Has anyone ever stopped to consider that all of these labor-saving devices we've invented over the past several centuries are really working? Maybe their simply isn't enough work to go around any more.
"Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror." --Ming the Merciless
I think they look like nice little laptops, but for I've never been willing to pay that much for a piece of electronic hardware that is intended to be carried around, unless it's got a carbon fiber shell, mil-spec components and remote self-destruct anti-theft protection. That's too much money to spill coffee on.
Based on my ownership of many Macs and PC's, I'd say my Macs have definitely had longer useful lives...but I could always buy two PC's for what I spent on each Mac.
It is interesting that you mention this. There are special rules for aircraft classified as "Experimental" (like kit planes) by the FAA which manage to avoid some of the regulatory expenses. Perhaps we should have an 'experimental' category of medical devices?
It is quite true that they hold their resell value: the G5 towers are still trading hands for the cost of a new midrange PC...which is madness, since they are completely obsolete, and many models were prone to problems with their liquid cooling.
I've owned Macs since my first Quadra, but this year I'm ditching them for a PC. I feel that Apple is no longer committed to making good computers...they want to make consumer toys. The brand has eclipsed the product.
IF you take a closer look at the little model numbers, it doesn't take long to see that you are paying twice as much for the hardware as you need to.
It's a common misconception by many people that all plane owners are wealthy. Many used planes can be had for the price of an economy car, and unlike used cars, they last a long time because of FAA mandated maintenance. (The plane the tax kamikaze flew was one of the cheaper models, widely available on the used market) Maintenance can be expensive, but many pilots work out deals with local mechanics that make the cost bearable, or do their own maintenance. Many forgo hangar rental and simply rent a spot on the field to tie their plane down. Many pilots will buy a share in a plane with several other pilots in order to keep the cost of ownership affordable. Planes are not cheap, but ordinary people with modest incomes can own one, if sufficiently motivated. But it isn't cheap to fly, even if you DON'T own a plane, so if your income dips enough, you are out of the game. When that happens, you can rapidly lose flight privileges, because you are required to maintain a level of proficiency in order to fly.
It is a demanding and often frustrating hobby to pursue, and certainly costly, but not the sole preserve of the rich. The rich tend to hire other people to fly their planes, or buy really exciting planes which they are more likely to crash on accident than on purpose.
Actually, the reason the Japanese did not rapidly surrender immediately after Hiroshima is more complex. Bureaucratic inertia insured a pretty slow response. (The leaders did not even meet for two days following the attack, and debated the issue for half the day) The Emperor himself had been pushing for peace for some time following the Japanese defeat at Okinawa, but the Allied insistence on unconditional surrender, as well as political subterfuge by Stalin (who played on Japanese hopes of Soviet assistance while preparing his own attack against Japan), fed fire to an already heated debate among Japanese leaders. In an all-too-familiar story, political infighting prevented the country from taking prompt, sensible action.
Nothing else will wear out in your lifetime? Really? You think their gonna still be making those batteries in thirty years? (The ones Apple won't let YOU replace, anyway) That screen will not break or fade in thirty years? Those lead-free solder points inside are not gonna get brittle or grow hairs and short out? That flash memory isn't gonna go wonky?
I was able to do the math and figure out what an 18% increase in your chance of dying per hour of TV viewing really meant: The number of people who died during the course of the study was about 3 percent of the participants over a six year period. That means that every hour of TV viewing actually increased their chance of dying by about half a percent in any given year. So if you watch TV eight hours a day, your chances of dying in any given year go up about 4 percent.
Interestingly, more people died of cancer in the study than heart disease.
Y'know, I think the key phrase there is actually "to authors and inventors". Why should copyright protection persist if the registrant has already expired?
Speaking from the perspective of someone who lacks either a two or four year degree in programming, but has spent most of my life learning another trade entirely, I don't see how either degree would be all that impressive, given that your programming skills, much like their byproducts, seem to have an expiration date stamped on them.
Don't you guys get tired of relearning everything every five years? I know I do, and I never had to worry about it until all my tools were replaced by software.
The Library of Congress cares, which is who spurred the research into this media. And you should, too, if you want any portion of our culture preserved for future generations.
The widespread contempt for creating anything of lasting value I see almost everywhere today speaks volumes about both this generation's shortsightedness and its selfishness.
I find it ironic that Doctorow was totally OK with everyone's intellectual property being freely copied all over the net, but suddenly balks at the idea of sharing software and disk space.
Gee, this socialism doesn't taste like its supposed to.
That is correct. VIFFing, or vectoring in forward flight, is rarely used in air combat, because it results in a complete loss of airspeed, leaving the Harrier a sitting duck. The RNAF cleaned the Argentinian's clocks using AIM-9L missiles, which did not require being anywhere near the enemy aircraft's six o'clock. They could hit them head-on. (The Argentines, on the other hand, still needed to engage from behind)
Modern missiles are so lethal that dogfights today are the exception, not the rule. Our pilots still train for them, because we went into Nam thinking it was all about missiles, and learned the hard way that their reliability had been oversold, and that lesson resulted in Top Gun and Red Flag. But today's missiles really ARE deadly accurate, so until everyone has stealth, most air to air engagements are likely to be one-sided, long-range affairs.
I imagine her expectations were unrealistic, but why is everyone so quick to condemn this girl? Why is it unreasonable to live in the wealthiest country in the world and expect to be able to find gainful employment? When you finish paying out tens of thousands of dollars for a college education, don't you expect to find better work than the local Walmart? If not, then why would you risk carrying so much debt?
Does it help you to sleep better at night telling yourself that ALL the unemployed or underemployed people in this country richly deserve it?
Kind of ironic coming from the crowd that has been working feverishly to develop machines that can replace human labor in a wide variety of jobs.
Slashdot Mirror
I really don't think you want to be in a Zeppelin in the midst of a fast-moving Atlantic storm.
Has anyone ever stopped to consider that all of these labor-saving devices we've invented over the past several centuries are really working? Maybe their simply isn't enough work to go around any more.
"Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror." --Ming the Merciless
I think they look like nice little laptops, but for I've never been willing to pay that much for a piece of electronic hardware that is intended to be carried around, unless it's got a carbon fiber shell, mil-spec components and remote self-destruct anti-theft protection. That's too much money to spill coffee on.
Based on my ownership of many Macs and PC's, I'd say my Macs have definitely had longer useful lives...but I could always buy two PC's for what I spent on each Mac.
It is interesting that you mention this. There are special rules for aircraft classified as "Experimental" (like kit planes) by the FAA which manage to avoid some of the regulatory expenses. Perhaps we should have an 'experimental' category of medical devices?
It is quite true that they hold their resell value: the G5 towers are still trading hands for the cost of a new midrange PC...which is madness, since they are completely obsolete, and many models were prone to problems with their liquid cooling.
I've owned Macs since my first Quadra, but this year I'm ditching them for a PC. I feel that Apple is no longer committed to making good computers...they want to make consumer toys. The brand has eclipsed the product.
IF you take a closer look at the little model numbers, it doesn't take long to see that you are paying twice as much for the hardware as you need to.
An Ars Technica reader whose never heard of GQ magazine? Shocker.
You didn't do very well in poetry class, did you?
Personally, I feel pretty dumb for not buying Apple stock when it was fifteen dollars a share.
It's a common misconception by many people that all plane owners are wealthy. Many used planes can be had for the price of an economy car, and unlike used cars, they last a long time because of FAA mandated maintenance. (The plane the tax kamikaze flew was one of the cheaper models, widely available on the used market) Maintenance can be expensive, but many pilots work out deals with local mechanics that make the cost bearable, or do their own maintenance. Many forgo hangar rental and simply rent a spot on the field to tie their plane down. Many pilots will buy a share in a plane with several other pilots in order to keep the cost of ownership affordable. Planes are not cheap, but ordinary people with modest incomes can own one, if sufficiently motivated. But it isn't cheap to fly, even if you DON'T own a plane, so if your income dips enough, you are out of the game. When that happens, you can rapidly lose flight privileges, because you are required to maintain a level of proficiency in order to fly.
It is a demanding and often frustrating hobby to pursue, and certainly costly, but not the sole preserve of the rich. The rich tend to hire other people to fly their planes, or buy really exciting planes which they are more likely to crash on accident than on purpose.
Actually, the reason the Japanese did not rapidly surrender immediately after Hiroshima is more complex. Bureaucratic inertia insured a pretty slow response. (The leaders did not even meet for two days following the attack, and debated the issue for half the day) The Emperor himself had been pushing for peace for some time following the Japanese defeat at Okinawa, but the Allied insistence on unconditional surrender, as well as political subterfuge by Stalin (who played on Japanese hopes of Soviet assistance while preparing his own attack against Japan), fed fire to an already heated debate among Japanese leaders. In an all-too-familiar story, political infighting prevented the country from taking prompt, sensible action.
Nothing else will wear out in your lifetime? Really? You think their gonna still be making those batteries in thirty years? (The ones Apple won't let YOU replace, anyway) That screen will not break or fade in thirty years? Those lead-free solder points inside are not gonna get brittle or grow hairs and short out? That flash memory isn't gonna go wonky?
How long have you been using computers?
Does anyone else see the irony in two Republican congressmen complaining about the privatization of space flight?
OK, I found this article, which had actual numbers:
http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docID=634816
I was able to do the math and figure out what an 18% increase in your chance of dying per hour of TV viewing really meant: The number of people who died during the course of the study was about 3 percent of the participants over a six year period. That means that every hour of TV viewing actually increased their chance of dying by about half a percent in any given year. So if you watch TV eight hours a day, your chances of dying in any given year go up about 4 percent.
Interestingly, more people died of cancer in the study than heart disease.
It's much more expensive to learn to fly in most European countries than it is the U.S. That's why so many foreign nationals train here.
Y'know, that graph closely parallels the average increase of the human lifespan in industrialized societies.
http://images.quickblogcast.com/80618-70584/Life_Span_Chart2.jpg
Maybe things haven't changed as much as everyone laments.
Y'know, I think the key phrase there is actually "to authors and inventors". Why should copyright protection persist if the registrant has already expired?
So, the bloody results of combat can be quantified using a few formulas and tables?
I think a few wargame designers at Avalon Hill are shaking their heads and rolling their eyes right now.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who lacks either a two or four year degree in programming, but has spent most of my life learning another trade entirely, I don't see how either degree would be all that impressive, given that your programming skills, much like their byproducts, seem to have an expiration date stamped on them.
Don't you guys get tired of relearning everything every five years? I know I do, and I never had to worry about it until all my tools were replaced by software.
The Library of Congress cares, which is who spurred the research into this media. And you should, too, if you want any portion of our culture preserved for future generations.
The widespread contempt for creating anything of lasting value I see almost everywhere today speaks volumes about both this generation's shortsightedness and its selfishness.
OMG, 3D pop-up advertising.
I find it ironic that Doctorow was totally OK with everyone's intellectual property being freely copied all over the net, but suddenly balks at the idea of sharing software and disk space.
Gee, this socialism doesn't taste like its supposed to.
That is correct. VIFFing, or vectoring in forward flight, is rarely used in air combat, because it results in a complete loss of airspeed, leaving the Harrier a sitting duck. The RNAF cleaned the Argentinian's clocks using AIM-9L missiles, which did not require being anywhere near the enemy aircraft's six o'clock. They could hit them head-on. (The Argentines, on the other hand, still needed to engage from behind)
Modern missiles are so lethal that dogfights today are the exception, not the rule. Our pilots still train for them, because we went into Nam thinking it was all about missiles, and learned the hard way that their reliability had been oversold, and that lesson resulted in Top Gun and Red Flag. But today's missiles really ARE deadly accurate, so until everyone has stealth, most air to air engagements are likely to be one-sided, long-range affairs.
I imagine her expectations were unrealistic, but why is everyone so quick to condemn this girl? Why is it unreasonable to live in the wealthiest country in the world and expect to be able to find gainful employment? When you finish paying out tens of thousands of dollars for a college education, don't you expect to find better work than the local Walmart? If not, then why would you risk carrying so much debt?
Does it help you to sleep better at night telling yourself that ALL the unemployed or underemployed people in this country richly deserve it?
Kind of ironic coming from the crowd that has been working feverishly to develop machines that can replace human labor in a wide variety of jobs.
I would define evil as a person completely lacking in empathy. (I have heard a famous profiler say the same thing)
A corporation legally fits that description nicely, in addition to lacking anything other than fiscal responsibility for its actions.
They're evil.