I am beginning to lose the fervent blind capitalist leanings of my youth because I live in San Francisco. Not surprising that this happened, but I am surprised at how.
It's the government giving the money away, not corporations.
They take it by force and then hand it to a corporation. And then people complain about the corporations. The corps don't have guns.
This does not actually apply to most modern systems, though is definitely the case for anything pre PlayStation 1/Nintendo 64 generation.
Modern systems generally work as the above poster said... timed to catch the retrace and if they miss it "simply" (and unattractively) slowing the game down. This is always a trade-off. Good games get it right, poor ones do not.
I agree. I most often use my laptop for playing DVDs (lotta help from the fixed drive there) and my wife uses it for browsing (which using firefox she can do while any remaining stuff loads).
Please give me the slowest, lowest power, cheapest hard drive available.
Here we go with another round of re-mastering and reselling. Just like the record industry and archiving their vinyl library to CD, or the previous migration from VHS to DVD, here is ANOTHER round of $20-$50 gotta haves to line the pockets of the man.
I hate da man keeping me from my high-end digital home theatre content.
Congratulations you bunch of selfish, greedy, dumbasses. Your pissing match over 'whose format is better' is no doubt causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise early-adopters like myself to wait to spend our cash on your equipment.
Just get an HTPC. Swap out appropriate drive as the time comes. Reduces your cost dramatically and allows early adoption without the pain.
Yes. Some people would prefer to buy cheap glassware that shatters instead of spending more money on dishes that will last longer. (And no, I don't mean plastic. Not all glassware shatters. Good dishes bounce and, at most, chip slightly.) In the end, though, those people break so many more dishes and glasses that it costs them more, thus proving their folly.
Some people also prefer expensive glassware that shatters instead of spending LESS money on dishes that will last longer: ie fine china and crystal. People pay more for a fragile luxury when cheaper items, whether it's plastic or more durable glassware are available. We've gotten way off-topic there but the main points are short-term cost/efficiency are not the only consideration.
In fact, one could reasonably argue that increasing the number of people on solar power would result in even more financial harm to society, as the cost of staying in high density areas (which tend to be the areas most frequently inhabited by the poorest parts of our country) could actually increase. Why? Because maintaining the power grid costs money, and if there are fewer people using it, the maintenance costs get spread across fewer households, and thus the power companies will have the perfect excuse to raise rates even further for the people who can least afford it.
Absolutely. So therefore leaving them on this outdated system is HARMING THEM THE MOST. That's what I'm trying to say! Solar power is most beneficial for highly concentrated (lower-income urban) households! Yet it's not here. A short-term rise in costs would be painful... but force the transition to better alternatives. Look at the desertion of Hummers and adoption of Hybrids recently. We have condo associations/apartment complexes that run communal pools but don't bother with communcal solar arrays. Something is wrong here. We then take their kids and send them to foreign nations to die to secure outdated energy sources and ensure the status quo continues. Very very wrong. I absolutely agree there will be short-term pain and costs.
Is it any less than a war costing thousands of lives on the other side of the planet with a final bill nearing $300B?
Sorry, but I'm quite certain that power and other essential services will always be a mess as long as the profit motive is the driving force behind its maintenance, and I'm quite certain that alternative power cannot reasonably prevent corporate greed by power providers from causing societal harm any time in the foreseeable future. Maybe in a hundred years... but not any time soon.
The profit motive will always be behind providing any service. But that aside...
You should really check out solar power. We're closer than you think. Solar power would also be most effective for highly concentrated housing where one array could serve multiple apartment/condo households. Quite a bit of electricity is consumed during transmission and a lot of effort is expended tracking usage. Even if we don't have a truck driving around with batteries, we have a person driving around checking meters.
Also, google "transmission line loss" with respect to electricity generation. It runs about 10-15%. You joked earlier about putting batteries on a truck and driving about... well we do pay a similar cost in both line loss and driving around checking meters. Like you said, once we get superconductors, the point is moot. I don't expect that soon... however:
You're saying "digging/pumping a finite source of decayed bio-matter out of the ground, transporting it to a central location by truck, using it to run huge centralized power generators, and then having those generators transport it across hundreds of miles of power lines (with associated losses)" is going to be cheaper than alternatives such as local tidal/wind/solar for another hundred years.
I respectfully disagree.
Also, we'd be a lot closer towards a hydrogen economy if we'd spend $270B to move towar
It is an indication of something wrong---properly made dishes should not shatter---and I have yet to hear you put forth any alternate solution that can actually work.
And yet people seem to prefer dishes that will shatter and kitchen floors that will shatter them when alternatives to both are readily available and often less expensive.
Furthermore, as a society, if we would prefer fewer shattered dishes (and glass wounds and broken hips), why do we not enforce plastic dishes and padded kitchen floors?
Often the most preferrable solution does not appear most efficient.
I recently considered solar power. I rejected it because the local energy company (SDGE) was still cheaper by a large margin... and was even during the summer of 2000. I could not have recouped my costs in a reasonable amount of time. I believe that were energy more expensive, "solarization" would become more viable, scaling costs would improve, and I would have be getting it in five years instead of twenty. This then becomes a more and more viable alternative, putting the screws on the transmission grid and forcing them to lower prices.
I envision condo HOAs with giant solar arrays on the roofs. I am sad we don't have that now. I believe we should. I believe we don't due to regulation. Regulation has done the same thing for the transmission grid that OPEC has done for oil prices and drug dealers do for their product.
Keep prices just low enough to keep their junkies hooked and the dealers in pimpin' clothes.
Also you are talking specifically about transmission while the problem in 2000 was attempted de-regulation of producer FROM the grid. At this point the final mile question does still suggest oversight. BTW, just so you think I don't simply hate all government, the solution to the de-regulation problem was to do it MORE SLOWLY. Just like the other comment about Soviet/vs Chinese. Soviets went for almost a century and then collapsed into chaos to their detriment. This is essentially what we experienced with the power de-regulation. The Chinese started de-socializing slowly in the late 1980s after only a few decades, to their apparent benefit, though the ultimate result does remain to be seen.
I may not have a better alternative right NOW, but what I believe is that under the current system, the better alternative will take far longer to appear and the transition will ultimately have larger broader costs for society. I didn't think of NetFlix either.
I dislike having a single provider.
I dislike having an armed single provider more.
There's very little question about it. Certain generator companies, in an attempt to make higher profits, manipulated the levels of power available to the grid to reduce supply, and thus increase the amount that they could charge. They deliberately kept power plants offline for unnecessarily long period of time, etc. Then, PG&E demanded a government bailout claiming that they were going bankrupt (which the government promptly provided) while hiding millions (billions?) of dollars in overpayments to their generator company subsidiaries.
All of which could be done because of years of mismanaged regulation.
Deregulation was the direct cause of California's power crisis.
Absolutely. Just as the hard floor is the direct cause of a dish breaking after I've dropped it.
Anyone who says differently is kidding themselves.
Agreed, I'm just willing to look a little deeper.
The California power crisis is the perfect example of why essential utilities should have mandatory nonprofit status.
The first statement does not provide support to this one. The fact that I've dropped a dish onto the hard floor and it broke is not a perfect example of why all flooring should be padded.
As with almost all essential services, consumers rarely have any choice about who provides them, and thus competition will never be able to prevent a small number of companies from causing public harm.
Again, I agree absolutely there is often a point at which consumers do not have a very good choice about providers. Where we disagree is that I believe that point often passes naturally without government intervention and whether power is essential enough to warrant a legislated government monopoly. That is what pre-regulation California was. I am against monopolies both private and public.
And though I am against monopolies, I do accept them for truly essential things such as fire and police protection, despite the ultimate corruption and reduction in quality those monopolies create. I do so in order to ensure continuous protection and because I believe those services are relatively mature therefore the damage created by monopoly at the end of a muzzle is outweighed.
For another example, PG&E is running commercials claiming that they have no control over the cost of natural gas and encouraging people to conserve. In the same commercial, they give a very large (25%, I think) discount if you reduce your usage. If they were truly running at a low operating margin like they imply, they wouldn't be able to offer such large discounts....
Perfect example indeed. The operating margins are most likely dictated by a state committee who then further dictates incentives for reducing usage, thus ultimately retarding alternative power development. Also, you cannot point to the behavior of a regulated entity and use it as an example of the behavior of a deregulated entity.
So, I'm not arguing that essential services should be deregulated. I like my local police and fire protection (among others). I'm arguing that government regulation ultimately retards progress and are, at a very minimum, often pointless. Ma Bell was broken up less than a decade before Cellular techonology, followed immediately by the internet, made the company a dinasaur.
Keep in mind that most government regulation is simply enforced monopoly. It is big-business... with guns. I want the corporations to sweat. I believe that ultimately the best way to make them sweat is with other corporations. I believe the government will make them sweat... for about ten minutes before it jumps into bed with them and starts working to maintain/build it's own fiefdoms.
You are welcome to disagree. But keep in mind that using government to enforce this type of thing is enforcing morality at gunpoint.
Anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage advocates believe they are providing the same public benefit. And that it must be done at gunpoint.
I am simply very careful what I would suggest shooting someone to enforce.
You know what's going to blow your mind? A single Costco store does TEN TIMES the business that a single Wal Mart does. I won't shop at Wal Mart because of their policies, and neither will other people who are aware of what Wal Mart does. The type of people who know what Wal Mart does and are offended by their actions are either rich, or educated, or both. They also have more choices about where they can go. Poor people don't have that same option, and it's not right to allow a company to take advantage of that situation.
Who decides if it's right? I do. It's my money, and I spend it on nice companies first.
I hit submit accidentlly and didn't get a very good post previously. The preview is your friend.
Anyway, like I said, we both agree Wal-mart isn't a very pleasant place to shop. We agree we don't want to spend our money shopping there. We disagree on whether that is a meaningful problem in general.
I tend not to care too deeply about a companies morals (don't buy diamons though), but if there are enough that think like you an alternative will arise... as I believe it has.
Nobody said Mom/Pop except for people trying to argue against me. But, since you bring it up, don't you care about Mom and Pop? They're out of business because Wal Mart put 11 stores into their town, drove them out of business, and then closed down 6 of those stores after the competition was gone. You're defending Wal Mart, but you won't defend other businesses?
Absolutely, I'll defend them.
1) Once they close 6 stores then what prevents small stores (or big ones like our lovely CostCo) from coming back? They should come back and kill the evil wal-mart!
2) I don't see how calling a store irritating and despressing was defending it. I would be completely happy if everyone stopped shopping there tomorrow. Actually more than happy since I own a competitor's stock. I may not like the way they sell things, but I'll defend to the death their right to sell them.
I'm thinking of places like Costco, which is not Mom/Pop. More than 80% of their employees have health insurance, and their stores are very profitable.
Exactly. Why anyone would work at Wal-mart I do not know. That place sucks on both sides of the counter I'm sure.
I think we both agree that Wal-mart sucks. I think the place we disagree is that this matters to those of us that do not choose to shop/work there.
I'm thinking of places like Costco, which is not Mom/Pop. More than 80% of their employees have health insurance, and their stores are very profitable.
I was thinking of where you claimed they killed their comeptition. But you're right, it's funny how a big-box competitor like CostCo can provide health care and still exist. Plus they have great retention rates I hear and their prices are supposedly good.
Why would anyone work at Wal-Mart then?
For example, they don't provide proper health insurance to their employees which forces many of them to get government medical insurance assistance, otherwise known as Medicaid.
So our beloved Mom/Pop stores provide full health coverage?
Wal Mart also drives competitors out of business, reducing the diversity of choices in a community. Some places if you want to work, you work at Wal Mart. You want to shop? Wal Mart is practically your only choice.
Wal Mart drives prices lower and lower, forcing suppliers to move their production offshore. This means that we're losing manufacturing capability in this country, and we're losing the manufacturing jobs.
I think you mean increased productivity and access to global markets, not Wal-Mart.
Wal Mart hurts our port security too. They are currently pushing hard against adopting a policy of scanning every single cargo container entering our ports, because that would screw up their delivery system. Basically they are ready to trade off some of our safety for the sake of their profits.
I refuse to let any group use the evil terrorists and fear to goad me into a particular choice. I had thought that was conservative territory up until the Dubai thing and now the Wal-Mart scare.
Let me know when the threat level on Wal-Mart hits orange, ok?
On the other hand, I don't like Wal-mart. Just because it's ugly, irritating, and depressing. I do admit my wife and I have spent about $10 there in the last year.
It's not rocket science here guys, making a judgement of merit based on number of items on the ballot is ridiculous.
It's not just the number of issues on the ballot. You forget that Americans are teh stooopid.
For example, my procedure is to watch Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for 48 hours straight without sleeping (courtesy of methamphetamines). Then I clap my hands over my ears and sing Lalalalalala while I drive (that's quite a trick right there) 25 miles in my 4 mile-per-gallon SUV to the polling place. I make sure to stop at McDonald's on the way to gorge myself on Quater-pounders and Diet Cokes. Then after driving for twenty minutes to look for a parking spot so I don't have to walk further than 20 feet I stumble to the booth and blindly swap my pre-approved Party line ballot with the original. I then take it to the polling location operator who happily puts it in the ballot box or trash according to locally prevailing political attitudes. On the way home I hit the McDonald's again to refuel from my adventure.
In conclusion it's only Americans that blindly generalize about other cultures on little or no information.
...about 30 feet away behind three doors and I can't hear a thing. Ran the cables under the floor to the room under the stairs.
The USB hub is closer... a couple doors away which means I have to get up to change DVDs every so often. The RF remote works fine... and there are almost no wires around my desk. Plus the main unit is completely accessible and comfortable to fiddle with.
I hear they are even working on another prototype that actually uses solid pieces of pressed plant matter painted with ink... with get this... one "screen" representing each card!
And on top of that they are paper thin and capable of being moved and stacked in three complete dimensions!
You're missing the difficulty mentioned above... ie... our arms will tire quickly using something like this.
I agree it would be highly useful in ADDITION to current methods... but recently my arm/shoulder was killing me until I switched from a mouse to a trackball. I can't IMAGINE trying to use this thing for a 6 hour Battlefield marathon.
The other solution is not to play games for hours on end... naaaah...
I would love to give it to my wife to help her sort pictures though. Another major component most people have missed though is the fact that a relatively large screen was required for the "canvas". These are getting cheaper, but still expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
I am beginning to lose the fervent blind capitalist leanings of my youth because I live in San Francisco. Not surprising that this happened, but I am surprised at how.
It's the government giving the money away, not corporations.
They take it by force and then hand it to a corporation. And then people complain about the corporations. The corps don't have guns.
Mostly.
My water/sewage bill is about $60/month. That's not low-cost.
You've just eliminated the entire govt.
Brilliant! And it won't even get the FBI involved like my plan would have!
Because marking a post 'redundant' is a punishment.
Marking a post as redundant creates information. Interpreting that information as punishment is a personal choice.
Karma is irrelevant in this situation as the "punishment" will not occur often enough to significantly affect the other factors affecting it.
This does not actually apply to most modern systems, though is definitely the case for anything pre PlayStation 1/Nintendo 64 generation. Modern systems generally work as the above poster said... timed to catch the retrace and if they miss it "simply" (and unattractively) slowing the game down. This is always a trade-off. Good games get it right, poor ones do not.
I agree. I most often use my laptop for playing DVDs (lotta help from the fixed drive there) and my wife uses it for browsing (which using firefox she can do while any remaining stuff loads). Please give me the slowest, lowest power, cheapest hard drive available.
Here we go with another round of re-mastering and reselling. Just like the record industry and archiving their vinyl library to CD, or the previous migration from VHS to DVD, here is ANOTHER round of $20-$50 gotta haves to line the pockets of the man.
I hate da man keeping me from my high-end digital home theatre content.
When will the tyranny end?
Congratulations you bunch of selfish, greedy, dumbasses. Your pissing match over 'whose format is better' is no doubt causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise early-adopters like myself to wait to spend our cash on your equipment.
Just get an HTPC. Swap out appropriate drive as the time comes. Reduces your cost dramatically and allows early adoption without the pain.
ID NOT!!!!
Yes. Some people would prefer to buy cheap glassware that shatters instead of spending more money on dishes that will last longer. (And no, I don't mean plastic. Not all glassware shatters. Good dishes bounce and, at most, chip slightly.) In the end, though, those people break so many more dishes and glasses that it costs them more, thus proving their folly.
Some people also prefer expensive glassware that shatters instead of spending LESS money on dishes that will last longer: ie fine china and crystal. People pay more for a fragile luxury when cheaper items, whether it's plastic or more durable glassware are available. We've gotten way off-topic there but the main points are short-term cost/efficiency are not the only consideration.
In fact, one could reasonably argue that increasing the number of people on solar power would result in even more financial harm to society, as the cost of staying in high density areas (which tend to be the areas most frequently inhabited by the poorest parts of our country) could actually increase. Why? Because maintaining the power grid costs money, and if there are fewer people using it, the maintenance costs get spread across fewer households, and thus the power companies will have the perfect excuse to raise rates even further for the people who can least afford it.
Absolutely. So therefore leaving them on this outdated system is HARMING THEM THE MOST. That's what I'm trying to say! Solar power is most beneficial for highly concentrated (lower-income urban) households! Yet it's not here. A short-term rise in costs would be painful... but force the transition to better alternatives. Look at the desertion of Hummers and adoption of Hybrids recently. We have condo associations/apartment complexes that run communal pools but don't bother with communcal solar arrays. Something is wrong here. We then take their kids and send them to foreign nations to die to secure outdated energy sources and ensure the status quo continues. Very very wrong. I absolutely agree there will be short-term pain and costs.
Is it any less than a war costing thousands of lives on the other side of the planet with a final bill nearing $300B?
Sorry, but I'm quite certain that power and other essential services will always be a mess as long as the profit motive is the driving force behind its maintenance, and I'm quite certain that alternative power cannot reasonably prevent corporate greed by power providers from causing societal harm any time in the foreseeable future. Maybe in a hundred years... but not any time soon.
The profit motive will always be behind providing any service. But that aside...
You should really check out solar power. We're closer than you think. Solar power would also be most effective for highly concentrated housing where one array could serve multiple apartment/condo households. Quite a bit of electricity is consumed during transmission and a lot of effort is expended tracking usage. Even if we don't have a truck driving around with batteries, we have a person driving around checking meters.
Also, google "transmission line loss" with respect to electricity generation. It runs about 10-15%. You joked earlier about putting batteries on a truck and driving about... well we do pay a similar cost in both line loss and driving around checking meters. Like you said, once we get superconductors, the point is moot. I don't expect that soon... however:
You're saying "digging/pumping a finite source of decayed bio-matter out of the ground, transporting it to a central location by truck, using it to run huge centralized power generators, and then having those generators transport it across hundreds of miles of power lines (with associated losses)" is going to be cheaper than alternatives such as local tidal/wind/solar for another hundred years.
I respectfully disagree.
Also, we'd be a lot closer towards a hydrogen economy if we'd spend $270B to move towar
It is an indication of something wrong---properly made dishes should not shatter---and I have yet to hear you put forth any alternate solution that can actually work.
And yet people seem to prefer dishes that will shatter and kitchen floors that will shatter them when alternatives to both are readily available and often less expensive.
Furthermore, as a society, if we would prefer fewer shattered dishes (and glass wounds and broken hips), why do we not enforce plastic dishes and padded kitchen floors?
Often the most preferrable solution does not appear most efficient.
I recently considered solar power. I rejected it because the local energy company (SDGE) was still cheaper by a large margin... and was even during the summer of 2000. I could not have recouped my costs in a reasonable amount of time. I believe that were energy more expensive, "solarization" would become more viable, scaling costs would improve, and I would have be getting it in five years instead of twenty. This then becomes a more and more viable alternative, putting the screws on the transmission grid and forcing them to lower prices.
I envision condo HOAs with giant solar arrays on the roofs. I am sad we don't have that now. I believe we should. I believe we don't due to regulation. Regulation has done the same thing for the transmission grid that OPEC has done for oil prices and drug dealers do for their product.
Keep prices just low enough to keep their junkies hooked and the dealers in pimpin' clothes.
Also you are talking specifically about transmission while the problem in 2000 was attempted de-regulation of producer FROM the grid. At this point the final mile question does still suggest oversight. BTW, just so you think I don't simply hate all government, the solution to the de-regulation problem was to do it MORE SLOWLY. Just like the other comment about Soviet/vs Chinese. Soviets went for almost a century and then collapsed into chaos to their detriment. This is essentially what we experienced with the power de-regulation. The Chinese started de-socializing slowly in the late 1980s after only a few decades, to their apparent benefit, though the ultimate result does remain to be seen.
I may not have a better alternative right NOW, but what I believe is that under the current system, the better alternative will take far longer to appear and the transition will ultimately have larger broader costs for society. I didn't think of NetFlix either.
I dislike having a single provider.
I dislike having an armed single provider more.
There's very little question about it. Certain generator companies, in an attempt to make higher profits, manipulated the levels of power available to the grid to reduce supply, and thus increase the amount that they could charge. They deliberately kept power plants offline for unnecessarily long period of time, etc. Then, PG&E demanded a government bailout claiming that they were going bankrupt (which the government promptly provided) while hiding millions (billions?) of dollars in overpayments to their generator company subsidiaries.
All of which could be done because of years of mismanaged regulation.
Deregulation was the direct cause of California's power crisis.
Absolutely. Just as the hard floor is the direct cause of a dish breaking after I've dropped it.
Anyone who says differently is kidding themselves.
Agreed, I'm just willing to look a little deeper.
The California power crisis is the perfect example of why essential utilities should have mandatory nonprofit status.
The first statement does not provide support to this one. The fact that I've dropped a dish onto the hard floor and it broke is not a perfect example of why all flooring should be padded.
As with almost all essential services, consumers rarely have any choice about who provides them, and thus competition will never be able to prevent a small number of companies from causing public harm.
Again, I agree absolutely there is often a point at which consumers do not have a very good choice about providers. Where we disagree is that I believe that point often passes naturally without government intervention and whether power is essential enough to warrant a legislated government monopoly. That is what pre-regulation California was. I am against monopolies both private and public.
And though I am against monopolies, I do accept them for truly essential things such as fire and police protection, despite the ultimate corruption and reduction in quality those monopolies create. I do so in order to ensure continuous protection and because I believe those services are relatively mature therefore the damage created by monopoly at the end of a muzzle is outweighed.
For another example, PG&E is running commercials claiming that they have no control over the cost of natural gas and encouraging people to conserve. In the same commercial, they give a very large (25%, I think) discount if you reduce your usage. If they were truly running at a low operating margin like they imply, they wouldn't be able to offer such large discounts....
Perfect example indeed. The operating margins are most likely dictated by a state committee who then further dictates incentives for reducing usage, thus ultimately retarding alternative power development. Also, you cannot point to the behavior of a regulated entity and use it as an example of the behavior of a deregulated entity.
So, I'm not arguing that essential services should be deregulated. I like my local police and fire protection (among others). I'm arguing that government regulation ultimately retards progress and are, at a very minimum, often pointless. Ma Bell was broken up less than a decade before Cellular techonology, followed immediately by the internet, made the company a dinasaur.
Keep in mind that most government regulation is simply enforced monopoly. It is big-business... with guns. I want the corporations to sweat. I believe that ultimately the best way to make them sweat is with other corporations. I believe the government will make them sweat... for about ten minutes before it jumps into bed with them and starts working to maintain/build it's own fiefdoms.
You are welcome to disagree. But keep in mind that using government to enforce this type of thing is enforcing morality at gunpoint.
Anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage advocates believe they are providing the same public benefit. And that it must be done at gunpoint.
I am simply very careful what I would suggest shooting someone to enforce.
Blaming de-regulation for California's electrical problems is like blaming Capitalism for Russia post-Communism economic problems.
And as the previous poster said:
1. Health problem lead to shorter lives. 2. Longer lives lead to higher medical costs.
I think those that do not smoke, eat, and drink excessively really do not care about their fellow man.
Next you'll be asking me to choose a health-care provider!
Only if you have money.
Damn! I thought providing health-care was free!
Now you're just making it harder!
The main argument from the article is that fiber to the home is not necessary. How about letting the consumer decide that?
I'm sorry. I'm incapable of making important personal decisions.
Isn't there a government agency that could decide for everybody at once, including me?
Next you'll be asking me to choose a health-care provider!
You know what's going to blow your mind? A single Costco store does TEN TIMES the business that a single Wal Mart does. I won't shop at Wal Mart because of their policies, and neither will other people who are aware of what Wal Mart does. The type of people who know what Wal Mart does and are offended by their actions are either rich, or educated, or both. They also have more choices about where they can go. Poor people don't have that same option, and it's not right to allow a company to take advantage of that situation.
Who decides if it's right? I do. It's my money, and I spend it on nice companies first.
I hit submit accidentlly and didn't get a very good post previously. The preview is your friend.
Anyway, like I said, we both agree Wal-mart isn't a very pleasant place to shop. We agree we don't want to spend our money shopping there. We disagree on whether that is a meaningful problem in general.
I tend not to care too deeply about a companies morals (don't buy diamons though), but if there are enough that think like you an alternative will arise... as I believe it has.
Nobody said Mom/Pop except for people trying to argue against me. But, since you bring it up, don't you care about Mom and Pop? They're out of business because Wal Mart put 11 stores into their town, drove them out of business, and then closed down 6 of those stores after the competition was gone. You're defending Wal Mart, but you won't defend other businesses? Absolutely, I'll defend them.
1) Once they close 6 stores then what prevents small stores (or big ones like our lovely CostCo) from coming back? They should come back and kill the evil wal-mart!
2) I don't see how calling a store irritating and despressing was defending it. I would be completely happy if everyone stopped shopping there tomorrow. Actually more than happy since I own a competitor's stock. I may not like the way they sell things, but I'll defend to the death their right to sell them.
I'm thinking of places like Costco, which is not Mom/Pop. More than 80% of their employees have health insurance, and their stores are very profitable.
Exactly. Why anyone would work at Wal-mart I do not know. That place sucks on both sides of the counter I'm sure.
I think we both agree that Wal-mart sucks. I think the place we disagree is that this matters to those of us that do not choose to shop/work there.
I'm thinking of places like Costco, which is not Mom/Pop. More than 80% of their employees have health insurance, and their stores are very profitable. I was thinking of where you claimed they killed their comeptition. But you're right, it's funny how a big-box competitor like CostCo can provide health care and still exist. Plus they have great retention rates I hear and their prices are supposedly good. Why would anyone work at Wal-Mart then?
Imagine if hospitals were more like the Department of Motor Vehicles...
You've never been in an HMO then, I expect.
I love my HMO. Have you ever been to a DMV?
I have waited in line longer at a DMV once than in my ENTIRE LIFE at my HMO.
For example, they don't provide proper health insurance to their employees which forces many of them to get government medical insurance assistance, otherwise known as Medicaid.
So our beloved Mom/Pop stores provide full health coverage?
Wal Mart also drives competitors out of business, reducing the diversity of choices in a community. Some places if you want to work, you work at Wal Mart. You want to shop? Wal Mart is practically your only choice.
Yes, everyone should shop at the competitors!
At the end of the episode, the townspeople decide to support a local store instead of big box stores. The people shop at the store so much that it becomes the next Wal-Mart, which the townspeople once again burn down.
Wal Mart drives prices lower and lower, forcing suppliers to move their production offshore. This means that we're losing manufacturing capability in this country, and we're losing the manufacturing jobs.
I think you mean increased productivity and access to global markets, not Wal-Mart.
Wal Mart hurts our port security too. They are currently pushing hard against adopting a policy of scanning every single cargo container entering our ports, because that would screw up their delivery system. Basically they are ready to trade off some of our safety for the sake of their profits.
I refuse to let any group use the evil terrorists and fear to goad me into a particular choice. I had thought that was conservative territory up until the Dubai thing and now the Wal-Mart scare.
Let me know when the threat level on Wal-Mart hits orange, ok?
On the other hand, I don't like Wal-mart. Just because it's ugly, irritating, and depressing. I do admit my wife and I have spent about $10 there in the last year.
It's not rocket science here guys, making a judgement of merit based on number of items on the ballot is ridiculous.
It's not just the number of issues on the ballot. You forget that Americans are teh stooopid.
For example, my procedure is to watch Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for 48 hours straight without sleeping (courtesy of methamphetamines). Then I clap my hands over my ears and sing Lalalalalala while I drive (that's quite a trick right there) 25 miles in my 4 mile-per-gallon SUV to the polling place. I make sure to stop at McDonald's on the way to gorge myself on Quater-pounders and Diet Cokes. Then after driving for twenty minutes to look for a parking spot so I don't have to walk further than 20 feet I stumble to the booth and blindly swap my pre-approved Party line ballot with the original. I then take it to the polling location operator who happily puts it in the ballot box or trash according to locally prevailing political attitudes. On the way home I hit the McDonald's again to refuel from my adventure.
In conclusion it's only Americans that blindly generalize about other cultures on little or no information.
...about 30 feet away behind three doors and I can't hear a thing. Ran the cables under the floor to the room under the stairs.
The USB hub is closer... a couple doors away which means I have to get up to change DVDs every so often. The RF remote works fine... and there are almost no wires around my desk. Plus the main unit is completely accessible and comfortable to fiddle with.
Solitare would become an elegant affair.
I hear they are even working on another prototype that actually uses solid pieces of pressed plant matter painted with ink... with get this... one "screen" representing each card!
And on top of that they are paper thin and capable of being moved and stacked in three complete dimensions!
Truly amazing.
You're missing the difficulty mentioned above... ie... our arms will tire quickly using something like this.
I agree it would be highly useful in ADDITION to current methods... but recently my arm/shoulder was killing me until I switched from a mouse to a trackball. I can't IMAGINE trying to use this thing for a 6 hour Battlefield marathon.
The other solution is not to play games for hours on end... naaaah...
I would love to give it to my wife to help her sort pictures though. Another major component most people have missed though is the fact that a relatively large screen was required for the "canvas". These are getting cheaper, but still expensive.