There was actually a news article here a while back about cars that were built at a plant in Canada, being $10,000-$20,000 cheaper in hawaii than they were at the dealership accross the street from the plant.
I've been asking that software question for years. Why in the world does it cost Aussies so much money to download a game? I can only think it's some kind of tax thing, but nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer. I'm in the US, so it's academic to me, but still... what gives?
There's a difference between "working on" and "trying to build a working plant". There are all sorts of clearly (on paper) superior designs for nuclear power plants than anything that's out there producing commercial power. But it 's been exceptionally difficult to get them off the drawing board. The problem is the regulatory and business environment is such that for the most part the only thing that gets funded for actual production is the same old uranium design with incremental improvements. It's cheaper to build something the regulators are used to seeing than to try to get something new through the process.
Of course every new design brings the potential for new problems. But this particular one would have a pretty big impact on the amount of spent fuel piling up around the world if it were widely adopted.
Blame it on insane over funding on the military basically spending money hand over fist to smash it, burn it, blow it up and throw any remains away. Military spending beyond the bare necessitates is a total obscene waste.
Before you get too carried away, remember GPS, which is the most useful thing ever done in space, is a military system. Hell, liquid fueled rockets probably wouldn't be more than a hobbyist's toy without the military. Same with jet engines.
Spending on space could have an enormous beyond imagining pay off.
Oh bullshit. What payoff? As long as we're using chemical rockets there isn't much worth doing in space. I'm all for spending money on some other technology that might get us there more cheaply, since that would make things like space-based solar practical. But that's not what we're spending money on.
You started out your comment by saying we're in "current war on two fronts". If I were being a pedant, I would have said even in, say, 2007 we were in two wars and not a war on two fronts. I could even have said we weren't in any wars but rather we're conducting two occupations.
But to answer your question, it affects the argument because it's a hell of a lot cheaper to maintain a few thousand contractors plus some trainers in Iraq than it is to conduct a war there, so you were exaggerating the cost by quite a bit pretending it was part of a "current war".
The 911 is a direct descendant of the original beetle? Seems hard to believe. I agree the F-1 wasn't wholly developed by Germans. But without the V-2 I doubt it would have existed at all.
Military spending is about 5% of GDP, about half what it was at the end of the cold war. We're not broke because of the military. We're broke because of social spending, particularly Medicare.
Well, that's half true. The Air Force was forced to use the shuttle because NASA lied to Congress about, well, pretty much every aspect of its performance. The USAF wanted nothing to do with it, but NASA was able to hijack a large piece of their space budget by pretending the shuttle could handle military missions. Finally the Air Force gave up and said "Fine. We can use it if it will do this...," desperately hoping Congress would change its mind and allow them to go back to cheaper and more reliable disposables.
NASA forced the military to use the shuttle. If you're going to assign blame you should assign it where it belongs.
I hadn't looked into it in awhile. When I signed up for internet service 18 months ago the fastest plan was 6 Mb/s. Looked at it just yesterday and saw the fastest plan is now 50Mb/s.
Not only that, but Lisp was widely taught in universities and remained in the AI grad student backwater for decades. In fact, it wasn't until after universities decided to drop Lisp in favor of Java that it started to enjoy a renaissance, though the timing is probably coincidental.
There are a whole host of reasons companies decide to use one language over another. What's being taught in universities isn't even on the list.
Verizon's big push now is to build out its 4G network, because LTE has is much more efficient from a bandwidth perspective. I would be surprised if they didn't just skip 3G in your area.
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There was actually a news article here a while back about cars that were built at a plant in Canada, being $10,000-$20,000 cheaper in hawaii than they were at the dealership accross the street from the plant.
How much of that is taxes, though?
The US is still the largest manufacturer in the world, depending on how you measure it.
I've been asking that software question for years. Why in the world does it cost Aussies so much money to download a game? I can only think it's some kind of tax thing, but nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer. I'm in the US, so it's academic to me, but still... what gives?
There's a difference between "working on" and "trying to build a working plant". There are all sorts of clearly (on paper) superior designs for nuclear power plants than anything that's out there producing commercial power. But it 's been exceptionally difficult to get them off the drawing board. The problem is the regulatory and business environment is such that for the most part the only thing that gets funded for actual production is the same old uranium design with incremental improvements. It's cheaper to build something the regulators are used to seeing than to try to get something new through the process.
Of course every new design brings the potential for new problems. But this particular one would have a pretty big impact on the amount of spent fuel piling up around the world if it were widely adopted.
And gin. Hell, I could be happy pretty much anywhere there was gin.
I wish people would stop misusing the word "genocide". It's getting to the point where the word has been almost completely stripped of meaning.
And also fraught with legal peril for Gates.
As is the Korean People's Democratic Republic. Though nobody likes splitters.
Before you get too carried away, remember GPS, which is the most useful thing ever done in space, is a military system. Hell, liquid fueled rockets probably wouldn't be more than a hobbyist's toy without the military. Same with jet engines.
Oh bullshit. What payoff? As long as we're using chemical rockets there isn't much worth doing in space. I'm all for spending money on some other technology that might get us there more cheaply, since that would make things like space-based solar practical. But that's not what we're spending money on.
You know British Telecom tried to patent hypertext, right?
Because it's not a war in the traditional sense. It's an occupation, and that's how occupations work.
You started out your comment by saying we're in "current war on two fronts". If I were being a pedant, I would have said even in, say, 2007 we were in two wars and not a war on two fronts. I could even have said we weren't in any wars but rather we're conducting two occupations.
But to answer your question, it affects the argument because it's a hell of a lot cheaper to maintain a few thousand contractors plus some trainers in Iraq than it is to conduct a war there, so you were exaggerating the cost by quite a bit pretending it was part of a "current war".
The 911 is a direct descendant of the original beetle? Seems hard to believe. I agree the F-1 wasn't wholly developed by Germans. But without the V-2 I doubt it would have existed at all.
My point was "current war on two fronts" is, you know, inaccurate because it's not current.
You're trying to be facetious, but that's pretty much how it works now. Wasn't always that way, not even in my lifetime. But that's the way it is now.
Great idea. Then how about a Medicare tax that actually pays for Medicare as well? And a NASA tax? How about a farm subsidy tax?
Two fronts? You realize the US military left Iraq in December of last year. So we have A-stand and... where?
Military spending is about 5% of GDP, about half what it was at the end of the cold war. We're not broke because of the military. We're broke because of social spending, particularly Medicare.
Well, that's half true. The Air Force was forced to use the shuttle because NASA lied to Congress about, well, pretty much every aspect of its performance. The USAF wanted nothing to do with it, but NASA was able to hijack a large piece of their space budget by pretending the shuttle could handle military missions. Finally the Air Force gave up and said "Fine. We can use it if it will do this...," desperately hoping Congress would change its mind and allow them to go back to cheaper and more reliable disposables.
NASA forced the military to use the shuttle. If you're going to assign blame you should assign it where it belongs.
He said V-2. And he's right - the F-1 is a direct descendent of the V-2.
I hadn't looked into it in awhile. When I signed up for internet service 18 months ago the fastest plan was 6 Mb/s. Looked at it just yesterday and saw the fastest plan is now 50Mb/s.
Not only that, but Lisp was widely taught in universities and remained in the AI grad student backwater for decades. In fact, it wasn't until after universities decided to drop Lisp in favor of Java that it started to enjoy a renaissance, though the timing is probably coincidental.
There are a whole host of reasons companies decide to use one language over another. What's being taught in universities isn't even on the list.
Verizon's big push now is to build out its 4G network, because LTE has is much more efficient from a bandwidth perspective. I would be surprised if they didn't just skip 3G in your area.
Verizon is putting up a new 3G tower in your area? That seems hard to believe.
When I went through the LTE spec it was the first time in a very long time I looked at something technical and thought "this is amazingly clever!"