I don't think there's time to think about consequences when a hammer hits your finger
Doesn't matter. It's a habit. We're wired to do some communications-related things like that with such speed that it sure doesn't feel like we're thinking about it at all. But you can't choose, form, and utter a word without some higher functions kicking in.
Swearing out loud in front of other people can carry some baggage and consequence. It's risky social behavior. Any risk taking can generate some adrenaline. The adrenaline makes it easier to tolerate the pain.
It's like whenever I hear the phrase "no new taxes on anyone making under $250k." I just curse loudly enough to make my dogs leave the room, and I feel 1% better.
So if the rate that the ice is melting is rapidly increasing, including the melting of ice that has been frozen for thousands of years, you aren't concerned at all?
I'm sure the people who invested in all of those southern ski resorts or picked out whole new caves for their tribes during the last ice age were positively pissed when it all of that ice went away, too.
I think you're inventing ways not to understand. The quality of being "pricy" depends entirely on one thing -- the price.
No. You're confusing having a price with being pricey. The dictionary, even, defines "pricey" as "expensive," not "having a price." We call something pricey because we consider it to be expensive, in the scheme of things, as compared to something else. Something that's twice as pricey is even more so. If everything that has a price is "pricey," then the common use of that word means nothing. Likewise with "cheap."
Why does any of this matter? Because when you rob meaning from words that used to differentiate between two different conditions, the language loses the ability to - with the simple use of an appropriate word - convey meaning. Do you really use "cheap" and "pricey" to mean "have a price," with no differentiation between them? Let's try a sentence:
"In a place where you have to drill down three miles, geothermal energy is pricey. But doing it all with solar is five times as pricey, because of the huge land use involved."
Implied in that example, and necessary for it to make any damn sense is the implied notion that both of those forms of energy are more expensive than something else. That's why they're "pricey" and also some factor pricier - because they're both pricey, just at different levels. But neither would be considered pricey without a not pricey baseline. How about another one:
"Buying your laundry soap in large containers at Costco is cheap. Buying it wholesale in a 55 gallon drum is five times cheaper."
Implied in that example is the notion that buying at Costco is already cheaper than normal shopping at the local market. That's what makes the cited method "cheap" (by comparison), and the second example cheaper. Yes, anything that costs less than something else is cheaper. But you can't say it's "ten times cheaper" without having a starting point that's already considered cheap - and that requires larger context.
"Pricier" would be a multiple farther (which is to say, a multiple of the distance) from zero; "cheaper" would be a multiple closer (which is to say, a fraction of the distance) to zero
There is a qualitative difference between "costs ten times as much" and "pricier," because the term "pricier" means, again, that the original item is already considered pricy, and the second is considered more so. So again, that also makes no sense without having something against which to compare the first item, first, so that the fact that the second items is even more "pricy" makes some sort of contextual sense. Phrases like "x times cheaper/pricier" make no sense without acknowledging that (or why) the first item is already being described in those loaded terms.
For example: when you have the context that the first item is a new Mercedes E-class Coupe (pricey! - and most people know that it's already a more-expensive-than-average passenger car), and are being told that the new Bugatti is x times as pricey, that makes contextual sense. But only if you already know that the first point of reference is already being described in terms of its relationship to other things (like a more average-priced car). Without the context, it's a distractingly poor way to try to convey information, leaving much to guesswork or imagination.
How does such a dog-in-the-manger attitude "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as the U.S. Constitution puts it?
By assuring artists, writers and other creative people that they can have some choice about whether to continue publishing something they've created. And assuring them that their decision to not print more copies doesn't mean that their choice means they've just granted leeches the rights to rip off the work and ignore their copyrights while those copyrights are still in effect. With the passage of time, they won't be, and that's that. In the meantime, giving an artist choice about their own publishing habits is, you know... all about their freedom. You seem to be suggesting that an artist should, rather, be a pet entertainment slave for anyone who thinks that artist isn't making personal decisions in a way that someone else wants. Why should someone else get to tell the artist what they may or may not do when it comes to publishing their own work?
Of course, we're headed swiftly into a brave new world where the most creative and most productive people will be, more than ever, slaves to people who feel entitled to their work. Tap-dancing, rhetorically, around what you really want (to remove the artist from descisions about the publishing and copying of their own work) is just disengenuous. Just say what you want! You want to dictate when and how an artist's work can be distributed, rather than leaving that up to the work's creator. And that urge to control and milk the creative people in question is exactly what causes fewer of them to invest their waking hours in the creation of new works. You want to promote the progress of science and the useful arts? Don't tell the creators and innovators that if you don't like their personal decisions, you're going to rip them off.
The author does not choose to arrange for me to get the stuff for free, nor does the author arrange for me to get the stuff in exchange for money
Then you're not the consumer, because the author doesn't want you to have it. If you're taking it anyway, you're ripping it off. When the author's copyright expires, the rules change. Hence I don't pay for Shakespeare, per se, but perhaps for the accompanying annotation.
In cases of "the author's chosen agent doesn't want to take my money", who is the consumer?
You need to be more specific. If the author chooses to arrange for you to get the stuff for free, and you're acquiring it in the way that isn't counter to the author's wishes, then you are. The author and her agent are one and the same, in any way that matters.
branch is as anti-consumer as the other branches of government
Which applies how, to pirating music and movies? "Consumers" are the people who are actually doing business with the artist (or the artist's chosen agents) in keeping with the way that the artist has offered their work up for sale/use. Someone who rips it off is not a consumer in the normal sense of that word, any more than a shoplifter is a consumer of the they stuff they rip off from a store.
If I own a plot of land and a dead body is found on that land, does it naturally follow that I'm the murderer?
No, that doesn't follow. But is it really your contention that you, as the person who owns that land, should be able to avoid involvement in any law enforcement investigation into that death, or avoid discovery during a civil suit that involves that dead person on your property?
Watch out for "A is two orders of magnitude cheaper than B" -- you might get an aneurysm.
Thanks a lot. I'm now using a WiFi hotspot at the hospital while they repair one of my arteries.
By your criteria, it is impossible to use any comparative adjective at all in a multiplicative comparison: "N times faster than", "N times more expensive than", "N times more massive than"
Not at all. "N times faster than" works fine, because you're comparing everything to zero (the completely slow speed. So, "At 600 miles per hour, the Amazing Rocket Car is driven ten times as fast as most passenger cars." There's no ambiguitiy, even though we haven't stated 60mph as the "normal" highway speed.
Likewise with "N times more expensive," since we can also compare that to zero. And likewise with mass.
The problem with "ten times cheaper" is that you're going the opposite direction, and do NOT know what you're comparing the more expensive item to when you call it cheap, nor the second item when you call it cheaper still.
So you're saying that A is already "cheap" and that B is ten times more so? You use the word "cheap" as a comparison. You're saying that A is cheap, and that B is more cheap. But how can you call A cheap, without comparing it to something?
A comparative adjective like cheap is similar to "faster." Car Number One is faster (than what?), but Car Number Two is ten times faster (than what?). Car Two might be ten time faster than Car One, but that doesn't tell us anything about to what you're comparing Car One.
Prices, and temperatures, are exactly the same. "My drink is three times colder than yours," doesn't mean anything without putting your drink's temperature on a scale, comparing it to something else. Same goes for "cheapness." To say that A is cheap implies that it is so, compared to something else that is more expensive. How much more so? Twice as much? A million times as much?
It doesn't matter what the numbers are. The point is that to use a multiplier ("ten times"), you have to multiply something by ten. So what is it? You can't say that B is ten times less than A, because that doesn't make any grammatical or conceptual sense. You can say that B is some fraction of A - that makes complete sense. But for something to be some multplier less, you have to have something that is already some quantity less than something else, so that a third thing can be X number of times more so.
Regardless, your question is exactly why such scalar ways of talking never help. It's better to say that B is half the price of A, but the more attractive C is (for example) a tenth the price of A. That's so much a better a way to do it. And these twits that use the excuse that their headline will be shorter by saying "ten times cheaper!" and that "it's OK, everyone will know what we mean"... is it that people won't understand that "one tenth the price!" because it's somehow too complex?
The "ten times as..." stuff is just intellectually lazy parroting of a phrase. It's like the people that say "I could care less" when they actually mean the exact opposite ("I couldn't care less"). Complete lack of critical thinking, and no thinking about what they are or aren't actually communicating.
Unless the things you're proposing have (as all giant, civilization-impacting Really Good Ideas do) unintended consequences.
And unless the things you're proposing are so toxic to the world economy that they erase the very productivity and marginal largess that allows us to do what we've been doing for decades: greatly reduce pollution and greatly boost efficiencies. These things can only happen when you have a thriving economy to pay for them. Obama wants to use a high-interest-rate, maxed-out national credit card to pay for a "solution" that is so full of loop-holes and exceptions that it will do nothing except tax the economy and add to the government regulatory and treasury bureaucracies. You want more of the huge leaps in efficiencies that we've seen already developed in the last 20 years? Don't strangle the economy, and don't let "developing" countries like China and India off the hook by treating them as if they were some goat-herding village in the Sudan.
I suppose next you'll come up with some crazy talk about getting rid of tax deductions for buying gigantic houses.
Actually, it's the tax break for borrowing money to buy a house that we're really talking about here. And yes, it bugs the hell out of me. Local jurisdictions might want to provide some sort of financial incentive for people to buy property in their area (and some do - with the provision that the buyer occupy the house personall for some period of time), but forcing a taxpayer renting an apartment in Wyoming to help a guy in New Jersey buy a house is... wrong.
$49,000 USD AFTER deducting the $7,500 federal tax credit.
What you really mean is: after the $7,500 more in taxes that other people, who can't afford this car, will be paying on behalf of the person who can afford it. That's nice. So progressive.
A relative of mine puts 100,0000 miles on a car in a year. That's a lot of fuel.
And it's still going to be a lot of fuel, burned somewhere else to make this car's electricity. We need nukes, since the wind and solar things will never put a dent in a massive shift to cars like this.
If we just want to raise more cash, raise the general income or sales tax.
You're missing the point. The Annointed One swore that he wouldn't raise taxes on normal people. Later, when even his supporters are howling about their tax burden, he'll be able to say that he meant income taxes. In the mean time, we're about to have an enormous new electricity tax, and proposals like the one being discussed here will impact average wage earners plenty hard - even those that had the credit and cash on hand to buy a lightweight, fuel-efficient little collapsible death trap of a car so they'd use less fuel.
This is just about raising federal revenue by taxing everyone, despite having single-party control of the government in part because of promises not to do that, so that gigantic spending boondoggles like the nonsensical new Obamacare plan being formed will only put us catastrophically in debt for generations instead of the alternative complete-economic-destruction model that would come from only using pure debt.
Hell, why bother buying software from anyone but microsoft?
Or from Apple, right?
It's not even so much about them including software but my right to remove it.
Hell, you can do better than that. You can not buy it in the first place. Then it's completely removed. As so many people here are so fond of pointing out, you have other choices for your OS and for your apps.
they know there is a good chance the browser will effectively become the OS and they're not going to lose their monopoly that easily.
Which monopoly? The one that has entire city governments using something else? The one where entire industries (like photography and graphic design) are still married to Apple's systems? The one that has jillions of web sites running on other platforms? The one where jillions of embedded OS are made by... other software companies? The monoopoly that's preventing Google from shipping Android? Hmmm.
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I don't think there's time to think about consequences when a hammer hits your finger
Doesn't matter. It's a habit. We're wired to do some communications-related things like that with such speed that it sure doesn't feel like we're thinking about it at all. But you can't choose, form, and utter a word without some higher functions kicking in.
REALLY don't feel sorry for anyone who makes over 250k,and that includes you
Dear Useful Idiot:
You're missing the point (of course). People who make under $250k are absolutely going to be paying more taxes. A LOT more taxes. Have fun with that.
Swearing out loud in front of other people can carry some baggage and consequence. It's risky social behavior. Any risk taking can generate some adrenaline. The adrenaline makes it easier to tolerate the pain.
It's like whenever I hear the phrase "no new taxes on anyone making under $250k." I just curse loudly enough to make my dogs leave the room, and I feel 1% better.
So if the rate that the ice is melting is rapidly increasing, including the melting of ice that has been frozen for thousands of years, you aren't concerned at all?
I'm sure the people who invested in all of those southern ski resorts or picked out whole new caves for their tribes during the last ice age were positively pissed when it all of that ice went away, too.
I think you're inventing ways not to understand. The quality of being "pricy" depends entirely on one thing -- the price.
No. You're confusing having a price with being pricey. The dictionary, even, defines "pricey" as "expensive," not "having a price." We call something pricey because we consider it to be expensive, in the scheme of things, as compared to something else. Something that's twice as pricey is even more so. If everything that has a price is "pricey," then the common use of that word means nothing. Likewise with "cheap."
Why does any of this matter? Because when you rob meaning from words that used to differentiate between two different conditions, the language loses the ability to - with the simple use of an appropriate word - convey meaning. Do you really use "cheap" and "pricey" to mean "have a price," with no differentiation between them? Let's try a sentence:
"In a place where you have to drill down three miles, geothermal energy is pricey. But doing it all with solar is five times as pricey, because of the huge land use involved."
Implied in that example, and necessary for it to make any damn sense is the implied notion that both of those forms of energy are more expensive than something else. That's why they're "pricey" and also some factor pricier - because they're both pricey, just at different levels. But neither would be considered pricey without a not pricey baseline. How about another one:
"Buying your laundry soap in large containers at Costco is cheap. Buying it wholesale in a 55 gallon drum is five times cheaper."
Implied in that example is the notion that buying at Costco is already cheaper than normal shopping at the local market. That's what makes the cited method "cheap" (by comparison), and the second example cheaper. Yes, anything that costs less than something else is cheaper. But you can't say it's "ten times cheaper" without having a starting point that's already considered cheap - and that requires larger context.
"Pricier" would be a multiple farther (which is to say, a multiple of the distance) from zero; "cheaper" would be a multiple closer (which is to say, a fraction of the distance) to zero
There is a qualitative difference between "costs ten times as much" and "pricier," because the term "pricier" means, again, that the original item is already considered pricy, and the second is considered more so. So again, that also makes no sense without having something against which to compare the first item, first, so that the fact that the second items is even more "pricy" makes some sort of contextual sense. Phrases like "x times cheaper/pricier" make no sense without acknowledging that (or why) the first item is already being described in those loaded terms.
For example: when you have the context that the first item is a new Mercedes E-class Coupe (pricey! - and most people know that it's already a more-expensive-than-average passenger car), and are being told that the new Bugatti is x times as pricey, that makes contextual sense. But only if you already know that the first point of reference is already being described in terms of its relationship to other things (like a more average-priced car). Without the context, it's a distractingly poor way to try to convey information, leaving much to guesswork or imagination.
How does such a dog-in-the-manger attitude "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as the U.S. Constitution puts it?
By assuring artists, writers and other creative people that they can have some choice about whether to continue publishing something they've created. And assuring them that their decision to not print more copies doesn't mean that their choice means they've just granted leeches the rights to rip off the work and ignore their copyrights while those copyrights are still in effect. With the passage of time, they won't be, and that's that. In the meantime, giving an artist choice about their own publishing habits is, you know... all about their freedom. You seem to be suggesting that an artist should, rather, be a pet entertainment slave for anyone who thinks that artist isn't making personal decisions in a way that someone else wants. Why should someone else get to tell the artist what they may or may not do when it comes to publishing their own work?
Of course, we're headed swiftly into a brave new world where the most creative and most productive people will be, more than ever, slaves to people who feel entitled to their work. Tap-dancing, rhetorically, around what you really want (to remove the artist from descisions about the publishing and copying of their own work) is just disengenuous. Just say what you want! You want to dictate when and how an artist's work can be distributed, rather than leaving that up to the work's creator. And that urge to control and milk the creative people in question is exactly what causes fewer of them to invest their waking hours in the creation of new works. You want to promote the progress of science and the useful arts? Don't tell the creators and innovators that if you don't like their personal decisions, you're going to rip them off.
The author does not choose to arrange for me to get the stuff for free, nor does the author arrange for me to get the stuff in exchange for money
Then you're not the consumer, because the author doesn't want you to have it. If you're taking it anyway, you're ripping it off. When the author's copyright expires, the rules change. Hence I don't pay for Shakespeare, per se, but perhaps for the accompanying annotation.
In cases of "the author's chosen agent doesn't want to take my money", who is the consumer?
You need to be more specific. If the author chooses to arrange for you to get the stuff for free, and you're acquiring it in the way that isn't counter to the author's wishes, then you are. The author and her agent are one and the same, in any way that matters.
In Texas, the problem lies in getting power from the proposed site in the Panhandle to a distribution system
Yeah, I can see how someone might forget about that little detail before ordering two billion dollars worth of equipment. Wow.
Does this ruling mean that Microsoft 'bought' the Seattle judge, to get this ruling that favors them, but didn't succeed in buying the one in Europe?
No, it does not meant that. It means that the judge in this case was rational.
branch is as anti-consumer as the other branches of government
Which applies how, to pirating music and movies? "Consumers" are the people who are actually doing business with the artist (or the artist's chosen agents) in keeping with the way that the artist has offered their work up for sale/use. Someone who rips it off is not a consumer in the normal sense of that word, any more than a shoplifter is a consumer of the they stuff they rip off from a store.
If I own a plot of land and a dead body is found on that land, does it naturally follow that I'm the murderer?
No, that doesn't follow. But is it really your contention that you, as the person who owns that land, should be able to avoid involvement in any law enforcement investigation into that death, or avoid discovery during a civil suit that involves that dead person on your property?
Watch out for "A is two orders of magnitude cheaper than B" -- you might get an aneurysm.
Thanks a lot. I'm now using a WiFi hotspot at the hospital while they repair one of my arteries.
By your criteria, it is impossible to use any comparative adjective at all in a multiplicative comparison: "N times faster than", "N times more expensive than", "N times more massive than"
Not at all. "N times faster than" works fine, because you're comparing everything to zero (the completely slow speed. So, "At 600 miles per hour, the Amazing Rocket Car is driven ten times as fast as most passenger cars." There's no ambiguitiy, even though we haven't stated 60mph as the "normal" highway speed.
Likewise with "N times more expensive," since we can also compare that to zero. And likewise with mass.
The problem with "ten times cheaper" is that you're going the opposite direction, and do NOT know what you're comparing the more expensive item to when you call it cheap, nor the second item when you call it cheaper still.
So you're saying that A is already "cheap" and that B is ten times more so? You use the word "cheap" as a comparison. You're saying that A is cheap, and that B is more cheap. But how can you call A cheap, without comparing it to something?
A comparative adjective like cheap is similar to "faster." Car Number One is faster (than what?), but Car Number Two is ten times faster (than what?). Car Two might be ten time faster than Car One, but that doesn't tell us anything about to what you're comparing Car One.
Prices, and temperatures, are exactly the same. "My drink is three times colder than yours," doesn't mean anything without putting your drink's temperature on a scale, comparing it to something else. Same goes for "cheapness." To say that A is cheap implies that it is so, compared to something else that is more expensive. How much more so? Twice as much? A million times as much?
It doesn't matter what the numbers are. The point is that to use a multiplier ("ten times"), you have to multiply something by ten. So what is it? You can't say that B is ten times less than A, because that doesn't make any grammatical or conceptual sense. You can say that B is some fraction of A - that makes complete sense. But for something to be some multplier less, you have to have something that is already some quantity less than something else, so that a third thing can be X number of times more so.
... is it that people won't understand that "one tenth the price!" because it's somehow too complex?
Regardless, your question is exactly why such scalar ways of talking never help. It's better to say that B is half the price of A, but the more attractive C is (for example) a tenth the price of A. That's so much a better a way to do it. And these twits that use the excuse that their headline will be shorter by saying "ten times cheaper!" and that "it's OK, everyone will know what we mean"
The "ten times as..." stuff is just intellectually lazy parroting of a phrase. It's like the people that say "I could care less" when they actually mean the exact opposite ("I couldn't care less"). Complete lack of critical thinking, and no thinking about what they are or aren't actually communicating.
Maddening, isn't it?
The only way "ten times less" makes any sense is when you're talking about three costs.
A is expensive! B is much more efficient, and costs half as much. C is even more efficient than B - ten times less expensive than A, compared to B.
Otherwise, when you only have two things to compare to one another, just say that "B is one tenth the cost of A."
Why is this so damn hard for people to process? If they could just think about it, they'd save me ten times the typing.
We should be doing things to combat the problem
Unless the things you're proposing have (as all giant, civilization-impacting Really Good Ideas do) unintended consequences.
And unless the things you're proposing are so toxic to the world economy that they erase the very productivity and marginal largess that allows us to do what we've been doing for decades: greatly reduce pollution and greatly boost efficiencies. These things can only happen when you have a thriving economy to pay for them. Obama wants to use a high-interest-rate, maxed-out national credit card to pay for a "solution" that is so full of loop-holes and exceptions that it will do nothing except tax the economy and add to the government regulatory and treasury bureaucracies. You want more of the huge leaps in efficiencies that we've seen already developed in the last 20 years? Don't strangle the economy, and don't let "developing" countries like China and India off the hook by treating them as if they were some goat-herding village in the Sudan.
I suppose next you'll come up with some crazy talk about getting rid of tax deductions for buying gigantic houses.
... wrong.
Actually, it's the tax break for borrowing money to buy a house that we're really talking about here. And yes, it bugs the hell out of me. Local jurisdictions might want to provide some sort of financial incentive for people to buy property in their area (and some do - with the provision that the buyer occupy the house personall for some period of time), but forcing a taxpayer renting an apartment in Wyoming to help a guy in New Jersey buy a house is
$49,000 USD AFTER deducting the $7,500 federal tax credit.
What you really mean is: after the $7,500 more in taxes that other people, who can't afford this car, will be paying on behalf of the person who can afford it. That's nice. So progressive.
A relative of mine puts 100,0000 miles on a car in a year. That's a lot of fuel.
And it's still going to be a lot of fuel, burned somewhere else to make this car's electricity. We need nukes, since the wind and solar things will never put a dent in a massive shift to cars like this.
It is also that the reports each build on one another, creating the false impression of growing momentum and consensus...
So it's pretty much like Global Warming Theology, then?
Sounds more like Fischer Price. Glad that none of customers rely on Authorize.net.
If we just want to raise more cash, raise the general income or sales tax.
You're missing the point. The Annointed One swore that he wouldn't raise taxes on normal people. Later, when even his supporters are howling about their tax burden, he'll be able to say that he meant income taxes. In the mean time, we're about to have an enormous new electricity tax, and proposals like the one being discussed here will impact average wage earners plenty hard - even those that had the credit and cash on hand to buy a lightweight, fuel-efficient little collapsible death trap of a car so they'd use less fuel.
This is just about raising federal revenue by taxing everyone, despite having single-party control of the government in part because of promises not to do that, so that gigantic spending boondoggles like the nonsensical new Obamacare plan being formed will only put us catastrophically in debt for generations instead of the alternative complete-economic-destruction model that would come from only using pure debt.
The one that covers almost 90% of all installed OSs in PCs.
And that's why you use it?
Hell, why bother buying software from anyone but microsoft?
... other software companies? The monoopoly that's preventing Google from shipping Android? Hmmm.
Or from Apple, right?
It's not even so much about them including software but my right to remove it.
Hell, you can do better than that. You can not buy it in the first place. Then it's completely removed. As so many people here are so fond of pointing out, you have other choices for your OS and for your apps.
they know there is a good chance the browser will effectively become the OS and they're not going to lose their monopoly that easily.
Which monopoly? The one that has entire city governments using something else? The one where entire industries (like photography and graphic design) are still married to Apple's systems? The one that has jillions of web sites running on other platforms? The one where jillions of embedded OS are made by