when the rich pay for things, they are often paying a large organisation owned by people like them - the rich and upper middle classes
This is true. But eventually the money gets down. For example: Mr Rich guy buys a new plasma TV from Sony. Rich gave the money to the rich. But who does Sony employ? Yes there's a lot of money going into management overhead, but the rich aren't doing the customer support. The rich aren't manning the factories. The rich didn't deliver the finished product or the raw materials. The rich didn't build the buildings or clean the buildings. And it's a good bet that the rich didn't even sell the TV.
When you look at all the expenses that a business has, and look at the money flow for just one product, you will notice that money travels fast from the rich to the poor. Another example. Let's say you get rich enough some day that you don't want to mow your lawn. I come in and say I will do it every week for a fair price we both agree upon. I make money. You get a service. We are both happy. Money flows from rich to poor. I then make enough money to buy a car, which let's say your company made. So money keeps the flow. If in any of those transactions, neither of us is happy with our end of the deal, then we don't follow through. You aren't happy because your lawn isn't mowed because I am not willing to mow it for $0.50, or whatever. But the money does flow.
I expect people to save up for themselves. Why do we feel entitled to retire at age 65 whether we have the means to survive or not? Social security was started at a time when most people didn't live to be 65 and very few lived much longer than that. I had a friend who's grandfather was still farming at age 80. He did it because he enjoyed it as well as that he needed the money because he refused to let the government pay for something that is his responsibility. I would rather keep my money and use it the way I feel I should. And that way is not social security, especially not its current design.
expect the government to spend itself into debt,
If you want the government to pay for all your expectations (and by the sound of it, you do) how do you want them to pay for it? To make up money out of thin air? To tax us all out the roof? I think a lot of programs need to be cut, and the budget needs to be balanced and the debt needs to be payed off. But we do that by reducing government, not spending more.
expect the cost of healthcare go continue to go up forever until you cannot afford it,
Insane. If we can't afford it, then who will pay for it? The upperclass? Fine I suppose. And then eventually healthcare providers will realise that there is a lot of money to be made by selling it to the middle class. And the trend will continue. But then, maybe you just read the news that is all doom and gloom. I see a lot of people in the medical field doing things for the poor. I believe in humanity, not the news-worlds view of it. At my University there was a group that just back from somewhere in South America which performed free dental services for thousands of people for free. Where was that in the news? It was in our daily campus newspaper, but didn't even make it into the local newspaper. It happens. I volunteer on occasion. Do you? If so, great. If not, shut up!
expect the poor to be tossed in ghettos and left to die, all around the world.
I'm looking at the poor here in the US and thinking, wow. I am technically considered poor by the standards here. I don't feel that way. I have food on my table and a roof over my head. When the rich get richer, the poor do NOT get poorer. There is no finite pie in economics. When the rich pay for things, who are they paying? The middle class. When they pay for things, who do they pay? The poor. So where does the money of the rich go? To the poor. Eventually. And as I aluded to before, some people donate their money and their time. This trend is seen in the US a lot. There are truly poor people here in the US, yes. There are much poorer people in other countries. I spent a month in the jungles of Vietnam back in May. Those people are very poor by US standards. They don't act like it though. they work. Hard. They have food on their tables and a roof over their heads, and it is NOT their communist (read socialist) governments fault that they have this. Quite the contrary. It is the governments fault they are hindered and held back.
Again, if you are actually doing something to reverse the trend, then I applaud you. If you are just sitting back and ranting then get off your high horse and shut up. The world is in a much better state than some may let on. There is a lot, and I mean a vast amount of a lot, of things we can improve upon. But rants like yours make it sound like we are in worse shape than any time on earth. Some things are bad. Let's improve it. Not just rant and complain.
But notebooks are tremendously more useful and appealing.
To whom? I think he's right. What can you do on a laptop that you can't do on a PDA? There are some things, but then, of those things what can't you do on a desktop? If it's portability you want so that you can surf the web, check email, create some kind of document, etc. then a PDA is much more appealing in terms of portability. If it's something CPU-intensive (like games or some serious photoshop or Maya, etc) then the battery life of a laptop is very unappealing and decreases its usefulness. Now we also have portable DVD players and gaming systems, and now the PSP sort of combines the two and this trend will continue.
I own a laptop because my wife really wanted one. I consider it a seriously handicapped computer. This coming from a guy whos desktop is 4 years old but laptop is only a year and a half old. Both of them cost the same at the time of purchase (~$1300). What I've seen is that laptops are more and more appealing for their bling value and less and less appealing for their actual usefulness compared to other devices.
Canada has far more vast, unpopulated regions than the US could ever possibly hope to have.
Yes, but the GP did qualify that with "industrial nation".
Seriously though, this reminds me of when I was joking with my young cousins (they were under 10) about how where I lived there was more of everything than where they lived (me in Phoenix, they in Tremonton, UT). We had more movie theaters, more stores, even more cows. They were getting upset that they didn't have more of anything and then I told them we even had more crime. And for some reason they got really upset by that point and started asking their parents if they could move to Phoenix.
pretty gross..which, if you think about it, they really are
though it is weird when you think about it
So you can call me crazy if you wish but I hate vegetables. I gag a lot of the time thinking that I am putting some plant in my mouth. This is especially true of leafy greens. And yet the idea of milk doesn't bother me. Perhaps it has to do with breast milk being the first thing humans consume for the the first portion of their lives. Meat has never bothered me, as well. But veggies? Uhh, makes my spine shiver.
The only people who should be worried about DVDs are the theatre owners who insist on putting 20 minutes of ads before the movie.
But some DVDs are now also coming with ads. If I ever end up with a DVD with ads on it, I'll be upset. And if those ads are unskippable the first thing I will do is rip the DVD to my compy eliminate the ads and then return the DVD to the studio and demand a refund. I didn't pay money for ads; I wanted a movie.
I think you are correct. With home theaters as they are, people are fine with watching stuff at home, especially since they don't have to deal with the jerks in the theater answering their cell phones. I rather liked the way you put it. During Revenge of the Sith I sat next to a stupid lady who's phone rang four times. Three times she answered it and then got up and walked out of the theater and had to walk in front of me to get out. I wanted to smack her. Phone calls are not that important that you can't hold them off two hours. And if they are, why the trash are you in the theater!?!!!
When Newell and Carmack, the lead developers of the two hottest game engines out there, agree on this point, you realize we might not be taking that leap forward in gaming that we all thought we were going to.
And since they produce music you actually DON'T WANT to listen to, you get it illegally? Or were you just being dumb. Because if you don't get it illegally then you aren't who they are going after.
My parents didn't want me to watch a lot of PG-13 movies while growing up. Since they had already fostered a home where I felt I could trust them, I accepted that and respected them. There were times when I disobeyed. As a teenager you have to expect a little rebellion. But you don't just assume it's stupid and don't do anything. It starts from a young age. These are probably the same parents who let their children run and scream and jump and make all sorts of chaos at home then when taken to somewhere public (like the grocery store) they beat them and yell at them to behave as if the 4 year old really understands the difference between private and public.
Dumb parents, sure. But that's no reason to just give up. Once a parent, always a parent. Parents should not be controlling. They should be guiding, teaching, influencing, and some times they need to reprimand. They should never give up.
You hit the nail right on the head.[/pun] I agree. Go even further and you get providers of raw materials telling you what you can and cannot do with those materials.
"I bought lumber but Home Depot said I can't use it to make a fence, I have to use it to make a whole new portion of my house so that I'll also have to buy drywall and other such things."
Just because someone takes those materials a slight bit further (say Sony creating a TV) doesn't mean they suddenly have those rights. Now if I explicitly leased/rented/borrowed it from them that is a different story, but if a purchase is made, then the owner has changed. And every owner has the right to do with the things that he owns whatever the trash he wishes (excluding times in which those wishes interfere with others' rights, like hitting someone with a hammer).
We should just cover the whole moon with this stuff such that the focal point would be here on Earth. Then we would have solar power all the time and no environmentalists would go mad.
Are you suggesting nuclear powered car engines? While that would run cleaner, a small car accident could have the potential to do something a slightly more damaging than this.
You tell no lies. I used to do basic IT stuff for a University. It was simply amazing the crap that they pulled thinking they knew what they were doing. We were cleaning up computers of junk all the time, and still re-imaging them once every 3-4 months. Nothing short of Deep Freeze will stop those idiots.
Seriously, how does this push out the smaller developers/publishers/etc.? They can still make the same stuff they did before. If the smaller developers were making great games, then after this revelation, I am sure they will still make great games. It's not like their killing PC gaming off. That will kill the small-timers. They are just saying that a lot of money is being spent on music and sound. That doesn't mean everyone now has to spend the same in order to make a game.
The same goes for graphics. Just because people are using software and hardware that costs a lot of money doesn't mean in any way that small-timers can't continue what they are doing. Unless PC gaming dies off and consoles continue with the license-to-produce, then nothing is hurting small-timers anymore than ATI/nVidia making a new video card, AMD/Intel making faster CPUs or even OpenGL going to 2.0.
Or did you want everything to remain simple for small-time people to get involved. In the same line of thought, I wish computers would go back to the time when I could put some vacuum tubes together and make a whole new product.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe it was Mrs. Scarlett.
This is true. But eventually the money gets down. For example: Mr Rich guy buys a new plasma TV from Sony. Rich gave the money to the rich. But who does Sony employ? Yes there's a lot of money going into management overhead, but the rich aren't doing the customer support. The rich aren't manning the factories. The rich didn't deliver the finished product or the raw materials. The rich didn't build the buildings or clean the buildings. And it's a good bet that the rich didn't even sell the TV.
When you look at all the expenses that a business has, and look at the money flow for just one product, you will notice that money travels fast from the rich to the poor. Another example. Let's say you get rich enough some day that you don't want to mow your lawn. I come in and say I will do it every week for a fair price we both agree upon. I make money. You get a service. We are both happy. Money flows from rich to poor. I then make enough money to buy a car, which let's say your company made. So money keeps the flow. If in any of those transactions, neither of us is happy with our end of the deal, then we don't follow through. You aren't happy because your lawn isn't mowed because I am not willing to mow it for $0.50, or whatever. But the money does flow.
I expect people to save up for themselves. Why do we feel entitled to retire at age 65 whether we have the means to survive or not? Social security was started at a time when most people didn't live to be 65 and very few lived much longer than that. I had a friend who's grandfather was still farming at age 80. He did it because he enjoyed it as well as that he needed the money because he refused to let the government pay for something that is his responsibility. I would rather keep my money and use it the way I feel I should. And that way is not social security, especially not its current design.
expect the government to spend itself into debt,
If you want the government to pay for all your expectations (and by the sound of it, you do) how do you want them to pay for it? To make up money out of thin air? To tax us all out the roof? I think a lot of programs need to be cut, and the budget needs to be balanced and the debt needs to be payed off. But we do that by reducing government, not spending more.
expect the cost of healthcare go continue to go up forever until you cannot afford it,
Insane. If we can't afford it, then who will pay for it? The upperclass? Fine I suppose. And then eventually healthcare providers will realise that there is a lot of money to be made by selling it to the middle class. And the trend will continue. But then, maybe you just read the news that is all doom and gloom. I see a lot of people in the medical field doing things for the poor. I believe in humanity, not the news-worlds view of it. At my University there was a group that just back from somewhere in South America which performed free dental services for thousands of people for free. Where was that in the news? It was in our daily campus newspaper, but didn't even make it into the local newspaper. It happens. I volunteer on occasion. Do you? If so, great. If not, shut up!
expect the poor to be tossed in ghettos and left to die, all around the world.
I'm looking at the poor here in the US and thinking, wow. I am technically considered poor by the standards here. I don't feel that way. I have food on my table and a roof over my head. When the rich get richer, the poor do NOT get poorer. There is no finite pie in economics. When the rich pay for things, who are they paying? The middle class. When they pay for things, who do they pay? The poor. So where does the money of the rich go? To the poor. Eventually. And as I aluded to before, some people donate their money and their time. This trend is seen in the US a lot. There are truly poor people here in the US, yes. There are much poorer people in other countries. I spent a month in the jungles of Vietnam back in May. Those people are very poor by US standards. They don't act like it though. they work. Hard. They have food on their tables and a roof over their heads, and it is NOT their communist (read socialist) governments fault that they have this. Quite the contrary. It is the governments fault they are hindered and held back.
Again, if you are actually doing something to reverse the trend, then I applaud you. If you are just sitting back and ranting then get off your high horse and shut up. The world is in a much better state than some may let on. There is a lot, and I mean a vast amount of a lot, of things we can improve upon. But rants like yours make it sound like we are in worse shape than any time on earth. Some things are bad. Let's improve it. Not just rant and complain.
To whom? I think he's right. What can you do on a laptop that you can't do on a PDA? There are some things, but then, of those things what can't you do on a desktop? If it's portability you want so that you can surf the web, check email, create some kind of document, etc. then a PDA is much more appealing in terms of portability. If it's something CPU-intensive (like games or some serious photoshop or Maya, etc) then the battery life of a laptop is very unappealing and decreases its usefulness. Now we also have portable DVD players and gaming systems, and now the PSP sort of combines the two and this trend will continue.
I own a laptop because my wife really wanted one. I consider it a seriously handicapped computer. This coming from a guy whos desktop is 4 years old but laptop is only a year and a half old. Both of them cost the same at the time of purchase (~$1300). What I've seen is that laptops are more and more appealing for their bling value and less and less appealing for their actual usefulness compared to other devices.
Yes, but the GP did qualify that with "industrial nation".
Seriously though, this reminds me of when I was joking with my young cousins (they were under 10) about how where I lived there was more of everything than where they lived (me in Phoenix, they in Tremonton, UT). We had more movie theaters, more stores, even more cows. They were getting upset that they didn't have more of anything and then I told them we even had more crime. And for some reason they got really upset by that point and started asking their parents if they could move to Phoenix.
I know I shouldn't reply but I can't help but thinking that if you think the US is a bully, how do you think China will fare as the world power?
Would this do?
Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Bart brings a frog to Australia.
though it is weird when you think about it
So you can call me crazy if you wish but I hate vegetables. I gag a lot of the time thinking that I am putting some plant in my mouth. This is especially true of leafy greens. And yet the idea of milk doesn't bother me. Perhaps it has to do with breast milk being the first thing humans consume for the the first portion of their lives. Meat has never bothered me, as well. But veggies? Uhh, makes my spine shiver.
This one bothers me. How does one go about just trying without trying anything in specific. It's like humming with your mouth open!
It's "try to find".
But some DVDs are now also coming with ads. If I ever end up with a DVD with ads on it, I'll be upset. And if those ads are unskippable the first thing I will do is rip the DVD to my compy eliminate the ads and then return the DVD to the studio and demand a refund. I didn't pay money for ads; I wanted a movie.
I think you are correct. With home theaters as they are, people are fine with watching stuff at home, especially since they don't have to deal with the jerks in the theater answering their cell phones. I rather liked the way you put it.
During Revenge of the Sith I sat next to a stupid lady who's phone rang four times. Three times she answered it and then got up and walked out of the theater and had to walk in front of me to get out. I wanted to smack her. Phone calls are not that important that you can't hold them off two hours. And if they are, why the trash are you in the theater!?!!!
Tim Sweeney would also agree. That makes the the lead developers for the top three game engines.
And since they produce music you actually DON'T WANT to listen to, you get it illegally? Or were you just being dumb. Because if you don't get it illegally then you aren't who they are going after.
Try again, but remember, three strikes and you're out.
Bridge Keeper: So what about this one? Other than being the first, does it offer any compelling virtues for the would-be podcaster or listener?
No.
Bridge Keeper: Oh, well, go ahead and cross.
Dumb parents, sure. But that's no reason to just give up. Once a parent, always a parent. Parents should not be controlling. They should be guiding, teaching, influencing, and some times they need to reprimand. They should never give up.
"I bought lumber but Home Depot said I can't use it to make a fence, I have to use it to make a whole new portion of my house so that I'll also have to buy drywall and other such things."
Just because someone takes those materials a slight bit further (say Sony creating a TV) doesn't mean they suddenly have those rights. Now if I explicitly leased/rented/borrowed it from them that is a different story, but if a purchase is made, then the owner has changed. And every owner has the right to do with the things that he owns whatever the trash he wishes (excluding times in which those wishes interfere with others' rights, like hitting someone with a hammer).
That is the funniest thing I have read in a long long time. Kudos to you, my friend.
We should just cover the whole moon with this stuff such that the focal point would be here on Earth. Then we would have solar power all the time and no environmentalists would go mad.
Are you suggesting nuclear powered car engines? While that would run cleaner, a small car accident could have the potential to do something a slightly more damaging than this.
I didn't think 2000 watt but I did think that's a lot of numbers and letters between "Hardware:" and "Phone Reviewed".
But being a lifegaurd sure beats being a Dell intern!!
You tell no lies. I used to do basic IT stuff for a University. It was simply amazing the crap that they pulled thinking they knew what they were doing. We were cleaning up computers of junk all the time, and still re-imaging them once every 3-4 months. Nothing short of Deep Freeze will stop those idiots.
The same goes for graphics. Just because people are using software and hardware that costs a lot of money doesn't mean in any way that small-timers can't continue what they are doing. Unless PC gaming dies off and consoles continue with the license-to-produce, then nothing is hurting small-timers anymore than ATI/nVidia making a new video card, AMD/Intel making faster CPUs or even OpenGL going to 2.0.
Or did you want everything to remain simple for small-time people to get involved. In the same line of thought, I wish computers would go back to the time when I could put some vacuum tubes together and make a whole new product.