Then everything can be like it was in the 50s, when there was no government.
If I remember correctly, the US government as a percentage of GDP was significantly smaller in the 50s than today, and most of today's regulatory agencies did not exist.
Do you want to explain how a company can plan years into the future when the EPA can declare tomorrow that oxygen is a pollutant? Where the Fed can cut interest rates to 0% or raise them to 10%? Where Congress can pass a new minimum wage or new tax that makes your business model unsustainable?
Even the Glorious People's Soviet Five Year Plans rarely worked and there they controlled the plan, the country and the fiddled statistics used to prove they were a success.
Tobacco consumption in Ontario went down when increased taxes lead to high per-pack costs.
Isn't that just because they started buying cigarettes from America instead? I know cigarette smuggling from cheaper countries in mainland Europe was big in the UK a few years back, even to the extent of competing gang members murdering each other.
Other than India's change from a British colony to a sovereign nation, you mean? Are you serious?
India was going to become a sovereign nation regardless; the British couldn't afford it and the Indians wanted them gone. Gandhi's main 'success' was in bringing that forward a few years as a chaotic withdrawal where I believe around a million Indians died, instead of a peaceful handover of power.
I don't see how these children of privilege won't get burned to the ground along with the Church of Mammon should the actual revolution come.
The left have a phrase for these kind of people: 'useful idiots'. They're the ones the leaders send out to get beaten and shot before they take over and impose their totalitarian state on the survivors.
You have far to much faith in the system. As long as this massive inequity exists these protests will continue. As long as these protests continue those in power will become increasingly forceful in suppression of freedom.
Well, indeed. Because the longer these 'protests' continue, the lower the Democrats' vote will be in the next election.
The funny part is that the OWS hippies are protesting because they want to impose the very kind of government which rolls tanks over protestors like that.
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made.
Where?
You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
Oil companies grew to love 'Global Warmnig' when they realised it makes oil more attractive than coal.
After all, that's why Margaret Thatcher pushed it in the first place; it was another stick to beat the coal mining unions with.
I salute you, mythical IT-worker who manages to get an overclocked computer work-approved.
Who said it was approved? In a previous job a friend inherited a computer from someone who'd left and never understood why it would crash every few days and hit bugs that no-one else seemed to see until he looked in the BIOS and discovered the previous user had overclocked it.
I've never understood why America is working so hard to install Islamic governments throughout the Middle East either. I can only presume it's so they can immanentize the eschaton so the Christian nutters will be raptured away.
By ignoring the sanctions, you are making their life a little less difficult.
Back in the real world, 'sanctions' normally have two results:
1. They make the leaders rich as they control the supply of essential goods to the population. 2. They make the population hate the 'sanctioners' more than they hate their government.
Sure, but few people were going to switch from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows on their desktop system for those.
There was no physical need for 64-bit x86 desktop CPUs until we ran out of usable address space and Microsoft said 'no, we're not supporting PAE on the desktop'.
As a desktop user, the reason I'm willing to stick with AMD is their performance per watt.
Uh, isn't Bulldozer both slower and more power-hungry than comparable Intel CPUs? I know AMD couldn't come close to my i5 system when I built it a few months ago.
I believe it was AMD that came out with a working 64-bit processor release about the time EVERYONE was saying there was not a need.
Intel wasn't saying there was no need, they were saying, 'Pah, x86 sucks, you don't want a 64-bit x86, you want our shiny new Itanium, which is much better (plus we don't have to compete with AMD anymore)'. Similarly, I believe Sun, MIPS, etc already had 64-bit CPUs at that time.
And, arguably, the AMD64 CPUs were a solution in search of a problem for the first few years; they were good in servers, but there was no real need for 64-bit desktop systems until 2008-2010 when they regularly started hitting 4GB RAM limits.
As cool as self-driving tech is, am I the only who is struck by the absurd decadence of continuing to plough resources into energy-intensive individual transport?
Yes.
Public transport sucks and will always suck unless it's so pervasive that it's using vastly more fuel than individual cars. When I lived in the UK I'd regularly see buses that only carried one person (i.e. the driver) and trains that were dragging a dozen carriages behind them with perhaps one person in each.
To not suck, public transport has to run numerous routes every few minutes, and inevitably most of those vehicles will be empty. Hence it will either suck or be insanely inefficient. Plus you'll probably have to be groped by the TSA to get on board.
Let's see. For that to be possible, I would have to be picked up from where I am to go directly to where I want to go at any time of my choosing, with plenty of luggage space and with only the people I want to travel with.
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Then everything can be like it was in the 50s, when there was no government.
If I remember correctly, the US government as a percentage of GDP was significantly smaller in the 50s than today, and most of today's regulatory agencies did not exist.
Do you want to explain how a company can plan years into the future when the EPA can declare tomorrow that oxygen is a pollutant? Where the Fed can cut interest rates to 0% or raise them to 10%? Where Congress can pass a new minimum wage or new tax that makes your business model unsustainable?
Even the Glorious People's Soviet Five Year Plans rarely worked and there they controlled the plan, the country and the fiddled statistics used to prove they were a success.
Tobacco consumption in Ontario went down when increased taxes lead to high per-pack costs.
Isn't that just because they started buying cigarettes from America instead? I know cigarette smuggling from cheaper countries in mainland Europe was big in the UK a few years back, even to the extent of competing gang members murdering each other.
You don't have to put up with any of this "it's their content, they should be able to exclude you" kind of nonsense.
Except it's probably infested with DRM. This is one reason why I still buy more DVDs than Blu-Rays, since DVD DRM is pretty much dead.
You can watch the entire runs of shows like Battlestar Galactica (original AND new, even 1980)
If Netflix are relying on Battlestar Galactica 1980 as a way to draw in customers, that explains why they're doing so badly :).
Other than India's change from a British colony to a sovereign nation, you mean? Are you serious?
India was going to become a sovereign nation regardless; the British couldn't afford it and the Indians wanted them gone. Gandhi's main 'success' was in bringing that forward a few years as a chaotic withdrawal where I believe around a million Indians died, instead of a peaceful handover of power.
I don't see how these children of privilege won't get burned to the ground along with the Church of Mammon should the actual revolution come.
The left have a phrase for these kind of people: 'useful idiots'. They're the ones the leaders send out to get beaten and shot before they take over and impose their totalitarian state on the survivors.
In what way is OWS not part of the 99%? You're claiming the hippies are the top 1% earners in America?
No, they're the 1% of dedicated Marxists in America.
YOU are also part of the 99%. those folks are fighting for YOU, you suburban twit.
He is part of the 99%. The OWS hippies aren't, which is why they have to keep claiming that they are.
You have far to much faith in the system. As long as this massive inequity exists these protests will continue. As long as these protests continue those in power will become increasingly forceful in suppression of freedom.
Well, indeed. Because the longer these 'protests' continue, the lower the Democrats' vote will be in the next election.
The funny part is that the OWS hippies are protesting because they want to impose the very kind of government which rolls tanks over protestors like that.
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made.
Where?
You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
Oil companies grew to love 'Global Warmnig' when they realised it makes oil more attractive than coal.
After all, that's why Margaret Thatcher pushed it in the first place; it was another stick to beat the coal mining unions with.
A lot of deniers think the world was created exactly as it is now about 6000 years ago. The idea that climate has changed is heretical.
You are talking about the Hockey Stick crew, I presume?
I salute you, mythical IT-worker who manages to get an overclocked computer work-approved.
Who said it was approved? In a previous job a friend inherited a computer from someone who'd left and never understood why it would crash every few days and hit bugs that no-one else seemed to see until he looked in the BIOS and discovered the previous user had overclocked it.
We are not talking about 'essential goods', we are talking about web hosting for the Syrian government.
Yeah, and? If sanctions against essential goods rarely work, why do you think sanctions against non-essential goods will work?
I've never understood why America is working so hard to install Islamic governments throughout the Middle East either. I can only presume it's so they can immanentize the eschaton so the Christian nutters will be raptured away.
By ignoring the sanctions, you are making their life a little less difficult.
Back in the real world, 'sanctions' normally have two results:
1. They make the leaders rich as they control the supply of essential goods to the population.
2. They make the population hate the 'sanctioners' more than they hate their government.
Do you not understand what sanctions are for or how they work?
Sanctions work?
Sure, but few people were going to switch from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows on their desktop system for those.
There was no physical need for 64-bit x86 desktop CPUs until we ran out of usable address space and Microsoft said 'no, we're not supporting PAE on the desktop'.
As a desktop user, the reason I'm willing to stick with AMD is their performance per watt.
Uh, isn't Bulldozer both slower and more power-hungry than comparable Intel CPUs? I know AMD couldn't come close to my i5 system when I built it a few months ago.
Consider me sold. It's like a cluster array in the bedroom, without having to worry about the networking headache.
Plus you won't need any heating in the winter.
I believe it was AMD that came out with a working 64-bit processor release about the time EVERYONE was saying there was not a need.
Intel wasn't saying there was no need, they were saying, 'Pah, x86 sucks, you don't want a 64-bit x86, you want our shiny new Itanium, which is much better (plus we don't have to compete with AMD anymore)'. Similarly, I believe Sun, MIPS, etc already had 64-bit CPUs at that time.
And, arguably, the AMD64 CPUs were a solution in search of a problem for the first few years; they were good in servers, but there was no real need for 64-bit desktop systems until 2008-2010 when they regularly started hitting 4GB RAM limits.
As cool as self-driving tech is, am I the only who is struck by the absurd decadence of continuing to plough resources into energy-intensive individual transport?
Yes.
Public transport sucks and will always suck unless it's so pervasive that it's using vastly more fuel than individual cars. When I lived in the UK I'd regularly see buses that only carried one person (i.e. the driver) and trains that were dragging a dozen carriages behind them with perhaps one person in each.
To not suck, public transport has to run numerous routes every few minutes, and inevitably most of those vehicles will be empty. Hence it will either suck or be insanely inefficient. Plus you'll probably have to be groped by the TSA to get on board.
There will also be a compulsory random speed variation so you can get a speeding ticket every year or so.
The point is, these deaths easily be avoided.
No they can't, or we would have avoided them already.
That, or a better public transportation system.
Let's see. For that to be possible, I would have to be picked up from where I am to go directly to where I want to go at any time of my choosing, with plenty of luggage space and with only the people I want to travel with.
Oh, rather like a self-driving car.