"Clearly we need to help out those earning only 100K as well. Up the rebates!"
Many consumers buy used cars (self included), and the purchase of new vehicles by those with more money helps push their trade-ins into the market.
I've never bought a new four-wheeled vehicle and don't intend to. Let those who do that "subsidize" me by selling (or wrecking, but that's another story!) their current rides. A rising tide in the automotive world lifts all boats.
The subsidy cost is a trifle, and both hybrids and electrics share useful technology that is in its infancy. Tossing a few extra bucks into the pool is harmless at worst.
"you won't drive down the prices a lot by having a lot of (rich) buyers."
The prices will eventually drop due to competition. There won't BE competition if it isn't profitable to sell cars to early adopters.
One would think the "early adopter pays for the R&D" concept would be easy for Slashdotters to understand. In the PC world, they make developing quickerfasterbetter hardware a reasonable proposition.
A "successful" Muslim economy just means more weapons for the Jihadists they (all to some extent) support. It is my hope they embrace religion over knowledge and progress, because progress is a weapon.
"It's amazing that the people of the US allow their government to keep propping it up. "
Oh no it isn't! The alternatives are even worse in every way.
The House of Saud are widely dispersed through KSA society, offer the only hope of stable government (that's entirely different from "good" government"), and their enemies help push them somewhat into our camp. It's like being allied with the Soviet Union during the Second World War. They are a smaller problem than their opponents. (Unlike the Soviets, the Saudis aren't getting killed in gratifying numbers, but Al Qaeda etc kill enough of them to be useful.) Diplomacy isn't nice, but "nice" is a childish metric.
NON-scummy governments in most of the world are simply not an option. Making them less scummy is like teaching a pig to sing, in that it doesn't work and annoys the pig.
"That's what predatory capitalism is all about.."
That's what DIPLOMACY has ALWAYS been about, long before Capitalism existed. There are no good people, hence no need to act as if there are. There are only interests, and clients.
In the Middle East in particular, the binary client choice is between greedy tribalists and homicidal Jihadists. Those are the locals, who govern with the assent of most other locals. They aren't nice to their opposition, nor would their opponents be nice to them if roles were switched.
Sounds like wishful thinking on his part. Note how long his movement has been at it.
Not that seeing the House of Saud strung up like Mussolini and his mistress wouldn't make me smile, double-dealing funders of Jihad and enemies of Israel that they are.
"It is arrogant and irresponsible to project your own motives and emotions into the mind of someone with a senile dementia."
Senile dementia is so mentally destructive that interfering with an apparent suicide attempt is extremely cruel. I watched both my parents eventually succumb, and if I'd walked in on either doing "suicide by car" I'd have walked out and shut the door. THAT would have been kindness.
May everyone who wants to prolong the life of the demented, become demented themselves. It takes a while, so you can know the bitter frustration of losing your faculties bit by bit by bit...
"Instead of new technology to prevent mom and dad from assisted-living, you just move back home and do it yourself. Will be cheaper in the long run. And despite many an annoyance you can get real close real fast. And you are only paying back for the times they had to wipe your ass, etc."
It isn't annoyance, it's exhaustion. Let us know after you get to the stage where you help them through complete disability and death how "easier" and "cheaper" it was.
"The alternative is an archaic system of elder care called "families". I understand it was practiced in some parts of the world back in the 20th century"
Elder care is utterly consuming and exhausting. Been there, done that. It is not a one person job, but monitoring tech can help monitor other caregivers (I used cams for this) as well as the oldster in question. The extreme demands of elder care can exhaust even fit, dedicated, informed, and intelligent caregiving relatives.
Modern medical technology ensures years of madness, incontinence, and incontinent madness await most of us. We WILL be a burden on all who care for us (even love doesn't make it not a burden), and should know that long before we turn to shit. There is no heroism in merely living as long as possible, just giving in to fear. Hunter Thompson and Ernest Hemingway were wise to check out before what made them men was taken from them.
"Because of this, people who usually should go to a trade school,"
We also fucked the trade schools, by regarding the trades as a dumping ground.
Skilled craftsmen can make good wages, but because Americans despise manual labor (and thus deserve to lose those jobs to eager competition) trade-related classes get short shrift.
Community colleges can provide good trades education, but we often get people who have failed everywhere else and are sent our way by the state. Community colleges are very good at turning money from Uncle Sugar into training courses, but cannot force our clients to perform once out in the workforce.
"Unfortunately, with no explicit will and no legal acceptance of common-law marriage in Sweden, she inherited absolutely nothing."
Unfortunately, with no proper ESTATE PLANNING, she inherited absolutely nothing. She could have been a co-owner with right of survivorship, been gifted some of the revenue, etc, and not had to go through probate (if local law resembles US law in those respects).
We can all die right now. If you care about others, be prepared.
There is much emotional reaction against using torture, but there is also zero inherent reason that (properly) applied stress cannot be used to (in conjunction with other information and other methods of information extraction) to produce useful intel.
When one fights cultural enemies who don't play by the rules, it becomes reasonable to abandon the rules which only exist for ones own benefit (expectation of reciprocity).
The trouble with that is there would be no way to control crowds short of shooting them. The "Kent State" method has all sorts of drawbacks. I'd rather deal with "stray noise" or "stray pain waves" than stray rifle bullets any day.
"Civilian cars are often shot up at military check points because the drivers don't understand that they are supposed to stop."
Military checkpoints often lacked APPROACH BARRIERS and SIGNAGE. Even if someone is shooting at you from a distance, if you don't SEE the muzzle flash or SEE/HEAR the IMPACTs you may keep driving or even speed up to get (what you assume is) "away".
Slashdot Mirror
"Clearly we need to help out those earning only 100K as well. Up the rebates!"
Many consumers buy used cars (self included), and the purchase of new vehicles by those with more money helps push their trade-ins into the market.
I've never bought a new four-wheeled vehicle and don't intend to. Let those who do that "subsidize" me by selling (or wrecking, but that's another story!) their current rides. A rising tide in the automotive world lifts all boats.
"It just doesn't make sense to subsidize both."
The subsidy cost is a trifle, and both hybrids and electrics share useful technology that is in its infancy. Tossing a few extra bucks into the pool is harmless at worst.
"you won't drive down the prices a lot by having a lot of (rich) buyers."
The prices will eventually drop due to competition. There won't BE competition if it isn't profitable to sell cars to early adopters.
One would think the "early adopter pays for the R&D" concept would be easy for Slashdotters to understand. In the PC world, they make developing quickerfasterbetter hardware a reasonable proposition.
A "successful" Muslim economy just means more weapons for the Jihadists they (all to some extent) support. It is my hope they embrace religion over knowledge and progress, because progress is a weapon.
"It's amazing that the people of the US allow their government to keep propping it up. "
Oh no it isn't! The alternatives are even worse in every way.
The House of Saud are widely dispersed through KSA society, offer the only hope of stable government (that's entirely different from "good" government"), and their enemies help push them somewhat into our camp. It's like being allied with the Soviet Union during the Second World War. They are a smaller problem than their opponents. (Unlike the Soviets, the Saudis aren't getting killed in gratifying numbers, but Al Qaeda etc kill enough of them to be useful.) Diplomacy isn't nice, but "nice" is a childish metric.
NON-scummy governments in most of the world are simply not an option. Making them less scummy is like teaching a pig to sing, in that it doesn't work and annoys the pig.
"That's what predatory capitalism is all about.."
That's what DIPLOMACY has ALWAYS been about, long before Capitalism existed. There are no good people, hence no need to act as if there are. There are only interests, and clients.
In the Middle East in particular, the binary client choice is between greedy tribalists and homicidal Jihadists. Those are the locals, who govern with the assent of most other locals. They aren't nice to their opposition, nor would their opponents be nice to them if roles were switched.
Sounds like wishful thinking on his part. Note how long his movement has been at it.
Not that seeing the House of Saud strung up like Mussolini and his mistress wouldn't make me smile, double-dealing funders of Jihad and enemies of Israel that they are.
"Because that is one serious case of paranoia you got going on there..."
That's not a display of paranoia, it's a display of delectation at being among the enlightened. Fapping to dystopia has always been delicious.
"It is arrogant and irresponsible to project your own motives and emotions into the mind of someone with a senile dementia."
Senile dementia is so mentally destructive that interfering with an apparent suicide attempt is extremely cruel. I watched both my parents eventually succumb, and if I'd walked in on either doing "suicide by car" I'd have walked out and shut the door. THAT would have been kindness.
May everyone who wants to prolong the life of the demented, become demented themselves. It takes a while, so you can know the bitter frustration of losing your faculties bit by bit by bit...
""Grandpa, you'd better wipe really good because it sounds like you have the runs."
Grandpa will likely get to where YOU do the wiping. One gets used to it...
"Instead of new technology to prevent mom and dad from assisted-living, you just move back home and do it yourself. Will be cheaper in the long run. And despite many an annoyance you can get real close real fast. And you are only paying back for the times they had to wipe your ass, etc."
It isn't annoyance, it's exhaustion. Let us know after you get to the stage where you help them through complete disability and death how "easier" and "cheaper" it was.
"The alternative is an archaic system of elder care called "families". I understand it was practiced in some parts of the world back in the 20th century"
Elder care is utterly consuming and exhausting. Been there, done that. It is not a one person job, but monitoring tech can help monitor other caregivers (I used cams for this) as well as the oldster in question. The extreme demands of elder care can exhaust even fit, dedicated, informed, and intelligent caregiving relatives.
Modern medical technology ensures years of madness, incontinence, and incontinent madness await most of us. We WILL be a burden on all who care for us (even love doesn't make it not a burden), and should know that long before we turn to shit. There is no heroism in merely living as long as possible, just giving in to fear. Hunter Thompson and Ernest Hemingway were wise to check out before what made them men was taken from them.
Warren Zevon chose differently, and left us this to think about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV6E0KYiMmM
Wear the magnet in a pinky ring or on a necklace instead of carrying it conventionally.
"Because of this, people who usually should go to a trade school,"
We also fucked the trade schools, by regarding the trades as a dumping ground.
Skilled craftsmen can make good wages, but because Americans despise manual labor (and thus deserve to lose those jobs to eager competition) trade-related classes get short shrift.
Community colleges can provide good trades education, but we often get people who have failed everywhere else and are sent our way by the state.
Community colleges are very good at turning money from Uncle Sugar into training courses, but cannot force our clients to perform once out in the workforce.
"Unfortunately, with no explicit will and no legal acceptance of common-law marriage in Sweden, she inherited absolutely nothing."
Unfortunately, with no proper ESTATE PLANNING, she inherited absolutely nothing. She could have been a co-owner with right of survivorship, been gifted some of the revenue, etc, and not had to go through probate (if local law resembles US law in those respects).
We can all die right now. If you care about others, be prepared.
Do explain what vaguely expressed "tragedy" you are babbling about?
That post is as incoherent as Nickleback lyrics.
"Enjoy your fascist state, the rest of the world is laughing. "
They prefer laughter at others to doing something about their own problems.
There is much emotional reaction against using torture, but there is also zero inherent reason that (properly) applied stress cannot be used to (in conjunction with other information and other methods of information extraction) to produce useful intel.
When one fights cultural enemies who don't play by the rules, it becomes reasonable to abandon the rules which only exist for ones own benefit (expectation of reciprocity).
Doesn't yield much square footage. The grad student eyeballs are larger and might be worth harvesting instead.
"What about leaving that shiny things on the shelf and use your time for something more constructive?"
But want Shiny on MY terms! Can't vote with my wallet or won't HAVE shiny! Shiny = constructive. Mmmm....corporate cawk, so tasty.
Did I miss anything? :)
Toyshiba? Or Toshota?
If they want to model the fucking thing, converting the original drawings to CAD would be the place to start...
It's a good way to get funding. The Titanic was a delicious drama, with romantic deathy fapworthyness oozing from every porthole.
After the techies are done playing with their equipment and learning more about using it, a documentary or several can help pay for their fun.
I approve. :)
The trouble with that is there would be no way to control crowds short of shooting them. The "Kent State" method has all sorts of drawbacks. I'd rather deal with "stray noise" or "stray pain waves" than stray rifle bullets any day.
"Civilian cars are often shot up at military check points because the drivers don't understand that they are supposed to stop."
Military checkpoints often lacked APPROACH BARRIERS and SIGNAGE. Even if someone is shooting at you from a distance, if you don't SEE the muzzle flash or SEE/HEAR the IMPACTs you may keep driving or even speed up to get (what you assume is) "away".