As a result, it's perfectly obvious that US industry has stepped up to the plate and provided the US with the BEST broadband in the world, at the lowest prices.
Huh? I keep on hearing over and over that broadband is more capable and less expensive in most other industrialized countries than it is here in the USA.
First off, a few under-educated parents have teemed up with theocratic types and are working hard to make sure the kids don't get educated in biology.
Privatize education and provide vouchers to everyone, progressively scaled based on family income and size, add some government funding for a semi-privatized accreditation and ranking system and you'll see education in America fixed within two generations. Quality will improve, costs will decline, and parents will feel greater responsibility to help out with their children's education, because they'll have more say in it.
Privatize education and you'll get millionare school system executives and falling wages for teachers. The incentives to cut voucher funding levels will be too great to resist, after all "they" are getting a Cadillac (errr... Lexus) education at the expense of "us" hard-working taxpayers. Surely you could slice a little bit off the education and "they" won't be worse for it.
Schools involve transportation costs. Will private schools be located to minimize transportation costs for students in lower income neighborhoods? I think not.
The market can decide, as long as Internal Combustion Engine users aren't getting a subsidy from the rest of us by letting their CO2 emissions build up in the atmosphere for free.
Mandating Seat Belts and Air Bags from the top down has worked. Mandating unleaded gasoline from the top down has worked. Mandating emissions standards from the top down has worked. Mandating fuel economy from the top down worked in the 1970s, but then we gave up. My 1987 car went twice as far on a gallon of gas as did my 1973. My 1996 car didn't do any better than my 1987 car. Current cars aren't appreciably better than my 1996.
A hundred years ago, a home electric motor was the height of modernity, kind of like a home personal computer. A centralized station where you had all kinds of attachments to do all kinds of different jobs.
Home electric motors disappeared. Personal computers are going to disappear as well, because the cost of computing will become low enough that the processors get incorporated into special purpose devices.
Solar Power Satellites. Fossil fuels will diminish. And global climate will change. Energy will come from somewhere, and capturing energy from an unshielded thermonuclear reactor at a distance of 93 million miles might turn into a winning proposition. Then the choice is manufacturing on the ground and launching, or manufacturing in space, and then transfer to geosynchronous orbit.
There are no permanent human settlements in the middle of the Gobi Desert because there are better places relatively nearby. There will be outposts and mining and manufacturing in space when it's better to do it there than here.
What an amazing display of doublethink. You want the government to protect your life, liberty, and property, but you don't want it preventing others from polluting your water or your air, or poisoning your food.
The Constitution of the United States of America says that establishing justice, providing domestic tranquility, and promoting general welfare are purposes of government.
Go back 100 years. The economy did better when Democrats controlled the White House than when Republicans did. Leave off the best and worst of both parties, same answer. So it isn't just the Great Depression.
I'll take the economic "destruction" of 1993-2000 that came along with a 38% top marginal income tax rate, which is still lower than the marginal tax rate for middle income people paying FICA and in the 25% tax bracket (25% + 1 For the past 28 years, conservative Republican policies have been "borrow and spend". Raise taxes on the lower and middle classes, and cut them on the wealthiest. Run up huge deficits. Hand China and India the power that comes with holding nearly a trillion dollars in US obligations.
Conservative fiscal policy, as practiced by Reagan, Bush, and Bush, are inherently unsustainable. That unsustainability is finally coming home to roost, with a plummeting dollar.
Producing the first copy is expensive. Producing the second and later copies are cheap. Economics tells us that in a free market, the price of a good will fall to the marginal cost of making one more copy; when it does, the system is maximally efficient.
Actually, the EPA recommends that you use a piece of cardboard or two to remove the broken pieces of the CF, rather than a broom. And then dispose of the cardboard with the broken bulb. Double-bagged.
Do not use your vacuum cleaner.
I know; I put in a new light fixture, and in the process broke a new (albeit cheap, made-in-china) CF bulb. Followed the instructions, did not panic, did not spend thousands of dollars on HazMat cleanup. Cleaned up the shards with cardboard, double-bagged the shards and the cardboard and put them out with the trash, opened the window for an hour to ventilate. All done.
I have a ~ 8 year old CF bulb that no longer lights. It is "in storage", waiting for proper disposal. I broke one. So my total CF waste is... two. About half the light bulbs in the house are CFs. The rest are "decorator", chandelier base, or flame shaped.
A female cat goes into heat and stays there until she is satisfied. And a satisfied cat is probably a pregnant cat. There are other ways, however (the fixed male in the household knew that she wanted him, and that he should climb on top of her and bite her neck. It was amusing watching him mount her from the side... and I'm told that someone with practice can use a thermometer to convince her that she has gotten what she needs...)
Spaying a cat that is in heat is much, much riskier than before she goes into heat. I did lose that female...
I actually bought the book; I haven't read it yet. I was a hardcore MacOS user at work (1987, System 6 on a Mac II, through 1993, System 7.something, Mac IIfx) and at home (Mac SE, PowerMac 6100AV, iMac DV 400 MHz). I kept current through MacOS 9. I never took the leap to Mac OS X. I thought I'd lose too much hardware, the software upgrades would cost too much, the machine kept on working.
I finally broke down and picked up a second-hand machine (Mac Mini G4 1.42 MHz) with MacOS X Leopard installed. It's all too different; I need more help understanding the features. I don't have the time to learn everything by playing. Oh, and I need to dual boot to Mac OS X 10.3 to get classic, so I can power down the Mac OS 9 machine.
Well, the problem is that huge, bulky plants are much more fragile - in terms of network disruptions - than a more distributed net of many smaller plants.
Huge, bulky plants were, for many years, much more economical to build and operate than dispersed smaller plants.
Centralizing power has advantages; when the power comes from coal, only one set of tracks for the trains, and only one set of stacks for the scrubbers.
Now, some energy sources are distributed, like wind and sunlight. Collecting those in a distributed fashion makes sense... but is still appears to be more expensive that fossil fuel plants.
Of course, that's because fossil fuel plant operators don't have to deal with the consequences of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
What we have here is not a free market. In a free market, there are no barriers to competition like "copyrights" or "patents". The price of a copy in a free market will fall to the marginal cost of producing one more copy. A few cents for a CD's worth of data. It is hard to make a profit on information in a truly free market.
IP laws are a distortion of the free market. They're a distortion with a purpose, as the US constitution puts it: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
FOSS software is a reaction to those market distortions. Knowledge is most valuable when it is most widely distributed, and FOSS software knocks down and keeps down barriers to getting at the knowledge of how it works.
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is a theory of gravity. It replaced Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. The theory is backed up by sufficient observation (the precession of Mercury, gravitational lensing) to have replaced the law.
There are aesthetic reasons to be unsatisfied with Einstein's Theory. It is difficult to reconcile with quantum mechanics. And there are nagging difficulties with the brightness of Type 1A Supernova and the red and blue shifts of receding and approaching sides of galaxies.
I took my daughter to the Columbus (OH) zoo four or five years ago. She was 4 or 5 then. They have a white Siberian tiger there. The enclosure has a clear wall that met the ceiling of our area; we were on one side, the tiger was on the other, and I didn't see a way from one to the other.
Anyway, this tiger seemed a bit agitated. It was pacing it's enclosure. It paid some attention to us on each round, watching. It was quite a thrill to see hundreds (they can be up to 800 lbs) of top predator walking quite quickly towards me, eyes fixed on mine, until he passed just inches away. That it was inches of plexiglass and not air made the experience a thrill, and not a terror.
Slashdot Mirror
Have a reference?
McCain says he wants to cut taxes and spending dramatically.
If he's like the last three Republican Presidents, he'll cut the taxes and never get around to cutting the spending... until China stops lending.
McCain's tax cuts amount to basically all non defense discretionary spending. So NASA wouldn't fare so well.
Schools involve transportation costs. Will private schools be located to minimize transportation costs for students in lower income neighborhoods? I think not.
Huh? 2^30 is 7% greater than 10^9. It's enough of a difference for the lawsuit...
They represented the capacity of their products accurately, and the lawyers make out like bandits.
The market can decide, as long as Internal Combustion Engine users aren't getting a subsidy from the rest of us by letting their CO2 emissions build up in the atmosphere for free.
Mandating Seat Belts and Air Bags from the top down has worked. Mandating unleaded gasoline from the top down has worked. Mandating emissions standards from the top down has worked. Mandating fuel economy from the top down worked in the 1970s, but then we gave up. My 1987 car went twice as far on a gallon of gas as did my 1973. My 1996 car didn't do any better than my 1987 car. Current cars aren't appreciably better than my 1996.
Law has its own logic. Nowhere else can the same substance simultaneously be "Known Human Carcinogen" and "Generally Recognized as Safe".
Law held for a number of decades that physical blows could cause cancer.
A hundred years ago, a home electric motor was the height of modernity, kind of like a home personal computer. A centralized station where you had all kinds of attachments to do all kinds of different jobs.
Home electric motors disappeared. Personal computers are going to disappear as well, because the cost of computing will become low enough that the processors get incorporated into special purpose devices.
The best we can hope for is the increased biomass sinks, is covered by silt, heated and compressed, and turns back into oil.
Solar Power Satellites. Fossil fuels will diminish. And global climate will change. Energy will come from somewhere, and capturing energy from an unshielded thermonuclear reactor at a distance of 93 million miles might turn into a winning proposition. Then the choice is manufacturing on the ground and launching, or manufacturing in space, and then transfer to geosynchronous orbit.
There are no permanent human settlements in the middle of the Gobi Desert because there are better places relatively nearby. There will be outposts and mining and manufacturing in space when it's better to do it there than here.
What an amazing display of doublethink. You want the government to protect your life, liberty, and property, but you don't want it preventing others from polluting your water or your air, or poisoning your food.
The Constitution of the United States of America says that establishing justice, providing domestic tranquility, and promoting general welfare are purposes of government.
- form a more perfect union,
- establish justice,
- insure domestic tranquility,
- provide for the common defense,
- promote the general welfare, and
- secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution.Pretty good, I think. I count six purposes of government. Justice, domestic tranquility, and general welfare count, too.
Liberals don't destroy economies. Conservatives do.
Go back 100 years. The economy did better when Democrats controlled the White House than when Republicans did. Leave off the best and worst of both parties, same answer. So it isn't just the Great Depression.
I'll take the economic "destruction" of 1993-2000 that came along with a 38% top marginal income tax rate, which is still lower than the marginal tax rate for middle income people paying FICA and in the 25% tax bracket (25% + 1
For the past 28 years, conservative Republican policies have been "borrow and spend". Raise taxes on the lower and middle classes, and cut them on the wealthiest. Run up huge deficits. Hand China and India the power that comes with holding nearly a trillion dollars in US obligations.
Conservative fiscal policy, as practiced by Reagan, Bush, and Bush, are inherently unsustainable. That unsustainability is finally coming home to roost, with a plummeting dollar.
Marginal Cost.
Producing the first copy is expensive. Producing the second and later copies are cheap. Economics tells us that in a free market, the price of a good will fall to the marginal cost of making one more copy; when it does, the system is maximally efficient.
Actually, the EPA recommends that you use a piece of cardboard or two to remove the broken pieces of the CF, rather than a broom. And then dispose of the cardboard with the broken bulb. Double-bagged.
Do not use your vacuum cleaner.
I know; I put in a new light fixture, and in the process broke a new (albeit cheap, made-in-china) CF bulb. Followed the instructions, did not panic, did not spend thousands of dollars on HazMat cleanup. Cleaned up the shards with cardboard, double-bagged the shards and the cardboard and put them out with the trash, opened the window for an hour to ventilate. All done.
I have a ~ 8 year old CF bulb that no longer lights. It is "in storage", waiting for proper disposal. I broke one. So my total CF waste is... two. About half the light bulbs in the house are CFs. The rest are "decorator", chandelier base, or flame shaped.
If the guy missed his flight, did he get where he was going on time? Did he miss a business meetings? Would he have been better off driving?
Has the basic utility of air travel to get somewhere quickly and inexpensively been totally undermined?
80 lb dog: pet.
80 lb cat: cheetah. Wild animal. Will eat you.
A female cat goes into heat and stays there until she is satisfied. And a satisfied cat is probably a pregnant cat. There are other ways, however (the fixed male in the household knew that she wanted him, and that he should climb on top of her and bite her neck. It was amusing watching him mount her from the side... and I'm told that someone with practice can use a thermometer to convince her that she has gotten what she needs...)
Spaying a cat that is in heat is much, much riskier than before she goes into heat. I did lose that female...
I actually bought the book; I haven't read it yet. I was a hardcore MacOS user at work (1987, System 6 on a Mac II, through 1993, System 7.something, Mac IIfx) and at home (Mac SE, PowerMac 6100AV, iMac DV 400 MHz). I kept current through MacOS 9. I never took the leap to Mac OS X. I thought I'd lose too much hardware, the software upgrades would cost too much, the machine kept on working.
I finally broke down and picked up a second-hand machine (Mac Mini G4 1.42 MHz) with MacOS X Leopard installed. It's all too different; I need more help understanding the features. I don't have the time to learn everything by playing. Oh, and I need to dual boot to Mac OS X 10.3 to get classic, so I can power down the Mac OS 9 machine.
Centralizing power has advantages; when the power comes from coal, only one set of tracks for the trains, and only one set of stacks for the scrubbers.
Now, some energy sources are distributed, like wind and sunlight. Collecting those in a distributed fashion makes sense... but is still appears to be more expensive that fossil fuel plants.
Of course, that's because fossil fuel plant operators don't have to deal with the consequences of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.
What we have here is not a free market. In a free market, there are no barriers to competition like "copyrights" or "patents". The price of a copy in a free market will fall to the marginal cost of producing one more copy. A few cents for a CD's worth of data. It is hard to make a profit on information in a truly free market.
IP laws are a distortion of the free market. They're a distortion with a purpose, as the US constitution puts it: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
FOSS software is a reaction to those market distortions. Knowledge is most valuable when it is most widely distributed, and FOSS software knocks down and keeps down barriers to getting at the knowledge of how it works.
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is a theory of gravity. It replaced Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. The theory is backed up by sufficient observation (the precession of Mercury, gravitational lensing) to have replaced the law.
There are aesthetic reasons to be unsatisfied with Einstein's Theory. It is difficult to reconcile with quantum mechanics. And there are nagging difficulties with the brightness of Type 1A Supernova and the red and blue shifts of receding and approaching sides of galaxies.
Applause.
A: One is a flaming nazi gasbag. The other is a zeppelin.
I took my daughter to the Columbus (OH) zoo four or five years ago. She was 4 or 5 then. They have a white Siberian tiger there. The enclosure has a clear wall that met the ceiling of our area; we were on one side, the tiger was on the other, and I didn't see a way from one to the other.
Anyway, this tiger seemed a bit agitated. It was pacing it's enclosure. It paid some attention to us on each round, watching. It was quite a thrill to see hundreds (they can be up to 800 lbs) of top predator walking quite quickly towards me, eyes fixed on mine, until he passed just inches away. That it was inches of plexiglass and not air made the experience a thrill, and not a terror.