His "researchers" also discovered that humans respond better when working at ambient temperatures and when exposed to the elements
Yep - I worked a few months in the Slovak Republic and they opened the office windows every day because "we prefer to feel natural weather, don't you?". Sun, rain, or snow made no difference. Many days I wore my coat all day long in the office to stay warm while a blizzard was raging.
It's really hard to identify when any president is really on vacation. Obama doubtless golfs with people he needs to talk to and discusses business just like GWB used to host foreign leaders at his ranch in Texas. Neither one is a vacation or 'just' a golf game in my book but each's political opponents count them as goof off time.
They won't slurp it all for long if the power is low enough that you have to stand near the machine to get a signal (no chairs, no power sockets). I assume this is a ploy to get people to at least see and be tempted by the machine's product and not for someone 100 meters away who doesn't even realize the open network he's found is from a vending machine.
It should be obvious the tax exemptions are not offensive since corporate income taxes are the stupidest tax ever and should be abolished. It's good when any company finds any exemption they can. No company has ever paid a penny of their own money in taxes; their customers pay the corporate income taxes as built into the prices. The only possibility is the low rents that might be offensive, but since I not only have my own oil derived fuel vehicle but depend on goods delivered by oil derived fuel vehicles then I'd just have to pay more for everything anyway if the rents were raised same as if I had to pay more oil company corporate income tax if the tax write offs did not exist. Since I'm not completely crazy, no, the low rents do not offend me either. Ergo, whopping piles of cash handouts to solar companies do offend me.
The problem with the whole "solar got more, no oil did" subsidy argument is that the solar companies are handed a pile of cash by the government and that's the sum of their subsidies. The oil companies write off the expense of failed exploratory wells and that's called a subsidy when adding up that total by groups promoting solar but all kinds of businesses get to write off expenses so it's not really some special oil industry thing. They also pay low rent on government owned land where they get the oil. OK, this is a soft subsidy where the companies get a deal, but the oil "subsidies" rarely involve forking over cash to the company, just charging them less (taxes and fees) while the solar subsidies are outright cash grants. I find this is a LOT more offensive both as a taxpayer and a consumer.
I recently trued to 'e-borrow' a recent book from the library. First, it is a newer best seller (A Dance With Dragons). I checked itout physically, but as a best seller it was only a 7day checkout with no renewal. This was not enought time for me, so I decided (for the first time) to checkout an e-book. I have now been on a waiting list for two weeks
The thing about checking out e-books is that there's no way to return it early so it's pretty easy to calculate how long you have to wait for your turn. This is about the only thing that makes it annoying for hot topics, otherwise I really like getting them from the library.
* A digital copy of a book needs to be bought once, and then you'll own it for all eternity. That is, in theory, true for a physical copy of a book as well, but in practice a library has to constantly (re)buy books it already owns, whether the physical copy is starting to get old and worn or because books are being stolen/not returned, etc.
Realistically, how many old, worn out books are still in high demand by library patrons? At some point it's unlikely to even be available new from the publisher anyway. So the digital copy at the library is available after the publisher is no longer interested in providing a print copy anyway and they think this is a problem, why? How many public libraries are there in all of Germany versus how many copies are sold to individuals? I bet if every library bought a digital copy or two then those books would be considered best sellers. I think the publishers complain too much over phantoms of their own imaginations.
Do you make money as a writer? If you did, would you favor the publishers which would pay you or the libraries which will not?
I recall an interview in which an author once said in an interview that he loved libraries; if every one of them in the country bought a copy of his book it would be a mad best seller since there are over 100K libraries and it takes sales of about 5K/week to make it on the bestseller lists. I assume since the libraries actually do purchase the e- versions of the books this is still true, so what is all the fuss about?
Limitless free library ebooks are the death of them.
From the article: "E-lending is not without some friction. Software ensures that only one patron can read an e-book copy at a time, and people who see a long waiting list for a certain title may decide to buy it instead."
Except that it doesn't; I've borrowed a book from my library to my Kindle and then just kept the wireless turned off. I got an email that my loan had expired and it showed up again on the library's website as available. Amazon's 'manage my Kindle' page showed it as revoked from my device. But my Kindle kept it and I finished reading it. Only when I turned on the wireless connection several days after the supposed loan expiration date did it get removed from the device.
Because that's what my wife selected last year when she bought me a gift from Amazon one year.
Since when do you get to pick the color when you select 'gift wrapped by Amazon'? Do they even hire people to wrap things or does some contraption with robotic arms do it?
I don't think all that many will be written. Think about it: you can get car insurance (and health and life and home, etc, etc) because your car meets the local safety standards and most people aren't intentionally suicidal, therefore the insurance company can impersonally look up in its actuarial tables to find your risk. But computer systems? You'd have to be nuts - even if you had a large, competent audit team to go over all the security procedures at big corporate network X, can you 1. be certain they follow the procedures/policies 2. don't change the procedures/policies when the new manager is hired 3. have a similar enough network to companies A - W that you can make up a generic risk analysis? Every "cyber insurance" policy would have to be cost prohibitively customized and monitored. The insurance companies may go out on a limb and issue some, but not many companies will be able to afford it and when something happens that needs a payout the insurance company that has any sense will do a post-mortem and decide not to pay because employee(s) screwed something up compared to the procedures/policies the insurance company was insuring.
As a fairly regular FOX radio news listener (know thy enemy and all that rot) I can assure you that this IS the tripe they spit out on a daily basis
Are you sure you're listening to Fox news? It sounds like you're listening to one of the commentary shows on the Fox network. Their news programs don't usually spit any tripe one way or another.
It's all very fine to go on about how great Israeli airport security is but it'll never happen in the USA. The Israeli method relies heavily on profiling and in the USA the ACLU (and CAIR and a slew of other organizations) will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who even suggests such a horrible, racist, islamophobic idea.
Bankruptcy and hyperinflation only happen when spending outruns income. Why do you only look at the cutting income (taxes) portion of the tea party's platform? They want to cut spending as well, in which case it would even out and not result in either bankruptcy or hyperinflation. That other political groups are unable to cut spending is not their fault.
Expensive? No, no; it's practically free to them. The Chinese government holds enough US government debt that this carrier is paid for by US taxpayers.
An interesting thing though, is that the Chinese mainly use Silver Iodide Rockets to seed the clouds. Silver Iodide is considered a hazardous substance, a priority pollutant, and a toxic pollutant
...Will be interesting to see what happens during the next ten to fifteen years after this has been in place for long enough to really get into the soil, the food chain and the poor saps who this rain falls on.
Hah, a little silver iodide added to the water supply might make it better by displacing some of the serious industrial contaminants they already put in it. You haven't been paying attention to the environmental news out of China if you think these rockets are a serious health concern.
Ah, but how many of the guns caught by TSA were caught *only* because of TSA's procedures? Travelers had to go through metal detectors and their baggage through x-ray machines prior to TSA - did you think the prior security goons never caught any guns and knives being brought to the airport? I recall in pre-TSA days they'd always find my little pocket knife and check the length. (Back in the day you were allowed small blades)
A mammoth will be much more useful as transport than a Prius when the planet is covered with mile-thick ice and the temperature is permanently below zero.
Socialism is the intermediary step on the way to communism wherein a single party runs the show with no opposition tolerated. Both are integrated political-economic systems. But that's a different fine point to haggle over. Meanwhile, no, Sweden is no socialist. It is a social democracy. The Swedish state does not own all the means of production and property. They just have huge social welfare systems. A better thing to consider is whether you could have pooled resources together with your friends in, say, the 1970's Soviet Union and create a pocket of capitalism.
"it ends being an economic model and becomes a political system once it is forced upon unwilling participants."
And this is different from capitalism exactly how?
You never heard of the communes in the USA? Under a capitalist system one can get together with some like minded fellows and use the capitalist system to purchase a pocket of communism within it. Notice that a communist system does not allow this; there is no way to work within a communist system to purchase your own pocket of capitalism.n Just read Moore's Utopia and see what happens to Utopians who try to create private property. Thus the GP's statement that communism must be forced upon people while capitalism is not.
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His "researchers" also discovered that humans respond better when working at ambient temperatures and when exposed to the elements
Yep - I worked a few months in the Slovak Republic and they opened the office windows every day because "we prefer to feel natural weather, don't you?". Sun, rain, or snow made no difference. Many days I wore my coat all day long in the office to stay warm while a blizzard was raging.
but the US has the military capacity to devastate Iran, to wipe out much of its military capacity
Don't forget that military capability alone is worthless without the political will to use it.
It's really hard to identify when any president is really on vacation. Obama doubtless golfs with people he needs to talk to and discusses business just like GWB used to host foreign leaders at his ranch in Texas. Neither one is a vacation or 'just' a golf game in my book but each's political opponents count them as goof off time.
They won't slurp it all for long if the power is low enough that you have to stand near the machine to get a signal (no chairs, no power sockets). I assume this is a ploy to get people to at least see and be tempted by the machine's product and not for someone 100 meters away who doesn't even realize the open network he's found is from a vending machine.
It should be obvious the tax exemptions are not offensive since corporate income taxes are the stupidest tax ever and should be abolished. It's good when any company finds any exemption they can. No company has ever paid a penny of their own money in taxes; their customers pay the corporate income taxes as built into the prices. The only possibility is the low rents that might be offensive, but since I not only have my own oil derived fuel vehicle but depend on goods delivered by oil derived fuel vehicles then I'd just have to pay more for everything anyway if the rents were raised same as if I had to pay more oil company corporate income tax if the tax write offs did not exist. Since I'm not completely crazy, no, the low rents do not offend me either. Ergo, whopping piles of cash handouts to solar companies do offend me.
The problem with the whole "solar got more, no oil did" subsidy argument is that the solar companies are handed a pile of cash by the government and that's the sum of their subsidies. The oil companies write off the expense of failed exploratory wells and that's called a subsidy when adding up that total by groups promoting solar but all kinds of businesses get to write off expenses so it's not really some special oil industry thing. They also pay low rent on government owned land where they get the oil. OK, this is a soft subsidy where the companies get a deal, but the oil "subsidies" rarely involve forking over cash to the company, just charging them less (taxes and fees) while the solar subsidies are outright cash grants. I find this is a LOT more offensive both as a taxpayer and a consumer.
I recently trued to 'e-borrow' a recent book from the library. First, it is a newer best seller (A Dance With Dragons). I checked itout physically, but as a best seller it was only a 7day checkout with no renewal. This was not enought time for me, so I decided (for the first time) to checkout an e-book. I have now been on a waiting list for two weeks
The thing about checking out e-books is that there's no way to return it early so it's pretty easy to calculate how long you have to wait for your turn. This is about the only thing that makes it annoying for hot topics, otherwise I really like getting them from the library.
* A digital copy of a book needs to be bought once, and then you'll own it for all eternity. That is, in theory, true for a physical copy of a book as well, but in practice a library has to constantly (re)buy books it already owns, whether the physical copy is starting to get old and worn or because books are being stolen/not returned, etc.
Realistically, how many old, worn out books are still in high demand by library patrons? At some point it's unlikely to even be available new from the publisher anyway. So the digital copy at the library is available after the publisher is no longer interested in providing a print copy anyway and they think this is a problem, why? How many public libraries are there in all of Germany versus how many copies are sold to individuals? I bet if every library bought a digital copy or two then those books would be considered best sellers. I think the publishers complain too much over phantoms of their own imaginations.
Do you make money as a writer? If you did, would you favor the publishers which would pay you or the libraries which will not?
I recall an interview in which an author once said in an interview that he loved libraries; if every one of them in the country bought a copy of his book it would be a mad best seller since there are over 100K libraries and it takes sales of about 5K/week to make it on the bestseller lists. I assume since the libraries actually do purchase the e- versions of the books this is still true, so what is all the fuss about?
Where's the Fahrenheit 451 Fire Department, when you need one?.
That title needs an updated version; what's the combustion temperature of my ebook reader's materials?
Limitless free library ebooks are the death of them.
From the article: "E-lending is not without some friction. Software ensures that only one patron can read an e-book copy at a time, and people who see a long waiting list for a certain title may decide to buy it instead."
Except that it doesn't; I've borrowed a book from my library to my Kindle and then just kept the wireless turned off. I got an email that my loan had expired and it showed up again on the library's website as available. Amazon's 'manage my Kindle' page showed it as revoked from my device. But my Kindle kept it and I finished reading it. Only when I turned on the wireless connection several days after the supposed loan expiration date did it get removed from the device.
Because that's what my wife selected last year when she bought me a gift from Amazon one year.
Since when do you get to pick the color when you select 'gift wrapped by Amazon'? Do they even hire people to wrap things or does some contraption with robotic arms do it?
I don't think all that many will be written. Think about it: you can get car insurance (and health and life and home, etc, etc) because your car meets the local safety standards and most people aren't intentionally suicidal, therefore the insurance company can impersonally look up in its actuarial tables to find your risk. But computer systems? You'd have to be nuts - even if you had a large, competent audit team to go over all the security procedures at big corporate network X, can you 1. be certain they follow the procedures/policies 2. don't change the procedures/policies when the new manager is hired 3. have a similar enough network to companies A - W that you can make up a generic risk analysis? Every "cyber insurance" policy would have to be cost prohibitively customized and monitored. The insurance companies may go out on a limb and issue some, but not many companies will be able to afford it and when something happens that needs a payout the insurance company that has any sense will do a post-mortem and decide not to pay because employee(s) screwed something up compared to the procedures/policies the insurance company was insuring.
As a fairly regular FOX radio news listener (know thy enemy and all that rot) I can assure you that this IS the tripe they spit out on a daily basis
Are you sure you're listening to Fox news? It sounds like you're listening to one of the commentary shows on the Fox network. Their news programs don't usually spit any tripe one way or another.
It's all very fine to go on about how great Israeli airport security is but it'll never happen in the USA. The Israeli method relies heavily on profiling and in the USA the ACLU (and CAIR and a slew of other organizations) will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who even suggests such a horrible, racist, islamophobic idea.
Bankruptcy and hyperinflation only happen when spending outruns income. Why do you only look at the cutting income (taxes) portion of the tea party's platform? They want to cut spending as well, in which case it would even out and not result in either bankruptcy or hyperinflation. That other political groups are unable to cut spending is not their fault.
Learn some fucking facts. Seriously.
The US debt is a little over 15T(Trillion). China holds 1.134T. That's 7.5%
China holds a meager 7.5% SEVEN POINT FIVE PERCENT of the US debt. That's it.
Current annual percentage rate on 10 year Treasury Notes: ~2%
Annual return on 1.134T at 2%: ~22B
Annual operating costs of a conventionally powered aircraft carrier: ~200 M
China's cash left over after running their aircraft carrier: 22B - 200M = 21.8B
Are these the fucking facts I'm supposed to seriously learn?
China doesn't need big, expensive carriers
Expensive? No, no; it's practically free to them. The Chinese government holds enough US government debt that this carrier is paid for by US taxpayers.
An interesting thing though, is that the Chinese mainly use Silver Iodide Rockets to seed the clouds. Silver Iodide is considered a hazardous substance, a priority pollutant, and a toxic pollutant
...Will be interesting to see what happens during the next ten to fifteen years after this has been in place for long enough to really get into the soil, the food chain and the poor saps who this rain falls on.
Hah, a little silver iodide added to the water supply might make it better by displacing some of the serious industrial contaminants they already put in it. You haven't been paying attention to the environmental news out of China if you think these rockets are a serious health concern.
That creeky sound American girls make has been anoying me for years. That and the constant use of the word "like".
What's worse:
1. This creaky noise
2. Using "like" as a substitute for "said"/"did"
3. Ending statements in an up note as if asking a question
This took about 2 minutes on google.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/guns/tsa-weve-stopped-1000-guns-so-far-year
Ah, but how many of the guns caught by TSA were caught *only* because of TSA's procedures? Travelers had to go through metal detectors and their baggage through x-ray machines prior to TSA - did you think the prior security goons never caught any guns and knives being brought to the airport? I recall in pre-TSA days they'd always find my little pocket knife and check the length. (Back in the day you were allowed small blades)
A mammoth will be much more useful as transport than a Prius when the planet is covered with mile-thick ice and the temperature is permanently below zero.
Wouldn't a tauntaun be a better choice?
Socialism is the intermediary step on the way to communism wherein a single party runs the show with no opposition tolerated. Both are integrated political-economic systems. But that's a different fine point to haggle over. Meanwhile, no, Sweden is no socialist. It is a social democracy. The Swedish state does not own all the means of production and property. They just have huge social welfare systems. A better thing to consider is whether you could have pooled resources together with your friends in, say, the 1970's Soviet Union and create a pocket of capitalism.
"it ends being an economic model and becomes a political system once it is forced upon unwilling participants."
And this is different from capitalism exactly how?
You never heard of the communes in the USA? Under a capitalist system one can get together with some like minded fellows and use the capitalist system to purchase a pocket of communism within it. Notice that a communist system does not allow this; there is no way to work within a communist system to purchase your own pocket of capitalism.n Just read Moore's Utopia and see what happens to Utopians who try to create private property. Thus the GP's statement that communism must be forced upon people while capitalism is not.
I love reading about new, interesting species. Let's hope for the crabs that they have no commercial value...
Ugh - talk about "wash thoroughly before eating"...