If you live here in the states, you may know it as "the movie" the USA network played from 1994 well through 1997 between the hours of 8 and 10 eastern time.
(With apologies to Duckman...)
"Wings, Wings, Wings, and Wings will not be shown tonight so that we may bring you the following special USA Network presentation..."
I would surmize that as this happens, capital will choose stability, and the potential advantages that come with it, over whoring itself around for small short term profit increases. But I am only really guessing, I have neither studied the issue, nor put much thought towards it.
Fair enough... I can say the same. And while we don't agree, I find your arguments interesting. Welcome to my/. friends list.
Now... back to the discussion. Right, but as the labor markets evolve, it will become increasingly difficult for one of your small cells to differentiate itself from its neighbors, be they geographic or competitive.
When it is difficult to differentiate members of a set, one becomes a reasonable replacement for another. So the product, service, or whatever becomes a commodity... and commodities are always subject to downward price pressure exactly because price becomes the only differential.
Still, your point about the activity cost of moving operations to another "cell" (country or region) is valid and very interesting. There is a calculation to be done by a company when considering whether to move or not-- basically, "do we gain more by moving than it costs us to move?"
I remain convinced of my statement of the problem, but you've made me stop and think about my proposed solution.
Your analysis is incomplete. Eventually, even if things keep going as they are, capital will most likely stop moving around.
No...
The United States have some of the most expensive labor in the world, but BMW decided to build a plant to make those cute little roadsters in the US. Why? Because they basically auctioned the jobs to the highest bidder, and some Southern state was willing to give IBM more in tax breaks, etc. than anyone else (ultimately costing the very workers who were to benefit from the work at the new plant).
Capital, with its freedom to move, can always "auction" jobs to the highest bidder and thus impose whatever conditions it wants on labor, which remains trapped in relatively small cells.
This is one of the little problems of modern Capitalism, and one you normally won't hear in Econ 101 at ANY university.
To explain this, I will have to use a few examples that may appear to be offtopic, but please don't mod me down without reading the entire post... I swear there is a method to my madness.
The Classical theories of economics on which Capitalism is based were developed in the 19th Century, when capital was basically land and labor had much more freedom to move about. The theories therefore are based on models with immobile capital and highly mobile labor as basic premises.
Here's the part that might look off-topic, but I swear it's not...
There's a great physics joke where a physicist comes up with a way to increase the productivity of cows. When he goes to start his presentation to interested dairy farmers, he starts with "assume a spherical cow." The hilarity (for physics nerds like me, anyway) arises from the physicist's work being sound, but being based on a model that has little to do with the real world.
The theories you learn in Econ 101, unfortunately, suffer from the same problem. The derivation of conclusions like "mutual advantage" (capital and labor naturally find an equilibrium with mutual advantage for both) is perfectly valid, but based on premises that have nothing to do with today's reality.
Specifically, in today's world, capital moves at or near the speed of light through cables or even through the air and through space as transmitted signals. Labor, on the other hand, has been immobilized. In the 19th Century, it was easier to migrate to where the jobs were (in the same region at least-- I recognize that transport has advanced a lot) than it is now. Today, it is difficult to cross national borders, especially to work, unless somebody is intentionally turning a blind eye to SOME migration (an example is California, where agriculture depends on illegal immigrant labor-- if the farmers had to pay Americans or legal immigrants to do the work, most of the fruit and vegetables produced in California would be prohibitively expensive). Labor is therefore basically locked into cells from which it is difficult to move. Capital can therefore play the labor in different cells against each other.
So if the workers in the US start to get uppity and demand things like vacation and health insurance and decent wages, capital, basically free of the restrictions on labor and capable of traveling REALLY fast, can simply move to Mexico. If the Mexicans start to demand things like decent working hours and limitations on pollution, capital can simply jump to India or Vietnam. When wages start to rise there, capital may decide to move elsewhere, and that's what's starting to happen to India now.
The result is obvious: the conclusion of "mutual advantage" is based on a no-longer-valid premise (highly mobile labor and immobile capital). When we consider the correct premises, we quickly reach the conclusion that there is very little to prevent capital from taking TOTAL advantage of labor in today's world. And we see that happening.
A solution? I don't think you'll like it if you're American, but try to think as a member of the human race, not a citizen of a country that has certain advantages that it maintains by force when necessary (reference: "War is a Racket" by General Smedley D. Butler, one true and ignored hero from American history). The solution would be to try to return to a state more similar to the premises on which Capitalist theory is based. I don't like giving governments more power, so I won't suggest restricting the movement of capital. But if the world were to simply open all the borders and let people live wherever they want, we could move closer to the situation where "mutual advantage" really obtains. In the short term, yes, it would be relatively bad for some, and there would be some over-migration to places where there is currently work available (or just the perception that work is available). But eventually, I do believe Capitalism could work much, much better for the great majority of the people on Earth because of the restoration of balance between capital and labor, permitting "mutual advantage."
I agree that Albert Einstein was pretty great, but he seems like such a "vanilla" choice. Do you guys really like him more than Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (physicist/neurosurgeon/rock star), for example?
Einstein made important contributions to Quantum Mechanics, including his quantum-based explanation of the photoelectric effect, which netted him the Nobel Prize. And of course, he developed both Special Relativity and General Relativity. But did he ever save the world from extradimensional guys named John?
Oops... Waitaminnit... I'm thinking back, and I think 150K variable resistors were used in joysticks, but I had to use stronger ones on the tablet substitute because of the reduced range of motion. I am not sure about this-- I have lived more years since then than I had lived until then.
It wasn't a tablet... it was a substitute for a tablet. It basically amounted to an upside-down joystick suspended from above. The stick part was a metal tube, into which I could put a pen or something. Like in a joystick, it was attached to two variable resistors (150K, if I recall correctly). It wasn't exactly an upside-down joystick since the way the stick was connected was a bit different, but that's the easiest way for me to describe it.
krog suggested: Anyone who knows the joy of programming machine language for the 6502 knows the answer.
I'm not sure if krog was joking, but I actually had some fond memories of my teen years when I read this. And I could be mistaken, but I think I still remember how many of my chunks of 6502 code began... "A9 00..."
(For those who only speak Assembler and not ML, that's "LDA #$00")
Aaaahhhhhh... and now I'm remembering my endless tinkering with the little 16-pin joystick socket. I made joysticks, a device to let me use the cheap Atari-compatible joysticks on my Apple, and a cheap substitute for a graphics tablet (using a couple of variable resistors to measure what the pen was doing and let the computer know).
I remember when my mom first took me to a computer store to look at some machines. I was of course looking at various games and things (I was in 6th grade-- would you expect something different from a boy that age?) and my mother asked one of the people at the computer store directly: "is this just going to be an expensive Atari?" (Note: Mom was referring to the Atari 2600)
The response was cool, and more truthful than I thought at the time, and probably more truthful than my mom thought: "there are games for the computer, and he WILL want them and WILL play them, but the difference is that he won't learn how to program and use computers playing games on the Atari."
Thinking back, I can now see that the employee was right. I did play a lot of games on the computer, but I also did learn a couple of programming languages and started doing something I still do: when I had some kind of problem that would be a pain in the ass to figure out in my head or even with pencil and paper, but relatively easy for the computer to figure out for me, I would write simple programs to do just that. I also got the basic notions of hardware architecture and the confidence of knowing that I am capable of figuring out how seemingly complex devices work and even making my own extensions. I am very glad to have been the owner of an Apple ][. And I also have fond recollections of Commodore machines (VIC-20 and C64) because of a couple of friends who had them and learned 6502-ese with me.
My magic-8-ball has been formerly introduced to the product. When I asked it's opinion, I recieved "Outlook not good".
Try exposing your 8-ball, and rechecking it's results. If the message does not change, you may have a defective 8-ball, and should call the manufacturer for a replacement.
Kinda obvious, and by now possibly redundant (if so, forgive me-- I'm at work, so it's taken me a while to get to typing this), but...
Quoth MvdB:
"It doesn't matter at all if the design of the keyboard is over 100 years old."
I agree. But the problem is that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to solve a technical problem of over a century ago that no longer exists. That is, there is no good technical reason to have maintained the QWERTY arrangement...
The QWERTY keyboard was designed in the days of those mechanical typewriters where each key was attached to a lever that would strike the page through an ink ribbon, leaving the appropriate character on the page. If you've ever typed on one of those, you know it's not hard to hit one key and then hit another one too soon after hitting the first one and have the two levers jam together. If you weren't using a QWERTY keyboard, this would be even worse. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to minimize jams of this type.
References: QWERTY Ref 1
and QWERTY Ref 2
By the 1970s, there were already good electric typewriters (they may have come sooner, but that's when I remember seeing them) using a single ball with all the characters, avoiding the jamming lever problem completely by reducing the number of parts that have to strike the page to one. There was no longer any technical reason to maintain the QWERTY layout. The introduction of word processors and personal computers also represented chances to use more efficient keyboard layouts.
That said, there are many millions of people who have learned to type, whether through formal training (like my mom) or through natural evolution of "hunt and peck" (like me), using the QWERTY keyboard. I personally have typed this entire message without looking once at the keyboard. I use most of my fingers and I don't need to look at the keyboard. I can even continue typing--to finish a sentence, for example-- while I turn and talk to a coworker. This horrifies some of my coworkers.
My guess (and yes, I admit it's just a guess) is that increases in efficiency (Words per Minute, for example) would for most users be offset by the need to learn a new keyboard and the fact that a QWERTY-trained user would be completely lost trying to use a new keyboard layout, which could create a lot of problems.
On the other hand, there may be significant ergonomic benefits available from more efficient designs. I haven't enough knowledge of the field to even express an opinion one way or the other on that, much less weigh any possible ergonomic benefits against the time required to train a user on a new layout (no problem for new users) and against the problems the existence of multiple layouts would cause.
Maybe the new technologies that allow a computer case to change color can eventually lead to a way out of this-- imagine keys that change depending on which keyboard layout you've selected. You'd be restricted to a keyboard in the same shape, with the same key positions (unless you used a flat "keypad" with no keys... yuck!), but the identities of the keys would be different depending on the selection of a layout.
With such a keyboard, it would be possible to introduce more efficient layouts for new users and interested QWERTY-trained users, while still permitting QWERTY users to use their training and/or experience using that layout.
Somebody modded my post "Offtopic." I admit there's a good chunk of background information there, but the essence of my post is showing that Brazil's electronic ballot boxes underwent a very serious test in the mayoral election in São Paulo in 2000 and passed with flying colors. That seems to me to be right "on-topic."
I felt I had to include the background info in order for people to be able to understand the context. I was taught in American schools and I know they don't spend a lot of time telling students about what's going on in other countries. Despite/.ers being among the most educated people in the world, I'd be willing to bet that less than 5% would have any idea who Paulo Maluf is or why I'd be worried about somebody tampering with the voting machines in the São Paulo mayoral election of 2000.
I ask that the modder please contact me. I'm guessing the modder either didn't read through my whole post or is a Malufista...
I consider the first of these two possibilities significantly more probable.
Before the days when SPAM was a big problem, my Mom already didn't like getting physical "junk mail" through the USPS. She knew different organizations were selling and trading her address, but she decided to track it to see who was passing what info. She started using false middle initials when she subscribed to magazines, bought things from catalogs, etc.
So when she subscribed to Cosmopolitan (I know, but it was the 70s and she's a woman. What can you do?), she used the name "June C Cleaver" (well, except that I've replaced my Mom's real name with "June Cleaver" here to protect Mom's privacy). When she subscribed to Games, it was "June G Cleaver," and so on.
When she would call some magazine or other company to demand to know why they had sold her address to others, their denials were quickly slapped down when she revealed that "C" or "G" or whatever wasn't her real middle initial and she had used the fake initial to determine who was selling or passing her address to whom.
My Mom rules.
Well, I live in Brazil, and the elections here have used electronic voting "booths" since at least 2000. In 2000, there was a big mayoral election here in São Paulo. São Paulo is an enormous city in terms of population (about twice the population of NYC) and in terms of spatial size (significantly larger area than Los Angeles, which is also huge). In that election, the reliability of the electronic machines got a better test than many would like to admit it got.
The two candidates in the run-off election were Marta Suplicy and Paulo Maluf.
Marta Suplicy represented PT, the same Workers' Party built up by now-President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva. Paulo Maluf is the strongman of PPB, a right-wing party concerned with further enriching billionaires like Maluf and imprisoning the rest of Brazil. Maluf was appointed Governor of the State of São Paulo during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil that ran from when the US military helped support a coup in 1964. This bit of history is extremely significant, and I need to expand on this point a bit here.
I found it funny that despite Colin Powell admitting to it, the US State Department released a separate statement recently saying that the US and Kissinger were not involved in the military coup in Chile that ended the elected Allende government and put Pinochet in power. But it is significant that nobody has ever denied US involvement in the 1964 military coup in Brazil. I guess the pictures of US Navy ships off the Brazilian coast supporting the military coup are hard to deny. Not to mention the fact that Castelo Branco, the first Brazilian Dictator, was trained at West Point.
When the first free elections were held in Brazil in 1985, Tancredo Neves, a legitimate anti-Dictatorship candidate, ran against Maluf, who represented the Military Government. PPB, Maluf's party, basically grew out of that-- holdovers from the Military Dictatorship. Interesting side point: Tancredo had foolishly taken on a VP candidate (José Sarney) who until only months before was pro-military. Tancredo won the election, but died on the night before he was to take office. This is generally accepted throughout Latin America as having been the work of the CIA. In any case, Sarney became President and real advancement of Brazilian democracy had to wait for several years.
Well, Maluf, having been a bigwig in the Dictatorship, still has friends in the Military Police. We know he had special Death Squads he formed and used when he was Governor of São Paulo, and he openly used the Military Police to beat, kill, and imprison striking teachers, among others.
So despite the fact that all polls showed Marta winning easily in 2000, I got a chill when I heard that the electronic voting machines would be guarded on the night before the election by the Military Police and that the MP would oversee the security of getting the results to where they would be counted. I said "I think it's going to be Maluf..."
Fortunately, I was wrong. Marta won by the expected margin. This was a bigger test of the security of the electronic voting scheme used here than most would like to admit. Even so, I'd like to see the whole thing made even more tamper-resistant. Digital certification and signature technology make this possible, and Brazil has a complete modern PKI (It's called ICP-Brasil --"Infra-estrutura de Chaves Públicas-Brasil"--, which means "Brazil PKI").
I think the key stats I've seen on the value of electronic ballot boxes from the US are these: in rich neighborhoods, where electronic ballot boxes are used, the error is on the order of one hundredth of a percent (I recall reading 0.03%). In the po'folks neighborhoods, where mechanical voting is still used, the counting error is on the order of 1% (I recall reading a stat claiming an almost absurdly high 3%). I've been avoiding the racial element in this, but we all know there is a strong correlation between skin color and income, and so there ends up being a strong correlation b
Quoth an Anonymous Coward:
"Are we talking about the same US? I thought it was the hugely overinflated tech bubble that brought about the economic boom and that Clinton did nothing to prevent it from popping at the end of his term?"
The economic growth seen in the 1990s and the inflated stock market were related, but not the same thing. The economic growth was real and unprecedented.
"And as for Clinton's foreign policy - it didn't exist. His whole deal was let's hope that nothing happens."
I see it differently. I think the deal with North Korea was an excellent example of how foreign policy, no matter what the Bush family thinks, does not have to be conducted with bombs. I'd say the President who has failed badly at foreign policy is Bush. And in North Korea, it's by ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away, and sending out Powell and Rice to tell the Sunday talk shows there's no crisis in Korea. When it was announced that Bush would be visiting Northern Ireland, it was hoped that he could help bring the peace process along. People openly hoped for Bush to somehow reproduce what they called the "Clinton Effect." When Clinton went there, tens of thousands of people turned out to see him and cheer for him. The only people Bush can turn out these days outside the US are protesters.
"It was on his [Clinton's] watch that the first attack on the WTC occured and that the planning for the second occured."
Hmmm. Clinton's people urged the Bush people to pay attention to Bin Laden and consider him a major threat. Advice ignored...
"He totally ignored all of the warning signs of anti-American feelings growing in the Middle East."
Growing? When do you think they've grown most? I'd be willing to bet you there were quantum jumps in anti-American sentiment in the Middle East in 1990-1991 and in 2002-2003.
The difference between the two is that in 2002-2003, anti-American sentiment worldwide also jumped.
"Do you honestly believe that people started hating us only after Bush got elected? Clinton had no problem dropping bombs in Iraq to enforce the no-fly zone."
Of course people didn't start hating the US in the last 2 years-and-a-bit. But anti-American sentiment worldwide has grown noticeably. In 2001, after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, there was a lot of sympathy for the US expressed worldwide. Much of the world was supporting the US. But recent excesses have really upset most of the world. The goodwill of late 2001 has been squandered. I don't know if you can see in the US media what I can see from here (I'm guessing you didn't see the minutes prior to the official televised Bush speech to announce that the war had begun, for example...), but there really seems to have been a noticeable growth in anti-American sentiment worldwide recently. Friends in other countries confirm this impression. And I can tell you that I have personally noticed a strong change in the opinion Brazilians have of Americans. As I said, part of it is healthy (more self-respect, less kissing of American butt), but some of it of course is not.
Just one more thing: I'm not a Democrat. However, I am forced to recognize that Clinton is, by far, the best US President of my lifeime (in descending order, I'd say: Clinton, Nixon, Reagan & Carter tied for third, Ford, and Bush the Elder. Bush the Younger has blown away Poppy so far. He's virtually guaranteed himself last place. Carter as a President gets no extra credit for turning into one of the greatest ex-Presidents ever.) Of all the Presidents of my lifetime, Clinton was not just the MOST fiscally responsible. He was the ONLY one who got close to being fiscally responsible in my book. Yes, I recognize that the "surplus" the government reported under the late Clinton budget included money from Social Security, which has been used since the Reagan years to hide the true size of the Federal Gov't's deficits. Yes, I also recognize that there's a bit of goofy accounting that goes
Quoth an Anonymous Coward...
"Oh yeah... Clinton did a stellar job resolving the North Korean nuclear problem. Haven't heard a peep from those fellas about nukes since. Good catch there, Mark."
Read a few more lines of my post. Clinton had resolved it. But the Bushies, upon entering, proceeded to ignore the US side of the agreement, so North Korea expelled the inspectors (inspectors that were there because of Clinton), removed the seals (seals that were there because of the deal with Clinton) and started moving the bomb-making materials around and producing bombs.
The reason you've heard "peeps" from the North Koreans about nukes recently is because they got pissed off when Bush & Co. simply ignored the American side of the agreement.
E7, Coward.
I lived just over 31 years in the US before moving to Brazil. When I came to Brazil in 2000, the US was the most respected nation in the world, and I actually found a bit annoying some Brazilian attitudes about Americans and the US. I thought many Brazilians were did too much brown-nosing and a**-kissing of Americans, and that they overvalued American things and didn't value the amazing things they have here. I can't tell you how many people asked me in 2000 and pre-September 2001 "you're here and you could be there? Are you nuts?" Fine-- the sum of all the knowledge of the US that those people had was what they've seen from Hollywood and maybe, at most, a visit to Orlando.
In the two years since Bush and Co. have come into office, I have been amazed by what they have been able to do. I always believed the US Government had enough "checks and balances" that it couldn't move too far. Even the "Reagan Revolution" didn't bring very radical changes in 8 years. Since I always imagined something better than what I saw in the US (my teachers did too good a job teaching me the ideals and not a good enough job brainwashing me to think the US actually live up to them or even try), I found that inertia frustrating. How I miss it now. Bush and company, in just half a term, have completely undone all the good things Clinton did (tamed the absurd Reagan-Bush deficits and in so doing gave Greenspan the freedom he needed to make the economic boom of the 1990s possible, acted in a way that earned respect around the world, resolved the North Korean nuclear problem, etc.) and have made really surprisingly radical changes in both international policy and in the theft of what little bits of personal freedom Americans still had. Just because they hated anything related to Clinton, the Bushies ignored the US side of the deal that had stopped North Korea from building nuclear weapons, and as a result, NK expelled the inspectors, broke the seals, and moved the bomb-making materials around. According to estimates I've seen, they can make 1-2 nukes per month. Don't even get me started on Bush's "prevention" doctrine, which horrifies most of the world, and rightfully so.
The six trillion dollar Reagan debt will look like chump change when Bush is done. He's currently got you looking at half-trillion dollar annual deficits, and that's without counting the costs of his wars and the subsequent reconstruction.
The W "revolution," turning the US government into something at least as scary as Orwell' vision of "Big Brother" in _1984_, has had a profound effect on the views people all around the world have of the US.
People all over the world now see the US as an imperialist power out of control. A lot of people here in Brazil are worried that the US may decide to take the Amazon. I find myself unable to tell them it won't happen, and I even have an idea of how they might do it. They could just apply the term "terrorist" to the FARC in Colombia and then use that as an excuse to send troops in.
One thing for which I can thank Bush and his gang: nobody in Brazil thinks I'm nuts for being here and not in the US... and I'm pleased to see Brazilians starting to have more self-respect and being less willing to automatically think of themselves as being "beneath" Americans.
I find it interesting that around 80% of the world's population is against Bush's second war, but people in the US think it's just the French. "Freedom Fries," "Freedom Toast," and all that (are people now supposed to talk about Freedom Bread, Freedom Doors, Freedom Braids, Freedom Kisses, Freedom Ticklers, Freedom Postcards, and Mr. Freedom on Family Affair?). Meanwhile, in the US, somewhere between 75% and 80% are in favor of the war. If you're in the US, ask yourself why it might be that a vast majority of Americans is in favor of the war and a vast majority of the rest of the world is against it. I have my own theories, but I don't think stating them here would have much value. I just ask you to think about it.
Sorry about previous post. Hit "return" when reaching for "shift."
I myself have discovered (by living in São Paulo and having a girlfriend in Rio de Janeiro) that traveling by bus is already better for me than traveling by plane.
First, it's much more comfortable. The buses have seats that are much bigger and much farther apart (front-to-back) than airplanes. I am not a big person (173 cm and about 65kg, or about 5'8" and around 145 lbs) and I feel cramped in commercial airliners. Imagine tall and/or heavy people!
Besides that, on a bus, the seats really recline (not the almost imperceptible 5 "recline" of an airplane seat), making it possible to sleep, which I now cannot do on airplanes (I used to be able to, but they are forever cramming more and more seats in, and thus limiting more and more the space each passenger has, and they have now surpassed my comfort limit). Additionally, there is no limitation on when you can recline the seat (there is no takeoff and landing) or on what kind of electronic devices you can use (it's nice to be able to use my cell phone to make or receive calls while en route) or when you can use them (again, no takeoff and landing).
Also, you don't have to pass through really invasive security procedures to get on a bus.
I also discovered something surprising: even though the bus travels much slower than a plane, I don't lose much time taking a bus. In fact, it's much better. Let me explain.
If I take a plane, I have to get to the airport first. And I have to be there at least an hour before the flight (it would be 2 hours if I were in the US, but I am fortunate to live in a free country... if anyone thinks this is a troll, I'll be happy to discuss it with you. But basically, I enjoy many freedoms I couldn't dream of having in the US). After standing in a line to check in, I have to answer stupid questions, show ID, and check my luggage. Then I have some time to kill before the plane leaves. I usually get some kind of soft drink in the departure lounge (waiting area). Oh yeh... I have to show ID and my ticket to get in there. With all the noise and hurrying people around, it is all but impossible to make any kind of use of this waiting time by, say, reading. Then they call us to board. I then have to get in another line, present my ticket, and go to the plane. I then find my seat and sit down. I can try to read during this time, but again, there are people all around making a lot of noise and hurrying and arranging their stuff. Then the plane takes off. I can now try to read, but within a few minutes, the flight attendants come around with drinks. In the case of the São Paulo to Rio flight, the whole flight lasts only about 40-60 minutes (depending on direction, weather conditions, and air traffic at the destination). In the case of longer flights, the attendants come around several times to offer drinks and/or food.
After the plane lands, it taxis to the gate. This can add another 5-15 minutes, depending on traffic. Then we are released into the terminal, which usually involves another wait while people block the corridor to take down the 74 bags they just couldn't check and had to bring on board. The one time I saw a flight attendant enforce the limit on the number of bags a couple could carry on, I literally applauded, and did I ever get dirty looks from the couple.
Next we all go to baggage claim, which can take anywhere from seconds to forever. After that, either I meet my ride or go to car rental to get a car.
In the end, I don't really save any time taking a plane instead of a bus, even though the flight part of the journey by plane takes 40-60 minutes and a bus trip takes 5-6 hours. Taking the bus has the added advantage that I can arrive at the bus station without a reservation, buy a ticket for the next bus, go down and wait a few minutes (not 45 like in the airport, plus buses are rarely late, while airplanes always seem to be) before getting on the bus. I can than either sleep (not possible in the airplane due to comfort and time constraints) or actually do some work or just relaxing reading. If I had a laptop, I could do work too. Also, buses have much more flexible hours. In the Rio-São Paulo example, the last plane (and you've gotta reserve that several days in advance) leaves around 10:00 PM. There are buses leaving with relatively high frequency until about 1:30 AM, and there are others that leave at even later hours, though not as frequently.
Now imagine a train, which can offer all the advantages of buses, plus it doesn't get affected by traffic and can travel at 400 kph (about 250 mph). Add in that it can be much more energy-efficient than a plane, has an even lower risk of accidents, and (Steven Seagal movies aside) an even lower risk of hijacking than a bus, since it has very limited possibilities in terms of alternate routes (i.e., it can only go where there are tracks) and basically cannot be used as a weapon (except possibly against a vehicle on a road at a train crossing or another train). Basically, there's no comparison. A maglev train would blow away an airplane for everything except trans-oceanic travel. And best of all, it would probably be much cheaper than an airplane flight. I started taking buses because my girlfriend and I couldn't really afford to be flying back and forth every weekend, and the bus is a much, much cheaper option. I expect a maglev train ticket would be more expensive than a bus ticket, but less expensive than a plane ticket. I traveled extensively in Europe by train, and the prices were quite reasonable, even for the TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse (or sumfin' like that), which just means "high-speed train" in French) between some Swiss city (Geneva?) and Paris. And if you think about it from a business point of view, the marginal cost of adding space for more passengers (by adding more cars, not by cramming the passengers in like sardines like the frickin' airlines insist on doing) is very low. So if there is less demand, you send less cars. If there is more, you add some. So the "full flight" problem is reduced without large additional costs... wow.
If I were a stockholder in a major airline, I would be even more worried now than before thinking about high-speed maglev trains... as a consumer of mass transport, I am definitely more happy than before thinking about these things because of the/. article.
Folks, this ain't a new story. In the 1980s, Art Buchwald sued a movie studio over the Eddie Murphy movie "Coming to America" (I think that's the name)-- the one where Eddie Murphy plays an African prince who goes to Queens (ha-ha) to find his future queen. Buchwald won the suit, succesfully proving in court that he had presented a very similar idea to the studio before the movie was made. But with all the "creative" bookkeeping the studios do, Buchwald ended up with a settlement worth nothing, because he was entitled to a share of what the studio was saying was zero.
If I were a person in the entertainment industry, I would never have accepted a profit-based deal after the Buchwald case. If I were a person in the entertainment industry who already had a contract with a profit basis, I would have sought a new contract or renegotiation of the profit-based terms after seeing the Buchwald case.
Lee did not. I feel for him, but I can't help but think he was knowingly swimming with sharks, didn't pay attention to other cases of people getting bitten by those same sharks, and therefore did not take proper precautions (like a cage). I think it's terrible that the sharks ate him alive on this one, but a part of me has to think it's at least partially Lee's own fault.
Don't even get me started about the MP3-related lawsuits and settlements "in the name of the artists" that never produced a cent for any artists. Only Courtney Love had the courage to go after the recording labels on that one, and her story was largely ignored.
During my last two years in Chicago, I lived near 51st Street and had to walk every day to the campus, which was basically between 56th and 59th Streets. The route I took to campus led me past a school every day. One day I went into the school and said "I am studying physics and math at the university... what can I do here?"
They sent me to a classroom where 7th and 8th grade students were (theoretically) preparing to take the SSAT (Secondary School Aptitude Test) to try to get into some of the East Coast boarding schools. Apparently, those schools have some programs to try to increase minority enrollment, but candidates have to take the SSAT and have results above some threshold.
They told me I would be helping the students review the math that would appear on the test, including algebra. But within the first two days, I discovered that even the best students among them had a very weak grasp of algebra. Most had no idea what was going on. So I started from the most basic-- what the "equals" sign means. I wrote "3=3" and asked them if that was right. They understood and responded correctly. I wrote "3=5" and asked them if that was right. They understood that it was not and responded correctly again. I then showed them that if you do something to one side of the equals sign, but not the other, you go from a true statement to a false one. For example, take "3=3," which is true, and add 2 to one side. Then you get "3=5," which is nonsense. But... if you do the same thing to both sides, you end up with another true statement... For example, take "3=3" and add two to both sides... then you get "5=5," which is perfectly valid and correct.
I then introduced the concept of variables and using them to represent unknowns. When I felt that they were pretty comfortable with variables, I started writing equations with variables. Since they already knew the rules for messing around with equations, I showed them how to mess around in a way that would isolate the unknown variable on one side of the equation.
These kids were like sponges. Every day when I left the school, I left knowing for sure that they had learned something they didn't know before. It was extremely rewarding. And by the end, almost every one of them (there was one I couldn't really reach, no matter how hard I tried... but even she did start to get the basic concepts) could solve any linear equation, even if it was "disguised" by having the unknown in the denominator of a fraction. They also learned how to convert crazy word problems I invented into equations to solve.
These students were clearly ready for Algebra. Only one of about 25 students ended up not knowing what I considered "enough" by the time I finished, which really wasn't that much time. I spent two periods of about an hour and a half or two hours each per week with them during a few months. But whoever had "taught" them Algebra before didn't teach them a damn thing. One thing that I think made a big difference was that I praised to high heaven a student who refused to just say "got it" and move on when she didn't understand what I had done. She insisted that she didn't get it. So I put a problem on the chalkboard and started going through it one step at a time, showing her why I was doing each thing. I was in the middle of doing this when I saw her face light up. I stopped and said that I could see that she had understood. I erased the problem I was solving and put up a new equation. I passed her the chalk and stepped away. She quickly and easily solved the equation for the unknown. I then made a big deal about how great it was that she didn't just say she understood it and move on without really understanding. After that, all of them were more willing to say when they didn't understand and not just say "got it" and move on. I think the people who "taught" these kids algebra had just presented the material and asked if everyone understood without really "digging" to confirm that everyone had understood. I know that when I arrived, students were in the habit of saying they understood things, even when they didn't. Just curing them of that ill left me feeling satisfied with the work I had done.
I hope some of these students continued to study math and science and have the same kind of success they had when I was teaching them. If my algebra "review" served as a "gateway" for one or more of them to take more math and science, that would be great.
I live in Brasil. In soccer, we are the dominant superpower. But in socio-economic terms, we are part of the Third World. No, everybody here is not starving, and yes, we use computers here (FigBugDeux is right on these points). I work in a company that makes technology solutions (the part where I work basically makes software) for corporate customers. But I don't see how a $214 computer is going to be used by the illiterate here. First, after paying to transport the devices to South America and paying all applicable import taxes, I suspect the price would be more than $214. But there's a much bigger problem. I'll work with the number $214 even though the real price could end up being higher here. At the last exchange rate from yesterday (5 July 2002), US$214 is about R$616 (Brasilian currency is called the Real. I used an exchange rate of US$1=R$2.88). The minimum wage, which is a relevant number for the illiterate, is R$180 per month. Don't bother converting this into dollars, because things like food are a lot less expensive here than in the US. For example, at nice "churrascarias" (meat restaurants), I can eat whatever I want from the enormous salad bar/buffet, plus all the high-quality meat I can eat, for R$13, or about US$4.50. And it's high quality meat. There are cheaper places with lower quality meat. And when you buy food in markets and prepare it yourself, it's of course a lot cheaper than if you eat at a restaurant for the middle and upper classes. In any case, this means that the $214 computer would cost something in the neighborhood of three and a half months' worth of salary for somebody earning the minimum wage. When you already own a house and a car and have savings, you can buy something that costs a few months' salary without much problem. But when you're busting your ass to get by and own very little, a handheld computer that costs more than three months' salary will have very little appeal.
An Anonymous Coward wrote:
"I made a better competing 'edit' of the movie which (sic) highlights JarJar's zany antics and removes the parts that advance the story."
Actually, I would prefer an edit of The Phantom Menace that left Jar Jar alone (all the SW movies had some kind of comic relief) and took out the embarassingly bad stuff about "chlamydians" (OK, midi-clorians, but I can't help but wonder if a simple dose of penicillin might have prevented the whole Darth Vader situation) and the virgin birth of Anakin. This little bit of Star Trek-like technobabble, in just a few minutes, completely ruined all the magic of the other three movies. The Force, before Episode I, was basically magic. How it worked was not explained and DID NOT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED, like the magic used by Merlin or Gandalf. Post-Episode I, it's a blood condition. Bleah!
So Coward, I welcome your edit. But did you cut out that seemingly never-ending scene with the big fish getting eaten by even bigger fish?
I live in Brazil and I find very funny this idea that by banning the export of US cryptography technology, you can prevent the rest of us from having the same level of security. We are capable of developing it ourselves, you narrow-minded xenophobic yo-yos!
The company where I work also employs one of the top cryptographers in the world, and he isn't American.
I am still hoping your power-mad government manages to pass the law it wants to pass, making illegal all cryptography without a US government "back door," because American security vendors lose all credibility and that will be a monster opportunity for my company to make reliable security products and sell them to the rest of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
If you live here in the states, you may know it as "the movie" the USA network played from 1994 well through 1997 between the hours of 8 and 10 eastern time.
(With apologies to Duckman...)
"Wings, Wings, Wings, and Wings will not be shown tonight so that we may bring you the following special USA Network presentation..."
--Mark
I would surmize that as this happens, capital will choose stability, and the potential advantages that come with it, over whoring itself around for small short term profit increases. But I am only really guessing, I have neither studied the issue, nor put much thought towards it.
/. friends list.
Fair enough... I can say the same. And while we don't agree, I find your arguments interesting. Welcome to my
Now... back to the discussion.
Right, but as the labor markets evolve, it will become increasingly difficult for one of your small cells to differentiate itself from its neighbors, be they geographic or competitive.
When it is difficult to differentiate members of a set, one becomes a reasonable replacement for another. So the product, service, or whatever becomes a commodity... and commodities are always subject to downward price pressure exactly because price becomes the only differential.
Still, your point about the activity cost of moving operations to another "cell" (country or region) is valid and very interesting. There is a calculation to be done by a company when considering whether to move or not-- basically, "do we gain more by moving than it costs us to move?"
I remain convinced of my statement of the problem, but you've made me stop and think about my proposed solution.
Your analysis is incomplete. Eventually, even if things keep going as they are, capital will most likely stop moving around.
No...
The United States have some of the most expensive labor in the world, but BMW decided to build a plant to make those cute little roadsters in the US. Why? Because they basically auctioned the jobs to the highest bidder, and some Southern state was willing to give IBM more in tax breaks, etc. than anyone else (ultimately costing the very workers who were to benefit from the work at the new plant).
Capital, with its freedom to move, can always "auction" jobs to the highest bidder and thus impose whatever conditions it wants on labor, which remains trapped in relatively small cells.
This is one of the little problems of modern Capitalism, and one you normally won't hear in Econ 101 at ANY university.
To explain this, I will have to use a few examples that may appear to be offtopic, but please don't mod me down without reading the entire post... I swear there is a method to my madness.
The Classical theories of economics on which Capitalism is based were developed in the 19th Century, when capital was basically land and labor had much more freedom to move about. The theories therefore are based on models with immobile capital and highly mobile labor as basic premises.
Here's the part that might look off-topic, but I swear it's not...
There's a great physics joke where a physicist comes up with a way to increase the productivity of cows. When he goes to start his presentation to interested dairy farmers, he starts with "assume a spherical cow." The hilarity (for physics nerds like me, anyway) arises from the physicist's work being sound, but being based on a model that has little to do with the real world.
The theories you learn in Econ 101, unfortunately, suffer from the same problem. The derivation of conclusions like "mutual advantage" (capital and labor naturally find an equilibrium with mutual advantage for both) is perfectly valid, but based on premises that have nothing to do with today's reality.
Specifically, in today's world, capital moves at or near the speed of light through cables or even through the air and through space as transmitted signals. Labor, on the other hand, has been immobilized. In the 19th Century, it was easier to migrate to where the jobs were (in the same region at least-- I recognize that transport has advanced a lot) than it is now. Today, it is difficult to cross national borders, especially to work, unless somebody is intentionally turning a blind eye to SOME migration (an example is California, where agriculture depends on illegal immigrant labor-- if the farmers had to pay Americans or legal immigrants to do the work, most of the fruit and vegetables produced in California would be prohibitively expensive). Labor is therefore basically locked into cells from which it is difficult to move. Capital can therefore play the labor in different cells against each other.
So if the workers in the US start to get uppity and demand things like vacation and health insurance and decent wages, capital, basically free of the restrictions on labor and capable of traveling REALLY fast, can simply move to Mexico. If the Mexicans start to demand things like decent working hours and limitations on pollution, capital can simply jump to India or Vietnam. When wages start to rise there, capital may decide to move elsewhere, and that's what's starting to happen to India now.
The result is obvious: the conclusion of "mutual advantage" is based on a no-longer-valid premise (highly mobile labor and immobile capital). When we consider the correct premises, we quickly reach the conclusion that there is very little to prevent capital from taking TOTAL advantage of labor in today's world. And we see that happening.
A solution? I don't think you'll like it if you're American, but try to think as a member of the human race, not a citizen of a country that has certain advantages that it maintains by force when necessary (reference: "War is a Racket" by General Smedley D. Butler, one true and ignored hero from American history). The solution would be to try to return to a state more similar to the premises on which Capitalist theory is based. I don't like giving governments more power, so I won't suggest restricting the movement of capital. But if the world were to simply open all the borders and let people live wherever they want, we could move closer to the situation where "mutual advantage" really obtains. In the short term, yes, it would be relatively bad for some, and there would be some over-migration to places where there is currently work available (or just the perception that work is available). But eventually, I do believe Capitalism could work much, much better for the great majority of the people on Earth because of the restoration of balance between capital and labor, permitting "mutual advantage."
Really?
I agree that Albert Einstein was pretty great, but he seems like such a "vanilla" choice. Do you guys really like him more than Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (physicist/neurosurgeon/rock star), for example?
Einstein made important contributions to Quantum Mechanics, including his quantum-based explanation of the photoelectric effect, which netted him the Nobel Prize. And of course, he developed both Special Relativity and General Relativity. But did he ever save the world from extradimensional guys named John?
Oh well... MY favorite physicist is... I.
--Mark
Oops... Waitaminnit... I'm thinking back, and I think 150K variable resistors were used in joysticks, but I had to use stronger ones on the tablet substitute because of the reduced range of motion. I am not sure about this-- I have lived more years since then than I had lived until then.
--Mark
whizzter asked:
how did that "cheap" tablet work?
It wasn't a tablet... it was a substitute for a tablet. It basically amounted to an upside-down joystick suspended from above. The stick part was a metal tube, into which I could put a pen or something. Like in a joystick, it was attached to two variable resistors (150K, if I recall correctly). It wasn't exactly an upside-down joystick since the way the stick was connected was a bit different, but that's the easiest way for me to describe it.
--Mark
What is it that keeps such an old platform going?
krog suggested:
Anyone who knows the joy of programming machine language for the 6502 knows the answer.
I'm not sure if krog was joking, but I actually had some fond memories of my teen years when I read this. And I could be mistaken, but I think I still remember how many of my chunks of 6502 code began... "A9 00..."
(For those who only speak Assembler and not ML, that's "LDA #$00")
Aaaahhhhhh... and now I'm remembering my endless tinkering with the little 16-pin joystick socket. I made joysticks, a device to let me use the cheap Atari-compatible joysticks on my Apple, and a cheap substitute for a graphics tablet (using a couple of variable resistors to measure what the pen was doing and let the computer know).
I remember when my mom first took me to a computer store to look at some machines. I was of course looking at various games and things (I was in 6th grade-- would you expect something different from a boy that age?) and my mother asked one of the people at the computer store directly: "is this just going to be an expensive Atari?"
(Note: Mom was referring to the Atari 2600)
The response was cool, and more truthful than I thought at the time, and probably more truthful than my mom thought: "there are games for the computer, and he WILL want them and WILL play them, but the difference is that he won't learn how to program and use computers playing games on the Atari."
Thinking back, I can now see that the employee was right. I did play a lot of games on the computer, but I also did learn a couple of programming languages and started doing something I still do: when I had some kind of problem that would be a pain in the ass to figure out in my head or even with pencil and paper, but relatively easy for the computer to figure out for me, I would write simple programs to do just that. I also got the basic notions of hardware architecture and the confidence of knowing that I am capable of figuring out how seemingly complex devices work and even making my own extensions. I am very glad to have been the owner of an Apple ][. And I also have fond recollections of Commodore machines (VIC-20 and C64) because of a couple of friends who had them and learned 6502-ese with me.
Great days. Thanks for reminding me, krog!
--Mark
My magic-8-ball has been formerly introduced to the product. When I asked it's opinion, I recieved "Outlook not good".
Try exposing your 8-ball, and rechecking it's results. If the message does not change, you may have a defective 8-ball, and should call the manufacturer for a replacement.
Kinda obvious, and by now possibly redundant (if so, forgive me-- I'm at work, so it's taken me a while to get to typing this), but...
That's not a defect. That's a feature!
--Mark
Quoth MvdB:
"It doesn't matter at all if the design of the keyboard is over 100 years old."
I agree. But the problem is that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to solve a technical problem of over a century ago that no longer exists. That is, there is no good technical reason to have maintained the QWERTY arrangement...
The QWERTY keyboard was designed in the days of those mechanical typewriters where each key was attached to a lever that would strike the page through an ink ribbon, leaving the appropriate character on the page. If you've ever typed on one of those, you know it's not hard to hit one key and then hit another one too soon after hitting the first one and have the two levers jam together. If you weren't using a QWERTY keyboard, this would be even worse. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to minimize jams of this type.
References:
QWERTY Ref 1
and
QWERTY Ref 2
By the 1970s, there were already good electric typewriters (they may have come sooner, but that's when I remember seeing them) using a single ball with all the characters, avoiding the jamming lever problem completely by reducing the number of parts that have to strike the page to one. There was no longer any technical reason to maintain the QWERTY layout. The introduction of word processors and personal computers also represented chances to use more efficient keyboard layouts.
That said, there are many millions of people who have learned to type, whether through formal training (like my mom) or through natural evolution of "hunt and peck" (like me), using the QWERTY keyboard. I personally have typed this entire message without looking once at the keyboard. I use most of my fingers and I don't need to look at the keyboard. I can even continue typing--to finish a sentence, for example-- while I turn and talk to a coworker. This horrifies some of my coworkers.
My guess (and yes, I admit it's just a guess) is that increases in efficiency (Words per Minute, for example) would for most users be offset by the need to learn a new keyboard and the fact that a QWERTY-trained user would be completely lost trying to use a new keyboard layout, which could create a lot of problems.
On the other hand, there may be significant ergonomic benefits available from more efficient designs. I haven't enough knowledge of the field to even express an opinion one way or the other on that, much less weigh any possible ergonomic benefits against the time required to train a user on a new layout (no problem for new users) and against the problems the existence of multiple layouts would cause.
Maybe the new technologies that allow a computer case to change color can eventually lead to a way out of this-- imagine keys that change depending on which keyboard layout you've selected. You'd be restricted to a keyboard in the same shape, with the same key positions (unless you used a flat "keypad" with no keys... yuck!), but the identities of the keys would be different depending on the selection of a layout.
With such a keyboard, it would be possible to introduce more efficient layouts for new users and interested QWERTY-trained users, while still permitting QWERTY users to use their training and/or experience using that layout.
--Mark
Hey...
/.ers being among the most educated people in the world, I'd be willing to bet that less than 5% would have any idea who Paulo Maluf is or why I'd be worried about somebody tampering with the voting machines in the São Paulo mayoral election of 2000.
Somebody modded my post "Offtopic." I admit there's a good chunk of background information there, but the essence of my post is showing that Brazil's electronic ballot boxes underwent a very serious test in the mayoral election in São Paulo in 2000 and passed with flying colors. That seems to me to be right "on-topic."
I felt I had to include the background info in order for people to be able to understand the context. I was taught in American schools and I know they don't spend a lot of time telling students about what's going on in other countries. Despite
I ask that the modder please contact me. I'm guessing the modder either didn't read through my whole post or is a Malufista...
I consider the first of these two possibilities significantly more probable.
--Mark
Heh...
Before the days when SPAM was a big problem, my Mom already didn't like getting physical "junk mail" through the USPS. She knew different organizations were selling and trading her address, but she decided to track it to see who was passing what info. She started using false middle initials when she subscribed to magazines, bought things from catalogs, etc.
So when she subscribed to Cosmopolitan (I know, but it was the 70s and she's a woman. What can you do?), she used the name "June C Cleaver" (well, except that I've replaced my Mom's real name with "June Cleaver" here to protect Mom's privacy). When she subscribed to Games, it was "June G Cleaver," and so on.
When she would call some magazine or other company to demand to know why they had sold her address to others, their denials were quickly slapped down when she revealed that "C" or "G" or whatever wasn't her real middle initial and she had used the fake initial to determine who was selling or passing her address to whom.
My Mom rules.
--Mark
Well, I live in Brazil, and the elections here have used electronic voting "booths" since at least 2000. In 2000, there was a big mayoral election here in São Paulo. São Paulo is an enormous city in terms of population (about twice the population of NYC) and in terms of spatial size (significantly larger area than Los Angeles, which is also huge). In that election, the reliability of the electronic machines got a better test than many would like to admit it got.
The two candidates in the run-off election were Marta Suplicy and Paulo Maluf. Marta Suplicy represented PT, the same Workers' Party built up by now-President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva. Paulo Maluf is the strongman of PPB, a right-wing party concerned with further enriching billionaires like Maluf and imprisoning the rest of Brazil. Maluf was appointed Governor of the State of São Paulo during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil that ran from when the US military helped support a coup in 1964. This bit of history is extremely significant, and I need to expand on this point a bit here.
I found it funny that despite Colin Powell admitting to it, the US State Department released a separate statement recently saying that the US and Kissinger were not involved in the military coup in Chile that ended the elected Allende government and put Pinochet in power. But it is significant that nobody has ever denied US involvement in the 1964 military coup in Brazil. I guess the pictures of US Navy ships off the Brazilian coast supporting the military coup are hard to deny. Not to mention the fact that Castelo Branco, the first Brazilian Dictator, was trained at West Point.
When the first free elections were held in Brazil in 1985, Tancredo Neves, a legitimate anti-Dictatorship candidate, ran against Maluf, who represented the Military Government. PPB, Maluf's party, basically grew out of that-- holdovers from the Military Dictatorship. Interesting side point: Tancredo had foolishly taken on a VP candidate (José Sarney) who until only months before was pro-military. Tancredo won the election, but died on the night before he was to take office. This is generally accepted throughout Latin America as having been the work of the CIA. In any case, Sarney became President and real advancement of Brazilian democracy had to wait for several years.
Well, Maluf, having been a bigwig in the Dictatorship, still has friends in the Military Police. We know he had special Death Squads he formed and used when he was Governor of São Paulo, and he openly used the Military Police to beat, kill, and imprison striking teachers, among others.
So despite the fact that all polls showed Marta winning easily in 2000, I got a chill when I heard that the electronic voting machines would be guarded on the night before the election by the Military Police and that the MP would oversee the security of getting the results to where they would be counted. I said "I think it's going to be Maluf..."
Fortunately, I was wrong. Marta won by the expected margin. This was a bigger test of the security of the electronic voting scheme used here than most would like to admit. Even so, I'd like to see the whole thing made even more tamper-resistant. Digital certification and signature technology make this possible, and Brazil has a complete modern PKI (It's called ICP-Brasil --"Infra-estrutura de Chaves Públicas-Brasil"--, which means "Brazil PKI").
I think the key stats I've seen on the value of electronic ballot boxes from the US are these: in rich neighborhoods, where electronic ballot boxes are used, the error is on the order of one hundredth of a percent (I recall reading 0.03%). In the po'folks neighborhoods, where mechanical voting is still used, the counting error is on the order of 1% (I recall reading a stat claiming an almost absurdly high 3%). I've been avoiding the racial element in this, but we all know there is a strong correlation between skin color and income, and so there ends up being a strong correlation b
Quoth an Anonymous Coward:
"Are we talking about the same US? I thought it was the hugely overinflated tech bubble that brought about the economic boom and that Clinton did nothing to prevent it from popping at the end of his term?"
The economic growth seen in the 1990s and the inflated stock market were related, but not the same thing. The economic growth was real and unprecedented.
"And as for Clinton's foreign policy - it didn't exist. His whole deal was let's hope that nothing happens."
I see it differently. I think the deal with North Korea was an excellent example of how foreign policy, no matter what the Bush family thinks, does not have to be conducted with bombs. I'd say the President who has failed badly at foreign policy is Bush. And in North Korea, it's by ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away, and sending out Powell and Rice to tell the Sunday talk shows there's no crisis in Korea. When it was announced that Bush would be visiting Northern Ireland, it was hoped that he could help bring the peace process along. People openly hoped for Bush to somehow reproduce what they called the "Clinton Effect." When Clinton went there, tens of thousands of people turned out to see him and cheer for him. The only people Bush can turn out these days outside the US are protesters.
"It was on his [Clinton's] watch that the first attack on the WTC occured and that the planning for the second occured."
Hmmm. Clinton's people urged the Bush people to pay attention to Bin Laden and consider him a major threat. Advice ignored...
"He totally ignored all of the warning signs of anti-American feelings growing in the Middle East."
Growing? When do you think they've grown most? I'd be willing to bet you there were quantum jumps in anti-American sentiment in the Middle East in 1990-1991 and in 2002-2003. The difference between the two is that in 2002-2003, anti-American sentiment worldwide also jumped.
"Do you honestly believe that people started hating us only after Bush got elected? Clinton had no problem dropping bombs in Iraq to enforce the no-fly zone."
Of course people didn't start hating the US in the last 2 years-and-a-bit. But anti-American sentiment worldwide has grown noticeably. In 2001, after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, there was a lot of sympathy for the US expressed worldwide. Much of the world was supporting the US. But recent excesses have really upset most of the world. The goodwill of late 2001 has been squandered. I don't know if you can see in the US media what I can see from here (I'm guessing you didn't see the minutes prior to the official televised Bush speech to announce that the war had begun, for example...), but there really seems to have been a noticeable growth in anti-American sentiment worldwide recently. Friends in other countries confirm this impression. And I can tell you that I have personally noticed a strong change in the opinion Brazilians have of Americans. As I said, part of it is healthy (more self-respect, less kissing of American butt), but some of it of course is not.
Just one more thing: I'm not a Democrat. However, I am forced to recognize that Clinton is, by far, the best US President of my lifeime (in descending order, I'd say: Clinton, Nixon, Reagan & Carter tied for third, Ford, and Bush the Elder. Bush the Younger has blown away Poppy so far. He's virtually guaranteed himself last place. Carter as a President gets no extra credit for turning into one of the greatest ex-Presidents ever.) Of all the Presidents of my lifetime, Clinton was not just the MOST fiscally responsible. He was the ONLY one who got close to being fiscally responsible in my book. Yes, I recognize that the "surplus" the government reported under the late Clinton budget included money from Social Security, which has been used since the Reagan years to hide the true size of the Federal Gov't's deficits. Yes, I also recognize that there's a bit of goofy accounting that goes
Quoth an Anonymous Coward...
"Oh yeah... Clinton did a stellar job resolving the North Korean nuclear problem. Haven't heard a peep from those fellas about nukes since. Good catch there, Mark."
Read a few more lines of my post. Clinton had resolved it. But the Bushies, upon entering, proceeded to ignore the US side of the agreement, so North Korea expelled the inspectors (inspectors that were there because of Clinton), removed the seals (seals that were there because of the deal with Clinton) and started moving the bomb-making materials around and producing bombs.
The reason you've heard "peeps" from the North Koreans about nukes recently is because they got pissed off when Bush & Co. simply ignored the American side of the agreement.
E7, Coward.
--Mark
I lived just over 31 years in the US before moving to Brazil. When I came to Brazil in 2000, the US was the most respected nation in the world, and I actually found a bit annoying some Brazilian attitudes about Americans and the US. I thought many Brazilians were did too much brown-nosing and a**-kissing of Americans, and that they overvalued American things and didn't value the amazing things they have here. I can't tell you how many people asked me in 2000 and pre-September 2001 "you're here and you could be there? Are you nuts?" Fine-- the sum of all the knowledge of the US that those people had was what they've seen from Hollywood and maybe, at most, a visit to Orlando.
In the two years since Bush and Co. have come into office, I have been amazed by what they have been able to do. I always believed the US Government had enough "checks and balances" that it couldn't move too far. Even the "Reagan Revolution" didn't bring very radical changes in 8 years. Since I always imagined something better than what I saw in the US (my teachers did too good a job teaching me the ideals and not a good enough job brainwashing me to think the US actually live up to them or even try), I found that inertia frustrating. How I miss it now. Bush and company, in just half a term, have completely undone all the good things Clinton did (tamed the absurd Reagan-Bush deficits and in so doing gave Greenspan the freedom he needed to make the economic boom of the 1990s possible, acted in a way that earned respect around the world, resolved the North Korean nuclear problem, etc.) and have made really surprisingly radical changes in both international policy and in the theft of what little bits of personal freedom Americans still had. Just because they hated anything related to Clinton, the Bushies ignored the US side of the deal that had stopped North Korea from building nuclear weapons, and as a result, NK expelled the inspectors, broke the seals, and moved the bomb-making materials around. According to estimates I've seen, they can make 1-2 nukes per month. Don't even get me started on Bush's "prevention" doctrine, which horrifies most of the world, and rightfully so. The six trillion dollar Reagan debt will look like chump change when Bush is done. He's currently got you looking at half-trillion dollar annual deficits, and that's without counting the costs of his wars and the subsequent reconstruction.
The W "revolution," turning the US government into something at least as scary as Orwell' vision of "Big Brother" in _1984_, has had a profound effect on the views people all around the world have of the US.
People all over the world now see the US as an imperialist power out of control. A lot of people here in Brazil are worried that the US may decide to take the Amazon. I find myself unable to tell them it won't happen, and I even have an idea of how they might do it. They could just apply the term "terrorist" to the FARC in Colombia and then use that as an excuse to send troops in.
One thing for which I can thank Bush and his gang: nobody in Brazil thinks I'm nuts for being here and not in the US... and I'm pleased to see Brazilians starting to have more self-respect and being less willing to automatically think of themselves as being "beneath" Americans.
I find it interesting that around 80% of the world's population is against Bush's second war, but people in the US think it's just the French. "Freedom Fries," "Freedom Toast," and all that (are people now supposed to talk about Freedom Bread, Freedom Doors, Freedom Braids, Freedom Kisses, Freedom Ticklers, Freedom Postcards, and Mr. Freedom on Family Affair?). Meanwhile, in the US, somewhere between 75% and 80% are in favor of the war. If you're in the US, ask yourself why it might be that a vast majority of Americans is in favor of the war and a vast majority of the rest of the world is against it. I have my own theories, but I don't think stating them here would have much value. I just ask you to think about it.
--Mark
Sorry about previous post. Hit "return" when reaching for "shift."
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I myself have discovered (by living in São Paulo and having a girlfriend in Rio de Janeiro) that traveling by bus is already better for me than traveling by plane.
First, it's much more comfortable. The buses have seats that are much bigger and much farther apart (front-to-back) than airplanes. I am not a big person (173 cm and about 65kg, or about 5'8" and around 145 lbs) and I feel cramped in commercial airliners. Imagine tall and/or heavy people!
Besides that, on a bus, the seats really recline (not the almost imperceptible 5 "recline" of an airplane seat), making it possible to sleep, which I now cannot do on airplanes (I used to be able to, but they are forever cramming more and more seats in, and thus limiting more and more the space each passenger has, and they have now surpassed my comfort limit). Additionally, there is no limitation on when you can recline the seat (there is no takeoff and landing) or on what kind of electronic devices you can use (it's nice to be able to use my cell phone to make or receive calls while en route) or when you can use them (again, no takeoff and landing).
Also, you don't have to pass through really invasive security procedures to get on a bus. I also discovered something surprising: even though the bus travels much slower than a plane, I don't lose much time taking a bus. In fact, it's much better. Let me explain.
If I take a plane, I have to get to the airport first. And I have to be there at least an hour before the flight (it would be 2 hours if I were in the US, but I am fortunate to live in a free country... if anyone thinks this is a troll, I'll be happy to discuss it with you. But basically, I enjoy many freedoms I couldn't dream of having in the US). After standing in a line to check in, I have to answer stupid questions, show ID, and check my luggage. Then I have some time to kill before the plane leaves. I usually get some kind of soft drink in the departure lounge (waiting area). Oh yeh... I have to show ID and my ticket to get in there. With all the noise and hurrying people around, it is all but impossible to make any kind of use of this waiting time by, say, reading. Then they call us to board. I then have to get in another line, present my ticket, and go to the plane. I then find my seat and sit down. I can try to read during this time, but again, there are people all around making a lot of noise and hurrying and arranging their stuff. Then the plane takes off. I can now try to read, but within a few minutes, the flight attendants come around with drinks. In the case of the São Paulo to Rio flight, the whole flight lasts only about 40-60 minutes (depending on direction, weather conditions, and air traffic at the destination). In the case of longer flights, the attendants come around several times to offer drinks and/or food.
After the plane lands, it taxis to the gate. This can add another 5-15 minutes, depending on traffic. Then we are released into the terminal, which usually involves another wait while people block the corridor to take down the 74 bags they just couldn't check and had to bring on board. The one time I saw a flight attendant enforce the limit on the number of bags a couple could carry on, I literally applauded, and did I ever get dirty looks from the couple.
Next we all go to baggage claim, which can take anywhere from seconds to forever. After that, either I meet my ride or go to car rental to get a car.
In the end, I don't really save any time taking a plane instead of a bus, even though the flight part of the journey by plane takes 40-60 minutes and a bus trip takes 5-6 hours. Taking the bus has the added advantage that I can arrive at the bus station without a reservation, buy a ticket for the next bus, go down and wait a few minutes (not 45 like in the airport, plus buses are rarely late, while airplanes always seem to be) before getting on the bus. I can than either sleep (not possible in the airplane due to comfort and time constraints) or actually do some work or just relaxing reading. If I had a laptop, I could do work too. Also, buses have much more flexible hours. In the Rio-São Paulo example, the last plane (and you've gotta reserve that several days in advance) leaves around 10:00 PM. There are buses leaving with relatively high frequency until about 1:30 AM, and there are others that leave at even later hours, though not as frequently.
Now imagine a train, which can offer all the advantages of buses, plus it doesn't get affected by traffic and can travel at 400 kph (about 250 mph). Add in that it can be much more energy-efficient than a plane, has an even lower risk of accidents, and (Steven Seagal movies aside) an even lower risk of hijacking than a bus, since it has very limited possibilities in terms of alternate routes (i.e., it can only go where there are tracks) and basically cannot be used as a weapon (except possibly against a vehicle on a road at a train crossing or another train). Basically, there's no comparison. A maglev train would blow away an airplane for everything except trans-oceanic travel. And best of all, it would probably be much cheaper than an airplane flight. I started taking buses because my girlfriend and I couldn't really afford to be flying back and forth every weekend, and the bus is a much, much cheaper option. I expect a maglev train ticket would be more expensive than a bus ticket, but less expensive than a plane ticket. I traveled extensively in Europe by train, and the prices were quite reasonable, even for the TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse (or sumfin' like that), which just means "high-speed train" in French) between some Swiss city (Geneva?) and Paris. And if you think about it from a business point of view, the marginal cost of adding space for more passengers (by adding more cars, not by cramming the passengers in like sardines like the frickin' airlines insist on doing) is very low. So if there is less demand, you send less cars. If there is more, you add some. So the "full flight" problem is reduced without large additional costs... wow.
If I were a stockholder in a major airline, I would be even more worried now than before thinking about high-speed maglev trains... as a consumer of mass transport, I am definitely more happy than before thinking about these things because of the
Folks, this ain't a new story. In the 1980s, Art Buchwald sued a movie studio over the Eddie Murphy movie "Coming to America" (I think that's the name)-- the one where Eddie Murphy plays an African prince who goes to Queens (ha-ha) to find his future queen. Buchwald won the suit, succesfully proving in court that he had presented a very similar idea to the studio before the movie was made. But with all the "creative" bookkeeping the studios do, Buchwald ended up with a settlement worth nothing, because he was entitled to a share of what the studio was saying was zero. If I were a person in the entertainment industry, I would never have accepted a profit-based deal after the Buchwald case. If I were a person in the entertainment industry who already had a contract with a profit basis, I would have sought a new contract or renegotiation of the profit-based terms after seeing the Buchwald case. Lee did not. I feel for him, but I can't help but think he was knowingly swimming with sharks, didn't pay attention to other cases of people getting bitten by those same sharks, and therefore did not take proper precautions (like a cage). I think it's terrible that the sharks ate him alive on this one, but a part of me has to think it's at least partially Lee's own fault. Don't even get me started about the MP3-related lawsuits and settlements "in the name of the artists" that never produced a cent for any artists. Only Courtney Love had the courage to go after the recording labels on that one, and her story was largely ignored.
They sent me to a classroom where 7th and 8th grade students were (theoretically) preparing to take the SSAT (Secondary School Aptitude Test) to try to get into some of the East Coast boarding schools. Apparently, those schools have some programs to try to increase minority enrollment, but candidates have to take the SSAT and have results above some threshold.
They told me I would be helping the students review the math that would appear on the test, including algebra. But within the first two days, I discovered that even the best students among them had a very weak grasp of algebra. Most had no idea what was going on. So I started from the most basic-- what the "equals" sign means. I wrote "3=3" and asked them if that was right. They understood and responded correctly. I wrote "3=5" and asked them if that was right. They understood that it was not and responded correctly again. I then showed them that if you do something to one side of the equals sign, but not the other, you go from a true statement to a false one. For example, take "3=3," which is true, and add 2 to one side. Then you get "3=5," which is nonsense. But... if you do the same thing to both sides, you end up with another true statement... For example, take "3=3" and add two to both sides... then you get "5=5," which is perfectly valid and correct.
I then introduced the concept of variables and using them to represent unknowns. When I felt that they were pretty comfortable with variables, I started writing equations with variables. Since they already knew the rules for messing around with equations, I showed them how to mess around in a way that would isolate the unknown variable on one side of the equation.
These kids were like sponges. Every day when I left the school, I left knowing for sure that they had learned something they didn't know before. It was extremely rewarding. And by the end, almost every one of them (there was one I couldn't really reach, no matter how hard I tried... but even she did start to get the basic concepts) could solve any linear equation, even if it was "disguised" by having the unknown in the denominator of a fraction. They also learned how to convert crazy word problems I invented into equations to solve.
These students were clearly ready for Algebra. Only one of about 25 students ended up not knowing what I considered "enough" by the time I finished, which really wasn't that much time. I spent two periods of about an hour and a half or two hours each per week with them during a few months. But whoever had "taught" them Algebra before didn't teach them a damn thing. One thing that I think made a big difference was that I praised to high heaven a student who refused to just say "got it" and move on when she didn't understand what I had done. She insisted that she didn't get it. So I put a problem on the chalkboard and started going through it one step at a time, showing her why I was doing each thing. I was in the middle of doing this when I saw her face light up. I stopped and said that I could see that she had understood. I erased the problem I was solving and put up a new equation. I passed her the chalk and stepped away. She quickly and easily solved the equation for the unknown. I then made a big deal about how great it was that she didn't just say she understood it and move on without really understanding. After that, all of them were more willing to say when they didn't understand and not just say "got it" and move on. I think the people who "taught" these kids algebra had just presented the material and asked if everyone understood without really "digging" to confirm that everyone had understood. I know that when I arrived, students were in the habit of saying they understood things, even when they didn't. Just curing them of that ill left me feeling satisfied with the work I had done.
I hope some of these students continued to study math and science and have the same kind of success they had when I was teaching them. If my algebra "review" served as a "gateway" for one or more of them to take more math and science, that would be great.
I live in Brasil. In soccer, we are the dominant superpower. But in socio-economic terms, we are part of the Third World.
No, everybody here is not starving, and yes, we use computers here (FigBugDeux is right on these points). I work in a company that makes technology solutions (the part where I work basically makes software) for corporate customers.
But I don't see how a $214 computer is going to be used by the illiterate here. First, after paying to transport the devices to South America and paying all applicable import taxes, I suspect the price would be more than $214. But there's a much bigger problem. I'll work with the number $214 even though the real price could end up being higher here.
At the last exchange rate from yesterday (5 July 2002), US$214 is about R$616 (Brasilian currency is called the Real. I used an exchange rate of US$1=R$2.88). The minimum wage, which is a relevant number for the illiterate, is R$180 per month. Don't bother converting this into dollars, because things like food are a lot less expensive here than in the US. For example, at nice "churrascarias" (meat restaurants), I can eat whatever I want from the enormous salad bar/buffet, plus all the high-quality meat I can eat, for R$13, or about US$4.50. And it's high quality meat. There are cheaper places with lower quality meat. And when you buy food in markets and prepare it yourself, it's of course a lot cheaper than if you eat at a restaurant for the middle and upper classes.
In any case, this means that the $214 computer would cost something in the neighborhood of three and a half months' worth of salary for somebody earning the minimum wage. When you already own a house and a car and have savings, you can buy something that costs a few months' salary without much problem. But when you're busting your ass to get by and own very little, a handheld computer that costs more than three months' salary will have very little appeal.
An Anonymous Coward wrote: "I made a better competing 'edit' of the movie which (sic) highlights JarJar's zany antics and removes the parts that advance the story."
Actually, I would prefer an edit of The Phantom Menace that left Jar Jar alone (all the SW movies had some kind of comic relief) and took out the embarassingly bad stuff about "chlamydians" (OK, midi-clorians, but I can't help but wonder if a simple dose of penicillin might have prevented the whole Darth Vader situation) and the virgin birth of Anakin. This little bit of Star Trek-like technobabble, in just a few minutes, completely ruined all the magic of the other three movies. The Force, before Episode I, was basically magic. How it worked was not explained and DID NOT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED, like the magic used by Merlin or Gandalf. Post-Episode I, it's a blood condition. Bleah!
So Coward, I welcome your edit. But did you cut out that seemingly never-ending scene with the big fish getting eaten by even bigger fish?
I live in Brazil and I find very funny this idea that by banning the export of US cryptography technology, you can prevent the rest of us from having the same level of security. We are capable of developing it ourselves, you narrow-minded xenophobic yo-yos!
The company where I work also employs one of the top cryptographers in the world, and he isn't American.
I am still hoping your power-mad government manages to pass the law it wants to pass, making illegal all cryptography without a US government "back door," because American security vendors lose all credibility and that will be a monster opportunity for my company to make reliable security products and sell them to the rest of the world.