Agreed. Whenever I've seen comparisons of income across different countries, e.g. in the Economist, they've almost always included one or more calculations of costs of living, standard of living, quality of life, and/or expendable income, and the calculations are usually done on a city to city rather than country to country basis. The USA prides itself on low to zero income taxes which inevitably means that Americans usually have to pay more for services because they pay for them as individuals: Governments benefit economies of scale when they provide services through taxation. It's a bit like Groupon but on a massive scale;)
Mmm... anyone think that a global accountancy firm might be somewhat biased in their reporting on this subject? The most helpful and interesting article I've found to date has been this review of a report that seems to be fairly rational: https://3starlearningexperienc...
Yes, but not just power outages. Think IoT-powered DDoS attacks. The Mirai botnet could easily hold banks to ransom. And then there's just the fact that a lot of ISPs suck big time. I can't count the number of times that a retailer hasn't been able to take card payments because their internet's down. They quickly and effortlessly set up cash only lanes which tells me that they're well versed in the system not working for one reason or another.
Hi Kjella, the calculations you've posted here don't account for fraud, i.e. copying people's banking credentials to access their accounts. What are the operating costs when we take all the various kinds of fraud that affect people's online banking?
The Internet does not look or act like a single robot.
Ever heard of the Mirai botnet? Seems to act pretty much like a single robot and it's pretty effective at taking stuff down. And according to Schneier, we ain't seen nothin' yet.
...would be cheaper, have a longer range, and require less direction. Apparently, eagles naturally hate drones and will seek them out and take them down. They're pretty effective too: https://www.youtube.com/result...
...the risk that the CIA is presenting to the USA. By hoarding vulnerabilities in operating systems and software and then developing tools to exploit them, they're making the internet very insecure; as Bruce Schneier puts it, today's top secret government hacking tools are tomorrow's organised crime hacking tools. Which country has the greatest economic and national security dependency on the internet and is therefore the most vulnerable to hacking tools? The USA. The CIA are quickly becoming a bunch of useless idiots to the USA and useful idiots to anyone who wants to exploit the USA (and everyone else). Expect hacking-based disruption and extortion to take a serious toll on all internet dependent economies and especially the USA's.
No mention of Lumo Energy, the private corporation that is charging these prices to its customers. Why is the Australian government standing by while its citizens are being right-royally shafted by Lumo Energy. Didn't a similar thing happen with Enron in California not so long ago?
Yes, Gates' comments are banal, hypocritical, and fail to address the real problems that we face today, and so are the counter-arguments:
"Why pick on robots?" former Treasury Secretary Summers asked in a Washington Post opinion piece, which called Gates "profoundly misguided." The economist argued that progress, however messy and disruptive sometimes, ultimately benefits society overall.
Wrong: At any time since 1979, has there ever been a change in corporate employment and/or manufacturing practices that have benefited society overall? Neoliberalism is cannibalising the developed world. I think Larry Summers' definition of progress needs some explanation.
Mike Shedlock, a financial adviser with Sitka Pacific Capital Management in Edmonds, Washington, wrote on his blog that robot owners, who likely would pay the tax, would simply pass it along by jacking up prices.
Wrong: The price consumers pay for goods isn't determined by how much the goods cost to make/provide.
The European Union's parliament in February rejected a measure to impose a tax on robots, using much the same reasoning as Gates' critics.
Bandwagon fallacy: Just because it was rejected by the subjective decisions of one group, it doesn't follow that it's the right decision for everyone else.
The root of the problem has little to do with how things are made or how services are provided or basic microeconomics. The problem is how we decide the allocate resources across our populations, which is an inherently political issue. Looks like what the USA has is a failure of its political system.
The trouble is that Microsoft don't like their users to have choice. They bake-in proprietary features and incompatibilities that prevent users from sharing documents and files across operating systems or going outside their software walled gardens. How many prosecutions against Microsoft for anti-competitive practices will it take to convince you? They don't want their users to have choice, they want their users to be stuck with using their products and services and unable to easily switch to others.
I can see that for people whose jobs are doing stuff other than ICT will see the transition from one OS and office software to another as a problem. It's one transition, once. Anyone who's experienced Win10 can attest that it's so different to previous versions and that they've changed around MS Office so much lately, that the learning curve to switch to Linux is comparable. So why not? Also, there's the privacy issues with Win10 (Microsoft calls their key-loggers and spyware "telemetry") that all governments should be wary of. Keep your privacy and control with Linux as well as save a few € in the process.
The MS Office hegemony is still strong and is still making MS a lot of money.
May be true in the good ol' US of A but over in the EU, they're going full-steam ahead with switching from Microsoft Windows and Office to Ubuntu and LibreOffice (There's a draft directive to switch to free and open source IT solutions). Since governments and govt. agencies are Microsoft's main paying customers, then Microsoft are going downhill in a very large market. It's just a matter of how long it takes for the EU to drop Microsoft entirely.
Need LibreOffice online? LibreOffice 3.5 can be installed on a server and will work in a web browser. Need a supported commercial solution? Check out Collabora and the many spin-off service providers.
BTW, if it's spelled "Buzz," the German pronunciation sounds more like "butts" than "bus." Americans can get excited about driving their butts around and seeing how many people they can fit in their butts. Do you think they're holding a grudge because Americans exposed their oh so clever but fraudulent emissions software?
I lived in Spain for 8 years and Italy for 1. Yes, their diet seems to be changing a little towards more (processed) convenience foods. I think what's most significant about Spanish and Italian culture with regards to diet is that they are very family oriented and take a long (3 - 4 hour) lunch break. This means that most people go home and eat fresh, home-cooked meals together as a family (often at their parents' home).
They also have worker productivity levels on a par with the USA's and UK's so called workaholic/protestant work-ethic workers, fewer sick days (They also get statutory paid sick leave), more vacation days (also paid), and most jobs pay double in December (for Christmas) and some pay double in July or August (for summer holidays).
They have the best work-life balance I've ever experienced.
Remember when the Obama administration summoned the CEOs of the big 5 banks to Washington and they didn't show up? That must've stung, no? Well, now Google's trying the same thing with big gubbermint. Can't wait to see what happens. I can smell the testosterone from the other side of the border!
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Whenever I've seen comparisons of income across different countries, e.g. in the Economist, they've almost always included one or more calculations of costs of living, standard of living, quality of life, and/or expendable income, and the calculations are usually done on a city to city rather than country to country basis. The USA prides itself on low to zero income taxes which inevitably means that Americans usually have to pay more for services because they pay for them as individuals: Governments benefit economies of scale when they provide services through taxation. It's a bit like Groupon but on a massive scale ;)
Mmm... anyone think that a global accountancy firm might be somewhat biased in their reporting on this subject? The most helpful and interesting article I've found to date has been this review of a report that seems to be fairly rational: https://3starlearningexperienc...
Yes, but not just power outages. Think IoT-powered DDoS attacks. The Mirai botnet could easily hold banks to ransom. And then there's just the fact that a lot of ISPs suck big time. I can't count the number of times that a retailer hasn't been able to take card payments because their internet's down. They quickly and effortlessly set up cash only lanes which tells me that they're well versed in the system not working for one reason or another.
Hi Kjella, the calculations you've posted here don't account for fraud, i.e. copying people's banking credentials to access their accounts. What are the operating costs when we take all the various kinds of fraud that affect people's online banking?
The Internet does not look or act like a single robot.
Ever heard of the Mirai botnet? Seems to act pretty much like a single robot and it's pretty effective at taking stuff down. And according to Schneier, we ain't seen nothin' yet.
...would be cheaper, have a longer range, and require less direction. Apparently, eagles naturally hate drones and will seek them out and take them down. They're pretty effective too: https://www.youtube.com/result...
...the risk that the CIA is presenting to the USA. By hoarding vulnerabilities in operating systems and software and then developing tools to exploit them, they're making the internet very insecure; as Bruce Schneier puts it, today's top secret government hacking tools are tomorrow's organised crime hacking tools. Which country has the greatest economic and national security dependency on the internet and is therefore the most vulnerable to hacking tools? The USA. The CIA are quickly becoming a bunch of useless idiots to the USA and useful idiots to anyone who wants to exploit the USA (and everyone else). Expect hacking-based disruption and extortion to take a serious toll on all internet dependent economies and especially the USA's.
No mention of Lumo Energy, the private corporation that is charging these prices to its customers. Why is the Australian government standing by while its citizens are being right-royally shafted by Lumo Energy. Didn't a similar thing happen with Enron in California not so long ago?
Yes, Gates' comments are banal, hypocritical, and fail to address the real problems that we face today, and so are the counter-arguments:
"Why pick on robots?" former Treasury Secretary Summers asked in a Washington Post opinion piece, which called Gates "profoundly misguided." The economist argued that progress, however messy and disruptive sometimes, ultimately benefits society overall.
Wrong: At any time since 1979, has there ever been a change in corporate employment and/or manufacturing practices that have benefited society overall? Neoliberalism is cannibalising the developed world. I think Larry Summers' definition of progress needs some explanation.
Mike Shedlock, a financial adviser with Sitka Pacific Capital Management in Edmonds, Washington, wrote on his blog that robot owners, who likely would pay the tax, would simply pass it along by jacking up prices.
Wrong: The price consumers pay for goods isn't determined by how much the goods cost to make/provide.
The European Union's parliament in February rejected a measure to impose a tax on robots, using much the same reasoning as Gates' critics.
Bandwagon fallacy: Just because it was rejected by the subjective decisions of one group, it doesn't follow that it's the right decision for everyone else.
The root of the problem has little to do with how things are made or how services are provided or basic microeconomics. The problem is how we decide the allocate resources across our populations, which is an inherently political issue. Looks like what the USA has is a failure of its political system.
The trouble is that Microsoft don't like their users to have choice. They bake-in proprietary features and incompatibilities that prevent users from sharing documents and files across operating systems or going outside their software walled gardens. How many prosecutions against Microsoft for anti-competitive practices will it take to convince you? They don't want their users to have choice, they want their users to be stuck with using their products and services and unable to easily switch to others.
I can see that for people whose jobs are doing stuff other than ICT will see the transition from one OS and office software to another as a problem. It's one transition, once. Anyone who's experienced Win10 can attest that it's so different to previous versions and that they've changed around MS Office so much lately, that the learning curve to switch to Linux is comparable. So why not? Also, there's the privacy issues with Win10 (Microsoft calls their key-loggers and spyware "telemetry") that all governments should be wary of. Keep your privacy and control with Linux as well as save a few € in the process.
Everyone knows that Homeopathy uses alternative facts and so normal science just doesn't apply.
The MS Office hegemony is still strong and is still making MS a lot of money.
May be true in the good ol' US of A but over in the EU, they're going full-steam ahead with switching from Microsoft Windows and Office to Ubuntu and LibreOffice (There's a draft directive to switch to free and open source IT solutions). Since governments and govt. agencies are Microsoft's main paying customers, then Microsoft are going downhill in a very large market. It's just a matter of how long it takes for the EU to drop Microsoft entirely.
Need LibreOffice online? LibreOffice 3.5 can be installed on a server and will work in a web browser. Need a supported commercial solution? Check out Collabora and the many spin-off service providers.
Emission cuts are the XXIst century equivalent of self-flagellation in the Middle-Ages to cure the Black Plague. Pointless.
Cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy that we can get locally is self-flagellation? Please, do go on. Explain that to me.
both of which are designed to keep the used within their respective ecosystems
There, I fixed that for you.
Ever wonder why people are skeptical of claims like this?
Because the fossil fuel industry funds media campaigns to discredit sound, reliable climate science? (Please see: http://www.merchantsofdoubt.or...)
Even their own climate science that they were doing in the 1970s? (Please see: https://www.scientificamerican...)
BTW, if it's spelled "Buzz," the German pronunciation sounds more like "butts" than "bus." Americans can get excited about driving their butts around and seeing how many people they can fit in their butts. Do you think they're holding a grudge because Americans exposed their oh so clever but fraudulent emissions software?
I wish I had some points to mod this up :)
I lived in Spain for 8 years and Italy for 1. Yes, their diet seems to be changing a little towards more (processed) convenience foods. I think what's most significant about Spanish and Italian culture with regards to diet is that they are very family oriented and take a long (3 - 4 hour) lunch break. This means that most people go home and eat fresh, home-cooked meals together as a family (often at their parents' home).
They also have worker productivity levels on a par with the USA's and UK's so called workaholic/protestant work-ethic workers, fewer sick days (They also get statutory paid sick leave), more vacation days (also paid), and most jobs pay double in December (for Christmas) and some pay double in July or August (for summer holidays).
They have the best work-life balance I've ever experienced.
Remember when the Obama administration summoned the CEOs of the big 5 banks to Washington and they didn't show up? That must've stung, no? Well, now Google's trying the same thing with big gubbermint. Can't wait to see what happens. I can smell the testosterone from the other side of the border!
“Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” -- Abba Eban
Which is frequently misquoted as, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thingafter they have exhausted all other possibilities."
So when the starving mob are at the ruling elites' gates with torches and pitch forks, they'll surely find the resources to do the right thing.