Which scenario has the greater cost/revenue benefit? (thus allowing for lower costs to consumer):
1) Wiring up and connecting 5 towns in a 100 square mile radius, each with a population of 10,000 people. That line you run out to each town services 10,000 people each!
2) Wiring up and connecting 5 towns in a 100 square mile radius, each with a population of 1,000 people. That same line to each line only services 1,000 people.
Both scenarios require similar amounts of infrastructure in place, but one scenario offsets the cost with more revenue. If you can do that, you can lower the cost per customer... Higher population density = more revenue/cost.
Except France's small villages are extremely close to each other.
France (not including it's territories) spans 213,010 square miles and has a population of 63,460,000. A population density of 297.92 people per square mile.
Comparatively, If you take the US state I live in and an adjoining state (Arizona and New Mexico), they span a combined 235,587 square miles (comparable to France) and host a combined population of 8,638,538. A population density of 36.6 per square mile. And like France, there are only a few large cities (large is relative).
1) Make the Tax flat.. no exceptions for any "type" including food, health.
2) Only tax new goods and services: used car-> no tax
3) At a local level figure out what a family/person pays for the bare necessities: enough food, rent, basic healthcare, transportation costs etc.. every month (Have them publish the formula). Then figure the amount of tax there would be on that. Electronically transfer that amount every month in the form of a prebate to everyone.
Keep in mind that at this point you are taxing consumption, and not income so the idea of "wealthier" people paying a lower effective tax rate only applies if you reintroduce income (or somehow "wealth") into the equation. (Remember: income != wealth != consumption)
Poorer people are less likely to buy a BRAND NEW house, or car and so pay no tax on it. They are less likely to buy that $18 bowl of granola or $50 t-shirts. If someone wants to buy caviar for all there meals... they pay tax on it and the prebate probably won't cover even a slight bit of it.
Politicians can still monkey with the prebate amounts, but as it would be law/amendment I cannot see how to permanently and in perpetuity fix the law as untouchable. However, once you stop taxing income, it becomes harder to track income (I think this is a good thing)
"Basically any form of pleasure was outlawed," Mr Hassani said, "and if we found people doing any of these things we would beat them with staves soaked in water - like a knife cutting through meat - until the room ran with their blood or their spines snapped. Then we would leave them with no food or water in rooms filled with insects until they died.
"We always tried to do different things: we would put some of them standing on their heads to sleep, hang others upside down with their legs tied together. We would stretch the arms out of others and nail them to posts like crucifixions.
For either/both sides to call shenanigans when the vote does not go their way.
I wonder if someone has done a study on the amount of press voter fraud gets vs. party election outcome and if there is as stark of a difference as I perceive. And if people really think that one party only wins when they "cheat", does that just reinforce myopic visions of political views (i.e. Most people think the way I do and so the only explanation is fraud)?
I also run/program/maintain a relatively small open source initiative for 4 years and have had the exact opposite experience. With the exception of one German company and one Mexican company, all of my donations and customizations, and contributions have come from US companies or individuals. The Europeans are constantly the ones with negative comments on the boards, yet when asked to contribute, do nothing. And when I mean contribute, I will take anything - coding contributions, documentation help... anything.
Maybe it is the nature or function of most OS software that determines attitude. Since my software is more directly business/accounting related, perhaps US people are more apt to see the value and ideals behind the software. Perhaps Europeans see the value and ideal behind more technical or "academic" related software?
I suggest not flaming citations when you use "Media Matters" for yours. If I would counter-cite from Rush Limbaugh (*blech*) I would hope my credibility would go down too.
Your point about making a case by inference is a good one. I suggest you take a dose of your own. To infer that McCain is against veteran medical service because he voted against H.R.1591 is well dumb. Although some of the verbage of the bill addresses providing funding for veteran hospital, you can tell by the title that it is, in actuality, a pork filled appropriations bill:
U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act
Just take a look at the bill. It cover's everything from DHS and local police funding, to Immigration, to economic sanctions on Lebanon, to loan appropriation for Liberia.... oh yah, some stuff about veterans.
If we were congressman and I put forth a bill that appropriated money for the building of a death ray but that we shouldn't kill babies, could I accuse you of wanting to kill babies because you voted against it?
It *is* about personal freedom. You just don't think it is because it doesn't personally affect *your* choices (I assume that you don't ride a motorcycle). Justifying the law because it saves the state money doesn't exclude the fact that the state is taking away my choice from wearing a helmet.
If, as you said, the law is all about what it costs the state, couldn't they justify taking away all sorts of freedoms in the name of saving a buck (or making a buck - imminent domain anyone)?
Couldn't you argue that by incurring a $200,000 (where did you come up with number?) one-time -cost for brain clean up of an idiot, you are potentially saving more money for the state in the long run than the stupid person would rack up by keeping him/her alive another 60-80 years (welfare,health costs, policing, fire, etc...?)
Why even bother asking you if you want to sell? Now they don't need to. They will just cut you out of the loop and go straight to the local councilman in their pocket.
Interesting read if the poll. You looked at who voted for bush over gore (21%-19%) and determined thusly that slashdot is right winged oriented.
That same logic would *actually* dictate that slashdot is mostly an international community (also incorrect)
The way *I* read the poll is that Slashdot is more left-leaning (Gore + Nadir = 33%) vs Bush 21% ( or Bush + Browne = 28% depending on how you look at it)
Back on topic... what the heck does "sectoral approach" mean? the article refers to:
...However, the United States has taken a sectoral approach to privacy regulation...
I have also been wrestling this issue for a while, but with shop manuals for old cars.... Try finding a shop repair manual for a '73 roadrunner. Even after exhaustive searches on the internet to find a place to buy these books, I find one shady site and have to pay $$$ for them.
My thought was that if I could find them, buy them and then digitize them, I could save some poor sap that might not be so search engine savy time to get them a searchable digital copy...
Plus if I could do a keyword search for "holly carb" rather than thumbing through a three volume repair manual set.... man.. I could get my car up and running in half the time, and not ruin the $$$$ manual set with grease and muck in the process!
My main question would be, for discontinued or non-traditionally published books (like company distributed manuals) what is the legality involved with re-distributing (or even selling) digitized versions of them them??? Even if it is a chore to do, would it legaly be worth me doing it for the good of others???
Slashdot Mirror
Can you answer this WITHOUT YELLING?:
Which scenario has the greater cost/revenue benefit? (thus allowing for lower costs to consumer):
1) Wiring up and connecting 5 towns in a 100 square mile radius, each with a population of 10,000 people. That line you run out to each town services 10,000 people each!
2) Wiring up and connecting 5 towns in a 100 square mile radius, each with a population of 1,000 people. That same line to each line only services 1,000 people.
Both scenarios require similar amounts of infrastructure in place, but one scenario offsets the cost with more revenue. If you can do that, you can lower the cost per customer... Higher population density = more revenue/cost.
Except France's small villages are extremely close to each other.
France (not including it's territories) spans 213,010 square miles and has a population of 63,460,000. A population density of 297.92 people per square mile.
Comparatively, If you take the US state I live in and an adjoining state (Arizona and New Mexico), they span a combined 235,587 square miles (comparable to France) and host a combined population of 8,638,538. A population density of 36.6 per square mile. And like France, there are only a few large cities (large is relative).
There is actually an even easier way to do this:
1) Make the Tax flat.. no exceptions for any "type" including food, health.
2) Only tax new goods and services: used car-> no tax
3) At a local level figure out what a family/person pays for the bare necessities: enough food, rent, basic healthcare, transportation costs etc.. every month (Have them publish the formula). Then figure the amount of tax there would be on that. Electronically transfer that amount every month in the form of a prebate to everyone.
Keep in mind that at this point you are taxing consumption, and not income so the idea of "wealthier" people paying a lower effective tax rate only applies if you reintroduce income (or somehow "wealth") into the equation. (Remember: income != wealth != consumption)
Poorer people are less likely to buy a BRAND NEW house, or car and so pay no tax on it. They are less likely to buy that $18 bowl of granola or $50 t-shirts. If someone wants to buy caviar for all there meals... they pay tax on it and the prebate probably won't cover even a slight bit of it. Politicians can still monkey with the prebate amounts, but as it would be law/amendment I cannot see how to permanently and in perpetuity fix the law as untouchable. However, once you stop taxing income, it becomes harder to track income (I think this is a good thing)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1358063/I-was-one-of-the-Talibans-torturers-I-crucified-people.html
"Basically any form of pleasure was outlawed," Mr Hassani said, "and if we found people doing any of these things we would beat them with staves soaked in water - like a knife cutting through meat - until the room ran with their blood or their spines snapped. Then we would leave them with no food or water in rooms filled with insects until they died.
"We always tried to do different things: we would put some of them standing on their heads to sleep, hang others upside down with their legs tied together. We would stretch the arms out of others and nail them to posts like crucifixions.
RE: "They just don't."
Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphen_aan_den_Rijn_shopping_mall_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbria_shootings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauhajoki_school_shooting
For either/both sides to call shenanigans when the vote does not go their way. I wonder if someone has done a study on the amount of press voter fraud gets vs. party election outcome and if there is as stark of a difference as I perceive. And if people really think that one party only wins when they "cheat", does that just reinforce myopic visions of political views (i.e. Most people think the way I do and so the only explanation is fraud)?
Yay! Another correlation != causality study. Everyone jump to conclusions in 5...4...3...2...1
I also run/program/maintain a relatively small open source initiative for 4 years and have had the exact opposite experience. With the exception of one German company and one Mexican company, all of my donations and customizations, and contributions have come from US companies or individuals. The Europeans are constantly the ones with negative comments on the boards, yet when asked to contribute, do nothing. And when I mean contribute, I will take anything - coding contributions, documentation help... anything. Maybe it is the nature or function of most OS software that determines attitude. Since my software is more directly business/accounting related, perhaps US people are more apt to see the value and ideals behind the software. Perhaps Europeans see the value and ideal behind more technical or "academic" related software?
I suggest not flaming citations when you use "Media Matters" for yours. If I would counter-cite from Rush Limbaugh (*blech*) I would hope my credibility would go down too. Your point about making a case by inference is a good one. I suggest you take a dose of your own. To infer that McCain is against veteran medical service because he voted against H.R.1591 is well dumb. Although some of the verbage of the bill addresses providing funding for veteran hospital, you can tell by the title that it is, in actuality, a pork filled appropriations bill: U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act Just take a look at the bill. It cover's everything from DHS and local police funding, to Immigration, to economic sanctions on Lebanon, to loan appropriation for Liberia.... oh yah, some stuff about veterans. If we were congressman and I put forth a bill that appropriated money for the building of a death ray but that we shouldn't kill babies, could I accuse you of wanting to kill babies because you voted against it?
What about iTunes or QuickTime?
It *is* about personal freedom. You just don't think it is because it doesn't personally affect *your* choices (I assume that you don't ride a motorcycle). Justifying the law because it saves the state money doesn't exclude the fact that the state is taking away my choice from wearing a helmet.
If, as you said, the law is all about what it costs the state, couldn't they justify taking away all sorts of freedoms in the name of saving a buck (or making a buck - imminent domain anyone)?
Couldn't you argue that by incurring a $200,000 (where did you come up with number?) one-time -cost for brain clean up of an idiot, you are potentially saving more money for the state in the long run than the stupid person would rack up by keeping him/her alive another 60-80 years (welfare,health costs, policing, fire, etc...?)
Why even bother asking you if you want to sell? Now they don't need to. They will just cut you out of the loop and go straight to the local councilman in their pocket.
My grammar,spelling and proof-reading are horrible.... but my pooint still stands.
That same logic would *actually* dictate that slashdot is mostly an international community (also incorrect)
The way *I* read the poll is that Slashdot is more left-leaning (Gore + Nadir = 33%) vs Bush 21% ( or Bush + Browne = 28% depending on how you look at it)
Back on topic... what the heck does "sectoral approach" mean? the article refers to:
couldn't you just do both?
time critical find someting, relase a patch and also massive, bigger, rollup monthly patches.
I have also been wrestling this issue for a while, but with shop manuals for old cars.... Try finding a shop repair manual for a '73 roadrunner. Even after exhaustive searches on the internet to find a place to buy these books, I find one shady site and have to pay $$$ for them.
My thought was that if I could find them, buy them and then digitize them, I could save some poor sap that might not be so search engine savy time to get them a searchable digital copy...
Plus if I could do a keyword search for "holly carb" rather than thumbing through a three volume repair manual set.... man.. I could get my car up and running in half the time, and not ruin the $$$$ manual set with grease and muck in the process!
My main question would be, for discontinued or non-traditionally published books (like company distributed manuals) what is the legality involved with re-distributing (or even selling) digitized versions of them them??? Even if it is a chore to do, would it legaly be worth me doing it for the good of others???