You laugh, but this same point was made in the excellent book, The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg. In the first chapter, The Power of Incentives: How Seat Belts Kill, he questions whether the additional safety equipment really translates into an overall improvement in safety and demonstrates part of his argument by having us imagine driving a car w/o seat belts and with a sharp metal spike protruding from the steering wheel aimed at your chest. It's hard to deny you would drive very, very carefully in that situation. Safety equipment gives the driver increased confidence to take higher risks.
I have a friend who says he considers seatbelts a performance option. I suspect a lot of drivers think the same (subconsciously).
So what, the guy cant work in his professional field anymore? I get that you want to protect your IP, but not at the cost of a very highly qualified individual's livelyhood.
I am sure a guy with his qualifications understood completely that he signed a non-compete with IBM to advance his livelihood as an employee of IBM.
I have friends that would think twice about working for Big Blue now. Makes me nervous of the thought of signing your brain over to a corporation.
An entirely understandable, reasonable response to this. I wouldn't sign with them either (unless I desperately needed the work or they waved obscene money at me or gave me some other reason to sell my soul).
That comic was totally lame. It was like the Emperor's New Clothes, a guy who can't draw...
I might've been tempted to take you somewhat seriously, but then I got to this bit.
It's clear you didn't appreciate his works. Got no problem with that. But is in "Insightful?" Mods, give me a fucking break!! It's just an opinion that amounts to "I didn't like Breathed's comics." And like him or not, the guy can indeed draw quite well.
...if some tool with a bluetooth headset can bring the plane I'm riding on down, you better believe I'm placing my faith in the airline that they take necessary measures to ensure that isn't possible.
Unless they confiscate the devices they believe could cause this kind of interference, I place NO faith in the airlines that they will take sufficient measures to ensure this doesn't happen. The only answer is to modify the plane so this cannot happen. Announcing to all to not operate electronic devices won't cut it. I've seen plenty of people hide the fact they are using their devices after the crew have asked that they be put away.
In fact, though, I don't buy that these electronics are causing this interference in the first place. If I'm wrong (i.e. they prove they do interfere), then they need much stronger preventative measures than voluntary compliance.
This kind of #1 economy apologism is the type of disgusting crap you see from Bill O'Reilly. "They don't need more than a couple dollars a day. They don't know any better. They have enough money to buy a bowl of rice and they're happy." The fact that someone has meager goals because they live in a poor situation isn't a justification for the broad statements that presume that they're satisified and happy with their quality of life.
Nice how you bolster your position by giving a characature of the "Bill O'Reilly" opinion, as you call it. I think the "economic apologists" are saying it is best to let the Chinese workers decide for themselves who they work for and whether "peanuts" is enough to them. I doubt you will find a huge wellspring of workers there saying they are content and think they are paid enough. Of course, you not likely to find that here in the U.S. either. So that is not a standard for judging.
Despite your weak stomach, it is better that the Chinese decide what is best for themselves. Much better than having you or some third party make those decisions for them. Note the irony of that, btw: to take the position that this shouldn't be allowed, you have to contend that they don't know better and need your help.
Sorry, there's no such foolish regulation in the Constitution. Any act of Congress authorizing use of military force is a declaration of war. If you're so inclined, you can go find the full text of the bills that authorized action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And if we're going to put a formal declaration in the Constitution, for the love of God, add in a "undeclare" war clause, without need of the President's consent, as well.
Read my comments again. I never said there was such a regulation in the Constitution. In fact, I added the 2nd sentence where I clarified what I meant by "declare war" because I already know it is not defined and not required in the Constitution.
As it stands now, it is possible for any sitting President to claim that whenever we have our military engaged in any situation that may require shooting we could be said to be "at war" and, therefore, he is not constrained by normal laws in this country.
Bush is trying to diminish FISA's control over his actions for good reasons.[...]
After 9/11 when the 9/11 commission looked at why we missed several signals that could have thwarted 9/11, the FISA court played a dominant role. We're at war and Bush is trying to win it.[...]
This war powers reasoning irritates the hell out of me. I don't deny that it may be necessary to expand the President's powers when we are at war, but I do think we should first require that our country actually formally DECLARE WAR on the other country before this can be invoked. And by "declare war" I mean our Congress pass a resolution stating explicitly that we "Declare War" on the enemy country.
This is dead on. But it only works if the people texting are also the people paying. If you are a parent with 2-3 kids with phones, you will get slammed on texting charges unless you get an unlimited plan.
Yeah, you can just say No to the kids. But it is easy enough to solve with the unlimited plan. Costs are contained and they get to text.
Yeah, they're going to be happy to do that. They want you to try it out, like it a lot, and "need" it. Soon enough you'll be sending well over 500 messages per month (they hope).
If text messaging were really this expensive, then the unlimited plans would be like $500 per month instead of $5-15 per month.
True*, if the carriers were really justifying their charges for text messaging based on the "cost" to provide that service. But they are setting their prices based on factors other than cost. A.) they are charging what the market will bear, and B.) they are trying to set incentives for their customers to buy their unlimited plans.
*of course, if the plan is really unlimited, the cost would be unlimited using that logic.
which ATM I am still able to post without fear of getting my door kicked in (I hope),YMMV
Not unless you live in a Texas compound with a wacky religious leader, at least.
I realize you are probably joking but... There ARE limits to religious expression. Those do not trump the human rights of others, for instance. I can have my nutjob religious cult and gargle horny toads all day long, but if I force children into having sex with adults, I damn well can expect my door to be kicked in.
As a bonus, my children and I are now talking about music, and I can engage them in a conversation about guitar rifts on the radio, using Guitar Hero as a point of reference.
My children are 10 and 7, both know more about music than I did. Valid points, but consider this. When I was in high school, we didn't have Guitar Hero. Closest thing was air guitar with a tennis racket. My friends and I bothered to take lessons on guitar and drums and formed a garage band. We sucked, but had a blast playing. Today, my teenage son takes drum lessons and is actually reasonably decent, but he would rather kill hours playing video games, including Guitar Hero and Rock Band than find fellow musicians and actual put together a real band. Guitar Hero can definitely generate interest in music, but it can also hinder following through with getting involved with the real thing.
I play the keyboard and guitar. I don't think it's helped or hurt my playing in either. I play classical guitar. The primary way that I have found that Guitar Hero hurts my playing is that it steals away my practice time. Since I work a day job, the evenings are what I have for recreation. I actually quit playing Guitar Hero because, although it's lots of fun, I was playing it and skipping the practice time with the real thing.
I have a hard time telling here whether you're serious or not, but really, more people hate Microsoft than love any alternative. Most casual computer users I have met (therefore I very carefully make no broad sweeping statements about "all" of any population of people), gripe constantly about Windows but use it anyway.
Most people like to complain, so that is not really much of a surprise. If the mainstream OS was OSX or Ubuntu, "most people" would complain about them as well.
If the only folks using XP or Vista were the ones who made a deliberate choice to use those, I expect there would be fan club similar to what we see now for Apple and Linux. Might be a very small fan club, but...
I have a hard time telling here whether you're serious or not, but really, more people hate Microsoft than love any alternative. Most casual computer users I have met (therefore I very carefully make no broad sweeping statements about "all" of any population of people), gripe constantly about Windows but use it anyway. Most people like to complain, so that is not really much of a surprise. If the mainstream OS was OSX or Ubuntu, "most people" would complain about them as well.
If the only folks using XP or Vista were the ones who made a deliberate choice to use those, I expect there would be fan club similar to what we see now for Apple and Linux. Might be a very small fan club, but...
And if you read that article, you'd see that the americans outnumbered the japanese 5 to 1... Not exactly the stuff to make movies about...
Yes, in combined ground, naval, and air units. But you know little about that battle if you think it was nothing remarkable.
The article says America initially landed 30,000 troops, with 40,000 more troops landing after that (doesn't describe timetables). The battle occurred over a month's time. That's 70,000 v. 21,000 -- more like 3 to 1. Still an advantage, but anything less would be insane against a very well prepared defensive position, which Iwo was. The Japanese committed to fighting to the death and pretty much did: 20,703 dead. America suffered 34,734 casualties, which was nearly half its ground force. I sincerely doubt any other army in the world at that time could have done significantly better than the Americans at Iwo Jima. Any other army committed to winning that fight would have brought a similar force. To do less would have meant taking longer to win it, or more men lost getting there, or losing outright.
A standard Razr has a thickness of about 16mm and it doesn't have even half the features or power requirements of the iPhone. The iPhone is only 11.5mm thick and is capable of 10 days of standby time, 24 hours of music playback, 8 hours of talk time, 7 hours of video playback, or 6 hours of web browsing. That's amazingly good for a phone that's only 72% of the thickness of a Razr.
[...]
In short, Apple is fitting that extra battery space in the phone by using simple soldered wires rather than wasting space on a proper battery compartment. Seeing as how the battery is connected by just a couple of wires (it's not like it's surface mounted or anything!) it's quite easy for a professional to replace.
You can provide whatever level of detailed rationale for Apple's design decision you want, but it doesn't change the fact that with regard to battery management the iPhone doesn't "just work" for the consumer. Everyone who has bought a cell phone in the last decade has learned of the need and value of being able to quickly replace the battery in their phone.
How much of this drop is due simply to people only buying the two good tracks from an album and leaving the other eight behind?
I suspect it has a LOT to do with it. It's unfortunate in a way though. In my experience, it is the rare album that I buy that really only has two good songs on it. Most albums I buy I end up liking in their entirety and it is pretty unusual to find a song that I just can't stand. That being said, many times I've needed to hear an album 3 or 4 times before I really warm up to it -- some I thought on first listen I would never like. Interestingly, I've found some of my favorite albums started out as ones I didn't like at all at first.
It's nice that people can choose to buy a la carte and I understand that everyone isn't the same. But I think people are cheating themselves out of good music when they only select the songs they like immediately.
My comments were directed at the moderation, not to you specifically. It is an interesting anecdote but, as I said, was not generally informative. Your posting here, however, is a good start.
This is not informative unless you can link to evidence that shows there is a general problem with the product. Your post alone is an anecdote. If, say, 10% of these phones suffer the same problem as yours did, that would be informative. Otherwise, there is no useful information here.
How the "sound stage" is presented is a function of the particular headphone/earbud/IEM you are using. If the particular in ear monitors you tried presented a sound stage you didn't like, that is not a reason to conclude that all IEM's do the same. Over the ear headphones can (and often do) put the "sound stage" inside your head too.
If you are using ear buds while traveling in noisy environments, you may as well listen to a cheap AM radio or go deaf trying to hear the detail in the music. It's no wonder you gave up on classical music in aircraft!
Right now, it's easy to keep criminals with guns out of courtrooms. [...] I think it's makes much more sense to have armed, trained, background-checked, guards in courtrooms, which is what we already have.
Yes it does and it is a very workable solution to ensuring personal safety of people in courtrooms. However, it doesn't apply well in other cases, unless we are willing to pay for armed guards everywhere. We cannot hire and pay enough trained armed guards to ensure security in schools, college campuses, churches, Walmarts, workplaces, etc.
You're saying Imus was trying to be offensive to a whole culture? If so, the empty head is in your court. The leadership that howled in protest said it was wrong that the words be uttered at all. They were arguing from a position of principle. The problem is they are not all that principled since they don't apply their own theory to the far bigger offenders in the rap and comedy worlds. This outrage was because an older white guy said it. They are just as racist as those they accuse.
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You laugh, but this same point was made in the excellent book, The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg. In the first chapter, The Power of Incentives: How Seat Belts Kill, he questions whether the additional safety equipment really translates into an overall improvement in safety and demonstrates part of his argument by having us imagine driving a car w/o seat belts and with a sharp metal spike protruding from the steering wheel aimed at your chest. It's hard to deny you would drive very, very carefully in that situation. Safety equipment gives the driver increased confidence to take higher risks. I have a friend who says he considers seatbelts a performance option. I suspect a lot of drivers think the same (subconsciously).
So what, the guy cant work in his professional field anymore? I get that you want to protect your IP, but not at the cost of a very highly qualified individual's livelyhood.
I am sure a guy with his qualifications understood completely that he signed a non-compete with IBM to advance his livelihood as an employee of IBM.
I have friends that would think twice about working for Big Blue now. Makes me nervous of the thought of signing your brain over to a corporation.
An entirely understandable, reasonable response to this. I wouldn't sign with them either (unless I desperately needed the work or they waved obscene money at me or gave me some other reason to sell my soul).
That comic was totally lame. It was like the Emperor's New Clothes, a guy who can't draw...
I might've been tempted to take you somewhat seriously, but then I got to this bit.
It's clear you didn't appreciate his works. Got no problem with that. But is in "Insightful?" Mods, give me a fucking break!! It's just an opinion that amounts to "I didn't like Breathed's comics." And like him or not, the guy can indeed draw quite well.
...if some tool with a bluetooth headset can bring the plane I'm riding on down, you better believe I'm placing my faith in the airline that they take necessary measures to ensure that isn't possible.
Unless they confiscate the devices they believe could cause this kind of interference, I place NO faith in the airlines that they will take sufficient measures to ensure this doesn't happen. The only answer is to modify the plane so this cannot happen. Announcing to all to not operate electronic devices won't cut it. I've seen plenty of people hide the fact they are using their devices after the crew have asked that they be put away.
In fact, though, I don't buy that these electronics are causing this interference in the first place. If I'm wrong (i.e. they prove they do interfere), then they need much stronger preventative measures than voluntary compliance.
This kind of #1 economy apologism is the type of disgusting crap you see from Bill O'Reilly. "They don't need more than a couple dollars a day. They don't know any better. They have enough money to buy a bowl of rice and they're happy." The fact that someone has meager goals because they live in a poor situation isn't a justification for the broad statements that presume that they're satisified and happy with their quality of life.
Nice how you bolster your position by giving a characature of the "Bill O'Reilly" opinion, as you call it. I think the "economic apologists" are saying it is best to let the Chinese workers decide for themselves who they work for and whether "peanuts" is enough to them. I doubt you will find a huge wellspring of workers there saying they are content and think they are paid enough. Of course, you not likely to find that here in the U.S. either. So that is not a standard for judging.
Despite your weak stomach, it is better that the Chinese decide what is best for themselves. Much better than having you or some third party make those decisions for them. Note the irony of that, btw: to take the position that this shouldn't be allowed, you have to contend that they don't know better and need your help.
Sorry, there's no such foolish regulation in the Constitution. Any act of Congress authorizing use of military force is a declaration of war. If you're so inclined, you can go find the full text of the bills that authorized action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And if we're going to put a formal declaration in the Constitution, for the love of God, add in a "undeclare" war clause, without need of the President's consent, as well.
Read my comments again. I never said there was such a regulation in the Constitution. In fact, I added the 2nd sentence where I clarified what I meant by "declare war" because I already know it is not defined and not required in the Constitution.
As it stands now, it is possible for any sitting President to claim that whenever we have our military engaged in any situation that may require shooting we could be said to be "at war" and, therefore, he is not constrained by normal laws in this country.
Bush is trying to diminish FISA's control over his actions for good reasons.[...]
After 9/11 when the 9/11 commission looked at why we missed several signals that could have thwarted 9/11, the FISA court played a dominant role. We're at war and Bush is trying to win it.[...]
This war powers reasoning irritates the hell out of me. I don't deny that it may be necessary to expand the President's powers when we are at war, but I do think we should first require that our country actually formally DECLARE WAR on the other country before this can be invoked. And by "declare war" I mean our Congress pass a resolution stating explicitly that we "Declare War" on the enemy country.
This is dead on. But it only works if the people texting are also the people paying. If you are a parent with 2-3 kids with phones, you will get slammed on texting charges unless you get an unlimited plan.
Yeah, you can just say No to the kids. But it is easy enough to solve with the unlimited plan. Costs are contained and they get to text.
Yeah, they're going to be happy to do that. They want you to try it out, like it a lot, and "need" it. Soon enough you'll be sending well over 500 messages per month (they hope).
If text messaging were really this expensive, then the unlimited plans would be like $500 per month instead of $5-15 per month.
True*, if the carriers were really justifying their charges for text messaging based on the "cost" to provide that service. But they are setting their prices based on factors other than cost. A.) they are charging what the market will bear, and B.) they are trying to set incentives for their customers to buy their unlimited plans.
*of course, if the plan is really unlimited, the cost would be unlimited using that logic.
Most people like to complain, so that is not really much of a surprise. If the mainstream OS was OSX or Ubuntu, "most people" would complain about them as well.
If the only folks using XP or Vista were the ones who made a deliberate choice to use those, I expect there would be fan club similar to what we see now for Apple and Linux. Might be a very small fan club, but...
Bought my Toshiba HD DVD last Black Friday. Sent in the coupon for the 5 free movies. They arrived two days ago. I expect you'll get them.
The article says America initially landed 30,000 troops, with 40,000 more troops landing after that (doesn't describe timetables). The battle occurred over a month's time. That's 70,000 v. 21,000 -- more like 3 to 1. Still an advantage, but anything less would be insane against a very well prepared defensive position, which Iwo was. The Japanese committed to fighting to the death and pretty much did: 20,703 dead. America suffered 34,734 casualties, which was nearly half its ground force. I sincerely doubt any other army in the world at that time could have done significantly better than the Americans at Iwo Jima. Any other army committed to winning that fight would have brought a similar force. To do less would have meant taking longer to win it, or more men lost getting there, or losing outright.
You can provide whatever level of detailed rationale for Apple's design decision you want, but it doesn't change the fact that with regard to battery management the iPhone doesn't "just work" for the consumer. Everyone who has bought a cell phone in the last decade has learned of the need and value of being able to quickly replace the battery in their phone.
I suspect it has a LOT to do with it. It's unfortunate in a way though. In my experience, it is the rare album that I buy that really only has two good songs on it. Most albums I buy I end up liking in their entirety and it is pretty unusual to find a song that I just can't stand. That being said, many times I've needed to hear an album 3 or 4 times before I really warm up to it -- some I thought on first listen I would never like. Interestingly, I've found some of my favorite albums started out as ones I didn't like at all at first.
It's nice that people can choose to buy a la carte and I understand that everyone isn't the same. But I think people are cheating themselves out of good music when they only select the songs they like immediately.
My comments were directed at the moderation, not to you specifically. It is an interesting anecdote but, as I said, was not generally informative. Your posting here, however, is a good start.
This is not informative unless you can link to evidence that shows there is a general problem with the product. Your post alone is an anecdote. If, say, 10% of these phones suffer the same problem as yours did, that would be informative. Otherwise, there is no useful information here.
If you are using ear buds while traveling in noisy environments, you may as well listen to a cheap AM radio or go deaf trying to hear the detail in the music. It's no wonder you gave up on classical music in aircraft!
Yes it does and it is a very workable solution to ensuring personal safety of people in courtrooms. However, it doesn't apply well in other cases, unless we are willing to pay for armed guards everywhere. We cannot hire and pay enough trained armed guards to ensure security in schools, college campuses, churches, Walmarts, workplaces, etc.
You're saying Imus was trying to be offensive to a whole culture? If so, the empty head is in your court. The leadership that howled in protest said it was wrong that the words be uttered at all. They were arguing from a position of principle. The problem is they are not all that principled since they don't apply their own theory to the far bigger offenders in the rap and comedy worlds. This outrage was because an older white guy said it. They are just as racist as those they accuse.