbourhood instead of doing the usual cowarly flight-to-the-'burb!
The easy option would be to get a foreign number plate, and stick that on instead -- it wouldn't be in the database and I hardly think they're going to flag every foreign number for inspection given the number of foreign trucks etc in the UK.
However, given that the limeys have the nasty habit of putting the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car, this would raise a very big red flag when you see a bosnian car with the driver on the wrong side for it's plate...
Just walking to the convenience store, I've been stopped numerous times by cops because "there was a call about a suspect that looks just like me" and they really really had to see my ID.
I've been stopped for a road check by one cop car, and soon after was surrounded by 4 cop cars, and me and my friends were made to exit the car, and produce ID.
Just refuse. First, ask them if they arrest you, and if they say yes, they have to tell you why.
You then ask them if they have probable cause; in most likelyhood, they don't.
They will most probably book you for some bullshit reason or other; that will serve them right, because they will have to do all that paperwork for nothing, and they'll get a good slapping in the face by the judge.
Okay, chaps, let's recapitulate a few things, shall we?
First of all, driving a motor car on a public highway is basically a very public act, as it is performed in plain sight of everyone nearby. Therefore, one shall not have too much hope of having privacy whilst engaging in this endeavour.
Second, anybody who witnesses people driving their motorcars is perfectly entitled of taking notes of which motorcars pass them by, as well as reporting the said movements of motorcars to anybody they bloody choose to do so to. Therefore, the act of putting television cameras to do so is a mere mechanization of that perfectly legal work.
Third, driving a motorcar on a public road is absolutely not a right, but a mere privilege bestowed by the authority upon proving the (alas) minimal competence necessary to drive a motorcar following the established legal standards. This privilege can be withdrawn at any time by the authorities if, for example, one person does not abide by the rules set forth for the proper conduct on public roads.
The argument that monitoring road travel is an invasion of "right" and "privacy" is therefore an aweful bunch of bollocks wrapped in pure poppycock.
Drug prices are also high because of the incredible amount of R&D that have to go into the drugs. Trying to come up with a drug X to cure Y that is better than drug Z, and also safe, effective, and easy to manufacture in large quantities is not a simple task.
Er, no. Most R&D is done by universities and/or with generous tax credits. The bulk of pharmaceutical expenses is marketing, not research.
In the PC world, there is no regulations on the cost, quality or performance of PCs. We have hundreds of companies selling products -- big boys like Dell and HP, small guys like Ram's PC Shop. Guess what? Prices have fallen even against inflation.
That's because of falling component prices brought about by manufacturing yield increases.
In the automotive world, we have heavy regulations -- steel tariffs, union requirements and other government mandates. Car prices have risen, faster than inflation.
The car prices rises have nothing to do with regulation but marketing. Now that the US public transit infrastructure is in shambles (this has nothing to do with the National City Lines conspiracy, btw, you should not believe what you see in movies like "Who framed Roger Rabbit?"), people are **FORCED** to use cars, and the industry is simply gouging the people.
In the soda world, we have almost no regulations (except for some USDA/FDA ones). Soda prices have fallen against inflation, and generic versions taste as good as the real ones in some occasions. I can buy a 2 liter of diet cola for US$0.49 versus US$0.99 a few years ago.
Again, this is thanks to declining production prices, mostly though decreases wages and benefits (soda bottling is very labour-intensive), as well as economies of scale as bigger bottlers purchase smaller ones
In the medicine world, we have excessive regulations, and prices have climbed beyond inflation.
Total, absolute, 100% pure guaranteed genuine authentic bollocks. Drug prices are so high because of simple greed and huge marketing expenses.
In the clothing world, we have few regulations (some tariffs on cotton and other materials). I can buy a nice, quality hoodie for US$10 at H&M. A few years back they were over US$50 at the mall.
This is thanks to free-trade agreements where merchandisers can import duty-free garments manufactured by children in slave factories.
Tell me again how regulations help and anarchy hurts?
Regulation help by insuring a level playing field.
The chinese can make and sell it all they want, but fta this law makes it illegal to import or traffic any device that doesnt comply.
And you seriously believe that the customs will make sure that every single electronic device that comes in the US will be compliant???
Feh! What will happen is that manufacturers will ship thousands of their players, and once they are in, someone will conveniently discover a "bug" that disables the DRM...
to the very best of my knowledge our eyes and ears are analog devices.
Actually, no. Both use neurons, and neurons are binary devices... The illusion of analogueness is simply due to the extremely high number of neurons, thus offering a very small granularity, almost to the point of looking analogue.
But of course, your brain is programmed not to notice...
The ear is in fact a spectrum analyzer, where each narrow frequency band (between 3 and 9 hertz) is sent to the brain by something like 500 neurons, allowing for something like 500 levels for each one.
This is why MP3s can hide reproduction defects so well: MP3s simply put back what the ear expects, and does not bother to fill-in the blanks.
The same goes for television (the RGB image, because the eye only sees RGB) and movies (thanks to retinal persistence, you can get away showing only 24 pictures per second instead of continuous change).
One would suppose that a species with much finer perception would find our movies totally unbearable to watch.
Make yourself a cap visor and shoulder pads festooned with infrared LEDs. Cameras are sensitive to infrared radiation, and this will cause a bright halo around your face so you won't be identified by the cameras, yet people will not see the obstuctive light.
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The bourgeois like you have no need for well-educated citizens; all they want is wage slaves who will know nothing more than what's needed to do their work, and will do exactly as told, without asking themselves any questions.
Oh, and for what it is worth, I only have a high-school education and many, many, many years of work experience.
The bourgeois make sure there is significant unemployment so they can threaten their employees with firing so they can squeeze the lemon to the hilt.
You're obviously one of those cheap-labour conservative libertarians who only want a State that will do nothing but protect you from your slaves.
Obviously for you, your employees should be "free" to choose to be enslaved to you.
You can thank hardasses like you for the very labour-protection and minimum-wage laws, because you unequivocally prove that the bourgeois do not give a flying fuck about others.
American choice urban locations are just as expensive as elsewhere in the world.
The thing is, elsewhere in the world, there is no room for sprawl, for when you're far enough to sprawl, you hit the next city.
But in reality, life in Europe does not costs a fortune in energy, and this is what matters in the end.
In Europe, they've been forced to conserve ressources. People will expect stuff to last for 10+ years, and the stuff most of the time does.
First time I had a good look at an european washing machine (when a friend asked me to fix it) I was totally flabberghasted. It was more than 15 years ago, yet I never had dreamed I could see a microprocessor-controlled washing machine (fortunately, the trouble was just a dirty position sensor). I was able to get to the trouble spot with only a screwdriver and I did not have to move the machine: all components were near the top or the front and were accessible by removing the front or top panel. Plus the machine could take a full load, yet it was only 40 centimeter wide: the tub is set on it's side, with an axis parallel to the front.
Americans are on the "if it ain't broke, don't improve it" mode, and when it comes to shrinking ressources, they are always caught with their pants down. Witness how the US automotive industry is in a tailspin since gas prices soared. Just like 30 years ago.
1600 x 1200 @ 75hz here on a Samsung SyncMaster CRT (LCDs suck for photo work).
Is it written in Old Fortran beer???
If not, you can bite my shiny a... OH. BLENDER...
Never mind...
Chapeau bas, monsieur!!!
You then ask them if they have probable cause; in most likelyhood, they don't.
They will most probably book you for some bullshit reason or other; that will serve them right, because they will have to do all that paperwork for nothing, and they'll get a good slapping in the face by the judge.
First of all, driving a motor car on a public highway is basically a very public act, as it is performed in plain sight of everyone nearby. Therefore, one shall not have too much hope of having privacy whilst engaging in this endeavour.
Second, anybody who witnesses people driving their motorcars is perfectly entitled of taking notes of which motorcars pass them by, as well as reporting the said movements of motorcars to anybody they bloody choose to do so to. Therefore, the act of putting television cameras to do so is a mere mechanization of that perfectly legal work.
Third, driving a motorcar on a public road is absolutely not a right, but a mere privilege bestowed by the authority upon proving the (alas) minimal competence necessary to drive a motorcar following the established legal standards. This privilege can be withdrawn at any time by the authorities if, for example, one person does not abide by the rules set forth for the proper conduct on public roads.
The argument that monitoring road travel is an invasion of "right" and "privacy" is therefore an aweful bunch of bollocks wrapped in pure poppycock.
One word: teledildonics!!!
So it is not really a problem.
Spending money on proprietary closed-source solutions. Get IP cop! It's free, costs nothing and works.
If it's to remove bullshit and/or to straighten the record???
Backup early. Backup often. And, of course, put the backup in safe places.
Feh! What will happen is that manufacturers will ship thousands of their players, and once they are in, someone will conveniently discover a "bug" that disables the DRM...
But of course, your brain is programmed not to notice...
The ear is in fact a spectrum analyzer, where each narrow frequency band (between 3 and 9 hertz) is sent to the brain by something like 500 neurons, allowing for something like 500 levels for each one.
This is why MP3s can hide reproduction defects so well: MP3s simply put back what the ear expects, and does not bother to fill-in the blanks.
The same goes for television (the RGB image, because the eye only sees RGB) and movies (thanks to retinal persistence, you can get away showing only 24 pictures per second instead of continuous change).
One would suppose that a species with much finer perception would find our movies totally unbearable to watch.
Make yourself a cap visor and shoulder pads festooned with infrared LEDs. Cameras are sensitive to infrared radiation, and this will cause a bright halo around your face so you won't be identified by the cameras, yet people will not see the obstuctive light.