Wow, I didn't know that they were auctioning a religion on eBay, and that Einstein has risen from the dead to protest against it! What the hell is his problem? I always wanted to buy my own religion...
I give you that; S. Korea may indeed not be the best possible basis for comparison. But there are much more thinly populated countries that do have space (I'm thinking Scandinavia) and are said to have good and affordable cell phone and internet service (at least in the populated areas).
You might want to re-read the post you replied to (and its parent). As I wrote, it's all about population density, not absolute population; even on the scale of New Jesey, population density determines how much profit you can make out of the investment of building a cell phone tower
South Korea: 487 per square kilometer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea )
New Jersey: 459 per square kilometer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density )
Looks pretty close to me...
As for the rest of your post, I was arguing that population density cannot be used as an excuse for the shabby service in the more urbanized parts of the US. You're corroborating my argument by giving reasons for the difference other than population density. Yes, government investments probably play a big role. I don't agree with your "2 carriers" argument, though. I'm more thinking in the lines of: they have 2 carriers that effectively compete and innovate, while the US has a few big carriers that have a (spoken or unspoken) agreement to take it easy on technology and price wars and just drain the wallets of a customer base that is being dissuaded form looking for alternatives with sponsored simlocked phones and 2-year contracts. One can get away with a lot if one owns the FCC...
OK, I'll bite. New Jersey has a similar population density as S. Korea. Why doesn't it have similarly favorable cell phone and internet speeds and prices?
You appear to be suggesting that if the government wouldn't use taxpayers' money to pay people (government or otherwise) to build roads, there would still be roads. I see 3 different ways this could happen:
1. Private companies can turn a reasonable yearly Return On Investment by levying tolls for building and maintaining roads (including roads that connect rural villages in the middle of nowhere; it's a big country).
2. People in said rural villages would all happily pool their money together in a fund that would quickly grow large enough to build a road, rather than just keep on paying to get their supplies flown over by bush plane while complaining how much this costs and how they cannot spare any money for that damn utopian "road project".
3. Wait... what? Unicorns shit roads in addition to rainbows now?
I'm honestly not sure which of these 3 options is most unlikely, but I have to remark that if option 1. were to somehow turn true (may I suggest forcing people at gunpoint to use the roads), the users of these roads would be screaming for their government to end the rip-off, and as for option 2., well, these must be pretty damn rich rural communities, the FBI might want to look into exactly what they're farming there.
I'm not sure what kind of libertarian fantasy you're living in, but here in the real world, some upfront investments need to be made for the common good in order to build an advanced society that can achieve a high per-capita GDP (which a lot of you people think is the ultimate Meaning of Life). And a lot of these things cannot be afforded by the subgroup of people who directly benefit from it. And the people who indirectly benefit would be too short-sighted to invest a large amount of money. (Don't we all want the domestically-grown food that these rural communities produce? Well guess what, the food needs some way to get to you, and I'm sure you won't want to pay to get your food flown over by bush plane.) In short, there's no known practical way to build an advanced society without taxpayer's money being invested into infrastructure. Thinking there is is slightly more naive than believing that communism could work. If you know of a way, please cite an example where it worked, otherwise shut up.
BTW, the idea that private companies inherently get the job done more cost-effectively is an equally huge myth. I'll try to put it simple for you. Companies need to turn profit. Not only that, they need to make a certain amount of profit in order to be attractive for investors (look up wonderful concepts like ROE, ROA,...) Or in simpler words, the profit must be high enough to make it worth it. For a lot of things, this "overhead" is bigger than what the government of a civilized country could ever realistically waste through real or perceived ineffectiveness. Generally, private business does not have an inherent edge in cost-effectiveness; forget about it already. Where it does have an edge is in innovation (which can give it a de facto edge in cost-effectiveness in sectors that evolve rapidly) and in fueling monetary turnover and a healthy economy. Provided that there is a regulator that actively counteracts the companies' natural tendency to form monopolies/oligopolies/trusts/cartels and stop competing and innovating.
Here's a counter-example. You're sitting on a bench in the park totally immersed in a book. Suddenly you realize your lunch break is over, so you grab your suitcase and walk away. Problem is: you accidentally grabbed the similar-looking suitcase of the gentleman sitting next to you. Naturally, you're in trouble. However, is the prosecution going to argue "transfer of intent" with the wrongful intent being to pick up a suitcase? No! they first have to make the case that the intent was to steal someone else's suitcase (not necessarily that specific gentleman) all along before they can start arguing about transfer of intent. (And the defense will argue that the intent was to pick up your suitcase.) I'm sure I can come up with examples that are even more absurd...
Still doesn't fly. The act of kissing a minor is illegal, but the intent you're trying to transfer is kissing the adult girlfriend, which is legal. The prosecution will have to make the case that the intent was to kiss a minor (not necessarily the same minor) before they can propose to transfer it. Unless you can show me a precedent of a transfer of a non-criminal intent, I'm gonna dismiss this as legal fantasy.
That analogy doesn't fly. A 24-years-old having an intent to have sexual actions is not illegal in any country that is presently populated (with the possible exception of vatican city;). Conversely, having a serious and proven intent to kill someone is illegal in most cases...
That's a bad analogy. It's more like a bunch of people by accident end up on your doorstep, might as well put the TV outside and serve them lemonade to keep them entertained so that they don't get unruly. Plus, if you're a city rather than a homeowner, you also have PR to worry about. Getting in the news for hosting an impromptu open-air party surely beats getting in the news for being the victim of riots.
Why? If you think an obviously mistaken text message with some blatant yet implicit sexual meaning will permanently scar the fragile innocent mind of a 13-years-old-girl, then you have no idea what 13-years-olds are up to these days.
With which I mean that they have at least some clue about the world they're in, and that they probably have encountered more shocking material on the Internet by that age.
To all the Americans who replied to parent with "you don't know how huge this country it": that's so not the reason. Most of the east coast of the US is about as urbanized as western Europe, yet public transport and safety on the streets is dramatically worse; I'm speaking from experience. Conversely, there are places in Europe (for example parts of Norway and Scotland) that are very scarcely populated, yet kids in rural area are put on the bus to school, even if it's a 45 minutes ride, and even though during almost half of the years it'll be dark by the time they get home.
No, the reason is: lack of political will to be like Europe. A lot of that public transport has slightly higher costs than profits. Europeans in general don't mind paying a little bit extra tax to keep it running; it's perceived worth the money (like road maintenance). Most European countries have less income inequality, which is directly and strongly correlated with less crime. Try doing something about that and you're a bloody socialist.
News at 6, featuring Republican and Libertarian pundits declaring: "it's all because there's too much regulation - deregulate everything and... umm... they will magically feel compelled to start a costly (for them) and profit-damaging innovation war". Or setting up a strawman argument: "yeah, but what are you gonna do about it? SOCIALIZE everything? *krak-a-thoom*"
Yeah yeah, I know, the above could also be branded strawman argument. Except that I've heard flesh-and-oil^H^H^Hblood Republican and Libertarian politicians using these flawed arguments countless times.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dessert a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal
Interesting... tell me more. Is a "dust bowl" a seasonal type of dessert you humans enjoy at parties in some regions in the US?
Call it what you will, but I do agree with GP that there are some pretty huge goals in the claimed palaeontological implications of their discovery. What I read is: "at some point in time, a mutation happened that increased humanity's adaptability to different diets. This must have been a valuable trait because it got retained." All the rest is pure conjecture, more colloquially known as bullshit. To reiterate GP, I find it particularly worrisome how they ignore the generally accepted hypothesis that humans originally were primates adapted to life on the plains. Where did they ever get the idea that humans used to primarily live on shores? Also, last time I checked, Europe seems to have plenty of shores. In fact, I'm almost sure that western Europe has a higher fractal dimension than most of Africa.
http://www.xfce.org/
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources.
As opposed to KDE, Gnome,... which focus on being feature-rich and modern-looking, which often translates in bigger footprint and worse performance. Especially KDE has a reputation of being somewhat bloated. So one would be tempted to think XFCE would be faster...
KDE is written in C++ this is a competitive advantage (compared to Gnome). That Gnome-based stuff is out-of-date is demonstrated by the article.
Talking about dumb, this must be one of the dumbest statements I read on/. this week. Not to mention that it's factually incorrect; none of the articles linked in the summary corroborate "that Gnome-based stuff is out-of-date". C'mon mods, Score: 5, really?
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, I didn't know that they were auctioning a religion on eBay, and that Einstein has risen from the dead to protest against it! What the hell is his problem? I always wanted to buy my own religion...
That's because they took them with them to the moon. Haven't you seen that documentary - what was it again - ah, "Iron Sky"?
Score:4, Interesting mods, here I come!
Exactly what I was thinking. This is supposed to be "news for nerds" or what? *yawn*
I give you that; S. Korea may indeed not be the best possible basis for comparison. But there are much more thinly populated countries that do have space (I'm thinking Scandinavia) and are said to have good and affordable cell phone and internet service (at least in the populated areas).
You might want to re-read the post you replied to (and its parent). As I wrote, it's all about population density, not absolute population; even on the scale of New Jesey, population density determines how much profit you can make out of the investment of building a cell phone tower
South Korea: 487 per square kilometer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea )
New Jersey: 459 per square kilometer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density )
Looks pretty close to me...
As for the rest of your post, I was arguing that population density cannot be used as an excuse for the shabby service in the more urbanized parts of the US. You're corroborating my argument by giving reasons for the difference other than population density. Yes, government investments probably play a big role. I don't agree with your "2 carriers" argument, though. I'm more thinking in the lines of: they have 2 carriers that effectively compete and innovate, while the US has a few big carriers that have a (spoken or unspoken) agreement to take it easy on technology and price wars and just drain the wallets of a customer base that is being dissuaded form looking for alternatives with sponsored simlocked phones and 2-year contracts. One can get away with a lot if one owns the FCC...
OK, I'll bite. New Jersey has a similar population density as S. Korea. Why doesn't it have similarly favorable cell phone and internet speeds and prices?
You appear to be suggesting that if the government wouldn't use taxpayers' money to pay people (government or otherwise) to build roads, there would still be roads. I see 3 different ways this could happen:
1. Private companies can turn a reasonable yearly Return On Investment by levying tolls for building and maintaining roads (including roads that connect rural villages in the middle of nowhere; it's a big country).
2. People in said rural villages would all happily pool their money together in a fund that would quickly grow large enough to build a road, rather than just keep on paying to get their supplies flown over by bush plane while complaining how much this costs and how they cannot spare any money for that damn utopian "road project".
3. Wait... what? Unicorns shit roads in addition to rainbows now?
I'm honestly not sure which of these 3 options is most unlikely, but I have to remark that if option 1. were to somehow turn true (may I suggest forcing people at gunpoint to use the roads), the users of these roads would be screaming for their government to end the rip-off, and as for option 2., well, these must be pretty damn rich rural communities, the FBI might want to look into exactly what they're farming there.
I'm not sure what kind of libertarian fantasy you're living in, but here in the real world, some upfront investments need to be made for the common good in order to build an advanced society that can achieve a high per-capita GDP (which a lot of you people think is the ultimate Meaning of Life). And a lot of these things cannot be afforded by the subgroup of people who directly benefit from it. And the people who indirectly benefit would be too short-sighted to invest a large amount of money. (Don't we all want the domestically-grown food that these rural communities produce? Well guess what, the food needs some way to get to you, and I'm sure you won't want to pay to get your food flown over by bush plane.) In short, there's no known practical way to build an advanced society without taxpayer's money being invested into infrastructure. Thinking there is is slightly more naive than believing that communism could work. If you know of a way, please cite an example where it worked, otherwise shut up.
BTW, the idea that private companies inherently get the job done more cost-effectively is an equally huge myth. I'll try to put it simple for you. Companies need to turn profit. Not only that, they need to make a certain amount of profit in order to be attractive for investors (look up wonderful concepts like ROE, ROA,...) Or in simpler words, the profit must be high enough to make it worth it. For a lot of things, this "overhead" is bigger than what the government of a civilized country could ever realistically waste through real or perceived ineffectiveness. Generally, private business does not have an inherent edge in cost-effectiveness; forget about it already. Where it does have an edge is in innovation (which can give it a de facto edge in cost-effectiveness in sectors that evolve rapidly) and in fueling monetary turnover and a healthy economy. Provided that there is a regulator that actively counteracts the companies' natural tendency to form monopolies/oligopolies/trusts/cartels and stop competing and innovating.
Here's a counter-example. You're sitting on a bench in the park totally immersed in a book. Suddenly you realize your lunch break is over, so you grab your suitcase and walk away. Problem is: you accidentally grabbed the similar-looking suitcase of the gentleman sitting next to you. Naturally, you're in trouble. However, is the prosecution going to argue "transfer of intent" with the wrongful intent being to pick up a suitcase? No! they first have to make the case that the intent was to steal someone else's suitcase (not necessarily that specific gentleman) all along before they can start arguing about transfer of intent. (And the defense will argue that the intent was to pick up your suitcase.) I'm sure I can come up with examples that are even more absurd...
Still doesn't fly. The act of kissing a minor is illegal, but the intent you're trying to transfer is kissing the adult girlfriend, which is legal. The prosecution will have to make the case that the intent was to kiss a minor (not necessarily the same minor) before they can propose to transfer it. Unless you can show me a precedent of a transfer of a non-criminal intent, I'm gonna dismiss this as legal fantasy.
Whooosh!
+1 acrid humor.
That analogy doesn't fly. A 24-years-old having an intent to have sexual actions is not illegal in any country that is presently populated (with the possible exception of vatican city ;). Conversely, having a serious and proven intent to kill someone is illegal in most cases...
That's a bad analogy. It's more like a bunch of people by accident end up on your doorstep, might as well put the TV outside and serve them lemonade to keep them entertained so that they don't get unruly. Plus, if you're a city rather than a homeowner, you also have PR to worry about. Getting in the news for hosting an impromptu open-air party surely beats getting in the news for being the victim of riots.
Not playing a lot of fantasy or medieval-themed RPGs, are you?
And GP clearly wrote "the bard", not "The Bard".
Alright I'll get off your lawn now.
Why? If you think an obviously mistaken text message with some blatant yet implicit sexual meaning will permanently scar the fragile innocent mind of a 13-years-old-girl, then you have no idea what 13-years-olds are up to these days.
With which I mean that they have at least some clue about the world they're in, and that they probably have encountered more shocking material on the Internet by that age.
To all the Americans who replied to parent with "you don't know how huge this country it": that's so not the reason. Most of the east coast of the US is about as urbanized as western Europe, yet public transport and safety on the streets is dramatically worse; I'm speaking from experience. Conversely, there are places in Europe (for example parts of Norway and Scotland) that are very scarcely populated, yet kids in rural area are put on the bus to school, even if it's a 45 minutes ride, and even though during almost half of the years it'll be dark by the time they get home.
No, the reason is: lack of political will to be like Europe. A lot of that public transport has slightly higher costs than profits. Europeans in general don't mind paying a little bit extra tax to keep it running; it's perceived worth the money (like road maintenance). Most European countries have less income inequality, which is directly and strongly correlated with less crime. Try doing something about that and you're a bloody socialist.
Tsk, talking about confirmation bias.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/09/26/obama_jumps_in_gallup_tracker.html
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150743/Obama-Romney.aspx
Oh... Gallup suddenly is not that credible anymore, is it?
FYI, quoting GP again:
And it's not exactly trivial to accidentally wipe your disks with a Linux disk.
(emphasis mine)
News at 6, featuring Republican and Libertarian pundits declaring: "it's all because there's too much regulation - deregulate everything and ... umm ... they will magically feel compelled to start a costly (for them) and profit-damaging innovation war". Or setting up a strawman argument: "yeah, but what are you gonna do about it? SOCIALIZE everything? *krak-a-thoom*"
Yeah yeah, I know, the above could also be branded strawman argument. Except that I've heard flesh-and-oil^H^H^Hblood Republican and Libertarian politicians using these flawed arguments countless times.
Look up "dessert".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dessert
a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal
Interesting... tell me more. Is a "dust bowl" a seasonal type of dessert you humans enjoy at parties in some regions in the US?
Bah. Corn's photosynthesis cycle is more than 10 times as efficient as grass's.
Hell no it isn't. Where do you people get these ideas?
holes, dammit, not goals
Call it what you will, but I do agree with GP that there are some pretty huge goals in the claimed palaeontological implications of their discovery. What I read is: "at some point in time, a mutation happened that increased humanity's adaptability to different diets. This must have been a valuable trait because it got retained." All the rest is pure conjecture, more colloquially known as bullshit. To reiterate GP, I find it particularly worrisome how they ignore the generally accepted hypothesis that humans originally were primates adapted to life on the plains. Where did they ever get the idea that humans used to primarily live on shores? Also, last time I checked, Europe seems to have plenty of shores. In fact, I'm almost sure that western Europe has a higher fractal dimension than most of Africa.
http://www.xfce.org/
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources.
As opposed to KDE, Gnome,... which focus on being feature-rich and modern-looking, which often translates in bigger footprint and worse performance. Especially KDE has a reputation of being somewhat bloated. So one would be tempted to think XFCE would be faster...
KDE is written in C++ this is a competitive advantage (compared to Gnome). That Gnome-based stuff is out-of-date is demonstrated by the article.
Talking about dumb, this must be one of the dumbest statements I read on /. this week. Not to mention that it's factually incorrect; none of the articles linked in the summary corroborate "that Gnome-based stuff is out-of-date". C'mon mods, Score: 5, really?