You can accelerate graphics to a very large degree because the problem is very subject to parallelism.
You cannot accelerate networking very much because the problem is highly serial.
It is improper to compare the two because they are fundamentally different problems.
You can throw tons of hardware at 3D graphics and get good results, because just by having more and more pipelines, you go faster and faster.
Processing a network packet is quite different; the data goes through a series of serial steps and eventually reaches the application layer. The only way you can really make it go faster is to up the clock rate, and you find it's uneconomic to try to beat the main CPU, which remember has *already* been paid for. You have all that CPU for free; to then spend the kind of money you'd need to outpace the CPU makes no sense, let alone the money you'd need to spend to outpace the CPU by a decent margin.
Any given thread which needs network I/O cannot continue until that I/O is complete. The fact the CPU can switch elsewhere makes no difference to the thread which requires the network packet to be processed before it has the information it requires to continue, and if that processing is offloaded to a slower network processor, the performance of that thread is degraded.
You must imply that the hardware implimentation will be faster than the main CPU, which it almost certainly won't be, because if you've just spent 300 USD on your P4 CPU, what are you doing spending the same amount again - or more - just on your network subsystem?
Also remember that a well implimented TCP/IP stack runs at about 90% of the speed of a memcpy() (Tannenbaum's book again).
For hardware TCP/IP processing to be useful, you need to be say 2x the speed of the CPUs memcpy() function!
Given that the main performance bottleneck is memory access, since you're basically copying buffers around and so caching isn't going to help you, I don't see how any sort of super-duper hardware is going to give you anything like a 2x speed up, let alone at an economic price.
I think in Tannenbaum's book there's a reference which states that offloading network processing normally isn't useful, because the CPU that work is offloaded to is always less powerful than the main CPU and the main CPU is normally blocked in it's task until the network processing has completed.
Beagle 2 was done by the UK educational establishment.
The ESA - European Space Agency - are supposed to be like NASA, in charge of all EU space activity.
The ESA, who were sidelined by Beagle 2, have been asked to produce the report into why Beagle 2 failed.
To my total lack of astonishment, the report argues that all EU space activity must take place under the auspicies of the ESA, and it was wrong to do otherwise.
It's as if Spaceship One failed, and NASA - who's very existance is essentially threatened by private space travel - was asked to produce the report on the failure.
This report is questionable purely due to the conflict of interest on the part of the ESA.
You do in fact "use" them. They are part of the national defence. Your safety depends in part upon them, and you pay for that.
> --i don't own an automobile (public transit > works for me), but i paid to build roads and > highways.
This is indeed so, and it is improper. Why should you pay for something you do not use? note though you will pay for it indirectly (and rightfully so) in the cost of items or services that you buy which in turn use the road. For example, you pay for roads and highways in that the cost of funding roads is passed onto the consumers of public transports through part of the cost of the ticket.
> --aren't insurance companies built on the > premise that those who get the service have it > paid for by everyone?
This is a totally different case. I am refering to services such as State provided rubbish collection. Here, everyone pays the same amount despite consuming different values of service.
Insurance fundamentally is a risk sharing mechanism; a group of people agree to pay a certain value into a common pool which they can all draw from in the case that a loss occurs. The only people who pay are those who are benefitting from possessing the insurance.
> --you mean, like, transportation? govt provides > buses and trains, but i see a lot of > commercially provided cars.
Do you see commerically provided busses and trains in places where the State provides those services?
> --you mean, like, police? ever been to beverly > hills? they got plenty o' commercially provided > rent-a-cops running around.
This is because the State provides a general police service, which does not meet the needs of those people hiring private police; private police offer a rather different service, much more secure and often 24/7 in a given location.
> --you mean, like, education? maybe you didn't go > to a commercially provided boarding school, but > you've heard of them, haven't you?
Again, the State does not provide extremely high quality education. Those people who can afford such education for their children inevitably buy it. If the State provided high quality education, this would not occur.
> Except that there's one problem: most of the > municipal broadband/wireless projects were > started because commercial interests (telcos and > cable companies) weren't providing the service, > or weren't providing it in the areas it was > wanted.
New services do not occur overnight. It took years for broadband to become generally available - despite the fact I was asking for it back in 1998. There is a limited supply of capital, and it will be invested in the areas of highest return first. Another issue is that the market in which telcos operate is by no means free; it is pervaded with perverse incentives, which leads to inefficient behaviour.
It could also be the case that the actual demand for the service is insufficient to make it economically viable. If this is so, then it is so. The State should not then allocate tax revenue to providing this service.
Consider; imagine placing a railroad to a remote village because a couple of people there want to travel by train to the city. A railroad company would never do it. It is crazy for the State to then provide such an expensive service for so few people; and it is pretty much the case that if a service cannot be provided economically by inherently efficient private companies, it most certainly will be provided in a grossly expensive manner by inherently inefficient State provision.
I concur this report cannot be trusted because of conflicts of interest.
However, speaking with my economics hat on, the basic argument is absolutely correct.
If the state provides a service from tax dollars, it cannot be commerically provided.
This is bad, because commerical provision has two important properties; it's efficient, and it only charges those people who use the service.
State provision is invariably hideously inefficient and charges everyone, regardless of whether they use the service (e.g. tax).
The cost of a service should be born by those who use it.
State provision also removes choice of provider, since if the State provides the service, it cannot be commerically provided; the State is the only provider. This is very bad, too.
I said that having a rescue shuttle always available would be useful, but that having a rescue shuttle available for just the next two flights probably isn't much use, given that Shuttles fail at a rate of about 1 in 50 flights.
You replied, saying that I am a "wanker" on the basis that safety systems are essential.
>...because of the accident, NASA will have a > backup shuttle and rescue crew ready for at > least the next two flights in case another ship > suffers damage similar to what brought down > Columbia."
It took a hundred flights for the Columbia failure mode to occur. There has been no other flight where an in-flight emergency occured such that rescue might be considered.
Bearing this in mind, what's the point in having a rescue shuttle ready for the next two flights only?
Always having a rescue shuttle available would be useful, but which probably isn't practical, since there are now only three Shuttles.
It seems to me there is a lack of proper vision in the space programme.
We have manned spaceflight, but being used in a way where unmmaned spaceflight could be perfectly well used instead (probably at lower cost, and certainly with zero risk to human life).
Manned spaceflight *is* vital, but not for Shuttle flights! manned spaceflight is necessary to establish colonies on other moons and planets.
Humans will not really start colonizing other worlds, though, until the Space Elevator is built; then it will become practical.
I expect this to occur within my lifetime, assuming we don't destroy the planet first.
Microsoft as a large company producing off-the-shelf software have introduced into many markets the considerable benefits of off-the-shelf software.
Mircosoft, as a monopoly, have not and cannot introduce the benefits of competition.
It is true to say the advent of Microsoft in a given market has had beneficial effects; but also that those effects would be that much greater if there existed proper competition, rather than the Microsoft monopoly.
> Streaming data without storing it on disk gives > them a tremendous speed advantage.
There's a reason people generally don't do this, and that's because memory is expensive.
> The company claims it can process 140,000 > messages per second on a $1,500 PC, when its > competitors can only deal with 900 messages per > second.
But I bet you its competitors can serve huge web-sites at 900 messages per second, whereas StreamBase can serve fits-in-memory-only web-sites at 140,000 messages per second.
If HP are not making money from this, why are they doing it?
What possible reason could there be to prevent interoperability between identical cartridges in different geographic locations *other* than to charge different prices in different places and to eliminate the grey imports which inevitably occur in such situations.
HP, in saying "we will not make money", are actually saying "we will ensure we do not lose money by our pricing policy being short-circuited by grey imports", which is to say that they wish to price identical items differently in different places and make it stick.
To be fair, though, if HP wish to do this, its entirely up to them. It is not unethical *as long as the consumer is aware of the issue before he buys a HP printer*.
And if you don't like it, don't buy HP. Plenty of other people out there make excellent printers - hooray for the free market!
IMO, a good proportion - certainly the majority - of the material downloaded would never have been bought.
I also find that when something good is downloaded, it is sometimes the case the original retail item is then purchased.
These two factors are ignored, I suspect, when valuations of "harm done" are reckoned.
Certainly it is entirely improper to take the retail value of all material and multiply by the number of downloads.
In fact, it may be the case that the various copyright enforcements bodies do not know what is in their best interest; this is often the case in more complex and subtle environments.
French Gov. getting involved in private business again.
Ubisoft; privately owned company. People like you and me, who've invested their money, made themselves a decent company.
EA; Satan's spawn to be sure, but another private company.
Now, I think EA are evil, but I *also* think it's evil that the State is even *considering*, even *saying* it's watching the situation.
Sure, we'd be happy if EA were thwarted, because we don't hate them, and for good reason. We're happy with State intervention in this *one specific case*.
But are we happy with the idea that the State can intervene in the *general case?*
And the answer is a resounding NO!
And you can't have it both ways; so I really don't like the fact the State is getting involved, even though I can't stand EA and want to see them stopped.
> Next thing you know, telecoms will be liable for > medical malpractice if the network connections > fail during remote robotic surgery
As they bloody well should be!
If they undertake to provide a *guaranteed* connection, which they should be, given that's it SURGURY, if the connection fails, the patient is going to be in serious trouble.
The problem with automation of medical work like this is that it removes a level of error checking - the human who fills in the needles or prescriptions.
Humans pick up a good idea of what's normal and what's not pretty quickly, and do a good job of routine error checking.
Robots don't, not even a bit. And software, as we all know, is not reliable.
So, you get quicker service, and it's cheaper, but you eliminate a level of error checking.
> In the end, the absence of publications on fission > in the Physical Review was too glaring to go > unnoticed. A Soviet scientist deduced from the > Americans' silence on the topic that they were > pursuing an atomic bomb. The Soviets soon followed > suit.
Of course, Klaus Fuchs passing on research details from the Manhatten Project helped.
> What of the money saved by being allowed to copy a > few songs that would otherwise have cost you $50?
You mean, what of the money you saved by not paying the original artist for their work? interesting question, because that's a distortion of the market too:)
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying the way distribution and licensing is current implimented is *right*, it's not, but fundamentally, both from an ethical and practical point of view, people must be paid for the work they do. If they are not, then ethically, it's theft, and practically, everyone else has to pay more because some pay nothing, and in the extreme case, the work can no longer be performed, because the artist makes insufficient money to justify his skills and time working; he must turn to another employment for fair renumeration.
> Corporate price-fixing has *far* worse > consequences than this tax *ever* will.
I think so too. But what of it? this thread is about this tax, not price-fixing. I could talk about price-fixing if you like:)
> There is no such thing as an "undistorted" > market.
Whether or not it is possible to achieve a perfect, which is to say, undistorted, market, the fact is that the more perfect the market is, the more efficient is it. Whether or not an absolutely perfect market can be achieved is fairly irrelevent; in all cases, we must strive to make the market as efficient as it can be.
> Political descisions, at least, are (supposed to > be) made in the interests of the people. The > same can't be said for corporate decisions.
Curiously, ironically, what you say is true, but in practise, the inverse becomes true! the free market, the invisible hand, transforms our individual and corporate selfishness into a most effective greater good; but politics is saved by no such mechanism, and the decisions made there, although intended to be in the public good, must always in fact be made in a private good, that of the individual politician making the decision, and that private good is rarely aligned with the public good.
VG Wort have increased the price of PCs to *everyone*. Over the whole of the economy, anyone who uses a PC to create a product or offer a service will now have to charge that much more - which means the entire economy is that much less productive, because there is a fixed amount of money available for investment, and the price of buying a PC based service is now higher.
What's more, the knock on effect is huge, because PCs are vital to so many industries. It will now be that much more expensive to buy *food*, because all the PCs bought by food retailers and wholesalers are that much more expensive; and we ALL buy food!
This sort of ruling, the very fact is can occur, is a hallmark of the danger of concentrating economic power in the hands of political power.
This court has both political power - the right to make decisions - and economic power - the right to make decisions which influence, in this case, a form of taxation.
When political decisions are badly made in the political sphere, the consequences are things like national ID cards, or foreign countries becoming upset with us.
When political decisions are badly made in the economic sphere, there is less choice of goods to buy, they cost more, and everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, becomes poorer.
Slashdot Mirror
You can accelerate graphics to a very large degree because the problem is very subject to parallelism.
You cannot accelerate networking very much because the problem is highly serial.
It is improper to compare the two because they are fundamentally different problems.
You can throw tons of hardware at 3D graphics and get good results, because just by having more and more pipelines, you go faster and faster.
Processing a network packet is quite different; the data goes through a series of serial steps and eventually reaches the application layer. The only way you can really make it go faster is to up the clock rate, and you find it's uneconomic to try to beat the main CPU, which remember has *already* been paid for. You have all that CPU for free; to then spend the kind of money you'd need to outpace the CPU makes no sense, let alone the money you'd need to spend to outpace the CPU by a decent margin.
--
Toby
Any given thread which needs network I/O cannot continue until that I/O is complete. The fact the CPU can switch elsewhere makes no difference to the thread which requires the network packet to be processed before it has the information it requires to continue, and if that processing is offloaded to a slower network processor, the performance of that thread is degraded.
--
Toby
You must imply that the hardware implimentation will be faster than the main CPU, which it almost certainly won't be, because if you've just spent 300 USD on your P4 CPU, what are you doing spending the same amount again - or more - just on your network subsystem?
Also remember that a well implimented TCP/IP stack runs at about 90% of the speed of a memcpy() (Tannenbaum's book again).
For hardware TCP/IP processing to be useful, you need to be say 2x the speed of the CPUs memcpy() function!
Given that the main performance bottleneck is memory access, since you're basically copying buffers around and so caching isn't going to help you, I don't see how any sort of super-duper hardware is going to give you anything like a 2x speed up, let alone at an economic price.
--
Toby
I think in Tannenbaum's book there's a reference which states that offloading network processing normally isn't useful, because the CPU that work is offloaded to is always less powerful than the main CPU and the main CPU is normally blocked in it's task until the network processing has completed.
--
Toby
Beagle 2 was done by the UK educational establishment.
The ESA - European Space Agency - are supposed to be like NASA, in charge of all EU space activity.
The ESA, who were sidelined by Beagle 2, have been asked to produce the report into why Beagle 2 failed.
To my total lack of astonishment, the report argues that all EU space activity must take place under the auspicies of the ESA, and it was wrong to do otherwise.
It's as if Spaceship One failed, and NASA - who's very existance is essentially threatened by private space travel - was asked to produce the report on the failure.
This report is questionable purely due to the conflict of interest on the part of the ESA.
--
Toby
> --i don't use icbm's, but i pay for them.
You do in fact "use" them. They are part of the national defence. Your safety depends in part upon them, and you pay for that.
> --i don't own an automobile (public transit
> works for me), but i paid to build roads and
> highways.
This is indeed so, and it is improper. Why should you pay for something you do not use? note though you will pay for it indirectly (and rightfully so) in the cost of items or services that you buy which in turn use the road. For example, you pay for roads and highways in that the cost of funding roads is passed onto the consumers of public transports through part of the cost of the ticket.
> --aren't insurance companies built on the
> premise that those who get the service have it
> paid for by everyone?
This is a totally different case. I am refering to services such as State provided rubbish collection. Here, everyone pays the same amount despite consuming different values of service.
Insurance fundamentally is a risk sharing mechanism; a group of people agree to pay a certain value into a common pool which they can all draw from in the case that a loss occurs. The only people who pay are those who are benefitting from possessing the insurance.
> --you mean, like, transportation? govt provides
> buses and trains, but i see a lot of
> commercially provided cars.
Do you see commerically provided busses and trains in places where the State provides those services?
> --you mean, like, police? ever been to beverly
> hills? they got plenty o' commercially provided
> rent-a-cops running around.
This is because the State provides a general police service, which does not meet the needs of those people hiring private police; private police offer a rather different service, much more secure and often 24/7 in a given location.
> --you mean, like, education? maybe you didn't go
> to a commercially provided boarding school, but
> you've heard of them, haven't you?
Again, the State does not provide extremely high quality education. Those people who can afford such education for their children inevitably buy it. If the State provided high quality education, this would not occur.
--
Toby
Are you then arguing that the cost of services should never be born by the users, but by all?
--
Toby
> Except that there's one problem: most of the
> municipal broadband/wireless projects were
> started because commercial interests (telcos and
> cable companies) weren't providing the service,
> or weren't providing it in the areas it was
> wanted.
New services do not occur overnight. It took years for broadband to become generally available - despite the fact I was asking for it back in 1998. There is a limited supply of capital, and it will be invested in the areas of highest return first. Another issue is that the market in which telcos operate is by no means free; it is pervaded with perverse incentives, which leads to inefficient behaviour.
It could also be the case that the actual demand for the service is insufficient to make it economically viable. If this is so, then it is so. The State should not then allocate tax revenue to providing this service.
Consider; imagine placing a railroad to a remote village because a couple of people there want to travel by train to the city. A railroad company would never do it. It is crazy for the State to then provide such an expensive service for so few people; and it is pretty much the case that if a service cannot be provided economically by inherently efficient private companies, it most certainly will be provided in a grossly expensive manner by inherently inefficient State provision.
--
Toby
I concur this report cannot be trusted because of conflicts of interest.
However, speaking with my economics hat on, the basic argument is absolutely correct.
If the state provides a service from tax dollars, it cannot be commerically provided.
This is bad, because commerical provision has two important properties; it's efficient, and it only charges those people who use the service.
State provision is invariably hideously inefficient and charges everyone, regardless of whether they use the service (e.g. tax).
The cost of a service should be born by those who use it.
State provision also removes choice of provider, since if the State provides the service, it cannot be commerically provided; the State is the only provider. This is very bad, too.
--
Toby
I said that having a rescue shuttle always available would be useful, but that having a rescue shuttle available for just the next two flights probably isn't much use, given that Shuttles fail at a rate of about 1 in 50 flights.
You replied, saying that I am a "wanker" on the basis that safety systems are essential.
Your post them received a total +4 moderation.
People are very stupid.
--
Toby
> ...because of the accident, NASA will have a
> backup shuttle and rescue crew ready for at
> least the next two flights in case another ship
> suffers damage similar to what brought down
> Columbia."
It took a hundred flights for the Columbia failure mode to occur. There has been no other flight where an in-flight emergency occured such that rescue might be considered.
Bearing this in mind, what's the point in having a rescue shuttle ready for the next two flights only?
Always having a rescue shuttle available would be useful, but which probably isn't practical, since there are now only three Shuttles.
It seems to me there is a lack of proper vision in the space programme.
We have manned spaceflight, but being used in a way where unmmaned spaceflight could be perfectly well used instead (probably at lower cost, and certainly with zero risk to human life).
Manned spaceflight *is* vital, but not for Shuttle flights! manned spaceflight is necessary to establish colonies on other moons and planets.
Humans will not really start colonizing other worlds, though, until the Space Elevator is built; then it will become practical.
I expect this to occur within my lifetime, assuming we don't destroy the planet first.
--
Toby
Okay, I gotta admit; I'm impressed!
--
Toby
Microsoft as a large company producing off-the-shelf software have introduced into many markets the considerable benefits of off-the-shelf software.
Mircosoft, as a monopoly, have not and cannot introduce the benefits of competition.
It is true to say the advent of Microsoft in a given market has had beneficial effects; but also that those effects would be that much greater if there existed proper competition, rather than the Microsoft monopoly.
--
Toby
> Streaming data without storing it on disk gives
> them a tremendous speed advantage.
There's a reason people generally don't do this, and that's because memory is expensive.
> The company claims it can process 140,000
> messages per second on a $1,500 PC, when its
> competitors can only deal with 900 messages per
> second.
But I bet you its competitors can serve huge web-sites at 900 messages per second, whereas StreamBase can serve fits-in-memory-only web-sites at 140,000 messages per second.
--
Toby
That article is written by someone who has *no clue* as to what it is they're writing about. It makes no sense and is self-contradictory.
--
Toby
I might be wrong, but I think you misunderstood my point.
I have not argued that copyright violation is acceptable. I have only argued the extent of the impact of copyright violation is overstated.
--
Toby
If HP are not making money from this, why are they doing it?
What possible reason could there be to prevent interoperability between identical cartridges in different geographic locations *other* than to charge different prices in different places and to eliminate the grey imports which inevitably occur in such situations.
HP, in saying "we will not make money", are actually saying "we will ensure we do not lose money by our pricing policy being short-circuited by grey imports", which is to say that they wish to price identical items differently in different places and make it stick.
To be fair, though, if HP wish to do this, its entirely up to them. It is not unethical *as long as the consumer is aware of the issue before he buys a HP printer*.
And if you don't like it, don't buy HP. Plenty of other people out there make excellent printers - hooray for the free market!
--
Toby
IMO, a good proportion - certainly the majority - of the material downloaded would never have been bought.
I also find that when something good is downloaded, it is sometimes the case the original retail item is then purchased.
These two factors are ignored, I suspect, when valuations of "harm done" are reckoned.
Certainly it is entirely improper to take the retail value of all material and multiply by the number of downloads.
In fact, it may be the case that the various copyright enforcements bodies do not know what is in their best interest; this is often the case in more complex and subtle environments.
--
Toby
> achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players
Concurrent, NOT simultaneous!
Simultaneous refers to events which occur at the same instant in time and then are over - you twist your ankle as you step off the bus.
Concurrent refers to ongoing events occuring during the same time period.
--
Toby
Great.
French Gov. getting involved in private business again.
Ubisoft; privately owned company. People like you and me, who've invested their money, made themselves a decent company.
EA; Satan's spawn to be sure, but another private company.
Now, I think EA are evil, but I *also* think it's evil that the State is even *considering*, even *saying* it's watching the situation.
Sure, we'd be happy if EA were thwarted, because we don't hate them, and for good reason. We're happy with State intervention in this *one specific case*.
But are we happy with the idea that the State can intervene in the *general case?*
And the answer is a resounding NO!
And you can't have it both ways; so I really don't like the fact the State is getting involved, even though I can't stand EA and want to see them stopped.
--
Toby
> Next thing you know, telecoms will be liable for
> medical malpractice if the network connections
> fail during remote robotic surgery
As they bloody well should be!
If they undertake to provide a *guaranteed* connection, which they should be, given that's it SURGURY, if the connection fails, the patient is going to be in serious trouble.
The problem with automation of medical work like this is that it removes a level of error checking - the human who fills in the needles or prescriptions.
Humans pick up a good idea of what's normal and what's not pretty quickly, and do a good job of routine error checking.
Robots don't, not even a bit. And software, as we all know, is not reliable.
So, you get quicker service, and it's cheaper, but you eliminate a level of error checking.
--
Toby
> In the end, the absence of publications on fission
> in the Physical Review was too glaring to go
> unnoticed. A Soviet scientist deduced from the
> Americans' silence on the topic that they were
> pursuing an atomic bomb. The Soviets soon followed
> suit.
Of course, Klaus Fuchs passing on research details from the Manhatten Project helped.
--
Toby
Anything which is even *faintly* speculative and due in "ten years" is never gonna happen.
--
Toby
> What of the money saved by being allowed to copy a
:)
:)
> few songs that would otherwise have cost you $50?
You mean, what of the money you saved by not paying the original artist for their work? interesting question, because that's a distortion of the market too
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying the way distribution and licensing is current implimented is *right*, it's not, but fundamentally, both from an ethical and practical point of view, people must be paid for the work they do. If they are not, then ethically, it's theft, and practically, everyone else has to pay more because some pay nothing, and in the extreme case, the work can no longer be performed, because the artist makes insufficient money to justify his skills and time working; he must turn to another employment for fair renumeration.
> Corporate price-fixing has *far* worse
> consequences than this tax *ever* will.
I think so too. But what of it? this thread is about this tax, not price-fixing. I could talk about price-fixing if you like
> There is no such thing as an "undistorted"
> market.
Whether or not it is possible to achieve a perfect, which is to say, undistorted, market, the fact is that the more perfect the market is, the more efficient is it. Whether or not an absolutely perfect market can be achieved is fairly irrelevent; in all cases, we must strive to make the market as efficient as it can be.
> Political descisions, at least, are (supposed to
> be) made in the interests of the people. The
> same can't be said for corporate decisions.
Curiously, ironically, what you say is true, but in practise, the inverse becomes true! the free market, the invisible hand, transforms our individual and corporate selfishness into a most effective greater good; but politics is saved by no such mechanism, and the decisions made there, although intended to be in the public good, must always in fact be made in a private good, that of the individual politician making the decision, and that private good is rarely aligned with the public good.
--
Callas
I hate bureaucracy.
Tax this, tax that, distort the market.
VG Wort have increased the price of PCs to *everyone*. Over the whole of the economy, anyone who uses a PC to create a product or offer a service will now have to charge that much more - which means the entire economy is that much less productive, because there is a fixed amount of money available for investment, and the price of buying a PC based service is now higher.
What's more, the knock on effect is huge, because PCs are vital to so many industries. It will now be that much more expensive to buy *food*, because all the PCs bought by food retailers and wholesalers are that much more expensive; and we ALL buy food!
This sort of ruling, the very fact is can occur, is a hallmark of the danger of concentrating economic power in the hands of political power.
This court has both political power - the right to make decisions - and economic power - the right to make decisions which influence, in this case, a form of taxation.
When political decisions are badly made in the political sphere, the consequences are things like national ID cards, or foreign countries becoming upset with us.
When political decisions are badly made in the economic sphere, there is less choice of goods to buy, they cost more, and everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, becomes poorer.
--
Toby