I think you're missing the distinction in how corporations vote. Sure they can't cast ballots. But they the can cast lots of bucks. That is far more powerful. They can either outright lobby a politician to go against his constituents, or through a blitz of adverts, cause the voters to act decidedly against their best interest.
You also realize that lefty/righty factions both have their own talking points for useful idiots, dittoheads, whatever condescending grouping you'd prefer to use. Really, dividing the country into halves over what boil down to imaginary issues, and conjuring up this massive distinction between voters is the real problem.
Partisan politics is something we'd be better off without. Any positive change that is attempted, will almost certainly have 50% of the population frothing at the mouth. And it's almost solely due to the D or R in parentheticals -- rather than the policy itself.
What do you suppose the impact of a strong dollar (Bretton-Woods) would have had on making imports cheaper though? Remember that Germany re-industrialized very quickly, and by the 1960's Japan was making cars as well.
Well partially, Japanese makers were able to externalize their health care costs and (caveat: AFAIK) pension/retirement costs by having a government that actually has a functional social safety net. They also greatly benefited from things like CAFE standards. (When the core of your business is SUV's and large sedans, CAFE disproportionately affects you, and forces you to create compliance models with shitty reliability.)
The US makers are coming around, I believe Ford and GM are now both profitable, and as of about 3-4 years ago matching or surpassing Toyota and Honda in terms of safety and reliability. (bias: I drive a Fusion)
The thing with manufacturing that people seem to gloss over is that because you are producing a tangible good from raw materials, you need infrastructure, suppliers, intermediate manufacturers for components (the auto industry in particular is an example of this.) Sure, blame GM/Ford/Chrysler for being mismanaged -- but when they go down, they take down a huge swath of other companies, industrial capacity, and an enormous amount of jobs.
An Italian viewing American pizza would probably have the same reaction as an American hipster going over your CD collection (seriously, any CD collection).
It wasn't always like that though. Blame globalism if you want; but in the post war years, DETROIT was the richest city in the United States. It did not get that way due to service industries and intellectual property creation. They took raw materials, and made cars. for profit. and did not pay slave wages. The rust belt was bedrock of the American middle class.
I do not buy the argument that manufacturers have to pay shit wages to stay competitive. I think that's an excuse to either inflate managerial / executive salaries; or cover up for failing to invest in increasing efficiency.
Or it's due to the rise of the MBA. Labor is simply an input, a cost to be minimized. There's knock-on effects to selling your workers out in order to slightly lower production costs -- and those goons didn't look at the bigger picture or what we'd lose -- a stable, well functioning, organized society (Look at Detroit/Flint/Gary in 2014)
(In before some libertarian blames government regulation for companies moving production offshore.)
Absolutely. Everyone's heard of these new fangled 'ereaders', but not necessarily had the interest in trying one. These non-adopters/non-curious people might be more caught up in the apparent novelty and newness, than what they're reading.
I bet you would have seen a similar effect from watching a documentary in black and white vs color right when color TV's started to supplant black and white.
Other confounding variables could include age; people who use kindles (or gadgets in general) would tend to be younger than non-users. Age related memory/recall is a pretty standard concept. (But the study referenced by TFA seem to have avoided this via focusing on teenagers -- which also brings to the table other potential issues; for example associations that they might have about reading on a screen (IE, paper = serious business; computer screen = facebook.)
That's the kind of thinking that led navies across the world to build dreadnaughts. which could be sunk by a couple of airplanes dropping torpedoes. Fusion in it's current configuration, and our current state of knowledge, sure it's a joke.
But, going with the airplane example; you're looking at the Wright Brother's first plane, and saying "nope, will never be useful, look at it, it can only fly 3 feet off the ground for a couple hundred yards". Solar panels 30-40 years ago were laughable as well mind you.
Knowledge has a way of building on itself in an exponential fashion. Once the first working (energy positive) reactor is built, you can bet it will be only a matter of months before that design gets improved upon by a thousand different scientists.
But yes, short-sighted people like yourself are what drive the issues in the US. If it doesn't go from drawing board to mature product instantaneously it's clearly a waste of time, effort, and money.
Yar, and i'm guessing here without actually looking it up, there are already harvesters/combines that are GPS guided. And after googling: Yup.
So we've got plants that since the 1960's are genetically altered (via splicing as well as breeding programmes) to grow shorter, develop more seeds, innate resistance to pests (grumble monsanto grumble grumble). Combines that literally drive themselves, fertilizer has been 'improved' (altered is maybe a better term?) to the point were god knows how much of it is is natural occurring vs petroleum based.
Products like this (while cool) are caught basically without a market. The mega farms which could use something like this, already have their own versions. The smaller farms, can't afford it.
And (yep, gonna get modded troll for this) we have a virtually unlimited supply of cheap labor from Mexico to do the grunt work.
Only applies to plebes. As a corporation with serious sounding people in positions like CEO, and names like "Mr. Steele" they are in fact exempt. Parasites that they are.
When you say 'high levels of mercury' are you sure you weren't confusing air pollution with printed page pollution?:) Not sure which is more dangerous to consume, best to avoid both
What part of NE Portland were you living in anyhow?
I'd love it if a nuke plant was built in my town. Would source a ton of decent paying jobs as well as bring some infrastructure improvements. But alas, Lane County (OR) is a designated "nuclear free zone". =/
Slashdot Mirror
Take a Penny? from the crippled children????
Yet we tolerated the russian version?
Ah gyms.. never give those bastards permission to auto-debit from your account. If there was a way to go cash only, it would be so nice.
I think you're missing the distinction in how corporations vote. Sure they can't cast ballots. But they the can cast lots of bucks. That is far more powerful. They can either outright lobby a politician to go against his constituents, or through a blitz of adverts, cause the voters to act decidedly against their best interest.
You also realize that lefty/righty factions both have their own talking points for useful idiots, dittoheads, whatever condescending grouping you'd prefer to use. Really, dividing the country into halves over what boil down to imaginary issues, and conjuring up this massive distinction between voters is the real problem.
Partisan politics is something we'd be better off without. Any positive change that is attempted, will almost certainly have 50% of the population frothing at the mouth. And it's almost solely due to the D or R in parentheticals -- rather than the policy itself.
What do you suppose the impact of a strong dollar (Bretton-Woods) would have had on making imports cheaper though? Remember that Germany re-industrialized very quickly, and by the 1960's Japan was making cars as well.
Well partially, Japanese makers were able to externalize their health care costs and (caveat: AFAIK) pension/retirement costs by having a government that actually has a functional social safety net. They also greatly benefited from things like CAFE standards. (When the core of your business is SUV's and large sedans, CAFE disproportionately affects you, and forces you to create compliance models with shitty reliability.)
The US makers are coming around, I believe Ford and GM are now both profitable, and as of about 3-4 years ago matching or surpassing Toyota and Honda in terms of safety and reliability. (bias: I drive a Fusion)
The thing with manufacturing that people seem to gloss over is that because you are producing a tangible good from raw materials, you need infrastructure, suppliers, intermediate manufacturers for components (the auto industry in particular is an example of this.) Sure, blame GM/Ford/Chrysler for being mismanaged -- but when they go down, they take down a huge swath of other companies, industrial capacity, and an enormous amount of jobs.
An Italian viewing American pizza would probably have the same reaction as an American hipster going over your CD collection (seriously, any CD collection).
It wasn't always like that though. Blame globalism if you want; but in the post war years, DETROIT was the richest city in the United States. It did not get that way due to service industries and intellectual property creation. They took raw materials, and made cars. for profit. and did not pay slave wages. The rust belt was bedrock of the American middle class.
I do not buy the argument that manufacturers have to pay shit wages to stay competitive. I think that's an excuse to either inflate managerial / executive salaries; or cover up for failing to invest in increasing efficiency.
Or it's due to the rise of the MBA. Labor is simply an input, a cost to be minimized. There's knock-on effects to selling your workers out in order to slightly lower production costs -- and those goons didn't look at the bigger picture or what we'd lose -- a stable, well functioning, organized society (Look at Detroit/Flint/Gary in 2014)
(In before some libertarian blames government regulation for companies moving production offshore.)
Ah Gotcha, had always assumed the Hugo award was relegated to just sci-fi. Thanks for setting me straight with a minimum of snark :)
I like GOT as much as the next nerdish type dude, but how is it sci-fi?
Facts and political debates never go well together.
Absolutely. Everyone's heard of these new fangled 'ereaders', but not necessarily had the interest in trying one. These non-adopters/non-curious people might be more caught up in the apparent novelty and newness, than what they're reading.
I bet you would have seen a similar effect from watching a documentary in black and white vs color right when color TV's started to supplant black and white.
Other confounding variables could include age; people who use kindles (or gadgets in general) would tend to be younger than non-users. Age related memory/recall is a pretty standard concept. (But the study referenced by TFA seem to have avoided this via focusing on teenagers -- which also brings to the table other potential issues; for example associations that they might have about reading on a screen (IE, paper = serious business; computer screen = facebook.)
Wait a second.. are you implying that i'm a nuclear shill?
Number of birds killed by oil spills?
Number of birds killed by air pollution?
Thanks California. Human impact of using coal fired plants? Nope, think of the children has been replaced by "think of the birds".
That's the kind of thinking that led navies across the world to build dreadnaughts. which could be sunk by a couple of airplanes dropping torpedoes.
Fusion in it's current configuration, and our current state of knowledge, sure it's a joke.
But, going with the airplane example; you're looking at the Wright Brother's first plane, and saying "nope, will never be useful, look at it, it can only fly 3 feet off the ground for a couple hundred yards". Solar panels 30-40 years ago were laughable as well mind you.
Knowledge has a way of building on itself in an exponential fashion. Once the first working (energy positive) reactor is built, you can bet it will be only a matter of months before that design gets improved upon by a thousand different scientists.
But yes, short-sighted people like yourself are what drive the issues in the US. If it doesn't go from drawing board to mature product instantaneously it's clearly a waste of time, effort, and money.
isn't that an h-bomb?
Do you know the first signs of a stroke? Seek medical assistance for yourself immediately.
Yeah, going the speed limit in certain areas will simply result in google cars getting shot at, or ran off the road.
IE, the 101 or I-17 in Phoenix. LOL@75mph. Unless there's a traffic jam of course.
Yar, and i'm guessing here without actually looking it up, there are already harvesters/combines that are GPS guided.
And after googling: Yup.
So we've got plants that since the 1960's are genetically altered (via splicing as well as breeding programmes) to grow shorter, develop more seeds, innate resistance to pests (grumble monsanto grumble grumble). Combines that literally drive themselves, fertilizer has been 'improved' (altered is maybe a better term?) to the point were god knows how much of it is is natural occurring vs petroleum based.
Products like this (while cool) are caught basically without a market. The mega farms which could use something like this, already have their own versions. The smaller farms, can't afford it.
And (yep, gonna get modded troll for this) we have a virtually unlimited supply of cheap labor from Mexico to do the grunt work.
how is that not an advertising slogan.. "New! Radioactive Horse Piss - The Thirst is Real! " (Pepsi makes some sick energy drinks brah!)
Only applies to plebes. As a corporation with serious sounding people in positions like CEO, and names like "Mr. Steele" they are in fact exempt. Parasites that they are.
When you say 'high levels of mercury' are you sure you weren't confusing air pollution with printed page pollution? :) Not sure which is more dangerous to consume, best to avoid both
What part of NE Portland were you living in anyhow?
Just slap a fucking Nike and/or Oregon Ducks logo on it, and Phil Knight will foot the bill.
Thank Jimmy Carter for that one.
I'd love it if a nuke plant was built in my town. Would source a ton of decent paying jobs as well as bring some infrastructure improvements. But alas, Lane County (OR) is a designated "nuclear free zone". =/