Lucky bastard. There are some in my house that are that old, but some only last 6 months. Outdoors, lifetimes are embarrassing. There is a GE bulb that I am having success with outdoors, probably because the bulb has a plastic cover over the coiled CFL bulb. The problem is that when I buy them at Target, they aren't built in the same place and don't say that they are outdoor rated. Buy the "same" bulb at Walgreens and it is outdoor rated and manufactured in a different place.
Rather than the electronics manufacturers engineering in planned obsolecense
There is no reason to "engineer in" obsolecense. Mobile tech is moving so quickly that things become obsolete all by themselves. And I'd wager that the average smartphone meets it's maker in a drop or splash, not from a bad solder connection.
I think we are closer than you suppose. While I would prefer free trade, I recognize it as an unattainable ideal - labor can never be as mobile as capital and goods. As a result, I feel there should be tariffs for goods and taxes on capital movements. But I feel like it should be done in a market-oriented way, instead of the traditional bribe-your-congressman manner.
Of course this will never happen because it violates nearly every free trade agreement ever conceived, but hey.
No, that their prices aren't that low - only their wages. As a result they spend more on basics like food and cooking fuel and have less to spend on stupid shit, like we do. Naturally, it will cost less to go out to dinner in a shanty town in Bangalore than it will anywhere in the US, but that's not a huge quality-of-life issue. A clothes washing machine costs about 1/5 of the median Indian income. The same washer costs about 1/200 of the median US income. That's a huge quality of life issue... not too many Americans doing laundry by hand. A crappy 50cc motor scooter costs close to half the median income in India, and only about 1% of an Americans. That's a major quality of life issue.
Now put protective tariffs on the clothes washer. Put protective tariffs on the motor scooter. All of the sudden, every single person in the US has to pay more to get the same quality of life. And for what? To save a few thousand uncompetitive jobs at a motor scooter factory? A few thousand uncompetitive jobs at a washing machine factory? This is why I lean towards free trade, though as I stated before I recognize the flaws in ripping open the trade door without considering employment.
So except for the thing that's responsible for most costs, things aren't cheaper.
Wanna guess how much the average third-worlder spends on food compared to "labor"? In India, perhaps the most relevant example, it is 35%. In the US, it is under 7%.
If you are a resident of Dehli, your spending breaks down like this on average: Food: 36% Cooking fuel: 8% Clothing and bedding: 6% Education: 9% Medical Treatment: 2% Rent: 7%
Only Medicine, Education, and Rent are likely to be significantly cheaper than they are in the developed world. And India is known for fuel subsidies, so possibly cooking fuel as well - but one could then say the same thing about education in the US, where public school is "free".
Anyway, it's pretty clear when you look at their spending pattern why the standard of living is not as high in the third world, despite lower labor costs. People in the US have a huge amount of disposable income compared to people in India - both as a percentage and as an absolute figure.
Don't focus too much on apples. I used those as an example, but any labor-intensive good that ships easily would be an example. Agriculture is a unintentional experiment in the US. It is one sector that has been less subject to wage regulation, and it also happens to be pretty darned competitive globally. That is not a coincidence.
My original point was that linking illegal labor and micro-gigging is silly, but we've gone off the rails a bit:)
That's only true if you ignore the fact that a large portion of our non-regulated, low-income workers are foreign and here illegally. Micro-gigging is just the same thing, except that the work isn't location-dependent and so legality is not an issue...
Actually, now that you have me thinking about it, micro-gigging still does not satisfy true free trade. The goods are digital and freely moved. The capital is freely moved. The labor is location-neutral, and so on the surface should not be a factor, but the truth is that it is not easy for an American to go set up a life in Bangalore where he can afford to make a living micro-gigging. Fact is, it will almost always be more expensive to move the labor than the goods or capital.
Except for the labor, things are not generally cheaper in the third world. Food and energy is either subject to global market forces or subsidized by the government.
We have free flow of goods, and free flow of capital, but not free flow of labor. I can't easily move to Mexico to work, and Mexicans cannot easily move here to work. Thus, if you want to grow apples in the US with it's artificially high wages you will get stomped out of the market by the free-trade apples from China. Our solution thus far has been to exempt apple picking from minimum wage laws, while simultaneously kind of winking at immigration from Mexico and Latin America.
I tend to favor free trade, since I think protecting a few workers at the expense of higher prices for everyone else amounts to a tax and subsidy. On the other hand, you need to account for the imbalance caused by the inherent difficulty of labor movement. There is probably a compromise that could be found - some attempt to price the imbalance into the movement of capital and goods. You might even be able to do this with markets, similar to how things are done in pollution control markets. Only instead of trading sulfur emissions credits, you could trade man-hours.
I have a fax number for the increasingly-small volume of faxes I need to send (and less frequently, receive) for the reasons you describe. Even then, my faxes go out and are received via email. I imagine there are niche users who use faxes all the time, but there is no question that overall volume is declining in favor of internet-based systems.
Yup, educating 300 million people is not a simple exercise.
For a democracy, you need to at least have some base level of history and critical thinking skills. Add a basic level of logic and causal analysis provided by math and science and I think you have a good start.
Well, you can't just leave a missile in a silo for 5 decades and expect it to still work. Anyway, the mission has changed for ICBMs. There are far fewer, so the individual missiles must be more accurate and more reliable.
Among other things, yes. The more educated the populace, the more likely they will be to see through the bullshit and not simply vote for the guy who promises them the most free stuff.
Even if you can't haul in that last 25 or 30%, you still need a critical mass of people who are somewhat educated or your democracy will turn into Venezuela.
Now here is where your choice affects me: if the internet-dependent console is successful, others will probably copy the model. In addition, the attention of game developers will be drawn towards it instead of competing consoles. Therefore, it is completely rational and logical for me to advocate my preference and try to get persuade you to see the merit in it. Your choice can indeed be a problem for me.
Slashdot Mirror
Lucky bastard. There are some in my house that are that old, but some only last 6 months. Outdoors, lifetimes are embarrassing. There is a GE bulb that I am having success with outdoors, probably because the bulb has a plastic cover over the coiled CFL bulb. The problem is that when I buy them at Target, they aren't built in the same place and don't say that they are outdoor rated. Buy the "same" bulb at Walgreens and it is outdoor rated and manufactured in a different place.
Rather than the electronics manufacturers engineering in planned obsolecense
There is no reason to "engineer in" obsolecense. Mobile tech is moving so quickly that things become obsolete all by themselves. And I'd wager that the average smartphone meets it's maker in a drop or splash, not from a bad solder connection.
...all in the midst of a glut in capacity in the semiconductor industry.
I think we are closer than you suppose. While I would prefer free trade, I recognize it as an unattainable ideal - labor can never be as mobile as capital and goods. As a result, I feel there should be tariffs for goods and taxes on capital movements. But I feel like it should be done in a market-oriented way, instead of the traditional bribe-your-congressman manner.
Of course this will never happen because it violates nearly every free trade agreement ever conceived, but hey.
No, that their prices aren't that low - only their wages. As a result they spend more on basics like food and cooking fuel and have less to spend on stupid shit, like we do. Naturally, it will cost less to go out to dinner in a shanty town in Bangalore than it will anywhere in the US, but that's not a huge quality-of-life issue. A clothes washing machine costs about 1/5 of the median Indian income. The same washer costs about 1/200 of the median US income. That's a huge quality of life issue... not too many Americans doing laundry by hand. A crappy 50cc motor scooter costs close to half the median income in India, and only about 1% of an Americans. That's a major quality of life issue.
Now put protective tariffs on the clothes washer. Put protective tariffs on the motor scooter. All of the sudden, every single person in the US has to pay more to get the same quality of life. And for what? To save a few thousand uncompetitive jobs at a motor scooter factory? A few thousand uncompetitive jobs at a washing machine factory? This is why I lean towards free trade, though as I stated before I recognize the flaws in ripping open the trade door without considering employment.
So except for the thing that's responsible for most costs, things aren't cheaper.
Wanna guess how much the average third-worlder spends on food compared to "labor"? In India, perhaps the most relevant example, it is 35%. In the US, it is under 7%.
If you are a resident of Dehli, your spending breaks down like this on average:
Food: 36%
Cooking fuel: 8%
Clothing and bedding: 6%
Education: 9%
Medical Treatment: 2%
Rent: 7%
Only Medicine, Education, and Rent are likely to be significantly cheaper than they are in the developed world. And India is known for fuel subsidies, so possibly cooking fuel as well - but one could then say the same thing about education in the US, where public school is "free".
Anyway, it's pretty clear when you look at their spending pattern why the standard of living is not as high in the third world, despite lower labor costs. People in the US have a huge amount of disposable income compared to people in India - both as a percentage and as an absolute figure.
Don't focus too much on apples. I used those as an example, but any labor-intensive good that ships easily would be an example. Agriculture is a unintentional experiment in the US. It is one sector that has been less subject to wage regulation, and it also happens to be pretty darned competitive globally. That is not a coincidence.
My original point was that linking illegal labor and micro-gigging is silly, but we've gone off the rails a bit :)
That's only true if you ignore the fact that a large portion of our non-regulated, low-income workers are foreign and here illegally. Micro-gigging is just the same thing, except that the work isn't location-dependent and so legality is not an issue...
Actually, now that you have me thinking about it, micro-gigging still does not satisfy true free trade. The goods are digital and freely moved. The capital is freely moved. The labor is location-neutral, and so on the surface should not be a factor, but the truth is that it is not easy for an American to go set up a life in Bangalore where he can afford to make a living micro-gigging. Fact is, it will almost always be more expensive to move the labor than the goods or capital.
Except for the labor, things are not generally cheaper in the third world. Food and energy is either subject to global market forces or subsidized by the government.
We have free flow of goods, and free flow of capital, but not free flow of labor. I can't easily move to Mexico to work, and Mexicans cannot easily move here to work. Thus, if you want to grow apples in the US with it's artificially high wages you will get stomped out of the market by the free-trade apples from China. Our solution thus far has been to exempt apple picking from minimum wage laws, while simultaneously kind of winking at immigration from Mexico and Latin America.
I tend to favor free trade, since I think protecting a few workers at the expense of higher prices for everyone else amounts to a tax and subsidy. On the other hand, you need to account for the imbalance caused by the inherent difficulty of labor movement. There is probably a compromise that could be found - some attempt to price the imbalance into the movement of capital and goods. You might even be able to do this with markets, similar to how things are done in pollution control markets. Only instead of trading sulfur emissions credits, you could trade man-hours.
I have a fax number for the increasingly-small volume of faxes I need to send (and less frequently, receive) for the reasons you describe. Even then, my faxes go out and are received via email. I imagine there are niche users who use faxes all the time, but there is no question that overall volume is declining in favor of internet-based systems.
It rather depends on the yield.
Yup, educating 300 million people is not a simple exercise.
For a democracy, you need to at least have some base level of history and critical thinking skills. Add a basic level of logic and causal analysis provided by math and science and I think you have a good start.
Well, you can't just leave a missile in a silo for 5 decades and expect it to still work. Anyway, the mission has changed for ICBMs. There are far fewer, so the individual missiles must be more accurate and more reliable.
Even now, Lockheed scientists are working full 8-hour days in a crash plan to develop a fat-seeking missile.
Their testing is slowed by the need to find a test site well away from a Wal-Mart.
Among other things, yes. The more educated the populace, the more likely they will be to see through the bullshit and not simply vote for the guy who promises them the most free stuff.
I'm not particularly troubled. The transition from lead-acid to NiCd followed a similar trajectory.
Ivory? Are you mad? My tower is made from bitcoins.
Also, once they get a few miles out, they can open up the slot machines.
Even if you can't haul in that last 25 or 30%, you still need a critical mass of people who are somewhat educated or your democracy will turn into Venezuela.
Agreed - that is what I meant.
You put a big paddle wheel off the back and run generators with it.
Sometimes you have to suck it up and submit to the majority even if they are dumbasses.
That's why education is so important.
Or else... :)
Heh, that if only it were that easy.
Now here is where your choice affects me: if the internet-dependent console is successful, others will probably copy the model. In addition, the attention of game developers will be drawn towards it instead of competing consoles. Therefore, it is completely rational and logical for me to advocate my preference and try to get persuade you to see the merit in it. Your choice can indeed be a problem for me.
I thought about going for the first "woosh", but I'll leave it for another :)