Only to a point. I'm willing to bet that very few criminals ever go through the hassle of pulling off credit card fraud once
Sure, for a single $250 charge, there's very little benefit. But if that person may be doing it with ten different cards. And that person may be willing to name an accomplice, or reveal the hole they are using to get names and numbers. Chances are, they'd be saving a lot more than just $250.
Hell, can you imagine the PR on the commercials by getting their customer to talk about how the credit card company rode in like an avenging angel and smote the identity thief who made them feel scared, and unsafe? How many hours the customer spent changing credit card numbers, and trying to clean up their credit rating? And how the credit card company was willing to do this over a simple $50 charge?
Supposing you could switch providers to protect your privacy, would you be able to make sure your calls aren't routed over infrastructure owned by Verizon?
And would you be able to make sure none of the people you call aren't Verizon customers?
Of course, if you go along that route, and empower a corporation with the rights of the CEO, you would also need to impart onto the CEO the responsibilities of the corporation. Suddenly the CEO's of tobacco companies would be defending themselves in court for negligent homicide, rather than just having shareholders annoyed at the dip in stock price following cash settlements.
I'm willing to bet this is a road most corporate executives don't want to go down.
That's a strange characterization. Skip lists have virtually no theoretical properties to recommend them. They achieve the same bounds as balanced binary search trees, but only in the randomized model. In practice, though, they are great. They are both faster and simpler than, say, red-black trees. I agree that nobody uses them, but as far as I can tell, that's a failure in people, not a failure in skip lists.
You misread my statement. "I've never had a real-world application for them beyond job-interview brainteasers" states that I have never used them, not that I doubt them to have uses.
I'm not going to take the time to read the patent itself, but just an FYI on your comment, multi-list cells can be considered triply-linked lists. Useful for replacing sparsely populated two-dimensional arrays. Or skip lists, which are rather nifty, though I've never had a real-world application for them beyond job-interview brainteasers.
Hrm, I wonder if there's anything else patentable in my old Data Structures and Algorithms class notes...
At my current job, sharing the same taste in video games, books, etc. and a relaxed work environment. As such, I started to consider my boss a friend. I'm pretty sure it cut both ways.
Unfortunately, his snarky comments in several consecutive meetings almost made me quit in a spectacular, unprofessional, obscenity-laden fashion. I was absolutely furious with him, but when viewed objectively, I couldn't tell why it was.
Finally I realized that had a friend made comments to that extent outside of work, I would have blasted him verbally, and gotten into a shouting match/argument. Obviously these are not options when the person in question is your boss, and the venue is a company-wide meeting. His position as my boss shackled me, even though he had no restrictions.
My job became much smoother when I reminded myself that, in the end, what we had was a business relationship. I was paid to take his snide comments in stride. Each time he said something like that, I weighed the comment against whether or not it crossed the threshhold of what I was willing to take. If it did, I would resign. If it did not, then he was my boss, and that was life. After that, a cool "Yes, sir." and brushing off what amounted to jokes lowered my blood-pressure, and made my work considerably more pleasant.
Be friends with your employers and coworkers, certainly. It's the best benefit in any job. But keeping an eye on the bottom line is just as important.
I believe the sentence refers to the fact that the US has to import so much of its energy. You and I as consumers couldn't care less, as it is a commodity. We just want the lights to come on when we flip a switch. But that's because the shortage was large enough that other sources of energy were brought in from outside the United States. Just because we're shielded from it doesn't mean it's not there.
Were there to be a major war, shutting down oil imports and other imports of energy (such as electricity from Canada, if I remember correctly) would do serious damage to our country, our economy, and our morale. Making ourselves totally self-reliant is silly from an economic standpoint, but switching over to sources of energy that can be bought from a larger number of supplying nations is a good thing. A handful of nations wouldn't be able to do serious damage to our finances if their leaders hiccup if we could just up our importation of electricity from solar from Mexico, or purchase ethanol from Brazil*.
[*] Yes, I'm aware that everything has it's drawbacks. My point is decoupling our energy needs from oil means more countries are able to compete for our energy dollar.
If you *DO* have it in writing, and they're still trying to screw you, *walk away*. They're still a company with way more money than you, and they probably have a legal department. The satisfaction you get out of winning a few dollars in a lawsuit are not worth the time & money you'll spend winning it.
I would strongly disagree with this statement. Even companies with legal departments have better things to spend their legal budget on then trying to defend themselves with the legal gymnastics necessary to get out of a written contract. It would be much cheaper, simpler, and quicker to give you a settlement based on your agreement not to discuss the settlement, and not to admit fault on their part.
In the days of blogs, and online communities like Slashdot, one seriously pissed off ex-employee can make a loud noise. Prospective hires researching the company they are interviewing with suddenly find claims that they do not meet their promises, written or otherwise. In addition, a reputation for not following through on a written contract will hurt even the biggest company with its customers. Would you trust a company to deliver X widgets by 2008 if they've weaseled out of previous written obligations?
The system can be abused. But cynicism about the abuses should never prevent people from defending themselves with legal recourse.
I had actually posted the same thing, and stand by the idea that it isn't possible to create a lightsaber-based game with control meeting the expectations of the people wanting it using the Wiimote. Having said that, a minigame in WarioWare did give acceptable sword play that I could see being extended into another game.
Basically the blocking/parrying is handled by the Wiimote's orientation projected onto the plane of the screen. Turning the Wiimote turned your wrist and allowed you to parry incoming slashes admirably. The minor rumble and "clang" sound from the controller was a nice touch to trick your mind into feeling an "impact".
You only had one chance to attack in the minigame, but an acceleration of the Wiimote gave a satisfying slash with good orientation lineup. I do not know how parrying or shield blocking could be simulated in a satisfying fashion.
Along the same lines, another minigame based around a single slash with a sword gave an idea of how the theoretical light-saber/sword game would track. An orientation vector was determined as you started to swing, and it was assumed that that vector continued. So the sword didn't track your hand exactly, but for purposes of a single swing, it handled the rapid movement of a fight well.
I wouldn't want a lightsaber game, but I'm hoping that a well-done sword game is attempted.
Never underestimate the level of security a manager can derive from knowing your kneecaps are only a twenty minute drive away from his baseball bat.
Joking aside, there is a premium companies are willing to pay for the familiarity of having a long term relationship with an employee which is regulated by laws and societal rules familiar to them. I'm not saying outsourcing-oriented nations and companies don't make a huge effort to reduce/eliminate problems, but if something goes wrong, trusting someone thousands of miles away to fix it, or knowing just how to pursue legal remedies if they won't, can be a jarring experience.
Eventually this will stop being an alien concept and the paths to take will be common knowledge and well documented. But until then, companies may find the hassle and risk worth the extra cash for local talent.
This method has the added bonus of allowing for easy upgrades as battery technology improves. Simply start putting the newer, better batteries into cars as they come for replacements, and start filtering out the old ones for recycling or what not.
All that would really be needed is size, shape, and interface standardization.
I doubt there is any way to avoid being a user of any road in a major city. Even if you don't drive on it. Your neighborhood Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and grocery store (or local equivalants) all depend on easy, low-cost transportation of goods. Ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, garbage trucks, and all manner of services that keep a city going depend on these roads, something that you benefit from even if you don't even own a car.
Having easy, cheap access to clean water keeps the community as a whole healthy, even if you bathe less than your neighbor. Yes, some people may fill swimming pools and over water their lawns, but in the end, you are still better off. I've never had my house broken into, but I certainly don't begrudge those who have my tax dollars for funding a police force.
The government is a valid consumer group, and one whose buying power allows cheap procurement of goods and services that would be prohibitively expensive if offered on an individual basis. Certain investments in infrastructure are what provide a reasonable society for other businesses to continue. I haven't decided on which side of the Net Neutrality divide I'm coming down on, but the idea that non-drivers are getting nothing in exchange for their tax dollars is just plain wrong.
I'm not entirely sure why so many people believe that hiring an American is somehow more virtuous than hiring a foreigner. Is it just thinly disguised racism?
I don't think that worrying about there being jobs available in your country is racist in any way, shape, or form. If someone wants to support companies that create larger numbers of American jobs, it's certainly a valid choice. It's simply self-interest.
I am pro-globalization, but I certainly am not going to accuse those who aren't of being closet racists. It does just as much damage to the debate as those people who scream about "lousy so-and-so's destroying our country"!
Yep, I've gotten relatively good at Wii Tennis. It's by far my favorite of the Wii Sports games. Especially when I don't have to worry about my guests jumping up and down on my damn couch*.
I think I phrased my boxing problem unclearly. I don't have a problem with how fast the fist travels forward. I have a problem with the number of punches I am able to throw in a given time. They may have toned it down on purpose to prevent people from winning by just swinging as fast as they could. But R-R-L combos only give me the punches I want about 90% of the time. That little bit of inaccuracy makes people swing faster and more frantically because they feel they can make up for the missing 10% by swinging faster. This causes even more inaccuracy and frustration. It may be game related, rather than controller related, as I don't think I've ever had my racket not swing in Wii Tennis. But Link has flubbed a few swipes as well, so I know it's not just boxing.
Not a terminal problem, mind you, but you do have to prevent yourself from doing the equivalant of button-mashing, or you'll just end up frustrated (and quite possibly a joke on YouTube). And it also boomerangs on games that treat a swing of the Wiimote as just another button press (Rampage: Total Destruction, I'm looking at you!)
The lightsaber game, however, I have to disagree with you on.
Wii Baseball (and in the same mold, Rayman's "get the marble through the maze" games) is good enough for baseball. Hold the Wiimote up, and your player holds his bat up. Any sort of swing will cause him to smack the ball. But if you try to precisely control the angle of the bat as you wait for the pitch, you'll find a disturbing disconnect between the angle you are holding the controller at and the orientation of the bat.
This disconnect is fine for baseball, but people's hopes and expectations for a lightsaber game would necessitate finer control. Think blocking blaster bolts with the lightsaber. Either the angle would have to be spot-on, or an AI would be needed, destroying the immersion the remote provides. And let's face it, people's expectations for Lucas to deliver are through the damn roof. A mediocre Star Wars game would be a blow to both them and Nintendo.
In short, I was expecting perfection in the tracking of the Wiimote. My expectations were unreasonable. Rayman more than Wii Sports convinced me that I had bet on the right horse. That's why I recommend people who don't warm immediately to Wii Sports try it out. They may come around like I did.
[*] Yes, YOU, James. You have a PhD now. I shouldn't have to tell you it's a bad idea.
<ul>underline this <b>this is bold *and* underlined</ul> this is only bold</b>.
I'm not trying to be an ass, but FYI the <ul> tag is unordered list, not underline.
I've not actually played a Wii game yet that's really convinced me of the controller's merits.
I feel your pain.
My first time through Wii Sports disappointed me as well, as I was expecting more than the controller could give. I had expected perfect tracking of the orientation of the Wiimote when it was not pointed at the screen (to make lightsaber games possible), faster response time to movement (a relatively low upper limit to how fast you can punch in Wii Boxing), as well as finer sensitivity to minute motions when it was required (short putts in Wii Golf show my frustration off perfectly). Rayman's Ravening Rabbids did a good job of using the controller in many ways, including a limited "on-rails" FPS that got me hooked. After I saw it's potential in RRR, I went back to Wii Sports and enjoyed the game a lot more.
In short, don't give up just yet. I've already gotten my $250 out of it. Now I'm just waiting for improved online support.
I doubt very much that police have the will or the resources to arrest everyone for everything. We're ALL guilty of something, after all.
Police states don't oppress their citizenry by locking everyone up. They oppress their citizenry by making sure everyone is guilty of breaking SOME law, so that select troublemakers can be arrested/pilloried/neutralized for causing trouble.
I don't think cameras in public squares comes anywhere near that, yet. But I would stress that the idea that everyone is guilty should not be looked at as a defense against increased government power.
Yes. It was something I was thinking about as I wrote the reply, and since I wrote it. But I'm not sure I agree with you on the result. To expand on our town-with-fiber-problems examble above:
In the short term "hands off" approach, the consumers get shafted. Coming up with a technology to compete with fiber (or in your example, cable) is a long process for development and rollout. Long periods with no competition causes the original cable company and the market as a whole to stagnate. No further investment on infrastructure, quality control, or customer service is needed, so the company doesn't make any. People could give up whatever service is being offered, sure, but once they do, any incoming company has to convince them that not only do they need the service that caused them so much trouble over the years, but that they won't be as bad as the old one.
With the government stepping in with the fiber, competition is immediate. While, admittedly, the tax-payer foots the bill for the infrastructure, they are given lower prices, and increasing quality and support as each company attempts to outdo the others to attract them. Companies would immediately need to innovate in order to show benefit over their competitors, and technological advancement would begin.
As for Satellite TV, WiMax, and Netflix, each of these technologies either provides something different or superior to what fiber offers, or it does not. If it does, then there will be a market for it anyway. If it does not, then the technology was, frankly, a waste of resources to develop*. If they do, then they will be developed anyway, and not just as a way to wedge themselves into the market. Innovation in the network infrastructure will continue, but at a slower rate than without governmental interference.
So as I said, governmental interference can greatly advance one market, while slowing down another. It is not something that should be undertaken lightly or often, but I just can't agree that it is always bad, or that it always slows the free market. Especially with the aforementioned benefits in dealing with externalities, informed citizenry, and problems that require solving before inertia renders them unavoidable.
Whether a government has the knowledge and foresight to intelligently use this ability is a different argument that I would have a hard time continuing for long, as the examples on both sides would quickly reduce it to a matter of opinion.
[*] Obviously, I'm not insinuating that satellite, Netflix, or WiMax weren't worth developing.
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying (namely the earlier poster's quibble about a singular free market). Unfortunately, I have problems with the details.
The government acts in the majority of cases as an aggragator of the people's will. Example: The majority of people want roads. It would be unreasonable for every person to go out and purchase roads on their own. Instead, the respresentatives of the majority take the money from many/all and get roads built. The government should not be discounted as a valid individual actor in market creation.
Laws and government intervention do tend to constrain markets. However, in many cases, government intervention/constraint in one market will enable free market principles to work better and faster in another. This is usually the case when raising or lowering the cost of entry into a market.
For example, in town X, a corporation runs fiber (or cable, telephone lines, what not) for the town, and sets up shop selling Internet access. The prices are high, and the quality is crap. People get angry and complain, and wish there was another option. Another company sees this market and considers entry to take advantage of the discontent. But to enter, they will have to pay $X upfront for running their own fiber, and have about half as many customers as the original company currently has, and will have to deal with prices plummetting as the competition would eventually cause. All but the larger national corporations would be effectively locked out, and the bigger ones would probably not see a big enough profit to bother.
The knee-jerk reaction of the government and those who want the problem solved would be to either force the first company to open up its lines to its competition (something that discourages infrastructure upgrades), or for the local government to provide internet access themselves (don't get me started). But if instead the town installed, provided, and owned the fiber infrastructure itself, it could then open for bidding any company that wished to provide service. Smaller, local companies would be able to compete in a previously in-accessable market. Better yet, the town could let individuals select their own plan rather than a single collective contract, so as to lower the chance of cronyism/corruption. In both cases, a market was opened up (internet access) at the cost of another market (privately owned fiber).
Government taxes and laws can be used to limit the impact of externalities (such as polution), which tend to cause a major gumming up of free market forces. It can plan for long-term problems that may be too late to solve if left up to market forces, such as funding research on diseases and cures before pandemics occur (the point at which demand skyrockets is too late for delivery of a product). It can require companies to provide information to citizens to allow them to make informed decisions.
I may be preaching to the choir. I interpreted your post as holding government intervention in free markets and antithetical or detrimental to their operation. I have held the opinion that governments taking an active roll in markets can be beneficial if handled in ways that use the market forces rather than fight them, and enjoy discussing and arguing that. If I misread your post, my bad. Sorry
Most Communist leaders just used the ideals to gain/keep power, unfortunately.
As for it not working on a national level, I agree with you whole-heartedly. Of course, there are technological changes that could easily turn everything on its head yet.
For example, this:
http://www.escapepod.org/2006/10/12/ep075-nano-com es-to-clifford-falls/
is a great "What If" peice on what happens to Capitalism when a society suddenly goes from scarcity to abundance too quickly. While nanotech will probably never reach this level, increased importance of virtual items and the like could very well require us to re-examine how we implement Capitalism.
If anyone hasn't heard of Escape Pod - I would encourage them to try it out at http://www.escapepod.org./ Good stories, and excellent sound quality.
Note: Not disagreeing with parent poster. Just elaborating/discussing.
To look a little closer to home, and using the base definition of Communism as "From each according to ability, to each according to need", an example exists with the "traditional" American family.
The husband/wife work and contribute their paychecks. As kids grow up, they start contributing more and more to the household, doing chores and what not. Each member of the family takes what they need from the communal resources. At no point in time does a father tell their child "I'm sorry, son. We have enough money to pay for you to see the doctor, but you didn't mow the lawn, so your asthma goes untreated."
Yes, parents have more authority than the children, but they are given that authority under the assumption that they understand/know more than the child. Communism does not mean the lack of structure.
In short, Communism works. What it doesn't do is scale. Anything larger than a family usually doesn't last long. It certainly doesn't work at the national level, as shown by the fall of most Communist nations, and the Capitalization (is that even a word?) of the others.
What we're seeing is the expansion of economies from a national level with few trading partners to a global level is the scaling problems of Capitalism. More specifically Capitalism as we know it. These problems are scaring a HELL of a lot of people, as shown by the rise of socialist governments in South and Central America. The pro-China sentiment being shown is this fear magnifying the benefits of a Communist/authoritarian nation while glossing over the drawbacks. It will pass, eventually.
At least, IMHO. I wonder if the acronym IANAE(conomist) will start increasing in popularity?
Everquest I & II both did this often. In addition to in-game items when the retail version of an expansion was purchased, I have a small collection of extras such as a Fiorina Vie figurine, collectable coins, cloth maps, etc.
Your average pressure cooker acheives 15 psi to keep water from boiling under 257. These pressure cookers require pressure release valves to keep the water inside from exploding into steam when that pressure is released. Please note that the cups of coffee that _I_ drink do not come with the pressure release vents that would be required were you to serve water at the 300 degrees you are suggesting is allowed by law.
Pulling numbers out of one's ass cheapens debate for both sides. I encourage you to read this, linked from snopes.com:
Money quote: "Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebecks spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn."
Tort reform is a complex issue, with good arguments to be made on both sides. Please use the good ones, and leave numbers pulled out of one's ass for "Wii vs. PS3 vs. XBox 360" threads.
And yes, all temperatures in this post are in F, not C.
Slashdot Mirror
Only to a point. I'm willing to bet that very few criminals ever go through the hassle of pulling off credit card fraud once
Sure, for a single $250 charge, there's very little benefit. But if that person may be doing it with ten different cards. And that person may be willing to name an accomplice, or reveal the hole they are using to get names and numbers. Chances are, they'd be saving a lot more than just $250.
Hell, can you imagine the PR on the commercials by getting their customer to talk about how the credit card company rode in like an avenging angel and smote the identity thief who made them feel scared, and unsafe? How many hours the customer spent changing credit card numbers, and trying to clean up their credit rating? And how the credit card company was willing to do this over a simple $50 charge?
Supposing you could switch providers to protect your privacy, would you be able to make sure your calls aren't routed over infrastructure owned by Verizon?
And would you be able to make sure none of the people you call aren't Verizon customers?
Of course, if you go along that route, and empower a corporation with the rights of the CEO, you would also need to impart onto the CEO the responsibilities of the corporation. Suddenly the CEO's of tobacco companies would be defending themselves in court for negligent homicide, rather than just having shareholders annoyed at the dip in stock price following cash settlements.
I'm willing to bet this is a road most corporate executives don't want to go down.
You misread my statement. "I've never had a real-world application for them beyond job-interview brainteasers" states that I have never used them, not that I doubt them to have uses.
I'm not going to take the time to read the patent itself, but just an FYI on your comment, multi-list cells can be considered triply-linked lists. Useful for replacing sparsely populated two-dimensional arrays. Or skip lists, which are rather nifty, though I've never had a real-world application for them beyond job-interview brainteasers.
Hrm, I wonder if there's anything else patentable in my old Data Structures and Algorithms class notes...
I agree with you, with one caveat.
At my current job, sharing the same taste in video games, books, etc. and a relaxed work environment. As such, I started to consider my boss a friend. I'm pretty sure it cut both ways.
Unfortunately, his snarky comments in several consecutive meetings almost made me quit in a spectacular, unprofessional, obscenity-laden fashion. I was absolutely furious with him, but when viewed objectively, I couldn't tell why it was.
Finally I realized that had a friend made comments to that extent outside of work, I would have blasted him verbally, and gotten into a shouting match/argument. Obviously these are not options when the person in question is your boss, and the venue is a company-wide meeting. His position as my boss shackled me, even though he had no restrictions.
My job became much smoother when I reminded myself that, in the end, what we had was a business relationship. I was paid to take his snide comments in stride. Each time he said something like that, I weighed the comment against whether or not it crossed the threshhold of what I was willing to take. If it did, I would resign. If it did not, then he was my boss, and that was life. After that, a cool "Yes, sir." and brushing off what amounted to jokes lowered my blood-pressure, and made my work considerably more pleasant.
Be friends with your employers and coworkers, certainly. It's the best benefit in any job. But keeping an eye on the bottom line is just as important.
I believe the sentence refers to the fact that the US has to import so much of its energy. You and I as consumers couldn't care less, as it is a commodity. We just want the lights to come on when we flip a switch. But that's because the shortage was large enough that other sources of energy were brought in from outside the United States. Just because we're shielded from it doesn't mean it's not there.
Were there to be a major war, shutting down oil imports and other imports of energy (such as electricity from Canada, if I remember correctly) would do serious damage to our country, our economy, and our morale. Making ourselves totally self-reliant is silly from an economic standpoint, but switching over to sources of energy that can be bought from a larger number of supplying nations is a good thing. A handful of nations wouldn't be able to do serious damage to our finances if their leaders hiccup if we could just up our importation of electricity from solar from Mexico, or purchase ethanol from Brazil*.
[*] Yes, I'm aware that everything has it's drawbacks. My point is decoupling our energy needs from oil means more countries are able to compete for our energy dollar.
I would strongly disagree with this statement. Even companies with legal departments have better things to spend their legal budget on then trying to defend themselves with the legal gymnastics necessary to get out of a written contract. It would be much cheaper, simpler, and quicker to give you a settlement based on your agreement not to discuss the settlement, and not to admit fault on their part.
In the days of blogs, and online communities like Slashdot, one seriously pissed off ex-employee can make a loud noise. Prospective hires researching the company they are interviewing with suddenly find claims that they do not meet their promises, written or otherwise. In addition, a reputation for not following through on a written contract will hurt even the biggest company with its customers. Would you trust a company to deliver X widgets by 2008 if they've weaseled out of previous written obligations?
The system can be abused. But cynicism about the abuses should never prevent people from defending themselves with legal recourse.
I had actually posted the same thing, and stand by the idea that it isn't possible to create a lightsaber-based game with control meeting the expectations of the people wanting it using the Wiimote. Having said that, a minigame in WarioWare did give acceptable sword play that I could see being extended into another game.
Basically the blocking/parrying is handled by the Wiimote's orientation projected onto the plane of the screen. Turning the Wiimote turned your wrist and allowed you to parry incoming slashes admirably. The minor rumble and "clang" sound from the controller was a nice touch to trick your mind into feeling an "impact".
You only had one chance to attack in the minigame, but an acceleration of the Wiimote gave a satisfying slash with good orientation lineup. I do not know how parrying or shield blocking could be simulated in a satisfying fashion.
Along the same lines, another minigame based around a single slash with a sword gave an idea of how the theoretical light-saber/sword game would track. An orientation vector was determined as you started to swing, and it was assumed that that vector continued. So the sword didn't track your hand exactly, but for purposes of a single swing, it handled the rapid movement of a fight well.
I wouldn't want a lightsaber game, but I'm hoping that a well-done sword game is attempted.
Never underestimate the level of security a manager can derive from knowing your kneecaps are only a twenty minute drive away from his baseball bat.
Joking aside, there is a premium companies are willing to pay for the familiarity of having a long term relationship with an employee which is regulated by laws and societal rules familiar to them. I'm not saying outsourcing-oriented nations and companies don't make a huge effort to reduce/eliminate problems, but if something goes wrong, trusting someone thousands of miles away to fix it, or knowing just how to pursue legal remedies if they won't, can be a jarring experience.
Eventually this will stop being an alien concept and the paths to take will be common knowledge and well documented. But until then, companies may find the hassle and risk worth the extra cash for local talent.
This method has the added bonus of allowing for easy upgrades as battery technology improves. Simply start putting the newer, better batteries into cars as they come for replacements, and start filtering out the old ones for recycling or what not.
All that would really be needed is size, shape, and interface standardization.
I doubt there is any way to avoid being a user of any road in a major city. Even if you don't drive on it. Your neighborhood Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and grocery store (or local equivalants) all depend on easy, low-cost transportation of goods. Ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, garbage trucks, and all manner of services that keep a city going depend on these roads, something that you benefit from even if you don't even own a car.
Having easy, cheap access to clean water keeps the community as a whole healthy, even if you bathe less than your neighbor. Yes, some people may fill swimming pools and over water their lawns, but in the end, you are still better off. I've never had my house broken into, but I certainly don't begrudge those who have my tax dollars for funding a police force.
The government is a valid consumer group, and one whose buying power allows cheap procurement of goods and services that would be prohibitively expensive if offered on an individual basis. Certain investments in infrastructure are what provide a reasonable society for other businesses to continue. I haven't decided on which side of the Net Neutrality divide I'm coming down on, but the idea that non-drivers are getting nothing in exchange for their tax dollars is just plain wrong.
I don't think that worrying about there being jobs available in your country is racist in any way, shape, or form. If someone wants to support companies that create larger numbers of American jobs, it's certainly a valid choice. It's simply self-interest.
I am pro-globalization, but I certainly am not going to accuse those who aren't of being closet racists. It does just as much damage to the debate as those people who scream about "lousy so-and-so's destroying our country"!
Yep, I've gotten relatively good at Wii Tennis. It's by far my favorite of the Wii Sports games. Especially when I don't have to worry about my guests jumping up and down on my damn couch*.
I think I phrased my boxing problem unclearly. I don't have a problem with how fast the fist travels forward. I have a problem with the number of punches I am able to throw in a given time. They may have toned it down on purpose to prevent people from winning by just swinging as fast as they could. But R-R-L combos only give me the punches I want about 90% of the time. That little bit of inaccuracy makes people swing faster and more frantically because they feel they can make up for the missing 10% by swinging faster. This causes even more inaccuracy and frustration. It may be game related, rather than controller related, as I don't think I've ever had my racket not swing in Wii Tennis. But Link has flubbed a few swipes as well, so I know it's not just boxing.
Not a terminal problem, mind you, but you do have to prevent yourself from doing the equivalant of button-mashing, or you'll just end up frustrated (and quite possibly a joke on YouTube). And it also boomerangs on games that treat a swing of the Wiimote as just another button press (Rampage: Total Destruction, I'm looking at you!)
The lightsaber game, however, I have to disagree with you on.
Wii Baseball (and in the same mold, Rayman's "get the marble through the maze" games) is good enough for baseball. Hold the Wiimote up, and your player holds his bat up. Any sort of swing will cause him to smack the ball. But if you try to precisely control the angle of the bat as you wait for the pitch, you'll find a disturbing disconnect between the angle you are holding the controller at and the orientation of the bat.
This disconnect is fine for baseball, but people's hopes and expectations for a lightsaber game would necessitate finer control. Think blocking blaster bolts with the lightsaber. Either the angle would have to be spot-on, or an AI would be needed, destroying the immersion the remote provides. And let's face it, people's expectations for Lucas to deliver are through the damn roof. A mediocre Star Wars game would be a blow to both them and Nintendo.
In short, I was expecting perfection in the tracking of the Wiimote. My expectations were unreasonable. Rayman more than Wii Sports convinced me that I had bet on the right horse. That's why I recommend people who don't warm immediately to Wii Sports try it out. They may come around like I did.
[*] Yes, YOU, James. You have a PhD now. I shouldn't have to tell you it's a bad idea.
I'm not trying to be an ass, but FYI the <ul> tag is unordered list, not underline.
I feel your pain.
My first time through Wii Sports disappointed me as well, as I was expecting more than the controller could give. I had expected perfect tracking of the orientation of the Wiimote when it was not pointed at the screen (to make lightsaber games possible), faster response time to movement (a relatively low upper limit to how fast you can punch in Wii Boxing), as well as finer sensitivity to minute motions when it was required (short putts in Wii Golf show my frustration off perfectly). Rayman's Ravening Rabbids did a good job of using the controller in many ways, including a limited "on-rails" FPS that got me hooked. After I saw it's potential in RRR, I went back to Wii Sports and enjoyed the game a lot more.
In short, don't give up just yet. I've already gotten my $250 out of it. Now I'm just waiting for improved online support.
Police states don't oppress their citizenry by locking everyone up. They oppress their citizenry by making sure everyone is guilty of breaking SOME law, so that select troublemakers can be arrested/pilloried/neutralized for causing trouble.
I don't think cameras in public squares comes anywhere near that, yet. But I would stress that the idea that everyone is guilty should not be looked at as a defense against increased government power.
Yes. It was something I was thinking about as I wrote the reply, and since I wrote it. But I'm not sure I agree with you on the result. To expand on our town-with-fiber-problems examble above:
In the short term "hands off" approach, the consumers get shafted. Coming up with a technology to compete with fiber (or in your example, cable) is a long process for development and rollout. Long periods with no competition causes the original cable company and the market as a whole to stagnate. No further investment on infrastructure, quality control, or customer service is needed, so the company doesn't make any. People could give up whatever service is being offered, sure, but once they do, any incoming company has to convince them that not only do they need the service that caused them so much trouble over the years, but that they won't be as bad as the old one.
With the government stepping in with the fiber, competition is immediate. While, admittedly, the tax-payer foots the bill for the infrastructure, they are given lower prices, and increasing quality and support as each company attempts to outdo the others to attract them. Companies would immediately need to innovate in order to show benefit over their competitors, and technological advancement would begin.
As for Satellite TV, WiMax, and Netflix, each of these technologies either provides something different or superior to what fiber offers, or it does not. If it does, then there will be a market for it anyway. If it does not, then the technology was, frankly, a waste of resources to develop*. If they do, then they will be developed anyway, and not just as a way to wedge themselves into the market. Innovation in the network infrastructure will continue, but at a slower rate than without governmental interference.
So as I said, governmental interference can greatly advance one market, while slowing down another. It is not something that should be undertaken lightly or often, but I just can't agree that it is always bad, or that it always slows the free market. Especially with the aforementioned benefits in dealing with externalities, informed citizenry, and problems that require solving before inertia renders them unavoidable.
Whether a government has the knowledge and foresight to intelligently use this ability is a different argument that I would have a hard time continuing for long, as the examples on both sides would quickly reduce it to a matter of opinion.
[*] Obviously, I'm not insinuating that satellite, Netflix, or WiMax weren't worth developing.
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying (namely the earlier poster's quibble about a singular free market). Unfortunately, I have problems with the details.
The government acts in the majority of cases as an aggragator of the people's will. Example: The majority of people want roads. It would be unreasonable for every person to go out and purchase roads on their own. Instead, the respresentatives of the majority take the money from many/all and get roads built. The government should not be discounted as a valid individual actor in market creation.
Laws and government intervention do tend to constrain markets. However, in many cases, government intervention/constraint in one market will enable free market principles to work better and faster in another. This is usually the case when raising or lowering the cost of entry into a market.
For example, in town X, a corporation runs fiber (or cable, telephone lines, what not) for the town, and sets up shop selling Internet access. The prices are high, and the quality is crap. People get angry and complain, and wish there was another option. Another company sees this market and considers entry to take advantage of the discontent. But to enter, they will have to pay $X upfront for running their own fiber, and have about half as many customers as the original company currently has, and will have to deal with prices plummetting as the competition would eventually cause. All but the larger national corporations would be effectively locked out, and the bigger ones would probably not see a big enough profit to bother.
The knee-jerk reaction of the government and those who want the problem solved would be to either force the first company to open up its lines to its competition (something that discourages infrastructure upgrades), or for the local government to provide internet access themselves (don't get me started). But if instead the town installed, provided, and owned the fiber infrastructure itself, it could then open for bidding any company that wished to provide service. Smaller, local companies would be able to compete in a previously in-accessable market. Better yet, the town could let individuals select their own plan rather than a single collective contract, so as to lower the chance of cronyism/corruption. In both cases, a market was opened up (internet access) at the cost of another market (privately owned fiber).
Government taxes and laws can be used to limit the impact of externalities (such as polution), which tend to cause a major gumming up of free market forces. It can plan for long-term problems that may be too late to solve if left up to market forces, such as funding research on diseases and cures before pandemics occur (the point at which demand skyrockets is too late for delivery of a product). It can require companies to provide information to citizens to allow them to make informed decisions.
I may be preaching to the choir. I interpreted your post as holding government intervention in free markets and antithetical or detrimental to their operation. I have held the opinion that governments taking an active roll in markets can be beneficial if handled in ways that use the market forces rather than fight them, and enjoy discussing and arguing that. If I misread your post, my bad. Sorry
Most Communist leaders just used the ideals to gain/keep power, unfortunately.
m es-to-clifford-falls/
is a great "What If" peice on what happens to Capitalism when a society suddenly goes from scarcity to abundance too quickly. While nanotech will probably never reach this level, increased importance of virtual items and the like could very well require us to re-examine how we implement Capitalism.
As for it not working on a national level, I agree with you whole-heartedly. Of course, there are technological changes that could easily turn everything on its head yet.
For example, this: http://www.escapepod.org/2006/10/12/ep075-nano-co
If anyone hasn't heard of Escape Pod - I would encourage them to try it out at http://www.escapepod.org./ Good stories, and excellent sound quality.
Note: Not disagreeing with parent poster. Just elaborating/discussing. To look a little closer to home, and using the base definition of Communism as "From each according to ability, to each according to need", an example exists with the "traditional" American family.
The husband/wife work and contribute their paychecks. As kids grow up, they start contributing more and more to the household, doing chores and what not. Each member of the family takes what they need from the communal resources. At no point in time does a father tell their child "I'm sorry, son. We have enough money to pay for you to see the doctor, but you didn't mow the lawn, so your asthma goes untreated."
Yes, parents have more authority than the children, but they are given that authority under the assumption that they understand/know more than the child. Communism does not mean the lack of structure.
In short, Communism works. What it doesn't do is scale . Anything larger than a family usually doesn't last long. It certainly doesn't work at the national level, as shown by the fall of most Communist nations, and the Capitalization (is that even a word?) of the others.
What we're seeing is the expansion of economies from a national level with few trading partners to a global level is the scaling problems of Capitalism. More specifically Capitalism as we know it. These problems are scaring a HELL of a lot of people, as shown by the rise of socialist governments in South and Central America. The pro-China sentiment being shown is this fear magnifying the benefits of a Communist/authoritarian nation while glossing over the drawbacks. It will pass, eventually.
At least, IMHO. I wonder if the acronym IANAE(conomist) will start increasing in popularity?
Well, as always, there will be the real geeks and the wannabe's.
Best not to forget the legions of crusty old-timer geeks who are confused why anyone would need anything more than an on/off light switch and a VCR.
Everquest I & II both did this often. In addition to in-game items when the retail version of an expansion was purchased, I have a small collection of extras such as a Fiorina Vie figurine, collectable coins, cloth maps, etc.
Some types of percolators do this to a very minor degree.
c ts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooker
Your average pressure cooker acheives 15 psi to keep water from boiling under 257. These pressure cookers require pressure release valves to keep the water inside from exploding into steam when that pressure is released. Please note that the cups of coffee that _I_ drink do not come with the pressure release vents that would be required were you to serve water at the 300 degrees you are suggesting is allowed by law.
Pulling numbers out of one's ass cheapens debate for both sides. I encourage you to read this, linked from snopes.com:
http://caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=fa
Money quote:
"Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into Styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebecks spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn."
Tort reform is a complex issue, with good arguments to be made on both sides. Please use the good ones, and leave numbers pulled out of one's ass for "Wii vs. PS3 vs. XBox 360" threads.
And yes, all temperatures in this post are in F, not C.
The legal limit for serving a water-based liquid like coffee is "300 or something like that"?
Wow. That's a pretty impressive coffee. A physics guy want to calculate how many psi would be required to get the water to 300 degrees?