People in outlying colonies used money, too. In fact, it was really only the Federation's core worlds that didn't, and I'm not even sure how it worked there, either. (How did they decide who was allowed to eat at Sisko's dad's restaurant? How did they decide who got to live in a sweet penthouse overlooking the Golden Gate bridge, and who had to commute to Starfleet Headquarters via transporter from Iowa? How did they allocate holodeck use? You know a significant fraction of the population would want to spend 24/7/365 in there...)
It almost seems like less of a utopian "no money" thing, and more like a European socialist "basic income" kind of deal.
You must be too young to remember (and they don't bother teaching) how much damage acid rain did to the environment before we started cutting down on NOx.
Acid rain was caused mostly by SO2 from coal-fired power plants. NOx from vehicles is small potatoes in comparison.
Oh yeah, and it creates ground-level ozone
Only in NOx-limited areas. In VOC-limited areas, increasing NOx actually helps.
NOx emissions also causes global cooling through the formation of OH groups that destroy methane molecules, countering the effect of greenhouse gases. The effect can be significant. For instance, according to the OECD "the large NOx emissions from ship traffic lead to significant increases in hydroxyl (OH), which is the major oxidant in the lower atmosphere. Since reaction with OH is a major way of removing methane from the atmosphere, ship emissions decrease methane concentrations.
I admit, I didn't entirely believe it, so I found another source:
The breakdown of NOx gases gives rise to increased OH abundance and so helps to reduce the lifetimes of greenhouse gases like methane.
You're more eco-friendly using Diesel by the fact that you're dumping much less CO2, VOCs, benzene and other pollutants into the air compared to those dirty gasoline engines. Even 40x more NOx is an acceptable trade-off.
Here's a newsflash: particulate emissions are regulated by mass, but biological harm is proportional to the number of particles. The fact that those carcinogenic particulates from Diesels are big enough to form a visible cloud means they're less dangerous than the much larger number of tiny invisible particulates that gasoline engines emit.
(Not to mention, the modern Diesels being discussed have particulate filters -- which do actually work; the "emissions cheating" is about NOx, not particulates -- but modern gasoline engines still don't. And by the way: gasoline engines emit a fun mix of toxic substances such as benzene and formaldehyde that are much lower in Diesel emissions, and which are totally unregulated. New gasoline engines are way more carcinogenic than Diesels, even by a wider margin than they used to be.)
You misunderstood me: if you (as the designer/manufacturer) don't want the user to change the firmware, then use a mask ROM instead of an EEPROM (or whatever) so that he physically can't.
As a (wholly intended!) side effect it means that you (again, the manufacturer) can't change it after the fact either, which means it'll have to be perfect the first time.
In other words, the only potentially-valid reason to make it hard for the user (i.e., the owner) to modify his property is that it's built well enough that (in the user's opinion, not the manufacturers!) it never needs to be modified.
There are very good reasons to make devices for which the firmware is changeable after manufacturing but only by the manufacturer.
Name one that doesn't boil down to either (a) "the user is too stupid to know what he wants to do with his own property, so he needs the manufacturer to be his nanny" or (b) "the user might use his own property in a way that displeases The Powers That Be, and must be stopped."
It's a good thing VW is a German company; if this were (for example) GM instead the CEO would still be denying any involvement in the decision, drawing his gigantic salary, and conspiring with his cronies on the board to give him an only-slightly-less-outrageous-than-usual bonus.
x86 micro-code can be changed via flash, as can the low-level software that controls your microwaves, does that need to be programmable by random C++ hackers?
There are two possibilities:
If it should be able to be changed via flash, then yes, it needs to be programmable by the user!
If it should not be programmable by the user, then it should not be able to be changed via flash!
The point is, either the functionality is fixed for the life of the item, or it should be modifiable (i.e., repairable) by the owner. There is no middle ground. Having it modifiable by "somebody" but not the owner is nothing but a recipe for malicious tampering.
The concept behind the H1-B program sounds reasonable. Bring in highly skilled experts from overseas that we can't find here.
There's nothing whatsoever reasonable about the idea that with a population this large and (some of) the best universities in the world, that we somehow can't find -- or make -- plenty of "highly skilled experts" right here.
In other words, I agree with your conclusion, but your premise gave the government way more credit than it deserves.
It may also have hindered them to get the Infosys contract in many ways; it's hard to justify to upper management that you need more money for a contract when you paid so little in the past for the same contract from a different vendor.
That's the thing, they didn't pay for the "same contract," they paid for shit that failed to deliver. Of course, I can see how it could be hard to admit to upper management that your dumb ass got swindled...
There is no good solution except allowing wages to equalize and removing some of the barriers to capitalism which prevent us from buying products which are sold overseas much less expensively than locally. For example movies are about 1/10th the price, blood pressure medicine is about 1% the price, etc. Some can't be fixed-- housekeeping and lawn staff is about 3% of the price.
For that to be a "good solution," developing-world labor protections and environmental standards have to come up to meet ours. Otherwise, it's a race to the bottom and we only fuck ourselves over.
My recommendation if you are one of the 15 million people is to freeze your credit.
You know the best part? The best part is that in order to do that, you get to PAY A FEE TO THE SAME GODDAMN FUCKERS WHO LOST THE INFORMATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Step 1: Collect everyone's personal information
Step 2: Lose said information, forcing the victims to freeze their credit
Step 3: Charge the victims $5-10 each to do that freeze, and another $5-10 each time each victim needs to thaw or re-freeze it, forever
Step 4: profit, over and over again!
(There is no "..." step; this is actually Experian's business plan!)
Sorry, I forgot to make my point: the point is, McDonald's in other countries is actually different -- and sometimes, better -- than McDonald's here. I wouldn't be surprised if French McDonald's was relatively healthy (at least, optionally).
No, seriously -- I went to the McDonalds in Rome near the Spanish Steps once (note: I was just curious about it; I did NOT eat at McDonalds more than once during my trip). Although it did have burgers and fries, it also had a bunch of healthier stuff, and even a pretty nice salad bar. (And then it also had a gelateria out front to even it out...)
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People in outlying colonies used money, too. In fact, it was really only the Federation's core worlds that didn't, and I'm not even sure how it worked there, either. (How did they decide who was allowed to eat at Sisko's dad's restaurant? How did they decide who got to live in a sweet penthouse overlooking the Golden Gate bridge, and who had to commute to Starfleet Headquarters via transporter from Iowa? How did they allocate holodeck use? You know a significant fraction of the population would want to spend 24/7/365 in there...)
It almost seems like less of a utopian "no money" thing, and more like a European socialist "basic income" kind of deal.
And why isn't it turned on by default?
Acid rain was caused mostly by SO2 from coal-fired power plants. NOx from vehicles is small potatoes in comparison.
Only in NOx-limited areas. In VOC-limited areas, increasing NOx actually helps.
Nope! In fact, the opposite. Wikipedia claims:
I admit, I didn't entirely believe it, so I found another source:
That's weird, I would have expected such a slur to reference pickled herring.
You're more eco-friendly using Diesel by the fact that you're dumping much less CO2, VOCs, benzene and other pollutants into the air compared to those dirty gasoline engines. Even 40x more NOx is an acceptable trade-off.
Here's a newsflash: particulate emissions are regulated by mass, but biological harm is proportional to the number of particles. The fact that those carcinogenic particulates from Diesels are big enough to form a visible cloud means they're less dangerous than the much larger number of tiny invisible particulates that gasoline engines emit.
(Not to mention, the modern Diesels being discussed have particulate filters -- which do actually work; the "emissions cheating" is about NOx, not particulates -- but modern gasoline engines still don't. And by the way: gasoline engines emit a fun mix of toxic substances such as benzene and formaldehyde that are much lower in Diesel emissions, and which are totally unregulated. New gasoline engines are way more carcinogenic than Diesels, even by a wider margin than they used to be.)
You misunderstood me: if you (as the designer/manufacturer) don't want the user to change the firmware, then use a mask ROM instead of an EEPROM (or whatever) so that he physically can't.
As a (wholly intended!) side effect it means that you (again, the manufacturer) can't change it after the fact either, which means it'll have to be perfect the first time.
In other words, the only potentially-valid reason to make it hard for the user (i.e., the owner) to modify his property is that it's built well enough that (in the user's opinion, not the manufacturers!) it never needs to be modified.
Name one that doesn't boil down to either (a) "the user is too stupid to know what he wants to do with his own property, so he needs the manufacturer to be his nanny" or (b) "the user might use his own property in a way that displeases The Powers That Be, and must be stopped."
It's a good thing VW is a German company; if this were (for example) GM instead the CEO would still be denying any involvement in the decision, drawing his gigantic salary, and conspiring with his cronies on the board to give him an only-slightly-less-outrageous-than-usual bonus.
There are two possibilities:
The point is, either the functionality is fixed for the life of the item, or it should be modifiable (i.e., repairable) by the owner. There is no middle ground. Having it modifiable by "somebody" but not the owner is nothing but a recipe for malicious tampering.
Bullshit. If it can be downloaded and reflashed to the device, it's software.
If you don't like that fact, then get your shit right the first time and burn it on a mask ROM!
If not IRC, then at least XMPP (aka Jabber).
Even if that's true for soda-style cans, you could still use vegetable/soup-style cans.
That's the essence of the Republican "shrink [government] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub" strategy.
There's nothing whatsoever reasonable about the idea that with a population this large and (some of) the best universities in the world, that we somehow can't find -- or make -- plenty of "highly skilled experts" right here.
In other words, I agree with your conclusion, but your premise gave the government way more credit than it deserves.
That's the thing, they didn't pay for the "same contract," they paid for shit that failed to deliver. Of course, I can see how it could be hard to admit to upper management that your dumb ass got swindled...
For that to be a "good solution," developing-world labor protections and environmental standards have to come up to meet ours. Otherwise, it's a race to the bottom and we only fuck ourselves over.
"Words mean things," says the guy who apparently thinks the American South (where a lot of car factories are now located) is "overseas!"
You know the best part? The best part is that in order to do that, you get to PAY A FEE TO THE SAME GODDAMN FUCKERS WHO LOST THE INFORMATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!
(There is no "..." step; this is actually Experian's business plan!)
You failed to explain where Congress gets the authority to create that law in the first place.
I can believe the part about the GP working a McJob.
Sorry, I forgot to make my point: the point is, McDonald's in other countries is actually different -- and sometimes, better -- than McDonald's here. I wouldn't be surprised if French McDonald's was relatively healthy (at least, optionally).
No, seriously -- I went to the McDonalds in Rome near the Spanish Steps once (note: I was just curious about it; I did NOT eat at McDonalds more than once during my trip). Although it did have burgers and fries, it also had a bunch of healthier stuff, and even a pretty nice salad bar. (And then it also had a gelateria out front to even it out...)
Isn't that what GreaseMonkey is for?
And nothing of value was lost.