Historically, most, if not all, of the benefits that all employees are guaranteed by law were first instituted thanks to labor unions. Clearly, they have served their purpose in the past.
Now, you are right, there are unions that do more harm than good. They impose requirements to create meaningless jobs instead of letting companies become more efficient (and thereby creating new useful jobs or having more money for raises).
On the other hand, there are unions that are vital for protecting the employees. My wife is a teacher, and I've see how private non-unionized schools have taken advantage of her. Everything from expecting her to contribute financially to school fundraisers to attending a week-long out-of-state field trip (with no extra pay or provision in her contract). Of course, teachers are generally there because that's what they want to do, not for the money, which puts them in a prime position to be taken advantage of without a union to look out for their interests. (Of course, I have gripes with the political activities of teachers' unions, but that's another story.)
Re:On a related note....
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 1
Absolutely!
One thing I really wish the EPA would require is a graph of the expected MPG for constant-speed driving over a range of speeds. (Assume no wind--i.e., air speed equal to ground speed, some normal temperature--e.g., 60F, and a average altitude--e.g., 1000'.) Then you could see how much that extra minute or two will cost you.
For a stick shift, ideally they would plot one line per gear, with each line covering the range expected for that gear.
How much revenue does the federal gas tax generate? How much is spent in federal highway funds? Somewhat subjective, but what are the other expenditures on the Department of Transportation, and what are other transportation-related tax revenues? Totally subjective, but what other federal expenditures should be covered by gas tax revenues?
For state expenditures, the same questions.
Note that many local roads are paid for by developers when they are created and maintained by towns out of property taxes (at least that's how it works in Massachusetts). Whether those roads should be paid for by gas taxes or by property taxes on the local property owners (those served by the roads) is fairly subjective, but as long as the roads are locally-maintained, a gas tax makes no sense as people generally have a choice of several towns in which to purchase their gas that are convenient to their daily routines.
Re:On a related note....
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 1
If everyone carpooled one day per week on average, it could reduce demand in the USA by 10%. That would have a huge impact on prices.
While you are correct that the impact on crude oil prices would be minimized by the growth in China, you miss the fact that much of the recent increase in prices is due not to crude oil prices but to hitting the limits of refinery output. A reduction in demand in the USA would mostly eliminate that problem for the time being.
As others are pointing out, the difference between the price of gas in Europe and the USA are mostly due to taxes. In Massachusetts, the combined state and federal taxes are $.399 if I remember what was posted at the pump when I last filled up. Other states have different tax rates, and there may be additional indirect taxes factored into the price as well.
So why are European taxes so much higher? Because they tax as a percentage of the price, whereas the USA taxes as a amount per volume. Hence, if the cost of gas before taxes doubles, in Europe the price at the pump doubles, whereas in the USA the price may only go up 25%.
Now some will argue that the taxes are too low, as they don't cover all the related costs, but all of those studies have included environmental impact costs that are wildly subjective at best.
Re:On a related note....
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 2, Funny
What would work is for everyone to carpool one day a week, or otherwise find a way to drive less than you otherwise would have. That would cut demand and have a huge impact on prices.
Of course, even with the high prices, I still see lots of people buying gas at the more expensive station on the other side of the street--even if they have to cross traffic to get there. Obviously they don't mind the prices.
And I laugh at those single drivers in their giant trucks and SUVs.
Nonsense. There is an SEC regulation that requires them to file reports as if they were public if they have more than a given number (500?) of shareholders and a given amount or revenue (or income? $10mil?).
Anyway, they hit that point where they have to do the reporting work of a publicly-traded company, which meant that the added work of going public wasn't as onerous.
People have suggested wireless, but another option that isn't an issue for power surges is fiber optic connections. You probably won't run them to each computer, but with some strategic placement, you can at least electronically isolate different portions of the network.
That's a good idea regardless of lightning, simply because ground isn't quite the same from building to building. (Or sometimes even from outlet to outlet.)
My favorite voting method is paper ballots where you fill in ovals with a black marker and then feed them into a scanner. You get the advantage of nearly instant results after the polls close with the advantage of a full paper trail for a manual recount if necessary. And when they did a recount when the vote for our new high school failed by 29 votes, it changed it by 6 votes, indicating that some people didn't fill in the ovals correctly, but only a very tiny percentage.
And, of course, our public education is increasingly geared towards teaching kids how to properly fill in ovals.
Of course, if we had had fully-electronic voting, I might not have lost the town election on Tuesday (I was a candidate for Selectman, which is roughly the equivalent of city council).:)
Rebooting a box that has SCSI drives means that the BIOS does a scan of the SCSI bus that takes a while, and then the new kernel does the same thing. That's the slowest part of my boot process, and it looks like kexec will bypass the BIOS half of it.
If you want to eliminate certain genes from the pool, then what you want is to kill all reproductive cells that carry that gene, not the people. For those who carry both a good and bad chromosome, they'll still be able to reproduce normally.
And if you're looking at the long term, why not just target reproductive cells when the person also carries a good gene? Sure, you'll take an extra generation or two to eliminate the bad gene, but the pain of doing so will be reduced.
Of course, we'll want to keep a database of all eliminated genes just in case we find that we really did need them. Though when the killer plague strikes that only spares those with bad eyesight, it will be too late.:)
But be sure to use blanks from different manufacturers. Otherwise your failures won't be independent, so the odds of all your copies going bad at roughly the same time (i.e., before you notice the first one has failed) is high.
The reports are that this compiler produces better code than GCC (only for x86, of course). How hard would it be to use something like Wine to run it under Linux to compile Linux applications? Would that be a violation of the license?
Then we just need a version of Autoconf that builds a makefile for the compiler of your choice (gcc, icc, or mscc).
But I still believe that it's gay mariage that is endangering families the most.
Absolutely.
With the law of Conservation of Marriage, there are only a fixed number of marriage licenses available. That's why divorce rates have soared as the population has increased--there just aren't enough stable marriages to go around. Now with homosexual marriages starting in a month in Massachusetts, there will be roving bands of homosexuals roaming the streets forcing people to divorce at gunpoint.
One reason that I don't watch television is because of all the awful advertising. It seems like for every three minutes of programming there are two minutes of commercials.
I stopped watching commercials several years ago when we got our ReplayTV. Now on those rare occasions when live TV is on, the ads are rather startling. I also find that ads on the radio feel more intrusive now that I don't put up with them on TV.
I can only think of a few useful applications of this technology:
Web cams: You want to put in a camera to monitor the baby's room (or the driveway, or whatever). Provided the range is sufficient, this may be a decent way of handling it (though other means exist already).
Networking: It's higher-bandwidth than the current 802.11 standards. The question (as others have mentioned) is the range.
Laptop base stations: You can leave your devices plugged in for power, and you don't have to hook anything up when you bring your laptop into the room.
Network Solutions may be evil. Network Solutions is expensive. If you decide to rely on them for DNS, then you are installing yet another obstacle stopping you from switching to a different registration service.
On the other hand, many other registration services also offer included DNS, so it's not that big of a deal.
Personally, I would probably use the "free" service that you already overpaid for. I would also switch to a less expensive company for future registrations and renewals.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend in genetically-modified plants right now--make them resistant to herbicides so that you can use more of them to kill off the unwanted plants.
What I'm not hearing much about are the genetically-modified plants that are resistant to insects, reducing or eliminating the need for pesticides.
Is the press just focusing on the more controversial modifications, or is that really what the industry is focusing on?
One thing to consider is that at our current level of technology, we're generally not creating new genes, only putting genes from one plant into another. Hence, the fear of modified genes spreading to other species is less serious than it might otherwise be--the genes are already out there in the wild.
Not to say that it isn't a risk, just that it isn't as huge a risk as it is often portrayed as being.
That name is dangerously similar to The Creeping Terror. This is probably the worst movie ever, and it wasn't helped by the soundtrack being destroyed and replaced with a narrator.
If you lived in the Northeast US or Canada what were your memories of the August Blackout?
I was at Pennsic, a medieval camping event near Pittsburg. We were right near the boarder of the affected area; I don't know if we were hit or not--when you're trying to live in the 13th century, you don't notice when the power goes out.
The recharge time was one of the big obstacles to electric cars. While the future seems to be fuel cells, this may give auto makers a reason to look at electric again. Of course, there are still issues with batteries for cars (weight, cost, life expectancy, etc.).
I think you missed what they're probably doing. I'm pretty sure that what we're seeing is a flood of stories that they normally reject. I doubt that they made up a single story today from what I've seen so far (except the poll).
Slashdot Mirror
Historically, most, if not all, of the benefits that all employees are guaranteed by law were first instituted thanks to labor unions. Clearly, they have served their purpose in the past.
Now, you are right, there are unions that do more harm than good. They impose requirements to create meaningless jobs instead of letting companies become more efficient (and thereby creating new useful jobs or having more money for raises).
On the other hand, there are unions that are vital for protecting the employees. My wife is a teacher, and I've see how private non-unionized schools have taken advantage of her. Everything from expecting her to contribute financially to school fundraisers to attending a week-long out-of-state field trip (with no extra pay or provision in her contract). Of course, teachers are generally there because that's what they want to do, not for the money, which puts them in a prime position to be taken advantage of without a union to look out for their interests. (Of course, I have gripes with the political activities of teachers' unions, but that's another story.)
Absolutely!
One thing I really wish the EPA would require is a graph of the expected MPG for constant-speed driving over a range of speeds. (Assume no wind--i.e., air speed equal to ground speed, some normal temperature--e.g., 60F, and a average altitude--e.g., 1000'.) Then you could see how much that extra minute or two will cost you.
For a stick shift, ideally they would plot one line per gear, with each line covering the range expected for that gear.
I would like to see numbers to back that up:
How much revenue does the federal gas tax generate?
How much is spent in federal highway funds?
Somewhat subjective, but what are the other expenditures on the Department of Transportation, and what are other transportation-related tax revenues?
Totally subjective, but what other federal expenditures should be covered by gas tax revenues?
For state expenditures, the same questions.
Note that many local roads are paid for by developers when they are created and maintained by towns out of property taxes (at least that's how it works in Massachusetts). Whether those roads should be paid for by gas taxes or by property taxes on the local property owners (those served by the roads) is fairly subjective, but as long as the roads are locally-maintained, a gas tax makes no sense as people generally have a choice of several towns in which to purchase their gas that are convenient to their daily routines.
If everyone carpooled one day per week on average, it could reduce demand in the USA by 10%. That would have a huge impact on prices.
While you are correct that the impact on crude oil prices would be minimized by the growth in China, you miss the fact that much of the recent increase in prices is due not to crude oil prices but to hitting the limits of refinery output. A reduction in demand in the USA would mostly eliminate that problem for the time being.
As others are pointing out, the difference between the price of gas in Europe and the USA are mostly due to taxes. In Massachusetts, the combined state and federal taxes are $.399 if I remember what was posted at the pump when I last filled up. Other states have different tax rates, and there may be additional indirect taxes factored into the price as well.
So why are European taxes so much higher? Because they tax as a percentage of the price, whereas the USA taxes as a amount per volume. Hence, if the cost of gas before taxes doubles, in Europe the price at the pump doubles, whereas in the USA the price may only go up 25%.
Now some will argue that the taxes are too low, as they don't cover all the related costs, but all of those studies have included environmental impact costs that are wildly subjective at best.
What would work is for everyone to carpool one day a week, or otherwise find a way to drive less than you otherwise would have. That would cut demand and have a huge impact on prices.
Of course, even with the high prices, I still see lots of people buying gas at the more expensive station on the other side of the street--even if they have to cross traffic to get there. Obviously they don't mind the prices.
And I laugh at those single drivers in their giant trucks and SUVs.
Nonsense. There is an SEC regulation that requires them to file reports as if they were public if they have more than a given number (500?) of shareholders and a given amount or revenue (or income? $10mil?).
Anyway, they hit that point where they have to do the reporting work of a publicly-traded company, which meant that the added work of going public wasn't as onerous.
People have suggested wireless, but another option that isn't an issue for power surges is fiber optic connections. You probably won't run them to each computer, but with some strategic placement, you can at least electronically isolate different portions of the network.
That's a good idea regardless of lightning, simply because ground isn't quite the same from building to building. (Or sometimes even from outlet to outlet.)
My favorite voting method is paper ballots where you fill in ovals with a black marker and then feed them into a scanner. You get the advantage of nearly instant results after the polls close with the advantage of a full paper trail for a manual recount if necessary. And when they did a recount when the vote for our new high school failed by 29 votes, it changed it by 6 votes, indicating that some people didn't fill in the ovals correctly, but only a very tiny percentage.
:)
And, of course, our public education is increasingly geared towards teaching kids how to properly fill in ovals.
Of course, if we had had fully-electronic voting, I might not have lost the town election on Tuesday (I was a candidate for Selectman, which is roughly the equivalent of city council).
Rebooting a box that has SCSI drives means that the BIOS does a scan of the SCSI bus that takes a while, and then the new kernel does the same thing. That's the slowest part of my boot process, and it looks like kexec will bypass the BIOS half of it.
Sickle Cell Anemia provides resistence to maleria.
If you want to eliminate certain genes from the pool, then what you want is to kill all reproductive cells that carry that gene, not the people. For those who carry both a good and bad chromosome, they'll still be able to reproduce normally.
:)
And if you're looking at the long term, why not just target reproductive cells when the person also carries a good gene? Sure, you'll take an extra generation or two to eliminate the bad gene, but the pain of doing so will be reduced.
Of course, we'll want to keep a database of all eliminated genes just in case we find that we really did need them. Though when the killer plague strikes that only spares those with bad eyesight, it will be too late.
But be sure to use blanks from different manufacturers. Otherwise your failures won't be independent, so the odds of all your copies going bad at roughly the same time (i.e., before you notice the first one has failed) is high.
The reports are that this compiler produces better code than GCC (only for x86, of course). How hard would it be to use something like Wine to run it under Linux to compile Linux applications? Would that be a violation of the license?
Then we just need a version of Autoconf that builds a makefile for the compiler of your choice (gcc, icc, or mscc).
But I still believe that it's gay mariage that is endangering families the most.
Absolutely.
With the law of Conservation of Marriage, there are only a fixed number of marriage licenses available. That's why divorce rates have soared as the population has increased--there just aren't enough stable marriages to go around. Now with homosexual marriages starting in a month in Massachusetts, there will be roving bands of homosexuals roaming the streets forcing people to divorce at gunpoint.
Please Governor Romney, defend my marriage!
I stopped watching commercials several years ago when we got our ReplayTV. Now on those rare occasions when live TV is on, the ads are rather startling. I also find that ads on the radio feel more intrusive now that I don't put up with them on TV.
I can only think of a few useful applications of this technology:
Web cams: You want to put in a camera to monitor the baby's room (or the driveway, or whatever). Provided the range is sufficient, this may be a decent way of handling it (though other means exist already).
Networking: It's higher-bandwidth than the current 802.11 standards. The question (as others have mentioned) is the range.
Laptop base stations: You can leave your devices plugged in for power, and you don't have to hook anything up when you bring your laptop into the room.
Network Solutions may be evil. Network Solutions is expensive. If you decide to rely on them for DNS, then you are installing yet another obstacle stopping you from switching to a different registration service.
On the other hand, many other registration services also offer included DNS, so it's not that big of a deal.
Personally, I would probably use the "free" service that you already overpaid for. I would also switch to a less expensive company for future registrations and renewals.
Exactly!
Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend in genetically-modified plants right now--make them resistant to herbicides so that you can use more of them to kill off the unwanted plants.
What I'm not hearing much about are the genetically-modified plants that are resistant to insects, reducing or eliminating the need for pesticides.
Is the press just focusing on the more controversial modifications, or is that really what the industry is focusing on?
One thing to consider is that at our current level of technology, we're generally not creating new genes, only putting genes from one plant into another. Hence, the fear of modified genes spreading to other species is less serious than it might otherwise be--the genes are already out there in the wild.
Not to say that it isn't a risk, just that it isn't as huge a risk as it is often portrayed as being.
That name is dangerously similar to The Creeping Terror. This is probably the worst movie ever, and it wasn't helped by the soundtrack being destroyed and replaced with a narrator.
If you lived in the Northeast US or Canada what were your memories of the August Blackout?
I was at Pennsic, a medieval camping event near Pittsburg. We were right near the boarder of the affected area; I don't know if we were hit or not--when you're trying to live in the 13th century, you don't notice when the power goes out.
The recharge time was one of the big obstacles to electric cars. While the future seems to be fuel cells, this may give auto makers a reason to look at electric again. Of course, there are still issues with batteries for cars (weight, cost, life expectancy, etc.).
I think you missed what they're probably doing. I'm pretty sure that what we're seeing is a flood of stories that they normally reject. I doubt that they made up a single story today from what I've seen so far (except the poll).
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086& sid=a54gb5_g9EIQ&refer=latin_america
Apparently they've put the voltage back to 220 after reaching an agreement to buy power from Brazil.