Thanks for agreeing with me, but the poster I was responding to say the reason things WERE CRAP was because people only buy the cheapest crap and therefor only crap gets made. You point is exactly what i was talking about, that $3000 scanner today is just as flimsy, made with crappy thin boards and lousy parts, no different than the $200 scanner. Today they instead focus on adding more features or a better branding but NOT on quality.
I suppose I disagree entirely with the premise that pricier quality items just don't exist, and that the $80 food processor and the $130 are somehow equivalent. Sure, price does not automatically mean quality, and every brand will be different. You usually have to do a little bit of research to figure out which one is just marketing and gimmickry, and which one is the higher-quality product. You seem to be implying that the difference between a cheaper product and a more expensive one is the name and the label, but I think that's way too broad a brush to use.
If they were built for living in then they would take into account certain realities like the position of the sun.
Frequently they are. In the Spring and Summer months, shading the house can do a great deal towards reducing indoor temperatures. A house all by its lonesome is can be a money pit to try to keep cool.
Of course, in California (as mentioned) in the areas mentioned you often don't want any vegetation close to the house anymore thanks to the recent propensity towards horrific wildfires.
I would say that the energy areas where it seems like subsidies are needed fall under two categories:
1) A technology not available to the common person or which can only happen when done on a massive scale (IE, large nuclear plants which require strict regulation and protection). It may be practical to put a solar panel on your roof. It's not practical in have a small nuke plant in your backyard. Or even a plant just for a small town. Once things grow big, startup costs become a barrier to entry. Sometimes investment capital helps with that, but what happens when it costs hundreds of millions over the space of a decade to open a new plant? 2) Any energy generation that may not be the best or most efficient economic choice (especially in the short term) but may have other reasons for being adopted. In the past, the easier and cheaper and more convenient it has been to generate energy, well those seem to be the energy sources that get widespread adoption. The free market doesn't need much help there. But when you start factoring things in like "but what about Climate Change? What about waste disposal? What do we do 50 years from now?" Then the cheap/easy energy source often isn't the best choice.
Several posters have mentioned "oil subsidies" in this thread. Can somebody be specific? I'm not denying it or anything, but I thought it was exactly the opposite - I thought every gallon of gas I buy at the pump had a HUGE amount of taxes included, way more than say a loaf of bread I buy. Which is it - do we tax gasoline or subsidize it?
Gasoline is heavily taxed, but it's not the oil companies who pay that, it's the person at the pump. Oil is subsidized, sold to the stations, and finally taxed at the stations. The question that no one in the thread has answered yet is what these subsidies are compared to subsidies other companies yet. The US tax code is set up to shape behavior, and what we consider "good corporate behavior" is often rewarded with tax breaks.
Although it may feel like our gasoline is pretty expensive, it's nowhere near as taxed as it is in much of the rest of the developed world.
Who is paying the Chinese makers to sell them at a loss? Now that the tariffs are in place, why are they still sold for the same amount internationally? It just doesn't add up.
The Chinese government does. It's one of the many areas of the Chinese economy where their government actively interferes to drive foreign businesses into the ground so they can take over. Most of the foreign businesses affected are in countries that don't quite have such an economically protectionist government.
Speaking of X-Men, why did we get a stupid reboot instead of going into The Dark Phoenix Saga? I mean if you want to go all dark and ominous with big battles it's hard to beat that story arc.
They did a crappy version of Dark Phoenix in the third X-Men movie. A really crappy version. They had three separate storylines, couldn't decide what to do, and so combined them into one semi-nonsense script that didn't do any of the storylines justice.
In what way? You really think they did not include some fine print in the EULA about how the user was consenting to this?
An illegal action (not sure if this is or not) remains illegal, even if both parties agree to it.
So does that mean VNC is illegal? Or any screen-sharing service? What about remote diagnostics? If you agree to it, it's perfectly legal to give others the keys to your computer.
There are lots of corporations that might be very happy with the massive infrastructure improvements needed to move to a more energy efficient economy. The coal industry is going to be against it, but even the oil industry getting excited about the potential of natural gas.
Any time there is change you can predict, corporations want in. Actually, most investors will want in. Everyone wants to be an early investor in something that will pay off.
It depends on the quality of that beef. If you have really good-quality beef, that's hard to beat. But poor-quality? That's not worth eating. Give me any of the others any day.
Where's the evidence that infrastructure is brittle? If a home breaks, build another.
Using what material? In the future, are you sure you'll be able to get everything you need at the local hardwood store?
If a farm ceases to be productive then move to a location where farming is more productive
And who are you going to kill so you can settle on their land and push them out?
This also ignores that physical infrastructure is not the only infrastructure. The laws of the land aren't susceptible to climate change. You're not going to forget all that you've learned because sea levels rose 10 cm.
But you will also see diminishing returns from the land. That's the big problem.
You might want to check again on that last bit, "...without making California a poorer state than the others," given the number of cities going bankrupt in the state and that a lot of jobs have fled the state for more business friendly environments. As to relocating population centers, we do that organically over time - the migration away from the rust belt for instance.
Yeah, but that has nothing to do with California's environmental laws and everything to do with California's even loopier property tax laws.
When I signed an agreement to get my internet connection hooked up there was no mention of bandwidth limits of any kind.
Agreements can (and will) be changed. You're certainly entitled to not agree to the new contract, in which case the ISP is free to not provide you with service. Your $50 was always, from the very beginning, predicated on the notion that people use very little of their big pipe. When that changes, the agreements have to change as well.
Funny, many of us see waiting for scratched discs in the mail as being unfair to the word "bad."
And only three times out of the hundreds of Netflix discs I've gotten has that been the case. Meanwhile, I consider the shitty streaming quality, lack of extras, incredibly poor selection, and poor network performance while streaming is happening to be unfair to the word "bad."
If I want to watch Breaking Bad I can pay google $8 per season or $2 per episode, or I can pay Amazon $22 per season (!!!).
Or I can pay Netflix flat rate of $20 and watch all four seasons, then watch Dexter, Weeds, Black Adder, for no extra cost.
How is Google/Amazon's model even remotely a threat to Netflix?
Clearly I'm missing something.
What you're missing is that the studios, whose blessing Netflix needs to survive, find Netflix's price point unbearably low for their tastes. They charge fees high enough to bring Netflix's prices up to the level of Google/Amazon.
Streaming is a cash grab, and the studios are trying to grab as much as they can right now.
Nice words, Internet tough-guy. Now let's see you put your plan into action. Go ahead, take on the police, let's see how far your AC-posturing takes you.
It required the skill of knowing your class and when to use what abilities. It wasn't twitchy or precise like an FPS, but you had to be able to coordinate perfectly with 39 other people.
Yes. I know because I was there for all of it. It can also be proven mathematically but i don't need to. The top level encounters today require rigid execution and and absolute min-max with zero deviation from the expected path.
Like Patchwerk? Or Vaelastrasz? Really, the only dungeon that really let you do encounters at your own pace was Molten Core, but it was shabbily designed and rushed out. In BWL, Nefarian (maybe Chromaggus) is the only fight that you should take your time on, which is probably why my guild's first kill took 29 minutes. Naxx had enrage timers. Almost every boss in BWL had mechanics that wipe you if you're not doing the fight fast enough. I think AQ40 was a bit of a mix, some encounters were strict, others you could take all day on.
And I fight the top encounters of the day currently and I see about the same, if even a bit less of the "require rigid execution and and absolute min-max with zero deviation from the expected path." The biggest way in which raids are less hardcore? The progressive nerfs after release leading up to the release of the next raid tier. Dragon Soul and Firelands are under the aura of -30% boss health and damage, and they did the same for Icecrown as well, since they have publicly stated that everyone should get a chance to do the expansion-ending bosses. Did they do that with AQ40? Did they do that with Naxx40? How many saw the end of Naxx40? How many have seen the end of Dragon Soul?
Previous encounters were MUCH more soft and flexible and fudge-able. Nearly all encounters could survive losing a few players or plenty of screwups. Today one player deviates slightly and the result is an instant raid-wide wipe.
There are a few encounters like that, but "nearly all" is a big exaggeration. Other instant-raid-wipes I can think of: Molten Core/BWL/AQ40: Main tank dies, bosses are immune to taunt. Vael: Anyone with Burning Adrenaline fails to move out of the way in time. Three Drakes: If almost any tank dies or simply doesn't properly taunt in time. Any of the healers die due to raid damage that you couldn't heal through back then. Chromaggus: So many things can go wrong here.
And that's just one raid dungeon! Let's not forget Onyxia and the rigid standards she imposed.
The players are not more "hardcore." There are more people doing endgame content because Blizzard has added a number of shortcuts (5-man epics, easier dungeon modes) that kept people out of the endgame before.
A good example of this was an event ages ago where there was a level 1 attackable horse in Stormwind that would respond instantly. People would make characters whose sole purpose was just to keep killing this horse in order to cause people to crash due to the sheer amount of corpses. This went on 24/7 until Blizzard finally removed the mob. That is the type of play which seems to be encouraged in WoW.
That's also the type of activity that Blizzard bans or suspends accounts for.
No, the real reason is $14.95 * 25 * 6 = $2242.50.
It kept people actually playing the game instead of getting bored because there's no longer anything to do. When anything is in easy reach (or requires a coordinated raid group) it becomes boring, then you're done.
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Thanks for agreeing with me, but the poster I was responding to say the reason things WERE CRAP was because people only buy the cheapest crap and therefor only crap gets made. You point is exactly what i was talking about, that $3000 scanner today is just as flimsy, made with crappy thin boards and lousy parts, no different than the $200 scanner. Today they instead focus on adding more features or a better branding but NOT on quality.
I suppose I disagree entirely with the premise that pricier quality items just don't exist, and that the $80 food processor and the $130 are somehow equivalent.
Sure, price does not automatically mean quality, and every brand will be different. You usually have to do a little bit of research to figure out which one is just marketing and gimmickry, and which one is the higher-quality product.
You seem to be implying that the difference between a cheaper product and a more expensive one is the name and the label, but I think that's way too broad a brush to use.
About as much power generated as a bolt of lightning! ...
A bolt of lightning!
If they were built for living in then they would take into account certain realities like the position of the sun.
Frequently they are. In the Spring and Summer months, shading the house can do a great deal towards reducing indoor temperatures. A house all by its lonesome is can be a money pit to try to keep cool.
Of course, in California (as mentioned) in the areas mentioned you often don't want any vegetation close to the house anymore thanks to the recent propensity towards horrific wildfires.
So far, it seems that nuclear has needed that.
I would say that the energy areas where it seems like subsidies are needed fall under two categories:
1) A technology not available to the common person or which can only happen when done on a massive scale (IE, large nuclear plants which require strict regulation and protection). It may be practical to put a solar panel on your roof. It's not practical in have a small nuke plant in your backyard. Or even a plant just for a small town. Once things grow big, startup costs become a barrier to entry. Sometimes investment capital helps with that, but what happens when it costs hundreds of millions over the space of a decade to open a new plant?
2) Any energy generation that may not be the best or most efficient economic choice (especially in the short term) but may have other reasons for being adopted. In the past, the easier and cheaper and more convenient it has been to generate energy, well those seem to be the energy sources that get widespread adoption. The free market doesn't need much help there. But when you start factoring things in like "but what about Climate Change? What about waste disposal? What do we do 50 years from now?" Then the cheap/easy energy source often isn't the best choice.
Several posters have mentioned "oil subsidies" in this thread. Can somebody be specific? I'm not denying it or anything, but I thought it was exactly the opposite - I thought every gallon of gas I buy at the pump had a HUGE amount of taxes included, way more than say a loaf of bread I buy. Which is it - do we tax gasoline or subsidize it?
Gasoline is heavily taxed, but it's not the oil companies who pay that, it's the person at the pump. Oil is subsidized, sold to the stations, and finally taxed at the stations. The question that no one in the thread has answered yet is what these subsidies are compared to subsidies other companies yet. The US tax code is set up to shape behavior, and what we consider "good corporate behavior" is often rewarded with tax breaks.
Although it may feel like our gasoline is pretty expensive, it's nowhere near as taxed as it is in much of the rest of the developed world.
Who is paying the Chinese makers to sell them at a loss? Now that the tariffs are in place, why are they still sold for the same amount internationally? It just doesn't add up.
The Chinese government does. It's one of the many areas of the Chinese economy where their government actively interferes to drive foreign businesses into the ground so they can take over. Most of the foreign businesses affected are in countries that don't quite have such an economically protectionist government.
Untrue, sorry. I know for a fact that it is not.
Speaking of X-Men, why did we get a stupid reboot instead of going into The Dark Phoenix Saga? I mean if you want to go all dark and ominous with big battles it's hard to beat that story arc.
They did a crappy version of Dark Phoenix in the third X-Men movie. A really crappy version. They had three separate storylines, couldn't decide what to do, and so combined them into one semi-nonsense script that didn't do any of the storylines justice.
In what way?
You really think they did not include some fine print in the EULA about how the user was consenting to this?
An illegal action (not sure if this is or not) remains illegal, even if both parties agree to it.
So does that mean VNC is illegal? Or any screen-sharing service? What about remote diagnostics?
If you agree to it, it's perfectly legal to give others the keys to your computer.
There are lots of corporations that might be very happy with the massive infrastructure improvements needed to move to a more energy efficient economy. The coal industry is going to be against it, but even the oil industry getting excited about the potential of natural gas.
Any time there is change you can predict, corporations want in. Actually, most investors will want in. Everyone wants to be an early investor in something that will pay off.
It depends on the quality of that beef. If you have really good-quality beef, that's hard to beat. But poor-quality? That's not worth eating. Give me any of the others any day.
Where's the evidence that infrastructure is brittle? If a home breaks, build another.
Using what material? In the future, are you sure you'll be able to get everything you need at the local hardwood store?
If a farm ceases to be productive then move to a location where farming is more productive
And who are you going to kill so you can settle on their land and push them out?
This also ignores that physical infrastructure is not the only infrastructure. The laws of the land aren't susceptible to climate change. You're not going to forget all that you've learned because sea levels rose 10 cm.
But you will also see diminishing returns from the land. That's the big problem.
Oh, and incredibly incompetent local governance, can't forget that either.
You might want to check again on that last bit, "...without making California a poorer state than the others," given the number of cities going bankrupt in the state and that a lot of jobs have fled the state for more business friendly environments. As to relocating population centers, we do that organically over time - the migration away from the rust belt for instance.
Yeah, but that has nothing to do with California's environmental laws and everything to do with California's even loopier property tax laws.
They could build most devices to last a solid decade now, yet the majority of our items are designed for the dump, why?
Because most people shop based on price and will take the $80 food processor over the $130 food processor? Even if the latter lasts many more years?
They produce what people will want to buy. As long as people are willing to buy cheap crap, they will produce cheap crap.
When I signed an agreement to get my internet connection hooked up there was no mention of bandwidth limits of any kind.
Agreements can (and will) be changed. You're certainly entitled to not agree to the new contract, in which case the ISP is free to not provide you with service. Your $50 was always, from the very beginning, predicated on the notion that people use very little of their big pipe. When that changes, the agreements have to change as well.
Funny, many of us see waiting for scratched discs in the mail as being unfair to the word "bad."
And only three times out of the hundreds of Netflix discs I've gotten has that been the case.
Meanwhile, I consider the shitty streaming quality, lack of extras, incredibly poor selection, and poor network performance while streaming is happening to be unfair to the word "bad."
If I want to watch Breaking Bad I can pay google $8 per season or $2 per episode, or I can pay Amazon $22 per season (!!!).
Or I can pay Netflix flat rate of $20 and watch all four seasons, then watch Dexter, Weeds, Black Adder, for no extra cost.
How is Google/Amazon's model even remotely a threat to Netflix?
Clearly I'm missing something.
What you're missing is that the studios, whose blessing Netflix needs to survive, find Netflix's price point unbearably low for their tastes. They charge fees high enough to bring Netflix's prices up to the level of Google/Amazon.
Streaming is a cash grab, and the studios are trying to grab as much as they can right now.
Nice words, Internet tough-guy. Now let's see you put your plan into action. Go ahead, take on the police, let's see how far your AC-posturing takes you.
I wouldn't be surprised, but today, Nixon is to the left of the "socialist" Obama. From this perspective, Eisenhower was a stinking hippy.
Nixon was the last of the pre-neocon Republican leaders. All told he was a pretty good President until his personal demons caught up with him.
It required the skill of knowing your class and when to use what abilities. It wasn't twitchy or precise like an FPS, but you had to be able to coordinate perfectly with 39 other people.
Yes. I know because I was there for all of it. It can also be proven mathematically but i don't need to. The top level encounters today require rigid execution and and absolute min-max with zero deviation from the expected path.
Like Patchwerk? Or Vaelastrasz? Really, the only dungeon that really let you do encounters at your own pace was Molten Core, but it was shabbily designed and rushed out. In BWL, Nefarian (maybe Chromaggus) is the only fight that you should take your time on, which is probably why my guild's first kill took 29 minutes. Naxx had enrage timers. Almost every boss in BWL had mechanics that wipe you if you're not doing the fight fast enough. I think AQ40 was a bit of a mix, some encounters were strict, others you could take all day on.
And I fight the top encounters of the day currently and I see about the same, if even a bit less of the "require rigid execution and and absolute min-max with zero deviation from the expected path." The biggest way in which raids are less hardcore? The progressive nerfs after release leading up to the release of the next raid tier. Dragon Soul and Firelands are under the aura of -30% boss health and damage, and they did the same for Icecrown as well, since they have publicly stated that everyone should get a chance to do the expansion-ending bosses. Did they do that with AQ40? Did they do that with Naxx40? How many saw the end of Naxx40? How many have seen the end of Dragon Soul?
Previous encounters were MUCH more soft and flexible and fudge-able. Nearly all encounters could survive losing a few players or plenty of screwups. Today one player deviates slightly and the result is an instant raid-wide wipe.
There are a few encounters like that, but "nearly all" is a big exaggeration. Other instant-raid-wipes I can think of:
Molten Core/BWL/AQ40: Main tank dies, bosses are immune to taunt.
Vael: Anyone with Burning Adrenaline fails to move out of the way in time.
Three Drakes: If almost any tank dies or simply doesn't properly taunt in time. Any of the healers die due to raid damage that you couldn't heal through back then.
Chromaggus: So many things can go wrong here.
And that's just one raid dungeon! Let's not forget Onyxia and the rigid standards she imposed.
The players are not more "hardcore." There are more people doing endgame content because Blizzard has added a number of shortcuts (5-man epics, easier dungeon modes) that kept people out of the endgame before.
A good example of this was an event ages ago where there was a level 1 attackable horse in Stormwind that would respond instantly. People would make characters whose sole purpose was just to keep killing this horse in order to cause people to crash due to the sheer amount of corpses. This went on 24/7 until Blizzard finally removed the mob. That is the type of play which seems to be encouraged in WoW.
That's also the type of activity that Blizzard bans or suspends accounts for.
No, the real reason is $14.95 * 25 * 6 = $2242.50.
It kept people actually playing the game instead of getting bored because there's no longer anything to do. When anything is in easy reach (or requires a coordinated raid group) it becomes boring, then you're done.
They need to all be completely fresh 85s, but that often doesn't happen anymore. I definitely liked the Cata 5-mans much better than the Wrath 5-mans.