It doesn't matter that some people prefer to drink it later on...clearly many other people prefer to have their drink shortly after being served.
Then let them buy their coffee at Dunkin Donuts, so those who are smart enough not to drink hot liquids in a car and therefore need to have their coffee sit undrunk (undrinked?) for a period of time have the liberty of drinking warm coffee when they get where they're going.
I will respond only by saying that I don't take messages incorporating ad hominem attacks seriously. You should change your argumentation style to avoid logical fallacies, and then come back and try again.
Just because you want the ability to upload at high speed, or serve web pages from or host a mail server in your home, doesn't mean you are owed those luxuries by anyone, including me, a representative taxpayer.
If someone thinks there is profit potential in such a service, it will be offered, as it is in COVAD areas through Speakeasy.net. If not, then you are free to form a co-op with other like-minded people and provide your own enhanced service at cost.
Why do you feel you are owed broadband on your terms by others who don't benefit from your having that? I think you should pull your own weight, which means providing for your own service by negotiating for it (or the constituent components) from those willing to offer it. That should not include forcing me to pay for your enhanced service. I already pay enough for my own; I'd rather not pay for yours, as well.
Disease prevention can be considered a public good...
Or cities can be private communities, with entrance limited to those certified "disease-free" by some set of certification authorities licensed by the city. You think this is far-fetched, do you? With the advent of bioterror, in which so-called "martyrs" purposely infect themselves with diseases, free clinics suddenly don't appear to be a sufficient solution to the problem.
I don't ever buy these arguments. If I want something, I'll pay for it voluntarily. Co-ops are a good example of a voluntary "greater-good" financing scheme.
or a direct benefit to the "haves" in the situation (us!), for everyone to have access?
Again, if I want something, I'll pay for it. I simply expect others to do the same. If there is truly any benefit (all of which can ultimately be expressed by monetary profit) to subsidizing broadband to the sticks, then some private company will step up to provide it. If not, then I don't want the money taken from my pocket at the point of a gun to pay for something that might theoretically provide me with some hypothetical benefit.
Is it in fact a governmental responsibility to bring it to everyone?
By which you really mean, "Is it in fact the responsibility of those living at high expense in heavily-populated areas to finance internet access for those who choose to live in less-populated areas at lower cost?" Right?
So if your estimate is that 1 in 1000 people burn themselves, how many cups of coffee are sold per day? Divide that by a thousand, and multiply it by the cost of a casualty department treating burns.
Those individuals' insurance companies should pay for that cost, and those individuals' premiums should go up as a result of the economic consequences of their risky behavior. I shouldn't have my liberties reduced because some people are dumb.
What, you've never fallen over?
I'm smart enough not to buy 190 degree coffee, because I know I'm clumsy! As one of my friends said recently, people should not be able to use the courts to turn their stupidity into an asset.
After reading the link, it is very evident that McDonalds knew they were selling a dangerously hot product. By their own admission, the coffee was "unsuitable for consumption" after being served due to its temperature.
Irrelevant. Some people happen to like their Thai food with a level of spiciness that I would consider "unsuitable for consumption." Why should I be able to impose my opinion of the edibility of a food on other people? Perhaps some people like near-boiling water, or perhaps they want it really hot when they get it, so it's still hot when they get wherever they're going (e.g., commuter rail, the office, whatever).
[Aside: You goddamn leftists always try to impose your views on others because you believe that everyone in their right mind has to agree with you. Bullshit. Not everyone agrees with you all the time, and you should deal with that.]
: Is opening up a cup of coffee over your lap the : smartest thing? perhaps not. But why would you sell : something at a drive thru-window that people would : have to get out of there car to open?
Because if you are able to accomplish this feat of legerdemain without burning yourself (as 99.9% of people seem able to do), then you should have right to buy your coffee piping hot. Stupid and/or clumsy people have the choice to buy their coffee from restaurants that don't make it so hot. Don't take away the rights of the vast, vast majority to get their coffee hot, the way they like it.
It's attitudes like this ("Everything that's gone wrong in my life is someone else's fault") that makes life in the US so stressful and expensive for those of us who think it isn't right to blame someone else for everything.
Things are seriously at the point now that I can't even leave a hedge trimmer sitting on the floor near a window for fear that someone I didn't invite into my home (i.e., a burglar) would accidentally cut off his fingers and successfully sue me for damages encountered in the process of his performing an illegal act. The stress of having to worry about every little thing that I could possibly be sued for is the clearest argument (IMO) for tort reform.
The facts about McDonald's making their coffee are irrelevant: the simple fact is that anyone who puts a cup of coffee between his (or her) legs is taking a chance that McDonald's has no say over. If customers like the Mickey D's coffee hot, they should be able to get it that way, at their own risk.
Bottom line: the person ultimately responsible for her burns is no one but she, so my initial opinion of the need for tort reform (e.g., cap on non-economic damages and a loser-pays policy) stands.
I use clear Sylvania 130V bulbs throughout my house, and have not replaced a single bulb in over a year since I moved in. Not a single bulb.
Using a bulb rated at a higher voltage (at least 5V) than your electrical system (mine seems to provide 119V at a typical light socket on a circuit running around 6A) will extend the life of your bulbs by an order of magnitude, not just by a few weeks/months: the tradeoff is that light output is decreased, in my case by about 10%. No problem, just use a higher wattage bulb or more of them.
Question: Is there someone forcing them at the point of a gun to produce coffee and sell it below cost?
If the answer is "yes," then the problem is political, not economic. Perhaps you'd support an Iraq-style liberation?:)
If the answer is "no," then it is not slavery! Just because someone needs something (e.g., more money, a house, food, etc.) doesn't mean they automatically deserve to get what they need from my pocket.
Aside: I've found that the main difference between the left and the right on economic issues is that those on the left seek economic equality at the expense of freedoms while those on the right seek maximum freedom at the expense of economic equality. I am one of the latter, simply because the economy is based on invidivual, voluntary trades, so why should those who choose not to participate benefit from others' trades?
Nice straw man. Slavery is wrong because the people involved have no choice: they must continue to work by force of law, because they exist only as others' property. In the free market, everyone has a choice whether to work and and for how much: if they don't like what people are offering, they can refuse to accept it and do something else!
I'm sure you see the difference, although I'm equally sure you'll refuse to acknowledge it on a conscious level, because you've conditioned yourself to believe that "low wage" is equivalent to "slavery," even though they are very different things.
My quibble is with the use of the word "fair," implying somehow that those who buy "fair-trade" coffee somehow have the higher moral ground. Of course, they can feel better about themselves that they are giving a miniscule number of coffee producers more money than the others are getting, but calling it "fair-trade" is simply propagandizing. Come up with some more accurate description, like "leftist feel-good" coffee.
Seems to me that "fair" is whatever they're able to get for it on the free market. Otherwise, there's some kind of favoritism/inverse rationing going on, which is hardly "fair" since not everyone is allowed to compete.
I took a look at your "new constitution"... you want to outlaw credit?? The people who came up with that have to be a bunch of kooks who understand nothing about economics. The mind boggles...
I find his stance re: Debian rather amusing in light of the fact that, when I was a grad student there, I caught him on the third floor of MIT LCS in 1998 playing Master of Orion at one of the Mac's in the hallway. Not that I think there's anything wrong with that---I play loads of non-free games and use one non-free application once a year (tax prep software)---but I'm surprised he's not having an ulcer from the contradiction.:)
Uh, but...the whole problem was the incorrect *upward* pressure on the stock price prior to the revelation that Imclone's drug was to be rejected by the FDA. Using your assumption, her sale probably saved a bunch of people money.
...this isn't just insider trading: it's fraud pure and simple, and thus should be punished.
The difference between the two in my eyes is that insider trading charges can target people who have no control over the company's action. Case in point: Martha Stewart, who might have known that the stock was going to drop, but had no control over whether it did or not. Punishing someone for selling because of what they thought seems like an egregious violation of privacy and civil rights AND is incredibly hard to prove; but punishing someone for selling because they engage in the systematic dissemination of disinformation related to the enterprise for the express purpose of increasing their payout at the expense of other stockholders is perfectly justifiable. That, my friends, is fraud.
I haven't had any trouble receiving FM signals on the Neuros, but I only listen to one station that broadcasts close to where I live. So, YMMV.
As far as the transmitter goes, I find that depends more on the quality of the receiver: my stereo, for instance, can pick up the Neuros signal clear across the house (about 35' away), while my el-Cheapo $15 boom box can only receive it up to about 3 feet away.
AFAIK, the Vorbis format is well-suited to being peeled, but the information resulting from the MDCT need to be ordered in a certain way; thus, current files would need to be partially-decoded and then re-encoded in order to support a fast peeler. I don't think it is an April Fool's gag (although Segher did pull one of those on us earlier this year), but it seems like a sufficiently large project that they will wait until either (a) someone on the team is really bored or (b) demand gets very high.
Agreed that the support is less than 100%. This wouldn't be a problem if bitpeeling were available, but no one on the Vorbis team seems willing to take on that project. Nonetheless, I have gotten many, many enjoytable Vorbis-playing hours out of my Neuros after re-encoding some music at -q3; it has already made my long weekend drives much more pleassant.
Even though Digital Innovations got my money for being the first out of the gate with Neuros support for Ogg Vorbis, competition is always a good thing, and having more players that support Vorbis means lower prices and less potential for lock-in or obsolescence.
Ogg Vorbis destroys MP3 in terms of quality, and is competitive with all of the newer proprietary codecs (e.g., AAC, MP3Pro, WMA) at high bitrates while providing much better performance than those at low bitrates (e.g., sub-64kbps).
Don't let the intelligentsia decide whether Vorbis is the right codec for you or not: the free market will decide this question, and as a result of this development, that market just got more interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I'll ignore the masochistic for the moment.
It doesn't matter that some people prefer to drink it later on...clearly many other people prefer to have their drink shortly after being served.
Then let them buy their coffee at Dunkin Donuts, so those who are smart enough not to drink hot liquids in a car and therefore need to have their coffee sit undrunk (undrinked?) for a period of time have the liberty of drinking warm coffee when they get where they're going.
I will respond only by saying that I don't take messages incorporating ad hominem attacks seriously. You should change your argumentation style to avoid logical fallacies, and then come back and try again.
Just because you want the ability to upload at high speed, or serve web pages from or host a mail server in your home, doesn't mean you are owed those luxuries by anyone, including me, a representative taxpayer.
If someone thinks there is profit potential in such a service, it will be offered, as it is in COVAD areas through Speakeasy.net. If not, then you are free to form a co-op with other like-minded people and provide your own enhanced service at cost.
Why do you feel you are owed broadband on your terms by others who don't benefit from your having that? I think you should pull your own weight, which means providing for your own service by negotiating for it (or the constituent components) from those willing to offer it. That should not include forcing me to pay for your enhanced service. I already pay enough for my own; I'd rather not pay for yours, as well.
Disease prevention can be considered a public good...
Or cities can be private communities, with entrance limited to those certified "disease-free" by some set of certification authorities licensed by the city. You think this is far-fetched, do you? With the advent of bioterror, in which so-called "martyrs" purposely infect themselves with diseases, free clinics suddenly don't appear to be a sufficient solution to the problem.
Is there a greater-good benefit,
I don't ever buy these arguments. If I want something, I'll pay for it voluntarily. Co-ops are a good example of a voluntary "greater-good" financing scheme.
or a direct benefit to the "haves" in the situation (us!), for everyone to have access?
Again, if I want something, I'll pay for it. I simply expect others to do the same. If there is truly any benefit (all of which can ultimately be expressed by monetary profit) to subsidizing broadband to the sticks, then some private company will step up to provide it. If not, then I don't want the money taken from my pocket at the point of a gun to pay for something that might theoretically provide me with some hypothetical benefit.
Is it in fact a governmental responsibility to bring it to everyone?
By which you really mean, "Is it in fact the responsibility of those living at high expense in heavily-populated areas to finance internet access for those who choose to live in less-populated areas at lower cost?" Right?
So if your estimate is that 1 in 1000 people burn themselves, how many cups of coffee are sold per day? Divide that by a thousand, and multiply it by the cost of a casualty department treating burns.
Those individuals' insurance companies should pay for that cost, and those individuals' premiums should go up as a result of the economic consequences of their risky behavior. I shouldn't have my liberties reduced because some people are dumb.
What, you've never fallen over?
I'm smart enough not to buy 190 degree coffee, because I know I'm clumsy! As one of my friends said recently, people should not be able to use the courts to turn their stupidity into an asset.
After reading the link, it is very evident that McDonalds knew they were selling a dangerously hot product. By their own admission, the coffee was "unsuitable for consumption" after being served due to its temperature.
Irrelevant. Some people happen to like their Thai food with a level of spiciness that I would consider "unsuitable for consumption." Why should I be able to impose my opinion of the edibility of a food on other people? Perhaps some people like near-boiling water, or perhaps they want it really hot when they get it, so it's still hot when they get wherever they're going (e.g., commuter rail, the office, whatever).
[Aside: You goddamn leftists always try to impose your views on others because you believe that everyone in their right mind has to agree with you. Bullshit. Not everyone agrees with you all the time, and you should deal with that.]
: Is opening up a cup of coffee over your lap the
: smartest thing? perhaps not. But why would you sell
: something at a drive thru-window that people would
: have to get out of there car to open?
Because if you are able to accomplish this feat of legerdemain without burning yourself (as 99.9% of people seem able to do), then you should have right to buy your coffee piping hot. Stupid and/or clumsy people have the choice to buy their coffee from restaurants that don't make it so hot. Don't take away the rights of the vast, vast majority to get their coffee hot, the way they like it.
It's attitudes like this ("Everything that's gone wrong in my life is someone else's fault") that makes life in the US so stressful and expensive for those of us who think it isn't right to blame someone else for everything.
Things are seriously at the point now that I can't even leave a hedge trimmer sitting on the floor near a window for fear that someone I didn't invite into my home (i.e., a burglar) would accidentally cut off his fingers and successfully sue me for damages encountered in the process of his performing an illegal act. The stress of having to worry about every little thing that I could possibly be sued for is the clearest argument (IMO) for tort reform.
The facts about McDonald's making their coffee are irrelevant: the simple fact is that anyone who puts a cup of coffee between his (or her) legs is taking a chance that McDonald's has no say over. If customers like the Mickey D's coffee hot, they should be able to get it that way, at their own risk.
Bottom line: the person ultimately responsible for her burns is no one but she, so my initial opinion of the need for tort reform (e.g., cap on non-economic damages and a loser-pays policy) stands.
I use clear Sylvania 130V bulbs throughout my house, and have not replaced a single bulb in over a year since I moved in. Not a single bulb.
Using a bulb rated at a higher voltage (at least 5V) than your electrical system (mine seems to provide 119V at a typical light socket on a circuit running around 6A) will extend the life of your bulbs by an order of magnitude, not just by a few weeks/months: the tradeoff is that light output is decreased, in my case by about 10%. No problem, just use a higher wattage bulb or more of them.
: Huh? And how does the Fair Trade concept violate
:)
: these principles?
It doesn't. Remember that my quibble is with the term "fair trade", not with the concept of people voluntarily paying more for coffee.
Question: Is there someone forcing them at the point of a gun to produce coffee and sell it below cost?
:)
If the answer is "yes," then the problem is political, not economic. Perhaps you'd support an Iraq-style liberation?
If the answer is "no," then it is not slavery! Just because someone needs something (e.g., more money, a house, food, etc.) doesn't mean they automatically deserve to get what they need from my pocket.
Aside: I've found that the main difference between the left and the right on economic issues is that those on the left seek economic equality at the expense of freedoms while those on the right seek maximum freedom at the expense of economic equality. I am one of the latter, simply because the economy is based on invidivual, voluntary trades, so why should those who choose not to participate benefit from others' trades?
Nice straw man. Slavery is wrong because the people involved have no choice: they must continue to work by force of law, because they exist only as others' property. In the free market, everyone has a choice whether to work and and for how much: if they don't like what people are offering, they can refuse to accept it and do something else!
I'm sure you see the difference, although I'm equally sure you'll refuse to acknowledge it on a conscious level, because you've conditioned yourself to believe that "low wage" is equivalent to "slavery," even though they are very different things.
My quibble is with the use of the word "fair," implying somehow that those who buy "fair-trade" coffee somehow have the higher moral ground. Of course, they can feel better about themselves that they are giving a miniscule number of coffee producers more money than the others are getting, but calling it "fair-trade" is simply propagandizing. Come up with some more accurate description, like "leftist feel-good" coffee.
Seems to me that "fair" is whatever they're able to get for it on the free market. Otherwise, there's some kind of favoritism/inverse rationing going on, which is hardly "fair" since not everyone is allowed to compete.
I took a look at your "new constitution"... you want to outlaw credit?? The people who came up with that have to be a bunch of kooks who understand nothing about economics. The mind boggles...
...when they are followed by consistent action.
:)
I find his stance re: Debian rather amusing in light of the fact that, when I was a grad student there, I caught him on the third floor of MIT LCS in 1998 playing Master of Orion at one of the Mac's in the hallway. Not that I think there's anything wrong with that---I play loads of non-free games and use one non-free application once a year (tax prep software)---but I'm surprised he's not having an ulcer from the contradiction.
Cheers,
Kyle
Uh, but...the whole problem was the incorrect *upward* pressure on the stock price prior to the revelation that Imclone's drug was to be rejected by the FDA. Using your assumption, her sale probably saved a bunch of people money.
Think.
That's not fraud. Whom did she defraud? She did not set expectations for the person who bought her shares: they were traded essentially anonymously.
It's possible she perjured herself, if her statement was made under oath. But there's no way this is fraud.
...this isn't just insider trading: it's fraud pure and simple, and thus should be punished.
The difference between the two in my eyes is that insider trading charges can target people who have no control over the company's action. Case in point: Martha Stewart, who might have known that the stock was going to drop, but had no control over whether it did or not. Punishing someone for selling because of what they thought seems like an egregious violation of privacy and civil rights AND is incredibly hard to prove; but punishing someone for selling because they engage in the systematic dissemination of disinformation related to the enterprise for the express purpose of increasing their payout at the expense of other stockholders is perfectly justifiable. That, my friends, is fraud.
I haven't had any trouble receiving FM signals on the Neuros, but I only listen to one station that broadcasts close to where I live. So, YMMV.
As far as the transmitter goes, I find that depends more on the quality of the receiver: my stereo, for instance, can pick up the Neuros signal clear across the house (about 35' away), while my el-Cheapo $15 boom box can only receive it up to about 3 feet away.
AFAIK, the Vorbis format is well-suited to being peeled, but the information resulting from the MDCT need to be ordered in a certain way; thus, current files would need to be partially-decoded and then re-encoded in order to support a fast peeler. I don't think it is an April Fool's gag (although Segher did pull one of those on us earlier this year), but it seems like a sufficiently large project that they will wait until either (a) someone on the team is really bored or (b) demand gets very high.
Agreed that the support is less than 100%. This wouldn't be a problem if bitpeeling were available, but no one on the Vorbis team seems willing to take on that project. Nonetheless, I have gotten many, many enjoytable Vorbis-playing hours out of my Neuros after re-encoding some music at -q3; it has already made my long weekend drives much more pleassant.
Even though Digital Innovations got my money for being the first out of the gate with Neuros support for Ogg Vorbis, competition is always a good thing, and having more players that support Vorbis means lower prices and less potential for lock-in or obsolescence.
Ogg Vorbis destroys MP3 in terms of quality, and is competitive with all of the newer proprietary codecs (e.g., AAC, MP3Pro, WMA) at high bitrates while providing much better performance than those at low bitrates (e.g., sub-64kbps).
Don't let the intelligentsia decide whether Vorbis is the right codec for you or not: the free market will decide this question, and as a result of this development, that market just got more interesting.