No, No, No. This is NOT how capitalism works...
This is how greedy and unpatriotic corporations
work.
Buddy, capitalism is all about greedy and unpatriotic corporations that hold nothing sacred except profits. Their only goal is to maximize profits without getting caught. Legality isn't a problem for them, so long as they're not prosecuted or, when they are prosecuted, the fine is less than what they gained by breaking the law. And that's not my opinion, it's the opinion of every economics and finance prof I've ever had.
Got a problem with it? You have four choices: 1) Move to India, 2) Get the minimum wage lowered to $0.15/hour 3) Get trade deals renegotiated to include human rights and environmental regulations or 4) UNIONIZE and exercise your power as the consumer and producer.
Yes Virginia, the workers really do control the means of production.
"'Foreign traffic that comes through the U.S. is subject to U.S. laws, and the NSA has a perfect right to monitor all Internet traffic,' said Mr. Farber, who has also been a technical adviser to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission."
I'd buy this if people could determine (easily) where and how their messages are routed. If this guy had sent things via snail mail, he would never have been caught. Why? Cause he wouldn't have had to send it through the US.
That works for me. What do they plan to do on Mars besides set up a flag?
Oh, I don't know, maybe learn how to live there? You'll notice that I said that fuel and food would come from Mars, meaning we need a colony there first.
We have the money, except now it's going to blowing things up and then rebuilding them. Why not just build things, and save the expense of blowing them up?
Yes, but on Mars you have the option of launching a return vessel with empty fuel tanks and filling them up with native materials when you get there. No such luck on the moon.
Funny thing: NASA has never lost an astronaut in space. All accidents have either been in launch, reentry, or in testing. So, statistically, astronauts are safer in space than they are on earth! (But that's probably because we've never really been in space that long.)
It's a lot more expensive to go to the moon. The net energy to go to the moon is only a teensy bit less than it takes to get to Mars, and the moon doesn't have the variety of chemical compounds (or a 24 hour day) like Mars does. It's actually cheaper to set up a Mars colony because they can do things like grow their own food and make their own air and water, provided there's a small nuclear reactor to provide power.
Also, the moon is thought to only have water in very small quantities in remote craters on the north and south poles, whereas Mars, according to recent reports, is covered with mud, from which water can be extracted easily.
A lot of people think that because the moon is closer, it's somehow a better place to go. However, in the terms that matter (the energy it takes to get there), the Moon is about the same distance, and doesn't offer resources. I see moon as a space port, easily reached by the population from earth (cause people are really the only things worth shipping there), as well as easily reachable from the solar system, and with low launch costs. Fuel and food shipped in from Mars, materials shipped in from the asteroid belt, and people passing through on their way elsewhere. Oh, and a massive scientific base on the far side, for observatories.
The problem is that environmentally responsible products tend to look ugly or don't perform as well. Take your buried house. I applaud your "earth-sheltered, passive solar home". Sounds really neat. Unfortunately, I am not a hobbit and do not wish to live in a hole in the ground. Also, 50 degrees is too damn cold for me without some kind of heating.
Maybe I wasn't too clear. Three sides of the house are below grade to the middle of the second floor in the back, and at grade in the front of the house. It's situated on the south side of a hill. So not only do you have massive amounts of windows on the south side of the house, you get a greenhouse where you can grow fresh vegetables year round in addition to providing heat for the entire house. (And with intelligent design of the doors and roofline, you don't even need a fan to circulate air, meaning no cold spots.)
It's not exactly buried so much as it's set into the earth. And you can have additional heat in the form of a woodstove, electric baseboards, heat pump, or hot water baseboards, gas or oil. The point isn't that you don't need commoditized energy to heat your house, it's that you use as much of the free energy as possible. (Last time I checked, Microsoft didn't own sunshine.)
I guess it's a matter of what you value in life. I don't feel like spending my money pouring gasoline into a car. There are better things I can do with that. However, if you like to go fast and sound loud, more power to you. (I just don't like how you steal from my children's pockets by using up all the cheap oil now.)
I remember my fiance running around the house unplugging everything except for one light bulb. Then the bulb never went off. Then I had to reset all the clocks. Yeah, she's a little paranoid.
The outdated notion that conservationism means shivering in the dark is pure FUD. I was born in an earth-sheltered, passive solar home. We had electric heat and hot water, and our yearly energy bills (in the 80s) was around $300. Instead of building a house that presented four big sides to the cold of winter and heat of summer, three sides of the house were buried in the ground, meaning it stayed 50 degrees in most of the rooms without heat or A/C!
The pipe to our hot water heater ran through a large barrel that was painted black. When the sun hit this, it preheated the water on sunny days. Sure we still needed electricity when it was cloudy, but it worked well and cost about $50 to build.
I'm saddened to see that slashdotters are so closed minded when it comes to hacking their homes to save themselves money. Why should we, the independent minded subculture, live in tract homes and eat at fast food restaurants like everyone else.
Why not drive a hybrid, or a TDI burning veggie? Why not live in a house built to save money and conserve natural resources? Why not switch to TFTs and turn your damn computer off at night? These things, while they cost a lot in the beginning, save money in the long run, or cost the same as shelling out $40K for an SUV and then whining when gas goes up to $3/gallon.
If more people bought environmentally responsible products, the cost would go down. This is what you capitalists are always harping about! Now you say being environmentally responsible is too expensive? Not if enough people do it.
Thinking different isn't just for Mac users, everyone can benefit by questioning tradition.
Yet more proof that the internet we've come to know and love will be horribly massacred and have its soul sucked out by marketing types and management looking to use it for their own disgusting means. Just like what happened in the early 90s.
Re:Giant Subwoofer + Barry White Record
on
Giant Sub-Woofer
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Baby, I know you been hydrogen waaay too long. You been yearning for a change. Come on over here baby, and fuse with me, make me a whole helluva lot of helium. It's what I need, baby
My iPod gives me an alarm clock, the ability to view text files, autosyncing with my address book and iCal, auto-syncing and charging over Firewire (or IEEE 1394 for those who don't get it), an alarm clock, a way to steal software from Macs at CompUSA, and a bootable backup drive in event of emergencies.
And all without having to switch batteries or analog tapes.
If cost was all anyone cared about, Mercedes would be out of business.
Re:I see nothing wrong with it
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Rather than do the typical knee-jerk US-Bashing, lets examine this. China is wanting to go into space. Do we REALLY want China to be the first ones with space weapons pointing back at us?
We'll have a space weapons gap!
Why not negotiate a treaty to keep weapons out of space without a global threat, as determined by the UN? Well, that would just be UnAmerican. We should just put weapons up there. That'll show those commie bastards.
Even to the most hawkish, another cold war can't be that appealing. Why not nip it in the bud?
If it slows releases, guess what, I bet most people won't care.
And here's why: Apple will be at OS XI, Linux will be running on orbiting brain lasers, and Microsoft will be pushing the release date for Longhorn back to 2050. All the luddites who have a computer for pr0n and email won't care ("Ma com-pew-tor is werkin' jus fahn, yankee.") and the 1337 H@XX0R$ all use Linux anyway.
However, unlike cars, most people don't have a clue how computers work, just that if they type pr0n on the "typewriter" nudie pics show up on the "teevee."
Slashdot Mirror
Holy frig. Just cause your book says something doesn't make it true. Never trust anything a marketing department says.
All these slashdotters complaining about how old machines use power. Why not hack together an environmentally benign power source for them? Sheesh.
No, No, No. This is NOT how capitalism works... This is how greedy and unpatriotic corporations work.
Buddy, capitalism is all about greedy and unpatriotic corporations that hold nothing sacred except profits. Their only goal is to maximize profits without getting caught. Legality isn't a problem for them, so long as they're not prosecuted or, when they are prosecuted, the fine is less than what they gained by breaking the law. And that's not my opinion, it's the opinion of every economics and finance prof I've ever had.
Got a problem with it? You have four choices: 1) Move to India, 2) Get the minimum wage lowered to $0.15/hour 3) Get trade deals renegotiated to include human rights and environmental regulations or 4) UNIONIZE and exercise your power as the consumer and producer.
Yes Virginia, the workers really do control the means of production.
n/t
"we can declare the result instantly!"
"The robot polls are opening... and the robot vote is in."
I don't want the village idiot making crystal meth in his trailer home to be voting for the president.
You don't want the president to vote? That's unamerican!
"'Foreign traffic that comes through the U.S. is subject to U.S. laws, and the NSA has a perfect right to monitor all Internet traffic,' said Mr. Farber, who has also been a technical adviser to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission."
I'd buy this if people could determine (easily) where and how their messages are routed. If this guy had sent things via snail mail, he would never have been caught. Why? Cause he wouldn't have had to send it through the US.
Hey, how about you move out of Canada if you don't like it. We'll switch places!
That works for me. What do they plan to do on Mars besides set up a flag?
Oh, I don't know, maybe learn how to live there? You'll notice that I said that fuel and food would come from Mars, meaning we need a colony there first.
We have the money, except now it's going to blowing things up and then rebuilding them. Why not just build things, and save the expense of blowing them up?
Yes, but on Mars you have the option of launching a return vessel with empty fuel tanks and filling them up with native materials when you get there. No such luck on the moon.
Funny thing: NASA has never lost an astronaut in space. All accidents have either been in launch, reentry, or in testing. So, statistically, astronauts are safer in space than they are on earth! (But that's probably because we've never really been in space that long.)
It's a lot more expensive to go to the moon. The net energy to go to the moon is only a teensy bit less than it takes to get to Mars, and the moon doesn't have the variety of chemical compounds (or a 24 hour day) like Mars does. It's actually cheaper to set up a Mars colony because they can do things like grow their own food and make their own air and water, provided there's a small nuclear reactor to provide power.
Also, the moon is thought to only have water in very small quantities in remote craters on the north and south poles, whereas Mars, according to recent reports, is covered with mud, from which water can be extracted easily.
A lot of people think that because the moon is closer, it's somehow a better place to go. However, in the terms that matter (the energy it takes to get there), the Moon is about the same distance, and doesn't offer resources. I see moon as a space port, easily reached by the population from earth (cause people are really the only things worth shipping there), as well as easily reachable from the solar system, and with low launch costs. Fuel and food shipped in from Mars, materials shipped in from the asteroid belt, and people passing through on their way elsewhere. Oh, and a massive scientific base on the far side, for observatories.
The problem is that environmentally responsible products tend to look ugly or don't perform as well. Take your buried house. I applaud your "earth-sheltered, passive solar home". Sounds really neat. Unfortunately, I am not a hobbit and do not wish to live in a hole in the ground. Also, 50 degrees is too damn cold for me without some kind of heating.
Maybe I wasn't too clear. Three sides of the house are below grade to the middle of the second floor in the back, and at grade in the front of the house. It's situated on the south side of a hill. So not only do you have massive amounts of windows on the south side of the house, you get a greenhouse where you can grow fresh vegetables year round in addition to providing heat for the entire house. (And with intelligent design of the doors and roofline, you don't even need a fan to circulate air, meaning no cold spots.)
It's not exactly buried so much as it's set into the earth. And you can have additional heat in the form of a woodstove, electric baseboards, heat pump, or hot water baseboards, gas or oil. The point isn't that you don't need commoditized energy to heat your house, it's that you use as much of the free energy as possible. (Last time I checked, Microsoft didn't own sunshine.)
I guess it's a matter of what you value in life. I don't feel like spending my money pouring gasoline into a car. There are better things I can do with that. However, if you like to go fast and sound loud, more power to you. (I just don't like how you steal from my children's pockets by using up all the cheap oil now.)
I remember my fiance running around the house unplugging everything except for one light bulb. Then the bulb never went off. Then I had to reset all the clocks. Yeah, she's a little paranoid.
The outdated notion that conservationism means shivering in the dark is pure FUD. I was born in an earth-sheltered, passive solar home. We had electric heat and hot water, and our yearly energy bills (in the 80s) was around $300. Instead of building a house that presented four big sides to the cold of winter and heat of summer, three sides of the house were buried in the ground, meaning it stayed 50 degrees in most of the rooms without heat or A/C!
The pipe to our hot water heater ran through a large barrel that was painted black. When the sun hit this, it preheated the water on sunny days. Sure we still needed electricity when it was cloudy, but it worked well and cost about $50 to build.
I'm saddened to see that slashdotters are so closed minded when it comes to hacking their homes to save themselves money. Why should we, the independent minded subculture, live in tract homes and eat at fast food restaurants like everyone else.
Why not drive a hybrid, or a TDI burning veggie? Why not live in a house built to save money and conserve natural resources? Why not switch to TFTs and turn your damn computer off at night? These things, while they cost a lot in the beginning, save money in the long run, or cost the same as shelling out $40K for an SUV and then whining when gas goes up to $3/gallon.
If more people bought environmentally responsible products, the cost would go down. This is what you capitalists are always harping about! Now you say being environmentally responsible is too expensive? Not if enough people do it.
Thinking different isn't just for Mac users, everyone can benefit by questioning tradition.
Well, I have an iPod that I can take with me and listen to music. But I guess that doesn't count.
With gas prices coming to an all-time high, the improvement in mileage sounds a helluva lot more attractive than the improvement in horsepower.
Of course, I'm a commie pinko hippie tree-hugger who wants a TDI to burn fry oil in. Mmmm... french fries.
Friend, you must not have seen what people do to their computers at college.
Yet more proof that the internet we've come to know and love will be horribly massacred and have its soul sucked out by marketing types and management looking to use it for their own disgusting means. Just like what happened in the early 90s.
Baby, I know you been hydrogen waaay too long. You been yearning for a change. Come on over here baby, and fuse with me, make me a whole helluva lot of helium. It's what I need, baby
Que funkalicious bass line...
My iPod gives me an alarm clock, the ability to view text files, autosyncing with my address book and iCal, auto-syncing and charging over Firewire (or IEEE 1394 for those who don't get it), an alarm clock, a way to steal software from Macs at CompUSA, and a bootable backup drive in event of emergencies.
And all without having to switch batteries or analog tapes.
If cost was all anyone cared about, Mercedes would be out of business.
Rather than do the typical knee-jerk US-Bashing, lets examine this. China is wanting to go into space. Do we REALLY want China to be the first ones with space weapons pointing back at us?
We'll have a space weapons gap!
Why not negotiate a treaty to keep weapons out of space without a global threat, as determined by the UN? Well, that would just be UnAmerican. We should just put weapons up there. That'll show those commie bastards.
Even to the most hawkish, another cold war can't be that appealing. Why not nip it in the bud?
If it slows releases, guess what, I bet most people won't care.
And here's why: Apple will be at OS XI, Linux will be running on orbiting brain lasers, and Microsoft will be pushing the release date for Longhorn back to 2050. All the luddites who have a computer for pr0n and email won't care ("Ma com-pew-tor is werkin' jus fahn, yankee.") and the 1337 H@XX0R$ all use Linux anyway.
However, unlike cars, most people don't have a clue how computers work, just that if they type pr0n on the "typewriter" nudie pics show up on the "teevee."
Don't forget to check your blinker fluid.