All of those used computers and the displays needed you mention require being plugged into the mains, which may or may not exist where these little laptops are going. The laptops are self powered with a pull string generator charger. That makes a rather big difference one might think. They are also LAPTOPS, which means the kids can haul them to and from school, etc. They also have integral MESH NETWORKING, which your used desktop systems don't have.
And so on. Every one of these points has been brainstormed, and the project as it stands was determined to be the best over-all compromise for the situation and project, which is primarily an educational project, and the primary use of the proposed machines is for them to have the ability to have hundreds of books cheaply, and to be able to custom tailor what the various nations and kids need and want.
As for it being crippled, on the contrary, there are some spiffy new hardware designs coming out of that project, just the self powered part and the display innovations have made it worthwhile, as this tech will expand into general planetary gadget-dom. As to the expense, do some basic math, run the cost of hundreds of hard copy books plus shipping, etc, to each individual kid, compared to a lightweight upgradeable e-book reader that has the ability to keep pulling down new books as they come out, plus let the kids write,draw, create, etc and you'll see this option is way, WAY cheaper than the traditional methods, short,medium or long term.
If you think of it more as a decent networkable e-book reader/multi functional decent screen sized PDA that is self powered, then it makes more sense than thinking of it as a standard laptop or desktop replacement. The same tool could conceivably be a kids entire set of books and learning tools throughout their entire primary school years. It is going to be an economic *deal* for these nations, not a burden, it is going to drastically reduce educational costs at the same time as it expands resources, a win/win thing.
My GF told me this story, about when she was a teenager (we are older boomers, so that should date things). There's six kids in her family. Once at Christmas, her dad whips a TEN GRAND bill out of his wallet. He holds it up backwards to all the kids and says "guess who's face is on the other side, and it's YOURS!". None of them got it, he sticks it back in his wallet! (the one he had was Salmon P. Chase, old sec treasury)
...and there should be a working prototype before a patent is granted. That's how it should be anyway.
The patent system is busted way out of proportion to its usefulness. And I have an inkling why-the globalists have sold off the drive to be a manufacturing powerhouse inside the US, the handwriting is on the wall there. Heck, they are paying large sums of cash to give it away! This is called "investment". I call it short term and short sighted economic rape.
And services, which were supposed to be the replacements for manufacturing, are now being outsourced as well, or diluted with mass numbers of imported "service workers".. What's left? Intangibles, this nebulous intangible "IP" deal where they pull numbers out of their nether regions to declare what something is "worth", and the only way they can maintain that is with more and more pretty strange "IP" laws, which increasingly are being ignored, because it's lame, and the bulk of the planet can see that.
This is a congame that can only go on for a short time, historically speaking. It's a fairy tale economic system, magic beans for the milk cow.
I think the deal with digital replicators has shown about what the market will bear with digital copies of "IP". Free or very very cheap is the top price there globally. Durable goods, a different story entirely. They have to be built, they have to work.
It's only a matter of time before the rest of the planet tells the US to go get stuffed and do their own work if they want real tangible goods. They aren't going to keep subsidizing forever, and if you notice, a lot of the heavy hitters in Asia and Europe are starting to shy away from the absolute king of magical fairy tale "IP", the backed by nothing federal reserve (debt) note, or as it should be called, the Imperial IOU..
Software is typed up stuff, written in a language or languages, and as such, is more akin to written books or articles or say like musical scores, and should only be allowed copyright, not patents. Patents should be restricted to tangible products. In addition, the software industry itself has insisted and got granted immunity from normal consumer warranties, which is clearly evidence they don't see their own typed up stuff as a "normal product". It's *special*.
They shouldn't have it both ways when no other industry can claim that. If it is patentable, it should come with a minimum implied normal warranty (suitable for use, no glaring and or dangerous defects, etc). No warranty should mean no patent, copyright only.
I hope that is linear enough to answer your question.
...a variation on that scam with the klamath falls farmers vs the sucker fish deal back in 2000-2001. They used a scam, saying a non native sucker fish was endangered inside the dammed up lake the farmers paid for for their irrigation canals many years ago, and shut the dam taps off. They also kept insisting they pay their canal irrigation water fees! In addition, they used the water in a hydro electric dam, I think as part of the enron scam, to sell power at peak rates when they shut down other facilities for "maintenance". It was a pretty involved scam (I am greatly over simplifying all the angles involved), but it bankrupted a lot of farmers, caused divorces, suicides, etc. I was an online pretty serious activist trying to help them, until I found out the farmers leadership was seriously compromised with neocon insiders-quislings- who were faking out the farmers and letting the administration get a free skate on not intervening (the lake was full, there was no actual water shortage and those stupid fish were never endangered in the first place, and they kept claiming the ESA "trumped' the fifth amendment!!). So I quit trying to help them, a waste of time. Some "got it" and contacted me privately to say that I had nailed what was going on, but they kept getting shouted down in local meetings, etc, they wanted everyone to stick to neocon talking points only), but most of them remained brainwashed into the neocon party line (which is to enrich the transnationals and expand the power of the central government in the executive branch, with whatever it takes basically, all the time, every issue) and blamed it on "the librul enviros!", when it was really a handful of pretty rich corporations who profited from the ripoff.
that 'build a subdivision" deal is well established, one of the reasons the rich power brokers love the illegals invasion,(sudden influx of illegals and kids, whoops! need a ton more schools, expend the hospital, etc) because it helps them seize property and consolidate corporations into fewer hands. It's a quasi "legal" huge skim run by professional grifters. It works pretty well for them actually, seize property at auctions on the cheap, drive down wages,etc and they have misguided Dems (also faked out at gh levels by rich scumbags) supporting them, instead of trying to force those dipsquat corrupt foreign governments to pay a minimum *living wage* so those folks won't want or won't need to sneak over the border in the first place.
A lot of this stuff is conencted, once you follow the money and see who profits from it. It's designed to ripoff and disenfranchise the middle class as much as possible, to get to that two class global society model they really are after, the technofeudalistic society. the middle class actually produces the wealth, so that's where they concentrate forces on shifting ownership of said wealth. Pretty simple really.
Ya, sorta scary when you see them "win" all the time, but it gets less scary once you can see the congames (you have to see the problem and the perps to even begin to figure out some solutions), and the net is helping us to bust out of the media psyops that supports them in their congames and rackets, the stuff Ike warned us about that would happen. (I actually remember that speech, live, but didn't really understand it until some years later, I was a kid then. When they whacked JFK and got away with it, THEN I finally got it, epiphany for me, bigtime).
It takes one person at a time helping another to "get it" on what is going on.
And that is why I chime in on these topics at slashdot and have had at various other forums for years and years, and before that wrote nomme de plume pamphlets and news articles, etc. And why I will answer their online shills and expose them for their lies and half truths. I care about all peoples, my country, what goes on, and can't deal with the slimebag crooks by accepting their greed based BS.
Long hard road so far, but I am actually hopeful that eventually it will pay off as it gets harder and harder for them to cover their crimes with the forced media spin and blackouts. Cats outta the bag now.
...get logged because that is the only way they can stay on the farm. Urbanization results in bumping up property taxes, but farm profits (speaking very very generally now), aren't adequate enough to cover these increases in taxes. They get a company offer them enough to cover taxes for a few years, they take it. And a lot of times this process is done on purpose to enrich a few local fatcats. They'll acquire some acreage in the middle of productive farmland, throw up a huge subdivision. This results in the call to increase taxes, because now you need more and better roads, a new public school or two, increased police and fire resources, etc. so they bump up the taxes. Lather rinse repeat=farmers get to the point they try to save the farm, sell off the stumpage for cheap, put off bankruptcy for a few years, go under anyway. Local fatcats (or larger transnational "investors") pickup more prime acreage at the auction for cheap.
Consolidation of wealth, vertically, upstream. Same as what happened in the great depression, just now they are a little slicker about how they go about it. they are doing the same thing with a lot of public infrastructure as well, the proposed supercorridors being sold off to foreign wealthy investment groups, water rights and treatment facilities, etc.
I wonder if they will change their minds about the sell off of tree farm acreage as the housing bubble continues to collapse and demand goes up for much smaller and cheaper housing, and also as soon as a few more major breakthroughs in cellulosic ethanol production are made?
And do you have any references to the actual plots they have for sale? Thanks in advance if you do.
Initially while you were selective breeding/ genetically engineering stronger and more adapted humans, you'd have to use powered exoskeletons for working, and then spend a lot of the rest of your time in a water environment. Floating does wonders in that gravity/mass/weight regard.
I said that everyone has born with rights, but sometimes you have to fight to maintain them. That isn't "wishful thinking" and your analogy is just silly, apples and oranges, I am just stating observable hard data, recorded in history and viewable in contemporary times.
And yes,I will agree on that point, because it is true, even by the people who first wrote it, some were excluded *illegally*, it is an exception that was inherently and completely wrong at the time, and those affected by that exclusion and others who were sympathetic and took the entire meaning to heart had to fight..myself included on that issue, back in "contemporary" times if you count some decades ago now, I am a civil rights worker from way back, I've taken the serious abuse from the corrupt and illegitimate "authority", those mouth breather sadistic goons (every culture breeds bullies sad to say) who work and "follow orders", from their "superiors", the elite feudalistic scumbags who sought (and still seek, this struggle isn't over yet) to continually deny human rights to others,so they can be "the masters', or "the lords", or whatever term they use, that keeps changing, but not the cultural mindset of their over-lording ways, based on nothing more than their personal and quite insane whims, their megalomania, and a lot of corrupt and heinous and misguided aggressive force.
It had to be resisted going back in history. And it still does need to be resisted, on any number of issues. Yes, you have to fight, with the spoken word, the ballot, sometimes physically, and so it goes. We haven't eliminated aggression and greed from Humans' DNA, so..self defense is still necessary, in whatever form that needs to take.
Number six said it in few words, "I am a Free Man, I am not a number!"
You are more than welcome to remain a "subject", that is your choice if you really wish it. Millions more do not believe that way, and all of us, whether we want it or not, are born with our human rights and dignity. From one second after birth, that dignity and those rights remain in peril. And such as it is, once you are aware, of that age and mentality, it becomes a personal issue that is also part of the greater collective gestalt on rights. You can choose to participate if it is valuable to you-or not, but you still have those same human rights.
There isn't a whole lot more needed other than enforcing copyrights one might think. If it really is "your" data, then these various companies and agencies can make you an offer to license to use it. Right now they just assume and act like it automagically becomes THEIR "IP" to use, sell, trade, store, datamine, and etc.. Nuts.
All people are born with their rights (we hold these truths to be self-evident"..and etc), but in most cases the entrenched power elite assholes just insist on being bullies or worse. Back in history or right now, doesn't matter. Yes, serfs in medieval times had rights, they just got bullied out of them by stronger forces composed of serious badguy loonies.
If you have to fight, you have to fight, that's how it goes. Fighting with the spoken word, the pen, the keyboard and petition and ballot, or pitchforks, the sword, the musket or whatever...about the same in the long run. You, me, all of us collectively the humanity of "we", are born with our human rights, and must always struggle to maintain them. People who try to insist that you have no born with rights, and work to restrict them, try to be some sort of "more human that you, you filthy untermenschen!" or "shutup and just follow orders!", are, in my opinion, a waste of oxygen, feudal overlord jerks fit for nothing but being pike decorations, as in "heads on pikes". People who get faked out that they have no rights and must go pleading with bowed head and downcast eyes to their "masters" or voluntarily give up their rights for some other obscure reason are called "subjects" or serfs or slaves.
But they still have rights, even if they can't exercise them at some point in time. When they can't, they need to fight if that is what it takes to get them back. And that's it.
It sucks it has to be that way, it sucks that there has always been this feudal overclass who dig on that power over other humans, but so it goes. I didn't design the system, just notice how it works from reading history and looking around and paying attention during contemporary times.
OK, this is the theory, it is different from today's practice (unfortunately, IMO), but I will attempt to correct a misconception about the US Constitution which is widespread and totally incorrect.
Basic data point you REALLY need to grok. chew on this until you "get it". This is very important and something I notice almost all foreigners and very few people inside the US for that matter really understand, because the elites don't want them to understand it, so they go way out of their way to brainwash people against it starting the first week in school.
The Constitution does NOT grant any individual rights to people, zero.
We are BORN with them.
If the constitution didn't exist, we would still have those rights (as do all peoples, but most places the government will not recognize that because it cuts into their controlling turf scene).
The Bill of Rights-the first ten "amendments", are a very basic minimal and partial list that was written up PRECISELY to give some examples so that the original meaning could never be lost or altered. The Constitution is by and large a list of stuff the "government" is never supposed to infringe upon. By default, all rights reside with "we, the People", and we the people granted government certain limited functions and duties, WE granted THEM some "rights", which they are supposed to strictly adhere to.
It's bass-ackwards now, "government" assumes they have all the rights, and sells or offers "permission" back to the people to do this or that.
And that's what's wrong in a nutshell.
The US is the only nation-to this day the ONLY nation- ever to adopt the concept of the sovereign individual, as opposed to some ruling class who are the sovereigns. It is that simple. I propose a return to that concept, and elimination of today's current political reality, which I have termed "Technofeudalism".
"Dude" I don't smoke pot and most likely I am older than you, and have watched things change, bercause I pay attention and have been paying attention for half a century now. Believe me, it is not getting any better on the political freedom scene, and the "accountability" of elected officials is about nil, and the mainstream press has turned into quivering lapdogs. Even nixon had the guts to finally quit when he got busted for being an illegal jerk when some truthiness finally came out, but the current last few crops of high level pols have all done much worse than nixon did, and nothing happens to them, no accountability of note.
When I was a younger man, such bigbro action as random roadblocks didn't exist, because only evil dictatorships did stuff like that. That was taught in the schools. We didn't have cameras everywhere staring at you, and so on, right up and down the list. This phony "terrorism" crap is designed to be terroristic against the US people, it is used as the excuse for these "gents" to do whatever the hell they feel like doing. And they are.
And it isn't paranoia when the stuff you are talking about is real, just noting the data and coming to some obvious conclusions. Ike DID warn about what was going to happen and it IS happening, it was a rather strong and much discussed speech back then, it shocked people, and today it IS coming from the "gents" he warned about, the powerful mil/industrial complex-now quite transnational in scope and power- and the influence they have in and out of government(s), it overlaps now so much there is no practical difference, we are about totally a fascist corporatacracy now. This "election" stuff is the real dog and pony show, part of the bread and circuses dodge, designed to keep their serfs amused so they think they still have some say in how they are "governed", or how it should be termed more accurately, "ruled over".
...allegedly, has the top two political parties conspire to not only not include any other candidates on the forum for the so called national and official presidential debate, but actually threatens them with arrest if they have tickets and try to just sit in the audience-I'd call that a dog and pony show. And when the controlled lapdog press goes along with it, another part of the show. When two cooperating parties basically hijack the government and just divide the spoils, and it is clear both of these parties have full compliments of crooks, thieves, liars, bribe takers and assorted scum, yet nothing substantial happens overall, that's a dog and pony show. When both parties are run by globalist millionaires at the top, even to the point of running so called "opposition" candidates from the same billionaire boys club fraternity secret society, that's a joke, a dog and pony show. Candidates who are so far removed from the productive middle class electorate, so much so that they don't even know what a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk really costs-that's a dog and pony show political system, a farce. When elected leaders come from hereditary political dynasties-basically an elite aristocracy- including the ex head of the "secret police", that's a sham, a dog and pony show. When you have overwhelming smoking gun evidence that the "electronic" elections have been hacked and compromised, that quite possibly whomever is in office shouldn't be there, yet nothing happens, and no one gets into any trouble over it-it goes beyond a dog and pony show and starts to look like any other banana republic dictatorship, just with two "wings" instead of one to give the illusion of "free and honest elections". When you have an overwhelmingly large violent "incident", that pushes forth a radical anti freedom agenda, and there is enough credible evidence with literally dozens of quite peculiar characteristics that don't jibe in any manner whatsoever with the "official story of what happened", and there are no actual honest and open investigations, instead they push forth an obvious whitewash/coverup/ignore the evidence that doesn't fit commission-you have to ask yourself, when can a violent coup be called a coup?
The US has been in a slow and steady gradual takeover by shadowy elements very powerful inside and outside of government, ever since an actual brave and thoughtful president-Ike- thought it necessary to warn the people during his retirement speech that it could and would happen if we weren't careful. Later on, the folks he was warning about managed to get rid of one elected person who was getting wise to them and was seeking to limit their power. Then they eliminated his brother, who looked likely to carry the torch on for his fallen sibling-yet nothing has happened about it. It's gotten worse since then, until now, we have only the faintest mirage of real freedom as it was originally designed to be, and that mirage is fading fast, with various "patriotic enabling acts" and "signing statements" that clearly show that only one agenda will go forward and the people and their wishes be damned, with big wars completely based on proven lies, wars which still will not end even when the lies are finally admitted to, and nothing happens to the proven liars.
Calling it a "dog and pony show" is being excessively *polite* and minimalistic near as I can see.
...you have to use some of their software to "manage" your account there. And it is windows based, so they assume you have windows IE(guess, never used the place before-or heard of it for that matter). This is from their terms of service page ->"9. SOFTWARE. Movielink will make available to you on its Website and on certain third party websites with which it does business a downloadable version of the Movielink Manager Software and any available updates which it generally releases (collectively, "Software")."
As far as I am concerned, if something can be covered by a patent, it should have a normal consumer warranty (suitable for purpose, free from defects, etc) if it is sold or leased or licensed to use, exactly the same as any other patentable product. If companies insist on patents, they would either have to A) write some simply outstanding code, or B), stop with the software patents and leave it at copyright where it belongs.
"Why is it suddenly the goal of OSS is to defeat MS?"..
I can give you one *fantastic* reason. If you are in the US, just about every good and service you pay for comes with a parasitical burden of a microsoft tax hidden inside. Either from the private sector in commerce, or in your various and overlapping tax bills, a chunk of your loot goes to MS-whether you want it to or not. THAT is reason enough to lobby and work hard against their continued parasitism of the economy. My opinion, but I think they have sucked enough billions out of everyone's pockets. Their economic business model is now the "broken windows" scenario, which I think is hilariously well named in this instance. It is a net drain on the economy.
People say "well, if you don't want to run MS OS and associated apps, then don't!" OK,I'd like to do that, I don't directly run it myself, but how about when you are forced to keep paying for it for decades? Business is politics, like it or not, the politics of a lot of people's pocketbooks would be better off without that direct or hidden wallet tax that goes to them, let alone the annoyance "tax" of windows derived mass zombie spewed SPAM, malwarez, etc.. I'd love to not have to run MS anything, but am forced to by second hand and onwards inertial economic proxy. And pay for that "privilege". Gee...whattadeal..NOT!
See, you can't just decide not to run it when it's involved in most every aspect of modern tech life, and that involves business, and business is tied to politics.
That is one of the many goals of FOSS, to eliminate unnecessary expense and burden.
I'll admit at one time I think they were necessary for the microcomputer revolution-but not now, not 2007. They should be happy with all the billions and billions they have made. I'd like to see society move on. Like the buggywhip middleman salesmen of the MAFIAA, their services are just about completely no longer needed, so the collective "we" shouldn't have to keep paying for them.
...keep voting that way, you'll keep "electing" one wing or the other of the cooperating criminal cartel that has hijacked government and runs it as a crony jobs program for multimillionaires and billionaires and transnational non patriotic corporations.
I've been hearing the same shit for 40 years now -"don't waste your vote-don't vote for an independent or third party!"-it was wrong then and is still wrong, but the brainwashed parrots keep convincing themselves and other people to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, somehow magically expecting a different result "this time". IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
Anyone "you" has one vote, wasting it on the lesser of two evils will ALWAYS result in evil getting elected.
The original AC cobras only ran 5s and mid 4s (0-60)depending on the small or large V8.
No one denies electric cars can be both quick and fast (top end), what we are lacking is a normal commuter car at around 10-15 grand, your very basic transportation model. A new model A or VW bug for the 21st century, the "people's electric". A hundred mile range is more than enough for the vast amount of commuter distances (average is 33 miles round trip in the US), which means you wouldn't need top of the line, 1,000 expensive laptop batteries to pull it off.
My best guess is the Chinese (maybe the Indians) will beat everyone for that market, and be inside that price range, while most of the other guys building electrics are building sportscars way out-side the pocketbooks for most people. Ya, some cool tech gets developed there, but we need the affordable electric,in the common styles, a sedan, a minivan/suv thing and a small pickup.
The big three (I will talk primarily US) are tanking and fast precisely because they never got it on mileage and reliability until the japanese had a solid decade or more advances on them. And for the most part they still haven't caught up. They obviously threw away that market because they didn't give a crap, and are mostly retarded to boot.
I used to have a 74 dart, held six adults, roomy trunk, I tried it once it would actually do 110 mph with the six banger in it, and it got around 25 miles per gallon, with just a fraction of the plumbing and electrical nightmare modern engines are.
Now it is 2007, what do you see? See much diff with US cars other than they cost huge gobs more, about impossible for the average joe to work on them much, and get maybe just a smidgen better mileage, or in some cases worse or just static, no improvements? I'm just talking performance and mileage now, not radar gps equipped DVD playing sensurround airbags stuff, just from the transportation angle, which is primarily what cars are supposed to be anyway. It's like about zilch progress near as I can see.
Nope, the big three US car makers been stepping on their dicks for a LONG time now. On purpose or just top heavy retarded management, no idea (my guess is equal amounts of both, and yep, oil is a profitable commodity, you sell a lot more at 10-25 mpg than at 45-65 mpg), but the results are there to see.
I'll tell you another reason, the top engineers go into racing where it is fun, change can go fast and is driven by engineering, they get paid pretty darn good and are held in high esteem. They are *valued* folks. In the car industry, engineers are way down the list of "attaboys" and paycheck compared to the bloated marketing and managing side, and those folks get "driven" by the vultures who demand ever increasing profits but have mostly no clue about quality. A first year rookie car dealer salesman makes more than an engineer working for years. And I don't want to hear that it's all the unions fault either, they build what they are told to build, they have zero say in how things go in that direction.
I was in the UAW in the 60s,and you could clearly see this coming, at least I could. Of course back then it was the horsepower wars,that mostly blinded folks and oil by the barrel was very cheap as well, but anyone who stopped and extrapolated a few decades out could see gas would get dear eventually and that reliability long range would keep a car company running in the red. Detroit and most of their management and "analysts" missed both of those obvious calls. And they are so obvious, that yes, you might tend to think there was some action on the side to make it that way on purpose, lose some in one industry, gain a lot more in another.
Sort of like "new and improved" bloated operating systems sell new computers, even though the old ones aren't "broken" or "worn out". One hand washes the other with lotsa cash it appears.
Heh, a reverse from slashdot normal computer to car analogy!
China is investing money and resources at an amazing rate into africa and south america (and as much as they can in the middle east), seeking to lock in their influence (all sectors I would presume, civil/business/military) and all the natural resources they can get now with long term contracts + develop new markets. Like here's one, venezuela, where the US now garners a not insignificant amount of oil. They and china has recently announced a new oil cooperation deal, and chavez is on the record stating that if/when the US hits iran, poof, no more oil for the US, and China will then take it all.
IMO, historians in the future will label the 21st century the century of the resource wars.
You aren't getting what I am saying at all, and you are also arguing AGAINST past real data, which is silly. I'll repeat, and you can go do your economic homework before replying again. Go back and revisit the economic news in the weeks following katrina, and see which businesses suffered more than others. Fedex, UPS, and the airlines were at the top of the list. Heck, in my state they had to emergency cut back on school bus transport because of it, both from cost and the availability issue. Go look it up if you don't believe me about the fast price increases of fuel and what happens. And yes, fedex and UPS DO make individual small deliveries, it costs a lot of fuel to do that. And just doing more of the same won't get any more efficient until they have trucks that consistently beat fuel cost increases by getting better mileage, and they haven't doubled their mileage in one week ever, yet fuel can double easily in a very short time frame. I have seen it many times, once I paid ten dollarts a gallon for two gallons max sale during the opec embargo, just to get home and park. That was over the rtegular price of between a quarter and 50 cents a gallon. Stuff happens. And yes, fedex and UPS ship a lot of packages to themselves bulk, as you pointed out and I am not denying that at all, but their ultimate model is to get a package or a few packages to a LOT of delivery points, not just one or two. Once the fedex economic chain hits the small delivery trucks it is one stop at a time, they burn a LOT more fuel than the fuel used for folks to go to the mall and hit several stores at once. I get individual deliveries all the time, they aren't dropping off their entire truckload at one stop, they have to drive around a lot of miles to deliver all those packages to the ultimate consumer, whereas a brick and mortar store gets all their deliveries in bulk, and the customer who drives in pays the tab on their own, they aren't seeing it as much as a direct cost to point to on their check-out tally. It's there, granted, some fuel is used, but it is miniscule compared to the individual package deliverers. They are selling speed and efficiency over lowest cost, it's a premium service compared to gross bulk deliveries to huge stores where ther customers drive in and carry away a trunkfull of stuff.. They are a service business that depends on cheap fuel to make a profit. And because the online guys depend on them, they either have to eat it, the sudden fuel surcharge spike, or drop privces, or some combo thereof, which starts to eat into whatever benefit they have over not having a storefront. It's a fine line there. Past several years rents have been wicked high, and fuel just in the middle, but if rents drop (like they probably will as the slow motion real estate bubble collapses), and fuel costs increase, that split the online guys enjoy for their profit will keep shrinking.
Really, go back and check the financials from right after Katrina, you'll see a ton of discussion by economists about sudden fuel cost spikes and who gets harmed the most from it the quickest. Independent truck drivers are another group, as are taxicabs. Some independents just *parked*, completely stopped hauling at all, because they have contracts that pay them such and such a mile, but if their fuel goes up real fast in a one week time frame they would have to operate at a net *loss*, so they just parked until the prices dropped back down a little. Fedex had to throw an emergency fuel surchage on their shipments for awhile then as well, which meant a sudden fast rise in prices for the online merchants, more so than at the brick and mortar places because they can spread their costs out a lot easier with the way they do business (no deliveries need to be factored into cost of business, online has both the cost to them, and the cost away from them). Brick and mortar pays one way for deliveries-in. Online pays both ways, in and out. See it now? Both businesses get hit with the fuel cost increase, but the online guys get hit twice with the same increase
The regular stores get their merchandise in bulk,most of the time from tractor-trailers, not one package at a time from fedex, so as such, they can weather sudden price increases better. Yes, it would effect them as well, but not nearly as much as the convenience-courier carriers like fedex or UPS. The package courier outfits stay in business mostly from cheap fuel prices, a sudden doubling or whatever would ripple through the entire manufacturing/distribution industry, but the single-serving styled delivery systems would suffer the most. There were a lot of articles about it in the weeks following hurricane katrina actually pointing this out, and that was a *mild* price increase compared to what would happen should the straits of hormuz be closed for weeks or months. The airlines (people shipping basically) also took a rather severe hit then as well right after katrina. Moving stuff is expensive, sudden increases are hard to deal with, past business history shows us that. I remember a lot of that back during the sudden OPEC oil embargo as well, very very fast transportation cost increases really nail the companies that rely on excess shipping for their business models. If it is a slow gradual change, it is easier to handle, it's the sudden huge spikes that are a bear.
Like a lot of the dot com era "home delivery for everything" stores couldn't turn a profit even way back when gasoline and diesel were closer to a buck a gallon than not, even those cheap prices made it hard on a lot of types of merchandise. Take three items at a similar weight. Moving a 50 buck thing might cost 5 dollars, which is a big chunk of the total price, whereas a 500 dollar item it isn't so bad, and a 5 dollar item would be a waste, a loss, not happening.
Some stuff is OK and could get through the increases somewhat with online delivery, other items would probably be severely affected, notably lower priced and lower margin items. And that is also why we still have so many brick and mortar stores, it is still a main consumer choice and handy and economical to go get a variety of things with one shopping trip, or even just a side trip off the daily commute. The gas is already being "spent" irregardless when it just a short stop off the commute run.
Slashdot Mirror
All of those used computers and the displays needed you mention require being plugged into the mains, which may or may not exist where these little laptops are going. The laptops are self powered with a pull string generator charger. That makes a rather big difference one might think. They are also LAPTOPS, which means the kids can haul them to and from school, etc. They also have integral MESH NETWORKING, which your used desktop systems don't have.
And so on. Every one of these points has been brainstormed, and the project as it stands was determined to be the best over-all compromise for the situation and project, which is primarily an educational project, and the primary use of the proposed machines is for them to have the ability to have hundreds of books cheaply, and to be able to custom tailor what the various nations and kids need and want.
As for it being crippled, on the contrary, there are some spiffy new hardware designs coming out of that project, just the self powered part and the display innovations have made it worthwhile, as this tech will expand into general planetary gadget-dom. As to the expense, do some basic math, run the cost of hundreds of hard copy books plus shipping, etc, to each individual kid, compared to a lightweight upgradeable e-book reader that has the ability to keep pulling down new books as they come out, plus let the kids write,draw, create, etc and you'll see this option is way, WAY cheaper than the traditional methods, short,medium or long term.
If you think of it more as a decent networkable e-book reader/multi functional decent screen sized PDA that is self powered, then it makes more sense than thinking of it as a standard laptop or desktop replacement. The same tool could conceivably be a kids entire set of books and learning tools throughout their entire primary school years. It is going to be an economic *deal* for these nations, not a burden, it is going to drastically reduce educational costs at the same time as it expands resources, a win/win thing.
My GF told me this story, about when she was a teenager (we are older boomers, so that should date things). There's six kids in her family. Once at Christmas, her dad whips a TEN GRAND bill out of his wallet. He holds it up backwards to all the kids and says "guess who's face is on the other side, and it's YOURS!". None of them got it, he sticks it back in his wallet! (the one he had was Salmon P. Chase, old sec treasury)
...and there should be a working prototype before a patent is granted. That's how it should be anyway.
The patent system is busted way out of proportion to its usefulness. And I have an inkling why-the globalists have sold off the drive to be a manufacturing powerhouse inside the US, the handwriting is on the wall there. Heck, they are paying large sums of cash to give it away! This is called "investment". I call it short term and short sighted economic rape.
And services, which were supposed to be the replacements for manufacturing, are now being outsourced as well, or diluted with mass numbers of imported "service workers".. What's left? Intangibles, this nebulous intangible "IP" deal where they pull numbers out of their nether regions to declare what something is "worth", and the only way they can maintain that is with more and more pretty strange "IP" laws, which increasingly are being ignored, because it's lame, and the bulk of the planet can see that.
This is a congame that can only go on for a short time, historically speaking. It's a fairy tale economic system, magic beans for the milk cow.
I think the deal with digital replicators has shown about what the market will bear with digital copies of "IP". Free or very very cheap is the top price there globally. Durable goods, a different story entirely. They have to be built, they have to work.
It's only a matter of time before the rest of the planet tells the US to go get stuffed and do their own work if they want real tangible goods. They aren't going to keep subsidizing forever, and if you notice, a lot of the heavy hitters in Asia and Europe are starting to shy away from the absolute king of magical fairy tale "IP", the backed by nothing federal reserve (debt) note, or as it should be called, the Imperial IOU..
Software is typed up stuff, written in a language or languages, and as such, is more akin to written books or articles or say like musical scores, and should only be allowed copyright, not patents. Patents should be restricted to tangible products. In addition, the software industry itself has insisted and got granted immunity from normal consumer warranties, which is clearly evidence they don't see their own typed up stuff as a "normal product". It's *special*.
They shouldn't have it both ways when no other industry can claim that. If it is patentable, it should come with a minimum implied normal warranty (suitable for use, no glaring and or dangerous defects, etc). No warranty should mean no patent, copyright only.
I hope that is linear enough to answer your question.
...you have uncovered with the expert witness. He does a lot of "umm...dunno, don't recall..dog ate my homework" etc. for a PhD.
...a variation on that scam with the klamath falls farmers vs the sucker fish deal back in 2000-2001. They used a scam, saying a non native sucker fish was endangered inside the dammed up lake the farmers paid for for their irrigation canals many years ago, and shut the dam taps off. They also kept insisting they pay their canal irrigation water fees! In addition, they used the water in a hydro electric dam, I think as part of the enron scam, to sell power at peak rates when they shut down other facilities for "maintenance". It was a pretty involved scam (I am greatly over simplifying all the angles involved), but it bankrupted a lot of farmers, caused divorces, suicides, etc. I was an online pretty serious activist trying to help them, until I found out the farmers leadership was seriously compromised with neocon insiders-quislings- who were faking out the farmers and letting the administration get a free skate on not intervening (the lake was full, there was no actual water shortage and those stupid fish were never endangered in the first place, and they kept claiming the ESA "trumped' the fifth amendment!!). So I quit trying to help them, a waste of time. Some "got it" and contacted me privately to say that I had nailed what was going on, but they kept getting shouted down in local meetings, etc, they wanted everyone to stick to neocon talking points only), but most of them remained brainwashed into the neocon party line (which is to enrich the transnationals and expand the power of the central government in the executive branch, with whatever it takes basically, all the time, every issue) and blamed it on "the librul enviros!", when it was really a handful of pretty rich corporations who profited from the ripoff.
that 'build a subdivision" deal is well established, one of the reasons the rich power brokers love the illegals invasion,(sudden influx of illegals and kids, whoops! need a ton more schools, expend the hospital, etc) because it helps them seize property and consolidate corporations into fewer hands. It's a quasi "legal" huge skim run by professional grifters. It works pretty well for them actually, seize property at auctions on the cheap, drive down wages,etc and they have misguided Dems (also faked out at gh levels by rich scumbags) supporting them, instead of trying to force those dipsquat corrupt foreign governments to pay a minimum *living wage* so those folks won't want or won't need to sneak over the border in the first place.
A lot of this stuff is conencted, once you follow the money and see who profits from it. It's designed to ripoff and disenfranchise the middle class as much as possible, to get to that two class global society model they really are after, the technofeudalistic society. the middle class actually produces the wealth, so that's where they concentrate forces on shifting ownership of said wealth. Pretty simple really.
Ya, sorta scary when you see them "win" all the time, but it gets less scary once you can see the congames (you have to see the problem and the perps to even begin to figure out some solutions), and the net is helping us to bust out of the media psyops that supports them in their congames and rackets, the stuff Ike warned us about that would happen. (I actually remember that speech, live, but didn't really understand it until some years later, I was a kid then. When they whacked JFK and got away with it, THEN I finally got it, epiphany for me, bigtime).
It takes one person at a time helping another to "get it" on what is going on.
And that is why I chime in on these topics at slashdot and have had at various other forums for years and years, and before that wrote nomme de plume pamphlets and news articles, etc. And why I will answer their online shills and expose them for their lies and half truths. I care about all peoples, my country, what goes on, and can't deal with the slimebag crooks by accepting their greed based BS.
Long hard road so far, but I am actually hopeful that eventually it will pay off as it gets harder and harder for them to cover their crimes with the forced media spin and blackouts. Cats outta the bag now.
...get logged because that is the only way they can stay on the farm. Urbanization results in bumping up property taxes, but farm profits (speaking very very generally now), aren't adequate enough to cover these increases in taxes. They get a company offer them enough to cover taxes for a few years, they take it. And a lot of times this process is done on purpose to enrich a few local fatcats. They'll acquire some acreage in the middle of productive farmland, throw up a huge subdivision. This results in the call to increase taxes, because now you need more and better roads, a new public school or two, increased police and fire resources, etc. so they bump up the taxes. Lather rinse repeat=farmers get to the point they try to save the farm, sell off the stumpage for cheap, put off bankruptcy for a few years, go under anyway. Local fatcats (or larger transnational "investors") pickup more prime acreage at the auction for cheap.
Consolidation of wealth, vertically, upstream. Same as what happened in the great depression, just now they are a little slicker about how they go about it. they are doing the same thing with a lot of public infrastructure as well, the proposed supercorridors being sold off to foreign wealthy investment groups, water rights and treatment facilities, etc.
good post, thanks.
I wonder if they will change their minds about the sell off of tree farm acreage as the housing bubble continues to collapse and demand goes up for much smaller and cheaper housing, and also as soon as a few more major breakthroughs in cellulosic ethanol production are made?
And do you have any references to the actual plots they have for sale? Thanks in advance if you do.
Initially while you were selective breeding/ genetically engineering stronger and more adapted humans, you'd have to use powered exoskeletons for working, and then spend a lot of the rest of your time in a water environment. Floating does wonders in that gravity/mass/weight regard.
I said that everyone has born with rights, but sometimes you have to fight to maintain them. That isn't "wishful thinking" and your analogy is just silly, apples and oranges, I am just stating observable hard data, recorded in history and viewable in contemporary times.
And yes,I will agree on that point, because it is true, even by the people who first wrote it, some were excluded *illegally*, it is an exception that was inherently and completely wrong at the time, and those affected by that exclusion and others who were sympathetic and took the entire meaning to heart had to fight..myself included on that issue, back in "contemporary" times if you count some decades ago now, I am a civil rights worker from way back, I've taken the serious abuse from the corrupt and illegitimate "authority", those mouth breather sadistic goons (every culture breeds bullies sad to say) who work and "follow orders", from their "superiors", the elite feudalistic scumbags who sought (and still seek, this struggle isn't over yet) to continually deny human rights to others,so they can be "the masters', or "the lords", or whatever term they use, that keeps changing, but not the cultural mindset of their over-lording ways, based on nothing more than their personal and quite insane whims, their megalomania, and a lot of corrupt and heinous and misguided aggressive force.
It had to be resisted going back in history. And it still does need to be resisted, on any number of issues. Yes, you have to fight, with the spoken word, the ballot, sometimes physically, and so it goes. We haven't eliminated aggression and greed from Humans' DNA, so..self defense is still necessary, in whatever form that needs to take.
Number six said it in few words, "I am a Free Man, I am not a number!"
You are more than welcome to remain a "subject", that is your choice if you really wish it. Millions more do not believe that way, and all of us, whether we want it or not, are born with our human rights and dignity. From one second after birth, that dignity and those rights remain in peril. And such as it is, once you are aware, of that age and mentality, it becomes a personal issue that is also part of the greater collective gestalt on rights. You can choose to participate if it is valuable to you-or not, but you still have those same human rights.
There isn't a whole lot more needed other than enforcing copyrights one might think. If it really is "your" data, then these various companies and agencies can make you an offer to license to use it. Right now they just assume and act like it automagically becomes THEIR "IP" to use, sell, trade, store, datamine, and etc.. Nuts.
All people are born with their rights (we hold these truths to be self-evident"..and etc), but in most cases the entrenched power elite assholes just insist on being bullies or worse. Back in history or right now, doesn't matter. Yes, serfs in medieval times had rights, they just got bullied out of them by stronger forces composed of serious badguy loonies.
If you have to fight, you have to fight, that's how it goes. Fighting with the spoken word, the pen, the keyboard and petition and ballot, or pitchforks, the sword, the musket or whatever...about the same in the long run. You, me, all of us collectively the humanity of "we", are born with our human rights, and must always struggle to maintain them. People who try to insist that you have no born with rights, and work to restrict them, try to be some sort of "more human that you, you filthy untermenschen!" or "shutup and just follow orders!", are, in my opinion, a waste of oxygen, feudal overlord jerks fit for nothing but being pike decorations, as in "heads on pikes". People who get faked out that they have no rights and must go pleading with bowed head and downcast eyes to their "masters" or voluntarily give up their rights for some other obscure reason are called "subjects" or serfs or slaves.
But they still have rights, even if they can't exercise them at some point in time. When they can't, they need to fight if that is what it takes to get them back. And that's it.
It sucks it has to be that way, it sucks that there has always been this feudal overclass who dig on that power over other humans, but so it goes. I didn't design the system, just notice how it works from reading history and looking around and paying attention during contemporary times.
OK, this is the theory, it is different from today's practice (unfortunately, IMO), but I will attempt to correct a misconception about the US Constitution which is widespread and totally incorrect.
Basic data point you REALLY need to grok. chew on this until you "get it". This is very important and something I notice almost all foreigners and very few people inside the US for that matter really understand, because the elites don't want them to understand it, so they go way out of their way to brainwash people against it starting the first week in school.
The Constitution does NOT grant any individual rights to people, zero.
We are BORN with them.
If the constitution didn't exist, we would still have those rights (as do all peoples, but most places the government will not recognize that because it cuts into their controlling turf scene).
The Bill of Rights-the first ten "amendments", are a very basic minimal and partial list that was written up PRECISELY to give some examples so that the original meaning could never be lost or altered. The Constitution is by and large a list of stuff the "government" is never supposed to infringe upon. By default, all rights reside with "we, the People", and we the people granted government certain limited functions and duties, WE granted THEM some "rights", which they are supposed to strictly adhere to.
It's bass-ackwards now, "government" assumes they have all the rights, and sells or offers "permission" back to the people to do this or that.
And that's what's wrong in a nutshell.
The US is the only nation-to this day the ONLY nation- ever to adopt the concept of the sovereign individual, as opposed to some ruling class who are the sovereigns. It is that simple. I propose a return to that concept, and elimination of today's current political reality, which I have termed "Technofeudalism".
"Dude" I don't smoke pot and most likely I am older than you, and have watched things change, bercause I pay attention and have been paying attention for half a century now. Believe me, it is not getting any better on the political freedom scene, and the "accountability" of elected officials is about nil, and the mainstream press has turned into quivering lapdogs. Even nixon had the guts to finally quit when he got busted for being an illegal jerk when some truthiness finally came out, but the current last few crops of high level pols have all done much worse than nixon did, and nothing happens to them, no accountability of note.
When I was a younger man, such bigbro action as random roadblocks didn't exist, because only evil dictatorships did stuff like that. That was taught in the schools. We didn't have cameras everywhere staring at you, and so on, right up and down the list. This phony "terrorism" crap is designed to be terroristic against the US people, it is used as the excuse for these "gents" to do whatever the hell they feel like doing. And they are.
And it isn't paranoia when the stuff you are talking about is real, just noting the data and coming to some obvious conclusions. Ike DID warn about what was going to happen and it IS happening, it was a rather strong and much discussed speech back then, it shocked people, and today it IS coming from the "gents" he warned about, the powerful mil/industrial complex-now quite transnational in scope and power- and the influence they have in and out of government(s), it overlaps now so much there is no practical difference, we are about totally a fascist corporatacracy now. This "election" stuff is the real dog and pony show, part of the bread and circuses dodge, designed to keep their serfs amused so they think they still have some say in how they are "governed", or how it should be termed more accurately, "ruled over".
...allegedly, has the top two political parties conspire to not only not include any other candidates on the forum for the so called national and official presidential debate, but actually threatens them with arrest if they have tickets and try to just sit in the audience-I'd call that a dog and pony show. And when the controlled lapdog press goes along with it, another part of the show. When two cooperating parties basically hijack the government and just divide the spoils, and it is clear both of these parties have full compliments of crooks, thieves, liars, bribe takers and assorted scum, yet nothing substantial happens overall, that's a dog and pony show. When both parties are run by globalist millionaires at the top, even to the point of running so called "opposition" candidates from the same billionaire boys club fraternity secret society, that's a joke, a dog and pony show. Candidates who are so far removed from the productive middle class electorate, so much so that they don't even know what a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk really costs-that's a dog and pony show political system, a farce. When elected leaders come from hereditary political dynasties-basically an elite aristocracy- including the ex head of the "secret police", that's a sham, a dog and pony show. When you have overwhelming smoking gun evidence that the "electronic" elections have been hacked and compromised, that quite possibly whomever is in office shouldn't be there, yet nothing happens, and no one gets into any trouble over it-it goes beyond a dog and pony show and starts to look like any other banana republic dictatorship, just with two "wings" instead of one to give the illusion of "free and honest elections". When you have an overwhelmingly large violent "incident", that pushes forth a radical anti freedom agenda, and there is enough credible evidence with literally dozens of quite peculiar characteristics that don't jibe in any manner whatsoever with the "official story of what happened", and there are no actual honest and open investigations, instead they push forth an obvious whitewash/coverup/ignore the evidence that doesn't fit commission-you have to ask yourself, when can a violent coup be called a coup?
The US has been in a slow and steady gradual takeover by shadowy elements very powerful inside and outside of government, ever since an actual brave and thoughtful president-Ike- thought it necessary to warn the people during his retirement speech that it could and would happen if we weren't careful. Later on, the folks he was warning about managed to get rid of one elected person who was getting wise to them and was seeking to limit their power. Then they eliminated his brother, who looked likely to carry the torch on for his fallen sibling-yet nothing has happened about it. It's gotten worse since then, until now, we have only the faintest mirage of real freedom as it was originally designed to be, and that mirage is fading fast, with various "patriotic enabling acts" and "signing statements" that clearly show that only one agenda will go forward and the people and their wishes be damned, with big wars completely based on proven lies, wars which still will not end even when the lies are finally admitted to, and nothing happens to the proven liars.
Calling it a "dog and pony show" is being excessively *polite* and minimalistic near as I can see.
...you have to use some of their software to "manage" your account there. And it is windows based, so they assume you have windows IE(guess, never used the place before-or heard of it for that matter). This is from their terms of service page ->"9. SOFTWARE. Movielink will make available to you on its Website and on certain third party websites with which it does business a downloadable version of the Movielink Manager Software and any available updates which it generally releases (collectively, "Software")."
...spray the finished circuit board with some non conductive plastic or something, to eliminate the whiskers growing?
As far as I am concerned, if something can be covered by a patent, it should have a normal consumer warranty (suitable for purpose, free from defects, etc) if it is sold or leased or licensed to use, exactly the same as any other patentable product. If companies insist on patents, they would either have to A) write some simply outstanding code, or B), stop with the software patents and leave it at copyright where it belongs.
"Why is it suddenly the goal of OSS is to defeat MS?"..
I can give you one *fantastic* reason. If you are in the US, just about every good and service you pay for comes with a parasitical burden of a microsoft tax hidden inside. Either from the private sector in commerce, or in your various and overlapping tax bills, a chunk of your loot goes to MS-whether you want it to or not. THAT is reason enough to lobby and work hard against their continued parasitism of the economy. My opinion, but I think they have sucked enough billions out of everyone's pockets. Their economic business model is now the "broken windows" scenario, which I think is hilariously well named in this instance. It is a net drain on the economy.
People say "well, if you don't want to run MS OS and associated apps, then don't!" OK,I'd like to do that, I don't directly run it myself, but how about when you are forced to keep paying for it for decades? Business is politics, like it or not, the politics of a lot of people's pocketbooks would be better off without that direct or hidden wallet tax that goes to them, let alone the annoyance "tax" of windows derived mass zombie spewed SPAM, malwarez, etc.. I'd love to not have to run MS anything, but am forced to by second hand and onwards inertial economic proxy. And pay for that "privilege". Gee...whattadeal..NOT!
See, you can't just decide not to run it when it's involved in most every aspect of modern tech life, and that involves business, and business is tied to politics.
That is one of the many goals of FOSS, to eliminate unnecessary expense and burden.
I'll admit at one time I think they were necessary for the microcomputer revolution-but not now, not 2007. They should be happy with all the billions and billions they have made. I'd like to see society move on. Like the buggywhip middleman salesmen of the MAFIAA, their services are just about completely no longer needed, so the collective "we" shouldn't have to keep paying for them.
...keep voting that way, you'll keep "electing" one wing or the other of the cooperating criminal cartel that has hijacked government and runs it as a crony jobs program for multimillionaires and billionaires and transnational non patriotic corporations.
I've been hearing the same shit for 40 years now -"don't waste your vote-don't vote for an independent or third party!"-it was wrong then and is still wrong, but the brainwashed parrots keep convincing themselves and other people to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, somehow magically expecting a different result "this time". IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
Anyone "you" has one vote, wasting it on the lesser of two evils will ALWAYS result in evil getting elected.
The original AC cobras only ran 5s and mid 4s (0-60)depending on the small or large V8.
No one denies electric cars can be both quick and fast (top end), what we are lacking is a normal commuter car at around 10-15 grand, your very basic transportation model. A new model A or VW bug for the 21st century, the "people's electric". A hundred mile range is more than enough for the vast amount of commuter distances (average is 33 miles round trip in the US), which means you wouldn't need top of the line, 1,000 expensive laptop batteries to pull it off.
My best guess is the Chinese (maybe the Indians) will beat everyone for that market, and be inside that price range, while most of the other guys building electrics are building sportscars way out-side the pocketbooks for most people. Ya, some cool tech gets developed there, but we need the affordable electric,in the common styles, a sedan, a minivan/suv thing and a small pickup.
The big three (I will talk primarily US) are tanking and fast precisely because they never got it on mileage and reliability until the japanese had a solid decade or more advances on them. And for the most part they still haven't caught up. They obviously threw away that market because they didn't give a crap, and are mostly retarded to boot.
I used to have a 74 dart, held six adults, roomy trunk, I tried it once it would actually do 110 mph with the six banger in it, and it got around 25 miles per gallon, with just a fraction of the plumbing and electrical nightmare modern engines are.
Now it is 2007, what do you see? See much diff with US cars other than they cost huge gobs more, about impossible for the average joe to work on them much, and get maybe just a smidgen better mileage, or in some cases worse or just static, no improvements? I'm just talking performance and mileage now, not radar gps equipped DVD playing sensurround airbags stuff, just from the transportation angle, which is primarily what cars are supposed to be anyway. It's like about zilch progress near as I can see.
Nope, the big three US car makers been stepping on their dicks for a LONG time now. On purpose or just top heavy retarded management, no idea (my guess is equal amounts of both, and yep, oil is a profitable commodity, you sell a lot more at 10-25 mpg than at 45-65 mpg), but the results are there to see.
I'll tell you another reason, the top engineers go into racing where it is fun, change can go fast and is driven by engineering, they get paid pretty darn good and are held in high esteem. They are *valued* folks. In the car industry, engineers are way down the list of "attaboys" and paycheck compared to the bloated marketing and managing side, and those folks get "driven" by the vultures who demand ever increasing profits but have mostly no clue about quality. A first year rookie car dealer salesman makes more than an engineer working for years. And I don't want to hear that it's all the unions fault either, they build what they are told to build, they have zero say in how things go in that direction.
I was in the UAW in the 60s,and you could clearly see this coming, at least I could. Of course back then it was the horsepower wars,that mostly blinded folks and oil by the barrel was very cheap as well, but anyone who stopped and extrapolated a few decades out could see gas would get dear eventually and that reliability long range would keep a car company running in the red. Detroit and most of their management and "analysts" missed both of those obvious calls. And they are so obvious, that yes, you might tend to think there was some action on the side to make it that way on purpose, lose some in one industry, gain a lot more in another.
Sort of like "new and improved" bloated operating systems sell new computers, even though the old ones aren't "broken" or "worn out". One hand washes the other with lotsa cash it appears.
Heh, a reverse from slashdot normal computer to car analogy!
China is investing money and resources at an amazing rate into africa and south america (and as much as they can in the middle east), seeking to lock in their influence (all sectors I would presume, civil/business/military) and all the natural resources they can get now with long term contracts + develop new markets. Like here's one, venezuela, where the US now garners a not insignificant amount of oil. They and china has recently announced a new oil cooperation deal, and chavez is on the record stating that if/when the US hits iran, poof, no more oil for the US, and China will then take it all.
IMO, historians in the future will label the 21st century the century of the resource wars.
You aren't getting what I am saying at all, and you are also arguing AGAINST past real data, which is silly. I'll repeat, and you can go do your economic homework before replying again. Go back and revisit the economic news in the weeks following katrina, and see which businesses suffered more than others. Fedex, UPS, and the airlines were at the top of the list. Heck, in my state they had to emergency cut back on school bus transport because of it, both from cost and the availability issue. Go look it up if you don't believe me about the fast price increases of fuel and what happens. And yes, fedex and UPS DO make individual small deliveries, it costs a lot of fuel to do that. And just doing more of the same won't get any more efficient until they have trucks that consistently beat fuel cost increases by getting better mileage, and they haven't doubled their mileage in one week ever, yet fuel can double easily in a very short time frame. I have seen it many times, once I paid ten dollarts a gallon for two gallons max sale during the opec embargo, just to get home and park. That was over the rtegular price of between a quarter and 50 cents a gallon. Stuff happens.
And yes, fedex and UPS ship a lot of packages to themselves bulk, as you pointed out and I am not denying that at all, but their ultimate model is to get a package or a few packages to a LOT of delivery points, not just one or two. Once the fedex economic chain hits the small delivery trucks it is one stop at a time, they burn a LOT more fuel than the fuel used for folks to go to the mall and hit several stores at once. I get individual deliveries all the time, they aren't dropping off their entire truckload at one stop, they have to drive around a lot of miles to deliver all those packages to the ultimate consumer, whereas a brick and mortar store gets all their deliveries in bulk, and the customer who drives in pays the tab on their own, they aren't seeing it as much as a direct cost to point to on their check-out tally. It's there, granted, some fuel is used, but it is miniscule compared to the individual package deliverers. They are selling speed and efficiency over lowest cost, it's a premium service compared to gross bulk deliveries to huge stores where ther customers drive in and carry away a trunkfull of stuff.. They are a service business that depends on cheap fuel to make a profit. And because the online guys depend on them, they either have to eat it, the sudden fuel surcharge spike, or drop privces, or some combo thereof, which starts to eat into whatever benefit they have over not having a storefront. It's a fine line there. Past several years rents have been wicked high, and fuel just in the middle, but if rents drop (like they probably will as the slow motion real estate bubble collapses), and fuel costs increase, that split the online guys enjoy for their profit will keep shrinking.
Really, go back and check the financials from right after Katrina, you'll see a ton of discussion by economists about sudden fuel cost spikes and who gets harmed the most from it the quickest. Independent truck drivers are another group, as are taxicabs. Some independents just *parked*, completely stopped hauling at all, because they have contracts that pay them such and such a mile, but if their fuel goes up real fast in a one week time frame they would have to operate at a net *loss*, so they just parked until the prices dropped back down a little. Fedex had to throw an emergency fuel surchage on their shipments for awhile then as well, which meant a sudden fast rise in prices for the online merchants, more so than at the brick and mortar places because they can spread their costs out a lot easier with the way they do business (no deliveries need to be factored into cost of business, online has both the cost to them, and the cost away from them). Brick and mortar pays one way for deliveries-in. Online pays both ways, in and out. See it now? Both businesses get hit with the fuel cost increase, but the online guys get hit twice with the same increase
The regular stores get their merchandise in bulk,most of the time from tractor-trailers, not one package at a time from fedex, so as such, they can weather sudden price increases better. Yes, it would effect them as well, but not nearly as much as the convenience-courier carriers like fedex or UPS. The package courier outfits stay in business mostly from cheap fuel prices, a sudden doubling or whatever would ripple through the entire manufacturing/distribution industry, but the single-serving styled delivery systems would suffer the most. There were a lot of articles about it in the weeks following hurricane katrina actually pointing this out, and that was a *mild* price increase compared to what would happen should the straits of hormuz be closed for weeks or months. The airlines (people shipping basically) also took a rather severe hit then as well right after katrina. Moving stuff is expensive, sudden increases are hard to deal with, past business history shows us that. I remember a lot of that back during the sudden OPEC oil embargo as well, very very fast transportation cost increases really nail the companies that rely on excess shipping for their business models. If it is a slow gradual change, it is easier to handle, it's the sudden huge spikes that are a bear.
Like a lot of the dot com era "home delivery for everything" stores couldn't turn a profit even way back when gasoline and diesel were closer to a buck a gallon than not, even those cheap prices made it hard on a lot of types of merchandise. Take three items at a similar weight. Moving a 50 buck thing might cost 5 dollars, which is a big chunk of the total price, whereas a 500 dollar item it isn't so bad, and a 5 dollar item would be a waste, a loss, not happening.
Some stuff is OK and could get through the increases somewhat with online delivery, other items would probably be severely affected, notably lower priced and lower margin items. And that is also why we still have so many brick and mortar stores, it is still a main consumer choice and handy and economical to go get a variety of things with one shopping trip, or even just a side trip off the daily commute. The gas is already being "spent" irregardless when it just a short stop off the commute run.