I always love the cats who say this shit. Pray tell how going from 256Kbps upstream minimum with cable, frequently more like 512Kbps, to my current 128Kbps upstream is preferable?
Remember: more broadband users = bigger market for pr0n = more pr0n 4 u!!!:-)
Do you realize how much time it takes to upload a 150 MB pr0n movie to someone at ISDN speeds???? It is a horrendous amount of time. SBC also throttles your download speed to 384Kbps when you are using the full 128Kbps they allocate you for uploading.
In 1989, 2400bps was king. Then by 1991, 9600 was affordable. 1993, 14.4 was king. 1994, v.34 had arrived. Thats 28.8Kbps. Now, TEN FUCKING YEARS LATER, I only get 128Kbps upstream. Four times the speed of a decade ago.
Its particularly true when you go to places like India and see that they are still not only using the same train tracks installed by the British over a century ago, but they are still using the same trains.
I lived in an apartment right next to some elevated train tracks a few years ago. Since I lived on the second floor, my bed was literally 20 feet away from the train tracks, as well as the electrified third rail. Whole place would vibrate every time a train went by, the sparks from the tracks would illuminate my bedroom at night.
Not only that, this was an old apartment, railroad car style. My bedroom was only 7x10 feet. Since I lived with a Nazi female at the time, I never could watch TV in the livingroom, since she practically lived on the couch. So, I ended up using my computer as a TV all the time.
Do you have any idea how many nights I went to sleep without difficulty with trains driving by all night, and having my 21" monitor running at full power?
I slept every single night within 15 feet of train tracks electrified to god knows how many volts, and a huge monitor only 4 feet away. The only time I sleep problems was if I took some amphetamine too late in the day.
But then, I come home to my parents house in rural Connecticut, on 3 acres of land, with every home in town zoned to minimum 1 acre, and my father snores all damn night and can't sleep. Who knows?
Perhaps the situation differed a bit 20 years ago,
Hell yeah they are different. ITs called inflation. $2500 20 years ago was a lot of money. Thats when the average salary was like $24,000 a year. Most cars were less than $10,000. That could actually cover a years rent for a studio apartment, rent stabalized, in manhattan.
$2500 ain't shit now, but was several month's pay for most peope 20 years ago.
$400 is a weeks pay for a kid working at a retail store.
Peace - countries with close business ties almost never go to war.
You are apparently living in an alternate universe. Where did you come up with this bullshit?
Free trade never leads to war? What about the American Civil War? The united states was a free trade zone, with obvious close ties between the states. Why did the Uniteds States declare their independence from Great Britain? The British Empire was a free trade zone with extensive business ties.
Why did Germany attack Russia, its largest trading partner? What about the Opium Wars between China and Great Britain?
The reason unresicted free trade lends itself to war is BECAUSE human productivity has always been in surplus. This is ultimately what destroyed Rome, the first attempt at making a free trade Empire. This is what Empires were good for, by the way. Standard language, currency, roads, military protection...
When push comes to shove, human beings can and will be ruthless. Despite whatever Utopia you have in mind, take the majority of free men and turn them into McDonalds employees and you will have a revolution on your hands. For most, the thrill of battle alone is preferable to the life of a slave.
So, I suggest you truly think about your outrageous claims here, because when the revolution comes, you will probably be amongst the first to die.
Your own ignorance will be your undoing. Do you honestly believe people would go to school until 22 when the average age was 40? The modern university was a Prussian invention despite whatever you might think. Universities which existed in the past were religious in nature, and nothing at all like universities of today.
Having a BA in philosophy from a major Jesuit university, I can tell you that especially in France, the older universities of which you speak are decidedly Jesuit in origin. The middle class were never a part of that system at least in the way you think, but were educated none the less. It was that rabble that started the French revolution and ultimately destroyed the Prussian army (and briefly outlawed catholicism). It was for this reason it was there the first forced schooling system was implimented since antiquity. The Prussians were going to see to it that their military would never be defeated again, and that the middle class would learn their place.
In all honesty friend, this is a discussion that goes all the way back to Plato. It is your own ignorance that shows through as this is a fundamental concept in Plato's Republic. In fact, that was the greatest inspiration for the elite of 100 years ago. In fact, considering so many platonic dialogues attacked teachers, the greatest evidence the Republic was Plato's own work is its focus on educated different castes for different purposes.
I highly suggest you read something like Plato's Gorgias. It is rather simple, even for a feeble mind like yourself, and clearly outlines why professional teachers will always corrupt a man rather than help him. Perhaps you won't read a modern book, but surely you cannot ignore one of the greatest minds in history.
As far as as Dostoevsky, this book was written in around 1880 if my memory serves me correctly. It was written when Prussian influence was strongest throughout Europe. It is also amusing the very characters you are discussing had nothing to do with the educational industry. You rightly state my own point, and that of Socrates... learning is only possible through personal motivation. The regiment of school is irrelevant, and in fact HINDERS inquiry. Maybe you don't see that, but you obviously have little desire for knowledge yourself having apparently never read any Plato.
Also, read up on Pavlov since you love those Russians. Most of his work dealt with social conditioning of HUMANS not dogs. There is a reason there is a bell in classrooms and it appeared not too long after Pavlov's famous experiment.
This is not really a problem any more or less in the sciences than any other study. The reason is that grades as we know them were created to foster a hierarchical caste system loosely organized as a meritocracy. From Indiana University to Columbia Teachers College, philosopher kings of the late 19th century planned a social system for the future, with funding from the industrial captains and financiers of the age.
Indiana University focused more on pure scientific eugenics, ie sterilization, breeding plans. Hitler referred to his own national sterilization plan as the "Indiana Plan". Schools like the Univeristy of Chicago and Columbia Teachers College focused on the Brave New World stuff, ie psychological manipulation and organizational conditioning. It was during this era that forced schooling began a national obsession and studies like psychology, sociology, and education were born. The funny thing about these new masters of society was their pseudoscientific outlook on their essentially baseless studies. Sociologists today still have a hard time admitting their discipline was created to CONTROL the masses, not help them.
In any event, scientific folks hold true to these arbitrary guidelines, and will apply the system of measure without giving any thought at all. Humanities folks grasp slightly that the need to grade people is inherently flawed, so they bend the rules as much as they need.
I know this will come as quite a shock to most people here, and I might even get some flames. But suffice it to say, the evidence is overwhelming that despite whatever benefits school MIGHT have, it was created to foster submissive behavior, conformity, respect for managerial authority, acquiesence to bureauocracy, and ultimately to inhibit the sense of wonder which is at the heart of true learning, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
It was believed that technology would make most humans irrelevant for productive purposes and it would better serve society to make them as stupid and dependant as possible.
Anyway, grades are not the problem. SCHOOL is the problem. School is working AS DESIGNED. All the original proponents of modern schooling would be quite pleased with the system we have in place. Even grade inflation is irrelevant. Grades were never intended to truly determine who was "best". They are there merely to induce competitive behavior and condition free men to crave meaningless accolades rather than true purpose in their lives. If you are really interested in the history of schooling, an excellent book can be found here. I guarantee it will be an eye opening experience.
I have owned 4 ATi cards in my years of computing,
Obviously that was not when the Mach64 was the gold standard for price/performance AND driver stability. For most of the 1990's, ATI equaled the best. How many companies went so far as to include 8514/A compatibility for older OS's or DOS programs?
Of course, you probably don't even know what 8514/A is without doing a quick google.
Now that MS has file system level encryption, you would think they would simply store each email as a file. I can think of no other reason why storing every email in a single file makes sense.
If NTFS is so good, it should be able to handle tens of thousands of small files no problem.
Its really unfortunate when I read this kind of outlook on music. It is almost the same kind of story as people absolutely certain that anything but a BMW is crap.
I have spent most of my life playing the violin (~20 years). I have played in quite a few nice halls, including Carnegie hall. I have a violin that cost $15,000 ten years ago a violin bow that cost $3000 eight years ago. I appreciate and understand that musical instruments are expensive.
The problem I have with the recording crowd is that most are somewhat dilusional in their experience of music and sound. This is primarily due to the "measurement effect". People come to assume that weights and measures are the only standards of value in a variety of instances, and this is quite apparent with recording engineers. Using all sorts of gizmos, they have come to convince themselves that they know what high quality sound really is. They have all sorts of proof to back up their claims, all sorts of essentially meaningless technobabble.
But compare a live violinist on a $500,000 Stradivarius to a locally produced violin and the former will sound far better. Even the sound enginner will agree. The problem is he will not be able to fully explain why. The reason is sound is still something that is not well understood. Even the most musically illiterate know a Stradivarius is the best violin, but no one really knows why. I won't even get into how a musical hall has such a profound impact on the sound as well. There are so many factors, so many variables, a precise measurement or even facsimile is virtually impossible. In the end, sound quality is very subjective, "purity" in a recording doesn't exist. Its the music itself, the patterns and harmony that really defines the music.
This, more than anything is why sound engineers produce work that always sounds artificial or at least different from the original. It may be a good copy but it is still a copy.
I got news for you, that $3000 microphone really is nothing special. There is no way a manufactured microphone truly costs $3000 when a violin bow made by hand over weeks using imported Brazil wood costs $3000. Nothing in that microphone justifies that price in raw materials or craftmenship.
If Microsoft turns into another Shit-Game-Spewing company like Electronic Arts, then I just won't buy their shit. (And for the purpose of Shit-Games, Windows-Pack-Ins hardly count).
This is so true. I still think of EA as the sports game company, I don't know when they got into computer games. But what I can say is Sim City 4 is the worst game I have ever played. They don't even seem to have a QA team at that place. not only are the cities about half the size of previous versions, including Sim City 2000 from nearly 10 years ago, my Athlon XP 2000 and Radeon 8500 are apparently too fucking slow for this game. It runs more slowly than any game I have played. It is virtually unplayable.
Microsoft games are actually pretty good, far better than the shit Sim City 4 is. Age of Empires at least runs well.
Anyway, Fuck electronic arts. I will never purchase a game from them ever again.
New York has not REQUIRED 11 digit dialing for dialing in your area code, but there are now five area codes in New York City, 212/646 overlap, 718/347 overlap, and 917 is a little up in the air right now but was originally for cell phones, pagers and faxes.
646 has at least been planned for at least 8 years I would say, and now many people in Manhattan have 646 area codes for their home phone. 347 is also appearing in Brooklyn. 917 has been a national oddity for longer than I can remember. I would say 10 years minimum, probably longer.
Thus you only need to 11 digit dial when you are dialing someone who does not have a number in YOUR area code.
It seems really ridiculous to require 11 digit dialing in your own area code. Perhaps if we didn't USE area codes but had an entirely random string numbers 11 digit dialing as a requirement is obviously a necessity.
such as WLIR in NY, running old school punk, synthesized and otherwise non mainstream music in a Debbie Gibson world- The only local station to play Dead Kennedys' "MTV Get Off The Air!")
And now WLIR is nothing more than a "lite" version of 92.3
The basic fact of the matter is that radio is the way radio is, because most of the general public are lemmings.
This quote right here is the fundamental problem with your discussion. It is the same condescending view of humanity that has destroyed what freedom once existed in the world, and replaced it with dicatorial cynics convinced most humans are just slightly above sheep, and need smart people to be their shepard.
From Joseph Stalin, to the American Captains of Industry who forced public schooling upon the masses, to the new Alpha class, the Harvard MBA types. All of them were driven by contempt for humanity, and a fundamental belief that not only that they were superior but the masses NEEDED their superiority.
You condemn the way things are, but you hold the same views as the average market research firm. Go check out the Boston Consulting Group some day. Chelsea Clinton works there now, btw. It is a company for Ivy League types who specialize in psychological manipulation and profiling. What was once witchcraft and fell in the realm of gypsies is now an actual science. The REALLY marketeers are so out of touch with normal human existence its hillarious. Those are the people who truly believe FM radio "works". They were the same people who though pop up ads would work too.
So the point? People are not sheep. Manipulation on a vast societal scale was a weird fad of the 20th century. It was thought to be an easier way to control the masses than outright slavery or an "official" caste system as found in India. But, like all hierarchical organizational methods, the insular nature of the highest cast is ultimately was destroys that organization. Of course, the people at the top still think they serve some useful purpose in society but we already have enough doctors and lawyers. Marketing has proven time and time again to be nothing but a pseudo science on par with astrology.
I will give you a hint, maybe those millions of people out there aren't as hip as you, but most people are sick of radio and the entire consumer culture just like you are. I mean, jesus, RTFA. It says very clearly radio listnership has been dropping precipotously for years. Understand the propoganda machine has come to and end and things are a little chaotic as a result. Isn't this why we all used to believe in the Internet anyway? Have a little faith in humanity.
Conversely look at the war on drugs, and the prohibition. In both cases the government put its foot down, and got it run over.
Of course, find a politician to admit that there are more Americans who find the Heroin production industry to be more valuable than a new launch vehicle put out by NASA...
I will sum it up as follows: There has to be some intrinsic value for something to be done. Government can either get in the way or profit from it.
This is the big problem we have had for the last 100 years. Countless freedoms have been lost, whole communities destroyed, lives ruined, all in the name of the "Progress". But I still live in a 100 year old apartment and take a 100 year old subway to work every day.
First they created an indoctrination system known as public schools to train the masses to accept their place as a worker and consumer caste, then they created wars and armies, as well as prisons to keep the discontents busy, and created a huge industry to support the military industrial complex...
See government isn't concerned with intrinsic value, it does stuff just to keep everyone busy in castes so the people at the top continue to be at the top.
Prohibition of mind altering substances doesn't work because the masses are not happy with their fate. Alcohol and opiates provide a welcome relief from the drudgery of modern life. The majority of people need frequent escapes from life. Remember, it was only recently new drugs were created to provide the same relief as alcohol and opiates. They still used morphine for severe depression in the 1950's. So drugs and alcohol are a bad example.
Unfortuantely, most people willingly join in the social system we have in place. They have no problems spending half their productive life in school rather than doing something useful. They have no problem working in a bureaucratic organizational system. Government is the MASTER at convincing people they are doing something when in reality they are doing nothing but keeping themselves out of trouble. The reality is if anything DOES come from space, it will be a manufactured need. It will be easy to get the educational and media establishments to train the consumers to want what space offers. Hell, even if its a vacation in space... Maybe we can even convince all those poor people to take a permanent vacation on Mars. Wouldn't they like that.
Because you already paid $9 to watch the movie, and so did 40 million other people.
You must live in a boring suburb with nothing to do but listen to the radio. Have you never seen a live band ever? Seriously, live music costs some cash, more than a movie ticket. Cheap clubs will have a $10 cover and you have to buy a couple drinks just on principle. Live concerts by pop musicians can cost $50 or more very easily. Most successful bands make the majority of their money from concert ticket sales, which can be quite substantial.
THe reality is artists make the majority of their profit from concerts, the CD's are just the icing on the cake. Some of the top 40 bands do NOT do that, they are the infamous manufactured bands. But for 99% of musicians who try to make money from their art form, they get the majority of their money from performances.
Re:Cell Phones = Cancer is BULLSHIT
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Then why do electro-magnetic pulses have such a damaging effect upon circuits?
I don't have the studies, but measurable physiological changes in organisms exposed to EMP's of the type emitted by nuclear weapons have been found. That right there disproves your hypothesis that the energy level is irrelevant
There is also evidence that cellular divsion and the DNA replication process functions using the earth's magnetic field as a baseline guide. This is one of the reasons cancer can occur. Remember, cancer is very rarely due to atomic decay (from gamma waves as you mention), it occurs primarily due to an error in the DNA replication process.
There are of course many animals whose very existence depends upon the continued stability of the earth's magnetic field. Many birds "see" the earths electromagnetic field. Most simple sea floor organisms used a biological compass for directional movement. Many single celled organisms have similar abilities.
Cancer can be caused by many factors, not just atomic level degredation due to radioactive decay. Right now it is not known exactly what high levels of electromagnetic radiation does to humans, but it DOES do something. The simple fact that animals are sensitive to this kind of energy indicates caution is warranted. You are certainly free to bath yourself in whatever radiation you desire, but I prefer to avoid it.
We can argue all day, and we can both disagree. Just don't shove your theory down my throat and I won't shove mine down yours. That means insulating wires and devices and minimizing high energy cell phones and putting sufficient shielding in devices.
Before Japan started making cheap cars, their economy was similar to India's.
I hear this quite a bit. But this is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Do you really think India would have a chance against the US military and our economy backing it? Absolutely not. Japan however DID, in fact they inflicted more casualties than any other foreign enemy.
The fact is Japan WAS a high tech nation and has been for 100 years. Japan sided with Germany during WWII not just because they both hated Russia but because the Japanese sent all their leaders to Germany for school. Japan had a corporate-fascist state of the same type as Germany, and had the industrial output to match it.
Yen was very poor compared to the dollar.
Of course it was, you have a country that constantly inflates its currency for 50 years and that will happen.
As the relative value went up, the profit margins went down, and now Japan has been in a recession for the last 12 years.
Your entire explanation is simplistic at best. The Japanese recession more than anything else is an example of how the pseudo-science of economics is a farce. There is no explanation taking into account any of the statistics and measurements to which you allude. According to the supposed greatest minds in economics of the 20th century, Japan should be a paradise.
But its not.
They are a failure because their people are disillusioned and have no interest in perpetuating a hierarchical economy when they get nothing in return. This, more than anything else, is what is happening around the world. While communism requires enslavement to perpetuate itself, fascist command economy require deception. Contrary to what the social engineers think, people are NOT stupid. The game is up, and most people in the world are not going to play anymore.
Now, apply that model to India. What we'll see is a mad rush where everyone tries to save money by outsourcing projects to India. The US companies will see huge savings (I disagree, but that's a different argument) and the Indians will see huge profits (again taking the exchange rate into consideration). However as the Indian rupee gains in value, the economic attraction of other countries to outsource to India will fall.
As previously stated, people are in reality quite intelligent. You can outsource programming work because well, anyone can do it. So you might as well pay people as little as possible.
The reason it works in India is a little more complicated. What you don't know is that the system by which command economies work, mass indoctrination of the people for specific functions, was practically invented in India. Its called the caste system. Why do you think Hitler was so fond of the Aryans in India? They were the Brahmin class, the ones at the top.
Basically, modern business is based on this hierarchical model of social organization. This sort of system when it involves business is called Fascist, or Corporate-fascist since it was utilized by Germany and Japan to organize their "empires". Its a system which began around the same time in India and Sparta, nearly three thousand years ago. There is a huge collection of people in India born, bred, and trained to serve in the same fashion as the Japanese and modern Americans as a result of forced schooling and college.
What no one realizes however is comprehensive systems of social organization DESTROYS a people rather than improves them. America's vast wealth was created because we were once free. When public schooling, and every other tool of social control was put in place, the country declined. We were living off the 19th century's wealth for most of the 20th. Now its gone, our people can't function within the bureaucratic machine system because we don't enslave them quite like other nations.
So then the torch passed to Japan. There, families don't even really exist. Kids spend all their waking moments in school, and school to work legislation makes sure they are moved into the appropriate places in life. But that society has decayed as a result.
And now we are back to India, where it all began. They learned something that Japan and the West gave up on, Religion is the key to control. Hinduism practically evolved to fill this role. It is still a major component of Indian life, and one the west still doesn't understand.
There is a reason there are so many "other" religions in India (Sihks, Janes, muslims...) Sihkism evolved SPECIFICALLY to comabt the social order that Hinduism maintained.
The International Atheist Association is based in India.
So the point is these countries are not these impoverished backwards places that the wonder of capitalism is transforming. India is just one step in the collapse of internationl bureaucratic business. Capitalism is irrelevant, and will always live on. But the monster of social engineering is just trying to find a new home. It has nearly destroyed American and Japan, now it is going home.
This lesson brought to you by Travis
You know, I have always hated that name Travis. Why is it every fuck named Travis is sanctimonious prick? I will tell you why, because only fucked up parents name their kids Travis and raise them so they feel superior to everyone else in the world. So my advice to you Travis, hide your name. In fact, legally change it.
Oh and you are deluding yourself about your teaching abilities. You have nothing to teach. Go back to your bullshit Macroeconomics textbook. We have all read them before and don't need another tool spouting that shit.
Wow. Its posts like this that really make me feel old at 25.
They had 486 SMP systems. In fact there was an awesome upgrade that came out like ten years ago that let you put two 486 processors in one socket. Of course you needed the clearance for it. SMP was actually all the rage ten years ago for the same reason PowerPC was all the rage. Intel had a hard time scaling, so one of the solutions was to us multithreading and divide up the work.
OS/2 2.11 SMP was out in 1993, and NT 3.1 came out shortly thereafter. Both supported SMP. The Pentium Pro, which came out in early 1995 was highly optimized for 32-bit code and multiprocessing. 4 and 8 way Pentium Pro boards existed. And were somewhat common.
If anything, SMP is LESS common today. When was the last time you saw a 4-way SMP board for sale anywhere? You could easily get them back then. The reason its less common today is processors really are a lot faster. Intel is doing this Hyperthreading crap because they know that orders of magnitude performance gains are a thing of the past, so multithreading is the key.
Of course, us old OS/2 fanatics were saying this ten years ago.
Excuse me while I fall about laughing. You credit Cadillac with inventing active suspension. In fact, Lotus invented it, around 1980. Citroën offered cars with active suspension since 1989, Cadillac introduced it in 1996.
Cadillac had active suspension systems in 1972. Not as technically advanced as today (or even "active" but the definition of some), but since they invented hydraulic suspension varying the pressure was an easy feat. At this same time, Cadillac became the first company to offer traction control and air bags. 5 years earlier, they were the first company to have front wheel drive.
In the 1980's Cadillac pioneered computer control of fuel injection systems as well as 4 wheel antilock disk breaks.
The greatest achievement that took the Europeans YEARS to reverse engineer however was the transaxal automatic transmission, which even today was an incredibly brilliant innovation.
There are quite a few European manufacturers which have shown that it's possible to build a car that rides comfortably and still handles well (Peugeot, Jaguar), and they didn't need active suspension to achieve that.
There are many European automotive companies that are obviously good cars, but the examples you have cited are just bad. Ten years ago, Peugeot and Jaguar were crap. Peugeot is STILL crap. My family used to own a Peugeot, they stopped selling the damn things in the US because they sucked so bad. Jaguar was crap until they were purchased by Ford. Do you realize Jaguar was once the most unreliable brand on the road?
Bull. BMW generations may look very similar (that ended with the new 7-series), but they constantly innovate. iDrive may not be the best possible solution to clutter, but at least they made an attempt to deal with it. Valvetronic is a huge step forward. The US car makers, on the other hand, change the exterior of the cars every year, but forget to innovate the underlying technology. They still mainly churn out square boxes with 2-valve V8 gas guzzling engines.
BMW has minor innovations, but not much beyond what Cadillac pioneered over 20 years ago. Valvetronic is a step, but not as important of a step as Northstar. I am amazed you are unfamiliar with the technical superiority of the Northstar V-8 over anything else on the market. It is far more efficient than anything offered in Europe, and is a model of how to vary engine output depending on load. In case you are unaware of how it works, Cylinders are shut off depending on load. So, when cruising the highway the unit becomes a four cylinder cutting highway fuel usage tremendously. In harsh climate or in response to engine difficulties, the unit switches to using only two cylinders at a time, alternating with every stroke to prevent the engine from overheating.
BMW has nothing even close to that. Valvetronic is a great invention, but it provides nothing more than 5-10% increase in fuel efficiency and better starting in cold temperatures.
Anyone who knows cars right now knows the Northstar V-8 is the most technically advanced engine ever made. Get over it.
Decadent, yes. Desirable, no. The design sucks, and they are completely unsuitable for our European roads (especially for travelling at high speed).
This is somewhat true, but only for SUV's. A Cadillac CTS is the same size as a BMW 5.
Only if you like tacky interiors and don't care about roadholding.
You obviously haven't driven many cars. This is a myth yuppies perpetuate to justify purchasing an expensive Eurotrash car because there really isn't anything else about them worth praising. Since GM practically invented everything about the modern car, its ridiculous to claim their cars do not handle well.
Most BMW's are crap. A stiff suspension is not the only definition of a car, and doesn't affect its handling. This is why Cadillac invented active suspension, to variably control the handling of the vehicle depending on driving conditions.
Personally, variable suspension is preferable in the Americas. We have larger countries, and road quality is not as consistant as in Germany or England. We have more highway in the US than all of Europe. There are many instances where a stiff suspension will not provide optimum road handling, almost to a dangerous degree. Hit a pot whole with a stiff suspension and your car may bounce out of control.
Seriously, we having been designing cars for 100 years. All cars are produced with exceptional quality today. BMW produces a car which never changes, never improves. It caters to people who prefer a static reality. This is why a BMW today looks essentially like a BMW of 30 years ago.
And outside the US, there still is a big difference in perception (and with these prestige brands, that is important) between Cadillac/Lincoln on one hand, and the European marques on the other.
Oh yes, and what part of the world have you been to? Its funny because Mercedes-Benz produces the most taxi cabs in Europe. They practically hold the same place as the Ford Crown Victoria or the Chevrolet Caprice. "Luxury" is a very different thing in Europe, where society is not as stratified. There, the sheer size of some American cars would be decadent enough. I guarantee you a Lincoln Navigator would hold far greater sway in the luxury department than a BMW 740, if you were France.
Ahh yes, the company that brought us power windows, power seats, transaxal automatic transmission, compact automotive air conditioning, modern suspension, antilock breaks...
GM is not perfect, but they have an amazingly inventive staff and their build quality is still among the best. Not only that, their vehicles are intelligently designed so you can fix them yourself.
And as far as style, maybe if you are a yuppie fuck who can't fathom driving anything other than a BMW you will think GM has no style. GM practically INVENTED style as a mass market commodity. Back when Ford had their Model T which looked like crap, GM was offering cars which didn't look like a power man's shit box. In 1970 when BMW produced nothing more than glorified compact cars, Cadillac had the El Dorado convertible.
Today, when every European car company tries to be BMW, Cadillac comes out with the CTS, the first remarkably original design since Ford began producing the Taurus in 1986.
Today, Cadillac is back to being the innovator it once was... I applaud them for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hence, choose ADSL :-)
:-)
I always love the cats who say this shit. Pray tell how going from 256Kbps upstream minimum with cable, frequently more like 512Kbps, to my current 128Kbps upstream is preferable?
Remember: more broadband users = bigger market for pr0n = more pr0n 4 u!!!
Do you realize how much time it takes to upload a 150 MB pr0n movie to someone at ISDN speeds???? It is a horrendous amount of time. SBC also throttles your download speed to 384Kbps when you are using the full 128Kbps they allocate you for uploading.
In 1989, 2400bps was king. Then by 1991, 9600 was affordable. 1993, 14.4 was king. 1994, v.34 had arrived. Thats 28.8Kbps. Now, TEN FUCKING YEARS LATER, I only get 128Kbps upstream. Four times the speed of a decade ago.
I am not impressed.
Its particularly true when you go to places like India and see that they are still not only using the same train tracks installed by the British over a century ago, but they are still using the same trains.
And we wonder why their cost of living is so low.
I lived in an apartment right next to some elevated train tracks a few years ago. Since I lived on the second floor, my bed was literally 20 feet away from the train tracks, as well as the electrified third rail. Whole place would vibrate every time a train went by, the sparks from the tracks would illuminate my bedroom at night.
Not only that, this was an old apartment, railroad car style. My bedroom was only 7x10 feet. Since I lived with a Nazi female at the time, I never could watch TV in the livingroom, since she practically lived on the couch. So, I ended up using my computer as a TV all the time.
Do you have any idea how many nights I went to sleep without difficulty with trains driving by all night, and having my 21" monitor running at full power?
I slept every single night within 15 feet of train tracks electrified to god knows how many volts, and a huge monitor only 4 feet away. The only time I sleep problems was if I took some amphetamine too late in the day.
But then, I come home to my parents house in rural Connecticut, on 3 acres of land, with every home in town zoned to minimum 1 acre, and my father snores all damn night and can't sleep. Who knows?
Anyway, I am not convinced. Good guess though!
Perhaps the situation differed a bit 20 years ago,
Hell yeah they are different. ITs called inflation. $2500 20 years ago was a lot of money. Thats when the average salary was like $24,000 a year. Most cars were less than $10,000. That could actually cover a years rent for a studio apartment, rent stabalized, in manhattan.
$2500 ain't shit now, but was several month's pay for most peope 20 years ago.
$400 is a weeks pay for a kid working at a retail store.
But there are bigger gains:
Peace - countries with close business ties almost never go to war.
You are apparently living in an alternate universe. Where did you come up with this bullshit?
Free trade never leads to war? What about the American Civil War? The united states was a free trade zone, with obvious close ties between the states. Why did the Uniteds States declare their independence from Great Britain? The British Empire was a free trade zone with extensive business ties.
Why did Germany attack Russia, its largest trading partner? What about the Opium Wars between China and Great Britain?
The reason unresicted free trade lends itself to war is BECAUSE human productivity has always been in surplus. This is ultimately what destroyed Rome, the first attempt at making a free trade Empire. This is what Empires were good for, by the way. Standard language, currency, roads, military protection...
When push comes to shove, human beings can and will be ruthless. Despite whatever Utopia you have in mind, take the majority of free men and turn them into McDonalds employees and you will have a revolution on your hands. For most, the thrill of battle alone is preferable to the life of a slave.
So, I suggest you truly think about your outrageous claims here, because when the revolution comes, you will probably be amongst the first to die.
I don't give a flaming fuck about other countries. Let them deal with their own problems. Thats why we have countries to begin with.
Don't worry, when everyone is out of work, you will undoubtedly be amongst the first to be robbed.
Anyway, nice troll.
Your own ignorance will be your undoing. Do you honestly believe people would go to school until 22 when the average age was 40? The modern university was a Prussian invention despite whatever you might think. Universities which existed in the past were religious in nature, and nothing at all like universities of today.
Having a BA in philosophy from a major Jesuit university, I can tell you that especially in France, the older universities of which you speak are decidedly Jesuit in origin. The middle class were never a part of that system at least in the way you think, but were educated none the less. It was that rabble that started the French revolution and ultimately destroyed the Prussian army (and briefly outlawed catholicism). It was for this reason it was there the first forced schooling system was implimented since antiquity. The Prussians were going to see to it that their military would never be defeated again, and that the middle class would learn their place.
In all honesty friend, this is a discussion that goes all the way back to Plato. It is your own ignorance that shows through as this is a fundamental concept in Plato's Republic. In fact, that was the greatest inspiration for the elite of 100 years ago. In fact, considering so many platonic dialogues attacked teachers, the greatest evidence the Republic was Plato's own work is its focus on educated different castes for different purposes.
I highly suggest you read something like Plato's Gorgias. It is rather simple, even for a feeble mind like yourself, and clearly outlines why professional teachers will always corrupt a man rather than help him. Perhaps you won't read a modern book, but surely you cannot ignore one of the greatest minds in history.
As far as as Dostoevsky, this book was written in around 1880 if my memory serves me correctly. It was written when Prussian influence was strongest throughout Europe. It is also amusing the very characters you are discussing had nothing to do with the educational industry. You rightly state my own point, and that of Socrates... learning is only possible through personal motivation. The regiment of school is irrelevant, and in fact HINDERS inquiry. Maybe you don't see that, but you obviously have little desire for knowledge yourself having apparently never read any Plato.
Also, read up on Pavlov since you love those Russians. Most of his work dealt with social conditioning of HUMANS not dogs. There is a reason there is a bell in classrooms and it appeared not too long after Pavlov's famous experiment.
This is not really a problem any more or less in the sciences than any other study. The reason is that grades as we know them were created to foster a hierarchical caste system loosely organized as a meritocracy. From Indiana University to Columbia Teachers College, philosopher kings of the late 19th century planned a social system for the future, with funding from the industrial captains and financiers of the age.
Indiana University focused more on pure scientific eugenics, ie sterilization, breeding plans. Hitler referred to his own national sterilization plan as the "Indiana Plan". Schools like the Univeristy of Chicago and Columbia Teachers College focused on the Brave New World stuff, ie psychological manipulation and organizational conditioning. It was during this era that forced schooling began a national obsession and studies like psychology, sociology, and education were born. The funny thing about these new masters of society was their pseudoscientific outlook on their essentially baseless studies. Sociologists today still have a hard time admitting their discipline was created to CONTROL the masses, not help them.
In any event, scientific folks hold true to these arbitrary guidelines, and will apply the system of measure without giving any thought at all. Humanities folks grasp slightly that the need to grade people is inherently flawed, so they bend the rules as much as they need.
I know this will come as quite a shock to most people here, and I might even get some flames. But suffice it to say, the evidence is overwhelming that despite whatever benefits school MIGHT have, it was created to foster submissive behavior, conformity, respect for managerial authority, acquiesence to bureauocracy, and ultimately to inhibit the sense of wonder which is at the heart of true learning, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
It was believed that technology would make most humans irrelevant for productive purposes and it would better serve society to make them as stupid and dependant as possible.
Anyway, grades are not the problem. SCHOOL is the problem. School is working AS DESIGNED. All the original proponents of modern schooling would be quite pleased with the system we have in place. Even grade inflation is irrelevant. Grades were never intended to truly determine who was "best". They are there merely to induce competitive behavior and condition free men to crave meaningless accolades rather than true purpose in their lives. If you are really interested in the history of schooling, an excellent book can be found here. I guarantee it will be an eye opening experience.
I have owned 4 ATi cards in my years of computing,
Obviously that was not when the Mach64 was the gold standard for price/performance AND driver stability. For most of the 1990's, ATI equaled the best. How many companies went so far as to include 8514/A compatibility for older OS's or DOS programs?
Of course, you probably don't even know what 8514/A is without doing a quick google.
*sigh*
tempus fugit
Now that MS has file system level encryption, you would think they would simply store each email as a file. I can think of no other reason why storing every email in a single file makes sense.
If NTFS is so good, it should be able to handle tens of thousands of small files no problem.
f'ing hilarious, in my youth we called 'em oldies stations.
No shit. I am 25 and always knew the stones were from long before I was born. Hell, thats what my 58 year old father listens to. Wild. youngins.
Its really unfortunate when I read this kind of outlook on music. It is almost the same kind of story as people absolutely certain that anything but a BMW is crap.
I have spent most of my life playing the violin (~20 years). I have played in quite a few nice halls, including Carnegie hall. I have a violin that cost $15,000 ten years ago a violin bow that cost $3000 eight years ago. I appreciate and understand that musical instruments are expensive.
The problem I have with the recording crowd is that most are somewhat dilusional in their experience of music and sound. This is primarily due to the "measurement effect". People come to assume that weights and measures are the only standards of value in a variety of instances, and this is quite apparent with recording engineers. Using all sorts of gizmos, they have come to convince themselves that they know what high quality sound really is. They have all sorts of proof to back up their claims, all sorts of essentially meaningless technobabble.
But compare a live violinist on a $500,000 Stradivarius to a locally produced violin and the former will sound far better. Even the sound enginner will agree. The problem is he will not be able to fully explain why. The reason is sound is still something that is not well understood. Even the most musically illiterate know a Stradivarius is the best violin, but no one really knows why. I won't even get into how a musical hall has such a profound impact on the sound as well. There are so many factors, so many variables, a precise measurement or even facsimile is virtually impossible. In the end, sound quality is very subjective, "purity" in a recording doesn't exist. Its the music itself, the patterns and harmony that really defines the music.
This, more than anything is why sound engineers produce work that always sounds artificial or at least different from the original. It may be a good copy but it is still a copy.
I got news for you, that $3000 microphone really is nothing special. There is no way a manufactured microphone truly costs $3000 when a violin bow made by hand over weeks using imported Brazil wood costs $3000. Nothing in that microphone justifies that price in raw materials or craftmenship.
If Microsoft turns into another Shit-Game-Spewing company like Electronic Arts, then I just won't buy their shit. (And for the purpose of Shit-Games, Windows-Pack-Ins hardly count).
This is so true. I still think of EA as the sports game company, I don't know when they got into computer games. But what I can say is Sim City 4 is the worst game I have ever played. They don't even seem to have a QA team at that place. not only are the cities about half the size of previous versions, including Sim City 2000 from nearly 10 years ago, my Athlon XP 2000 and Radeon 8500 are apparently too fucking slow for this game. It runs more slowly than any game I have played. It is virtually unplayable.
Microsoft games are actually pretty good, far better than the shit Sim City 4 is. Age of Empires at least runs well.
Anyway, Fuck electronic arts. I will never purchase a game from them ever again.
New York has not REQUIRED 11 digit dialing for dialing in your area code, but there are now five area codes in New York City, 212/646 overlap, 718/347 overlap, and 917 is a little up in the air right now but was originally for cell phones, pagers and faxes.
646 has at least been planned for at least 8 years I would say, and now many people in Manhattan have 646 area codes for their home phone. 347 is also appearing in Brooklyn. 917 has been a national oddity for longer than I can remember. I would say 10 years minimum, probably longer.
Thus you only need to 11 digit dial when you are dialing someone who does not have a number in YOUR area code.
It seems really ridiculous to require 11 digit dialing in your own area code. Perhaps if we didn't USE area codes but had an entirely random string numbers 11 digit dialing as a requirement is obviously a necessity.
such as WLIR in NY, running old school punk, synthesized and otherwise non mainstream music in a Debbie Gibson world- The only local station to play Dead Kennedys' "MTV Get Off The Air!")
And now WLIR is nothing more than a "lite" version of 92.3
The basic fact of the matter is that radio is the way radio is, because most of the general public are lemmings.
This quote right here is the fundamental problem with your discussion. It is the same condescending view of humanity that has destroyed what freedom once existed in the world, and replaced it with dicatorial cynics convinced most humans are just slightly above sheep, and need smart people to be their shepard.
From Joseph Stalin, to the American Captains of Industry who forced public schooling upon the masses, to the new Alpha class, the Harvard MBA types. All of them were driven by contempt for humanity, and a fundamental belief that not only that they were superior but the masses NEEDED their superiority.
You condemn the way things are, but you hold the same views as the average market research firm. Go check out the Boston Consulting Group some day. Chelsea Clinton works there now, btw. It is a company for Ivy League types who specialize in psychological manipulation and profiling. What was once witchcraft and fell in the realm of gypsies is now an actual science. The REALLY marketeers are so out of touch with normal human existence its hillarious. Those are the people who truly believe FM radio "works". They were the same people who though pop up ads would work too.
So the point? People are not sheep. Manipulation on a vast societal scale was a weird fad of the 20th century. It was thought to be an easier way to control the masses than outright slavery or an "official" caste system as found in India. But, like all hierarchical organizational methods, the insular nature of the highest cast is ultimately was destroys that organization. Of course, the people at the top still think they serve some useful purpose in society but we already have enough doctors and lawyers. Marketing has proven time and time again to be nothing but a pseudo science on par with astrology.
I will give you a hint, maybe those millions of people out there aren't as hip as you, but most people are sick of radio and the entire consumer culture just like you are. I mean, jesus, RTFA. It says very clearly radio listnership has been dropping precipotously for years. Understand the propoganda machine has come to and end and things are a little chaotic as a result. Isn't this why we all used to believe in the Internet anyway? Have a little faith in humanity.
Conversely look at the war on drugs, and the prohibition. In both cases the government put its foot down, and got it run over.
Of course, find a politician to admit that there are more Americans who find the Heroin production industry to be more valuable than a new launch vehicle put out by NASA...
I will sum it up as follows: There has to be some intrinsic value for something to be done. Government can either get in the way or profit from it.
This is the big problem we have had for the last 100 years. Countless freedoms have been lost, whole communities destroyed, lives ruined, all in the name of the "Progress". But I still live in a 100 year old apartment and take a 100 year old subway to work every day.
First they created an indoctrination system known as public schools to train the masses to accept their place as a worker and consumer caste, then they created wars and armies, as well as prisons to keep the discontents busy, and created a huge industry to support the military industrial complex...
See government isn't concerned with intrinsic value, it does stuff just to keep everyone busy in castes so the people at the top continue to be at the top.
Prohibition of mind altering substances doesn't work because the masses are not happy with their fate. Alcohol and opiates provide a welcome relief from the drudgery of modern life. The majority of people need frequent escapes from life. Remember, it was only recently new drugs were created to provide the same relief as alcohol and opiates. They still used morphine for severe depression in the 1950's. So drugs and alcohol are a bad example.
Unfortuantely, most people willingly join in the social system we have in place. They have no problems spending half their productive life in school rather than doing something useful. They have no problem working in a bureaucratic organizational system. Government is the MASTER at convincing people they are doing something when in reality they are doing nothing but keeping themselves out of trouble. The reality is if anything DOES come from space, it will be a manufactured need. It will be easy to get the educational and media establishments to train the consumers to want what space offers. Hell, even if its a vacation in space... Maybe we can even convince all those poor people to take a permanent vacation on Mars. Wouldn't they like that.
Because you already paid $9 to watch the movie, and so did 40 million other people.
You must live in a boring suburb with nothing to do but listen to the radio. Have you never seen a live band ever? Seriously, live music costs some cash, more than a movie ticket. Cheap clubs will have a $10 cover and you have to buy a couple drinks just on principle. Live concerts by pop musicians can cost $50 or more very easily. Most successful bands make the majority of their money from concert ticket sales, which can be quite substantial.
THe reality is artists make the majority of their profit from concerts, the CD's are just the icing on the cake. Some of the top 40 bands do NOT do that, they are the infamous manufactured bands. But for 99% of musicians who try to make money from their art form, they get the majority of their money from performances.
Then why do electro-magnetic pulses have such a damaging effect upon circuits?
I don't have the studies, but measurable physiological changes in organisms exposed to EMP's of the type emitted by nuclear weapons have been found. That right there disproves your hypothesis that the energy level is irrelevant
There is also evidence that cellular divsion and the DNA replication process functions using the earth's magnetic field as a baseline guide. This is one of the reasons cancer can occur. Remember, cancer is very rarely due to atomic decay (from gamma waves as you mention), it occurs primarily due to an error in the DNA replication process.
There are of course many animals whose very existence depends upon the continued stability of the earth's magnetic field. Many birds "see" the earths electromagnetic field. Most simple sea floor organisms used a biological compass for directional movement. Many single celled organisms have similar abilities.
Cancer can be caused by many factors, not just atomic level degredation due to radioactive decay. Right now it is not known exactly what high levels of electromagnetic radiation does to humans, but it DOES do something. The simple fact that animals are sensitive to this kind of energy indicates caution is warranted. You are certainly free to bath yourself in whatever radiation you desire, but I prefer to avoid it.
We can argue all day, and we can both disagree. Just don't shove your theory down my throat and I won't shove mine down yours. That means insulating wires and devices and minimizing high energy cell phones and putting sufficient shielding in devices.
Before Japan started making cheap cars, their economy was similar to India's.
I hear this quite a bit. But this is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Do you really think India would have a chance against the US military and our economy backing it? Absolutely not. Japan however DID, in fact they inflicted more casualties than any other foreign enemy.
The fact is Japan WAS a high tech nation and has been for 100 years. Japan sided with Germany during WWII not just because they both hated Russia but because the Japanese sent all their leaders to Germany for school. Japan had a corporate-fascist state of the same type as Germany, and had the industrial output to match it.
Yen was very poor compared to the dollar.
Of course it was, you have a country that constantly inflates its currency for 50 years and that will happen.
As the relative value went up, the profit margins went down, and now Japan has been in a recession for the last 12 years.
Your entire explanation is simplistic at best. The Japanese recession more than anything else is an example of how the pseudo-science of economics is a farce. There is no explanation taking into account any of the statistics and measurements to which you allude. According to the supposed greatest minds in economics of the 20th century, Japan should be a paradise.
But its not.
They are a failure because their people are disillusioned and have no interest in perpetuating a hierarchical economy when they get nothing in return. This, more than anything else, is what is happening around the world. While communism requires enslavement to perpetuate itself, fascist command economy require deception. Contrary to what the social engineers think, people are NOT stupid. The game is up, and most people in the world are not going to play anymore.
Now, apply that model to India. What we'll see is a mad rush where everyone tries to save money by outsourcing projects to India. The US companies will see huge savings (I disagree, but that's a different argument) and the Indians will see huge profits (again taking the exchange rate into consideration). However as the Indian rupee gains in value, the economic attraction of other countries to outsource to India will fall.
As previously stated, people are in reality quite intelligent. You can outsource programming work because well, anyone can do it. So you might as well pay people as little as possible.
The reason it works in India is a little more complicated. What you don't know is that the system by which command economies work, mass indoctrination of the people for specific functions, was practically invented in India. Its called the caste system. Why do you think Hitler was so fond of the Aryans in India? They were the Brahmin class, the ones at the top.
Basically, modern business is based on this hierarchical model of social organization. This sort of system when it involves business is called Fascist, or Corporate-fascist since it was utilized by Germany and Japan to organize their "empires". Its a system which began around the same time in India and Sparta, nearly three thousand years ago. There is a huge collection of people in India born, bred, and trained to serve in the same fashion as the Japanese and modern Americans as a result of forced schooling and college.
What no one realizes however is comprehensive systems of social organization DESTROYS a people rather than improves them. America's vast wealth was created because we were once free. When public schooling, and every other tool of social control was put in place, the country declined. We were living off the 19th century's wealth for most of the 20th. Now its gone, our people can't function within the bureaucratic machine system because we don't enslave them quite like other nations.
So then the torch passed to Japan. There, families don't even really exist. Kids spend all their waking moments in school, and school to work legislation makes sure they are moved into the appropriate places in life. But that society has decayed as a result.
And now we are back to India, where it all began. They learned something that Japan and the West gave up on, Religion is the key to control. Hinduism practically evolved to fill this role. It is still a major component of Indian life, and one the west still doesn't understand.
There is a reason there are so many "other" religions in India (Sihks, Janes, muslims...) Sihkism evolved SPECIFICALLY to comabt the social order that Hinduism maintained.
The International Atheist Association is based in India.
So the point is these countries are not these impoverished backwards places that the wonder of capitalism is transforming. India is just one step in the collapse of internationl bureaucratic business. Capitalism is irrelevant, and will always live on. But the monster of social engineering is just trying to find a new home. It has nearly destroyed American and Japan, now it is going home.
This lesson brought to you by Travis
You know, I have always hated that name Travis. Why is it every fuck named Travis is sanctimonious prick? I will tell you why, because only fucked up parents name their kids Travis and raise them so they feel superior to everyone else in the world. So my advice to you Travis, hide your name. In fact, legally change it.
Oh and you are deluding yourself about your teaching abilities. You have nothing to teach. Go back to your bullshit Macroeconomics textbook. We have all read them before and don't need another tool spouting that shit.
So what's the problem there?
Oh, nothing, just technology making human work more and more irrelevant.
Millions of people work as retail clerks... I can only imagine what will happens once they are rendered even more obsolete than they already are.
Wow. Its posts like this that really make me feel old at 25.
They had 486 SMP systems. In fact there was an awesome upgrade that came out like ten years ago that let you put two 486 processors in one socket. Of course you needed the clearance for it. SMP was actually all the rage ten years ago for the same reason PowerPC was all the rage. Intel had a hard time scaling, so one of the solutions was to us multithreading and divide up the work.
OS/2 2.11 SMP was out in 1993, and NT 3.1 came out shortly thereafter. Both supported SMP. The Pentium Pro, which came out in early 1995 was highly optimized for 32-bit code and multiprocessing. 4 and 8 way Pentium Pro boards existed. And were somewhat common.
If anything, SMP is LESS common today. When was the last time you saw a 4-way SMP board for sale anywhere? You could easily get them back then. The reason its less common today is processors really are a lot faster. Intel is doing this Hyperthreading crap because they know that orders of magnitude performance gains are a thing of the past, so multithreading is the key.
Of course, us old OS/2 fanatics were saying this ten years ago.
Excuse me while I fall about laughing. You credit Cadillac with inventing active suspension. In fact, Lotus invented it, around 1980. Citroën offered cars with active suspension since 1989, Cadillac introduced it in 1996.
Cadillac had active suspension systems in 1972. Not as technically advanced as today (or even "active" but the definition of some), but since they invented hydraulic suspension varying the pressure was an easy feat. At this same time, Cadillac became the first company to offer traction control and air bags. 5 years earlier, they were the first company to have front wheel drive.
In the 1980's Cadillac pioneered computer control of fuel injection systems as well as 4 wheel antilock disk breaks.
The greatest achievement that took the Europeans YEARS to reverse engineer however was the transaxal automatic transmission, which even today was an incredibly brilliant innovation.
There are quite a few European manufacturers which have shown that it's possible to build a car that rides comfortably and still handles well (Peugeot, Jaguar), and they didn't need active suspension to achieve that.
There are many European automotive companies that are obviously good cars, but the examples you have cited are just bad. Ten years ago, Peugeot and Jaguar were crap. Peugeot is STILL crap. My family used to own a Peugeot, they stopped selling the damn things in the US because they sucked so bad. Jaguar was crap until they were purchased by Ford. Do you realize Jaguar was once the most unreliable brand on the road?
Bull. BMW generations may look very similar (that ended with the new 7-series), but they constantly innovate. iDrive may not be the best possible solution to clutter, but at least they made an attempt to deal with it. Valvetronic is a huge step forward. The US car makers, on the other hand, change the exterior of the cars every year, but forget to innovate the underlying technology. They still mainly churn out square boxes with 2-valve V8 gas guzzling engines.
BMW has minor innovations, but not much beyond what Cadillac pioneered over 20 years ago. Valvetronic is a step, but not as important of a step as Northstar. I am amazed you are unfamiliar with the technical superiority of the Northstar V-8 over anything else on the market. It is far more efficient than anything offered in Europe, and is a model of how to vary engine output depending on load. In case you are unaware of how it works, Cylinders are shut off depending on load. So, when cruising the highway the unit becomes a four cylinder cutting highway fuel usage tremendously. In harsh climate or in response to engine difficulties, the unit switches to using only two cylinders at a time, alternating with every stroke to prevent the engine from overheating.
BMW has nothing even close to that. Valvetronic is a great invention, but it provides nothing more than 5-10% increase in fuel efficiency and better starting in cold temperatures.
Anyone who knows cars right now knows the Northstar V-8 is the most technically advanced engine ever made. Get over it.
Decadent, yes. Desirable, no. The design sucks, and they are completely unsuitable for our European roads (especially for travelling at high speed).
This is somewhat true, but only for SUV's. A Cadillac CTS is the same size as a BMW 5.
Only if you like tacky interiors and don't care about roadholding.
You obviously haven't driven many cars. This is a myth yuppies perpetuate to justify purchasing an expensive Eurotrash car because there really isn't anything else about them worth praising. Since GM practically invented everything about the modern car, its ridiculous to claim their cars do not handle well.
Most BMW's are crap. A stiff suspension is not the only definition of a car, and doesn't affect its handling. This is why Cadillac invented active suspension, to variably control the handling of the vehicle depending on driving conditions.
Personally, variable suspension is preferable in the Americas. We have larger countries, and road quality is not as consistant as in Germany or England. We have more highway in the US than all of Europe. There are many instances where a stiff suspension will not provide optimum road handling, almost to a dangerous degree. Hit a pot whole with a stiff suspension and your car may bounce out of control.
Seriously, we having been designing cars for 100 years. All cars are produced with exceptional quality today. BMW produces a car which never changes, never improves. It caters to people who prefer a static reality. This is why a BMW today looks essentially like a BMW of 30 years ago.
And outside the US, there still is a big difference in perception (and with these prestige brands, that is important) between Cadillac/Lincoln on one hand, and the European marques on the other.
Oh yes, and what part of the world have you been to? Its funny because Mercedes-Benz produces the most taxi cabs in Europe. They practically hold the same place as the Ford Crown Victoria or the Chevrolet Caprice. "Luxury" is a very different thing in Europe, where society is not as stratified. There, the sheer size of some American cars would be decadent enough. I guarantee you a Lincoln Navigator would hold far greater sway in the luxury department than a BMW 740, if you were France.
Ahh yes, the company that brought us power windows, power seats, transaxal automatic transmission, compact automotive air conditioning, modern suspension, antilock breaks...
GM is not perfect, but they have an amazingly inventive staff and their build quality is still among the best. Not only that, their vehicles are intelligently designed so you can fix them yourself.
And as far as style, maybe if you are a yuppie fuck who can't fathom driving anything other than a BMW you will think GM has no style. GM practically INVENTED style as a mass market commodity. Back when Ford had their Model T which looked like crap, GM was offering cars which didn't look like a power man's shit box. In 1970 when BMW produced nothing more than glorified compact cars, Cadillac had the El Dorado convertible.
Today, when every European car company tries to be BMW, Cadillac comes out with the CTS, the first remarkably original design since Ford began producing the Taurus in 1986.
Today, Cadillac is back to being the innovator it once was... I applaud them for it.