That is absolutely true regarding EnergyStar. However, regulations requiring EnergyStar compliance at worst might slightly increase the cost of the appliance or device. A regulation "abolishing" planned obsolescence is likely to have unintended consequences.
I get that 50 or 100 years ago planned obsolescence would have been almost unquestionably wrong. However, technology moves much faster today. Forcing companies to provide very long term support for long outdated technologies will decidedly tilt the playing field in favor large players at the expense of small innovative companies.
I find it interesting, since the EU tends to favor the little guy over the big guy in business/commerce. This regulation favors the big guy in order to "help" the consumer. (I put "help" in quotes since I do not think it will actually be as helpful to consumers as the regulators think it will be.)
What we have now is an oversupply of labor. Supply and demand is a two way street, but it's tough to get folks to acknowledge that because nobody like to think of themselves as a simple commodity. We're all precious, irreplaceable snowflakes.
I think you are slightly off the mark here. What we have is suboptimal distribution of labor. We have a huge oversupply of unskilled labor and well educated laborers without a specific skill set (think liberal arts majors), while we have a severe shortage of highly skilled laborers (doctors, airline pilots, engineers) and a moderate shortage of skilled trades (construction, electrical, plumbing, steelworkers, welders, etc.).
The reason for the shortage of highly skilled professionals is because of market distortions (e.g., prohibitive cost of malpractice insurance for doctors, or abysmal pay and terrible work/life balance of practically all pilots who don't fly long haul international) and for the shortage of skilled trades the reason is that for the last 30 plus years every kid has been told "you have to go to college to get ahead unless you want to end up with a crappy job as an electrician or construction worker." It turns out that those jobs pay reasonably well and a plumber who gains sufficient experience and starts his or her own business would not have much trouble netting six figures. But that is seen as an "undesirable" occupation.
It doesn't help that there's a small group at the top (math majors, surgeons, top athletes) who are. There's a lot of folks who don't want to see those productivity gains distributed more equitably because it's a point of pride for them. At least that's the only explanation I've come up with why so many oppose things like single payer healthcare.
I'm afraid you lost me here. Also, what does single payer healthcare have to do with any of this? Could you explain?
Then again I've also noticed a lot of those single payer healthcare opponents qualify for Medicare and/or the VA....
Well, those programs aren't freebies. For Medicare, you are forced to pay into it your entire working life and for VA medical care it is a benefit given in exchange for military service. Most jobs in the military are rather underpaid when compared to their civilian equivalents, which is part of why military veteran benefits are as generous as they are. That and being constantly deployed and away from your family sucks.
Now, if you don't like Medicare benefits or the benefits offered to veterans, you are free to lobby to reduce or remove them.
It sounds like they need something like an Institutional Review Board, but geared more towards the ethics of the project objectives and the potential applications of the technology in question.
It is probably not a bad thing for any very influential company in the tech space to consider.
You are right on point. I had to chuckle at the School officials worry that rising tuition and soaring loan balances part of the summary. It is obvious that the only reason that tuition has gone up is because there is more money available (in the form of federally subsidized grants and loans, among other thing). Else, why would the cost of tuition grow so much fast than inflation?
Seriously, most universities are not paying their faculty more money, but they are hiring loads more administrators (look at the numbers and you will see that the faculty:administrator ratio has been approaching 1:1 for quite some time). They are also spending like crazy on lots of non-education related things, like very nice recreational facilities. Not to say that those things aren't needed, but clearly if people have money and are willing to pay, you have to provide an incentive that gets them to enroll at your school. This is also why schools love international and out-of-state students (they pay higher tuition).
I'm sorry, but if school officials were really worried about the rising cost of tuition, they would have implemented measures long ago to keep it in check. Instead, all they cared about was vacuuming up as much of that federal money as they possibly could.
Hang on here, has it occurred to you that capitalism has caused this?
Capitalism causes consumerism in the same way that a woman's choice of attire causes sexual harassment and that a blown out tire causes pot holes on the road. That is, it doesn't.
I think you're conflating two different groups of people here. The poor can't afford BMWs or overseas vacations.
You are conflating two different groups of people. The poor cannot afford BMWs or overseas vacations, but plenty of middle class people (lower middle class and straight up middle class) live paycheck to paycheck because they choose to. They take out home equity loans to consolidate debt and promptly load up the credit cards again, so now they have the mortgage, the home equity debt, and the credit cards again. Or worse, they take out a loan to pay for a vacation (I am stunned how often people do this).
Buying things you cannot afford is almost uniquely a middle class problem. The poor people I know make do with less. The middle class people I know get what they want because they want it and they have credit, so why not?
And when the economy inevitable crashes again because companies are hugely overvalued (especially all the advertising, er, um, "tech" companies) , those retirement savings will be wiped out and the government won't have the money to make up for it.
That is part of why investing carries risk. First, diversify. Nobody forces you to invest in stocks. Second, if you are concerned about the stock markets, then invest in commodities, real estate, or any of another of instruments that are not tied to the stock market. Again, it is a matter of personal choice.
Have to work until we drop dead, poor the whole time?
Not at all. Work, live beneath your means, save, and retire comfortably at a time of your choosing.
And in any case, starting your own business doesn't make the slice of the pie any bigger-it stays they same, the only thing that changes is how a big a bite you get to take.
I don't doubt that you are an intelligent and skilled individual, but your statement makes it yet more clear that you do not understand how the economy works. If the economy grows, through innovation, investment, etc., then the whole pie does get bigger and with that the opportunity for everybody's slice to get bigger as well.
The problem with having the only chance to succeed come through becoming one of the 1% is what happens to the other 99%.
You don't have to become part of the 1%. You just have to look for opportunity and be ready and willing to act. None of the entrepreneurs I know are in the 1%. Yet, they are doing great things, employing people (and paying them excellent wages, I might add), growing the local economy, and in general growing the size of the pie.
And there is no mechanism to prevent the owners of production from gaining ever more profit and accumulating the benefits of that profit, nor to keep them from desiring to do so.
That mechanism exists. It is called consumer choice. It can roughly be stated as, "don't by stuff you don't need."
Unchecked capitalism is as bad for the economy as unabashed communism.
This is flat out wrong.
Eventually a significant portion of those profits have to filter back down to everyone else, yet instead more and more of it is being hoarded by companies and individuals.
You clearly do not understand how the economy works. Yes, there are a small number of corporations and extraordinarily wealthy individuals/families at the top of the income/asset heap. However, the vast majority of the capital in the economy is the retirement savings of individuals and groups (i.e., individual retirement accounts and pension funds). In 2012, total estimated retirement plan assets in the US were $23.7 trillion. When the economy grows, the millions of current and future retirees invested in those plans benefit from the growth, as will the small number of corporations and individuals/families with very large assets. However, the fact remains that a large portion of those profits are already filtering down to regular people in the form of dividends and capital gains in retirement assets.
Without a natural mechanism to distribute those profits, government must and has an obligation to step in.
We have a natural mechanism to distribute those profits: entrepreneurial spirit. I have the privilege to know quite a few entrepreneurs. They are doing some great things. I made a run at it and decided it isn't for me yet. So, I can't on the one hand say "I am unwilling to take the risk of starting my own business" and then on the other say "how come I don't get the same profits as those who are willing take risks?" If the government steps it, it creates a disincentive to innovate.
What I find intensely ironic is that things like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on arose out of one person or a small group doing something daring. They should be rewarded for their ingenuity, acumen, and for the risk they took. If you want profit, go do something daring.
Or young people see the generation before them loaded with debt and unable to afford to purchase a house, see a political ruling class that does not care about them, and see companies making record profits and all the money going to an increasingly smaller percentage of the population and are realizing "yep, the system's broken".
And everything you describe is a symptom of consumerism, not capitalism.
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
Granted, in a capitalist system, the private owners of the means of production would like to promote consumerism, as it helps ensure their increasing profits. However, the root problem is that too many people feel like they have to own the latest iPhone and iPad or Samsung Galaxy phone and Galaxy tab (as soon as it comes out each year) as well as drive a new Mercedes or BMW, go on an overseas vacation every year, and go out to eat with friends every night when they are in their 20s and early 30s. When young adults spend 110% of their earnings and don't start saving for retirement until around age 40, of course we are going to end up with the state of things we see now.
That is not to say that there aren't people with real legitimate financial hardships. However, for every one person I see with real hardship resulting from a debilitating medical condition, or family situation that inhibits earning potential, I see at least half a dozen or more who are in a financial quagmire resulting form their own lifestyle choices.
Fix that nonsense by properly educating people about sound personal financial management principles, and most of the other things you describe will fix themselves as a result.
There's a lot of intentionally provocative/trollish bills california congress - which actually have weak effects, and are mostly pushing for industries to self-regulate, and are NOT actually expected to pass, but reach compromise.
If it isn't expected to pass, then why was the largest committee tally of "noes" only 2 votes and why did it pass the floor vote with 66% "yeas" of those who voted and 56% "yeas" if include the non-votes? Don't believe me? Then see for yourself.
That doesn't seem like something that has no chance of passing. It is has a chance at passing and as a result a chance of being profoundly damaging.
Wait a minute. I'm Hispanic. Where is the law that requires companies to have at least one Hispanic on their board? Why does the California legislature hate me?
First, you are clearly biased against religion, which is your right. However, the logic you apply here would also apply to any instance where money changes hand and for which there is not a tangible good provided in exchange. So, donating to your local public broadcasting station, the Red Cross, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Wikimedia, EFF, etc. are all exactly the same thing. The solicitor of the donation claims to provide some intangible to benefit to the donor. Sometimes that intangible benefit appeals to the self-interest of the donor (like the EFF working toward better laws around technology or Wikimedia stewarding Wikipedia) and other times it appeals to the donors sense of altruism (like Big Brothers and Big Sisters helping disadvantaged children or the Red Cross providing disaster relief).
The reason these are no different than the televangelist example you trolled with are that in just about every case the organizations in questions have been found to engage in wasteful or fraudulent behavior at one time or another. (The EFF is the only one of which I am not aware, but that doesn't mean it has not happened.)
So, if you want to prohibit every televangelist from soliciting donations because of a few high profile abuses, then you would also need to prohibit every charitable organization from soliciting donations because there have been more than a few high profile abuses there as well.
In any event, the news flash here is that organizations made up of people sometimes reflect the flawed nature of the people that make them up. Hint: this is not really a news flash.
I want someone to be in charge of building my house that understand enough about wood, concrete and plumbing to safely fuse the different work, without it falling apart next year.
That person is called a general contractor, the construction equivalent of a project manager. Of course, you don't expect that person to set the roof trusses one day, run the electrical the next day, and then figure out why the main train to the setpic tank backed up the following day. Yet, that is the equivalent of what is expected of "full stack developers."
And when I have surgery on my foot, and the surgeon spots a rupturing blood vessel, I want him to be able to deal and not have to put me on ice while attempting to find someone who knows something about veins.
I think the ability of the surgeon to deal with depends on a variety of factors. In some cases it might be likely that the surgeon could handle it on the spot, like if the surgeon is a vascular surgeon, and in other cases it might be less likely the surgeon could handle it on the spot. In any event, I would expect surgeons to have at least basic training in recognizing and even to a certain extent dealing with situations that might arise in the normal course of their work.
A strong base with branching out into special areas is what I want to see. Not specialists who have no fundamental knowledge, unskilled labor who fall apart when instructions don't match reality, nor generalists that are so general that they can't actually do anything.
I think I did not communicate myself well. The "full stack developer" postings I see and positions I hear people talk about are roughly the equivalent of "must be master-level skill in UI, back-end, algorithm performance, architecture design, (and so on for half a dozen other areas of expertise), must have 10+ years experience in each of those areas, and we will pay $50-75k". That sort of thing is just unrealistic. A good programmer I think can be expected to be really good at one major area of development for every ~10 years as a professional programmer, so to find someone that has excellent skills in three major areas would require 30 years programming experience. That is not at all the expectation of anyone I have heard of go looking for a "full stack developer".
Agree on the 'full stack' craze, I also rail against the common mantra that you should use whatever programming language is best designed for the particular task... I tend to stick to the languages I know well rather than jump around. I know that I will probably suck if I switch languages outside the 2 or 3 I already know...
When I was fresh out of school, I would choose languages/technologies like this:
What is best for the job (i.e., in absolute terms)?
What is cool that I want to try out?
These days, some number of years later, I do something like this:
What language is the existing system written in?
What language is best known by the development team?
What language provides a stable long term platform for development?
What languages project good integration points that work best to meet customer expectations?
What languages do I know well?
What good stable language has some cool updated features influenced by the gaggle of new languages out there?
The point is that most projects work on existing systems and as I have matured as a programmer I have come to realize that the existing system has to dictate a fair amount about the development choices. That doesn't mean you can't fix problems, but it does mean that scrapping for a complete rewrite is almost universally a bad idea (Spolsky has written about this and how it effectively sunk Netscape).
In any event, if there is no existing project and no existing team, pick whatever works best in absolute terms. That just isn't a good idea in an established project.
I don't get why the notion of "full stack developer" is such a big deal. I mean, do people go to build a home and say, "I want an 'all trades craftsman'."? Or do people go looking for a doctor and say, "I want an 'all specialties surgeon'."?
Of course not. Certainly there are people in every skilled profession who could be classified as generalists. They can probably handle most small things that are not very highly specialized and, if they are good at their profession, they know when something is outside of their skillset and can provide a link to a specialist that can handle it.
I am not saying that we should make technology and programming more difficult than they need to be. But, let's face it, there is a tremendous amount of knowledge, skill, and experience one must acquire in order to be a good programmer. It is very difficult to acquire all of that for what would qualify as "full stack."
I think it was Stroustrup (or maybe Dijkstra), speaking on the idea of making programming "easier" so more people could be programmers with far less training and education, who said something to the effect of "I wouldn't want a surgeon operating on me who only had 6 weeks of training."
... mouth-to-mouth to try and create a market nobody asked for.
It is actually worse than that.
Every time that I read something about BitCoin or any other crypto-currency it is clear that the "currency" part of it (technically described as "proof of work") is nothing more than "proof I was able to most efficiently turn a quantity of electricity into waste heat."
Given that how far we yet have to go to achieve worldwide sustainable energy production, I find it odd (hypocritical, even?) that so many socially conscious companies and organizations now effectively encourage people to waste electricity.
I get that not every occupation makes the same contribution to society, but generating crypto-currency has to rank near the bottom by producing effectively zero net benefit. Even a grave digger at the end of the day has performed a service for someone else.
Something was clearly different this time around. When it first went on sale in 2016, it was actually impossible to get one anywhere. Even Amazon had problems with their site, as I recall.
This time I expected to again miss out. I woke up and had breakfast the day it went on sale back in June and then I decided to check out a few retailers just to see if there was a possibility to grab one. I managed to snag one (at the MSRP, not some absurd scalping rate) from BestBuy via their website.
Most of the games I remember fondly. But Final Fantasy and Zelda are to me even better than I remember and better than just about anything else I've even looked at in the last 20 years.
Because that's how our system of government works. Last I checked Congress hadn't regulated cafeterias within corporate buildings and so that ability to do so devolves, first to States, and then on down the chain of command there.
I am not making a value judgment on SF choosing to regulate corporate cafeterias. If they want to let them. The voters there in SF can decide if they like it or not. While it is true that Congress has not regulated cafeterias at the federal level, they do regulate immigration. So, in the way that a company operating in SF is a constituent of SF and subject to the applicable laws and regulations, SF is a constituent of the United States and subject to the applicable laws and regulations. In this case, Congress has constitutional authority to pass legislation related to immigration and the executive branch has a constitutional authority and responsibility to enforce those laws. The position that SF (and other local and state governments) take of obstructing the enforcement of those laws is just that: obstruction. I suspect that if a company in SF denied enforcement officials access to their corporate campus on humanitarian grounds, SF city officials will not be amused.
As far as firearms related incidents, there are plenty of incidents where the perpetrators should not have had access to firearms in the first place. The Texas church shooting, Florida Parkland school shooting, and Sandy Hook all showed a breakdown of federal procedures and/or law enforcement. To say nothing of the recent terrorist-connected shooting in Canada (a country with much stronger gun regulation than the US).
All that said, it is not wise to continue piling on laws and regulations when we have loads of laws and regulations that are not being enforced. Start by enforcing the laws and regulations we have and then lets see if we need more.
If you just want to make calls, be a hotspot, and have GPS, get a flipphone. The battery lasts days.
I usually get 5-7 days of battery life before I have to charge. Occasionally it will drop to 2-3 if I am on the road a lot using GPS and/or hotspot continually. I find that the smaller phone does just fine with the smaller batter. Those bigger phones with bigger batteries have to use it all to power the bigger screen.
"This is not against these folks, it's for them. It's to integrate them into the community."
Interesting concept. Perhaps we could try that with immigrants. See if we can get people who immigrate to the United States to respect the laws, learn the language, and integrate into the culture and society.
What? That's ridiculous and shows no respect for the immigrants? Why is it OK to force a company (a voluntary association of people) to respect the laws but not actual individuals? How come cities like SF like to think that they can thumb their noses at federal laws they don't like and then turn around and brow beat companies (and, indirectly, tax-paying citizens) with their own local laws? Will they applaud when those companies stand up to the inhumane overreach of the city government in the same way the city has stood up to the federal government?
Not really. Trump has tweeted opposition to lots of things, say illegal immigration. His tweets left no doubt in anybody's mind that he was opposed to it. On this subject he said, "that doesn't make sense." That is not opposition. That is hedging. After all, he is a business man and has become a politician. He is waiting to see which way things go in terms of public opinion and more specifically with his supporters.
Which if you ask me kind of lets the cat out of the bag on the NRA's purpose. They're not a gun rights lobby, they're a gun manufacturers lobby.
I do not see how the two are incompatible. In fact, manufacturers are likely aware that if they oppose things like 3D printed firearms, they will anger their customers. The same way that Starbucks kicking out the two black men (in Philadelphia, I think) angered lots of their customers even though it has nothing at all to do with their product. Yet, their customers expect the company to act a certain way. Gun owners would be the same way and would not take kindly to gun manufacturers opposing 3D printed firearms. Besides, those are not really competition for them.
And I don't see them taking kindly to the prospect of just anyone being able to manufacture their own firearms. Yeah, yeah, I know, you can barely shoot 5 rounds before it's ready for the junk heap. But give it 20 years and we'll see. And industry lobbies definitely think long term.
In general, companies would rather that their customers not have the option to switch away. Even health insurers (hello Obamacare, until the risk pools were gutted) and teachers unions (school vouchers == bad) are the same way. The difference is every body has to have healthcare (it's the law) and for the most part you don't get a choice of school for your kids. Firearms are totally discretionary for practically every individual who owns them, so the gun manufacturers cannot be as obnoxious as the teachers unions and health insurers.
Slashdot Mirror
That is absolutely true regarding EnergyStar. However, regulations requiring EnergyStar compliance at worst might slightly increase the cost of the appliance or device. A regulation "abolishing" planned obsolescence is likely to have unintended consequences.
I get that 50 or 100 years ago planned obsolescence would have been almost unquestionably wrong. However, technology moves much faster today. Forcing companies to provide very long term support for long outdated technologies will decidedly tilt the playing field in favor large players at the expense of small innovative companies.
I find it interesting, since the EU tends to favor the little guy over the big guy in business/commerce. This regulation favors the big guy in order to "help" the consumer. (I put "help" in quotes since I do not think it will actually be as helpful to consumers as the regulators think it will be.)
What we have now is an oversupply of labor. Supply and demand is a two way street, but it's tough to get folks to acknowledge that because nobody like to think of themselves as a simple commodity. We're all precious, irreplaceable snowflakes.
I think you are slightly off the mark here. What we have is suboptimal distribution of labor. We have a huge oversupply of unskilled labor and well educated laborers without a specific skill set (think liberal arts majors), while we have a severe shortage of highly skilled laborers (doctors, airline pilots, engineers) and a moderate shortage of skilled trades (construction, electrical, plumbing, steelworkers, welders, etc.).
The reason for the shortage of highly skilled professionals is because of market distortions (e.g., prohibitive cost of malpractice insurance for doctors, or abysmal pay and terrible work/life balance of practically all pilots who don't fly long haul international) and for the shortage of skilled trades the reason is that for the last 30 plus years every kid has been told "you have to go to college to get ahead unless you want to end up with a crappy job as an electrician or construction worker." It turns out that those jobs pay reasonably well and a plumber who gains sufficient experience and starts his or her own business would not have much trouble netting six figures. But that is seen as an "undesirable" occupation.
It doesn't help that there's a small group at the top (math majors, surgeons, top athletes) who are. There's a lot of folks who don't want to see those productivity gains distributed more equitably because it's a point of pride for them. At least that's the only explanation I've come up with why so many oppose things like single payer healthcare.
I'm afraid you lost me here. Also, what does single payer healthcare have to do with any of this? Could you explain?
Then again I've also noticed a lot of those single payer healthcare opponents qualify for Medicare and/or the VA....
Well, those programs aren't freebies. For Medicare, you are forced to pay into it your entire working life and for VA medical care it is a benefit given in exchange for military service. Most jobs in the military are rather underpaid when compared to their civilian equivalents, which is part of why military veteran benefits are as generous as they are. That and being constantly deployed and away from your family sucks.
Now, if you don't like Medicare benefits or the benefits offered to veterans, you are free to lobby to reduce or remove them.
It sounds like they need something like an Institutional Review Board, but geared more towards the ethics of the project objectives and the potential applications of the technology in question.
It is probably not a bad thing for any very influential company in the tech space to consider.
Yup. 2008 called and wants their headlines back.
You are right on point. I had to chuckle at the School officials worry that rising tuition and soaring loan balances part of the summary. It is obvious that the only reason that tuition has gone up is because there is more money available (in the form of federally subsidized grants and loans, among other thing). Else, why would the cost of tuition grow so much fast than inflation?
Seriously, most universities are not paying their faculty more money, but they are hiring loads more administrators (look at the numbers and you will see that the faculty:administrator ratio has been approaching 1:1 for quite some time). They are also spending like crazy on lots of non-education related things, like very nice recreational facilities. Not to say that those things aren't needed, but clearly if people have money and are willing to pay, you have to provide an incentive that gets them to enroll at your school. This is also why schools love international and out-of-state students (they pay higher tuition).
I'm sorry, but if school officials were really worried about the rising cost of tuition, they would have implemented measures long ago to keep it in check. Instead, all they cared about was vacuuming up as much of that federal money as they possibly could.
Department of Human Assistance
Alert: I have officially found a new name for the "helpdesk".
Hang on here, has it occurred to you that capitalism has caused this?
Capitalism causes consumerism in the same way that a woman's choice of attire causes sexual harassment and that a blown out tire causes pot holes on the road. That is, it doesn't.
I think you're conflating two different groups of people here. The poor can't afford BMWs or overseas vacations.
You are conflating two different groups of people. The poor cannot afford BMWs or overseas vacations, but plenty of middle class people (lower middle class and straight up middle class) live paycheck to paycheck because they choose to. They take out home equity loans to consolidate debt and promptly load up the credit cards again, so now they have the mortgage, the home equity debt, and the credit cards again. Or worse, they take out a loan to pay for a vacation (I am stunned how often people do this).
Buying things you cannot afford is almost uniquely a middle class problem. The poor people I know make do with less. The middle class people I know get what they want because they want it and they have credit, so why not?
And when the economy inevitable crashes again because companies are hugely overvalued (especially all the advertising, er, um, "tech" companies) , those retirement savings will be wiped out and the government won't have the money to make up for it.
That is part of why investing carries risk. First, diversify. Nobody forces you to invest in stocks. Second, if you are concerned about the stock markets, then invest in commodities, real estate, or any of another of instruments that are not tied to the stock market. Again, it is a matter of personal choice.
Have to work until we drop dead, poor the whole time?
Not at all. Work, live beneath your means, save, and retire comfortably at a time of your choosing.
And in any case, starting your own business doesn't make the slice of the pie any bigger-it stays they same, the only thing that changes is how a big a bite you get to take.
I don't doubt that you are an intelligent and skilled individual, but your statement makes it yet more clear that you do not understand how the economy works. If the economy grows, through innovation, investment, etc., then the whole pie does get bigger and with that the opportunity for everybody's slice to get bigger as well.
The problem with having the only chance to succeed come through becoming one of the 1% is what happens to the other 99%.
You don't have to become part of the 1%. You just have to look for opportunity and be ready and willing to act. None of the entrepreneurs I know are in the 1%. Yet, they are doing great things, employing people (and paying them excellent wages, I might add), growing the local economy, and in general growing the size of the pie.
And there is no mechanism to prevent the owners of production from gaining ever more profit and accumulating the benefits of that profit, nor to keep them from desiring to do so.
That mechanism exists. It is called consumer choice. It can roughly be stated as, "don't by stuff you don't need."
Unchecked capitalism is as bad for the economy as unabashed communism.
This is flat out wrong.
Eventually a significant portion of those profits have to filter back down to everyone else, yet instead more and more of it is being hoarded by companies and individuals.
You clearly do not understand how the economy works. Yes, there are a small number of corporations and extraordinarily wealthy individuals/families at the top of the income/asset heap. However, the vast majority of the capital in the economy is the retirement savings of individuals and groups (i.e., individual retirement accounts and pension funds). In 2012, total estimated retirement plan assets in the US were $23.7 trillion. When the economy grows, the millions of current and future retirees invested in those plans benefit from the growth, as will the small number of corporations and individuals/families with very large assets. However, the fact remains that a large portion of those profits are already filtering down to regular people in the form of dividends and capital gains in retirement assets.
Without a natural mechanism to distribute those profits, government must and has an obligation to step in.
We have a natural mechanism to distribute those profits: entrepreneurial spirit. I have the privilege to know quite a few entrepreneurs. They are doing some great things. I made a run at it and decided it isn't for me yet. So, I can't on the one hand say "I am unwilling to take the risk of starting my own business" and then on the other say "how come I don't get the same profits as those who are willing take risks?" If the government steps it, it creates a disincentive to innovate.
What I find intensely ironic is that things like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on arose out of one person or a small group doing something daring. They should be rewarded for their ingenuity, acumen, and for the risk they took. If you want profit, go do something daring.
Or young people see the generation before them loaded with debt and unable to afford to purchase a house, see a political ruling class that does not care about them, and see companies making record profits and all the money going to an increasingly smaller percentage of the population and are realizing "yep, the system's broken".
And everything you describe is a symptom of consumerism, not capitalism.
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
Granted, in a capitalist system, the private owners of the means of production would like to promote consumerism, as it helps ensure their increasing profits. However, the root problem is that too many people feel like they have to own the latest iPhone and iPad or Samsung Galaxy phone and Galaxy tab (as soon as it comes out each year) as well as drive a new Mercedes or BMW, go on an overseas vacation every year, and go out to eat with friends every night when they are in their 20s and early 30s. When young adults spend 110% of their earnings and don't start saving for retirement until around age 40, of course we are going to end up with the state of things we see now.
That is not to say that there aren't people with real legitimate financial hardships. However, for every one person I see with real hardship resulting from a debilitating medical condition, or family situation that inhibits earning potential, I see at least half a dozen or more who are in a financial quagmire resulting form their own lifestyle choices.
Fix that nonsense by properly educating people about sound personal financial management principles, and most of the other things you describe will fix themselves as a result.
There's a lot of intentionally provocative/trollish bills california congress - which actually have weak effects, and are mostly pushing for industries to self-regulate, and are NOT actually expected to pass, but reach compromise.
If it isn't expected to pass, then why was the largest committee tally of "noes" only 2 votes and why did it pass the floor vote with 66% "yeas" of those who voted and 56% "yeas" if include the non-votes? Don't believe me? Then see for yourself.
That doesn't seem like something that has no chance of passing. It is has a chance at passing and as a result a chance of being profoundly damaging.
Wait a minute. I'm Hispanic. Where is the law that requires companies to have at least one Hispanic on their board? Why does the California legislature hate me?
You troll with some skill here.
First, you are clearly biased against religion, which is your right. However, the logic you apply here would also apply to any instance where money changes hand and for which there is not a tangible good provided in exchange. So, donating to your local public broadcasting station, the Red Cross, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Wikimedia, EFF, etc. are all exactly the same thing. The solicitor of the donation claims to provide some intangible to benefit to the donor. Sometimes that intangible benefit appeals to the self-interest of the donor (like the EFF working toward better laws around technology or Wikimedia stewarding Wikipedia) and other times it appeals to the donors sense of altruism (like Big Brothers and Big Sisters helping disadvantaged children or the Red Cross providing disaster relief).
The reason these are no different than the televangelist example you trolled with are that in just about every case the organizations in questions have been found to engage in wasteful or fraudulent behavior at one time or another. (The EFF is the only one of which I am not aware, but that doesn't mean it has not happened.)
So, if you want to prohibit every televangelist from soliciting donations because of a few high profile abuses, then you would also need to prohibit every charitable organization from soliciting donations because there have been more than a few high profile abuses there as well.
In any event, the news flash here is that organizations made up of people sometimes reflect the flawed nature of the people that make them up. Hint: this is not really a news flash.
I want someone to be in charge of building my house that understand enough about wood, concrete and plumbing to safely fuse the different work, without it falling apart next year.
That person is called a general contractor, the construction equivalent of a project manager. Of course, you don't expect that person to set the roof trusses one day, run the electrical the next day, and then figure out why the main train to the setpic tank backed up the following day. Yet, that is the equivalent of what is expected of "full stack developers."
And when I have surgery on my foot, and the surgeon spots a rupturing blood vessel, I want him to be able to deal and not have to put me on ice while attempting to find someone who knows something about veins.
I think the ability of the surgeon to deal with depends on a variety of factors. In some cases it might be likely that the surgeon could handle it on the spot, like if the surgeon is a vascular surgeon, and in other cases it might be less likely the surgeon could handle it on the spot. In any event, I would expect surgeons to have at least basic training in recognizing and even to a certain extent dealing with situations that might arise in the normal course of their work.
A strong base with branching out into special areas is what I want to see. Not specialists who have no fundamental knowledge, unskilled labor who fall apart when instructions don't match reality, nor generalists that are so general that they can't actually do anything.
I think I did not communicate myself well. The "full stack developer" postings I see and positions I hear people talk about are roughly the equivalent of "must be master-level skill in UI, back-end, algorithm performance, architecture design, (and so on for half a dozen other areas of expertise), must have 10+ years experience in each of those areas, and we will pay $50-75k". That sort of thing is just unrealistic. A good programmer I think can be expected to be really good at one major area of development for every ~10 years as a professional programmer, so to find someone that has excellent skills in three major areas would require 30 years programming experience. That is not at all the expectation of anyone I have heard of go looking for a "full stack developer".
Agree on the 'full stack' craze, I also rail against the common mantra that you should use whatever programming language is best designed for the particular task... I tend to stick to the languages I know well rather than jump around. I know that I will probably suck if I switch languages outside the 2 or 3 I already know...
When I was fresh out of school, I would choose languages/technologies like this:
These days, some number of years later, I do something like this:
The point is that most projects work on existing systems and as I have matured as a programmer I have come to realize that the existing system has to dictate a fair amount about the development choices. That doesn't mean you can't fix problems, but it does mean that scrapping for a complete rewrite is almost universally a bad idea (Spolsky has written about this and how it effectively sunk Netscape).
In any event, if there is no existing project and no existing team, pick whatever works best in absolute terms. That just isn't a good idea in an established project.
I don't get why the notion of "full stack developer" is such a big deal. I mean, do people go to build a home and say, "I want an 'all trades craftsman'."? Or do people go looking for a doctor and say, "I want an 'all specialties surgeon'."?
Of course not. Certainly there are people in every skilled profession who could be classified as generalists. They can probably handle most small things that are not very highly specialized and, if they are good at their profession, they know when something is outside of their skillset and can provide a link to a specialist that can handle it.
I am not saying that we should make technology and programming more difficult than they need to be. But, let's face it, there is a tremendous amount of knowledge, skill, and experience one must acquire in order to be a good programmer. It is very difficult to acquire all of that for what would qualify as "full stack."
I think it was Stroustrup (or maybe Dijkstra), speaking on the idea of making programming "easier" so more people could be programmers with far less training and education, who said something to the effect of "I wouldn't want a surgeon operating on me who only had 6 weeks of training."
... mouth-to-mouth to try and create a market nobody asked for.
It is actually worse than that.
Every time that I read something about BitCoin or any other crypto-currency it is clear that the "currency" part of it (technically described as "proof of work") is nothing more than "proof I was able to most efficiently turn a quantity of electricity into waste heat."
Given that how far we yet have to go to achieve worldwide sustainable energy production, I find it odd (hypocritical, even?) that so many socially conscious companies and organizations now effectively encourage people to waste electricity.
I get that not every occupation makes the same contribution to society, but generating crypto-currency has to rank near the bottom by producing effectively zero net benefit. Even a grave digger at the end of the day has performed a service for someone else.
Something was clearly different this time around. When it first went on sale in 2016, it was actually impossible to get one anywhere. Even Amazon had problems with their site, as I recall.
This time I expected to again miss out. I woke up and had breakfast the day it went on sale back in June and then I decided to check out a few retailers just to see if there was a possibility to grab one. I managed to snag one (at the MSRP, not some absurd scalping rate) from BestBuy via their website.
Most of the games I remember fondly. But Final Fantasy and Zelda are to me even better than I remember and better than just about anything else I've even looked at in the last 20 years.
Because that's how our system of government works. Last I checked Congress hadn't regulated cafeterias within corporate buildings and so that ability to do so devolves, first to States, and then on down the chain of command there.
I am not making a value judgment on SF choosing to regulate corporate cafeterias. If they want to let them. The voters there in SF can decide if they like it or not. While it is true that Congress has not regulated cafeterias at the federal level, they do regulate immigration. So, in the way that a company operating in SF is a constituent of SF and subject to the applicable laws and regulations, SF is a constituent of the United States and subject to the applicable laws and regulations. In this case, Congress has constitutional authority to pass legislation related to immigration and the executive branch has a constitutional authority and responsibility to enforce those laws. The position that SF (and other local and state governments) take of obstructing the enforcement of those laws is just that: obstruction. I suspect that if a company in SF denied enforcement officials access to their corporate campus on humanitarian grounds, SF city officials will not be amused.
I get where you are coming from. However, people intent on doing harm will do harm even without firearms. In just recent memory that I can recall there was a stabbing attack at a nursing home in Japan (19 dead, 26 injured), a sword attack in Sweden (3 dead not counting the attacker, 1 injured), and the truck attack at Ohio State (11 to 13 injured, depending on how you count).
As far as firearms related incidents, there are plenty of incidents where the perpetrators should not have had access to firearms in the first place. The Texas church shooting, Florida Parkland school shooting, and Sandy Hook all showed a breakdown of federal procedures and/or law enforcement. To say nothing of the recent terrorist-connected shooting in Canada (a country with much stronger gun regulation than the US).
All that said, it is not wise to continue piling on laws and regulations when we have loads of laws and regulations that are not being enforced. Start by enforcing the laws and regulations we have and then lets see if we need more.
If you just want to make calls, be a hotspot, and have GPS, get a flipphone. The battery lasts days.
I usually get 5-7 days of battery life before I have to charge. Occasionally it will drop to 2-3 if I am on the road a lot using GPS and/or hotspot continually. I find that the smaller phone does just fine with the smaller batter. Those bigger phones with bigger batteries have to use it all to power the bigger screen.
"This is not against these folks, it's for them. It's to integrate them into the community."
Interesting concept. Perhaps we could try that with immigrants. See if we can get people who immigrate to the United States to respect the laws, learn the language, and integrate into the culture and society.
What? That's ridiculous and shows no respect for the immigrants? Why is it OK to force a company (a voluntary association of people) to respect the laws but not actual individuals? How come cities like SF like to think that they can thumb their noses at federal laws they don't like and then turn around and brow beat companies (and, indirectly, tax-paying citizens) with their own local laws? Will they applaud when those companies stand up to the inhumane overreach of the city government in the same way the city has stood up to the federal government?
Trump tweeted opposition to 3D printed guns
Not really. Trump has tweeted opposition to lots of things, say illegal immigration. His tweets left no doubt in anybody's mind that he was opposed to it. On this subject he said, "that doesn't make sense." That is not opposition. That is hedging. After all, he is a business man and has become a politician. He is waiting to see which way things go in terms of public opinion and more specifically with his supporters.
Which if you ask me kind of lets the cat out of the bag on the NRA's purpose. They're not a gun rights lobby, they're a gun manufacturers lobby.
I do not see how the two are incompatible. In fact, manufacturers are likely aware that if they oppose things like 3D printed firearms, they will anger their customers. The same way that Starbucks kicking out the two black men (in Philadelphia, I think) angered lots of their customers even though it has nothing at all to do with their product. Yet, their customers expect the company to act a certain way. Gun owners would be the same way and would not take kindly to gun manufacturers opposing 3D printed firearms. Besides, those are not really competition for them.
And I don't see them taking kindly to the prospect of just anyone being able to manufacture their own firearms. Yeah, yeah, I know, you can barely shoot 5 rounds before it's ready for the junk heap. But give it 20 years and we'll see. And industry lobbies definitely think long term.
In general, companies would rather that their customers not have the option to switch away. Even health insurers (hello Obamacare, until the risk pools were gutted) and teachers unions (school vouchers == bad) are the same way. The difference is every body has to have healthcare (it's the law) and for the most part you don't get a choice of school for your kids. Firearms are totally discretionary for practically every individual who owns them, so the gun manufacturers cannot be as obnoxious as the teachers unions and health insurers.
Those words were written in US News and World Report more than 23 years ago about the investigation into Phil Zimmerman for having given away PGP.
And...I forgot the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20130616165334/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/950403/archive_010975.htm