I did say it was a simplified view, but you do bring up valid and insightful points. Abundance is not the same thing as infinite supply; there's a finite amount of matter and energy in the observable universe, and of course factors like entropy put an upper bound on how much can be done. In a more immediate sense, indeed there's the heat issue. There will always be limits. Additionally, you bring up scarcity of non-fungible resources. There's only one Fiji, and there's only one Mona Lisa. Sure, we could have automatons create more pretty islands and interesting paintings, but those will only be replicas. And of course, in the end, there's only one Earth (even it if one day becomes possible for automatons to terraform other planets, etc).
I think you're right in saying that we'll still need some way of prioritizing conflicting desires, and that will probably involve some kind of currency. However, I think there's a huge difference between using currency to determine who gets the Mona Lisa and who gets Fiji versus using it to determine who starves and who dies of exposure.
Oh, you expected to have a linear correlation between the positions in the graphiic and per capita GDP? Please that is silly.
Doesn't have to be linear. I'm fine with any positive correlation. However, there isn't one. I thought your claime was that GDP per capita and economic freedom were correlated. If you're agreeing that they're not, then I guess we're on the same page after all.
The important fact is that you can't find countries that have populations with a good income and quality of life and are not near the top of that list. That is the undeniable truth.
Look, you're the one that tried to divert this to a debate about the value of some kind of undefined "economic freedom". I wasn't talking about economic mobility, or economic opportunity. I was talking strictly about the stratification of wealth. The kind that you don't find in societies with highly progressive forms of taxation. Places like Norway, #4 in terms of GDP per capita. And Sweden, #13. Populations with good income and quality of life (better than here, in fact), that are nowhere near where we are in terms of wealth inequality. That these countries are #31 and #18 on your "economic freedom" list doesn't mean that they let the rich assrape everyone else. That's my point. Feel free to address it, or feel free to keep going off on some economic freedom tangent.
That is ridiculous and it becomes abundantly clear when you realize the truth of my last statement. The wealth you are "denying" the masses would even exist in the first place.
Even if that were the case (and I don't see a convincing argument for that), why would that be any worse? Since I'm not a billionaire, why should I care if billionaires exist? Does their existence help me somehow? Or are they using their extreme wealth to influence politics, shut out competition, and generally exert undue control over my world? If we were to wake up tomorrow with the world's billionaire's missing (along with their wealth), how would we be materially worse off?
No we wouldn't, in exact the same way other countries do not. Things do not come from thin air. People need to create them. US economical strength comes from all the people that start small companies in the hope of getting rich or at least vastly improve their wealth, and many of them are successful.
Successful, sure. Let's look at the great success of Bill Gates. What great contribution to society has he made that warrants his wealth? Was it when he was spreading FUD about the "viral" GPL? Was it the vendor lock-in that he guided Microsoft to pursue? Was it all the permatemp employees that he hired and retained for years without extending health benefits to? Are you suggesting these astounding feats of success couldn't have been performed by anyone else? Are you suggesting that Microsoft and Gates' success didn't come at the expense of the rest of society?
Oh 27th is very good in a list of 178 countries. Therefore you proved yourself my point.
(1, 27), (2, 15), (3, 2) doesn't make for any sort of reasonable correlation, in the mathematical sense. Adding the rest of the countries to the list only makes the correlation worse.
And one of the natural results of economic freedom is stratification of wealth. They are not orthogonal issues. The only way to prevent people from getting rich is by forcing them not to be, that is hardly freedom. \
It really depends on what you mean by economic freedom. By allowing for extreme stratification of wealth, you're denying the masses an equitable share of wealth, thereby limiting the economic freedom of the majority. Somehow, I don't expect the Heritage Foundation to define economic freedom that way. However, they don't seem to explicitly define it at all, instead leaving it to the reader to try to figure out what exactly they're measuring. I would argue that a society like the US, where the majority of the population has to share a tiny minority of the wealth, hardly constitutes freedom.
Oh and answering your previous comment, All those billionaires were actually instrumental in improving US economy and generating wealth. Microsoft alone that wouldn't exist if not for Gates generated hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth, and a good part of it was paid in salaries and shares to its employees which bought goods and service from many many other people.
Indeed. Instead of Microsoft, we'd have a healthy ecosystem of competitors improving the US economy and generating wealth. To suggest that only Bill Gates' ruthless and unscrupulous business practices could have generated this wealth is absurd; if anything, his goal of a Microsoft monopoly has likely harmed the economy more than it has helped it. Additionally, it's not clear to what extend Microsoft's success was a result of Gates. Clearly he played an active and meaningful role in the company in its early years, but a vast majority of its revenues came long after that time. Additionally, your reference to wages paid, etc., is meaningless. Other companies pay wages too, and there's nothing that makes Microsoft's use of revenues to pay wages different than any other company's. You've failed to convince me why one Microsoft with one Bill Gates is any better than a thousand miniMicrosofts with a thousand reasonably wealthy CEOs.
Or you can be a software developer. Or an engineer. Or a scientist. A degree in mathematics is surprisingly versatile and can get your foot in the door at some interesting organizations. My friend has an undergraduate math degree and works writing code for slot machines and other gambling contraptions. Beats waiting tables, and pays a lot better than teaching.
Indeed. The US has the largest GDP, while ranking 10th in economic freedom. China is second largest, while ranked 136th in economic freedom. Japan is third largest, while ranked 24th in economic freedom. I'd run the math to see if there's any correlation between GDP and economic freedom, but on first glance it really doesn't look likely.
But maybe I should be looking at GDP per capita, right? So let's see. Qatar has the highest GDP per capita, but ranks 27th in economic freedom. Luxembourg is second in GDP per capita, but ranks 15th in economic freedom. Singapore is third in GDP per capita, and ranks 2nd in economic freedom. So far, Singapore is the only data point we've seen that's consistent with your hypothesis. Again, glancing over the whole list, there's no obvious correlation between economic freedom and GDP per capita.
That being said, none of this has anything to do with what I said. I wasn't talking about economic freedom, I was talking about stratification of wealth. Those are two entirely orthogonal issues. Consequently, you still haven't demonstrated that uniform distribution of wealth is bad, or that inequitable stratification of wealth is good.
And a very large portion of this wealth wouldn't exist if the system didn't allow for rich people to exist in the first place
Citation needed. If you believe that inequitable stratification of wealth helps expand an economy, that's fine. However, the burden is on you to demonstrate that. I have seen no evidence of such a claim, so I'm afraid I won't be accepting it at face value. Personally, I don't think that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, David Koch, Christy Walton, Jim Walton, Alice Walton, Sam Walton, and Michael Bloomberg were in any way instrumental in improving the economic situation in this country or growing the pie for all of us. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it.
and so your whole theory of zero sum game goes down the drain.
They are. At any given instant in time, there is a finite amount of wealth in existence. Possession of said wealth necessarily prevents others from possessing it. For example, if there are $X in existence at this very moment, and I possess all $X, then it is necessarily the case that you have $0. Note that this has nothing to do with the fact that the amount of wealth in existence is not constant, nor with the fact that the economy is not a zero sum game, so please don't go off on those tangents.
Much on the contrary. Someone with employees is providing the employees jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist.
Gee, thanks. Jobs. Just what we wanted. No, it's not money that we want, it's jobs. How generous.</sarcasm>
Really, it's self-evident that people don't want jobs, so providing them with jobs isn't the opposite of harming them. Once rich people start providing people with money, not jobs, you'll be correct to use this argument. Until then, it will remain the case that the rich continue to exploit the poor.
He can "screw them over" and they can decide to go elsewhere. That is how a free society works.
Yes, go elsewhere, to another rich person that will screw them over. Great idea. Unless you can show me a rich person that hires people and pays them what they're actually worth, not extracting any profit from the arrangement whatsoever, I don't think your suggestion is realistic. Being free to pick who assrapes you isn't my idea of freedom.
For the record, I don't smoke. I used to, and it's still a struggle whenever I'm near smokers. That being said, I have enough decency to recognize that this is my problem, and not something I should burden others with. Even though the smell and taste of smoke probably bothers me unimaginably more than it bothers you, I'm willing to recognize that this is my problem, not everyone else's. In my opinion, that's a mindset that's sadly becoming less prevalent.
non-smokers (who are in the majority) wanted smokers to move away from doors and windows when smoking, it was a simple request and smokers could have complied out of courtesy... but did they?
You're missing the context. Yes, there was originally a simple request to stop smoking inside. Despite the fact that this request was quite onerous on smokers (outside isn't climate controlled, outside isn't nearby, outside isn't where you can legally consume alcohol), they complied. Of course, non-smokers are now turning it into a slippery slope. Now we're asking smokers to smoke outside, not under the awning but directly out in the rain. What accomodations did non-smokers make for smokers to encourage them to step away from doors? They offered to fine them if they didn't. I don't think that's really reasonable. If smokers asked non-smokers to non-smoke out in the rain, how do you think that would've went down? Don't you think that it's not unreasonable to suspect that the next step is to outlaw public smoking entirely, just as GP wants?
It's sad how people are so unwilling to see the other side of the argument. But sure, it's non-smokers like me that are tired of trampling on smokers' rights that are actually forcing these laws. No, it's surely not people like GP that "can't empathize with smokers", make factually false claims that smoking "affects the health of us non-smokers" despite the fact that this hasn't been the case since indoor smoking bans were passed ages ago, and openly state that "smoking real tobacco should be outlawed".
The irony. I've been advocating for a post-labor society on here for quite some time. But please, wear your rudeness as a badge of honor, and continue to RTFA so that old men like me don't have to.
Perhaps you're new here, but there's a long tradition on slashdot of commenting on an article without having read it (and oftentimes, without having even read the summary, or anything other than the headline). Although, judging from the tone here, maybe the times, they are a-changin'.
In any case, in the context of what's written in the summary, I stand by my original [overrated] statement.
I've had to make transfers in ATL many times, and changing concourses is as easy as catching the 'plane train', which rides a linear track and has departures every 2 minutes. I've also walked the entire length of the underground tunnel that the 'plane train' uses (long layover, why not go for a walk), and I can say that even without the 'plane train' ATL would be nicer than somewhere like LHR.
I've only transfered at DFW, so I don't feel qualified to say much about it. However, consider that ATL handles about 50% more traffic than DFW, and it's not clear that the DFW solution would scale to handle this many people.
1) US Code includes those incompetent people in the militia, sadly.
2) The right to bear arms is not limited to the members of the militia anyway.
3) A literal and honest interpretation of the second amendment means ordinary people cannot be prohibited by law from owning nuclear warheads. I think we can all agree that this isn't a good idea. However, instead of amending the Constitution to impose legal limits on what arms we can bear, we instead abandon the literal honest interpretation in the interest of expediency. A truly slippery slope.
Well, the unprovoked brutalization of 'Occupy' protesters (on several occasions, in several locations) didn't trigger shit. What's it gonna take this time around? It really does seem like the American public is so apathetic that we can pretty much rule out any sort of widespread rebellion.
Agreed, LHR makes no sense to me. I never know where I am or how to get where I'm going. The only place that comes close is Japan's NRT, but that's only a maze in the 4th floor shopping area. Conversely, it's virtually impossible to get lost at ATL. Atlanta Bread Company is only one of many, many decent food places there; I've yet to find an airport in the US that has a larger variety of better foods.
I've only stopped in CLT once, though it was somewhat recently, and I don't think I tried to look for WiFi. I don't fly American/US very often. In any case, CLT sees less than half of the traffic that ATL gets. It's almost an apples to oranges comparison. Additionally, I wasn't claiming that ATL is first to offer free WiFi, merely that the airport that I already considered to be my favorite just got even better still.
It's authoritarian fucks like you that are destroying this world. Outdoor smoking bans, despite mountains of evidence that second-hand cigarette smoke has no detectable effects outdoors. Your stated belief that smoking real tobacco should be outlawed. Talk of second-hand nicotine vapor effects. You're a fool of the most dangerous sort, the type that wants to impose his idiocy on the rest of us.
If you ask me, they should have a two door system for all self-righteous asshole lounges. That way people like you could be packed in, and both sets of doors locked. Fuck you and the smugness you rode in on.
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is my favorite airport, and this news just made it even better.
They just opened a Buffalo Wild Wings last September in Terminal/Concourse D. New Belgium Brewery's Fat Tire available (though it was bottle-only last time I was there). There's nothing like a dozen Blazin' (boneless, extra-wet) wings before a long flight to keep things interesting. 45 beers on tap is quite a bit nicer than a "Chilis To Go" or a shitty TGIFridays.
Smoking lounges. Seven smoking lounges. I don't smoke anymore, but I'm capable of some empathy. Having to round-trip through security just to have a smoke when your flight is delayed is annoying, to say the least. It's refreshing to see some airports are still willing to accomodate our second class citizens... I mean smokers.
Quick and easy access to MARTA. Cool art installations. Excellent/efficient airport layout/design. Lots of surprisingly great food options. And now free WiFi, something you don't see too often in the US. They've truly outdone themselves this time. I wish my home airport (EWR) was even half as nice.
Like who? Most companies that engage in extensive data collection and tracking generally retain the resulting dataset for themselves, never putting it up for sale. For example, Google won't sell you the contents of my email or even my search history, period. Can you name a company that does offer the collected information for sale?
Japan is pretty much all CDMA. I'm pretty sure they buy a lot of cell phones over there too. There's a large market for CDMA phones regardless of what Sprint does.
Slashdot Mirror
But if you automate too quickly, there will be a period where we can't figure out what to do with the resulting idle humans.
Feed them, clothe them, shelter them, and entertain them. They can handle the rest from there.
That was quite a rude exchange. Uncalled for.
I thought the gut (stomach) came before the intestines (both small and large). Are you eating in reverse?
Mod parent up. Best post I've seen all day.
I did say it was a simplified view, but you do bring up valid and insightful points. Abundance is not the same thing as infinite supply; there's a finite amount of matter and energy in the observable universe, and of course factors like entropy put an upper bound on how much can be done. In a more immediate sense, indeed there's the heat issue. There will always be limits. Additionally, you bring up scarcity of non-fungible resources. There's only one Fiji, and there's only one Mona Lisa. Sure, we could have automatons create more pretty islands and interesting paintings, but those will only be replicas. And of course, in the end, there's only one Earth (even it if one day becomes possible for automatons to terraform other planets, etc).
I think you're right in saying that we'll still need some way of prioritizing conflicting desires, and that will probably involve some kind of currency. However, I think there's a huge difference between using currency to determine who gets the Mona Lisa and who gets Fiji versus using it to determine who starves and who dies of exposure.
Oh, you expected to have a linear correlation between the positions in the graphiic and per capita GDP? Please that is silly.
Doesn't have to be linear. I'm fine with any positive correlation. However, there isn't one. I thought your claime was that GDP per capita and economic freedom were correlated. If you're agreeing that they're not, then I guess we're on the same page after all.
The important fact is that you can't find countries that have populations with a good income and quality of life and are not near the top of that list. That is the undeniable truth.
Look, you're the one that tried to divert this to a debate about the value of some kind of undefined "economic freedom". I wasn't talking about economic mobility, or economic opportunity. I was talking strictly about the stratification of wealth. The kind that you don't find in societies with highly progressive forms of taxation. Places like Norway, #4 in terms of GDP per capita. And Sweden, #13. Populations with good income and quality of life (better than here, in fact), that are nowhere near where we are in terms of wealth inequality. That these countries are #31 and #18 on your "economic freedom" list doesn't mean that they let the rich assrape everyone else. That's my point. Feel free to address it, or feel free to keep going off on some economic freedom tangent.
That is ridiculous and it becomes abundantly clear when you realize the truth of my last statement. The wealth you are "denying" the masses would even exist in the first place.
Even if that were the case (and I don't see a convincing argument for that), why would that be any worse? Since I'm not a billionaire, why should I care if billionaires exist? Does their existence help me somehow? Or are they using their extreme wealth to influence politics, shut out competition, and generally exert undue control over my world? If we were to wake up tomorrow with the world's billionaire's missing (along with their wealth), how would we be materially worse off?
No we wouldn't, in exact the same way other countries do not. Things do not come from thin air. People need to create them. US economical strength comes from all the people that start small companies in the hope of getting rich or at least vastly improve their wealth, and many of them are successful.
Successful, sure. Let's look at the great success of Bill Gates. What great contribution to society has he made that warrants his wealth? Was it when he was spreading FUD about the "viral" GPL? Was it the vendor lock-in that he guided Microsoft to pursue? Was it all the permatemp employees that he hired and retained for years without extending health benefits to? Are you suggesting these astounding feats of success couldn't have been performed by anyone else? Are you suggesting that Microsoft and Gates' success didn't come at the expense of the rest of society?
Oh 27th is very good in a list of 178 countries. Therefore you proved yourself my point.
(1, 27), (2, 15), (3, 2) doesn't make for any sort of reasonable correlation, in the mathematical sense. Adding the rest of the countries to the list only makes the correlation worse.
And one of the natural results of economic freedom is stratification of wealth. They are not orthogonal issues. The only way to prevent people from getting rich is by forcing them not to be, that is hardly freedom. \
It really depends on what you mean by economic freedom. By allowing for extreme stratification of wealth, you're denying the masses an equitable share of wealth, thereby limiting the economic freedom of the majority. Somehow, I don't expect the Heritage Foundation to define economic freedom that way. However, they don't seem to explicitly define it at all, instead leaving it to the reader to try to figure out what exactly they're measuring. I would argue that a society like the US, where the majority of the population has to share a tiny minority of the wealth, hardly constitutes freedom.
Oh and answering your previous comment, All those billionaires were actually instrumental in improving US economy and generating wealth. Microsoft alone that wouldn't exist if not for Gates generated hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth, and a good part of it was paid in salaries and shares to its employees which bought goods and service from many many other people.
Indeed. Instead of Microsoft, we'd have a healthy ecosystem of competitors improving the US economy and generating wealth. To suggest that only Bill Gates' ruthless and unscrupulous business practices could have generated this wealth is absurd; if anything, his goal of a Microsoft monopoly has likely harmed the economy more than it has helped it. Additionally, it's not clear to what extend Microsoft's success was a result of Gates. Clearly he played an active and meaningful role in the company in its early years, but a vast majority of its revenues came long after that time. Additionally, your reference to wages paid, etc., is meaningless. Other companies pay wages too, and there's nothing that makes Microsoft's use of revenues to pay wages different than any other company's. You've failed to convince me why one Microsoft with one Bill Gates is any better than a thousand miniMicrosofts with a thousand reasonably wealthy CEOs.
Or you can be a software developer. Or an engineer. Or a scientist. A degree in mathematics is surprisingly versatile and can get your foot in the door at some interesting organizations. My friend has an undergraduate math degree and works writing code for slot machines and other gambling contraptions. Beats waiting tables, and pays a lot better than teaching.
Indeed. The US has the largest GDP, while ranking 10th in economic freedom. China is second largest, while ranked 136th in economic freedom. Japan is third largest, while ranked 24th in economic freedom. I'd run the math to see if there's any correlation between GDP and economic freedom, but on first glance it really doesn't look likely.
But maybe I should be looking at GDP per capita, right? So let's see. Qatar has the highest GDP per capita, but ranks 27th in economic freedom. Luxembourg is second in GDP per capita, but ranks 15th in economic freedom. Singapore is third in GDP per capita, and ranks 2nd in economic freedom. So far, Singapore is the only data point we've seen that's consistent with your hypothesis. Again, glancing over the whole list, there's no obvious correlation between economic freedom and GDP per capita.
That being said, none of this has anything to do with what I said. I wasn't talking about economic freedom, I was talking about stratification of wealth. Those are two entirely orthogonal issues. Consequently, you still haven't demonstrated that uniform distribution of wealth is bad, or that inequitable stratification of wealth is good.
Citations:
Index of Economic Freedom
Countries by GDP
Countries by GDP per capita
And a very large portion of this wealth wouldn't exist if the system didn't allow for rich people to exist in the first place
Citation needed. If you believe that inequitable stratification of wealth helps expand an economy, that's fine. However, the burden is on you to demonstrate that. I have seen no evidence of such a claim, so I'm afraid I won't be accepting it at face value. Personally, I don't think that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, David Koch, Christy Walton, Jim Walton, Alice Walton, Sam Walton, and Michael Bloomberg were in any way instrumental in improving the economic situation in this country or growing the pie for all of us. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to hear it.
and so your whole theory of zero sum game goes down the drain.
*sigh*
You just couldn't do it, could you?
... what?
Rich people are not "harming" anybody.
They are. At any given instant in time, there is a finite amount of wealth in existence. Possession of said wealth necessarily prevents others from possessing it. For example, if there are $X in existence at this very moment, and I possess all $X, then it is necessarily the case that you have $0. Note that this has nothing to do with the fact that the amount of wealth in existence is not constant, nor with the fact that the economy is not a zero sum game, so please don't go off on those tangents.
Much on the contrary. Someone with employees is providing the employees jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist.
Gee, thanks. Jobs. Just what we wanted. No, it's not money that we want, it's jobs. How generous.</sarcasm>
Really, it's self-evident that people don't want jobs, so providing them with jobs isn't the opposite of harming them. Once rich people start providing people with money, not jobs, you'll be correct to use this argument. Until then, it will remain the case that the rich continue to exploit the poor.
He can "screw them over" and they can decide to go elsewhere. That is how a free society works.
Yes, go elsewhere, to another rich person that will screw them over. Great idea. Unless you can show me a rich person that hires people and pays them what they're actually worth, not extracting any profit from the arrangement whatsoever, I don't think your suggestion is realistic. Being free to pick who assrapes you isn't my idea of freedom.
I'm hoping to embark on a round-the-world trip in 2016, and SIN is very likely to be one of my stops. Looking forward to checking it out.
non-smokers (who are in the majority) wanted smokers to move away from doors and windows when smoking, it was a simple request and smokers could have complied out of courtesy... but did they?
You're missing the context. Yes, there was originally a simple request to stop smoking inside. Despite the fact that this request was quite onerous on smokers (outside isn't climate controlled, outside isn't nearby, outside isn't where you can legally consume alcohol), they complied. Of course, non-smokers are now turning it into a slippery slope. Now we're asking smokers to smoke outside, not under the awning but directly out in the rain. What accomodations did non-smokers make for smokers to encourage them to step away from doors? They offered to fine them if they didn't. I don't think that's really reasonable. If smokers asked non-smokers to non-smoke out in the rain, how do you think that would've went down? Don't you think that it's not unreasonable to suspect that the next step is to outlaw public smoking entirely, just as GP wants?
It's sad how people are so unwilling to see the other side of the argument. But sure, it's non-smokers like me that are tired of trampling on smokers' rights that are actually forcing these laws. No, it's surely not people like GP that "can't empathize with smokers", make factually false claims that smoking "affects the health of us non-smokers" despite the fact that this hasn't been the case since indoor smoking bans were passed ages ago, and openly state that "smoking real tobacco should be outlawed".
The irony. I've been advocating for a post-labor society on here for quite some time. But please, wear your rudeness as a badge of honor, and continue to RTFA so that old men like me don't have to.
Perhaps you're new here, but there's a long tradition on slashdot of commenting on an article without having read it (and oftentimes, without having even read the summary, or anything other than the headline). Although, judging from the tone here, maybe the times, they are a-changin'.
In any case, in the context of what's written in the summary, I stand by my original [overrated] statement.
I've had to make transfers in ATL many times, and changing concourses is as easy as catching the 'plane train', which rides a linear track and has departures every 2 minutes. I've also walked the entire length of the underground tunnel that the 'plane train' uses (long layover, why not go for a walk), and I can say that even without the 'plane train' ATL would be nicer than somewhere like LHR.
I've only transfered at DFW, so I don't feel qualified to say much about it. However, consider that ATL handles about 50% more traffic than DFW, and it's not clear that the DFW solution would scale to handle this many people.
1) US Code includes those incompetent people in the militia, sadly.
2) The right to bear arms is not limited to the members of the militia anyway.
3) A literal and honest interpretation of the second amendment means ordinary people cannot be prohibited by law from owning nuclear warheads. I think we can all agree that this isn't a good idea. However, instead of amending the Constitution to impose legal limits on what arms we can bear, we instead abandon the literal honest interpretation in the interest of expediency. A truly slippery slope.
That's bullshit. I used to support the NRA as well. Eventually I read about one too many instances of them actively working against gun owners.
The NRA is the only organization that fights for gun manufacturers. They care about gun owners to the extent that they continue buying more guns.
Then again, now that I've read the remainder of your post, I realized I shouldn't have bothered with a response. You're nuts.
Well, the unprovoked brutalization of 'Occupy' protesters (on several occasions, in several locations) didn't trigger shit. What's it gonna take this time around? It really does seem like the American public is so apathetic that we can pretty much rule out any sort of widespread rebellion.
Agreed, LHR makes no sense to me. I never know where I am or how to get where I'm going. The only place that comes close is Japan's NRT, but that's only a maze in the 4th floor shopping area. Conversely, it's virtually impossible to get lost at ATL. Atlanta Bread Company is only one of many, many decent food places there; I've yet to find an airport in the US that has a larger variety of better foods.
I've only stopped in CLT once, though it was somewhat recently, and I don't think I tried to look for WiFi. I don't fly American/US very often. In any case, CLT sees less than half of the traffic that ATL gets. It's almost an apples to oranges comparison. Additionally, I wasn't claiming that ATL is first to offer free WiFi, merely that the airport that I already considered to be my favorite just got even better still.
It's authoritarian fucks like you that are destroying this world. Outdoor smoking bans, despite mountains of evidence that second-hand cigarette smoke has no detectable effects outdoors. Your stated belief that smoking real tobacco should be outlawed. Talk of second-hand nicotine vapor effects. You're a fool of the most dangerous sort, the type that wants to impose his idiocy on the rest of us.
If you ask me, they should have a two door system for all self-righteous asshole lounges. That way people like you could be packed in, and both sets of doors locked. Fuck you and the smugness you rode in on.
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is my favorite airport, and this news just made it even better.
They just opened a Buffalo Wild Wings last September in Terminal/Concourse D. New Belgium Brewery's Fat Tire available (though it was bottle-only last time I was there). There's nothing like a dozen Blazin' (boneless, extra-wet) wings before a long flight to keep things interesting. 45 beers on tap is quite a bit nicer than a "Chilis To Go" or a shitty TGIFridays.
Smoking lounges. Seven smoking lounges. I don't smoke anymore, but I'm capable of some empathy. Having to round-trip through security just to have a smoke when your flight is delayed is annoying, to say the least. It's refreshing to see some airports are still willing to accomodate our second class citizens... I mean smokers.
Quick and easy access to MARTA. Cool art installations. Excellent/efficient airport layout/design. Lots of surprisingly great food options. And now free WiFi, something you don't see too often in the US. They've truly outdone themselves this time. I wish my home airport (EWR) was even half as nice.
Like who? Most companies that engage in extensive data collection and tracking generally retain the resulting dataset for themselves, never putting it up for sale. For example, Google won't sell you the contents of my email or even my search history, period. Can you name a company that does offer the collected information for sale?
Japan is pretty much all CDMA. I'm pretty sure they buy a lot of cell phones over there too. There's a large market for CDMA phones regardless of what Sprint does.