$30K isn't really a "reasonable cost for low-mid end car"
I can buy a 2009 Toyota Camry for a base price of around $19,000, and a Camry is one of Toyota's better models. The top of the line Toyota, the Avalon, starts around 33K. At best $30K is a reasonable price for a mid-high end car. A nice lower end car (Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla) can be bought for the $17K - $20K range, and a low end car (Hyundai Accent) can be had for under $15K.
$30K is a fairly high priced car, and I doubt too many people with the $26K income bracket are buying them new.
Like you said, the household income is around $48K, while it was rare in the 20s for a household to have two incomes. You should compare the $30K number to the $48K number which means that the new car is not a larger-than-unity fraction of a year's income.
Yeah, Sony execs wouldn't lie. Of course they are going to say the prices will stay high, if everyone expects the price to drop no one will buy them now.
Mr. Glasgow expressed hope that price levels wouldn't collapse the way they did for DVD players.
How many movie titles does Sony own? Selling billions of new blu-ray disks is going to be much more profitable than selling the players, especially when they have competition in the players, but no competition in the titles they own. This is what they do with the playstation and microsoft does with the Xbox. Subsidize the player so consumers will buy the games.
Believe the corporate press releases if you want to, but mark my words. As soon as Sony thinks they have captured all of the early adopters the price will drop like a stone. It's all about profit, and they are going to screw the consumer to make a buck.
I agree. My dishwasher is 100% reliable and always does exactly what it's supposed to do. My Roomba is completely worthless.
Fair enough. I don't have one, so I can't comment on the quality of the product, but there are a lot of people out there (like you) that have bought one. It may be worthless, but seems like a fairly successful product, and proof that more development into home robotics is a worthwhile endeavor.
But that has been claimed about these technologies for decades. Commercial fusion is always 20 years off. Oil shale production needs oil at $40-$50 barrel. When these points are reached, either the goalposts are moved or LOOK, OVER THERE, A DISTRACTION. Hence, vaporware.
Maybe, but what's decades when it comes to technology like this. I remember watching the original Star Trek when I was a kid and thinking how crazy the idea of a handheld communicator was. Now I've got two very similar devices sitting on the desk in front of me. I can't call space, but probably only because I don't have the number for the ISS. Some of these ideas may never be viable, but some are just waiting on the right conditions. You have to remember, we only recently reached a high for oil in terms of an inflation adjusted price. $40-$50 oil 20 years ago equates closer to $80-$100 oil now. Being above that will make shale oil more attainable.
And I wouldn't consider the Roomba to be a household robot. It's hard automation, much like a dishwasher. The fact that it moves doesn't change that. A robot which could do the dishes or laundry without special help (e.g. RFID dishes), that's more along the lines of what I'm thinking of.
A Roomba is a long way from a dishwasher. I agree, not full AI, but it's constantly getting closer. There is continual research into AI and robotics. Eventually this will result in more sophisticated home machines... or skynet. Unless some hard limitations are met in terms of processing power or manufacturing that makes intelligent robots impossible/not cost effective to build, it will happen.
The increased price of oil should make this more viable. It may not have worked out at $40 a barrel, but right now if they can produce it at $80 a barrel it would be a marketable source. It's tough referring to some of this as vaporware - most of them are good ideas, but economics and technology haven't quite caught up with them yet.
This time its different because the blu-ray consortium is not giving licenses to tom-dick-harry shop in china to make cheap players. So unlike the DVD, this time around we wont be seeing cheap DVD players. I still remember that it was some Chinese brand (apex?) which broke the $100 barrier for DVD-players and became the largest selling dvd player right behind Sony. With tighter licensing restrictions, thats not going to happen this time around with Blu-ray payers
If your statement is true, and I'm going to assume it is, this means we also won't see a huge blu-ray adoption. The VHS to DVD format adoption is easily the fastest I've ever seen. Faster than LPs to tape, faster than tape to CD. in fact, I remember buying my first CD player in about 1989. CDs had been mainstream since what, 82, but seven years later a good player was still $300? It took a long time for the CD to completely take over the market, mostly because the players were expensive.
If the studios are smart, and I think they are, the prices of blu-ray players will only be high for the next 6 months or so. After that, the studios will subsidize their production. The only way people are going to buy ANOTHER new copy of that old movie they love is if the player is cheap. The best way for the studios to make money is to get those players in the hands of the end users.
Although the idea of tracking and finding a pattern to police vehicle movement is both scary and interesting.
Absolutely. Obviously that information could be used for criminal activity, but I would love to see if there is a correlation between police presence and an actual reduction in crimes. The city I live in, Greeley Colorado, recently built a new police station, only a few blocks from my home. The old one, which had been there for many years, was in one of the more high crime areas of town. It would be interesting to know what impact moving the police station has on patrol areas, and what impact that has on the overall qualities of the neighborhood. Is there actually less crime near the police station? Are the areas around the police station become more highly patrolled? Do people feel safer around the police, or do higher income residents actually move further away from a police presence to avoid harassment from law enforcement, resulting in an overall decline in the neighborhoods?
I guarantee that this will never happen in the US, though, over concerns that knowing where fire trucks are could potentially allow terr'ists to strike areas where the firefighters are all busy elsewhere or something silly like that.
Probably, but there is already a nifty little device to do this. It's called a police scanner. People have been using them for years to find out where public service vehicles are. Google earth doesn't help terrorists as much as a handy portable police radio would.
And at least in Sweden, free wifi hotspots isn't that common. The fee at hotels is about 20/week and on the train it is 10 for a 5 hour ride.
Why is this? Doesn't seem to make economic sense, especially for the hotels.
Here in the US the situation is pretty simple. The only people who charge are large established businesses with little competition. Starbucks charges because they have a large customer base. Every other coffee shop in town gives it away for free as an incentive to visit their location. Same thing with many hotels. Holiday Inn offers free wifi. I know, I borrowed it once (and my brother in law stays in a lot of Holiday Inns). About the only time a business charges for wifi is if they know people are going to come in and they can sell it as an upgrade. Wifi is a very cheap service to offer, so everyone else uses it as a loss leader (bars, tanning salons, dog groomers, whatever)
But in an age of total fiat currency, there is little need to raise taxes. By printing more money, they've essentially raised taxes on our savings, without most people even understanding it. Most people will blame the lose of their purchasing power on the rising prices of oil or something, but that's just blaming the symptoms.
Exactly, that's what started this whole discussion. Until there is some way to enforce some type of fiscal responsibility on the government. Government officials need to account for these grandiose schemes they have - we have to stop letting them just print/borrow money.
If you were to add up all the taxes, fees, cost of compliance with tax laws and cost of real inflation, and spell it out for people, then you'd see that rioting in the streets you mention. If you could make people understand, but I don't think you ever will. I would LOVE to see a president get into office that consolidated all of the tax code into something like a flat sales tax. We have allowed lawmakers to hide tax by scattering it around and making employers and merchants pay it. Most people have no idea how much they pay, and figure if their boss pays their unemployment and social security for them it doesn't actually come out of their wages.
Of course, everyone feels so powerless to stop it... not sure what anyone can do, but watch the meltdown.
If they raised taxes to cover all costs of Iraq, the War on Drugs, and whatever else, there would be riots in the streets. You need to go back and play some civ, AOE, Empire Earth or sim city. People get PISSED when you raise taxes Well, according to the Laffer Curve, Raising taxes would give us LESS money to pay for things like Iraq, War on Drugs and whatever else. The government has been pulling in record receipts since Bush's tax cuts. Sorry, but raising taxes slows the economy and ends up with less tax revenue.
My point exactly. The slowing economy and other negative effects (black markets, new administrations being voted in, riots in the streets, etc...) are all a downside of raising taxes. Most of these things would not take place immediately. A tax increase will raise more revenue in the short term, but it will stifle growth and impact the economy over the next several years.
How about we pass legislation demanding that the citizenry grow some balls such that we don't let trivial shit like MySpace bullying reduce us, collectively, to simpering idiots.
Just figured if they would set that up I could whine about being victimized and get a check. May as well get some of my money back.
Thing I don't get about this is the standards. Maybe general government use isn't the same, but back when I used to work for a company that made military equipment everything had to be to military specifications. Any changes had to be reviewed and approved by the DOD. I don't know if things have changed over the last 15 years, but this was a BIG deal then.
>So you totally miss the part about it being illegal to establish a prior restraint on free speech, or for government
to introduce a "chilling effect" on what is otherwise a First Amendment protected activity.
No, absolutely not. I don't discount that at all. Thing is, I believe if the lawmakers had to actually figure out a way to fund their actions they would spend a lot less time trying to infringe on our rights. Conspiracy theories aside, I don't think most lawmakers intend to attack the constitution, they just pass laws in the most expedient manner to get the job done. While they may not understand the intangible needs for freedom, they do understand the financial needs to pay for things. Tyranny is expensive, it drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and won the cold war for us. They couldn't simultaneously oppress their people and fund the weapons that made them a super power.
I think that our founding fathers, with their amazing foresight, new this. They purposely made the federal government weak and hard to fund in order to stave off tyranny. Money is power. Unfortunately, while our federal government doesn't actually have this power, we have allowed them to borrow money and acquire the means to oppress the people.
Nah, they'll still pass all sorts of crazy, expensive, and worthless laws only then they'll all have tax increase riders attached.
Actually, the probably wouldn't. The one thing the public cares about, and politicians are afraid of, is raising taxes. Lawmakers will go out of their way to avoid having anything that looks like a tax increase in their record. That's why the country just borrows trillions of dollars, steals from the social security funds, . If they raised taxes to cover all costs of Iraq, the War on Drugs, and whatever else, there would be riots in the streets. You need to go back and play some civ, AOE, Empire Earth or sim city. People get PISSED when you raise taxes.
I agree completely. The biggest problem with Internet ads is all the abuse.
There are plenty of businesses that SHOULD advertise to me. There are many goods and services that I would take advantage of if I just knew what businesses offer. Instead of getting me what I want, I am bombarded with (as you said) X10 cameras, male enhancement pills, "free" ipods, or whatever. Show me products I can use. Target them based on my location. Show me specials on something I MIGHT be interested in. Get me into your store, or on to your website.
Seems like every day I hear, by word of mouth, about some company that offers something I might be interested in, and I wonder why they heck they don't advertise that service.
You absolutely should. People need to be aware of these type of things when they go on. I think, as more technically inclined individuals, we have a responsibility to inform the world about potential security risks like this. The average person just doesn't understand.
One of the biggest reasons there is a shortage is a lack of standardization in the industry. Every new application, tool, server, OS, whatever that is released has a significantly different interface and functionality than the previous version. This requires an individual to not only be familiar and have experience in general IT work, but to be specifically trained for the application a company is using.
Microsoft loves releasing new software with a continual learning curve. Problem with this is, no one has time to learn all the ins and outs of this week's new software release. The more people in IT, the more people that can specialize in a particular application. If Microsoft would update their products incrementally, keeping the same basic functionality as the previous version but just fixing the bugs and enhancing things where they are needed IT would be much easier to work in. When there are four active releases of one product (Outlook, Office, IE, Exchange, etc...) it is incredibly difficult to keep track of how each one works. Licensing costs are prohibitive for many businesses, so they many don't upgrade all of their systems to the latest version regularly. This means an IT professional has to be versed in versions of the software that are both current and several years old.
Flooding the market with IT people is the only way Microsoft, and companies like them, can manage to support their business model. As the talent pool shrinks, there are less people willing to learn their new products. As a result, new versions of their software (Vista) don't sell very well. No one is trained to support them, and no one wants to learn.
Actually, it' might be the main flaw. The major problem I have with these kinds of laws aren't IF they are enforcable, but how much the enforcement will cost and who will pay for it.
An initiative like this will cost millions if not billions of dollars. It would probably be more effective to just set up a victims fund and pay for counseling for anyone who gets bullied. We waste so much money in this country on ridiculous activities like this, when we could be housing the homeless, educating our kids, or researching cures for cancer.
It should not only be mandatory that lawmakers have a clue about feasibility, but every bill that's passed should have a study done as to the ultimate costs and the methods of funding the new law. If the money isn't in the budget the lawmakers can't pass the bill. If the lawmakers don't have enough money to conduct an adequate study, the bill also shouldn't be passed.
One good thing about Brain Cancer, at least from an economic perspective, is that it can be very hard to treat. You can't just remove someone's brain the way you can a breast. I actually new a guy that died from inoperable brain cancer, nothing they could do but make him comfortable.
It *is* profitable to cure someone who has a cancer you can't treat.
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$30K isn't really a "reasonable cost for low-mid end car"
I can buy a 2009 Toyota Camry for a base price of around $19,000, and a Camry is one of Toyota's better models. The top of the line Toyota, the Avalon, starts around 33K. At best $30K is a reasonable price for a mid-high end car. A nice lower end car (Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla) can be bought for the $17K - $20K range, and a low end car (Hyundai Accent) can be had for under $15K.
$30K is a fairly high priced car, and I doubt too many people with the $26K income bracket are buying them new.
Like you said, the household income is around $48K, while it was rare in the 20s for a household to have two incomes. You should compare the $30K number to the $48K number which means that the new car is not a larger-than-unity fraction of a year's income.
Actually, I wasn't the one modded down. Just contributing.
Yeah, but then you lose your points. That's annoying too.
I think using a touch pad makes using the moderation popup less reliable.
Maybe, but I have problems with my mouse.
Actually, the last couple times I've had mod points I noticed that it's really easy to click the wrong selection in the drop down.
Once you click it, there's no way to take it back.
You forgot Grow Peanuts, Play Saxaphone and Act (I guess they can all do that, but one was a member of SAG).
Mr. Glasgow expressed hope that price levels wouldn't collapse the way they did for DVD players.
How many movie titles does Sony own? Selling billions of new blu-ray disks is going to be much more profitable than selling the players, especially when they have competition in the players, but no competition in the titles they own. This is what they do with the playstation and microsoft does with the Xbox. Subsidize the player so consumers will buy the games.
Believe the corporate press releases if you want to, but mark my words. As soon as Sony thinks they have captured all of the early adopters the price will drop like a stone. It's all about profit, and they are going to screw the consumer to make a buck.
Fair enough. I don't have one, so I can't comment on the quality of the product, but there are a lot of people out there (like you) that have bought one. It may be worthless, but seems like a fairly successful product, and proof that more development into home robotics is a worthwhile endeavor.
Maybe, but what's decades when it comes to technology like this. I remember watching the original Star Trek when I was a kid and thinking how crazy the idea of a handheld communicator was. Now I've got two very similar devices sitting on the desk in front of me. I can't call space, but probably only because I don't have the number for the ISS. Some of these ideas may never be viable, but some are just waiting on the right conditions. You have to remember, we only recently reached a high for oil in terms of an inflation adjusted price. $40-$50 oil 20 years ago equates closer to $80-$100 oil now. Being above that will make shale oil more attainable.
And I wouldn't consider the Roomba to be a household robot. It's hard automation, much like a dishwasher. The fact that it moves doesn't change that. A robot which could do the dishes or laundry without special help (e.g. RFID dishes), that's more along the lines of what I'm thinking of.
A Roomba is a long way from a dishwasher. I agree, not full AI, but it's constantly getting closer. There is continual research into AI and robotics. Eventually this will result in more sophisticated home machines... or skynet. Unless some hard limitations are met in terms of processing power or manufacturing that makes intelligent robots impossible/not cost effective to build, it will happen.
The increased price of oil should make this more viable. It may not have worked out at $40 a barrel, but right now if they can produce it at $80 a barrel it would be a marketable source. It's tough referring to some of this as vaporware - most of them are good ideas, but economics and technology haven't quite caught up with them yet.
If your statement is true, and I'm going to assume it is, this means we also won't see a huge blu-ray adoption. The VHS to DVD format adoption is easily the fastest I've ever seen. Faster than LPs to tape, faster than tape to CD. in fact, I remember buying my first CD player in about 1989. CDs had been mainstream since what, 82, but seven years later a good player was still $300? It took a long time for the CD to completely take over the market, mostly because the players were expensive.
If the studios are smart, and I think they are, the prices of blu-ray players will only be high for the next 6 months or so. After that, the studios will subsidize their production. The only way people are going to buy ANOTHER new copy of that old movie they love is if the player is cheap. The best way for the studios to make money is to get those players in the hands of the end users.
Absolutely. Obviously that information could be used for criminal activity, but I would love to see if there is a correlation between police presence and an actual reduction in crimes. The city I live in, Greeley Colorado, recently built a new police station, only a few blocks from my home. The old one, which had been there for many years, was in one of the more high crime areas of town. It would be interesting to know what impact moving the police station has on patrol areas, and what impact that has on the overall qualities of the neighborhood. Is there actually less crime near the police station? Are the areas around the police station become more highly patrolled? Do people feel safer around the police, or do higher income residents actually move further away from a police presence to avoid harassment from law enforcement, resulting in an overall decline in the neighborhoods?
Probably, but there is already a nifty little device to do this. It's called a police scanner. People have been using them for years to find out where public service vehicles are. Google earth doesn't help terrorists as much as a handy portable police radio would.
Why is this? Doesn't seem to make economic sense, especially for the hotels.
Here in the US the situation is pretty simple. The only people who charge are large established businesses with little competition. Starbucks charges because they have a large customer base. Every other coffee shop in town gives it away for free as an incentive to visit their location. Same thing with many hotels. Holiday Inn offers free wifi. I know, I borrowed it once (and my brother in law stays in a lot of Holiday Inns). About the only time a business charges for wifi is if they know people are going to come in and they can sell it as an upgrade. Wifi is a very cheap service to offer, so everyone else uses it as a loss leader (bars, tanning salons, dog groomers, whatever)
Exactly, that's what started this whole discussion. Until there is some way to enforce some type of fiscal responsibility on the government. Government officials need to account for these grandiose schemes they have - we have to stop letting them just print/borrow money.
If you were to add up all the taxes, fees, cost of compliance with tax laws and cost of real inflation, and spell it out for people, then you'd see that rioting in the streets you mention.
If you could make people understand, but I don't think you ever will. I would LOVE to see a president get into office that consolidated all of the tax code into something like a flat sales tax. We have allowed lawmakers to hide tax by scattering it around and making employers and merchants pay it. Most people have no idea how much they pay, and figure if their boss pays their unemployment and social security for them it doesn't actually come out of their wages.
Of course, everyone feels so powerless to stop it... not sure what anyone can do, but watch the meltdown.
My point exactly. The slowing economy and other negative effects (black markets, new administrations being voted in, riots in the streets, etc...) are all a downside of raising taxes. Most of these things would not take place immediately. A tax increase will raise more revenue in the short term, but it will stifle growth and impact the economy over the next several years.
Just figured if they would set that up I could whine about being victimized and get a check. May as well get some of my money back.
Thing I don't get about this is the standards. Maybe general government use isn't the same, but back when I used to work for a company that made military equipment everything had to be to military specifications. Any changes had to be reviewed and approved by the DOD. I don't know if things have changed over the last 15 years, but this was a BIG deal then.
to introduce a "chilling effect" on what is otherwise a First Amendment protected activity.
No, absolutely not. I don't discount that at all. Thing is, I believe if the lawmakers had to actually figure out a way to fund their actions they would spend a lot less time trying to infringe on our rights. Conspiracy theories aside, I don't think most lawmakers intend to attack the constitution, they just pass laws in the most expedient manner to get the job done. While they may not understand the intangible needs for freedom, they do understand the financial needs to pay for things. Tyranny is expensive, it drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and won the cold war for us. They couldn't simultaneously oppress their people and fund the weapons that made them a super power.
I think that our founding fathers, with their amazing foresight, new this. They purposely made the federal government weak and hard to fund in order to stave off tyranny. Money is power. Unfortunately, while our federal government doesn't actually have this power, we have allowed them to borrow money and acquire the means to oppress the people.
Nah, they'll still pass all sorts of crazy, expensive, and worthless laws only then they'll all have tax increase riders attached.
Actually, the probably wouldn't. The one thing the public cares about, and politicians are afraid of, is raising taxes. Lawmakers will go out of their way to avoid having anything that looks like a tax increase in their record. That's why the country just borrows trillions of dollars, steals from the social security funds, . If they raised taxes to cover all costs of Iraq, the War on Drugs, and whatever else, there would be riots in the streets. You need to go back and play some civ, AOE, Empire Earth or sim city. People get PISSED when you raise taxes.
I agree completely. The biggest problem with Internet ads is all the abuse.
There are plenty of businesses that SHOULD advertise to me. There are many goods and services that I would take advantage of if I just knew what businesses offer. Instead of getting me what I want, I am bombarded with (as you said) X10 cameras, male enhancement pills, "free" ipods, or whatever. Show me products I can use. Target them based on my location. Show me specials on something I MIGHT be interested in. Get me into your store, or on to your website.
Seems like every day I hear, by word of mouth, about some company that offers something I might be interested in, and I wonder why they heck they don't advertise that service.
And if your modem actually requests a new IP. If your lease hasn't expired you may get the same IP you did before the restart.
You absolutely should. People need to be aware of these type of things when they go on. I think, as more technically inclined individuals, we have a responsibility to inform the world about potential security risks like this. The average person just doesn't understand.
One of the biggest reasons there is a shortage is a lack of standardization in the industry. Every new application, tool, server, OS, whatever that is released has a significantly different interface and functionality than the previous version. This requires an individual to not only be familiar and have experience in general IT work, but to be specifically trained for the application a company is using.
Microsoft loves releasing new software with a continual learning curve. Problem with this is, no one has time to learn all the ins and outs of this week's new software release. The more people in IT, the more people that can specialize in a particular application. If Microsoft would update their products incrementally, keeping the same basic functionality as the previous version but just fixing the bugs and enhancing things where they are needed IT would be much easier to work in. When there are four active releases of one product (Outlook, Office, IE, Exchange, etc...) it is incredibly difficult to keep track of how each one works. Licensing costs are prohibitive for many businesses, so they many don't upgrade all of their systems to the latest version regularly. This means an IT professional has to be versed in versions of the software that are both current and several years old.
Flooding the market with IT people is the only way Microsoft, and companies like them, can manage to support their business model. As the talent pool shrinks, there are less people willing to learn their new products. As a result, new versions of their software (Vista) don't sell very well. No one is trained to support them, and no one wants to learn.
Actually, it' might be the main flaw. The major problem I have with these kinds of laws aren't IF they are enforcable, but how much the enforcement will cost and who will pay for it.
An initiative like this will cost millions if not billions of dollars. It would probably be more effective to just set up a victims fund and pay for counseling for anyone who gets bullied. We waste so much money in this country on ridiculous activities like this, when we could be housing the homeless, educating our kids, or researching cures for cancer.
It should not only be mandatory that lawmakers have a clue about feasibility, but every bill that's passed should have a study done as to the ultimate costs and the methods of funding the new law. If the money isn't in the budget the lawmakers can't pass the bill. If the lawmakers don't have enough money to conduct an adequate study, the bill also shouldn't be passed.
One good thing about Brain Cancer, at least from an economic perspective, is that it can be very hard to treat. You can't just remove someone's brain the way you can a breast. I actually new a guy that died from inoperable brain cancer, nothing they could do but make him comfortable.
It *is* profitable to cure someone who has a cancer you can't treat.