>>>As a high earner, I pay 22% income tax for the first £34,800 (~$54800), and 40% for anything above that
Now add in:
- electricity tax - home heating oil tax - natural gas or propane tax - phone tax - cell phone tax - internet tax - sales tax - VAT tax (which is outrageously high - I've been charged VAT from UK purchases, and it's nuts) - gasoline or diesel tax - social services tax (healthcare, pills, et cetera) - retirement tax - employer's "half" of same (employee wages are reduced so the employee is actually paying the tax) - property tax - school tax
Add all this up, and it comes to approximately 30% for Americans (some claim as high as 40%), and 60% for Europeans (some claim it's as high as 70%).
Funny. I went through public education in the US end it wasn't until university (where I majored in math and Japanese, so it wasn't all them histree classes brainwarshin me) that I changed my mind FROM "big government is bad."
That's okay. That often happens in the Government-funded universities - students turn liberal. However as time goes on and you discover that government is subtracting 35% of your weekly paycheck, as they are doing to mine, you will eventually go back to your original idea (big government is bad).
>>>Contrary to popular belief, implementing the rule of the majority always ignores the minority.
Which is why the U.S. Constitution required a super-majority for adoption (three-quarters), in an attempt to represent as many of "the People" as possible.
False. In the U.S., the People and the government are separate entities. The People hold the power; the government is merely the servant. When the servant starts acting as the master, then something is seriously wrong.
I have yet to find any television channels that espouses using the People, exercising their own freedom of choice, as a solution to problems (a bottom-up solution).
>>>"Isn't that just what we did, by having an election? We all exercised our freedom of choice (of candidate) to solve the problems we see (by having those we elected work on them)."
Um, no. I'm talking about the People making a decision, every day, not just once every 2, 4, or 6 years. I'm talking about giving power to the people (individual sovereignty) so they can make their own decisions, not have the decisions made by some distant bureaucrat in D.C.
>>>The Republicans have taken the same exact position you have with regard to their talk radio programs.
In case you have not noticed, there are also Democrat radio programs. And that's good. You get to hear both sides of the case and decide for yourself where the truth lies (somewhere in the middle).
That does not apply to my single-family house. The monopoly comes from the Lancaster County Commissioners who gave Comcast exclusive rights to provide cable television to this area.
And that's the fault of the government-run school system, which trains children to believe only government can provide a solution, not the People acting individually (from the bottom up).
I have no tact. If you don't like what I'm saying, you can stuff cotton balls in your ears, click "delete" on the email, or throw the paper in the trash. Exercise your right to not listen, rather than try to limit what I'm saying.
I disagree that good headphones will reveal flaws. I have found that I can listen to a CD-to-MP3 or AAC rip, and it will sound flawless.
But then I pump the same sound through my 4.1 surround speakers, and I can hear all kinds of flaws that were not present on the original CD (which of course sounds perfect on 4.1 speakers). The separation of the sounds brings-out the artifacts.
The same piano key hit multiple times can end up sounding different with VBR. First you get an awesome 224 or 320 kbps note, then another, but then omgwehaveusedupallthebandwidth you get a 80 kbps note that just doesn't sound similar.
That's not how it works. The encoder does multiple passes (or it should if you used the correct setting), and rather than have a 224, 224, and 80 kbit/s note sequence, it would self-correct that flaw and average the bitrate across the timespan, and reproduce all three notes identically: 192, 192, 192 kbit/s.
Now one could argue that 192 is not enough to accurate reproduce the rapid "edge" of a piano note, but that's a flaw of BOTH variable and constant bitrate encodings.
So why don't these companies start using P2P technology.
Because they don't want you to have a copy of the movie or tv show stored on your computer, that you might later figure-out how to copy into a different folder & keep. With direct streaming from nbc.com or bbc.uk, nothing gets stored except a few seconds worth of buffered data.
America's not conservative. America's radical. How else do you explain a nation where almost-everyone can carry a gun? Where organizations like the KKK and Skinheads can demonstrate in local neighborhoods & burn crosses? Where you can drive from New York to Los Angeles (across an entire continent) and never once have to show your papers to a government official?
If anyone is conservative, it's the European Union whose member states ban such things, limit speech, and limit travel.
I consider it a blessing that America is NOT like Europe. For one thing, someone tried to steal my car this morning (yes I'm serious), but because I carry a gun, I was able to chase him off.* Had I been European, where guns are all but banned, my $25,000 car would be gone. That represents a loss of one whole year of my life (50 weeks at work).
Second, Europeans are taxed at 60% rate, which is outlandish. For comparison Americans are only taxed at 30%. Even at the pump Europeans are at a disadvantage with approximately 5 dollars tax levied on every gallon. Americans only pay 60-70 cents, just enough to provide 110% of the maintenance costs of highways (with the overage going towards subways/metros).
And finally, Americans don't have a government censoring their blogs, papers, or speech. Which is why the racist KKK is allowed to exist, but similar organizations in Europe are banned. Americans have freedom; Europeans believe they have freedom, but do not. The political leaders censor. (For example: In Northern France, the Britons in Brittany are forbidden from speaking their native Celtic language.)
* * Founder of the Democratic Party Thomas Jefferson wrote: "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind." - and - "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assassins." James Madison: "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms." (Federalist Paper #46)
>>>Had the media been doing their constitutional duty...
I cannot lay my hand on any part of the U.S. (or States') Constitution that says, if I owned a tv studio, I have a duty to report the truth. All it says is: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In other words I can say whatever I feel like saying using my tv studio. Or my newspaper. Or my blog.
If you don't like what I'm saying, then get yourself a tv studio, newspaper, or blog to say the opposite of what I said.
>>>To the rest of the world (or at least western Europe), even 'left wing' American newspapers appear hilariously conservative.
That's because Western Europeans gave-up their freedoms a long time ago. When you're being taxed at ~60% rate (working not for yourself, but for government from January to July), you are not allowed to own guns for self-defense from murderers, cannot print your own newspaper/blog without government harassment, et cetera..... well, you're no longer living in liberty.
I know this message will likely be down-modded, but I have to state what I see from the other side of the ocean. I see 1984. I see the language of freedom coming from European politicians, but the reality in which the People live is the opposite. Double-speak.
I think we should let the free market provide "balance". If the Washington Post prints Obama-loving articles, than you counterbalance that with your own paper which prints McCain-loving articles. You then leave it to the People to decide, for themselves, where the truth lies. Not some authoritarian censor.
As for television, I've found all the outlets to be socialist biased (they assume only government can provide a solution). I have yet to find any television channels that espouses using the People, exercising their own freedom of choice, as a solution to problems (a bottom-up solution).
>>>realize that the right of free speech comes with the duty to exercise it responsibly.
Translation: You can only say what "the authorities" allow you to say. In that case it's no longer FREE speech. It's slave speech (where your mouth is no longer your own, but is controlled by somebody else). Anybody who attempts to take away my right to say or print whatever I feel like saying will answer for it to the fullest measure. "From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson.
If you want balance, you do it through freedom and liberty, not control. If the Washington Post prints Obama-loving articles, than you counterbalance that with your own paper which prints McCain-loving articles. You then leave it to the People to decide, for themselves, where the truth lies. Not some authoritarian censor.
Your story reminds me of the old Commodore 1541 drives. Due to copy-protection, games often banged the head of the drive against the stop, eventually causing it go out of alignment. I would think now, 20 years later, we'd finally be past the point where game-makers destroy people's drives, but I guess not. Assholes.
The DVD or Bluray versions doesn't have any annoying ads during the movie. And, when you get something for nothing (like free movies on youtube) it has to be paid somehow. Better the advertisers pay it then me. Otherwise I simply won't bother. I'll go read a book instead (~20 hours of entertainment for just 5 bucks).
>>>(I get to choose either Comcast or Verizon; not much of a choice
To clarify - Comcast has a government-dictated monopoly over cable. Verizon has a government-dictated monopoly over phones. Both of these monopolies offer internet over their lines as a "side business" to their main business.
I also have Netscape Dialup. It only costs $7 a month, and they don't have any caps, but the 50 kbit/s line can only handle 16 gigabytes per month, maximum.
Perhaps watching videos online is not as cheap as everyone originally believed. Perhaps buying mass-produced DVDs truly is a cheaper method of distribution?
As for years ago: We had telephone lines which allowed us to pick whatever dialup ISP we wanted. That's why there were thousands. That's no longer an option with broadband, due to government-dictated monopolies that control the neighborhood. (I get to choose either Comcast or Verizon; not much of a choice.) As a result most of the videos I watch are low-definition 0.5 Mbit/s streams that are just-barely watchable, in order to limit my monthly bill.
I found some rooms for rent in suburban Washington D.C., and they didn't have any phone service either. When I asked the manager why not, he said the central switch had "died" and he didn't feel like fixing it. He claimed everyone has cellphones anyway, so why bother with landline service?
I thought that made sense, the only problem is without landlines, there's also no internet so I didn't bother to stay there. I stayed at an extended-stay Motel 6 instead.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>As a high earner, I pay 22% income tax for the first £34,800 (~$54800), and 40% for anything above that
Now add in:
- electricity tax
- home heating oil tax
- natural gas or propane tax
- phone tax
- cell phone tax
- internet tax
- sales tax
- VAT tax (which is outrageously high - I've been charged VAT from UK purchases, and it's nuts)
- gasoline or diesel tax
- social services tax (healthcare, pills, et cetera)
- retirement tax
- employer's "half" of same (employee wages are reduced so the employee is actually paying the tax)
- property tax
- school tax
Add all this up, and it comes to approximately 30% for Americans (some claim as high as 40%), and 60% for Europeans (some claim it's as high as 70%).
Funny. I went through public education in the US end it wasn't until university (where I majored in math and Japanese, so it wasn't all them histree classes brainwarshin me) that I changed my mind FROM "big government is bad."
That's okay. That often happens in the Government-funded universities - students turn liberal. However as time goes on and you discover that government is subtracting 35% of your weekly paycheck, as they are doing to mine, you will eventually go back to your original idea (big government is bad).
Small government is beautiful.
>>>Contrary to popular belief, implementing the rule of the majority always ignores the minority.
Which is why the U.S. Constitution required a super-majority for adoption (three-quarters), in an attempt to represent as many of "the People" as possible.
>>>We The People are the government.
False. In the U.S., the People and the government are separate entities. The People hold the power; the government is merely the servant. When the servant starts acting as the master, then something is seriously wrong.
I have yet to find any television channels that espouses using the People, exercising their own freedom of choice, as a solution to problems (a bottom-up solution).
>>>"Isn't that just what we did, by having an election? We all exercised our freedom of choice (of candidate) to solve the problems we see (by having those we elected work on them)."
Um, no. I'm talking about the People making a decision, every day, not just once every 2, 4, or 6 years. I'm talking about giving power to the people (individual sovereignty) so they can make their own decisions, not have the decisions made by some distant bureaucrat in D.C.
>>>The Republicans have taken the same exact position you have with regard to their talk radio programs.
In case you have not noticed, there are also Democrat radio programs. And that's good. You get to hear both sides of the case and decide for yourself where the truth lies (somewhere in the middle).
That does not apply to my single-family house. The monopoly comes from the Lancaster County Commissioners who gave Comcast exclusive rights to provide cable television to this area.
And that's the fault of the government-run school system, which trains children to believe only government can provide a solution, not the People acting individually (from the bottom up).
>>>it's called tact
I have no tact. If you don't like what I'm saying, you can stuff cotton balls in your ears, click "delete" on the email, or throw the paper in the trash. Exercise your right to not listen, rather than try to limit what I'm saying.
I disagree that good headphones will reveal flaws. I have found that I can listen to a CD-to-MP3 or AAC rip, and it will sound flawless.
But then I pump the same sound through my 4.1 surround speakers, and I can hear all kinds of flaws that were not present on the original CD (which of course sounds perfect on 4.1 speakers). The separation of the sounds brings-out the artifacts.
The same piano key hit multiple times can end up sounding different with VBR. First you get an awesome 224 or 320 kbps note, then another, but then omgwehaveusedupallthebandwidth you get a 80 kbps note that just doesn't sound similar.
That's not how it works. The encoder does multiple passes (or it should if you used the correct setting), and rather than have a 224, 224, and 80 kbit/s note sequence, it would self-correct that flaw and average the bitrate across the timespan, and reproduce all three notes identically: 192, 192, 192 kbit/s.
Now one could argue that 192 is not enough to accurate reproduce the rapid "edge" of a piano note, but that's a flaw of BOTH variable and constant bitrate encodings.
So why don't these companies start using P2P technology.
Because they don't want you to have a copy of the movie or tv show stored on your computer, that you might later figure-out how to copy into a different folder & keep. With direct streaming from nbc.com or bbc.uk, nothing gets stored except a few seconds worth of buffered data.
I don't know. Do you have a weblink to an article, so I can read more about it?
America's not conservative. America's radical. How else do you explain a nation where almost-everyone can carry a gun? Where organizations like the KKK and Skinheads can demonstrate in local neighborhoods & burn crosses? Where you can drive from New York to Los Angeles (across an entire continent) and never once have to show your papers to a government official?
If anyone is conservative, it's the European Union whose member states ban such things, limit speech, and limit travel.
I consider it a blessing that America is NOT like Europe. For one thing, someone tried to steal my car this morning (yes I'm serious), but because I carry a gun, I was able to chase him off.* Had I been European, where guns are all but banned, my $25,000 car would be gone. That represents a loss of one whole year of my life (50 weeks at work).
Second, Europeans are taxed at 60% rate, which is outlandish. For comparison Americans are only taxed at 30%. Even at the pump Europeans are at a disadvantage with approximately 5 dollars tax levied on every gallon. Americans only pay 60-70 cents, just enough to provide 110% of the maintenance costs of highways (with the overage going towards subways/metros).
And finally, Americans don't have a government censoring their blogs, papers, or speech. Which is why the racist KKK is allowed to exist, but similar organizations in Europe are banned. Americans have freedom; Europeans believe they have freedom, but do not. The political leaders censor. (For example: In Northern France, the Britons in Brittany are forbidden from speaking their native Celtic language.)
*
* Founder of the Democratic Party Thomas Jefferson wrote: "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind." - and - "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assassins." James Madison: "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms." (Federalist Paper #46)
>>>Had the media been doing their constitutional duty...
I cannot lay my hand on any part of the U.S. (or States') Constitution that says, if I owned a tv studio, I have a duty to report the truth. All it says is: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In other words I can say whatever I feel like saying using my tv studio. Or my newspaper. Or my blog.
If you don't like what I'm saying, then get yourself a tv studio, newspaper, or blog to say the opposite of what I said.
>>>To the rest of the world (or at least western Europe), even 'left wing' American newspapers appear hilariously conservative.
That's because Western Europeans gave-up their freedoms a long time ago. When you're being taxed at ~60% rate (working not for yourself, but for government from January to July), you are not allowed to own guns for self-defense from murderers, cannot print your own newspaper/blog without government harassment, et cetera..... well, you're no longer living in liberty.
I know this message will likely be down-modded, but I have to state what I see from the other side of the ocean. I see 1984. I see the language of freedom coming from European politicians, but the reality in which the People live is the opposite. Double-speak.
I think we should let the free market provide "balance". If the Washington Post prints Obama-loving articles, than you counterbalance that with your own paper which prints McCain-loving articles. You then leave it to the People to decide, for themselves, where the truth lies. Not some authoritarian censor.
As for television, I've found all the outlets to be socialist biased (they assume only government can provide a solution). I have yet to find any television channels that espouses using the People, exercising their own freedom of choice, as a solution to problems (a bottom-up solution).
>>>realize that the right of free speech comes with the duty to exercise it responsibly.
Translation: You can only say what "the authorities" allow you to say. In that case it's no longer FREE speech. It's slave speech (where your mouth is no longer your own, but is controlled by somebody else). Anybody who attempts to take away my right to say or print whatever I feel like saying will answer for it to the fullest measure. "From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson.
If you want balance, you do it through freedom and liberty, not control. If the Washington Post prints Obama-loving articles, than you counterbalance that with your own paper which prints McCain-loving articles. You then leave it to the People to decide, for themselves, where the truth lies. Not some authoritarian censor.
I don't think those of us on Slashdot need to worry about acquiring HIV through sex.
Man.
Your story reminds me of the old Commodore 1541 drives. Due to copy-protection, games often banged the head of the drive against the stop, eventually causing it go out of alignment. I would think now, 20 years later, we'd finally be past the point where game-makers destroy people's drives, but I guess not. Assholes.
>>>can't anything be pure anymore!?
The DVD or Bluray versions doesn't have any annoying ads during the movie. And, when you get something for nothing (like free movies on youtube) it has to be paid somehow. Better the advertisers pay it then me. Otherwise I simply won't bother. I'll go read a book instead (~20 hours of entertainment for just 5 bucks).
>>>(I get to choose either Comcast or Verizon; not much of a choice
To clarify - Comcast has a government-dictated monopoly over cable. Verizon has a government-dictated monopoly over phones. Both of these monopolies offer internet over their lines as a "side business" to their main business.
I also have Netscape Dialup. It only costs $7 a month, and they don't have any caps, but the 50 kbit/s line can only handle 16 gigabytes per month, maximum.
Perhaps watching videos online is not as cheap as everyone originally believed. Perhaps buying mass-produced DVDs truly is a cheaper method of distribution?
As for years ago: We had telephone lines which allowed us to pick whatever dialup ISP we wanted. That's why there were thousands. That's no longer an option with broadband, due to government-dictated monopolies that control the neighborhood. (I get to choose either Comcast or Verizon; not much of a choice.) As a result most of the videos I watch are low-definition 0.5 Mbit/s streams that are just-barely watchable, in order to limit my monthly bill.
I found some rooms for rent in suburban Washington D.C., and they didn't have any phone service either. When I asked the manager why not, he said the central switch had "died" and he didn't feel like fixing it. He claimed everyone has cellphones anyway, so why bother with landline service?
I thought that made sense, the only problem is without landlines, there's also no internet so I didn't bother to stay there. I stayed at an extended-stay Motel 6 instead.