Emerging economies will have their emissions raise as they increase their standard of living. Meanwhile, industrialized rich countries should reduce their emissions. At some point, the per capita emissions of the two groups will meet somewhere in the middle, and from there, every country should reduce emissions even more.
But as long as we (the rich countries) emit 4-10x more per capita than China and India, we can't blame them for emitting too much. Some countries are especially to blame: USA, Canada, UAE, Qatar and Australia, to name a few.
There will always be too much pollution for what is acceptable if it is free to pollute. The other option (if you don't want to tax) is to enforce bans and pollution standards. But these often end up being a lot more bureaucratic and expensive to maintain for something which is measurable (or easy to approximate by a calculation) such as CO2.
Also, a pollution tax doesn't increase total taxation since you can put a pollution tax instead of another tax (say income tax or sale tax). It is very stupid to tax income to 30-50% when you could be taxing pollution instead.
The purpose was clearly not to remove those barriers, only to reduce some of them. And it's only valid for goods produced inside the NAFTA area. It never intended to be a customs union. In the EU you can import a Chinese good in Netherland and move it to Spain without any issue.
Also to remove artificial trade barriers with the rest of the world, the USA should drop the imperial measurement units.
Europe didn't ban geo-blocking. Only, the EU banned geo-blocking within the EU, which means you have to offer the same content at the same price for all EU countries. It make sense in a single market. But companies are still free to offer different content outside the EU at a different price.
for years, WhatsApp was the only chat app to have a really good user interface on mobile (using contact discovery and displaying chats in a way that users found convenient, with powerful options to mute chats and set privacy options, yet almost never dropping messages and absolutely never silently logging itself out),
There are chap apps dropping messages and logging themselves out silently? Never heard of these. Blocking/muting contacts is also common. Chats are displayed just like anything else, for years. I still really don't get what's so special.
If you're running an iPhone or iPad, you do so at the behest of Apple. They control which browers you're allowed to use. Presently there are a few choices, but that could change at any moment.
All "browsers" on iOS are forced by Apple to use Safari as the rendering engine. Basically, alternatives browsers are themes on Safari
You could still be found or added to a contact list by phone number, even if you login with a username or email address. Even skype allows this I think. But at least Skype allows you to hide your phone number. I consider my phone number much more private than my email address as it's harder to change and filter.
Furthermore, I know that if a person uses WhatsApp, it is generally a good way to reach them, unlike other services. (Good luck trying to reach me on Skype if I haven't opened the app in two months.)
The same can be said for whatsapp. I haven't opened it in over two years. The only difference is that you probably have more people using whatsapp than skype in your inner circle. It's not because whatsapp does anything better.
By the way, LINE and Viber use the same model as WhatsApp, so it's hardly alone
I agree, and I despise them all. Especially since there are better alternatives out there without this big limitation. There is a hype around these applications but I predict that people will move on at some point. I am an optimist and I hope the crappiest technology won't win the messaging war.
I'm just one of those users who likes the end result so much that he overlooks the drawbacks.
What's so special about the end result? What does whatsapp do that can't be done with a dozens competitors? I see nothing. The only reason I can find people use whatsapp is its quite large user base.
Though note that even that system wouldn't work without a phone number still acting as a unique identifier.
Yes it would, Hangouts uses email addresses. It's pretty trivial to do. You scan the address book for all contacts. As soon as one send you a message, it gives you access to his/her status (that person just confirmed to add you to his/her contact list).
It could even use many different IDs (email, phone number, user name) and merge everything into a contact list and it would be transparent for the user. The only way NOT to do it is the current whatsapp way.
The thing I think you are not paying attention to is that users like the way the system was designed, including the simplicity and authentication being your SIM, for both the phone and the computer.
Some users may like it but I don't think it's the majority. Also I would definitely not call it simple. To use your phone (and a QR code) to connect to whatsapp web is definitely not simple. Also I think you forget all the potential users would could be interested by a messaging program they would use only on their PC and are not interested in using it on a phone at all. Whatsapp is definitely not simple to use for them.
And finally the authentication is not your sim. It's your phone number and you must receive an SMS. Swapping the SIM into another phone isn't enough. They could still keep this authentication method for those who can't remember a password.
Well first of all, I am not sure I want whatsapp to scan over all my contact list.
But to give an example, Hangouts (or whatever google calls it these days) seems to be doing what you describe just fine, without using the phone number as an identifier.
There is no excuse to use a phone number as an identifier nowadays.
You do need to login. Instead of providing a simple username and password which can be saved in your browser data, you need to scan a QR code on your phone to login on your PC. It sucks. On your phone, you login by receiving an SMS. It sucks too.
It's also trivial to use the address book without having to rely on a phone number as an identifier.
They could at least provide the option to create a password for those who can use one. And no excuse for working only on phones, and a single phone at a time.
Slashdot Mirror
as I said. The US just has to slash its military expenditures by 50 or even 75%. This way Europe would no longer be a net importer of security.
There is one more way to make it even. Go ahead, slash your military expenditure in half. We don't care.
-NATO allies
even 16 MP photos are re-compressed but the quality is still good for a free product
Nope.
Granting a license to use is not the same as owning. Also, the terms don't allow them to take my pictures and sell them to random strangers.
This will increase the migration speed from Flickr to Google Photos. I doubt many people will switch to the paid version.
so the poor are less affected by the gas tax if they take the public transport.
Emerging economies will have their emissions raise as they increase their standard of living.
Meanwhile, industrialized rich countries should reduce their emissions. At some point, the per capita emissions of the two groups will meet somewhere in the middle, and from there, every country should reduce emissions even more.
But as long as we (the rich countries) emit 4-10x more per capita than China and India, we can't blame them for emitting too much. Some countries are especially to blame: USA, Canada, UAE, Qatar and Australia, to name a few.
they still emit more CO2 per capita than France, Spain, Italy or Denmark (at least with the 2014 numbers I got).
The rate of reduction doesn't mean much if the country was emitting a lot in 1990.
The UK (and Europe in general) is doing much better than USA/Canada/Australia.
It would be more efficient to increase gas tax instead and kill these regulations, tolls, and even EV subsidies.
There will always be too much pollution for what is acceptable if it is free to pollute.
The other option (if you don't want to tax) is to enforce bans and pollution standards. But these often end up being a lot more bureaucratic and expensive to maintain for something which is measurable (or easy to approximate by a calculation) such as CO2.
Also, a pollution tax doesn't increase total taxation since you can put a pollution tax instead of another tax (say income tax or sale tax).
It is very stupid to tax income to 30-50% when you could be taxing pollution instead.
neither do they for importing content anywhere. Duties and tax code pre-date the Internet.
TV shows / movies diffusion rights are not physical goods.
You can (and should) tax local pollution as well. Why should it be free to pollute?
The purpose was clearly not to remove those barriers, only to reduce some of them. And it's only valid for goods produced inside the NAFTA area. It never intended to be a customs union. In the EU you can import a Chinese good in Netherland and move it to Spain without any issue.
Also to remove artificial trade barriers with the rest of the world, the USA should drop the imperial measurement units.
The EU is much more integrated than USA/Canada/Mexico. NAFTA is not a common market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
NAFTA is at level 2 on that scale while the EU is level 6. With the common market being level 4.
Europe didn't ban geo-blocking. Only, the EU banned geo-blocking within the EU, which means you have to offer the same content at the same price for all EU countries. It make sense in a single market.
But companies are still free to offer different content outside the EU at a different price.
USA and Canada do not form a single market.
they run their own Canadian streaming service
for years, WhatsApp was the only chat app to have a really good user interface on mobile (using contact discovery and displaying chats in a way that users found convenient, with powerful options to mute chats and set privacy options, yet almost never dropping messages and absolutely never silently logging itself out),
There are chap apps dropping messages and logging themselves out silently? Never heard of these. Blocking/muting contacts is also common. Chats are displayed just like anything else, for years.
I still really don't get what's so special.
If you're running an iPhone or iPad, you do so at the behest of Apple. They control which browers you're allowed to use. Presently there are a few choices, but that could change at any moment.
All "browsers" on iOS are forced by Apple to use Safari as the rendering engine. Basically, alternatives browsers are themes on Safari
You could still be found or added to a contact list by phone number, even if you login with a username or email address. Even skype allows this I think. But at least Skype allows you to hide your phone number. I consider my phone number much more private than my email address as it's harder to change and filter.
Furthermore, I know that if a person uses WhatsApp, it is generally a good way to reach them, unlike other services. (Good luck trying to reach me on Skype if I haven't opened the app in two months.)
The same can be said for whatsapp. I haven't opened it in over two years.
The only difference is that you probably have more people using whatsapp than skype in your inner circle. It's not because whatsapp does anything better.
By the way, LINE and Viber use the same model as WhatsApp, so it's hardly alone
I agree, and I despise them all. Especially since there are better alternatives out there without this big limitation.
There is a hype around these applications but I predict that people will move on at some point. I am an optimist and I hope the crappiest technology won't win the messaging war.
I'm just one of those users who likes the end result so much that he overlooks the drawbacks.
What's so special about the end result? What does whatsapp do that can't be done with a dozens competitors? I see nothing.
The only reason I can find people use whatsapp is its quite large user base.
Though note that even that system wouldn't work without a phone number still acting as a unique identifier.
Yes it would, Hangouts uses email addresses.
It's pretty trivial to do. You scan the address book for all contacts. As soon as one send you a message, it gives you access to his/her status (that person just confirmed to add you to his/her contact list).
It could even use many different IDs (email, phone number, user name) and merge everything into a contact list and it would be transparent for the user.
The only way NOT to do it is the current whatsapp way.
The thing I think you are not paying attention to is that users like the way the system was designed, including the simplicity and authentication being your SIM, for both the phone and the computer.
Some users may like it but I don't think it's the majority. Also I would definitely not call it simple. To use your phone (and a QR code) to connect to whatsapp web is definitely not simple. Also I think you forget all the potential users would could be interested by a messaging program they would use only on their PC and are not interested in using it on a phone at all. Whatsapp is definitely not simple to use for them.
And finally the authentication is not your sim. It's your phone number and you must receive an SMS. Swapping the SIM into another phone isn't enough. They could still keep this authentication method for those who can't remember a password.
Well first of all, I am not sure I want whatsapp to scan over all my contact list.
But to give an example, Hangouts (or whatever google calls it these days) seems to be doing what you describe just fine, without using the phone number as an identifier.
There is no excuse to use a phone number as an identifier nowadays.
Too bad they don't have an industrial temperature range version (-40 to +85C)
You do need to login. Instead of providing a simple username and password which can be saved in your browser data, you need to scan a QR code on your phone to login on your PC. It sucks. On your phone, you login by receiving an SMS. It sucks too.
It's also trivial to use the address book without having to rely on a phone number as an identifier.
They could at least provide the option to create a password for those who can use one. And no excuse for working only on phones, and a single phone at a time.