If this really was a free market, there would be no infrastructure... if it could possibly work, there would be no need at all for Eminent Domain. You inevitably run into someone who will demand ridiculous prices for use of their property, and they may be in critical areas without alternatives.
And don't tell me about technology coming to the rescue... These same types of people will be happy to block the line-of-site of their neighbors, and maybe even take the effort to intentionally jam your satellites until you pay them to stop doing so...
Telecommunications is the ultimate in natural monopolies. Unregulated, you'd never see more than one in any area.
I love how you contradict yourself from one sentence to the next... You say WiFi only goes 100', except for rural areas where it's cheap and works exactly like I've described, huh?
And as for speed, 802.11n gives 600Mbps. Except for the higest tier of FIOS internet service, that's ample bandwidth to share between numerous subscribers, without slowing you down at all.
And it's not like I'm making this stuff up... Large hotels, apartment complexes, office buildings, indoor and outdoor venues, all have been wired up with nothing but WiFi for the last mile. I've done a couple of those installations myself, using high powered WiFi repeaters to save tons of money over physical wiring otherwise needed, and still managing high speeds for hundreds of end-users.
If an entire city block was streaming video at the same time, you'd have HUGE problems, anyhow, because that cable and DSL service is shared, and heavily over-subscribed.
Besides, 5mbit is fast than what I'm getting at best right now. Wifi driving the price down allowing them to invest in more performance could only help.
And you're setting up a straw man, implying you have no choice between a single wifi channel per block, and an AP at every home.
The alternative to these worms isn't port-a-pots, it's composting toilets, which you might find in remote cabins. They're expensive, but certainly not 40k.
And people have worked-out much cheaper DIY options which do the same thing. You just need a seat, a bucket, a vent (preferably with a small electric exhaust fan) and a handful of microbes to throw in to get started. All of the above are very inexpensive in the 1st world. In the 3rd world, local potters could make all of it, except the microbes, and that's surely much easier to transport than live worms...
If the speeds of G are good enough for you, don't bother upgrading. N gets high-speed from a lot of tricks that aren't very nice, like double-sized channels, multiple radios (which cheap receivers skimp on), etc. This was supposed to be okay because people were supposed to only enable double-wide channels on the 5Ghz band, but some devices only support the lower frequencies to begin with, and they certainly don't stop you from stomping on those 2.4ghz channels, trying to get extra speed you probably won't see, anyhow...
Even many devices sold today are G-only, from my cell phone, to my wireless PTZ surveilance cameras, etc, etc.
With WiFi speeds getting so high, range being respectable, and just about everyone wanting wireless data (see: cell phones, tablets, and laptops) why aren't ISPs making extensive use of WiFi for the last mile?
Run Fiber to a telephone pole at the end of the block, hook it up to a WiFi AP, and give out the key to paying subscribers. We're already at a point where customers are expected to buy their own DSL / Cable modems, so why not WiFi? That would eliminate all the last-mile costs and maintenance issues, and 802.11n has ample bandwidth for the services your ISP might want to provide. WiFi repeaters are a simple technology as well. So why not?
There are licensed versions of 802.11a hardware, running on 3.7GHz or so, with kilometer ranges, without repeaters, so it should be easy enough. And if WiFi isn't sufficient, the cost of WiMax receivers and base stations must be sufficiently cheap to make it a viable last-mile option as well, without the exhorbitant costs of a full cellular network.
I'd think they'd get a better, more wide-ranging PR boost if they just stuck $50 bills in their magazines instead. Everyone will try to be one of the lucky 1,000 people who gets one, and most will fail to do so.
Really, if you want a low-end Android device, you can get one for damn near nothing. How about an Alcatel Venture from Virgin Mobile for $50... No contract, buy as many as you want, ready to use Android device. Or how about a 7" Tablet for $50 from everybody's favorite retailer?
Technically it's a spelling mistake which in practice meant the equivalent of searching for apples but counting the number of oranges instead, then writing up a paper on the astonishing lack of apples found.
Except they didn't write-up a paper on ONE nutrient. Did I miss a memo, where we were all told to pay extra for "organic" foods so that we'd get our extra flavanols?
I prefer another quote from that same story:
"Supporters of the $25 billion-plus organics industry were ready and willing to start digging up dirt."
that if the technical thing isn't computers, they don't generally know all that much
I disagree. About a year ago, I was searching for something that turned up an old/. thread from around 2003. The highly-rated comments on there were all extremely in-depth and insightful information provided by extremely knowledgeable people. I did some more browsing of old/. threads and was astonished at how advanced and accurate highly-rated comments were, on everything from electronics, to physics, to engines, to many more topics.
What has happened on/. has been across-the-board, not specific to certain topics. Some of the causes I've observed have been heavy topic churn, whereas going back a decade, there were fewer stories posted every day, and slower, more in-depth discussion would happen. An influx of inflammatory stories from editors... from story after story about global warming, evolution, and every other hot-button issue under the sun,/. has been turned into an irrational flame-fest, and many people have left because of it. The new page layout and mod system may be responsible as well, with far fewer people meta-moderating far more comments. And finally, the shift in focus from geeky, technical topics to mass-market stories, such as the latest Apple rumor, may simply have eroded the base so much that intelligent discussion got squeezed out.
In any case, I encourage everyone to browse some decades-old topics... The difference in discussion from then until now is a slap in the face, even for those of us who lived through the slow changes on the site, sometimes kicking and screaming...
Another option for you might be Republic Wireless. They're $19/mo, and in areas where Sprint's coverage leaves something to be desired, you just need to find an open WiFi AP and you're set.
The big two are Verizon and AT&T. They're also the most expensive, and it's generally not necessary to buy service DIRECTLY from them.
If you're in AT&T's service area, and want service with them, sign-up with T-Mobile. You'll want to make sure you get a dual-band phone, but you'll be able to roam onto AT&T's GSM.
Verizon generally has the best coverage, and is the most expensive. If you want service with them, sign-up with Sprint... Sprint is cheaper, and allows you free roaming onto Verizon's network whenever needed. Sprint is also nice in that they advertise that they have no caps/limits on their data plans, but you should expect slow-down / congestion using data on their network during peak times...
The only reason you might NOT want to use this strategy, is if you want extra fast and super reliable data service. I, personally, don't care... I've got fast WiFi access at home, work, and when visiting family and all my friends. So that pretty much leaves streaming Pandora and others to my car stereo while driving down the freeways.
On Sprint's network, I haven't had my streaming audio stop mid-stream (yet) but I wouldn't expect video streaming such as youtube to be smooth, whereas Verizon's deeper network is faster, and more consistently so. Plus, Sprint is in a bad spot, transitioning it's 4G service from WiMax to LTE. Of course Verizon and AT&T's LTE networks are both pretty patchy yet, so I recommend just being content with 3G (and WiFi) for the next couple years.
I worked for a startup, where the CEO was big on "play", and so tried every incentive in the book... We had pool tables, game consoles with a large assortment of game, and more, and out of hundreds of people, and several years' time, NOBODY EVER TOUCHED ANY OF IT.
When your workplace is a death march of always too much to do, and never enough time to do it, despite everyone putting in plenty of overtime, then expect your employees to be miserable. If you pay them enough money, they'll stay around for a while despite the horrible conditions, but anyone who can make a decent salary elsewhere will leave pretty quickly.
To be fair, the free food and sodas, and rather frequent BBQ lunches and food trucks were utilized quite a bit, but these things are all bandages on a gaping wound, if the company is an unpleasant place to work.
You're pretty myopic about the whole thing. I can think of dozens of little plastic items I really wish I could get custom-made for me... All kinds of busted plastic bits in my car that it would be nice to replace, to a better shower nozzle, to latches for doors. Hell, here's a big one: how about smartphone cases?
There's huge potential for 3D printing. You're obsessed with steel, but more and more of our products are made mostly out of plastic, and that's certainly where there's the most potential. Of course a 3D printer that works with molten tin (solder) isn't a bad idea either, but I expect most uses will be plastic.
Was the Tea Party left-wing or right-wing? Was Occupy Wall Street left-wing or right-wing? Which one called for limited government? Which one called for more government regulation?
"Deregulation" is code for letting big companies do anything they want. Republicans say they want lower taxes, but they really mean they want the rich to pay lower taxes, but they still want all the government spending to continue.
Name ONE president who has campaigned on "smaller government", and followed through. There are none. Regan slashed and burned a bunch of essential public services, then spent even MORE money on defense, eliminating any gains he claimed. This kind of pattern goes back as far as Thomas Jefferson...
You've made your bias quite clear... You're one of the "I got mine!" crowd, who just wants to pay less in taxes, and is happy to screw-over everyone else in the process.
It's SOP that the US government doesn't disclose HOW they get their information, nor do they disclose how quickly they discovered such information.
The US most certainly has the resources and skilled personnel to track down the true perpetrators, even in the face of savvy use of chained proxies and zombie computer systems.
And finally, China is now the #2 economy in the world, and our major trading partner. There's practically nobody in government who wants to start a war with China, and there's certainly no public officials who have been log advocating for one, unlike Iraq.
If you want to be paranoid, why aren't you jumping to the conclusion that the White House is putting out misinformation, telling the Chinese government that they had reached critical systems, instead of just some honeynet the DoD wanted them to access? Or you could go for this being justification for the next round of legislation giving the White House the authority to control the internet.
In the U.S., the central planners are left wing, opponents of central planning are right wing. Stalin and Hitler were both big proponents of centrally planned economies.
You're oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness. Socialists and Fascists may both prefer central planning, but the way in which they do so is diametrically opposed.
Democrats (left wing) are more of the Socialist bent, and Republicans (right wing) are more of the Fascist bent.
Right-wing'ers in the US most certainly still want central-planning, they just opt to give one company a de-jury right to monopoly control of an industry. They certainly don't want competition, that's just how they "spin" their actions, since publicly admitting to Fascism is political suicide.
In the US, the "right" typically fights for the right to bear arms while the left typically pushes for gun control. This is not universally true, but I suspect that more than 90% of the candidates that identify themselves as "left" are pro gun control.
Neither the right nor the left want to legalize fully-automatic assault riffles (aka. "machine guns"), and neither side wants to entirely outlaw fire-arms, either.
Gun control is one of those "wedge" issues, like abortion, euthanasia, illegal immigration, and more., which both sides talk about continually, but neither side really wants to actually act upon, other than some token measures here and there.
Not all data is equal. Some is time sensitive (voice) and some isn't (facebook). It seems reasonable to pay extra for routing priority of time sensitive data.
Perhaps, but paying $30 for 300 minutes/month, and then crazy 25c/minute for anything over that, is ridiculously high.
And besides that, WiFi APs are everywhere these days, and smart phones can connect to them easily enough, and use them for all the data transfers instead of the cellular network... Why isn't voice handled the same way? Going VoIP when on WiFi would save a lot of people a whole lot of money, and would still have the fallback to the cellular network, just like data.
That model is precisely how Republic Wireless gives people unlimited everything for $19/month, as opposed to $55/mo on BoostMobile. http://republicwireless.com/
I often get angry that this isn't SOP for cell phones, particularly when I'm in a building where a cell signal is non-existant, but I've got a high-speed WiFi connection, and yet I miss calls, and don't even get notified that I've missed a call, perhaps hours later as I leave.
Coverage issues would be greatly diminished if smartphones just used WiFi APs as part of their network... I know I'd be happy to install APs all over the place to fill in gaps that bother me, and any of my customers... A high power (Buffalo) AP is only $50 shipped these days, and with DD-WRT, the only infrastructure you need is a modest amount of power (5V can be easily provided by PV solar panels)... because it can easily act as a powerful repeater for a distant, very weak, AP.
Hell, I'd start lobbying the Dept. of Transportation to install a network of WiFi APs, atop power poles or street lights in particular, and in every one of their highway "call boxes", where WiFi would be infinitely more useful.
No, that chart says were spending 200% more, but hey, you're only 100% off...
And I stopped listening to CATO shills long ago, when they were making similar claims about specific states, only to find they completely ignored inflation, which, when calculated properly, showed that we're spending less than ever on education.
In this graph they say they've adjusted for inflation this time, but nobody does dirty tricks better than CATO, so I have no doubt they're utterly lying somewhere along the way, but it'll take quite some time to browse all the cited sources.
Unless they have sophisticated RF locating equipment the letters are just going to be out based on a best guess scenario.
Uh, yeah... Because every WiFi device ever created doesn't have any way for you to measure the signal strength, as you walk around a building. Hell, I can pinpoint an AP without taking my phone out of my pocket. It might be a bitch in an ultra-dense, high-rise complex, but most places it just takes a little leg-work.
practical home improvements like insulation, thermal windows, high efficiency HVAC and appliances, etc., etc. just don't impress the average buyer
Yes, buyers aren't impressed by things they can't SEE up-front. You can tell them you've got high R-value insulation, but you could be lying. In this case, though, I think the sound-proofing will be obvious enough that it'll attract buyers, if they want to live in a miserable, congested area to begin with.
painting all the walls beige and replacing the hardware with something in brushed nickel or, my personal bete noire: "oil-rubbed bronze."
There are a number of small changes you can make, that'll increase home values greatly. My favorite is to put dark-stained (looks like oak) wood paneling about 4ft up the wall, topped with some nice molding... Makes a POS house look damn expensive. It only works if you match the rest of the house, though... Dark stain all the kitchen cabinets, get some fancy-looking crown molding and stain that to match as well. You'll do much better than a big white box house.
I'm guessing that has a whole lot to do with California having the best unemployment benefits, so people stay in the system, rather than falling off the rolls like many others, where they are uncounted.
And at 7.25%, California has the great distinction of having the highest minimum sales tax in the US. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_and_use_taxes_in_California)
Nope, try again. At least Arizona is higher.
California's MINIMUM sales tax is only a fraction of a percent above a LOT of other states (7%). And counting the MINIMUM is completely arbitrary, it doesn't change that several other states pay far higher sales taxes, and seems contrived so you could find some way to justify your moaning about CA.
And additionally, like I already said, essential items like groceries are exempt (which many other states don't do), meaning the tax on all other sales needs to be higher to compensate. And sales tax is only that high because voters in the states prefer to keep property taxes low and predictable instead. Just as some states don't have income tax, and the like.
Once again, your claims are baseless nonsense based on your personal prejudice rather than actual, important issues. None of the things you've come up with, even if they were true and fair comparisons, would even potentially lend any credence to your ridiculous primary claim that: "everything here is completely nonsensical"
But go ahead and keep loving your socialist paradise while it continues to spend itself out of existence.
Enjoy the Tea-Bagger rallies. I'm content in the knowledge that changing demographics will make the Republican Party cease to be a viable national party within the next 10 years, max. Expect everything Limbaugh has told you to hold dear will be thrown under the bus by Republicans, desperately trying to retain their viability, very soon... It will likely start as soon as Romney loses.
You've given no reason at all for your California-hate. If you don't like it, fine, feel free to leave, but don't pretend there's a lot wrong with the state, as oppsed to not aligning with your own biases.
California is in-debt, but many states are in far worse shape, and the debt is due to lots of public services and restrictions keeping property taxes low and predictable (so it's a good place to own a home, or property. Sales tax in California varies by County, and most places it's well below 10%. It's as low as about 6.5% in many areas, and many things, like food, are exempt.
Your objection to this particular bill is pretty baseless, just a tea-bagger rant about how the government shouldn't spend any money, ever, on anything.
Slackware packages always include full devel libs and headers, and you never have to work-around the package manager fighting you about missing dependencies (which you compiled from source). Plus, the startup scripts are vastly simpler than those used in other distros, though not as simple as the BSDs.
In short, Slackware is probably the friendliest distro to learn with, and has many of the features that people like about BSD, while still being Linux. I wouldn't deploy it to 50 machines I have to maintain, but it's a great choice for your one Linux desktop.
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Actually, if you have sufficient ventilation to dry the sewage quickly, there's almost no smell.
If this really was a free market, there would be no infrastructure... if it could possibly work, there would be no need at all for Eminent Domain. You inevitably run into someone who will demand ridiculous prices for use of their property, and they may be in critical areas without alternatives.
And don't tell me about technology coming to the rescue... These same types of people will be happy to block the line-of-site of their neighbors, and maybe even take the effort to intentionally jam your satellites until you pay them to stop doing so...
Telecommunications is the ultimate in natural monopolies. Unregulated, you'd never see more than one in any area.
I love how you contradict yourself from one sentence to the next... You say WiFi only goes 100', except for rural areas where it's cheap and works exactly like I've described, huh?
And as for speed, 802.11n gives 600Mbps. Except for the higest tier of FIOS internet service, that's ample bandwidth to share between numerous subscribers, without slowing you down at all.
And it's not like I'm making this stuff up... Large hotels, apartment complexes, office buildings, indoor and outdoor venues, all have been wired up with nothing but WiFi for the last mile. I've done a couple of those installations myself, using high powered WiFi repeaters to save tons of money over physical wiring otherwise needed, and still managing high speeds for hundreds of end-users.
If an entire city block was streaming video at the same time, you'd have HUGE problems, anyhow, because that cable and DSL service is shared, and heavily over-subscribed.
Besides, 5mbit is fast than what I'm getting at best right now. Wifi driving the price down allowing them to invest in more performance could only help.
And you're setting up a straw man, implying you have no choice between a single wifi channel per block, and an AP at every home.
The alternative to these worms isn't port-a-pots, it's composting toilets, which you might find in remote cabins. They're expensive, but certainly not 40k.
And people have worked-out much cheaper DIY options which do the same thing. You just need a seat, a bucket, a vent (preferably with a small electric exhaust fan) and a handful of microbes to throw in to get started. All of the above are very inexpensive in the 1st world. In the 3rd world, local potters could make all of it, except the microbes, and that's surely much easier to transport than live worms...
http://www.composting-toilet-store.com/Microbe_Mix_p/microbe_mix.htm
If the speeds of G are good enough for you, don't bother upgrading. N gets high-speed from a lot of tricks that aren't very nice, like double-sized channels, multiple radios (which cheap receivers skimp on), etc. This was supposed to be okay because people were supposed to only enable double-wide channels on the 5Ghz band, but some devices only support the lower frequencies to begin with, and they certainly don't stop you from stomping on those 2.4ghz channels, trying to get extra speed you probably won't see, anyhow...
Even many devices sold today are G-only, from my cell phone, to my wireless PTZ surveilance cameras, etc, etc.
With WiFi speeds getting so high, range being respectable, and just about everyone wanting wireless data (see: cell phones, tablets, and laptops) why aren't ISPs making extensive use of WiFi for the last mile?
Run Fiber to a telephone pole at the end of the block, hook it up to a WiFi AP, and give out the key to paying subscribers. We're already at a point where customers are expected to buy their own DSL / Cable modems, so why not WiFi? That would eliminate all the last-mile costs and maintenance issues, and 802.11n has ample bandwidth for the services your ISP might want to provide. WiFi repeaters are a simple technology as well. So why not?
There are licensed versions of 802.11a hardware, running on 3.7GHz or so, with kilometer ranges, without repeaters, so it should be easy enough. And if WiFi isn't sufficient, the cost of WiMax receivers and base stations must be sufficiently cheap to make it a viable last-mile option as well, without the exhorbitant costs of a full cellular network.
Why are we all still tied to wires?
I'd think they'd get a better, more wide-ranging PR boost if they just stuck $50 bills in their magazines instead. Everyone will try to be one of the lucky 1,000 people who gets one, and most will fail to do so.
Really, if you want a low-end Android device, you can get one for damn near nothing. How about an Alcatel Venture from Virgin Mobile for $50... No contract, buy as many as you want, ready to use Android device. Or how about a 7" Tablet for $50 from everybody's favorite retailer?
Except they didn't write-up a paper on ONE nutrient. Did I miss a memo, where we were all told to pay extra for "organic" foods so that we'd get our extra flavanols?
I prefer another quote from that same story:
"Supporters of the $25 billion-plus organics industry were ready and willing to start digging up dirt."
Bingo!
I disagree. About a year ago, I was searching for something that turned up an old /. thread from around 2003. The highly-rated comments on there were all extremely in-depth and insightful information provided by extremely knowledgeable people. I did some more browsing of old /. threads and was astonished at how advanced and accurate highly-rated comments were, on everything from electronics, to physics, to engines, to many more topics.
What has happened on /. has been across-the-board, not specific to certain topics. Some of the causes I've observed have been heavy topic churn, whereas going back a decade, there were fewer stories posted every day, and slower, more in-depth discussion would happen. An influx of inflammatory stories from editors... from story after story about global warming, evolution, and every other hot-button issue under the sun, /. has been turned into an irrational flame-fest, and many people have left because of it. The new page layout and mod system may be responsible as well, with far fewer people meta-moderating far more comments. And finally, the shift in focus from geeky, technical topics to mass-market stories, such as the latest Apple rumor, may simply have eroded the base so much that intelligent discussion got squeezed out.
In any case, I encourage everyone to browse some decades-old topics... The difference in discussion from then until now is a slap in the face, even for those of us who lived through the slow changes on the site, sometimes kicking and screaming...
Another option for you might be Republic Wireless. They're $19/mo, and in areas where Sprint's coverage leaves something to be desired, you just need to find an open WiFi AP and you're set.
The big two are Verizon and AT&T. They're also the most expensive, and it's generally not necessary to buy service DIRECTLY from them.
If you're in AT&T's service area, and want service with them, sign-up with T-Mobile. You'll want to make sure you get a dual-band phone, but you'll be able to roam onto AT&T's GSM.
Verizon generally has the best coverage, and is the most expensive. If you want service with them, sign-up with Sprint... Sprint is cheaper, and allows you free roaming onto Verizon's network whenever needed. Sprint is also nice in that they advertise that they have no caps/limits on their data plans, but you should expect slow-down / congestion using data on their network during peak times...
The only reason you might NOT want to use this strategy, is if you want extra fast and super reliable data service. I, personally, don't care... I've got fast WiFi access at home, work, and when visiting family and all my friends. So that pretty much leaves streaming Pandora and others to my car stereo while driving down the freeways.
On Sprint's network, I haven't had my streaming audio stop mid-stream (yet) but I wouldn't expect video streaming such as youtube to be smooth, whereas Verizon's deeper network is faster, and more consistently so. Plus, Sprint is in a bad spot, transitioning it's 4G service from WiMax to LTE. Of course Verizon and AT&T's LTE networks are both pretty patchy yet, so I recommend just being content with 3G (and WiFi) for the next couple years.
I worked for a startup, where the CEO was big on "play", and so tried every incentive in the book... We had pool tables, game consoles with a large assortment of game, and more, and out of hundreds of people, and several years' time, NOBODY EVER TOUCHED ANY OF IT.
When your workplace is a death march of always too much to do, and never enough time to do it, despite everyone putting in plenty of overtime, then expect your employees to be miserable. If you pay them enough money, they'll stay around for a while despite the horrible conditions, but anyone who can make a decent salary elsewhere will leave pretty quickly.
To be fair, the free food and sodas, and rather frequent BBQ lunches and food trucks were utilized quite a bit, but these things are all bandages on a gaping wound, if the company is an unpleasant place to work.
You're pretty myopic about the whole thing. I can think of dozens of little plastic items I really wish I could get custom-made for me... All kinds of busted plastic bits in my car that it would be nice to replace, to a better shower nozzle, to latches for doors. Hell, here's a big one: how about smartphone cases?
There's huge potential for 3D printing. You're obsessed with steel, but more and more of our products are made mostly out of plastic, and that's certainly where there's the most potential. Of course a 3D printer that works with molten tin (solder) isn't a bad idea either, but I expect most uses will be plastic.
"Deregulation" is code for letting big companies do anything they want. Republicans say they want lower taxes, but they really mean they want the rich to pay lower taxes, but they still want all the government spending to continue.
Name ONE president who has campaigned on "smaller government", and followed through. There are none. Regan slashed and burned a bunch of essential public services, then spent even MORE money on defense, eliminating any gains he claimed. This kind of pattern goes back as far as Thomas Jefferson...
You've made your bias quite clear... You're one of the "I got mine!" crowd, who just wants to pay less in taxes, and is happy to screw-over everyone else in the process.
You should put away the tin-foil hat...
It's SOP that the US government doesn't disclose HOW they get their information, nor do they disclose how quickly they discovered such information.
The US most certainly has the resources and skilled personnel to track down the true perpetrators, even in the face of savvy use of chained proxies and zombie computer systems.
And finally, China is now the #2 economy in the world, and our major trading partner. There's practically nobody in government who wants to start a war with China, and there's certainly no public officials who have been log advocating for one, unlike Iraq.
If you want to be paranoid, why aren't you jumping to the conclusion that the White House is putting out misinformation, telling the Chinese government that they had reached critical systems, instead of just some honeynet the DoD wanted them to access? Or you could go for this being justification for the next round of legislation giving the White House the authority to control the internet.
You're oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness. Socialists and Fascists may both prefer central planning, but the way in which they do so is diametrically opposed.
Democrats (left wing) are more of the Socialist bent, and Republicans (right wing) are more of the Fascist bent.
Right-wing'ers in the US most certainly still want central-planning, they just opt to give one company a de-jury right to monopoly control of an industry. They certainly don't want competition, that's just how they "spin" their actions, since publicly admitting to Fascism is political suicide.
Neither the right nor the left want to legalize fully-automatic assault riffles (aka. "machine guns"), and neither side wants to entirely outlaw fire-arms, either.
Gun control is one of those "wedge" issues, like abortion, euthanasia, illegal immigration, and more., which both sides talk about continually, but neither side really wants to actually act upon, other than some token measures here and there.
Perhaps, but paying $30 for 300 minutes/month, and then crazy 25c/minute for anything over that, is ridiculously high.
And besides that, WiFi APs are everywhere these days, and smart phones can connect to them easily enough, and use them for all the data transfers instead of the cellular network... Why isn't voice handled the same way? Going VoIP when on WiFi would save a lot of people a whole lot of money, and would still have the fallback to the cellular network, just like data.
That model is precisely how Republic Wireless gives people unlimited everything for $19/month, as opposed to $55/mo on BoostMobile. http://republicwireless.com/
I often get angry that this isn't SOP for cell phones, particularly when I'm in a building where a cell signal is non-existant, but I've got a high-speed WiFi connection, and yet I miss calls, and don't even get notified that I've missed a call, perhaps hours later as I leave.
Coverage issues would be greatly diminished if smartphones just used WiFi APs as part of their network... I know I'd be happy to install APs all over the place to fill in gaps that bother me, and any of my customers... A high power (Buffalo) AP is only $50 shipped these days, and with DD-WRT, the only infrastructure you need is a modest amount of power (5V can be easily provided by PV solar panels)... because it can easily act as a powerful repeater for a distant, very weak, AP.
Hell, I'd start lobbying the Dept. of Transportation to install a network of WiFi APs, atop power poles or street lights in particular, and in every one of their highway "call boxes", where WiFi would be infinitely more useful.
No, that chart says were spending 200% more, but hey, you're only 100% off...
And I stopped listening to CATO shills long ago, when they were making similar claims about specific states, only to find they completely ignored inflation, which, when calculated properly, showed that we're spending less than ever on education.
In this graph they say they've adjusted for inflation this time, but nobody does dirty tricks better than CATO, so I have no doubt they're utterly lying somewhere along the way, but it'll take quite some time to browse all the cited sources.
Uh, yeah... Because every WiFi device ever created doesn't have any way for you to measure the signal strength, as you walk around a building. Hell, I can pinpoint an AP without taking my phone out of my pocket. It might be a bitch in an ultra-dense, high-rise complex, but most places it just takes a little leg-work.
Yes, buyers aren't impressed by things they can't SEE up-front. You can tell them you've got high R-value insulation, but you could be lying. In this case, though, I think the sound-proofing will be obvious enough that it'll attract buyers, if they want to live in a miserable, congested area to begin with.
There are a number of small changes you can make, that'll increase home values greatly. My favorite is to put dark-stained (looks like oak) wood paneling about 4ft up the wall, topped with some nice molding... Makes a POS house look damn expensive. It only works if you match the rest of the house, though... Dark stain all the kitchen cabinets, get some fancy-looking crown molding and stain that to match as well. You'll do much better than a big white box house.
That's nothing but an opinion, and a ridiculously far-reaching and baseless one at that.
I'm guessing that has a whole lot to do with California having the best unemployment benefits, so people stay in the system, rather than falling off the rolls like many others, where they are uncounted.
Nope, try again. At least Arizona is higher.
California's MINIMUM sales tax is only a fraction of a percent above a LOT of other states (7%). And counting the MINIMUM is completely arbitrary, it doesn't change that several other states pay far higher sales taxes, and seems contrived so you could find some way to justify your moaning about CA.
And additionally, like I already said, essential items like groceries are exempt (which many other states don't do), meaning the tax on all other sales needs to be higher to compensate. And sales tax is only that high because voters in the states prefer to keep property taxes low and predictable instead. Just as some states don't have income tax, and the like.
Once again, your claims are baseless nonsense based on your personal prejudice rather than actual, important issues. None of the things you've come up with, even if they were true and fair comparisons, would even potentially lend any credence to your ridiculous primary claim that: "everything here is completely nonsensical"
Enjoy the Tea-Bagger rallies. I'm content in the knowledge that changing demographics will make the Republican Party cease to be a viable national party within the next 10 years, max. Expect everything Limbaugh has told you to hold dear will be thrown under the bus by Republicans, desperately trying to retain their viability, very soon... It will likely start as soon as Romney loses.
You've given no reason at all for your California-hate. If you don't like it, fine, feel free to leave, but don't pretend there's a lot wrong with the state, as oppsed to not aligning with your own biases.
California is in-debt, but many states are in far worse shape, and the debt is due to lots of public services and restrictions keeping property taxes low and predictable (so it's a good place to own a home, or property. Sales tax in California varies by County, and most places it's well below 10%. It's as low as about 6.5% in many areas, and many things, like food, are exempt.
Your objection to this particular bill is pretty baseless, just a tea-bagger rant about how the government shouldn't spend any money, ever, on anything.
Slackware packages always include full devel libs and headers, and you never have to work-around the package manager fighting you about missing dependencies (which you compiled from source). Plus, the startup scripts are vastly simpler than those used in other distros, though not as simple as the BSDs.
In short, Slackware is probably the friendliest distro to learn with, and has many of the features that people like about BSD, while still being Linux. I wouldn't deploy it to 50 machines I have to maintain, but it's a great choice for your one Linux desktop.