If you take all that old stuff apart, little of it looks very hard to manufacture. And that's if you need to... most can probably be reconditioned or simply acquired from spares. Injection molded plastic will certainly get brittle, but making new 70s-era injection molded parts is not rocket science... if you even need them to be injection molded plastic. Machinable or rapid prototyped materials probably would work just fine. Remember that they don't need consumer-level cost effectiveness here.
If that really becomes a problem, we could always make sure the car makes sure you get enough "hours" each year. Then again, we have the technology to measure reaction time at start time and don't do it today. But this isn't a tech problem.
You can buy a Q50 right now that - with the right options - will stay in a lane on a highway all by itself, steering as necessary and keeping a safe distance behind the car in front. Yeah, it's not a "self driving car" because it only handles one relatively easy scenario, but the fact that this is in a mass-market vehicle makes me believe that we are not so far as you seem to imply.
Your analysis is simplistic and does not consider what he did with the cash instead. Using money financed at 1.7% to pay down debt financed at 3.5% will indeed result in a positive improvement in cash flow.
Not when you consider that the car lasts 3x as long, requires less maintenance, is 3x safer (by deaths per passenger mile), gets better mileage, and spews a lot less lead and smog into the air.
A "piece of shit" car like a Versa is better than almost any car available in 1974, and costs less than 1 year at minimum wage. You can expect at least 150,000 miles of useful life from the Versa with little maintenance, it gets good mileage, doesn't spew lead and smog into the air, and it has antilock brakes, airbags, and crumple zones.
"Some" is a word with very little precision. Your slashdot ID is pretty low, so I suspect you know enough people over 40 that you should see fairly widespread racism. I live in a little island of relative racial harmony in a city with terrible race relations (Philadelphia). But any East Coast city is going to be the same, as are rust belt cities. I don't have much in the way of personal experience with the West Coast, except for San Francisco - and that was pretty terrible 10 years ago anyway.
The younger kids aren't nearly as fazed by it - you see integrated groups of younger people walking around all the time now. There is a lot of hope for the future, but until the old people all die racism is going to continue to be a problem. Remember that the people who were keeping the status quo alive and well during Jim Crow are still alive. We get reminded that these people still wield influence whenever they open their bigotedmouths.
And it isn't just cliche racism, where white men with some influence are screwing minorities. Look at the way Democratic strategists are using race to fire up their supporters. Look at the way race is used to fire up the immigration debate on both sides. These tactics simply would not be effective if race were not a huge factor in our society.
I agree that veggie dishes can be tasty. I even thing that, because of my wife's belief that all "real" meals must contain meat, I personally eat way too much of it. I've had some vegetarian Indian dishes that blew me away.
But bacon is good. Steak is good. Burgers are good. No one needs these things, of course, but you can't deny that these things are delicious to a whole lot of people.
If we expand to animal products, you would destroy some of my very favorite meals - my absolute favorite breakfast is two eggs, sunny side up, home fries, side of bacon and rye toast with a coffee and OJ. Bacon, butter, and eggs.
Cost: Americans spend less on their food than just about any other country on the planet. Cost is not an issue. Health: Most of us would probably get more bang for our buck by exercising, cutting out processed foods, and putting down the booze. Sustainability: As an individual, any choice I make will affect everyone else - but not in the way you think. I cut out meat, it just gets slightly cheaper for those who do not. Perhaps if we had some kind of collective action it would be effective, but this individual stuff is just feel-good nonsense. Ethical: I hear you guys. The arguments are sound and rational, but ultimately appeal to emotions. They just do nothing for me. I'm just not very empathetic of livestock. To me, eating a cow is no different emotionally than killing a house mouse. Maybe better, since I'm actually using the cow.
have yet to meet a person who switched and didn't FEEL much better afterwards.
I find this to be true of any choice people make. Otherwise their choice would be a poor one and they would feel stupid. Basic human nature.
Our recycling truck has that, but they just got it last year and they can't use it on the narrow streets in the township. It's a recent development, and it let them reduce the workforce - not exactly an opportunity for all those educated women to line up for trash jobs:)
There are simply too many factors outside of race including access to meeting people for it to be about race or any hangups on race.
So the fact that the rate has gone from 2% to 8% is explained how exactly? Look, if the marriage data existed in a vacuum I might agree with you, but there are so many other data points that it is ridiculous for us to be arguing about this. Race is still a major issue in this country.
They only see people who are sick. I'm suggesting that, perhaps, he's feeling a bit jaded towards the extremely aged because he's witnessing them in sickness and death and not - for instance - when they are playing with their great-grandchildren or celebrating their 90th birthday.
I humbly submit that, being in the healthcare field, you are seeing a higher concentration of misery than exists in the population-at-large. Just like an ER doctor in NY would assume that taxi cabs are the single largest cause of death and injury in the world.
Lol . So someone who is married to the same race is a bigot?
What in the world? No. But if 30% of your potential mates are non-white and only 2% of your marriages are mixed, that is a pretty strong statistic to indicate that a large number of people are considering race as a factor is selection of their partner. It says nothing about an individual marriage.
There has been a lot of progress, though. New marriages are about 8% inter-racial.
That is gross profit - net profits are not fantastic. Their COGS is very low, but they spent a fortune on infrastructure using debt. Now they have to pay to service the debt and they have very little to show for all of the infrastructure improvement. If the infrastructure is still good once the debt is paid off, they will then be rolling in it.
IMHO this is a symptom of a larger problem, where we allow the government to lobby itself by creating fictitious entities (e.g. the limited liability corporation, unions). I don't see this as very much different from letting the IRS lobby, and in fact it might be worse - since at least we have direct authority over the IRS.
How do I figure? If only 2% of white marriages are mixed-race in a country that is roughly 30% non-white, well - then we still have a race hangup. That is nowhere near a random distribution.
This I agree with. I feel that most people approach politics similar to the way they approach sports. Arguing with a card-carrying Democrat/Republican is no different than arguing with a rabid Bears fan.
Slashdot Mirror
If you take all that old stuff apart, little of it looks very hard to manufacture. And that's if you need to... most can probably be reconditioned or simply acquired from spares. Injection molded plastic will certainly get brittle, but making new 70s-era injection molded parts is not rocket science... if you even need them to be injection molded plastic. Machinable or rapid prototyped materials probably would work just fine. Remember that they don't need consumer-level cost effectiveness here.
Yes, but if cars last longer then the used market becomes a more viable option as well. An 8% move in price vs 3x longevity is still a win.
If that really becomes a problem, we could always make sure the car makes sure you get enough "hours" each year. Then again, we have the technology to measure reaction time at start time and don't do it today. But this isn't a tech problem.
To be fair, though - the bar for an automated car is pretty low in the snow. So many morons.
You can buy a Q50 right now that - with the right options - will stay in a lane on a highway all by itself, steering as necessary and keeping a safe distance behind the car in front. Yeah, it's not a "self driving car" because it only handles one relatively easy scenario, but the fact that this is in a mass-market vehicle makes me believe that we are not so far as you seem to imply.
Your analysis is simplistic and does not consider what he did with the cash instead. Using money financed at 1.7% to pay down debt financed at 3.5% will indeed result in a positive improvement in cash flow.
8% is not a huge move?
Not when you consider that the car lasts 3x as long, requires less maintenance, is 3x safer (by deaths per passenger mile), gets better mileage, and spews a lot less lead and smog into the air.
A "piece of shit" car like a Versa is better than almost any car available in 1974, and costs less than 1 year at minimum wage. You can expect at least 150,000 miles of useful life from the Versa with little maintenance, it gets good mileage, doesn't spew lead and smog into the air, and it has antilock brakes, airbags, and crumple zones.
"Some" is a word with very little precision. Your slashdot ID is pretty low, so I suspect you know enough people over 40 that you should see fairly widespread racism. I live in a little island of relative racial harmony in a city with terrible race relations (Philadelphia). But any East Coast city is going to be the same, as are rust belt cities. I don't have much in the way of personal experience with the West Coast, except for San Francisco - and that was pretty terrible 10 years ago anyway.
The younger kids aren't nearly as fazed by it - you see integrated groups of younger people walking around all the time now. There is a lot of hope for the future, but until the old people all die racism is going to continue to be a problem. Remember that the people who were keeping the status quo alive and well during Jim Crow are still alive. We get reminded that these people still wield influence whenever they open their bigoted mouths.
And it isn't just cliche racism, where white men with some influence are screwing minorities. Look at the way Democratic strategists are using race to fire up their supporters. Look at the way race is used to fire up the immigration debate on both sides. These tactics simply would not be effective if race were not a huge factor in our society.
Before I go crazy with links, I want to be clear: are you claiming that the USA does not have a problem with racial bias?
I agree that veggie dishes can be tasty. I even thing that, because of my wife's belief that all "real" meals must contain meat, I personally eat way too much of it. I've had some vegetarian Indian dishes that blew me away.
But bacon is good. Steak is good. Burgers are good. No one needs these things, of course, but you can't deny that these things are delicious to a whole lot of people.
If we expand to animal products, you would destroy some of my very favorite meals - my absolute favorite breakfast is two eggs, sunny side up, home fries, side of bacon and rye toast with a coffee and OJ. Bacon, butter, and eggs.
Cost: Americans spend less on their food than just about any other country on the planet. Cost is not an issue.
Health: Most of us would probably get more bang for our buck by exercising, cutting out processed foods, and putting down the booze.
Sustainability: As an individual, any choice I make will affect everyone else - but not in the way you think. I cut out meat, it just gets slightly cheaper for those who do not. Perhaps if we had some kind of collective action it would be effective, but this individual stuff is just feel-good nonsense.
Ethical: I hear you guys. The arguments are sound and rational, but ultimately appeal to emotions. They just do nothing for me. I'm just not very empathetic of livestock. To me, eating a cow is no different emotionally than killing a house mouse. Maybe better, since I'm actually using the cow.
have yet to meet a person who switched and didn't FEEL much better afterwards.
I find this to be true of any choice people make. Otherwise their choice would be a poor one and they would feel stupid. Basic human nature.
Nice, so I don't eat animals because I only cook up the bacon.
I think he meant that if you "recreate meat", you are likely to recreate most of its health problems as well.
If you live somewhere towards the end of the Mississippi River (or other rivers, for that matter), this is already happening.
Our recycling truck has that, but they just got it last year and they can't use it on the narrow streets in the township. It's a recent development, and it let them reduce the workforce - not exactly an opportunity for all those educated women to line up for trash jobs :)
There are simply too many factors outside of race including access to meeting people for it to be about race or any hangups on race.
So the fact that the rate has gone from 2% to 8% is explained how exactly? Look, if the marriage data existed in a vacuum I might agree with you, but there are so many other data points that it is ridiculous for us to be arguing about this. Race is still a major issue in this country.
The Venn diagram for "WOMAN" && "STRONG" && "NO EDUCATION" is smaller than the same for "MAN". Women tend to be more educated and weaker.
Educated and physically weak happen to align well with the stereotype of tech nerds.
They only see people who are sick. I'm suggesting that, perhaps, he's feeling a bit jaded towards the extremely aged because he's witnessing them in sickness and death and not - for instance - when they are playing with their great-grandchildren or celebrating their 90th birthday.
I humbly submit that, being in the healthcare field, you are seeing a higher concentration of misery than exists in the population-at-large. Just like an ER doctor in NY would assume that taxi cabs are the single largest cause of death and injury in the world.
Lol . So someone who is married to the same race is a bigot?
What in the world? No. But if 30% of your potential mates are non-white and only 2% of your marriages are mixed, that is a pretty strong statistic to indicate that a large number of people are considering race as a factor is selection of their partner. It says nothing about an individual marriage.
There has been a lot of progress, though. New marriages are about 8% inter-racial.
Right but if you are financing the expansion you will need more than 3 years to pay it off.
That is gross profit - net profits are not fantastic. Their COGS is very low, but they spent a fortune on infrastructure using debt. Now they have to pay to service the debt and they have very little to show for all of the infrastructure improvement. If the infrastructure is still good once the debt is paid off, they will then be rolling in it.
IMHO this is a symptom of a larger problem, where we allow the government to lobby itself by creating fictitious entities (e.g. the limited liability corporation, unions). I don't see this as very much different from letting the IRS lobby, and in fact it might be worse - since at least we have direct authority over the IRS.
How do I figure? If only 2% of white marriages are mixed-race in a country that is roughly 30% non-white, well - then we still have a race hangup. That is nowhere near a random distribution.
This I agree with. I feel that most people approach politics similar to the way they approach sports. Arguing with a card-carrying Democrat/Republican is no different than arguing with a rabid Bears fan.