Sounds like you have more hard data than I do. I suppose the anecdotes of lots with crap houses selling for a million colored my perceptions. Thanks for the informative reply!
the value of a home in CA is mostly based on the price of the land; the cost of the structure is a minor factor. If you're low income but your neighborhood is being scouted by a developer your house may well not be low value at all.
"something" and "that thing" do not appear to be intended to refer to entire shipping containers, but individual orders. For example, a padded envelope containing a dozen blue LEDs.
Why respect copyright, when nothing will ever enter the public domain any more?
The streaming music service has 30 million tracks + text and graphics. CD quality or close enough. One-click access. Local storage as an option. Access across all devices. If I value my time at minimum wage, why in the name of god would I want to go back to trying to dredge something useful out of the P2P nets?
No idea. What's that got to do with something being in the public domain? Are you assuming that Spotify won't carry popular stuff once it's public domain? If they want to leave that money on the table someone else will be willing to do it... and they'll be able to.
Entry into the public domain doesn't guarantee preservation and without preservation access is meaningless. The problem isn't the bit rot that may erode your collection of MP3s, it is the decay that destroys primary sources. Conservation at that level is damned expensive but the geek never talks about that very much because he might be asked to help pay for it.
Not being in the public domain doesn't guarantee preservation either, so I'm not sure what your point is. (Though now that you mention it, that seems like a reasonable responsibility to put on a rightsholder - a duty to preserve the work so that it can still be around to enter the public domain, either at the statutory time or when voluntarily released.)
For extras I was thinking of things like the kickstarter backer pin from when the Planet Mercenary kickstarter. Not used for anything else, so they got someone to do a run of something like 5k pins. At that order size, it probably cost about a buck a pin according to this site, so that's roughly $5k. There were other greeblies too (postcard, for example), but probably not enough to take it over 10k, so let's say it's a 5-10k range.
Total funding through the kickstarter was about 350k. This site seems to indicate that the average rate for small business loans was about 6%. The kickstarter launched in april 2015 and the final update was emailed 12/29/17 so that's about 20 months. Loan calculator says that 350k at 6% for 1.7 years is 18090/mo, which totals to 361800, for a total of 11800 in interest.
So certainly the extras were less than interest, but I don't think I'd call it peanuts or "more or less free". A set with more electronic extras, or where the extras are more of something that matches the base item, to hold down extra-only production costs, is probably closer, but still not likely to be ignorable.
kickstarters aren't any kind of "investment" because you get no ownership stake.
As to scams, there's some, but I've contributed to a number of kickstarters and gotten exactly what I expected. It is, in many cases, essentially a way for someone to get a business loan at possibly reduced interest. Allow me to explain that.
Normally you get a business loan, use the funds for some process improvement, and you pay it back out of proceeds from sales of products produced with that process. With a typical kickstarter you sell the product first, use the proceeds for the process improvement, make the products, and send them. Both ways you're improving process and selling product to pay for it, just with kickstarter instead of a bank charging interest to cover their risk, you have a bunch of individuals who are just eating the risk. Many (most?) kickstarters have some form of bonus to incentivize the public to take the risk, but that cost to them is probably on par with what interest would have been.
based on volume capacity, it would take about 300 supertankers to transport 100 million m^3, which is the low end estimate of the water they want to extract from the iceberg. (Wikipedia lists the capacity of a supertanker at 320k m^3, which is surely an overgeneralization but a reasonable figure to take as a basis.)
I'm not saying the scheme is practical; as you note, there has to be a processing plant somewhere. But it may well be that moving the ice takes less resources than moving the water would.
Many of the poor, yes. Some can't even afford that. Some can afford calories but not nutrition.
But my point was not to say that capitalism wasn't doing the best, it was to say that there's a time period when it did even better than it's doing now, and it would be good to find a way to get it to do that well again.
My point was not that something else did better, because it didn't. My point was that there can still be room for improvement. An 89 can be the best test score in class without being the best possible score.
yeah, but as you say, the time when "capitalism" did the best at reducing poverty was during that non-standard period. If reducing poverty is the goal we're wanting (and your phrasing indicates that it is, or else you need to find something else that capitalism is best at) then we either need to keep the situation non-standard or we need to find something better than straight capitalism at leveling things during the more natural times.
in much of the US, -40 is "oh my god you want me to go out there? Are you trying to kill me? Hell no, I'm staying inside under a blanket watching netflix."
I think you're underestimating. Looking at one of Case Labs' smaller cases (the Bullet BH2 mITX) at 10x9.5x13. It uses 0.09" thick aluminum for the sides, top, and bottom (about 507 in^2), and 0.063" for the front and back (about 190 in^2). 0.09" thick in an alloy that's not too expensive (not aircraft grade, for example) seems to come out to 4.5 cents per square inch in the larger sizes, so the sides/top/bottom are about 22.80 by themselves. 0.063 is more like 3.14 cents per in^2, so front and back panels are just under 6 bucks. They'll likely get a bit more of a discount for bulk, but they also have to have metal for drive carriers, motherboard mounts, electronics, and those prices are for just the metal, not shipping, so all in all it probably really does work out to around 30+ per case or more for materials. Now, this is some pretty hefty metal for cases, but that's their niche, and they charge about 200 for this size.
Making the same thing entirely out of 0.036 (20 gauge) cold rolled sheet steel would still be 13.50 plus electronics, innards, shipping, etc but I'm not sure that material's even suitable for anything but the top/sides, that don't need much if any real structural strength. Probably need internal bracing, which will add a bit.
I thank you for causing me to do this research. I now see why it's hard to find any case for under 50ish and any solid one for under 90:)
It can result in indirect increases larger than the tariff itself. Perhaps they used to have a discount but now that the tariff on Chinese metal is increasing demand for US metal they can't keep it... and the US metal's price is going up to match the Chinese metal's price, so they get hit with two increases at once.
Slashdot Mirror
so they have to prove it before each ad order, instead of one time? That seems unlikely.
Sounds like you have more hard data than I do. I suppose the anecdotes of lots with crap houses selling for a million colored my perceptions. Thanks for the informative reply!
the value of a home in CA is mostly based on the price of the land; the cost of the structure is a minor factor. If you're low income but your neighborhood is being scouted by a developer your house may well not be low value at all.
he didn't say get government out of technology, he said prescribe goals instead of methods.
trivial != cheap
I was thinking that as well. I bet that'll be version 3 :)
"something" and "that thing" do not appear to be intended to refer to entire shipping containers, but individual orders. For example, a padded envelope containing a dozen blue LEDs.
stronger, yes. Worse, questionable. At least water vapor condenses out of the atmosphere sometimes.
Why respect copyright, when nothing will ever enter the public domain any more?
The streaming music service has 30 million tracks + text and graphics. CD quality or close enough. One-click access. Local storage as an option. Access across all devices. If I value my time at minimum wage, why in the name of god would I want to go back to trying to dredge something useful out of the P2P nets?
No idea. What's that got to do with something being in the public domain? Are you assuming that Spotify won't carry popular stuff once it's public domain? If they want to leave that money on the table someone else will be willing to do it... and they'll be able to.
Entry into the public domain doesn't guarantee preservation and without preservation access is meaningless. The problem isn't the bit rot that may erode your collection of MP3s, it is the decay that destroys primary sources. Conservation at that level is damned expensive but the geek never talks about that very much because he might be asked to help pay for it.
Not being in the public domain doesn't guarantee preservation either, so I'm not sure what your point is. (Though now that you mention it, that seems like a reasonable responsibility to put on a rightsholder - a duty to preserve the work so that it can still be around to enter the public domain, either at the statutory time or when voluntarily released.)
not quite zero. Males can have issues caused by HPV as well.
For extras I was thinking of things like the kickstarter backer pin from when the Planet Mercenary kickstarter. Not used for anything else, so they got someone to do a run of something like 5k pins. At that order size, it probably cost about a buck a pin according to this site, so that's roughly $5k. There were other greeblies too (postcard, for example), but probably not enough to take it over 10k, so let's say it's a 5-10k range.
Total funding through the kickstarter was about 350k. This site seems to indicate that the average rate for small business loans was about 6%. The kickstarter launched in april 2015 and the final update was emailed 12/29/17 so that's about 20 months. Loan calculator says that 350k at 6% for 1.7 years is 18090/mo, which totals to 361800, for a total of 11800 in interest.
So certainly the extras were less than interest, but I don't think I'd call it peanuts or "more or less free". A set with more electronic extras, or where the extras are more of something that matches the base item, to hold down extra-only production costs, is probably closer, but still not likely to be ignorable.
kickstarters aren't any kind of "investment" because you get no ownership stake.
As to scams, there's some, but I've contributed to a number of kickstarters and gotten exactly what I expected. It is, in many cases, essentially a way for someone to get a business loan at possibly reduced interest. Allow me to explain that.
Normally you get a business loan, use the funds for some process improvement, and you pay it back out of proceeds from sales of products produced with that process. With a typical kickstarter you sell the product first, use the proceeds for the process improvement, make the products, and send them. Both ways you're improving process and selling product to pay for it, just with kickstarter instead of a bank charging interest to cover their risk, you have a bunch of individuals who are just eating the risk. Many (most?) kickstarters have some form of bonus to incentivize the public to take the risk, but that cost to them is probably on par with what interest would have been.
the requirement to get FDA approval to manufacture, which is at least time consuming and possibly expensive.
based on volume capacity, it would take about 300 supertankers to transport 100 million m^3, which is the low end estimate of the water they want to extract from the iceberg. (Wikipedia lists the capacity of a supertanker at 320k m^3, which is surely an overgeneralization but a reasonable figure to take as a basis.)
I'm not saying the scheme is practical; as you note, there has to be a processing plant somewhere. But it may well be that moving the ice takes less resources than moving the water would.
It's limited by the USB link.
Many understand the concept. Still gotta get a down payment together, though.
I wouldn't know, since that's not the thought I had. But it seems you're not interested in addressing what I did mean, so we'll leave it at that.
Many of the poor, yes. Some can't even afford that. Some can afford calories but not nutrition.
But my point was not to say that capitalism wasn't doing the best, it was to say that there's a time period when it did even better than it's doing now, and it would be good to find a way to get it to do that well again.
My point was not that something else did better, because it didn't. My point was that there can still be room for improvement. An 89 can be the best test score in class without being the best possible score.
yeah, but as you say, the time when "capitalism" did the best at reducing poverty was during that non-standard period. If reducing poverty is the goal we're wanting (and your phrasing indicates that it is, or else you need to find something else that capitalism is best at) then we either need to keep the situation non-standard or we need to find something better than straight capitalism at leveling things during the more natural times.
well in that case... nobody's died from _socialism_, they've died from _authoritarianism_ masked in socialist memes.
Have a nice day.
in much of the US, -40 is "oh my god you want me to go out there? Are you trying to kill me? Hell no, I'm staying inside under a blanket watching netflix."
I think you're underestimating. Looking at one of Case Labs' smaller cases (the Bullet BH2 mITX) at 10x9.5x13. It uses 0.09" thick aluminum for the sides, top, and bottom (about 507 in^2), and 0.063" for the front and back (about 190 in^2). 0.09" thick in an alloy that's not too expensive (not aircraft grade, for example) seems to come out to 4.5 cents per square inch in the larger sizes, so the sides/top/bottom are about 22.80 by themselves. 0.063 is more like 3.14 cents per in^2, so front and back panels are just under 6 bucks. They'll likely get a bit more of a discount for bulk, but they also have to have metal for drive carriers, motherboard mounts, electronics, and those prices are for just the metal, not shipping, so all in all it probably really does work out to around 30+ per case or more for materials. Now, this is some pretty hefty metal for cases, but that's their niche, and they charge about 200 for this size.
Making the same thing entirely out of 0.036 (20 gauge) cold rolled sheet steel would still be 13.50 plus electronics, innards, shipping, etc but I'm not sure that material's even suitable for anything but the top/sides, that don't need much if any real structural strength. Probably need internal bracing, which will add a bit.
I thank you for causing me to do this research. I now see why it's hard to find any case for under 50ish and any solid one for under 90 :)
It can result in indirect increases larger than the tariff itself. Perhaps they used to have a discount but now that the tariff on Chinese metal is increasing demand for US metal they can't keep it... and the US metal's price is going up to match the Chinese metal's price, so they get hit with two increases at once.
oh, and possibly a fourth: can you imagine the environmental impact paperwork that would be required on a deliberate fire?