Could it really only be $15? I would like to purchase a copy of XP for running in VMWare, but just going out and buying a copy is over $100. It's too much, considering I can get a whole PC with Windows preinstalled for under $300. (Maybe XP Pro isn't the cheapest version, but don't the cheaper versions lack some basic things like Remote Desktop?)
what was wrong with coin operated meters? Why do they need computers?
If you think the security of the new system is bad, just compare it to something that can be fooled by a little disc of sheet metal.
Whenever people talk about exotic hacks on ATMs, I always think of how laughably insecure checks are, and credit cards. You give them one number and they get access to your entire available credit? Ridiculous.
For the most part western-style societies have chosen to dissociate childbearing from later financial security in old age. Your Social Security and Medicare checks don't depend on how many children you have paying into the system, unlike previous ages when you depended on your offspring in old age. Perhaps this is part of why the birth rate goes down in economically developed societies with safety nets, and you could blame that for bankrupting the entitlements in question. But you know, as hard as it will be to adjust to population stability, it had to happen sooner or later. The population pyramid scheme couldn't grow forever. And if we choose to stop before reaching carrying capacity (whatever our environment and technology at the time can support), then we can live in relative abundance rather than at the edge of starvation.
Then, if that is the case, then why the need to raise the rates, if per capita spending has fallen, as you say?
Because the tax is X% of a pie that has shrunk with the economic downturn. To get the same sized slice from a smaller pie, you have to take a bigger percent. It would be good if govt. could simply tighten the belt during economic downturns, but that's just when the most people come to collect on the services they've paid for (such as the newly unemployed filing for unemployment benefits and medicaid).
My question is, why doesn't Arizona just take out a loan using the buildings as collateral? My guess is state law precludes this because it would be debt. But now that law is forcing them into this kooky option that accomplishes the same thing while costing more. Sometimes simplistic notions of "fiscal discipline" can be counterproductive.
You forgot about inflation. The difference between 8% and 5.8% (pop. growth rate) is only 2.2%, which is below the rate of inflation. Thus, per-capita inflation-adjusted government spending in Arizona has actually fallen in recent years according to your own numbers.
I'm sure we'll all be interested to see how you revise your theories on patriotism vs theft to accommodate these facts.
Canada is weathering the downturn much better because they have a better regulation of the financial sector, thus the wheelers and dealers there were not allowed to over-leverage to ridiculous proportions in a drunken fit of greed.
I've consistently said the same thing: Don't cut taxes, cut spending. Just as consistently, my thoughts have been shot down.
You can't necessarily increase your profits just by minimizing expenses. If that were true, the only viable business strategy would be selling all your assets for a quick cash-out. Government is not entirely different. Look at Detroit, the taxes collected are far lower than necessary to support the crumbling infrastructure. Has that saved the city?
Certain people keep talking about the national deficit as if decreasing spending is the answer. It might help, it might hurt. It all depends on how much further the economy sinks into ruin when the spender of last resort stops spending.
What I find interesting is that the top people in all organisations are like this. Politics is an obvious example. Look at Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and Steve Ballmer, you think having a disagreement with any of these guys would be fun, or that they're always right? Even the more senior managers where I work have big arguments and personal vendettas.
I like the idea of owning a business, but at some point I'd probably hire somebody like that, and they'd probably take control over from me. Being willing to go out on a limb and take a stand with no fear of being proven wrong (even though you sometimes are) seems to be a job requirement for gathering a following.
That is what Americans had in mind a couple hundred years ago, but federalism certainly has lots of problems. One big problem is that states with good services subsidize states with lower taxes. Why bother funding education? Simply use low tax rates to draw workers from other, better-educated states, and get the benefits of an educated workforce for free. This triggers a national race to the bottom.
Who will cover the trillions of dollars in damages? Coastal property is among the most expensive, and a lot of it will be drowned in upcoming years. My guess is the owners will want taxpayers to compensate or help them, one way or another, either through building levees, building up the beach, or... ? I do have some sympathy for them, since they are no more responsible for global warming than anybody else.
We are all united in our skepticism, due both to our superior technical insights and our even more sophisticated business acumen. In fact, we all think this is just horrible, because Verizon is a big evil company, so we just know they'll only be making life even more horrible for us by having this service. And in some way it also reflects badly on the government.
BTW, "Ensemble" is a particularly cute name for a team in this contest since, in machine learning, ensemble methods are compositions of other machine learning algorithms to achieve (hopefully) higher classification algorithm than any of the component algorithms alone.
Dynamically forming new teams all the time won't work because you have to personally get to know people to know what you can expect them to do. Keyword searching of resumes doesn't really meet that requirement. It's not just a matter of satisfying potentially irrational emotions in humans (such as loyalty and trust), but also the fact that each knowledge worker has different knowledge. Even a sports team, doing a relatively simple and well defined task e.g. playing basketball, has to play together for a while to perform well together.
Poorer lifestyle? People didn't give up 1950's cars for no reason. They did it because you could hardly breathe in California. Choking in your own excrement isn't what I call a great lifestyle.
Most of that $105,000 is future obligations, meaning money that will have to be paid in the future (e.g. paid out to social security recipients, or medicaid benefits).
If you call that "debt," I have over $300,000 in "debt" to the private health care system right now. I don't actually owe anybody any money, but my premiums for my family are over $1000 per month - this despite the fact that I supposedly have "employer-provided" health insurance, and despite the fact that every time I actually use my coverage, I pay thousands more in deductibles and co-pays. $1000/mo for the next 30 years of my career is $300,000 - except medical costs are still rising astronomically, so it will be much more. For all the supposed wonderful "freedom" of our current greed-driven health care system, I have no real choice not to pay. In fact, my employer is downgrading our health insurance policy to a "co-insurance" policy where I am liable for 20% of all expenses next year. And this is a company that was thought to have great benefits when I signed on 10 years ago.
My point is, yes, things are going downhill, but healthcare expenses are a huge component of that and doing nothing will NOT fix it. In my opinion, the people scare-mongering about health care rationing are leading us straight into a brick wall. Health care is already rationed, but by wealth rather than medical need. Nothing is infinite.
Yeah, I spent last week fighting spotty WiFi at a conference in a hotel with no wired Internet. I really have to wonder how much longer anybody will tolerate reconfiguring their network access every time they move over by 50 yards. I'm tempted to speculate the days of WiFi are numbered, although I use it and like it at home.
None of them are capable of deploying an effective nuclear strike against the US.
I agree the US will probably not be involved (though it's not impossible - I believe McManara when he says the Cuban missile crisis amounted to a coin toss that could have gone either way). But there are a lot of less stable governments than ours with nukes, eventually two of them will get into a game of chicken. Who knows, maybe some effective defense will be invented before that occurs (though I can't imagine what it would be). As an aside, we are extremely lucky that by the laws of nature don't seem to permit building a nuclear bomb with a $39 chemistry set, let's hope nobody ever discovers a really easy way to make black holes or something.
I will freely admit my number is a guess. But when I look back at history, it is filled with almost constant war, and the nuclear genie keeps getting further and further out of the bottle. I look at what we did to Saddam Hussein - made up a story about him, set impossible conditions for him to meet, then used that as an excuse to capture and execute him. In this case, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, but it would not be unreasonable on a purely selfish personal basis for somebody in his position (facing extinction with no way out) to lash out with everything he's got.
Who is "we"? I'm sure every nation on earth trusts their own brilliant and faithful nuclear establishment implicitly... but how much do you trust some emerging power that just figured out how to go nuclear? Do you trust the rebels in a coup that siezes control of a nuclear arsenal?
Ultimately use control comes down to keeping good guys in and bad guys out, unfortunately the technology itself cannot make any such distinction.
Personally I think the odds of my living to see a nuclear exchange that kills at least a billion people are greater than 1 in 4.
I clearly remember google's IPO, and unlike most other IPO's, it was much more open - in the format of an auction - so that any of us could invest (as opposed to most IPOs offered only to preferred customers of big investment houses). The other thing I remember is that everybody in my research group thought it was over-hyped and over-priced, including me. Oops:)
He didn't "merely popularize" them in the sense of using star power or deep pockets to get people hooked (since he had neither). Rather, he made 3d (or 3d-ish) games that could run well and look good (better than the competition) on PC-compatible hardware in the pre-acceleration days. This brought 3d to critical mass where it was worth developing 3d acceleration products for the masses. You could look at any of the previous innovators in 3d gaming, including all the ones you mentioned, and say they merely did this or that, since there was no single breakthrough that defined gaming as we know it. But his contribution - his technical contribution - was larger than most.
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Could it really only be $15? I would like to purchase a copy of XP for running in VMWare, but just going out and buying a copy is over $100. It's too much, considering I can get a whole PC with Windows preinstalled for under $300. (Maybe XP Pro isn't the cheapest version, but don't the cheaper versions lack some basic things like Remote Desktop?)
I wasn't very clear - by "little disc of sheet metal," I meant a fake quarter to drop into a coin-operated meter.
If you think the security of the new system is bad, just compare it to something that can be fooled by a little disc of sheet metal.
Whenever people talk about exotic hacks on ATMs, I always think of how laughably insecure checks are, and credit cards. You give them one number and they get access to your entire available credit? Ridiculous.
For the most part western-style societies have chosen to dissociate childbearing from later financial security in old age. Your Social Security and Medicare checks don't depend on how many children you have paying into the system, unlike previous ages when you depended on your offspring in old age. Perhaps this is part of why the birth rate goes down in economically developed societies with safety nets, and you could blame that for bankrupting the entitlements in question. But you know, as hard as it will be to adjust to population stability, it had to happen sooner or later. The population pyramid scheme couldn't grow forever. And if we choose to stop before reaching carrying capacity (whatever our environment and technology at the time can support), then we can live in relative abundance rather than at the edge of starvation.
Because the tax is X% of a pie that has shrunk with the economic downturn. To get the same sized slice from a smaller pie, you have to take a bigger percent. It would be good if govt. could simply tighten the belt during economic downturns, but that's just when the most people come to collect on the services they've paid for (such as the newly unemployed filing for unemployment benefits and medicaid).
My question is, why doesn't Arizona just take out a loan using the buildings as collateral? My guess is state law precludes this because it would be debt. But now that law is forcing them into this kooky option that accomplishes the same thing while costing more. Sometimes simplistic notions of "fiscal discipline" can be counterproductive.
I'm sure we'll all be interested to see how you revise your theories on patriotism vs theft to accommodate these facts.
Canada is weathering the downturn much better because they have a better regulation of the financial sector, thus the wheelers and dealers there were not allowed to over-leverage to ridiculous proportions in a drunken fit of greed.
You can't necessarily increase your profits just by minimizing expenses. If that were true, the only viable business strategy would be selling all your assets for a quick cash-out. Government is not entirely different. Look at Detroit, the taxes collected are far lower than necessary to support the crumbling infrastructure. Has that saved the city?
Certain people keep talking about the national deficit as if decreasing spending is the answer. It might help, it might hurt. It all depends on how much further the economy sinks into ruin when the spender of last resort stops spending.
Without the big bad government, this expense wouldn't even exist. Companies would have to freedom to simply turn off the lights and walk away.
I like the idea of owning a business, but at some point I'd probably hire somebody like that, and they'd probably take control over from me. Being willing to go out on a limb and take a stand with no fear of being proven wrong (even though you sometimes are) seems to be a job requirement for gathering a following.
That is what Americans had in mind a couple hundred years ago, but federalism certainly has lots of problems. One big problem is that states with good services subsidize states with lower taxes. Why bother funding education? Simply use low tax rates to draw workers from other, better-educated states, and get the benefits of an educated workforce for free. This triggers a national race to the bottom.
Who will cover the trillions of dollars in damages? Coastal property is among the most expensive, and a lot of it will be drowned in upcoming years. My guess is the owners will want taxpayers to compensate or help them, one way or another, either through building levees, building up the beach, or... ? I do have some sympathy for them, since they are no more responsible for global warming than anybody else.
Am I right?
BTW, "Ensemble" is a particularly cute name for a team in this contest since, in machine learning, ensemble methods are compositions of other machine learning algorithms to achieve (hopefully) higher classification algorithm than any of the component algorithms alone.
Dynamically forming new teams all the time won't work because you have to personally get to know people to know what you can expect them to do. Keyword searching of resumes doesn't really meet that requirement. It's not just a matter of satisfying potentially irrational emotions in humans (such as loyalty and trust), but also the fact that each knowledge worker has different knowledge. Even a sports team, doing a relatively simple and well defined task e.g. playing basketball, has to play together for a while to perform well together.
Poorer lifestyle? People didn't give up 1950's cars for no reason. They did it because you could hardly breathe in California. Choking in your own excrement isn't what I call a great lifestyle.
If you call that "debt," I have over $300,000 in "debt" to the private health care system right now. I don't actually owe anybody any money, but my premiums for my family are over $1000 per month - this despite the fact that I supposedly have "employer-provided" health insurance, and despite the fact that every time I actually use my coverage, I pay thousands more in deductibles and co-pays. $1000/mo for the next 30 years of my career is $300,000 - except medical costs are still rising astronomically, so it will be much more. For all the supposed wonderful "freedom" of our current greed-driven health care system, I have no real choice not to pay. In fact, my employer is downgrading our health insurance policy to a "co-insurance" policy where I am liable for 20% of all expenses next year. And this is a company that was thought to have great benefits when I signed on 10 years ago.
My point is, yes, things are going downhill, but healthcare expenses are a huge component of that and doing nothing will NOT fix it. In my opinion, the people scare-mongering about health care rationing are leading us straight into a brick wall. Health care is already rationed, but by wealth rather than medical need. Nothing is infinite.
Yeah, I spent last week fighting spotty WiFi at a conference in a hotel with no wired Internet. I really have to wonder how much longer anybody will tolerate reconfiguring their network access every time they move over by 50 yards. I'm tempted to speculate the days of WiFi are numbered, although I use it and like it at home.
I agree the US will probably not be involved (though it's not impossible - I believe McManara when he says the Cuban missile crisis amounted to a coin toss that could have gone either way). But there are a lot of less stable governments than ours with nukes, eventually two of them will get into a game of chicken. Who knows, maybe some effective defense will be invented before that occurs (though I can't imagine what it would be). As an aside, we are extremely lucky that by the laws of nature don't seem to permit building a nuclear bomb with a $39 chemistry set, let's hope nobody ever discovers a really easy way to make black holes or something.
I will freely admit my number is a guess. But when I look back at history, it is filled with almost constant war, and the nuclear genie keeps getting further and further out of the bottle. I look at what we did to Saddam Hussein - made up a story about him, set impossible conditions for him to meet, then used that as an excuse to capture and execute him. In this case, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, but it would not be unreasonable on a purely selfish personal basis for somebody in his position (facing extinction with no way out) to lash out with everything he's got.
Personally I think the odds of my living to see a nuclear exchange that kills at least a billion people are greater than 1 in 4.
I clearly remember google's IPO, and unlike most other IPO's, it was much more open - in the format of an auction - so that any of us could invest (as opposed to most IPOs offered only to preferred customers of big investment houses). The other thing I remember is that everybody in my research group thought it was over-hyped and over-priced, including me. Oops :)
OK, the bluetooth headset seems to be winning out over the HUD as the main UI device. Other than that, how is a smartphone not a wearable computer?
He didn't "merely popularize" them in the sense of using star power or deep pockets to get people hooked (since he had neither). Rather, he made 3d (or 3d-ish) games that could run well and look good (better than the competition) on PC-compatible hardware in the pre-acceleration days. This brought 3d to critical mass where it was worth developing 3d acceleration products for the masses. You could look at any of the previous innovators in 3d gaming, including all the ones you mentioned, and say they merely did this or that, since there was no single breakthrough that defined gaming as we know it. But his contribution - his technical contribution - was larger than most.