Another way to view it is that he is merely offering a service of identifying a market and moving the object to where the demand is.
That is called "brokering", a legitimate business activity: Connecting the lowest price supply to the highest price demand. It is actually a service to those who shop on Amazon, as it increases the availability of all books, which obviously, lowers the price as the supply is increased.
Capitalism is self-correcting over time in this way. It is one of the beautiful aspects of the system.
Because it rises the price of books for everyone else.
Why don't the stores simply use the same tools he uses? Yes, it would raise the price of the most popular books, but it may also let them know to lower the price of the less popular books, making themselves more equitable in pricing in a "supply vs. demand" manner.
Whether or not the person resells the book is of no consequence to the store, as they put it up for sale for a fixed amount, and the person is simply using an electronic tool to determine if that book is a good value or not. They are selling used books, meaning they buy used books. Are they going to require that you purchase for "reading only, no resales"? Otherwise, this is like going to Home Depot to buy an oven, and the sales agent says "You can't compare our prices to anyone else, either purchase or get the hell out", as again, it isn't their business what he does with the book AFTER he purchases it.
But are they spending time fixing the game, or their reputation? Politicians are famous for the latter (and Apple, as of late). The former requires a bit more thought and time.
Regardless, the point is that cell providers were never meant to be Internet providers.
If I want internet access at home, the cable company charges me around $40 extra.
If I want internet access on a cell, the cell company charges me around $40 extra.
At what point are cell providers NOT internet providers if they charge the same thing and claim to deliver the same thing? Will they have growing pains? Sure, and we can suck it up from time to time while they deal with things they couldn't have anticipated, but in the end, if they are going to walk like duck, and quack like a duck, then they should act like a duck.
We have a winner! I still prefer Texas BBQ, but there is a lot of great restaurants around here, and it is fairly peaceful, very cheap to live, and located nicely between metro areas.
That is the point that is missed by so many. Look, I'm all for openness, making love instead of war, legalizing everything and term limits. But jesus christ, there are people over there who are brothers and sons, sisters and daughters. A little discretion is more than warranted until we get them home. THEN release whatever the fuck you want. No reason to punish the soldiers with a death sentence just to prove a point.
I don't mean to write off bikes, but it simply isn't practical for most in the US, and yes, the vast majority of people. I used to bike to work, 3 miles each way, and did so for a couple years, way back in the 80s when I was a young man. Because I was broke. And to compare, Dell also has a plant here, but it is far enough from any serious residential areas and connected by major roads that would be dangerous to bike on. Of course, they are closing this plant, and they didn't have all those amenities.
North Carolina Triad (where I live) is so sprawled out, has very different zoning, making industries tend to be farther from residential areas (I know Tx zoning is more lax than in the east from being raised there). This alone isn't the issue, but it compounds it. My area has 1.6 million people, and almost NO downtown to speak of. It is one giant suburb, connected by I40, I85, Biz 85 (two different ones), Biz 40, I73, I74, 785/840 loop, plus several federal highways including 220 & 29. It is a major transporation hub (Fedex and UPS both have hubs here). It is not a good place to ride bikes. Bikers get in a lot of accidents here.
So yes, it would be nice, and if we have concentrated cities like NY or even Austin is, then it might be more practical. As it is, you can't drive a single mile in the central area without seeing homes. It is complete sprawl.
NC has a state income tax of something like 6-8%. I'll look somewhere else, thanks
We do have one of the highest overall tax rates in the USA, sales/income/etc. Skilled people can also get paid better than average and quality if life is quite high with lots of lakes, the ocean, mountains, universities, etc. I've lived in a dozen US states and was raised far from here, but like it here ok. And I've been working for the same company for over 15 years, so I think I will stay. But my jist of what I said still holds true, regardless of which state you live in.
And yes, Ashville is a beautiful place, we go up that way to gamble at the nearby casinos once or twice a year. Right now the leaves are changing, and it is a very busy place for tourism.
To add to your comment: The other problem is that when it comes to sex, parents have the talk. As in singular. It isn't a part of their regular conversation. We still have issues in the US that make people think it is "wrong" or "dirty" to talk to teenagers about their sexuality, how it is normal to have desires, what the consequences are, that they aren't freaks because they get horny. We are too busy telling them "just abstain", at the point in their lives when their hormones are raging, making them feel like they are doing something wrong by feeling that way. Until we get rid of the idea that sex is dirty, and understand it is a natural thing, we will have these issues.
If you let your kids learn about sexual behavior from watching TV, and that is the largest portion of their sexual relations exposure, well yes, they are going to be disadvantaged, they are more likely to get STDs and/or pregnant. Duh.
You're still working up to 40 hours per week extra with the commute and getting paid less for it.
No, I said it was comp time, I get paid the same year round, excepting quarterly bonuses, and I drive only 2-3 days a week during the slow times. During the busy time of year, it is only 10 hours per week or less, during the slow, only 4 or 5. The time I quoted included both to and from.
Biking/walking to work becomes out of the question
99% of people would never consider those two options except at the point of a gun, or out of poverty. The other 1%, ok, that is what they want, but in almost any major city, those are NOT options.
I'm not knocking the exurb thing -- to each his/her own. Just pointing out it that it has some unique drawbacks that aren't immediately apparent.
I get that, but I'm 45 and have lived in Dallas, Phoenix and several other smaller areas, and can tell you from experience that many, many people drive 30-60 minutes each way already, particularly if they live in a large metro area. I have not only thought out all the things that are not apparent, but I've lived them out. Many people commute 2-3 hours, EACH WAY, particularly in the NE USA. My point is for those of us that are more settled (30+), moving to the burbs or to small, bedroom communities outside of town is worthwhile, and even those towns need professionals. The idea of moving out of the city isn't a death sentence for someone's career.
Also, with a higher cost of living often comes a higher quality of living. That's very true for Austin, TX. A great city, but go 50 miles in any direction and you are in a bad place.
I gave up major traffic, noise, an HOA and urban hassles for a lake front home, for the same price. And yes, there is a limit you can drive and have it be worthwhile. As for the outskirts of Austin, there is plenty of nice rural area all around Austin. I was born and raised in Texas.
Three hours to get get ready? I'm up at 6am, out the door at 7am, at work before 8am. If I want to eat breakfast (usually don't) I just catch a quick bowl of instant oatmeal at the office.
And during 1/3 of the year, I work from 8am to 8pm, M-F, then phase into 8 hour days. For half of the year I work 8 hours, but only 2 or 3 days (comp. time). During the busy times, you cook on the weekend and freeze dinners and lunches. (I don't take a lunch hour, I just eat at my desk). But even working 12 hours, driving 2 hours, that leaves 10 hours, 7 of which is sleep. And usually 48 more on the weekend. A small price to pay to get to work 20 hours a week during the summer/fall, and have great views and country living all year long.
I'm pretty sure that the likelihood of his daughter becoming a sleaze is more related to how much time he spends helping her build confidence and esteem, than it is to how far they live from Chucky Cheese and a water park.
I live in the Piedmont Triad area of NC, (1.6 million people). I just moved south to a town of 20k people and commute to work instead, so I drive 1.5 to 2 hours per day total, vs..75 to 1.0 hour before the move. The cost of homes is about 25% cheaper. Restaurants are 25-35% cheaper, plentiful and less crowded. Most everything is cheaper, enough so to offset the additional gas.
If I could find a job here that paid somewhat less but I could drive to work in 10-15 minutes, then yes I would consider it in a skippy minute. I wouldn't want to live in a town of 20k people out in the middle of nowhere, but I'm still less than 30 minutes from downtown Winston-Salem (230k) or High Point (105k), less than 45 minutes to most of Greensboro (260k), and 1 hour from the Charlotte area (1.8 million) so every possible convenience is less than an hour away.
There are significant advantages to moving to a smaller town if you can find decent work, even if it doesn't pay as much. Or commute if it is reasonable. The cost of living is often cheap enough to offset the difference in pay, particularly when you consider the upper end of your tax bracket means that losing $10k in pay doesn't mean losing $10k of bring home pay. Maybe a single 21 year old male wouldn't make the move, but those of us married and over 30 (I'm over 40) see some advantages. Many people also like the idea of raising kids in a more rural setting, and a slower pace of life once you get home. As long as you are relatively close to the other city benefits, it is not as steep of a price as you might think.
If you have 4-5 different platforms with equal marketshare, malware authors need to invest significantly more to see the same level of returns..
Then you would likely see more attacks coming from common elements of those very different platforms, such as Flash, Acrobat, or other plug-ins that would have different code bases but similar designs on all platforms. Or Office, or via Javascript, or Java, or CSS or any other common element.
Someone pointed out above that part of the issue is that Linux users themselves tend to not just click and install executables as they tend to be more familiar with the workings of their system, and tend to be a little more paranoid. I don't see educating the world to be more security minded as a solution however, as it isn't practical. People view computers as appliances and that will never change if the majority of people are using them. You can only change the computer OS and applications themselves by having designs that are much more restrictive than they current are.
Web browser design is centered around making it very, very easy to develop applications that will run in a browser. And having more OS's with equal share would only serve to make this even more important. As long as that is the case, with browsers that act as virtual operating systems in their own right, you will have malware issues, because at their core, malware is just another application.
Like I said "in the open and on a level playing field". Enron's business wasn't in the open, and they operated to unlevel the playing field so they had a monopoly. If Congress sets limits on how much you can charge, or how much profit you can make (typical for utility regulation) then this wouldn't change anything, as they just pad their expenses with giant bonuses and questionable expenses. That is my point, that only regulation that opens the business up (assuming public companies) and insures that all companies big and small have relatively equal access to facilities, will help.
The problem is that a government "solution" is often like a shirt that is "one size fits all", in that no one is happy. There are so many interests lobbying in D.C., that most protection laws have gigantic loopholes, and companies often find loopholes where there are none. While it is obvious that congress needs to set some basic regulation, the biggest thing they could do to reduce abuse is to encourage competition and let the market place work the way it should, in the open and on a level playing field.
When deciding whether or not to get a hybrid, that's what matters
Well, yes and no. I drive 100 miles per day, almost all at 75MPH. The real question would be "what kind of mileage will I get in that circumstance". My understanding is that it will be much lower, having to do with range. Because it takes a lot more carbon/dollars to build a hybrid, and the maintenance is likely higher, it could actually have a lower return, higher carbon and higher cost than just getting a very fuel efficient car to begin with. What I drive now gets me 27MPG on the highway, which is respectable, although not particularly high. A Jetta or a Sonata, would get me 35+ for much less investment, with more room, less maintenance and complexity and requiring less energy to build to boot. My driving isn't typical, and people who mainly drive in town would benefit more. Driving 30K to 40K miles a year wears out a car pretty fast as well.
This is saying: "Have a lifelong childhood dream? Well, that dream belongs to us now, and it is only fair because money changed hands, and we bought and paid for that dream."
Thank god that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't accept sponsorships.
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Another way to view it is that he is merely offering a service of identifying a market and moving the object to where the demand is.
That is called "brokering", a legitimate business activity: Connecting the lowest price supply to the highest price demand. It is actually a service to those who shop on Amazon, as it increases the availability of all books, which obviously, lowers the price as the supply is increased.
Capitalism is self-correcting over time in this way. It is one of the beautiful aspects of the system.
Because it rises the price of books for everyone else.
Why don't the stores simply use the same tools he uses? Yes, it would raise the price of the most popular books, but it may also let them know to lower the price of the less popular books, making themselves more equitable in pricing in a "supply vs. demand" manner.
Whether or not the person resells the book is of no consequence to the store, as they put it up for sale for a fixed amount, and the person is simply using an electronic tool to determine if that book is a good value or not. They are selling used books, meaning they buy used books. Are they going to require that you purchase for "reading only, no resales"? Otherwise, this is like going to Home Depot to buy an oven, and the sales agent says "You can't compare our prices to anyone else, either purchase or get the hell out", as again, it isn't their business what he does with the book AFTER he purchases it.
But are they spending time fixing the game, or their reputation? Politicians are famous for the latter (and Apple, as of late). The former requires a bit more thought and time.
Regardless, the point is that cell providers were never meant to be Internet providers.
If I want internet access at home, the cable company charges me around $40 extra.
If I want internet access on a cell, the cell company charges me around $40 extra.
At what point are cell providers NOT internet providers if they charge the same thing and claim to deliver the same thing? Will they have growing pains? Sure, and we can suck it up from time to time while they deal with things they couldn't have anticipated, but in the end, if they are going to walk like duck, and quack like a duck, then they should act like a duck.
We have a winner! I still prefer Texas BBQ, but there is a lot of great restaurants around here, and it is fairly peaceful, very cheap to live, and located nicely between metro areas.
because it could put lives in danger?
That is the point that is missed by so many. Look, I'm all for openness, making love instead of war, legalizing everything and term limits. But jesus christ, there are people over there who are brothers and sons, sisters and daughters. A little discretion is more than warranted until we get them home. THEN release whatever the fuck you want. No reason to punish the soldiers with a death sentence just to prove a point.
... I don't get it.
It's a pun, youngster, now get off my lawn.
I don't mean to write off bikes, but it simply isn't practical for most in the US, and yes, the vast majority of people. I used to bike to work, 3 miles each way, and did so for a couple years, way back in the 80s when I was a young man. Because I was broke. And to compare, Dell also has a plant here, but it is far enough from any serious residential areas and connected by major roads that would be dangerous to bike on. Of course, they are closing this plant, and they didn't have all those amenities.
North Carolina Triad (where I live) is so sprawled out, has very different zoning, making industries tend to be farther from residential areas (I know Tx zoning is more lax than in the east from being raised there). This alone isn't the issue, but it compounds it. My area has 1.6 million people, and almost NO downtown to speak of. It is one giant suburb, connected by I40, I85, Biz 85 (two different ones), Biz 40, I73, I74, 785/840 loop, plus several federal highways including 220 & 29. It is a major transporation hub (Fedex and UPS both have hubs here). It is not a good place to ride bikes. Bikers get in a lot of accidents here.
So yes, it would be nice, and if we have concentrated cities like NY or even Austin is, then it might be more practical. As it is, you can't drive a single mile in the central area without seeing homes. It is complete sprawl.
NC has a state income tax of something like 6-8%. I'll look somewhere else, thanks
We do have one of the highest overall tax rates in the USA, sales/income/etc. Skilled people can also get paid better than average and quality if life is quite high with lots of lakes, the ocean, mountains, universities, etc. I've lived in a dozen US states and was raised far from here, but like it here ok. And I've been working for the same company for over 15 years, so I think I will stay. But my jist of what I said still holds true, regardless of which state you live in.
And yes, Ashville is a beautiful place, we go up that way to gamble at the nearby casinos once or twice a year. Right now the leaves are changing, and it is a very busy place for tourism.
More people die in car accidents than by guns. Is GM killing off car nuts?
I don't think I would be doing the San Antonio to Austin commute, just because of traffic. And by the way, I really miss Stubbs. :)
To add to your comment: The other problem is that when it comes to sex, parents have the talk. As in singular. It isn't a part of their regular conversation. We still have issues in the US that make people think it is "wrong" or "dirty" to talk to teenagers about their sexuality, how it is normal to have desires, what the consequences are, that they aren't freaks because they get horny. We are too busy telling them "just abstain", at the point in their lives when their hormones are raging, making them feel like they are doing something wrong by feeling that way. Until we get rid of the idea that sex is dirty, and understand it is a natural thing, we will have these issues.
If you let your kids learn about sexual behavior from watching TV, and that is the largest portion of their sexual relations exposure, well yes, they are going to be disadvantaged, they are more likely to get STDs and/or pregnant. Duh.
You're still working up to 40 hours per week extra with the commute and getting paid less for it.
No, I said it was comp time, I get paid the same year round, excepting quarterly bonuses, and I drive only 2-3 days a week during the slow times. During the busy time of year, it is only 10 hours per week or less, during the slow, only 4 or 5. The time I quoted included both to and from.
Biking/walking to work becomes out of the question
99% of people would never consider those two options except at the point of a gun, or out of poverty. The other 1%, ok, that is what they want, but in almost any major city, those are NOT options.
I'm not knocking the exurb thing -- to each his/her own. Just pointing out it that it has some unique drawbacks that aren't immediately apparent.
I get that, but I'm 45 and have lived in Dallas, Phoenix and several other smaller areas, and can tell you from experience that many, many people drive 30-60 minutes each way already, particularly if they live in a large metro area. I have not only thought out all the things that are not apparent, but I've lived them out. Many people commute 2-3 hours, EACH WAY, particularly in the NE USA. My point is for those of us that are more settled (30+), moving to the burbs or to small, bedroom communities outside of town is worthwhile, and even those towns need professionals. The idea of moving out of the city isn't a death sentence for someone's career.
Some things just aren't worth it....
Also, with a higher cost of living often comes a higher quality of living. That's very true for Austin, TX. A great city, but go 50 miles in any direction and you are in a bad place.
I gave up major traffic, noise, an HOA and urban hassles for a lake front home, for the same price. And yes, there is a limit you can drive and have it be worthwhile. As for the outskirts of Austin, there is plenty of nice rural area all around Austin. I was born and raised in Texas.
Three hours to get get ready? I'm up at 6am, out the door at 7am, at work before 8am. If I want to eat breakfast (usually don't) I just catch a quick bowl of instant oatmeal at the office.
And during 1/3 of the year, I work from 8am to 8pm, M-F, then phase into 8 hour days. For half of the year I work 8 hours, but only 2 or 3 days (comp. time). During the busy times, you cook on the weekend and freeze dinners and lunches. (I don't take a lunch hour, I just eat at my desk). But even working 12 hours, driving 2 hours, that leaves 10 hours, 7 of which is sleep. And usually 48 more on the weekend. A small price to pay to get to work 20 hours a week during the summer/fall, and have great views and country living all year long.
I'm pretty sure that the likelihood of his daughter becoming a sleaze is more related to how much time he spends helping her build confidence and esteem, than it is to how far they live from Chucky Cheese and a water park.
I live in the Piedmont Triad area of NC, (1.6 million people). I just moved south to a town of 20k people and commute to work instead, so I drive 1.5 to 2 hours per day total, vs. .75 to 1.0 hour before the move. The cost of homes is about 25% cheaper. Restaurants are 25-35% cheaper, plentiful and less crowded. Most everything is cheaper, enough so to offset the additional gas.
If I could find a job here that paid somewhat less but I could drive to work in 10-15 minutes, then yes I would consider it in a skippy minute. I wouldn't want to live in a town of 20k people out in the middle of nowhere, but I'm still less than 30 minutes from downtown Winston-Salem (230k) or High Point (105k), less than 45 minutes to most of Greensboro (260k), and 1 hour from the Charlotte area (1.8 million) so every possible convenience is less than an hour away.
There are significant advantages to moving to a smaller town if you can find decent work, even if it doesn't pay as much. Or commute if it is reasonable. The cost of living is often cheap enough to offset the difference in pay, particularly when you consider the upper end of your tax bracket means that losing $10k in pay doesn't mean losing $10k of bring home pay. Maybe a single 21 year old male wouldn't make the move, but those of us married and over 30 (I'm over 40) see some advantages. Many people also like the idea of raising kids in a more rural setting, and a slower pace of life once you get home. As long as you are relatively close to the other city benefits, it is not as steep of a price as you might think.
If you have 4-5 different platforms with equal marketshare, malware authors need to invest significantly more to see the same level of returns..
Then you would likely see more attacks coming from common elements of those very different platforms, such as Flash, Acrobat, or other plug-ins that would have different code bases but similar designs on all platforms. Or Office, or via Javascript, or Java, or CSS or any other common element.
Someone pointed out above that part of the issue is that Linux users themselves tend to not just click and install executables as they tend to be more familiar with the workings of their system, and tend to be a little more paranoid. I don't see educating the world to be more security minded as a solution however, as it isn't practical. People view computers as appliances and that will never change if the majority of people are using them. You can only change the computer OS and applications themselves by having designs that are much more restrictive than they current are.
Web browser design is centered around making it very, very easy to develop applications that will run in a browser. And having more OS's with equal share would only serve to make this even more important. As long as that is the case, with browsers that act as virtual operating systems in their own right, you will have malware issues, because at their core, malware is just another application.
If you don't like the way it is, (I guess you want music to be inherently free?)
I don't pirate music, I just don't want commercial businesses actively involved in policing copyrights. It is that simple.
I think his point is that Google still believes in the motto "Do no evil", unless the pay is really good.
It's kind of like in Animal Farm, whereby the rule "No animal shall sleep in a bed" was modified by the pigs to add "with sheets".
Like I said "in the open and on a level playing field". Enron's business wasn't in the open, and they operated to unlevel the playing field so they had a monopoly. If Congress sets limits on how much you can charge, or how much profit you can make (typical for utility regulation) then this wouldn't change anything, as they just pad their expenses with giant bonuses and questionable expenses. That is my point, that only regulation that opens the business up (assuming public companies) and insures that all companies big and small have relatively equal access to facilities, will help.
The problem is that a government "solution" is often like a shirt that is "one size fits all", in that no one is happy. There are so many interests lobbying in D.C., that most protection laws have gigantic loopholes, and companies often find loopholes where there are none. While it is obvious that congress needs to set some basic regulation, the biggest thing they could do to reduce abuse is to encourage competition and let the market place work the way it should, in the open and on a level playing field.
When deciding whether or not to get a hybrid, that's what matters
Well, yes and no. I drive 100 miles per day, almost all at 75MPH. The real question would be "what kind of mileage will I get in that circumstance". My understanding is that it will be much lower, having to do with range. Because it takes a lot more carbon/dollars to build a hybrid, and the maintenance is likely higher, it could actually have a lower return, higher carbon and higher cost than just getting a very fuel efficient car to begin with. What I drive now gets me 27MPG on the highway, which is respectable, although not particularly high. A Jetta or a Sonata, would get me 35+ for much less investment, with more room, less maintenance and complexity and requiring less energy to build to boot. My driving isn't typical, and people who mainly drive in town would benefit more. Driving 30K to 40K miles a year wears out a car pretty fast as well.
You must be old here. Anyone new would assume it has always been this way.
This is saying: "Have a lifelong childhood dream? Well, that dream belongs to us now, and it is only fair because money changed hands, and we bought and paid for that dream."
Thank god that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't accept sponsorships.