I don't know enough about the business to have an opinion on that article - but yes, that is very much the sentiment I was trying to express. There are good regulations and bad regulations. Farmers (in my limited experience) aren't anti-regulation, they are anti-bad-regulation.
Food? No. That would be if you fed them to pigs, which is totally legal and would not run afoul of the regulations. He was raising worms, not food. Unless you eat them, in which case I'll bring my own food for dinner.
I'd need a couple of hours of your time to explain the complex machinations (which I don't completely understand myself), but tl/dr is that because he WASN'T selling the worms as food, he became a "waste processing facility" by some definitions but not others. Under some code, the worms were livestock. He needed some of the permitting and zoning for waste processing AND some of the permitting and zoning for livestock. The entities that saw his operation differently had to be made to see eye-to-eye, which took quite a bit of doing. It took him the better part of a year to get all sorted out, and then he still had to deal with a certain big US company that is almost as bad, bureaucracy wise. Because even though he was a one-man operation who was hauling away their cafeteria waste, he was a "vendor" and had to go through the same processes as someone providing photolithography equipment. Oops, tangent.
I don't have a farm, and I live as close to a major city as I can without subjecting my kids to its school system.
With that said, my uncle does have a farm. He's a leftover hippie, so would not exactly qualify for your stereotype. But even he is completely disgusted by regulations on farms. The amount of paperwork, licensing, etc he needed to carry out some vermiculture and composting was insane. Farmers don't necessarily object to all regulations - especially the anti-monopoly sort we're talking about here. What farmers hate is when city politicians with absolutely no experience with farming whatsoever enact laws that impact the viability of farming.
Are you maybe thinking of the Ford Taunus? I can see Ford Europe being concerned with European competition (and thus Ford Europe producing the Sierra), but in the US market the Europeans weren't big players - especially the notorious Audi 5000. There's no doubt that it was inspired by European styling, but Ford already was making the Sierra in Europe - which I think predates the Audi 5000 slightly. Ford was indeed in a panic, but it was more driven by Chrysler's K-car, GM's A-bodies, and the Japanese imports, most with front-wheel drive.
Houston is not even on my list, because you rightly point out it is not a commuter rail. I listed 12 new commuter rail systems, which directly contradicts your point. I am not avoiding your point at all - I am directly addressing it. You are apparently not even giving me the courtesy of opening the data I provide you. Your assumption that the US is anti-commuter rail is not necessarily wrong, but it is 20 years out of date.
No, I've directly refuted your core point with actual data.
But in the end, what opposition are you talking about? There are 12 brand new commuter rail systems since 2000 in the US. These new systems are in the West, the East, the Midwest, and hell, even Texas. There appears to be broad support for new commuter rail, with dollars being spent to build new systems.
Your entire thesis is built upon a false premise, that there isn't support for commuter rail in the US.
I'd have been pretty pissed if I bought a Chromebook and got a netbook. The whole point is to give the kids something they can't fuck up no matter how hard they try, and which works with all their school stuff.
I'm outraged that my $200 Chromebook only supports the same features it was sold with. I bought it specifically to get features that I wasn't aware existed yet.
Yes, but typically a suspension bridge has giant anchorages at the end. In this Italian design, it looks like the towers are free-standing (aside from the trivial amount of rigidity added by the concrete sections with expansion joints). I'm sure the math all worked out, but it does stand out in the design. I suppose it let them use lower towers to span the same distance.
I did not know they were box girders. It's not their use of a box girder that is unusual, it's how there are three cable-stayed sections with no overlap in stays. Not only is there no overlap, they bridge the section between cable-stayed sections with these freestanding concrete sections. If you do a Google search for cable stayed bridge, you will see almost all of them with more than one cable stayed section have significant overlap between stayed sections, or the part that it bridges is much smaller than what you see here. There was a very high proportion of non-stayed to stayed deck in this bridge.
A point which I have refuted on other grounds, and which you've failed to counter. Repeating your thesis is not proof.
But in the end, what opposition are you talking about? There are 12 brand new commuter rail systems since 2000 in the US. These new systems are in the West, the East, the Midwest, and hell, even Texas. There appears to be broad support for new commuter rail, with dollars being spent to build new systems.
Most (responsible) currency traders are taking advantage of arbitrage, not speculating on currency. Naturally people like that do exist, and there may even be people who are successful at it - but that is a byproduct of our use of multiple currencies, not the reason for it.
People have a funny idea of what a good currency is. Currency is not an investment vehicle - it's an aid to barter and exchange. An ideal currency is stable. Full stop. To achieve stability, the currency must have a supply which can grow in concert with the economy. And while sudden or large magnitude drops in value can cause a panic, in general an appreciating currency is much more harmful than a depreciating currency. This is because an appreciating currency encourages people to invest in the currency itself, making it unavailable for commerce and causing people to delay purchases or other investments in favor of holding the cash as long as possible. Obviously you don't want you aid to barter and exchange making barter and exchange more difficult or expensive!
Yeah, the design's use of prestressed concrete cables with zero redundancy is borderline baffling. It's a visually stunning design (especially given the era), but come on! I've also never seen suspension bridge (ok, technically cable-stayed bridge) where they span two suspended portions with nothing but a more-or-less standard concrete segment. Maybe this was common at one time, but most of the recent ones seem to overlap the stays.
They got the power company and the relevant PSC to sign off on hiking residential rates to pay for the installation of an additional transmission line to service the datacenter.
And if they didn't, they would have gone to the next-cheapest item on the list. This is a problem with the local politicians and regulatory agencies, not with Amazon. I mean, unless there is bribery or other shenanigans taking place.
Seriously though - (simplified) company puts electric rates into giant spreadsheet, sorts spreadsheet by price, opens datacenter in one of the cheapest places.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, in that case they should definitely let people who live in the city and have no idea how to farm tell them how to manage their land :)
I don't know enough about the business to have an opinion on that article - but yes, that is very much the sentiment I was trying to express. There are good regulations and bad regulations. Farmers (in my limited experience) aren't anti-regulation, they are anti-bad-regulation.
Food? No. That would be if you fed them to pigs, which is totally legal and would not run afoul of the regulations. He was raising worms, not food. Unless you eat them, in which case I'll bring my own food for dinner.
I'd need a couple of hours of your time to explain the complex machinations (which I don't completely understand myself), but tl/dr is that because he WASN'T selling the worms as food, he became a "waste processing facility" by some definitions but not others. Under some code, the worms were livestock. He needed some of the permitting and zoning for waste processing AND some of the permitting and zoning for livestock. The entities that saw his operation differently had to be made to see eye-to-eye, which took quite a bit of doing. It took him the better part of a year to get all sorted out, and then he still had to deal with a certain big US company that is almost as bad, bureaucracy wise. Because even though he was a one-man operation who was hauling away their cafeteria waste, he was a "vendor" and had to go through the same processes as someone providing photolithography equipment. Oops, tangent.
I don't have a farm, and I live as close to a major city as I can without subjecting my kids to its school system.
With that said, my uncle does have a farm. He's a leftover hippie, so would not exactly qualify for your stereotype. But even he is completely disgusted by regulations on farms. The amount of paperwork, licensing, etc he needed to carry out some vermiculture and composting was insane. Farmers don't necessarily object to all regulations - especially the anti-monopoly sort we're talking about here. What farmers hate is when city politicians with absolutely no experience with farming whatsoever enact laws that impact the viability of farming.
Are you maybe thinking of the Ford Taunus? I can see Ford Europe being concerned with European competition (and thus Ford Europe producing the Sierra), but in the US market the Europeans weren't big players - especially the notorious Audi 5000. There's no doubt that it was inspired by European styling, but Ford already was making the Sierra in Europe - which I think predates the Audi 5000 slightly. Ford was indeed in a panic, but it was more driven by Chrysler's K-car, GM's A-bodies, and the Japanese imports, most with front-wheel drive.
The styling is very consistent with other, preexisting Ford cars:
1982 Ford Sierra
1984 Ford Mustang
1986 Ford Taurus
I would think liability would quickly get him. These things are going to kill a lot more tinkerers than they will assailants.
I'm not a huge fan of Whitehead's (IMHO) verbose writing. But he's talented, and he manages to write a fairly entertaining cerebral zombie book :)
There's a whole book - Zone One by Colson Whitehead - about such an attempt on Manhattan Island.
Houston is not even on my list, because you rightly point out it is not a commuter rail. I listed 12 new commuter rail systems, which directly contradicts your point. I am not avoiding your point at all - I am directly addressing it. You are apparently not even giving me the courtesy of opening the data I provide you. Your assumption that the US is anti-commuter rail is not necessarily wrong, but it is 20 years out of date.
No, I've directly refuted your core point with actual data.
Your entire thesis is built upon a false premise, that there isn't support for commuter rail in the US.
I feel like I'm in bizarro land, because that's exactly the tactic you are using.
I'd have been pretty pissed if I bought a Chromebook and got a netbook. The whole point is to give the kids something they can't fuck up no matter how hard they try, and which works with all their school stuff.
Note that you do need to change to 3rd party firmware in most cases.
I'm outraged that my $200 Chromebook only supports the same features it was sold with. I bought it specifically to get features that I wasn't aware existed yet.
Yes, but typically a suspension bridge has giant anchorages at the end. In this Italian design, it looks like the towers are free-standing (aside from the trivial amount of rigidity added by the concrete sections with expansion joints). I'm sure the math all worked out, but it does stand out in the design. I suppose it let them use lower towers to span the same distance.
I did not know they were box girders. It's not their use of a box girder that is unusual, it's how there are three cable-stayed sections with no overlap in stays. Not only is there no overlap, they bridge the section between cable-stayed sections with these freestanding concrete sections. If you do a Google search for cable stayed bridge, you will see almost all of them with more than one cable stayed section have significant overlap between stayed sections, or the part that it bridges is much smaller than what you see here. There was a very high proportion of non-stayed to stayed deck in this bridge.
Ah, well that answers all of my concerns with your thesis. Thanks.
That describes gold. Cash has too many reasons to go down in value and hardly any to go up.
A point which I have refuted on other grounds, and which you've failed to counter. Repeating your thesis is not proof.
But in the end, what opposition are you talking about? There are 12 brand new commuter rail systems since 2000 in the US. These new systems are in the West, the East, the Midwest, and hell, even Texas. There appears to be broad support for new commuter rail, with dollars being spent to build new systems.
Most (responsible) currency traders are taking advantage of arbitrage, not speculating on currency. Naturally people like that do exist, and there may even be people who are successful at it - but that is a byproduct of our use of multiple currencies, not the reason for it.
Currencies are not an investment.
tl/dr: Cash is not an investment.
People have a funny idea of what a good currency is. Currency is not an investment vehicle - it's an aid to barter and exchange. An ideal currency is stable. Full stop. To achieve stability, the currency must have a supply which can grow in concert with the economy. And while sudden or large magnitude drops in value can cause a panic, in general an appreciating currency is much more harmful than a depreciating currency. This is because an appreciating currency encourages people to invest in the currency itself, making it unavailable for commerce and causing people to delay purchases or other investments in favor of holding the cash as long as possible. Obviously you don't want you aid to barter and exchange making barter and exchange more difficult or expensive!
Yeah, the design's use of prestressed concrete cables with zero redundancy is borderline baffling. It's a visually stunning design (especially given the era), but come on! I've also never seen suspension bridge (ok, technically cable-stayed bridge) where they span two suspended portions with nothing but a more-or-less standard concrete segment. Maybe this was common at one time, but most of the recent ones seem to overlap the stays.
They got the power company and the relevant PSC to sign off on hiking residential rates to pay for the installation of an additional transmission line to service the datacenter.
And if they didn't, they would have gone to the next-cheapest item on the list. This is a problem with the local politicians and regulatory agencies, not with Amazon. I mean, unless there is bribery or other shenanigans taking place.
Seriously though - (simplified) company puts electric rates into giant spreadsheet, sorts spreadsheet by price, opens datacenter in one of the cheapest places.
EVIL!
Occam demands a sexual explanation.