Educated, yes, though not necessarily rich. During the 70's and 80's, there was a mania for education throughout much of the third world. This created cadres of educated people with no where to take their education (except to emigrate). There are desparately poor college graduates throughout much of the 3rd world - why do you think you find taxi drivers with advanced degrees in NYC?
In many ways, I see these guys as the people who thrive in the Enrons of the first world. They just don't have any Enrons handy.
I wonder how many of the people calling for them to be shot would feel the same way if it were white white-collar criminals in the US?
I'd hardly call it sympathetic. It's pretty neutral.
I know you really want all your criminals cackling evil and twirling their moustaches, but let's be frank: the line between a criminal and a non-criminal is pretty small. Even their "sucker is born every minute" line would be completely normal in many businesses.
See, one of the problems of the political culture in this country is this: the people who are suspicious of corporate power are too trusting of government power to allocate resources for social change; the people who are suspicious of government power have a hard-on for the public sector (without realizing that wealth will always - always - muster power to protect itself) and, often, for the military. (The biggest weak-point in libertarian thinking is class-blindness - they think they are serving hard-working middle- and-upper-middle-class americans without understanding that this is exactly the class the created the Leviathan of state to begin with, and in whose interests it ultimately works.) This means that the political will to muster things like a reform of patent law will never occur unless it happens in a way that is in the interests of power.
Which may be happening here: the Cingulars and Nextels may start getting annoyed enough by the absurdities of patent law and the effect on their bottom line that they start to lobby for a change. Unfortunately, the change is not likely to make things any easier for the bulk of us.
Versus a room full of sex-deprived geeks who care more about the operating system on their laptops than on the environmental and labor costs required to make it?
You may not understand fashionistas, but they aren't simply idiotic. They are simply playing an entirely different game than you are - one that has its own rewards and advantages.
A lot of media made for children, and especially teens, fits under the meta-genre "adolescent power fantasy." The fact that a lot of geek media also fits this description could be read to mean that there's an element of arrested development to geek culture.
Heinlein can be a bit repetitive, but he's genuinely provocative and makes compelling cases for his way of thinking.
I can't really say the same of Orson Scott Card. He practically has to invent a universe that will let him make the kind of moral observations he wants to make: none of it rings true.
And it's not about religion: two Christian writers of whom I am very fond are Anthony Burgess and Walker Percy.
Density matters. San Francisco may be the most concentrated, compact city in the US, or at the very least one of them (Berkeley, across the bay, is another.) I can't imagine this being viable in sprawl-cities and ring-cities.
I agree with the conclusion; although in transit as in networking, there is a "last mile" problem, and focusing only on regional transit can fail to deal with that. (Look at the British and French rail systems for examples of good regional-to-local rail solutions.) I consider the wealth of suburban commuters to the city as part of the city in terms of comparing tax load to public benefit: after all, they are likely to be working in the city and relying on the infrastructure, the density and proximity to business and ports of travel and freight, etc.
I wouldn't subscribe to the idea that the oil companies sabotaged the Seattle monorail. That's tin-foil-hat land.
However, historically it was the Detroit auto industry which did sabotage many light-rail and metro systems throughout the US, in cities which were growing in the early 20th century, such as Atlanta and Los Angeles. How did they do it?
By donating buses whenever a municipality began planning rail, and thus encouraging those cities to pave more roads (and create a market for cars.)
Evil? Not per se. Blindly self-interested with bad long-term consequences, such as sprawl? I think so.
Um, Seattle is pretty much carrying the rest of the state in terms of tax burden to services provided. In much of the US, it's the town that carries the rural, not the other way around.
That's part of the age-thing. He is past the age of his great heroism, and lives in the time of smaller ones.
It's also, like a lot of HM films, about the problems of an age falling into the past, but in this case it is replete with references to Italian fascism (including the aesthetics and mores of Italian futurism, who called their writers "aeropoets.")
Porco Rosso was the film he made for adults. In fact, if you aren't over thirty, it may be hard to understand some of its emotional impact - what it means to be turned into a pig, and estranged from love.
The lower classes think that class is all about money. The middle class think it is about educationo and work. The upper classes think it is about taste and breeding.
And, they are actually all correct, and all incomplete.
I will immediately soften my above rant by noting that you list a.es web site, and are thus not a native English speaker. So, now nicely and with a smile rather than a sneer, I also add that it is "lose," not "loose."
I'm a PhD student, and I wouldn't write in anything other than Word for one reason and one reason only: EndNote and its cite-while-you-write functionality. If you are doing a lot of citation work, there's no comparison.
EndNote has some limited support for OpenOffice, but it doesn't support cite-while-you-write. Bibtex doesn't even come close.
Literate? Has health care? Owns a home and vehicle?
Compared to most of the world, he's living a life of incredible ease.
Compared to a handful of billionaires, he's struggling.
As one of the people who aspires to maintain access to decent healthcare and housing, all I can say is that space tourism is comparable to the space-race insofar as the benefits it will provide me will largely be serendipitous. (Unlike those elements of the space program driven by research.) I will probably never be able to afford space travel. The fact that I will also never starve or go homeless still allows me to say that I am "well off."
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Educated, yes, though not necessarily rich. During the 70's and 80's, there was a mania for education throughout much of the third world. This created cadres of educated people with no where to take their education (except to emigrate). There are desparately poor college graduates throughout much of the 3rd world - why do you think you find taxi drivers with advanced degrees in NYC?
In many ways, I see these guys as the people who thrive in the Enrons of the first world. They just don't have any Enrons handy.
I wonder how many of the people calling for them to be shot would feel the same way if it were white white-collar criminals in the US?
I'd hardly call it sympathetic. It's pretty neutral.
I know you really want all your criminals cackling evil and twirling their moustaches, but let's be frank: the line between a criminal and a non-criminal is pretty small. Even their "sucker is born every minute" line would be completely normal in many businesses.
See, one of the problems of the political culture in this country is this: the people who are suspicious of corporate power are too trusting of government power to allocate resources for social change; the people who are suspicious of government power have a hard-on for the public sector (without realizing that wealth will always - always - muster power to protect itself) and, often, for the military. (The biggest weak-point in libertarian thinking is class-blindness - they think they are serving hard-working middle- and-upper-middle-class americans without understanding that this is exactly the class the created the Leviathan of state to begin with, and in whose interests it ultimately works.) This means that the political will to muster things like a reform of patent law will never occur unless it happens in a way that is in the interests of power.
Which may be happening here: the Cingulars and Nextels may start getting annoyed enough by the absurdities of patent law and the effect on their bottom line that they start to lobby for a change. Unfortunately, the change is not likely to make things any easier for the bulk of us.
Versus a room full of sex-deprived geeks who care more about the operating system on their laptops than on the environmental and labor costs required to make it?
"Demonstrably?" Go ahead, then.
What makes a game dumb or not? How much one values the rewards, I'd imagine.
I'm sure that by other people's "objective" standards, geek choices and consumption are as demonstrably dumb.
You may not understand fashionistas, but they aren't simply idiotic. They are simply playing an entirely different game than you are - one that has its own rewards and advantages.
A lot of media made for children, and especially teens, fits under the meta-genre "adolescent power fantasy." The fact that a lot of geek media also fits this description could be read to mean that there's an element of arrested development to geek culture.
Heinlein can be a bit repetitive, but he's genuinely provocative and makes compelling cases for his way of thinking.
I can't really say the same of Orson Scott Card. He practically has to invent a universe that will let him make the kind of moral observations he wants to make: none of it rings true.
And it's not about religion: two Christian writers of whom I am very fond are Anthony Burgess and Walker Percy.
Density matters. San Francisco may be the most concentrated, compact city in the US, or at the very least one of them (Berkeley, across the bay, is another.) I can't imagine this being viable in sprawl-cities and ring-cities.
Which means that Bill Gates could buy, erm, about 200 of them?
There is some information about this here, though the fact that ridership was declining before the GM purchases should be taken into account.
I agree with the conclusion; although in transit as in networking, there is a "last mile" problem, and focusing only on regional transit can fail to deal with that. (Look at the British and French rail systems for examples of good regional-to-local rail solutions.) I consider the wealth of suburban commuters to the city as part of the city in terms of comparing tax load to public benefit: after all, they are likely to be working in the city and relying on the infrastructure, the density and proximity to business and ports of travel and freight, etc.
I wouldn't subscribe to the idea that the oil companies sabotaged the Seattle monorail. That's tin-foil-hat land.
However, historically it was the Detroit auto industry which did sabotage many light-rail and metro systems throughout the US, in cities which were growing in the early 20th century, such as Atlanta and Los Angeles. How did they do it?
By donating buses whenever a municipality began planning rail, and thus encouraging those cities to pave more roads (and create a market for cars.)
Evil? Not per se. Blindly self-interested with bad long-term consequences, such as sprawl? I think so.
Um, Seattle is pretty much carrying the rest of the state in terms of tax burden to services provided. In much of the US, it's the town that carries the rural, not the other way around.
Not that the monorail was a good idea.
Well, out here in the Olduvai Gorge...
That's part of the age-thing. He is past the age of his great heroism, and lives in the time of smaller ones.
It's also, like a lot of HM films, about the problems of an age falling into the past, but in this case it is replete with references to Italian fascism (including the aesthetics and mores of Italian futurism, who called their writers "aeropoets.")
Porco Rosso was the film he made for adults. In fact, if you aren't over thirty, it may be hard to understand some of its emotional impact - what it means to be turned into a pig, and estranged from love.
The lower classes think that class is all about money. The middle class think it is about educationo and work. The upper classes think it is about taste and breeding.
And, they are actually all correct, and all incomplete.
I will immediately soften my above rant by noting that you list a .es web site, and are thus not a native English speaker. So, now nicely and with a smile rather than a sneer, I also add that it is "lose," not "loose."
Apologies for being snarky. Que se vaya bien.
"consensuated"
What the hell kind of word is that?
Do you mean "created by consensus?" "Consensual?" Those are words.
Gack. Verbing weirds language.
I'm a PhD student, and I wouldn't write in anything other than Word for one reason and one reason only: EndNote and its cite-while-you-write functionality. If you are doing a lot of citation work, there's no comparison.
EndNote has some limited support for OpenOffice, but it doesn't support cite-while-you-write. Bibtex doesn't even come close.
The Koumintang may have been more murderous, if you adjust for territory, time and populace. That adjustment puts the Nazis way out in front.
Remember, the deaths of the Great Leap Forward were from a famine that, unlike that of the Ukraine, was not engineered to be a famine.
The Red Dynasty killed about thirty million people in the Cultural Revolution alone.
Um, simply not true. And that site is not pulling punches.
And, when considering the body count of the PRC, keep in mind also the body count of the Koumintang.
What if you miss and pee on the laptop?
Wouldn't be any worse than installing Microsoft Project.
Literate? Has health care? Owns a home and vehicle?
Compared to most of the world, he's living a life of incredible ease.
Compared to a handful of billionaires, he's struggling.
As one of the people who aspires to maintain access to decent healthcare and housing, all I can say is that space tourism is comparable to the space-race insofar as the benefits it will provide me will largely be serendipitous. (Unlike those elements of the space program driven by research.) I will probably never be able to afford space travel. The fact that I will also never starve or go homeless still allows me to say that I am "well off."