We can incentivize the growing of other crops, too, but we should also be prepared to buy up the opium crop.
The alternative is destroying the opium crop; this impoverishes the farmer further, destroys his livelihood and causes him to not just grow opium, but join the Taliban.
...especially when the market is fairly inelastic.
The best "white market" tale I've ever heard is the militias that ran the "Golden Triangle" in the Southeast Asian highlands offering to sell the US the entire opium crop.
I think it would be a grand strategy in Afghanistan -- build goodwill with farmers through buying their crop at prices better than the Taliban is offering, denying the Taliban a source of income through trafficking and probably having a significant supply reduction in the global heroin market. They could even use the opium for the production of painkillers for the legitimate market, which I understand is actually constrained sometimes by strict production limitations.
You would think that white marketing the supply of illicit drugs would make a lot of sense -- by buying up supplies at the volume end of the market and denying it to the market, you would drive street prices through the roof and have far more impact on the consumers, pricing many out of the market. Cocaine supply diversity may make this difficult, but if pursued quietly it might actually be effective there too.
Critics would decry giving money to criminals, but the "buy" could actually take place at the farming level where that's an option, thus totally undercutting the criminals. It'd be great to see a cost analysis to see if it would actually be cheaper to just buy up the drugs at the point of production versus the drug war, which doesn't work.
I haven't worked with Cisco support all that much, just a few times with some access routers, WIC cards and miscellaneous software BS. But I'm pretty sure they always wanted my serial number or SmartNet info, and to get the latter you have to supply a serial number.
Why wouldn't Cisco just reject these products because the serial numbers are wrong/bogus/nonexistent? It seems unlikely the counterfeits would have legitimate serial numbers, or if they cloned a range, ones that couldn't be flagged.
And since when does Cisco give *anything* away for free? You can often claw a latest IOS or ASA firmware image out of them if you open a warranty case within 90 days, but after that you are PAYING FOR SUPPORT BABY, as much as they can wring out of you.
Like what? I've had a root canal and 3 crowns and my wisdom teeth extracted in the last 2 years.
I think some of the restorative technologies have gotten better (eg, implants, Cerac CNC-milled crowns) but the preventative technologies have not. Even stuff like wisdom tooth extraction doesn't seem very high tech.
About the only thing I really appreciate is the ability to take the Halcion/Hydroxyazine/Nitrous cocktail before major work and blank out during the experience.
I've always wondered why they haven't developed a hard coating for teeth that would prevent most cavities and why we don't have vaccination against caries and periodontal pathogens.
It often seems like the basics of dentistry have changed little. There are newer materials for crowns and tooth-colored fillings, CNC machines and 3d modeling for crowns, but AFAIK going to the dentist is little different for me now than it was 40 years ago.
I sometimes wonder if advances in preventive dentistry aren't limited by the structure and practice of dentistry itself. Plus, dentists being dentists, they have a built-in interest in high-quality preventive care (high-frequency flossing, rinses, brushing, etc) and thus themselves develop few of the chronic problems that plague the general public and thus don't devote resources to better passive preventive systems/technologies as they believe the ones available are "good enough".
In a way it kind of reminds me of the problems non-technology people have with computers that technology people don't suffer from; these issues don't really get addressed within technology itself very aggressively because to the people who don't have these issues, they aren't considered serious problems or are considered side effects of other problems (general ignorance or lack of intelligence, etc).
All the competitive shooters who can use holographic sights (which are really just illuminated sights with zero power magnification) and they're pretty much standard equipment anymore on military rifles. Bullseye shooters all seem to prefer red dots; I have one on my Model 41 and its wicked accurate.
For defensive guns, its hard not to see the advantages of tritium -- much faster and easier sight picture in low light. I use TruGlo sights that also have fiber optics; its the same sight picture/color in dark or light conditions. Fiber optic front sights are nice on revolvers if you're not using magnified glass or a dot, in the right light almost as nice as a red dot.
I'm sure a person CAN develop great skills with iron sights for self defense, but its a lot easier in the dark with visible sights.
Most everyone assumes that Jack Bauer/CTU, the NSA and the military are actively *chasing* you. That's ridiculous. Unless the rules require you to start in a specific location at a specific time, this should be trivial and not even require leaving the city you live in (although it might help to avoid places you would normally frequent).
Just get an extended-stay room at some anonymous hotel or furnished apartment in someone else's name, paying cash, including leaving a huge cash deposit for consumables like pay per view and internet. It'd probably be easiest to do this through a proxy like an attorney. Stay in the kind of place that has a kitchen, so you're not forced out for every meal. If you were enterprising you could probably bring in an entire month's worth of food at once as long as you didn't need a lot of refrigeration.
It would get boring, but an archive of DVDs, on-demand tv and cooking could keep you occupied with seldom needing to leave your hotel. Cell phone through pre-paid throw-away phones and service. Internet through the hotel to a secure outside proxy or chain of proxies (rent a couple of VMs at a couple of hosting places) or free wifi, or, I wonder if you can rig up occasional 3G tethering on prepaid SIM cards put in tether-capable phones?
If you did it in a busy but anonymous suburb of some major city you didn't live in usually (Chicago, NY/NJ, LA/Orange County) you could probably go out and as long as you pay cash for things, do so with impunity, since the odds of someone actually running into you would be about zero. As long as you live in a 200k+ sized city and stayed away from friends/family/familiar places you could probably get away with without leaving home.
I think a lot of the problem is that the "goal" never really was innovative products, it was always a businessey goal of world domination. Ballmer was B-school all the way, Gates was the son of a lawyer. These weren't innovation guys, they were make money and win guys, which is why its always been nearly transparent that their goal is domination via monopoly.
And chances are this was the core culture at Microsoft at the management level -- they hired really smart people who thought the same way, and I'm sure it has trickled down through the layers of product management as well.
At that point, the standard inter-departmental warfare and turf protection you see anywhere just becomes kind of synergistic -- I'm sure the product manager for Office wields that product like a monopoly inside Microsoft the same way Microsoft does Windows in the computer marketplace. Defend Office against anyone that would undermine their control of Office and Office's internal power.
I'm sure the internal culture would never allow for it, but it'd be interesting to see MS setup a separate entity, officed somewhere else (Minneapolis or some other location outside the usual centers of IT gravity) and give them a billion dollars cash and the source to Windows and tell them to come up with a new OS that could run on the same hardware as Windows and Windows programs, but have no other limitations, marketing handicaps or management oversight.
I would bet the outcome would be pretty cool and be missing a lot of the needless bullshit that internal politics and the driving business motivation ends up handicapping Windows (and producing stuff like Vista).
Incredibly common bordering on likely the outright majority.
For one, its likely that most companies will have some kind of Windows infrastructure and/or Windows application requirements and thus will hand out Windows based laptops/desktops. Admins with a OSS religious affiliation may end up overwriting these systems with Linux or building their own in parallel, but controls/obstacles/requirements/misc bureaucratic bullshit may stop all but the most senior from being able to do this or make it too much of a headache.
I know someone whose job basically to run an RS/6000 and its application and he is required to use the Windows laptop he was given for some security/accountability purposes, and then there's the office toolchain requirements (Outlook), and then there's the UNIX support applications (all Windows based).
And then there's sheer inertia. You can't swing your fist without hitting a Windows PC and it generally works with all the hardware, provides windowing and a GUI interface and makes even character-mode UNIX management pretty easy via putty, cut/paste, etc. Plus a lot of server apps (eg, Samba) have functional web GUIs of their own.
Add in the occasionally hairpulling effort of getting all the hardware/graphics to work right on new laptops under Unix OSes and you can see how someone might just not care what the local video/keyboard platform was for working with a remote server.
Will this result in family members/religious zealots demanding that patients in these kinds of states keep receiving ongoing medical care and not have the plug pulled, despite the infinitesimally small chances that they will wake up under the justification that they are "still alive"?
Does this mean we'll spend more money on essentially lost causes and/or keep pushing healthcare costs higher and thus deny meaningful services to people who aren't vegetative?
I am the last person in the world to buy into Jobs/Apple BS. I've only had an iPhone since the 3GS, but find it brilliant, and have long wanted an iPhone with a bigger screen for the reasons you mention -- casual use on the couch, in bed, at the breakfast table.
I use my iPhone now in those places but it is ultimately a less than satisfactory experience, especially consuming printed media (way too much scrolling and type that's a tad tiny for comfortable reading) and "normal" web sites that lack an app/mobile version. A laptop, even a small one, is not a satisfactory replacement. Too bulky.
Are there limitations and things that don't make sense with Apple's iPad? Of course. We've heard many of them and like the weird quirks and limitations of the iPhone, they in no way detract from its use by most people.
I really like the iPad and think it was exactly what needed to come out. It bridges the gap between readers like the Kindle and a laptop without being overly complicated to use or own.
Is it merely the volume of the cases that makes it plaintiff friendly, or is it more plaintiff friendly than other districts when you adjust for volume?
Has anyone asked why it's more plaintiff friendly? Has anyone done any kind of analysis of the judiciary to determine if they have some kind of background that gives them a superior understanding (engineering degrees, patent experience, etc)?
Somehow it all smells rotten -- a group of judges and a group of local attorneys who have built a cozy little legal franchise. Local attorneys with familiarity in the courts handle the plaintiffs, the attorneys get paid handsomely for their access & familiarity and the judges get re-elected with the financial support of the attorneys.
In short, everyone gets paid and the trolls don't really care because to them its all profit.
Now, I'm sure this is more conspiratorial than it all really is, but even so -- why would judges in those areas be so plaintiff friendly?
I'm always puzzled why our military is "terrible" at fighting a guerrilla/insurgency.
I've read a number of the articles in newspapers where they go along with a patrol, invariably get attacked, and someone from the patrol is quoted as saying the village/building is constant source of sniper fire or an operations base for some local group of insurgents.
It seems to me our "humanity" gets in the way of fighting wars. Were this a Roman campaign, the men in the village would all be killed and the women and children hauled back to Rome as slaves. The village would be burned to the ground and the crops looted or torched.
Rome subdued most of Europe with this strategy.
If we're there to fight, we should be willing to dish out this level of brutality. How many villages have to get wiped off the map before people stop being willing to cooperate with the insurgency? Villages that cooperate should get whatever support we can give them (building materials and assistance, medical care, etc).
I've even read at least one story about post-WWII Germany where "Werewolf" resistance fighters sniped at an American unit entering a village; the American response? Pull out a 1-2 KM and indiscriminately shell the village overnight. By morning, the resistance leaders were either bound or dead in the village square.
Yes, I realize that a lot of "innocent" people get killed. It's extremely cruel. But respecting humanity and extending an occupation 10+ years isn't?
Ha! I drive an '07 Volvo S80, from the people who supposedly make the safest cars on earth, and I think its missing at least two of those safety features.
The parking (not emergency) brake is electrically operated, not that I think it or any other car's parking brake would actually stop a car (many activate only one wheel, which would badly spin the car).
It has a "shiftmatic" transmission without any manual gear positions. It can be semi-manually shifted (electrically operated manual gear positions with an automatic clutch), but has an anti-redline feature that either forces a shift or cuts the throttle if the engine is kept in too low of a gear (I forget which, I seldom use it; my model has the V8 motor and very rarely do I feel the need to manually bump the engine up 1-2k RPM).
I'll bet it kills the motor in the event of a crash, though.
I finally made the leap (of faith) to the iPhone last year after getting sick of the crappy crippled phones from Verizon. I was dreading the carrier change but its actually been great.
No dead spots yet -- Highland Park in St. Paul was a black hole for Verizon. Data seems faster, but the hardware comparison isnt really the same (Motorola Q Black vs. iPhone 3G & 3GS). Voice quality/availability as good or better than Verizon, AFAICT.
Really overall it's been a great transition. About the only gripe I have is rural North Dakota and extreme Northwestern Minnesota -- coverage there for voice is thin and data is low speed only, but AFAIK everyone up in that neck of the woods (all 300,000 of them over both states...) are some weird rural carrier (AlTel?) that is also CDMA. I'm only there a couple of times a year and all the places I stay have 802.11 so I can live without 3G for the most part 8 days a year.
My opinion, at least here, is that the anti-AT&T griping AND pro-Verizon is way overrated.
It's just like Tivo in many respects. I could have some other box that does more, but it would require logarithmically more effort to get going, have more problems, and in the end be a much less satisfying experience at what it's supposed to do (if you like tinkering, perhaps that doesn't matter).
And it's not that the iPad is without some criticism; the storage I find anemic for a device that doesn't have to make a ton of sacrifices in the name of size & portability; an IR port for remote control seemed obvious to me as well.
But for sitting on the couch, sitting in bed, or at the kitchen table, it's PERFECT for the kinds of things I want to do on a PC in those rooms. Anything else, I want to be at a desk in front of a REAL PC with dual monitors, etc.
With what we're learning with the drone program, the best thing would be to develop an unmanned fighter. AFAIK, the big limitation on fighters these days is the guy in the cockpit. We're capable of developing propulsion and airframes capable of greatly exceeding human endurance and that's what's needed to take fighters to the next level and to really keep the competition on their toes.
Even at par with manned fighters in terms of raw performance, an unmanned fighter, minus the cockpit, life support systems, human avionics interfaces and the pilot, is hundreds of pounds lighter, and probably somewhat smaller -- all this yields better fuel consumption, more weapons capacity, better avionics and probably mission-optimizable in most categories.
Fighters probably have a role, albeit more in the strategic realm, but as we learned from 9/11, bombers aren't the only aerial threat and the ability to intercept or get on target very quickly over most targets is welcome. But overall I think you are right, our money is best spent on the resources for asymmetrical warfare.
It remains unclear whether or not the device will have, let alone require, cell service, but am I the only one vaguely turned off by the idea you'd *have* to buy it with cell service (and thus pay an additional $1500-2000 for it)?
As a ~10" device, it isn't iPhone-portable. While toting it around is probably thing #1 people will want to do with it, it seems much more like the kind of device you'd leave at home -- taking your iPhone for maximum portability or your laptop for maximum computing. And at home -- and many coffeeshop type places you'd take it -- will already have wifi.
I don't mind the *option* of cell service; certainly there are a not insignificant class of users who will want cell mobility with it, but with an iPhone OS its not completely a laptop replacement and the size acts as a mobility hindrance, unless you carry that 12" manbag everywhere you go.
I'm just in love enough with my iPhone to buy one right away, but ONLY if I can get it without a manditory cell service.
I see this as an around-the-house, wifi kind of device and would not haul it around (I already haul around my laptop for work and my iPhone, hard to see this replacing/replicating either).
When the Intel Macbooks came out, I got my boss to buy me one as I supported (as an on-site consultant) a fair number of Macs in addition to Windows (something like a 20-80 split). Anyway, BootCamp was ideal and allowed me to have the best of both worlds. Until it fell apart.
Within 8 months, the Ethernet jack was so loose that only a homebrew drop cable with a little epoxy ridge would hold a connection, the DVD drive stopped working, and the plastic trim around the edges had nearly completely fallen away.
I took it to an Apple store and was told I could leave it with them for a few days and if they found anything wrong, they would order a new motherboard but I was looking at a couple of weeks without my computer.
I ended up getting a Vostro (the cheapest thing I could find). Within six months of owning that, it developed a problem where it was hard to turn on (you needed to pull the battery and only use AC power). I called Dell and had the mainboard replaced, IN MY HOME, within 30 hours. As it happened, the mainboard wasn't the source of the problem -- after the tech replaced it, I still had the issue; the tech called Dell's inside support line, had it diagnosed to the power switch board, and I had that replaced the next day and had no more problems for the next year and a half (I upgraded to a E6500 at that point and returned the laptop to work).
The issue isn't the Dell being less troublefree, the issue is the Apple repair process assuming you're an idiot and not being able/willing to provide Dell's level of service.
"Living standard" encompasses a lot of things -- I could live in a cheaper house, but it would be in a much worse neighborhood with all the associated costs that come with living in the midst of poverty. Crime, extremely poor schools, violence -- all of these things are bad unto themselves, plus they have a cumulative impact on health (above and beyond the effects of being robbed, assaulted, or killed).
There's also a misery factor associated with "living without" -- maybe if I packed it in, Ted Kaczynski style and lived in a shack in the woods I wouldn't notice, but generally speaking life would be just harder, with less pleasure. And it's not like I live excessively now -- I bought a used car, we shop judiciously, I wear modest clothes with no designer labels, dining out is maybe a couple of times a month at inexpensive restaurants, etc.
But the real problem with a single income anymore is the sheer insecurity of a single income. If my wife OR I lose our jobs now, we're going to have to stretch to make ends meet and start tapping our savings. With a single income? You're running the risk of financial ruin.
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Except that we didn't have 50,000 troops in South America.
We can incentivize the growing of other crops, too, but we should also be prepared to buy up the opium crop.
The alternative is destroying the opium crop; this impoverishes the farmer further, destroys his livelihood and causes him to not just grow opium, but join the Taliban.
...especially when the market is fairly inelastic.
The best "white market" tale I've ever heard is the militias that ran the "Golden Triangle" in the Southeast Asian highlands offering to sell the US the entire opium crop.
I think it would be a grand strategy in Afghanistan -- build goodwill with farmers through buying their crop at prices better than the Taliban is offering, denying the Taliban a source of income through trafficking and probably having a significant supply reduction in the global heroin market. They could even use the opium for the production of painkillers for the legitimate market, which I understand is actually constrained sometimes by strict production limitations.
You would think that white marketing the supply of illicit drugs would make a lot of sense -- by buying up supplies at the volume end of the market and denying it to the market, you would drive street prices through the roof and have far more impact on the consumers, pricing many out of the market. Cocaine supply diversity may make this difficult, but if pursued quietly it might actually be effective there too.
Critics would decry giving money to criminals, but the "buy" could actually take place at the farming level where that's an option, thus totally undercutting the criminals. It'd be great to see a cost analysis to see if it would actually be cheaper to just buy up the drugs at the point of production versus the drug war, which doesn't work.
I haven't worked with Cisco support all that much, just a few times with some access routers, WIC cards and miscellaneous software BS. But I'm pretty sure they always wanted my serial number or SmartNet info, and to get the latter you have to supply a serial number.
Why wouldn't Cisco just reject these products because the serial numbers are wrong/bogus/nonexistent? It seems unlikely the counterfeits would have legitimate serial numbers, or if they cloned a range, ones that couldn't be flagged.
And since when does Cisco give *anything* away for free? You can often claw a latest IOS or ASA firmware image out of them if you open a warranty case within 90 days, but after that you are PAYING FOR SUPPORT BABY, as much as they can wring out of you.
Like what? I've had a root canal and 3 crowns and my wisdom teeth extracted in the last 2 years.
I think some of the restorative technologies have gotten better (eg, implants, Cerac CNC-milled crowns) but the preventative technologies have not. Even stuff like wisdom tooth extraction doesn't seem very high tech.
About the only thing I really appreciate is the ability to take the Halcion/Hydroxyazine/Nitrous cocktail before major work and blank out during the experience.
I've always wondered why they haven't developed a hard coating for teeth that would prevent most cavities and why we don't have vaccination against caries and periodontal pathogens.
It often seems like the basics of dentistry have changed little. There are newer materials for crowns and tooth-colored fillings, CNC machines and 3d modeling for crowns, but AFAIK going to the dentist is little different for me now than it was 40 years ago.
I sometimes wonder if advances in preventive dentistry aren't limited by the structure and practice of dentistry itself. Plus, dentists being dentists, they have a built-in interest in high-quality preventive care (high-frequency flossing, rinses, brushing, etc) and thus themselves develop few of the chronic problems that plague the general public and thus don't devote resources to better passive preventive systems/technologies as they believe the ones available are "good enough".
In a way it kind of reminds me of the problems non-technology people have with computers that technology people don't suffer from; these issues don't really get addressed within technology itself very aggressively because to the people who don't have these issues, they aren't considered serious problems or are considered side effects of other problems (general ignorance or lack of intelligence, etc).
All the competitive shooters who can use holographic sights (which are really just illuminated sights with zero power magnification) and they're pretty much standard equipment anymore on military rifles. Bullseye shooters all seem to prefer red dots; I have one on my Model 41 and its wicked accurate.
For defensive guns, its hard not to see the advantages of tritium -- much faster and easier sight picture in low light. I use TruGlo sights that also have fiber optics; its the same sight picture/color in dark or light conditions. Fiber optic front sights are nice on revolvers if you're not using magnified glass or a dot, in the right light almost as nice as a red dot.
I'm sure a person CAN develop great skills with iron sights for self defense, but its a lot easier in the dark with visible sights.
Most everyone assumes that Jack Bauer/CTU, the NSA and the military are actively *chasing* you. That's ridiculous. Unless the rules require you to start in a specific location at a specific time, this should be trivial and not even require leaving the city you live in (although it might help to avoid places you would normally frequent).
Just get an extended-stay room at some anonymous hotel or furnished apartment in someone else's name, paying cash, including leaving a huge cash deposit for consumables like pay per view and internet. It'd probably be easiest to do this through a proxy like an attorney. Stay in the kind of place that has a kitchen, so you're not forced out for every meal. If you were enterprising you could probably bring in an entire month's worth of food at once as long as you didn't need a lot of refrigeration.
It would get boring, but an archive of DVDs, on-demand tv and cooking could keep you occupied with seldom needing to leave your hotel. Cell phone through pre-paid throw-away phones and service. Internet through the hotel to a secure outside proxy or chain of proxies (rent a couple of VMs at a couple of hosting places) or free wifi, or, I wonder if you can rig up occasional 3G tethering on prepaid SIM cards put in tether-capable phones?
If you did it in a busy but anonymous suburb of some major city you didn't live in usually (Chicago, NY/NJ, LA/Orange County) you could probably go out and as long as you pay cash for things, do so with impunity, since the odds of someone actually running into you would be about zero. As long as you live in a 200k+ sized city and stayed away from friends/family/familiar places you could probably get away with without leaving home.
I think a lot of the problem is that the "goal" never really was innovative products, it was always a businessey goal of world domination. Ballmer was B-school all the way, Gates was the son of a lawyer. These weren't innovation guys, they were make money and win guys, which is why its always been nearly transparent that their goal is domination via monopoly.
And chances are this was the core culture at Microsoft at the management level -- they hired really smart people who thought the same way, and I'm sure it has trickled down through the layers of product management as well.
At that point, the standard inter-departmental warfare and turf protection you see anywhere just becomes kind of synergistic -- I'm sure the product manager for Office wields that product like a monopoly inside Microsoft the same way Microsoft does Windows in the computer marketplace. Defend Office against anyone that would undermine their control of Office and Office's internal power.
I'm sure the internal culture would never allow for it, but it'd be interesting to see MS setup a separate entity, officed somewhere else (Minneapolis or some other location outside the usual centers of IT gravity) and give them a billion dollars cash and the source to Windows and tell them to come up with a new OS that could run on the same hardware as Windows and Windows programs, but have no other limitations, marketing handicaps or management oversight.
I would bet the outcome would be pretty cool and be missing a lot of the needless bullshit that internal politics and the driving business motivation ends up handicapping Windows (and producing stuff like Vista).
Incredibly common bordering on likely the outright majority.
For one, its likely that most companies will have some kind of Windows infrastructure and/or Windows application requirements and thus will hand out Windows based laptops/desktops. Admins with a OSS religious affiliation may end up overwriting these systems with Linux or building their own in parallel, but controls/obstacles/requirements/misc bureaucratic bullshit may stop all but the most senior from being able to do this or make it too much of a headache.
I know someone whose job basically to run an RS/6000 and its application and he is required to use the Windows laptop he was given for some security/accountability purposes, and then there's the office toolchain requirements (Outlook), and then there's the UNIX support applications (all Windows based).
And then there's sheer inertia. You can't swing your fist without hitting a Windows PC and it generally works with all the hardware, provides windowing and a GUI interface and makes even character-mode UNIX management pretty easy via putty, cut/paste, etc. Plus a lot of server apps (eg, Samba) have functional web GUIs of their own.
Add in the occasionally hairpulling effort of getting all the hardware/graphics to work right on new laptops under Unix OSes and you can see how someone might just not care what the local video/keyboard platform was for working with a remote server.
What are the bigger picture implications of this?
Will this result in family members/religious zealots demanding that patients in these kinds of states keep receiving ongoing medical care and not have the plug pulled, despite the infinitesimally small chances that they will wake up under the justification that they are "still alive"?
Does this mean we'll spend more money on essentially lost causes and/or keep pushing healthcare costs higher and thus deny meaningful services to people who aren't vegetative?
I am the last person in the world to buy into Jobs/Apple BS. I've only had an iPhone since the 3GS, but find it brilliant, and have long wanted an iPhone with a bigger screen for the reasons you mention -- casual use on the couch, in bed, at the breakfast table.
I use my iPhone now in those places but it is ultimately a less than satisfactory experience, especially consuming printed media (way too much scrolling and type that's a tad tiny for comfortable reading) and "normal" web sites that lack an app/mobile version. A laptop, even a small one, is not a satisfactory replacement. Too bulky.
Are there limitations and things that don't make sense with Apple's iPad? Of course. We've heard many of them and like the weird quirks and limitations of the iPhone, they in no way detract from its use by most people.
I really like the iPad and think it was exactly what needed to come out. It bridges the gap between readers like the Kindle and a laptop without being overly complicated to use or own.
I haven't played roulette, but I suspect the payout from betting all the numbers is lower than the cost.
If it was break-even, then it would make sense to bet half the numbers, since the win would be 50/50 odds ad the payout would be twice the cost.
Vegas never makes it that easy.
Is it merely the volume of the cases that makes it plaintiff friendly, or is it more plaintiff friendly than other districts when you adjust for volume?
Has anyone asked why it's more plaintiff friendly? Has anyone done any kind of analysis of the judiciary to determine if they have some kind of background that gives them a superior understanding (engineering degrees, patent experience, etc)?
Somehow it all smells rotten -- a group of judges and a group of local attorneys who have built a cozy little legal franchise. Local attorneys with familiarity in the courts handle the plaintiffs, the attorneys get paid handsomely for their access & familiarity and the judges get re-elected with the financial support of the attorneys.
In short, everyone gets paid and the trolls don't really care because to them its all profit.
Now, I'm sure this is more conspiratorial than it all really is, but even so -- why would judges in those areas be so plaintiff friendly?
I'm always puzzled why our military is "terrible" at fighting a guerrilla/insurgency.
I've read a number of the articles in newspapers where they go along with a patrol, invariably get attacked, and someone from the patrol is quoted as saying the village/building is constant source of sniper fire or an operations base for some local group of insurgents.
It seems to me our "humanity" gets in the way of fighting wars. Were this a Roman campaign, the men in the village would all be killed and the women and children hauled back to Rome as slaves. The village would be burned to the ground and the crops looted or torched.
Rome subdued most of Europe with this strategy.
If we're there to fight, we should be willing to dish out this level of brutality. How many villages have to get wiped off the map before people stop being willing to cooperate with the insurgency? Villages that cooperate should get whatever support we can give them (building materials and assistance, medical care, etc).
I've even read at least one story about post-WWII Germany where "Werewolf" resistance fighters sniped at an American unit entering a village; the American response? Pull out a 1-2 KM and indiscriminately shell the village overnight. By morning, the resistance leaders were either bound or dead in the village square.
Yes, I realize that a lot of "innocent" people get killed. It's extremely cruel. But respecting humanity and extending an occupation 10+ years isn't?
The Rabbit I drove in high school, the Renault I drove after college -- both would only lock one wheel. Proven in many parking lots after a good snow.
Ha! I drive an '07 Volvo S80, from the people who supposedly make the safest cars on earth, and I think its missing at least two of those safety features.
The parking (not emergency) brake is electrically operated, not that I think it or any other car's parking brake would actually stop a car (many activate only one wheel, which would badly spin the car).
It has a "shiftmatic" transmission without any manual gear positions. It can be semi-manually shifted (electrically operated manual gear positions with an automatic clutch), but has an anti-redline feature that either forces a shift or cuts the throttle if the engine is kept in too low of a gear (I forget which, I seldom use it; my model has the V8 motor and very rarely do I feel the need to manually bump the engine up 1-2k RPM).
I'll bet it kills the motor in the event of a crash, though.
I had Verizon forever, since they were AirTouch.
I finally made the leap (of faith) to the iPhone last year after getting sick of the crappy crippled phones from Verizon. I was dreading the carrier change but its actually been great.
No dead spots yet -- Highland Park in St. Paul was a black hole for Verizon. Data seems faster, but the hardware comparison isnt really the same (Motorola Q Black vs. iPhone 3G & 3GS). Voice quality/availability as good or better than Verizon, AFAICT.
Really overall it's been a great transition. About the only gripe I have is rural North Dakota and extreme Northwestern Minnesota -- coverage there for voice is thin and data is low speed only, but AFAIK everyone up in that neck of the woods (all 300,000 of them over both states...) are some weird rural carrier (AlTel?) that is also CDMA. I'm only there a couple of times a year and all the places I stay have 802.11 so I can live without 3G for the most part 8 days a year.
My opinion, at least here, is that the anti-AT&T griping AND pro-Verizon is way overrated.
AI may fly drones between GPS points or on loiter missions, but there definitely are pilots involved for most other missions.
I would expect a drone fighter to be remotely piloted, not flown by AI.
It's just like Tivo in many respects. I could have some other box that does more, but it would require logarithmically more effort to get going, have more problems, and in the end be a much less satisfying experience at what it's supposed to do (if you like tinkering, perhaps that doesn't matter).
And it's not that the iPad is without some criticism; the storage I find anemic for a device that doesn't have to make a ton of sacrifices in the name of size & portability; an IR port for remote control seemed obvious to me as well.
But for sitting on the couch, sitting in bed, or at the kitchen table, it's PERFECT for the kinds of things I want to do on a PC in those rooms. Anything else, I want to be at a desk in front of a REAL PC with dual monitors, etc.
With what we're learning with the drone program, the best thing would be to develop an unmanned fighter. AFAIK, the big limitation on fighters these days is the guy in the cockpit. We're capable of developing propulsion and airframes capable of greatly exceeding human endurance and that's what's needed to take fighters to the next level and to really keep the competition on their toes.
Even at par with manned fighters in terms of raw performance, an unmanned fighter, minus the cockpit, life support systems, human avionics interfaces and the pilot, is hundreds of pounds lighter, and probably somewhat smaller -- all this yields better fuel consumption, more weapons capacity, better avionics and probably mission-optimizable in most categories.
Fighters probably have a role, albeit more in the strategic realm, but as we learned from 9/11, bombers aren't the only aerial threat and the ability to intercept or get on target very quickly over most targets is welcome. But overall I think you are right, our money is best spent on the resources for asymmetrical warfare.
It remains unclear whether or not the device will have, let alone require, cell service, but am I the only one vaguely turned off by the idea you'd *have* to buy it with cell service (and thus pay an additional $1500-2000 for it)?
As a ~10" device, it isn't iPhone-portable. While toting it around is probably thing #1 people will want to do with it, it seems much more like the kind of device you'd leave at home -- taking your iPhone for maximum portability or your laptop for maximum computing. And at home -- and many coffeeshop type places you'd take it -- will already have wifi.
I don't mind the *option* of cell service; certainly there are a not insignificant class of users who will want cell mobility with it, but with an iPhone OS its not completely a laptop replacement and the size acts as a mobility hindrance, unless you carry that 12" manbag everywhere you go.
I'm just in love enough with my iPhone to buy one right away, but ONLY if I can get it without a manditory cell service.
I see this as an around-the-house, wifi kind of device and would not haul it around (I already haul around my laptop for work and my iPhone, hard to see this replacing/replicating either).
When the Intel Macbooks came out, I got my boss to buy me one as I supported (as an on-site consultant) a fair number of Macs in addition to Windows (something like a 20-80 split). Anyway, BootCamp was ideal and allowed me to have the best of both worlds. Until it fell apart.
Within 8 months, the Ethernet jack was so loose that only a homebrew drop cable with a little epoxy ridge would hold a connection, the DVD drive stopped working, and the plastic trim around the edges had nearly completely fallen away.
I took it to an Apple store and was told I could leave it with them for a few days and if they found anything wrong, they would order a new motherboard but I was looking at a couple of weeks without my computer.
I ended up getting a Vostro (the cheapest thing I could find). Within six months of owning that, it developed a problem where it was hard to turn on (you needed to pull the battery and only use AC power). I called Dell and had the mainboard replaced, IN MY HOME, within 30 hours. As it happened, the mainboard wasn't the source of the problem -- after the tech replaced it, I still had the issue; the tech called Dell's inside support line, had it diagnosed to the power switch board, and I had that replaced the next day and had no more problems for the next year and a half (I upgraded to a E6500 at that point and returned the laptop to work).
The issue isn't the Dell being less troublefree, the issue is the Apple repair process assuming you're an idiot and not being able/willing to provide Dell's level of service.
"Living standard" encompasses a lot of things -- I could live in a cheaper house, but it would be in a much worse neighborhood with all the associated costs that come with living in the midst of poverty. Crime, extremely poor schools, violence -- all of these things are bad unto themselves, plus they have a cumulative impact on health (above and beyond the effects of being robbed, assaulted, or killed).
There's also a misery factor associated with "living without" -- maybe if I packed it in, Ted Kaczynski style and lived in a shack in the woods I wouldn't notice, but generally speaking life would be just harder, with less pleasure. And it's not like I live excessively now -- I bought a used car, we shop judiciously, I wear modest clothes with no designer labels, dining out is maybe a couple of times a month at inexpensive restaurants, etc.
But the real problem with a single income anymore is the sheer insecurity of a single income. If my wife OR I lose our jobs now, we're going to have to stretch to make ends meet and start tapping our savings. With a single income? You're running the risk of financial ruin.