Why is it that salaries/wages in the US for even schlock jobs are so much higher than they are in the rest of the world? Is flipping burgers somehow worth more there?
It depends on where the job is, and who's paying you to do it. In New York State the minimum wage is $6/hour, and there are probably lots of jobs around the state at that level. I think you're unlikely to find many of them in New York City though, because the cost of living in NYC makes $6/hour look like working for whatever change is in the couch cushions most other places. San Jose may be a similar story, but $14/hour still sounds high.
Union schlock jobs can also result in ridiculous pay, depending on the employer and union. In the 80's, I remember General Motors hiring janitors to start at $18/hour. In some American industries, unions are organizations that help improve working conditions by creating parity between labor and employers to insure safety and fair compensation. In others, they're extortion rackets that suck the lifeblood out of companies because there's nothing else for them to justify their dues with.
I haven't been "kickin' it" on a playground since the 70's. In 1990 I was on my third computer, an 8086 Amstraad. A CPU was a chip then, like it is now, just a whole lot less capable. Lots of people in the 90's (as well as now) called it a "hard drive" also - but it isn't, wasn't, and won't be for the foreseeable future. People by the millions can call the box "lederhosen" or "marital aid" if they like, but all being wrong in the same way won't make them right.
Ok, I can't swear that it couldn't be a marital aid, but the rest stands.
Only later I found out that even though the screen is bigger than the ipods, it runs at the same resolution.
The resolution (QVGA - 320x240) is a fairly standard one in handheld devices, and whether it's on a 2.5" screen or a 3" screen really isn't going to really matter much. Quick and dirty math says that either one is still about twice the pixel density of 1024x768 on a 17" screen, and if all else is equal I don't really think the eye can appreciate a difference between the density on an iPod or a Zune. Not saying that all else is equal of course, but if you don't like the display, it's unlikely to have anything to do with the resolution.
After that they more or less sit for 30 minutes while the teacher "works" with them while they are splattered around her (not that they absorb anything).
That wouldn't be legal here. Teachers here can only dream of having their class splattered around them.
We had a storm last month that knocked out power in patches all over the city, and took out the traffic lights on my street for a few days. Everyone went back to the rules of "first car to stop goes first" and "a tie goes to the car on the right" at those intersections. In the five years that I've been here, I've never seen traffic flow so smoothly. I don't think it would work well at all in a busier part of town, but I've been mulling over a request to have those lights removed for good.
Does that mean when taxes are cut for the evil rich that it doesn't cost the government anything?
'Fraid so. Discussing the "cost" of a tax cut is just class rhetoric to foster resentment. In the first year after the U.S. tax cut, federal revenues increased $100 billion due to the economic activity resulting from letting people keep (and spend) their own money.
And believe it or not, you can't give a tax cut to people who already don't pay any taxes. It boggles the mind, perhaps, but it's true.
You play a guy named Gordy who goes dog sledding through lumber camps and picks up back bacon for health powerups? I think it's been done... or was I just really drunk.
That being the case, the libertarian candidate will likely siphon votes from the challenger, thus handing the race to the incumbent. This is true of any third party. Don't believe me? Ralph Nader got something like 15,000 votes in Florida. Had those people instead voted for Gore, Bush never would have been elected and we wouldn't be in the mess we're in.
While the American approach is quite honestly hypocritical (we are going to force you to be "free" by our definition of free), it is no less so than the communist line of a state run by the workers.
Either you meant that it is less so, or I'm missing your point.
It might be useful For stock photography galleries and the like. And news bureaus. At least one of the recent Reuters "fauxtography" scandal photos wasn't taken where it was claimed to have been.
How did you get to 3TB in a home PC? I know a couple of boards that support 6 onboard SATA connections, but I know of no single chassis that can hold them, nor any reasonably priced RAID 5 controller that can be run without a 64bit PCI slot.
As for mounting the drives, if you wanted them in the same chasis as the rest of your rig, you should probably have selected nothing less than a full size tower where 8 or more internal 3.5" enclosures isn't uncommon (and adequate cooling can be available). You can also find mid-sized cases to accomodate the 6 that you mentioned, or more. Otherwise, you might increase internal mounting capacity a bit with something like 3ware's drive cages, or look at an external firewire cabinet - but now you're leaving the realm of "cheap". Of course, if you're buying 8 or 12 SATA drives, you weren't really in it to begin with...
No, I don't work for 3ware. I've just been really happy with a few of their products.
"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping."
The end result is the vote is decided by minority groups with political agendas. Mandatory voting forces the politicians to appeal to the largest demographics, rather than the noisiest minorities.
I mostly agree, but think you're discounting a couple significant factors. The largest democraphics are also affected by the most succesful marketing effort, who spent the most most money on it, and how emotionally moving (even if rationally bankrupt) their marketing may have been. The latter factor especially can be already be found hand in hand with the noisiest minorities. Some significant number of currently non-participating voters, who at least in part are likely not to participate for a lack of information to decide with, will instead be left to make emotional decisions. In this case, noisy minorities with ad budgets win.
Interesting theory, but there's a reason we're a republic and NOT a democracy. Perhaps this prof. should read up on exactly WHY the electorate exists.
There are plenty of republics, including the U.S., which are both republics and democracies. They aren't mutually exclusive alternatives; in fact, they can work pretty well together. "Republic" essentially means that we don't have a king, and "democracy" means that the government is empowered by the people. Keep playing Civilization, it's a great game, but you shouldn't be taking lessons in theories of governance from it.
That said, I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.
Mercenaries. Must be nice to be able to redefine the language for one's convenience.
Is 'representative democracy' another term for hegemony? If so, I agree, although if not I ask you to ask yourself how many referenda you have been aware of in the USA over recent years. I ask because in a democracy, the people vote for the laws but in a hegemony the people vote for the people who vote for the laws.
Hegemony isn't a form of government. Representative democracy is where the people's power is invested in representatives which they elect. Our federal government works like this, but the states differ. Some states have lots of ballot initiatives, and some have none at all unless they're county or municipal.
Another way to look at this is the people voting for their dictators - those who will rule them for the rulers' own good.
It isn't anything like voting for dictators; dictators either put themselves in power or arrived there by happy accident of birth, and the election is meaningless (e.g., "yes or no" on the only candidate, the dictator). The people have no power to invest anywhere, either directly or through a representative. The election is merely an opinion poll, and the dictator will continue to serve themself regardless of the outcome.
We select senators and house reps at the federal level, most officials at the state, county, and municipal levels, and direct our states in presidential elections. With the exception of officials who get practically embedded due to party politics, we can toss most of these just as easily as we select them. In addition, although some occasionally get other notions, their offices exist in the service of their constituencies and there are penalties up to and including prison for using that office to serve themself.
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Why is it that salaries/wages in the US for even schlock jobs are so much higher than they are in the rest of the world? Is flipping burgers somehow worth more there? It depends on where the job is, and who's paying you to do it. In New York State the minimum wage is $6/hour, and there are probably lots of jobs around the state at that level. I think you're unlikely to find many of them in New York City though, because the cost of living in NYC makes $6/hour look like working for whatever change is in the couch cushions most other places. San Jose may be a similar story, but $14/hour still sounds high. Union schlock jobs can also result in ridiculous pay, depending on the employer and union. In the 80's, I remember General Motors hiring janitors to start at $18/hour. In some American industries, unions are organizations that help improve working conditions by creating parity between labor and employers to insure safety and fair compensation. In others, they're extortion rackets that suck the lifeblood out of companies because there's nothing else for them to justify their dues with.
I haven't been "kickin' it" on a playground since the 70's. In 1990 I was on my third computer, an 8086 Amstraad. A CPU was a chip then, like it is now, just a whole lot less capable. Lots of people in the 90's (as well as now) called it a "hard drive" also - but it isn't, wasn't, and won't be for the foreseeable future. People by the millions can call the box "lederhosen" or "marital aid" if they like, but all being wrong in the same way won't make them right.
Ok, I can't swear that it couldn't be a marital aid, but the rest stands.
Second, calling the actual computer the CPU is not incorrect, it's merely old school.
It's not "old-school". The box is not, and never has been, a CPU. Maybe you meant "It's merely home-school"?
Or udder-shaped.
Only later I found out that even though the screen is bigger than the ipods, it runs at the same resolution.
The resolution (QVGA - 320x240) is a fairly standard one in handheld devices, and whether it's on a 2.5" screen or a 3" screen really isn't going to really matter much. Quick and dirty math says that either one is still about twice the pixel density of 1024x768 on a 17" screen, and if all else is equal I don't really think the eye can appreciate a difference between the density on an iPod or a Zune. Not saying that all else is equal of course, but if you don't like the display, it's unlikely to have anything to do with the resolution.
After that they more or less sit for 30 minutes while the teacher "works" with them while they are splattered around her (not that they absorb anything).
That wouldn't be legal here. Teachers here can only dream of having their class splattered around them.
in many major US cities I've visited pedestrians seem to ignore the traffic signals and cross when and where they want.
Don't make this mistake in Boston. They WILL hit you.
We had a storm last month that knocked out power in patches all over the city, and took out the traffic lights on my street for a few days. Everyone went back to the rules of "first car to stop goes first" and "a tie goes to the car on the right" at those intersections. In the five years that I've been here, I've never seen traffic flow so smoothly. I don't think it would work well at all in a busier part of town, but I've been mulling over a request to have those lights removed for good.
Does that mean when taxes are cut for the evil rich that it doesn't cost the government anything?
'Fraid so. Discussing the "cost" of a tax cut is just class rhetoric to foster resentment. In the first year after the U.S. tax cut, federal revenues increased $100 billion due to the economic activity resulting from letting people keep (and spend) their own money.
And believe it or not, you can't give a tax cut to people who already don't pay any taxes. It boggles the mind, perhaps, but it's true.
You play a guy named Gordy who goes dog sledding through lumber camps and picks up back bacon for health powerups? I think it's been done... or was I just really drunk.
That being the case, the libertarian candidate will likely siphon votes from the challenger, thus handing the race to the incumbent. This is true of any third party. Don't believe me? Ralph Nader got something like 15,000 votes in Florida. Had those people instead voted for Gore, Bush never would have been elected and we wouldn't be in the mess we're in.
Gore was the incumbent.
While the American approach is quite honestly hypocritical (we are going to force you to be "free" by our definition of free), it is no less so than the communist line of a state run by the workers.
Either you meant that it is less so, or I'm missing your point.
It might be useful For stock photography galleries and the like. And news bureaus. At least one of the recent Reuters "fauxtography" scandal photos wasn't taken where it was claimed to have been.
How did you get to 3TB in a home PC? I know a couple of boards that support 6 onboard SATA connections, but I know of no single chassis that can hold them, nor any reasonably priced RAID 5 controller that can be run without a 64bit PCI slot.
64-bit PCI isn't exactly out of the home arena anymore, and even if it were, it's possible for 64 bit cards to work in the old 32 bit slots. In fact, I've had a 3ware 7506-4LP controller in one for a few years now. They also have 8, 12, and 16 port models for ATA, SATA, and SATA II.
As for mounting the drives, if you wanted them in the same chasis as the rest of your rig, you should probably have selected nothing less than a full size tower where 8 or more internal 3.5" enclosures isn't uncommon (and adequate cooling can be available). You can also find mid-sized cases to accomodate the 6 that you mentioned, or more. Otherwise, you might increase internal mounting capacity a bit with something like 3ware's drive cages, or look at an external firewire cabinet - but now you're leaving the realm of "cheap". Of course, if you're buying 8 or 12 SATA drives, you weren't really in it to begin with...
No, I don't work for 3ware. I've just been really happy with a few of their products.
"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping."
Read Orwell to see what a survelance society is like.
Read Orwell? Visit London!
The end result is the vote is decided by minority groups with political agendas. Mandatory voting forces the politicians to appeal to the largest demographics, rather than the noisiest minorities.
I mostly agree, but think you're discounting a couple significant factors. The largest democraphics are also affected by the most succesful marketing effort, who spent the most most money on it, and how emotionally moving (even if rationally bankrupt) their marketing may have been. The latter factor especially can be already be found hand in hand with the noisiest minorities. Some significant number of currently non-participating voters, who at least in part are likely not to participate for a lack of information to decide with, will instead be left to make emotional decisions. In this case, noisy minorities with ad budgets win.
Interesting theory, but there's a reason we're a republic and NOT a democracy. Perhaps this prof. should read up on exactly WHY the electorate exists.
There are plenty of republics, including the U.S., which are both republics and democracies. They aren't mutually exclusive alternatives; in fact, they can work pretty well together. "Republic" essentially means that we don't have a king, and "democracy" means that the government is empowered by the people. Keep playing Civilization, it's a great game, but you shouldn't be taking lessons in theories of governance from it.
I wonder what these geniuses plan on doing with porn streamed from Europe?
Capture, catalog, and burn "best of" CDs, of course.
Actually, it was
Mercenaries. Must be nice to be able to redefine the language for one's convenience.
Is 'representative democracy' another term for hegemony? If so, I agree, although if not I ask you to ask yourself how many referenda you have been aware of in the USA over recent years. I ask because in a democracy, the people vote for the laws but in a hegemony the people vote for the people who vote for the laws.
Hegemony isn't a form of government. Representative democracy is where the people's power is invested in representatives which they elect. Our federal government works like this, but the states differ. Some states have lots of ballot initiatives, and some have none at all unless they're county or municipal.
Another way to look at this is the people voting for their dictators - those who will rule them for the rulers' own good.
It isn't anything like voting for dictators; dictators either put themselves in power or arrived there by happy accident of birth, and the election is meaningless (e.g., "yes or no" on the only candidate, the dictator). The people have no power to invest anywhere, either directly or through a representative. The election is merely an opinion poll, and the dictator will continue to serve themself regardless of the outcome.
We select senators and house reps at the federal level, most officials at the state, county, and municipal levels, and direct our states in presidential elections. With the exception of officials who get practically embedded due to party politics, we can toss most of these just as easily as we select them. In addition, although some occasionally get other notions, their offices exist in the service of their constituencies and there are penalties up to and including prison for using that office to serve themself.
The USA is not a democracy. It is a republic.
Neither excludes the other. We vote for our leaders and we don't have a monarch. We're a representative democracy structured as a federal republic.
Felon status does impact your rights, but to what extent depends somewhat on your state of residence. In some states, felons can vote.
All my foes are spelling or grammar Nazis.
All of my foes are spelling or grammar Nazis.
No political party has a monopoly on wisdom or ignorance
No, but when it isn't frustrating, it's hysterical watching them try to corner the market.