I think you're right about where it came from, and they likely applied it to all the component parts of the iPad, and all the component parts of the component parts, etc.
Though such is the failure with the price of a car. They assemble some cars here... they don't make them here. Add labor costs at many times the rate of foreign labor, the significantly greater facility costs, mandatory code and regulation costs, tax burdens, etc. to make everything here and the cost to fab here goes through the roof.
As I said in other places, I'm sure things would eventually reach some kind of equilibrium. It just seems like it would be frighteningly disruptive in the meantime.
No doubt, and we'll go somewhere else, just as we've been shifting labor from India to other places as our cost savings on more technical work there diminish.
Domestic assembly for some things might make some sense. Auto manufacturers and the like seem to have (kinda) managed it. But I don't see us bringing fab back here in any meaningful way. Regardless, high import tariffs (which was what we were talking about) wouldn't seem beneficial there. I could be wrong.
Maybe. But it doesn't apply to all the things they make that are involved in feeding you, transporting you and all the things that allow you to do your job. I mean, not to be combative or anything, but everyone that posted on/. today used a device that not only would have been horribly expensive, but may not have existed at all without cheap foreign labor.
There's always "better". I wish on a lucky star that everyone got to live even better than I do. I think it's more likely that conditions will continue to improve in China, the cost savings of manual labor will decrease and wages and conditions there increase, and we'll move on to somewhere else.
Is the state of the global economy moral? Certainly not perfectly so. Or at best, it's amoral. Of course that's just my opinion. It does leave the question however, are they better or worse off for it?
Surely though, any reference to how we lived in the middle of the century doesn't really mean anything to anyone. The world is different now, for better or worse. Were the Chinese people living better then? I honestly don't know, though I suspect not.
The point is the same, I don't think we could bring manufacturing back like people think with huge tariffs. Certainly not in any way I can think of that would improve life for us or them. But then, I'm not an economist... I'm just some jerk on/.
I didn't. And if it turns out to be the case, I'd guess Apple will be all over it like with previous accusations. And if they don't, I hope people stop buying iPads. To be clear, I have no particular love for Apple.
My point stands though. I'm not sure we can afford not to get our stuff from China anymore.
It's easy to say, and I completely agree with you assuming two things:
1) We're talking about iPads 2) iPad production in China is making those workers lives worse, instead of better.
But expand it to everything you use, or even just all your electronics. Cars, trains, planes, your TV, the computer you're using now, your washing machine and dishwasher. The stuff that harvests your food and gets it to you. The elevator, your cellphone... etc. I don't have 300 million dollars to live like I do now, and we're not talking about foregoing one toy. It gets complicated quickly.
I think your cost estimates are... extremely short. The difference in labor and other overhead between the US and China is considerable. Also remember that bringing everything here means all the component parts go up in cost too, by a huge percentage. You end up with a very, very expensive iPad, XBox, laptop, car, etc.
As for the second, I make no judgments other than to say, I don't think iPad production is ruining Chinese workers lives. If it were (and I see no indication that it is) I would agree... we can get by without a widget that causes real suffering somewhere else.
All that aside, I don't know that it's all doom-and-gloom, or that things wouldn't level out somehow, but I really don't think it's as simple as, "Use huge import tariffs to protect our jobs, global manufacturing is teh devil."
I've often wondered about the nuances of who you're supposed to call an engineer, big or little-e, or scientist.
Some are accused of throwing the words around like they don't mean anything, but as you pointed out, sometimes that gets directed at folks that seem to fit the descriptions.
Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive? I consider that voluntary too.
Well, there's your first and second problem with this theory. Not everyone that uses drugs is an adult, nor are they usually properly functioning, healthy individuals capable of good decision making. There in-lies the whole business model. Not the same as offering to sell you a $1 hat in a game because you like the color pink.
You could say that the formation of plutocracies and the concentration of wealth and political influence is not an inherent trait in the system of unregulated or poorly regulated (think: regulatory capture) capitalism. [blah, blah blah]
It's farmville, dude.
The problem with microtransactions in games is they provide so many different ways to milk the customers. There are many more opportunities to do that with this arrangement than there would be with a flat monthly fee.
How does any of this have anything to do with what we're talking about? I still don't think microtransactions in shitty games are the same as dealing drugs.
I was referring to the buying part. There are lots of reasons people turn to addictive drugs, even beside addiction itself. Drug dealers prey on serious physiological and mental weaknesses. I don't think that's really the case with people that make video games, aside from capitalizing on people with mild impulse control problems... but you could say the same of someone that makes cupcakes.
The idea that they're the same seems absurd to me.
Well, except that it's wholly voluntary. I don't see a problem with it really, though I usually choose not to get in to things utilizing that model. With the genuinely nasty drugs, otoh, the seller leverages your addiction... where the buyer has less of a choice in the matter.
In short, Zynga can do whatever they want. I simply choose not to play their shitty games or give them any money. Same for console DLC that doesn't deliver significant value in addition to what I already bought.
It's very simple, really. If they don't have what you want to watch, don't subscribe.
Personally, the last thing I want is for Netflix to cave in and end up securing content the way cable companies secure content, such that I have to pay $80/mo to get the 3 tv shows I watch.
They're an alternative source of entertainment. If you want Starz content, go pay your cable company the $10/mo for Starz. I liked the Netflix service just fine before the Starz deal. The cost hasn't gone up for me, and I imagine I'll like it the same now.
I thought of this first too, though by the looks of it, it'd have to have gone through about a billion revs to get to this guy if its flight characteristics were the same.
I'd guess it's just a wing-like profile... it looks like a fixed shape. Though I loved the video on the original site... who decided to co-opt the original Airwolf theme music for their report.
Funny. I believe I heard a similar one once, about targeting communications infrastructure. To be interpreted as, you can shoot at his cellphone while he's using it. Any resulting deaths will be regarded as collateral damage.
I think he's talking about Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I'm pretty sure they reskinned that one so they could sell it in places where they couldn't normally.
Not only does AT&T require you to pay for tethering, if you had an old Cingular "unlimited data" plan, opting into tethering means you permanently relinquish your data plan for the new 2gb one. Even if you then cancel your tethering, you can never get your plan back.
True. Minor concessions will be made, AT&T will still plan to screw everyone in other ways, everyone at the DoJ will pat each other on the back for having done their due diligence and the thing will move forward. Real competition and common sense will lose, as usual.
Normally I'd say this, except that you expose people who can't get the vaccine (yet or ever). Or the people it doesn't work for. It's dangerous and irresponsible beyond just hurting your own kid.
That would happen here in the US too, where spammers are prosecuted and a bribe from a spammer to law enforcement would land everyone in jail. But we're off on an angry rant about something else for the moment.;)
I went through a few, which were all awful. I do like PyCharm, but it is not free. I ended up buying it one day when they put it on sale because I decided it really was worth it to have a good, win & lin dev environment.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're right about where it came from, and they likely applied it to all the component parts of the iPad, and all the component parts of the component parts, etc.
Though such is the failure with the price of a car. They assemble some cars here... they don't make them here. Add labor costs at many times the rate of foreign labor, the significantly greater facility costs, mandatory code and regulation costs, tax burdens, etc. to make everything here and the cost to fab here goes through the roof.
As I said in other places, I'm sure things would eventually reach some kind of equilibrium. It just seems like it would be frighteningly disruptive in the meantime.
No doubt, and we'll go somewhere else, just as we've been shifting labor from India to other places as our cost savings on more technical work there diminish.
Domestic assembly for some things might make some sense. Auto manufacturers and the like seem to have (kinda) managed it. But I don't see us bringing fab back here in any meaningful way. Regardless, high import tariffs (which was what we were talking about) wouldn't seem beneficial there. I could be wrong.
Yeah now make the components here too and see what they cost. o_O
Maybe. But it doesn't apply to all the things they make that are involved in feeding you, transporting you and all the things that allow you to do your job. I mean, not to be combative or anything, but everyone that posted on /. today used a device that not only would have been horribly expensive, but may not have existed at all without cheap foreign labor.
There's always "better". I wish on a lucky star that everyone got to live even better than I do. I think it's more likely that conditions will continue to improve in China, the cost savings of manual labor will decrease and wages and conditions there increase, and we'll move on to somewhere else.
Is the state of the global economy moral? Certainly not perfectly so. Or at best, it's amoral. Of course that's just my opinion. It does leave the question however, are they better or worse off for it?
/.
Surely though, any reference to how we lived in the middle of the century doesn't really mean anything to anyone. The world is different now, for better or worse. Were the Chinese people living better then? I honestly don't know, though I suspect not.
The point is the same, I don't think we could bring manufacturing back like people think with huge tariffs. Certainly not in any way I can think of that would improve life for us or them. But then, I'm not an economist... I'm just some jerk on
I didn't. And if it turns out to be the case, I'd guess Apple will be all over it like with previous accusations. And if they don't, I hope people stop buying iPads. To be clear, I have no particular love for Apple.
My point stands though. I'm not sure we can afford not to get our stuff from China anymore.
It's easy to say, and I completely agree with you assuming two things:
1) We're talking about iPads
2) iPad production in China is making those workers lives worse, instead of better.
But expand it to everything you use, or even just all your electronics. Cars, trains, planes, your TV, the computer you're using now, your washing machine and dishwasher. The stuff that harvests your food and gets it to you. The elevator, your cellphone... etc. I don't have 300 million dollars to live like I do now, and we're not talking about foregoing one toy. It gets complicated quickly.
I think your cost estimates are... extremely short. The difference in labor and other overhead between the US and China is considerable. Also remember that bringing everything here means all the component parts go up in cost too, by a huge percentage. You end up with a very, very expensive iPad, XBox, laptop, car, etc.
As for the second, I make no judgments other than to say, I don't think iPad production is ruining Chinese workers lives. If it were (and I see no indication that it is) I would agree... we can get by without a widget that causes real suffering somewhere else.
All that aside, I don't know that it's all doom-and-gloom, or that things wouldn't level out somehow, but I really don't think it's as simple as, "Use huge import tariffs to protect our jobs, global manufacturing is teh devil."
I've often wondered about the nuances of who you're supposed to call an engineer, big or little-e, or scientist.
Some are accused of throwing the words around like they don't mean anything, but as you pointed out, sometimes that gets directed at folks that seem to fit the descriptions.
It really is a bit confusing.
Net result: $14,000 iPads. I'm not sure I like the ramifications of that either.
Is there any adult person who doesn't realize things like crack and heroin are addictive? I consider that voluntary too.
Well, there's your first and second problem with this theory. Not everyone that uses drugs is an adult, nor are they usually properly functioning, healthy individuals capable of good decision making. There in-lies the whole business model. Not the same as offering to sell you a $1 hat in a game because you like the color pink.
You could say that the formation of plutocracies and the concentration of wealth and political influence is not an inherent trait in the system of unregulated or poorly regulated (think: regulatory capture) capitalism. [blah, blah blah]
It's farmville, dude.
The problem with microtransactions in games is they provide so many different ways to milk the customers. There are many more opportunities to do that with this arrangement than there would be with a flat monthly fee.
How does any of this have anything to do with what we're talking about? I still don't think microtransactions in shitty games are the same as dealing drugs.
Etc, etc, etc, etc.
I was referring to the buying part. There are lots of reasons people turn to addictive drugs, even beside addiction itself. Drug dealers prey on serious physiological and mental weaknesses. I don't think that's really the case with people that make video games, aside from capitalizing on people with mild impulse control problems... but you could say the same of someone that makes cupcakes.
The idea that they're the same seems absurd to me.
Well, except that it's wholly voluntary. I don't see a problem with it really, though I usually choose not to get in to things utilizing that model. With the genuinely nasty drugs, otoh, the seller leverages your addiction... where the buyer has less of a choice in the matter.
In short, Zynga can do whatever they want. I simply choose not to play their shitty games or give them any money. Same for console DLC that doesn't deliver significant value in addition to what I already bought.
I don't think you're missing anything. They're different. One is lack-of, one is contra.
It's very simple, really. If they don't have what you want to watch, don't subscribe.
Personally, the last thing I want is for Netflix to cave in and end up securing content the way cable companies secure content, such that I have to pay $80/mo to get the 3 tv shows I watch.
They're an alternative source of entertainment. If you want Starz content, go pay your cable company the $10/mo for Starz. I liked the Netflix service just fine before the Starz deal. The cost hasn't gone up for me, and I imagine I'll like it the same now.
Further...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell_replacement
I thought of this first too, though by the looks of it, it'd have to have gone through about a billion revs to get to this guy if its flight characteristics were the same.
I'd guess it's just a wing-like profile... it looks like a fixed shape. Though I loved the video on the original site... who decided to co-opt the original Airwolf theme music for their report.
Funny. I believe I heard a similar one once, about targeting communications infrastructure. To be interpreted as, you can shoot at his cellphone while he's using it. Any resulting deaths will be regarded as collateral damage.
I think he's talking about Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I'm pretty sure they reskinned that one so they could sell it in places where they couldn't normally.
Not only does AT&T require you to pay for tethering, if you had an old Cingular "unlimited data" plan, opting into tethering means you permanently relinquish your data plan for the new 2gb one. Even if you then cancel your tethering, you can never get your plan back.
True. Minor concessions will be made, AT&T will still plan to screw everyone in other ways, everyone at the DoJ will pat each other on the back for having done their due diligence and the thing will move forward. Real competition and common sense will lose, as usual.
Normally I'd say this, except that you expose people who can't get the vaccine (yet or ever). Or the people it doesn't work for. It's dangerous and irresponsible beyond just hurting your own kid.
That would happen here in the US too, where spammers are prosecuted and a bribe from a spammer to law enforcement would land everyone in jail. But we're off on an angry rant about something else for the moment. ;)
I went through a few, which were all awful. I do like PyCharm, but it is not free. I ended up buying it one day when they put it on sale because I decided it really was worth it to have a good, win & lin dev environment.