If the purpose of the tax is to represent the external costs of consumption - for example, paving the roads, monitoring air quality, providing life support to children with asthma, oppressive wars against a few Oil countries to ensure that no oil countries git restless... Tax breaks for massively profitable oil companies.
Then those taxes are a legitimate component of the true costs of consumption.
The reason your Average American drives so far, doesn't have public trans, and lives 20 miles from work, the wallmart, the church, and the football is because the government forces them to pay for fuel whether used or not. That is what subsidies do, the force the cost of commodities equally on consumers and non-consumers.
Life in Europe is not negatively impacted by living closer to work, stores, and each other. On the contrary, it is more human, more social, and more healthy and better for the environment and world peace. The decisions encouraged by gas subsidies are anti-life across the board.
(I have lived in both Europe and the US - I don't own a car in Europe, in the US I own 2)
P.S. We vote for Huckabee - I'm not sure we ain't stupid.
It's true that the US could sacrifice a commodity here or there to poaching, but it's a slippery slope problem, do you permit some, and then say - that's enough? no, you fight against the tide of dumping at the first turn.
The US has decent farmlands, but labor is problematic (most is illegal now), and Brazil has presumably very low standards for labor (Think Chavez?). If we didn't protect farmers from under-regulated markets, we couldn't sustain the additional costs of post-chavez labor reforms.
The ramble on IP is an op-ed, I'm sure many share your opinions; however, I'm a little unconvinced that IP isn't as important as you suggest. I think it is work in the same way that sewing jeans is work, and deserves not to be stolen. I am suggesting that an economy which trades in tangible goods, while "stealing" or otherwise free-riding less-tangible goods rather than participate in the free-flow of currency is "Hoarding" in the most classic meaning of the term, and this creates a moral dilemma which bears consideration.
Suggesting that someone doesn't "understand" economics presumes hubrusly that anyone does; economies, like weather patterns are chaotic at best, and no two persons agree on their full and complete function.
There are negative externalities to importing crops; most specifically an unhealthy reliance on foreign food, if we stop practicing the art of farming in the US - I shouldn't even have to explain this. Very few things are as important to a society as food and water. So we protect farmers - yes it's probably wasteful, nepotistic, and socialistic. I worry that those who perform badly are being encouraged to fail because we so often bail them out, but on the whole its difficult to argue the empirical value of domestic food production. Even if Chinese food were cheaper, permitting it to come in would drive domestic production out, and where would quality be then? who pays for the poisoning health care? Those who bought cheap - or everyone?
I didn't give you BS about job loss, I gave you BS about food security.
RE "Barter" I mean a balanced trade. If they don't want our products, then trade deficients create a conundrum - most probably the world is stealing or free-riding from the US economy - effectively taking services and hoarding dollars which the US pays for goods. Services include World Peace, Entertainment IP, Computer IP, and Medicinal IP. If China were to pay for the IP it consumes from the US, I suspect trade balance would be far more balanced.
No, the point is that Europe has reacted to higher costs by reducing consumption.
You're more wrong than right to point out that Europe hasn't responded by producing a very specific solution at your command.
Europe is not a command economy, in respect to energy it may even be a LESS socialistic economy - which opens a very interesting discussion.
If you place the US - with its Universal Gasoline Plan and largely private pay-as-you-go Health care system, next to Europe with its Universal Health Care and pay-at-the-pump fuel system, it begins to explain the concentration of innovation in bot economies. We tend to innovate in health-care, while our energy and transportation sectors are third-world; while Europe has a largely second-rate health-care reputation - but many more leading energy companies and public transportation manufacturers.
AIK
next to Europes more of subsidized pump prices in a continuum with Europe
Only a small part of the European Urban Transportation systems predate the industrial revolution, or more particularly, they advent of the automobile.
Subways, trams, and electric trains are all recent adaptations.
1. You have subways because they are an excellent hedge against cold weather. (and perhaps nuclear war according to FSU) 2. Uncosting or subsidizing a resource doesn't lower its cost, it merely moves the cost in odd ways, for example, a person riding a bicycle to work in the US will end up paying for fuel even though they aren't using any - because certain fuel costs are folded into the general tax. 3. In Europe, Bicyclists are fully entitled to the fuel savings they incur. 4. Subsidization is a means of robbing consumers of the savings they could realize by being efficient. 5. The real costs of living in a city, even in the US, may well be less, but the US taxes efficient living by subsidizing consumption and obesity.
Gasoline is $8 in England (and much of Europe) which is why they: 1. Have great trains, buses, trams & subways, walkways, pedestrian bridges and tunnels and bicyclists. 2. Less issue with obesity. 3. Neighborhood grocery stores. 4. Neighbors they meet regularly at Neighborhood stores. 5. About half the energy consumption per person.
Sugar is more difficult to grow in the US, I know this first-hand having grown-up in a sugar beet blighted town. IIRC, Brazil had ideal growing conditions for Sugar.
I'm not sure whether "tariffs" raise the price, or allocate the negative externalities of trade deficients correctly. Clearly, if Brazil were willing to accept products in exchange for Sugar, we might be more willing to import.
On the contrary, Anyone who didn't see this coming hasn't been very acute.
1. Corn Farmers in Red States suddenly get "Green" and ask for "Subsidies". Where have I heard that before. 2. There isn't enough water in the world for people to drink, but suddenly there's enough to grow fuel for Hummers?
This is an example of government picking winners. "Farmers" get extra votes in Washington (electoral college thing), so as soon as "Farmers" could benefit from a scientific theory, the theory get tested in the political arena, rather than peer review.
In RE conventions, I've never seen the tough questions on BioFuels answered - particulalry corn.
As for Sugar Cane, We once grew cane in Spreckles, Ca. got hit by blight, and hasn't been grown in 30 years or more. Again, I think the US doesn't have the climate and water for SugarCane-to-oil. Sugar's pretty valuable relative to corn, so the economics aren't as favorable. The reason "high-fructose corn syrup" is used is because sugar cane is more difficult to grow.
Brazil may have a operating vehicle for every 6 people averaging 6K miles per year, and a family for every 20 acres in a tropical climate; trying to power the US from Sugar cane, simply because a developing economy can do it, is not good math. While I don't have the particulars, I'm reasonably sure the energy consumption per capita isn't within an order of magnitude of the US.
Fine for ordinary letters, but an Important point, in this country, is open courts and due process, anytime someone can use a "secret process" to bring the awesome power of the state to bear upon the individual, we Americans tend to get edgy - largely because of our historic experience with Victorian England. I've seen secret justice, and it is never very pretty.
The whole concept of copyright attacks the openness of legal proceedings, as you say, the courts would not be permitted to file such a document in a record which is subject to copying. "Copyright" as it applies to court proceedings is called "Under Seal", and is issued, not by the authoring party, but by a judge.
The right decision in this case, is to offer the party a hearing on the question of "Sealed Process", but to deny the right to effectively seal a process which has not been sealed by a neutral third party (judge).
This is such a poor decision, the judge should be terminated...
Technically, cease and desist letters - "are" - part of due process. By definition, the power of a C&D letter is the rights which they bring to a later copyright infringement suit. In summary, IIRC, "Malice" can be implied where a C&D letter has been sent and ignored, this allows for "Punitive" damages in addition to "Real" damages.
The penalty for "privatizing" a document is that it cannot be made part of a "Due Process" which the constitution requires to be open. Only a judge can "Seal" official court documents.
If they want a "secret justice process" they should get a prior restraining order sealing the process, but they need meaningful cause.
This decision should be overturned. more specifically, the company should get a ruling that a "secret demand" is inconsistent with due process, and therefore constitutes an "unlawful threat".
The great tradition of law in the west is openness. If Rosa Parks cannot tell anyone she was thrown off a bus for sitting, there could be no Birmingham bus boycott.
In a very real sense, the attempt here is to throw someone off the bus, while avoiding the public outrage at the injustice. This is the worst ruling I've heard of this morning.
... he says, stepping boldly into the irony that MsDonald's coffee consistently rates higher than Starbucks in bat-blind taste tests, guano notwithstanding...
You do make some good points. And in many respects, you've outlined the fix schedule for.net
I didn't paint lines very often, and I didn't have direct file access very often, so these things didn't adversely affect my experience.
Your point about Delphi being a better platform is well taken, and I'd like to hear some ideas on why the uptake of Delphi was so comparatively sluggish. I suspect it was more costly, and so discouraged early adopters and educational experiences.
But I think you've failed to account for the possibility that many VB-firsters may have gone on to become excellent programmers, and created systems that have honestly improved the quality of life for real people.
I don't deny that VB programmers are self-selected to be closer to the beginning of their profeciency curve than towards the end, But I am suggesting that VB is a large pool, and quite likely has contributed to at least the training of a good number of decent programers.
I suggest that your criticisms may be misplaced, surely VB doesn't PREVENT good naming conventions, it merely permits those proficient in English to be at least modestly proficient in Silicon.
Again, each of your criticisms of VB ring as criticisms of other languages for being fundamentally more difficult to learn.
I suggest that VB has proven to be the gateway drug for a larger percentage of programmers than any other language, and in that respect, you may owe more credit to VB than you seem prepared to admit, for a plethora of the software which makes your life better today. Who knows how many bank-loan softwares have lowered the cost of buying a home, or health-insurance applets which have provided additional coverage to more sick people as a result of some programmer starting out with VB and making the world a better place, as a direct consequence.
VB was the first language which offered RAD - while at the same time offering the technical breadth and reach of 3rd-party add-ons and access to the Windows API.
The language is absent the jargon-punctuation cruft of c {};
And instead closely follows a language with worldwide recognition.
In some respects c can be compared to latin, or perhaps better to esperanto, which is a contrived language which doesn't resonate with any significant population from birth.
VB, on the other hand, recognizes and embraces the symbolic similarities between branching in code, and branching in languages. It turns out that the advantage of shadowing a natural language are born out in adoption rates and learning curves.
I agree, that VB6 had some issues, limitations etc, but notwithstanding the pain of starting over in.Net - The benefits of natural language, and minimal punctuation will continue to accelerate learning of VB over contrived syntaxes.
- Again, I am impressed, and you should be as well, that 168-form VB apps could even be written by people who are obviously ill-equipped to produce similar software in any other language. This feat must, at some level, be taken as a complement of the degree to which VB has papered-over a great deal of the complexity of code-writing. I suggest it is a criticism that java, ruby, or perl, hasn't been nearly as effective in bringing systems-design to a broader audience.
I think you are criticizing an organic process for choosing the path of least resistance.
Futile and somewhat incompletely informed spring to mind.
VB is successful because most of the potential applications for computers are not terribly time or resource constrained, most applications are cost-of-development constrained. VB is chosen because it consistently provides the path of least resistance to the first deliverable result, and executives will always bet on the horse that makes it to the first turn - first.
I'm suggesting these executives are not silly - they realize that in the rare case that a software becomes truly important, they will invest in an upgrade - but they avoid the upgrade costs on all the other trial balloons that fill the long spans between truly-imperative-software.
In any cases, engineers who race to the first pole, do so because it keeps them employed, and that ain't so silly either. Criticizing a platform for being popular is what is silly in my humble opinion.
I suspect these are the conditions under which the "buoyancy of a 100TB datacenter" becomes important. I'm fairly certain the ship will have "remote scuttling capabilities" , and seawater is perhaps the perfect erasing mechanism for touchy data.
Slashdot Mirror
If the purpose of the tax is to represent the external costs of consumption - for example, paving the roads, monitoring air quality, providing life support to children with asthma, oppressive wars against a few Oil countries to ensure that no oil countries git restless... Tax breaks for massively profitable oil companies.
Then those taxes are a legitimate component of the true costs of consumption.
The reason your Average American drives so far, doesn't have public trans, and lives 20 miles from work, the wallmart, the church, and the football is because the government forces them to pay for fuel whether used or not. That is what subsidies do, the force the cost of commodities equally on consumers and non-consumers.
Life in Europe is not negatively impacted by living closer to work, stores, and each other. On the contrary, it is more human, more social, and more healthy and better for the environment and world peace. The decisions encouraged by gas subsidies are anti-life across the board.
(I have lived in both Europe and the US - I don't own a car in Europe, in the US I own 2)
P.S. We vote for Huckabee - I'm not sure we ain't stupid.
It's true that the US could sacrifice a commodity here or there to poaching, but it's a slippery slope problem, do you permit some, and then say - that's enough? no, you fight against the tide of dumping at the first turn.
The US has decent farmlands, but labor is problematic (most is illegal now), and Brazil has presumably very low standards for labor (Think Chavez?). If we didn't protect farmers from under-regulated markets, we couldn't sustain the additional costs of post-chavez labor reforms.
The ramble on IP is an op-ed, I'm sure many share your opinions; however, I'm a little unconvinced that IP isn't as important as you suggest. I think it is work in the same way that sewing jeans is work, and deserves not to be stolen. I am suggesting that an economy which trades in tangible goods, while "stealing" or otherwise free-riding less-tangible goods rather than participate in the free-flow of currency is "Hoarding" in the most classic meaning of the term, and this creates a moral dilemma which bears consideration.
AIK
Get a decent Template
Google "Web Template" then add your tech of choice, php, asp, flash etc
Suggesting that someone doesn't "understand" economics presumes hubrusly that anyone does; economies, like weather patterns are chaotic at best, and no two persons agree on their full and complete function.
There are negative externalities to importing crops; most specifically an unhealthy reliance on foreign food, if we stop practicing the art of farming in the US - I shouldn't even have to explain this. Very few things are as important to a society as food and water. So we protect farmers - yes it's probably wasteful, nepotistic, and socialistic. I worry that those who perform badly are being encouraged to fail because we so often bail them out, but on the whole its difficult to argue the empirical value of domestic food production. Even if Chinese food were cheaper, permitting it to come in would drive domestic production out, and where would quality be then? who pays for the poisoning health care? Those who bought cheap - or everyone?
I didn't give you BS about job loss, I gave you BS about food security.
RE "Barter" I mean a balanced trade. If they don't want our products, then trade deficients create a conundrum - most probably the world is stealing or free-riding from the US economy - effectively taking services and hoarding dollars which the US pays for goods. Services include World Peace, Entertainment IP, Computer IP, and Medicinal IP. If China were to pay for the IP it consumes from the US, I suspect trade balance would be far more balanced.
AIK
No, the point is that Europe has reacted to higher costs by reducing consumption.
You're more wrong than right to point out that Europe hasn't responded by producing a very specific solution at your command.
Europe is not a command economy, in respect to energy it may even be a LESS socialistic economy - which opens a very interesting discussion.
If you place the US - with its Universal Gasoline Plan and largely private pay-as-you-go Health care system, next to Europe with its Universal Health Care and pay-at-the-pump fuel system, it begins to explain the concentration of innovation in bot economies. We tend to innovate in health-care, while our energy and transportation sectors are third-world; while Europe has a largely second-rate health-care reputation - but many more leading energy companies and public transportation manufacturers.
AIK
next to Europes more of subsidized pump prices in a continuum with Europe
Only a small part of the European Urban Transportation systems predate the industrial revolution, or more particularly, they advent of the automobile.
Subways, trams, and electric trains are all recent adaptations.
1. You have subways because they are an excellent hedge against cold weather. (and perhaps nuclear war according to FSU)
2. Uncosting or subsidizing a resource doesn't lower its cost, it merely moves the cost in odd ways, for example, a person riding a bicycle to work in the US will end up paying for fuel even though they aren't using any - because certain fuel costs are folded into the general tax.
3. In Europe, Bicyclists are fully entitled to the fuel savings they incur.
4. Subsidization is a means of robbing consumers of the savings they could realize by being efficient.
5. The real costs of living in a city, even in the US, may well be less, but the US taxes efficient living by subsidizing consumption and obesity.
Poor comment.
Gasoline is $8 in England (and much of Europe) which is why they:
1. Have great trains, buses, trams & subways, walkways, pedestrian bridges and tunnels and bicyclists.
2. Less issue with obesity.
3. Neighborhood grocery stores.
4. Neighbors they meet regularly at Neighborhood stores.
5. About half the energy consumption per person.
Sugar is more difficult to grow in the US, I know this first-hand having grown-up in a sugar beet blighted town.
IIRC, Brazil had ideal growing conditions for Sugar.
I'm not sure whether "tariffs" raise the price, or allocate the negative externalities of trade deficients correctly.
Clearly, if Brazil were willing to accept products in exchange for Sugar, we might be more willing to import.
(Insert Subsidy Farming Para Here)
AIK
On the contrary,
Anyone who didn't see this coming hasn't been very acute.
1. Corn Farmers in Red States suddenly get "Green" and ask for "Subsidies". Where have I heard that before.
2. There isn't enough water in the world for people to drink, but suddenly there's enough to grow fuel for Hummers?
This is an example of government picking winners. "Farmers" get extra votes in Washington (electoral college thing), so as soon as "Farmers" could benefit from a scientific theory, the theory get tested in the political arena, rather than peer review.
In RE conventions, I've never seen the tough questions on BioFuels answered - particulalry corn.
As for Sugar Cane, We once grew cane in Spreckles, Ca. got hit by blight, and hasn't been grown in 30 years or more. Again, I think the US doesn't have the climate and water for SugarCane-to-oil. Sugar's pretty valuable relative to corn, so the economics aren't as favorable. The reason "high-fructose corn syrup" is used is because sugar cane is more difficult to grow.
Brazil may have a operating vehicle for every 6 people averaging 6K miles per year, and a family for every 20 acres in a tropical climate; trying to power the US from Sugar cane, simply because a developing economy can do it, is not good math. While I don't have the particulars, I'm reasonably sure the energy consumption per capita isn't within an order of magnitude of the US.
Fine for ordinary letters, but an Important point, in this country, is open courts and due process, anytime someone can use a "secret process" to bring the awesome power of the state to bear upon the individual, we Americans tend to get edgy - largely because of our historic experience with Victorian England. I've seen secret justice, and it is never very pretty.
AIK
The whole concept of copyright attacks the openness of legal proceedings, as you say, the courts would not be permitted to file such a document in a record which is subject to copying.
...
"Copyright" as it applies to court proceedings is called "Under Seal", and is issued, not by the authoring party, but by a judge.
The right decision in this case, is to offer the party a hearing on the question of "Sealed Process", but to deny the right to effectively seal a process which has not been sealed by a neutral third party (judge).
This is such a poor decision, the judge should be terminated
AIK
Technically, cease and desist letters - "are" - part of due process.
By definition, the power of a C&D letter is the rights which they bring to a later copyright infringement suit.
In summary, IIRC, "Malice" can be implied where a C&D letter has been sent and ignored, this allows for "Punitive" damages in addition to "Real" damages.
This is also my thinking.
The penalty for "privatizing" a document is that it cannot be made part of a "Due Process" which the constitution requires to be open.
Only a judge can "Seal" official court documents.
If they want a "secret justice process" they should get a prior restraining order sealing the process, but they need meaningful cause.
This decision should be overturned. more specifically, the company should get a ruling that a "secret demand" is inconsistent with due process, and therefore constitutes an "unlawful threat".
The great tradition of law in the west is openness. If Rosa Parks cannot tell anyone she was thrown off a bus for sitting, there could be no Birmingham bus boycott.
In a very real sense, the attempt here is to throw someone off the bus, while avoiding the public outrage at the injustice.
This is the worst ruling I've heard of this morning.
AIK
Right, cause those guys will stop spying on MLK on a dime and go check out real threats?
yeah, like in what Universe?
AIK
... he says, stepping boldly into the irony that MsDonald's coffee consistently rates higher than Starbucks in bat-blind taste tests, guano notwithstanding...
You do make some good points. .net
And in many respects, you've outlined the fix schedule for
I didn't paint lines very often,
and I didn't have direct file access very often, so these things didn't adversely affect my experience.
Your point about Delphi being a better platform is well taken, and I'd like to hear some ideas on why the uptake of Delphi was so comparatively sluggish.
I suspect it was more costly, and so discouraged early adopters and educational experiences.
AIK
So I expect to see the "legal" runners in bare feet from now on.
But I think you've failed to account for the possibility that many VB-firsters may have gone on to become excellent programmers, and created systems that have honestly improved the quality of life for real people.
I don't deny that VB programmers are self-selected to be closer to the beginning of their profeciency curve than towards the end, But I am suggesting that VB is a large pool, and quite likely has contributed to at least the training of a good number of decent programers.
AIK
I suggest that your criticisms may be misplaced, surely VB doesn't PREVENT good naming conventions, it merely permits those proficient in English to be at least modestly proficient in Silicon.
Again, each of your criticisms of VB ring as criticisms of other languages for being fundamentally more difficult to learn.
I suggest that VB has proven to be the gateway drug for a larger percentage of programmers than any other language, and in that respect, you may owe more credit to VB than you seem prepared to admit, for a plethora of the software which makes your life better today. Who knows how many bank-loan softwares have lowered the cost of buying a home, or health-insurance applets which have provided additional coverage to more sick people as a result of some programmer starting out with VB and making the world a better place, as a direct consequence.
Viva natural language programming...
AIK
VB was the first language which offered RAD - while at the same time offering the technical breadth and reach of 3rd-party add-ons and access to the Windows API.
.Net - The benefits of natural language, and minimal punctuation will continue to accelerate learning of VB over contrived syntaxes.
The language is absent the jargon-punctuation cruft of c {};
And instead closely follows a language with worldwide recognition.
In some respects c can be compared to latin, or perhaps better to esperanto, which is a contrived language which doesn't resonate with any significant population from birth.
VB, on the other hand, recognizes and embraces the symbolic similarities between branching in code, and branching in languages. It turns out that the advantage of shadowing a natural language are born out in adoption rates and learning curves.
I agree, that VB6 had some issues, limitations etc, but notwithstanding the pain of starting over in
- Again, I am impressed, and you should be as well, that 168-form VB apps could even be written by people who are obviously ill-equipped to produce similar software in any other language. This feat must, at some level, be taken as a complement of the degree to which VB has papered-over a great deal of the complexity of code-writing. I suggest it is a criticism that java, ruby, or perl, hasn't been nearly as effective in bringing systems-design to a broader audience.
AIK
I think you are criticizing an organic process for choosing the path of least resistance.
Futile and somewhat incompletely informed spring to mind.
VB is successful because most of the potential applications for computers are not terribly time or resource constrained, most applications are cost-of-development constrained. VB is chosen because it consistently provides the path of least resistance to the first deliverable result, and executives will always bet on the horse that makes it to the first turn - first.
I'm suggesting these executives are not silly - they realize that in the rare case that a software becomes truly important, they will invest in an upgrade - but they avoid the upgrade costs on all the other trial balloons that fill the long spans between truly-imperative-software.
In any cases, engineers who race to the first pole, do so because it keeps them employed, and that ain't so silly either.
Criticizing a platform for being popular is what is silly in my humble opinion.
AIK
The only reason to "rewrite" an application is because it is fundamentally productive.
I would propose that RAD is not an unreasonable approach to "testing" software.
Surely most VB is not rewritten, some because it stinks, others because it works, only rarely is a lower level fully justified.
Maybe this carping is less than fully informed?
AIK
Lock the God-D@mn Cabin door, and shoot the first co-pilot stupid enough to open it.
please send check to AIK
How is it good? ...
for $300 you can buy two OLPC computers which include the keyboard and display, a cool meshing wi-fi bridge etc
AIK
I suspect these are the conditions under which the "buoyancy of a 100TB datacenter" becomes important. I'm fairly certain the ship will have "remote scuttling capabilities" , and seawater is perhaps the perfect erasing mechanism for touchy data.
AIK