This might backfire on Warner, and Rock Band might really do what you hope - ask Warner to pay them for the privilege of having Warner songs as the bundled songs in the next game.
Rock Band can definitely walk away. The Guitar Hero game already has enough mindshare on its own to do without Warner's "help".
As long as they have an idea of what music their target market likes, they can even fill it with 100% indie songs, and the people buying the next GH game will still buy GH (and some CDs).
Pick good stuff, add a bit of "rebel" marketing, and the teens/youths won't care that there are no big names.
After all half of them might never have heard of the "big names" either. Some of the big name hits came out before the kids were born (for example - Strutter by Kiss was released in 1974). So it's all the same to them.
I'd actually like evidence that religious people do a worse/better job, and broken down by the type of religion and denomination (e.g. buddhist-theravada, or christian-southern baptist, or muslim - shia, atheist-rabid_dawkins).
That'll be more scientific:p. And if there are results, I think it's even worthy of a News for Nerds story submission.
And that's what you don't want. You don't want people going vigilante, or even starting a civil war.
That's why electronic voting machines are stupid, and why this should be considered an extremely serious matter.
Elections don't have to just be fair, they have to be easily _seen_ as fair.
Electronic voting machines are opaque to most members of the public. They do not satisfy the latter criteria and are hence unsuitable.
In contrast it's easier satisfy the latter when you do hand counting and there are representatives from the various parties observing the hand counts. You'd need magicians in enough counting stations to rig stuff.
Sure there'll always be some small minority grumbling or doing stupid stuff. But you don't want a large minority doing that.
The other thing to watch out for are postal votes. But this is a similar problem whether you hand count or do it electronically.
Say someone lends a lot of money to your Company, which uses it to play games (e.g. Favourite New Financial Instrument) at the World Casino, and you are one of the Company's "Pro" Players, and:
1) when you win you get big bonuses 2) when you lose, you still get a management fee, salary etc 3) when you lose big, you might lose your job, your organization gets bailed out, but you still get to keep all the money you made, and since you were a good boy and help make your boss rich, he later hires you wherever he's going (after playing some musical chairs). 4) You are playing against other similar Companies 5) You are also playing with other similar Companies (you can sell/buy/borrow/lend to/from them).
So what do you do to maximize YOUR profits? What will happen to your client in the long run?
OK that's a very simplistic view, but I think it's accurate enough for this example.
Call me cynical but to me all those fancy complex models are just to hide from the sheep the simple thing that they are really doing.
Yes, a few of them might be genuinely trying to invest the money for the benefit of their clients, but of these few, the ones that know what they are doing, don't appear to be playing any of those fancy games. Look at Warren Buffet - he avoided what he called the "time bombs" and "financial weapons of mass destruction".
So if anyone really thinks those super smart people don't know what they are really doing, I've a High Grade Structured Enhanced Leveraged Bridge Fund to sell them.
The other problem is when the greedy person still profits greatly from his "mistake", whereas the rest of the world doesn't.
Then there isn't as much motivation to not make that "mistake".
All those formulas and models are just "smoke and mirrors" to help them transfer money from the stupid/incompetent/gullible to their own pockets.
All the fancy "financial instruments", are just different games in the Global Casino.
And they play using other people's money. When they win, they get huge bonuses etc. When they lose, they still collect "management fees". When they lose really big, they get a bailout.
So tell me what is the incentive for them? Keep your money safe and sound? Make big bets?
Sure when they lose they might lose their jobs, and might even have to sell a yacht or two. Boohoo.
But after a few years, or even a few months they get another job. Just look what happened to the masterminds of the LTCM.
In hindsight, tell me how much value they added to the world? Heck I know someone who honestly tells me he knows he isn't adding value at all, and all that talk about "creating a market, liquidity etc" is bullshit. He's just transferring wealth from others to him, legally. And I think he's doing a pretty good job of it.
he also says that at least he's honest about it - well at least to some people, anyway I don't think he has to worry - none of the sheep ever asks such inconvenient questions;).
Unless your application is very resource intensive (or badly written) a single server can cope easily with 1000 visitors. So add another server or two for redundancy.
Use RAID1 (RAID10 if you need better disk performance), and get backups. If you're on a tight budget you could use hotplug SATA drives for backups (if you don't have a habit of dropping your backup media on the floor, HDDs can be better than tapes). If you're on a really tight budget use those USB to PATA/SATA adapters;).
I suspect you will find that decently specced server hardware will typically be more _available_ than your ISP.
Even if you do the BGP multi-home stuff (e.g. links to two ISPs), if one of your ISP links goes down it can sometimes take several minutes for half of the world to figure out the new route to your servers.
I guess a relevant question is what is the impact of downtime? For example, if slashdot is down, productivity could actually go up;).
If you need very low downtime and want to cater for extreme circumstances (available in event of hurricanes, earthquakes), it can get really expensive - because it means you need at least two physically separate sites far enough from each other.
Over here in this 3rd world developing country, a newspaper's list price is about USD0.30. And most of them have as many pages as the NYT (if not more).
They're not as thick as the UK's Sunday Times - which has been rumoured to be lethal to small dogs, when launched by a speeding paper-boy.
Online cost of NYT 527-359= 168= USD 0.46/day "Paper" cost of NYT = 697-168= USD 1.45/day
Why is it so expensive? 1.45 a day.
Delivery might be expensive if say the subscriber is in Hawaii or Alaska. But couldn't you just send the NYT via the Interent to a local printer to print it?
Yes I am stupid, but where did I say that poor people didn't enjoy their freedom?
Go look up the term "opportunity cost".
If you do not understand a simple fact that a rich spammer is likely to enjoy his freedom a lot more than some poor, cold and hungry homeless person in the street, then perhaps I'm the wrong person to explain stuff to you - I'm stupid after all.
My stupid guess is you probably don't have an idea of what it really means to be poor.
Sure, the poor can be very content and happy when they have their basic needs met. As Euripides said, "When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor".
Unfortunately for the really poor, that doesn't happen regularly enough.
Unlike Robert Jenifer, the filthy rich aren't going to be intentionally smashing police cruisers just to get themselves in jail for free food and shelter.
Well if I ever make such a game - they could get a place amongst the stars, become one of the constellations in the sequel. Or become one of the items/NPCs in the Bad Guy's collection/menagerie.
It's also easy to script it so that survival is not possible - and epic nonstop battle with endless hordes vs the players (those who work together are more likely to survive). And you might need multiple humans controlling a single character so that they can take turns for toilet breaks etc- hey when I talk about epic battle, I mean epic;). Hopefully no real player dies as a result of playing for X days nonstop (might have to get them to "sign" an indemnity agreement to be allowed to join the last epic battle).
And even if you're not quite the last one to die, you might still get a place in Valhalla or wherever due to your heroic efforts.
The big problem with such events is that your servers and network connections are likely to be overloaded unless you can fork out cash and resources for a huge temporary upgrade. If the company is in big trouble, there often won't be that much cash to go around for such stuff. In this case, NCSoft does have cash, just Tabula Rasa is not doing well enough to keep alive, so maybe they might be able to pull it off.
"The basic role of the police is to enforce the law"
Really? There are zillions of laws nowadays.
If the ones they keep enforcing do not result in a reduction of crime and disorder, the Public won't be happy with them right?
Why have the Police around then, if they do not reduce crime and disorder but just enforce laws? IMO they would be Parasites.
Everyone has limited resources. So it's a matter of priorities.
Maybe if the police started figuring out that their real role is to reduce crime and disorder, then they would have better enforcement priorities, and the Public might start respecting them more.
Yes there are lots of stupid laws (and that's the fault of the legislators). BUT in practice the cops, prosecutors and courts still get to pick and choose which to enforce.
Don't believe me? OK, how many people have got life sentences for committing adultery in Michigan?
Some say that's absurd "just because", but it is the Law. In some countries the penalty for adultery is death, so why is life imprisonment absurd?
Adultery not serious? Go take a poll of those whose spouses have been unfaithful and ask them to compare it with other possible serious crimes committed to them (armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, etc). If 90% think it's not that serious then fine. But if a lot think it as serious, then perhaps adultery should be still considered a very serious offense. Then the wronged party would feel the punishment is fair, and law and order is maintained.
After all, if I stole your house, and you took me to court and I was guilty, but the Court just gave me a slap on the wrist (and I still got to keep your house, Nyah!), you would be sorely tempted to go vigilante on me.
Can you tell me how China is screwing the USA more than the USA is screwing China?
0) The USA has been buying stuff (like oil) with money (USD) that they can create out of nothing. 1) The USA has also been buying Chinese stuff, with money that the Chinese has lent the USA. 2) The USA is considering printing yet more money (lending yourself money, promising to pay yourself back in decades is practically the same as printing it) to get itself out of a huge mess that it mainly created. 3) If the USA prints US dollars, it will in effect tax everyone that either has net positive amounts of US dollars, and/or has lent amounts payable in US dollars (China for instance has lent a few hundred billions to the USA).
The US has plenty of trade barriers too - go ask Canada, Australia, NZ. So what if China is polluted? They'll suffer more than you. The US is doing plenty of its own global polluting.
China is a useful bogeyman for the US Gov to distract the US people from what is really going on.
The current mess is basically the smart+rich+amoral transferring money from the stupid/poor but allowed to go out of hand - no weath creation, just transfer.
You can point your finger at China all you want, but they did create some wealth from the oil and resources they bought (using US dollars they were paid). While far from as efficiently as Japan, they definitely created wealth.
In contrast, it's not so clear that the USA has actually created wealth (after all a lot of it now seems to be not real, or even fake:) ).
But the iphone lack of success is little (nothing?) to do with all that.
Using "protectionism" as an excuse for the iPhone's failure, is like using "protectionism" as an excuse for your car not selling well in Japan, when the real reason is you don't make right hand drive cars.
The iPhone is an inferior product compared to the competing products in Japan. The iPhone doesn't even have built-in, reliable (non-fiddly) and well-integrated QR code (a type of 2D "barcode") reader app.
There are QR codes everywhere in Japan - business cards, ads, signs, magazines, etc.
"Each bus has a GPS which continuously updates the bus company server with its position. The QR Code at the bus stop takes you to a mobilised page for that stop which shows a list of approaching buses, their location, whether they are on time or delayed (if delayed by how many minutes), estimated arrival time at the stop and if there are any alternative buses going in the same direction."
The Japanese do buy foreign stuff, it just has to meet their standards. The Chinese need specially regulated farms for their farm produce to sell in Japan, you can call that protectionism, but I call it a good idea given the dubious stuff the Chinese tend to get up to;).
Lastly with regards to forever being a "gaijin" and never being promoted.
If a real Japanese CEO screws up big time in Japan, they're almost expected to commit suicide (it's one of the traditional and honourable options left for you).
Whereas a US CEO gets 20 million dollars to "go away and stop hurting the company, please".
So yah, that's a big cultural divide there. Think you can really be one of them?
Even many of the Japanese can't be "japanese enough", and those suffer for it, because "a nail that sticks up/out must be hammered down". You think those will get promoted as well? Of course as a gaijin, you will forever stick out. So best you work for the few companies that are fine with that.
My friends didn't seem to have any complaints about working in Japan.
I think where they have lost their way is, is when the police start doing bad stuff themselves, "just to solve the case" (even if it means convicting someone that might be innocent - at least of that particular crime - sure he might be guilty of something else, but you think rehab will work if you send a crook to prison for something you and him both know he didn't do? ).
All that "quota stuff" is counterproductive.
And there are too many cases where police have fabricated stuff, and when they have withheld evidence that can prove the suspect is innocent.
When people have nearly as low an opinion of the police as they do of organized crime syndicates, they really need to clean up their act. Once absolutely nobody talks to you, who is going to tip you off or give you clues?
I think some were deported to Guantanamo, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.
Y'know I always thought it was strange that the USA would send such people to countries that are, let's say, not high on its list of "Most Favored Nations".
Something is badly broken when everyone is told not to talk to the police.
I think the priority should be to fix what's broken, rather than tell people not to talk to the police.
Sure it does reduce your risk a bit (and thus benefits you), but if everyone does that, the police become a lot less effective.
It's like the mass vaccination programs, if nearly everyone takes the vaccine, and only a few refuse, the few benefit (since vaccines do have side effects, and there's always a small risk of bad reactions). But if everyone refuses, it becomes a huge problem.
So if the problem is the police are crap. That should be fixed ASAP.
* The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder. * The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions. * Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public. * The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force. * Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law. * Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient. * Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. * Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary. * The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
Eventually someone is going to have the unfortunate pleasure of deciding at which point cake mix can _legally_ be called cake.
There'll be lots of people disagreeing. And lots of people saying it's such a stupid and arbitrary point ( and they would be right that it is).
But it would be even more stupid to not decide.
If people want to continue to give humans legally more rights than animals, then they will have to be very careful where and how they draw that line. None of this present sloppy stupid shortterm or even kneejerk thinking.
Because if you give it some thought, you should realize that where and how that line is drawn has less to do with technical considerations, and more to do with legal, societal and symbolic considerations (and in some countries religious considerations).
Weigh the potential long term harm vs gain, benefit vs cost - not just in $$$ terms. But in terms of the sort of society that you will end up with.
If we can say "Humans are special" and think it not ridiculous, I think it's equally not ridiculous say that a fertilized human egg is special and should be given more respect (even though it's just one or two cells).
Saying "it's just a fertilized egg", is not recognizing its symbolic worth.
Ceremonies and symbols are not worthless. Wedding ceremonies and symbols have remained popular (even over thousands of years) despite their _cost_. And I daresay society would have diminished if they go away, and everyone just "signs the registrar".
Similarly, while you can treat food as "fuel for humans" or "human feed", the long term consequences of doing so can be significant. Sometimes even the short term consequences can be significant;). It may be better for society to put up with more expensive food, rather than allow "fuel for humans" practices.
If we are not careful, maybe the future nonhuman intelligences might consider us no different from other animals and find us not interesting enough to keep around. Having some amusing practices might allow us to be retained as pets. It'll be hard to get them to share the ridiculous notion that humans are special, if we don't believe it ourselves, or act like it. Of course we better not be too obnoxious about it.
Slashdot Mirror
This might backfire on Warner, and Rock Band might really do what you hope - ask Warner to pay them for the privilege of having Warner songs as the bundled songs in the next game.
Rock Band can definitely walk away. The Guitar Hero game already has enough mindshare on its own to do without Warner's "help".
As long as they have an idea of what music their target market likes, they can even fill it with 100% indie songs, and the people buying the next GH game will still buy GH (and some CDs).
Pick good stuff, add a bit of "rebel" marketing, and the teens/youths won't care that there are no big names.
After all half of them might never have heard of the "big names" either. Some of the big name hits came out before the kids were born (for example - Strutter by Kiss was released in 1974). So it's all the same to them.
I'd actually like evidence that religious people do a worse/better job, and broken down by the type of religion and denomination (e.g. buddhist-theravada, or christian-southern baptist, or muslim - shia, atheist-rabid_dawkins).
:p. And if there are results, I think it's even worthy of a News for Nerds story submission.
That'll be more scientific
And that's what you don't want. You don't want people going vigilante, or even starting a civil war.
That's why electronic voting machines are stupid, and why this should be considered an extremely serious matter.
Elections don't have to just be fair, they have to be easily _seen_ as fair.
Electronic voting machines are opaque to most members of the public. They do not satisfy the latter criteria and are hence unsuitable.
In contrast it's easier satisfy the latter when you do hand counting and there are representatives from the various parties observing the hand counts. You'd need magicians in enough counting stations to rig stuff.
Sure there'll always be some small minority grumbling or doing stupid stuff. But you don't want a large minority doing that.
The other thing to watch out for are postal votes. But this is a similar problem whether you hand count or do it electronically.
Uh they do learn.
Say someone lends a lot of money to your Company, which uses it to play games (e.g. Favourite New Financial Instrument) at the World Casino, and you are one of the Company's "Pro" Players, and:
1) when you win you get big bonuses
2) when you lose, you still get a management fee, salary etc
3) when you lose big, you might lose your job, your organization gets bailed out, but you still get to keep all the money you made, and since you were a good boy and help make your boss rich, he later hires you wherever he's going (after playing some musical chairs).
4) You are playing against other similar Companies
5) You are also playing with other similar Companies (you can sell/buy/borrow/lend to/from them).
So what do you do to maximize YOUR profits? What will happen to your client in the long run?
OK that's a very simplistic view, but I think it's accurate enough for this example.
Call me cynical but to me all those fancy complex models are just to hide from the sheep the simple thing that they are really doing.
Yes, a few of them might be genuinely trying to invest the money for the benefit of their clients, but of these few, the ones that know what they are doing, don't appear to be playing any of those fancy games. Look at Warren Buffet - he avoided what he called the "time bombs" and "financial weapons of mass destruction".
See what he said in 2003: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2817995.stm
So if anyone really thinks those super smart people don't know what they are really doing, I've a High Grade Structured Enhanced Leveraged Bridge Fund to sell them.
Sure, the bottom 80% only owns 16% of the wealth, but that does not necessarily indicate how much of that 16% is effectively in wall street.
If all of that 16% is effectively linked to Wall Street, then maybe you do want to prop it up.
If it's only a tenth of that 16%, then maybe not.
Even so, there's probably not a good solution - just a matter of picking lesser evils.
The other problem is when the greedy person still profits greatly from his "mistake", whereas the rest of the world doesn't.
;).
Then there isn't as much motivation to not make that "mistake".
All those formulas and models are just "smoke and mirrors" to help them transfer money from the stupid/incompetent/gullible to their own pockets.
All the fancy "financial instruments", are just different games in the Global Casino.
And they play using other people's money.
When they win, they get huge bonuses etc.
When they lose, they still collect "management fees".
When they lose really big, they get a bailout.
So tell me what is the incentive for them? Keep your money safe and sound? Make big bets?
Sure when they lose they might lose their jobs, and might even have to sell a yacht or two. Boohoo.
But after a few years, or even a few months they get another job. Just look what happened to the masterminds of the LTCM.
In hindsight, tell me how much value they added to the world? Heck I know someone who honestly tells me he knows he isn't adding value at all, and all that talk about "creating a market, liquidity etc" is bullshit. He's just transferring wealth from others to him, legally. And I think he's doing a pretty good job of it.
he also says that at least he's honest about it - well at least to some people, anyway I don't think he has to worry - none of the sheep ever asks such inconvenient questions
Unless your application is very resource intensive (or badly written) a single server can cope easily with 1000 visitors. So add another server or two for redundancy.
;).
;).
Use RAID1 (RAID10 if you need better disk performance), and get backups. If you're on a tight budget you could use hotplug SATA drives for backups (if you don't have a habit of dropping your backup media on the floor, HDDs can be better than tapes). If you're on a really tight budget use those USB to PATA/SATA adapters
I suspect you will find that decently specced server hardware will typically be more _available_ than your ISP.
Even if you do the BGP multi-home stuff (e.g. links to two ISPs), if one of your ISP links goes down it can sometimes take several minutes for half of the world to figure out the new route to your servers.
I guess a relevant question is what is the impact of downtime? For example, if slashdot is down, productivity could actually go up
If you need very low downtime and want to cater for extreme circumstances (available in event of hurricanes, earthquakes), it can get really expensive - because it means you need at least two physically separate sites far enough from each other.
Newsprint can't be that expensive.
Over here in this 3rd world developing country, a newspaper's list price is about USD0.30. And most of them have as many pages as the NYT (if not more).
They're not as thick as the UK's Sunday Times - which has been rumoured to be lethal to small dogs, when launched by a speeding paper-boy.
Online cost of NYT 527-359= 168= USD 0.46/day
"Paper" cost of NYT = 697-168= USD 1.45/day
Why is it so expensive? 1.45 a day.
Delivery might be expensive if say the subscriber is in Hawaii or Alaska. But couldn't you just send the NYT via the Interent to a local printer to print it?
There's definitely prior art, with respect to the licensing of computing power.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/techarticle/dm-0611zikopoulos2/
Assume the usual comments on patents, Microsoft, IBM etc :).
Amazing? It's called Alzheimer's disease you insensitive clod!
Yes I am stupid, but where did I say that poor people didn't enjoy their freedom?
Go look up the term "opportunity cost".
If you do not understand a simple fact that a rich spammer is likely to enjoy his freedom a lot more than some poor, cold and hungry homeless person in the street, then perhaps I'm the wrong person to explain stuff to you - I'm stupid after all.
My stupid guess is you probably don't have an idea of what it really means to be poor.
Sure, the poor can be very content and happy when they have their basic needs met. As Euripides said, "When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor".
Unfortunately for the really poor, that doesn't happen regularly enough.
As for your last paragraph see:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Homeless-Man-Smashes-Cruiser-to-go-to-Jail.html
Unlike Robert Jenifer, the filthy rich aren't going to be intentionally smashing police cruisers just to get themselves in jail for free food and shelter.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1142501&cid=27014459
Imprisonment can be a deterrent.
Rich man or poor man, they all have only about 70+ years or so on average, max maybe twice that.
A rich man that's sent to prison for 5 years loses out more than a poor man who has nothing.
It's not like a poor man is going to be missing out on party cruises to the Bahamas, and all that.
Well if I ever make such a game - they could get a place amongst the stars, become one of the constellations in the sequel. Or become one of the items/NPCs in the Bad Guy's collection/menagerie.
;). Hopefully no real player dies as a result of playing for X days nonstop (might have to get them to "sign" an indemnity agreement to be allowed to join the last epic battle).
It's also easy to script it so that survival is not possible - and epic nonstop battle with endless hordes vs the players (those who work together are more likely to survive). And you might need multiple humans controlling a single character so that they can take turns for toilet breaks etc- hey when I talk about epic battle, I mean epic
And even if you're not quite the last one to die, you might still get a place in Valhalla or wherever due to your heroic efforts.
The big problem with such events is that your servers and network connections are likely to be overloaded unless you can fork out cash and resources for a huge temporary upgrade. If the company is in big trouble, there often won't be that much cash to go around for such stuff. In this case, NCSoft does have cash, just Tabula Rasa is not doing well enough to keep alive, so maybe they might be able to pull it off.
"The basic role of the police is to enforce the law"
Really? There are zillions of laws nowadays.
If the ones they keep enforcing do not result in a reduction of crime and disorder, the Public won't be happy with them right?
Why have the Police around then, if they do not reduce crime and disorder but just enforce laws? IMO they would be Parasites.
Everyone has limited resources. So it's a matter of priorities.
Maybe if the police started figuring out that their real role is to reduce crime and disorder, then they would have better enforcement priorities, and the Public might start respecting them more.
Yes there are lots of stupid laws (and that's the fault of the legislators). BUT in practice the cops, prosecutors and courts still get to pick and choose which to enforce.
Don't believe me? OK, how many people have got life sentences for committing adultery in Michigan?
Some say that's absurd "just because", but it is the Law. In some countries the penalty for adultery is death, so why is life imprisonment absurd?
Adultery not serious? Go take a poll of those whose spouses have been unfaithful and ask them to compare it with other possible serious crimes committed to them (armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, etc). If 90% think it's not that serious then fine. But if a lot think it as serious, then perhaps adultery should be still considered a very serious offense. Then the wronged party would feel the punishment is fair, and law and order is maintained.
After all, if I stole your house, and you took me to court and I was guilty, but the Court just gave me a slap on the wrist (and I still got to keep your house, Nyah!), you would be sorely tempted to go vigilante on me.
Can you tell me how China is screwing the USA more than the USA is screwing China?
:) ).
0) The USA has been buying stuff (like oil) with money (USD) that they can create out of nothing.
1) The USA has also been buying Chinese stuff, with money that the Chinese has lent the USA.
2) The USA is considering printing yet more money (lending yourself money, promising to pay yourself back in decades is practically the same as printing it) to get itself out of a huge mess that it mainly created.
3) If the USA prints US dollars, it will in effect tax everyone that either has net positive amounts of US dollars, and/or has lent amounts payable in US dollars (China for instance has lent a few hundred billions to the USA).
The US has plenty of trade barriers too - go ask Canada, Australia, NZ. So what if China is polluted? They'll suffer more than you. The US is doing plenty of its own global polluting.
China is a useful bogeyman for the US Gov to distract the US people from what is really going on.
The current mess is basically the smart+rich+amoral transferring money from the stupid/poor but allowed to go out of hand - no weath creation, just transfer.
You can point your finger at China all you want, but they did create some wealth from the oil and resources they bought (using US dollars they were paid). While far from as efficiently as Japan, they definitely created wealth.
In contrast, it's not so clear that the USA has actually created wealth (after all a lot of it now seems to be not real, or even fake
It's just like a game of Calvinball. Except too many people take it way too seriously.
;) ).
If you reply or mod this post, you agree that I own 2% of your income and 2% of your assets (and none of your debts and liabilities
What next, being required to stand on one foot and howl at the moon once a month?
EULAs are ridiculous.
But the iphone lack of success is little (nothing?) to do with all that.
Using "protectionism" as an excuse for the iPhone's failure, is like using "protectionism" as an excuse for your car not selling well in Japan, when the real reason is you don't make right hand drive cars.
The iPhone is an inferior product compared to the competing products in Japan. The iPhone doesn't even have built-in, reliable (non-fiddly) and well-integrated QR code (a type of 2D "barcode") reader app.
There are QR codes everywhere in Japan - business cards, ads, signs, magazines, etc.
Example usage: bus stops
See: http://2d-code.co.uk/bus-stop-qr-code/
"Each bus has a GPS which continuously updates the bus company server with its position. The QR Code at the bus stop takes you to a mobilised page for that stop which shows a list of approaching buses, their location, whether they are on time or delayed (if delayed by how many minutes), estimated arrival time at the stop and if there are any alternative buses going in the same direction."
The Japanese do buy foreign stuff, it just has to meet their standards. The Chinese need specially regulated farms for their farm produce to sell in Japan, you can call that protectionism, but I call it a good idea given the dubious stuff the Chinese tend to get up to ;).
Lastly with regards to forever being a "gaijin" and never being promoted.
If a real Japanese CEO screws up big time in Japan, they're almost expected to commit suicide (it's one of the traditional and honourable options left for you).
Whereas a US CEO gets 20 million dollars to "go away and stop hurting the company, please".
So yah, that's a big cultural divide there. Think you can really be one of them?
Even many of the Japanese can't be "japanese enough", and those suffer for it, because "a nail that sticks up/out must be hammered down". You think those will get promoted as well? Of course as a gaijin, you will forever stick out. So best you work for the few companies that are fine with that.
My friends didn't seem to have any complaints about working in Japan.
I think where they have lost their way is, is when the police start doing bad stuff themselves, "just to solve the case" (even if it means convicting someone that might be innocent - at least of that particular crime - sure he might be guilty of something else, but you think rehab will work if you send a crook to prison for something you and him both know he didn't do? ).
All that "quota stuff" is counterproductive.
And there are too many cases where police have fabricated stuff, and when they have withheld evidence that can prove the suspect is innocent.
When people have nearly as low an opinion of the police as they do of organized crime syndicates, they really need to clean up their act. Once absolutely nobody talks to you, who is going to tip you off or give you clues?
I think some were deported to Guantanamo, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.
Y'know I always thought it was strange that the USA would send such people to countries that are, let's say, not high on its list of "Most Favored Nations".
Something is badly broken when everyone is told not to talk to the police.
I think the priority should be to fix what's broken, rather than tell people not to talk to the police.
Sure it does reduce your risk a bit (and thus benefits you), but if everyone does that, the police become a lot less effective.
It's like the mass vaccination programs, if nearly everyone takes the vaccine, and only a few refuse, the few benefit (since vaccines do have side effects, and there's always a small risk of bad reactions). But if everyone refuses, it becomes a huge problem.
So if the problem is the police are crap. That should be fixed ASAP.
* The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
* The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
* Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
* The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
* Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
* Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
* Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
* Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
* The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles
Yes but if the insulation is good enough, perhaps the temperature will not drop that much between restarts.
Aerogels can provide good insulation and they should be able to tolerate 1000C (melting point = 1200C).
Trouble is the heat will probably leak out via the rest of the stuff in the system (unless there's some clever way to stop that).
Why do they have to be large though?
Would aerogel insulation help maintain the temperatures enough, so that the restart times can be significantly shortened?
Eventually someone is going to have the unfortunate pleasure of deciding at which point cake mix can _legally_ be called cake.
;). It may be better for society to put up with more expensive food, rather than allow "fuel for humans" practices.
:).
There'll be lots of people disagreeing. And lots of people saying it's such a stupid and arbitrary point ( and they would be right that it is).
But it would be even more stupid to not decide.
If people want to continue to give humans legally more rights than animals, then they will have to be very careful where and how they draw that line. None of this present sloppy stupid shortterm or even kneejerk thinking.
Because if you give it some thought, you should realize that where and how that line is drawn has less to do with technical considerations, and more to do with legal, societal and symbolic considerations (and in some countries religious considerations).
Weigh the potential long term harm vs gain, benefit vs cost - not just in $$$ terms. But in terms of the sort of society that you will end up with.
If we can say "Humans are special" and think it not ridiculous, I think it's equally not ridiculous say that a fertilized human egg is special and should be given more respect (even though it's just one or two cells).
Saying "it's just a fertilized egg", is not recognizing its symbolic worth.
Ceremonies and symbols are not worthless. Wedding ceremonies and symbols have remained popular (even over thousands of years) despite their _cost_. And I daresay society would have diminished if they go away, and everyone just "signs the registrar".
Similarly, while you can treat food as "fuel for humans" or "human feed", the long term consequences of doing so can be significant. Sometimes even the short term consequences can be significant
If we are not careful, maybe the future nonhuman intelligences might consider us no different from other animals and find us not interesting enough to keep around. Having some amusing practices might allow us to be retained as pets. It'll be hard to get them to share the ridiculous notion that humans are special, if we don't believe it ourselves, or act like it. Of course we better not be too obnoxious about it.
Think long term
Yes the cloud can break down, it's ironic isn't it? It's like rain on your working day.