There was also an excellent docudrama done of this book. Sadly, it only aired a few times in the U.S. (on the National Geographic channel) and isn't available on video in the U.S. (only in Region 2). There is a real animosity in the U.S., institutional or otherwise, to anything which presents the space race from any other perspective than NASA's (and even the NASA documentaries in the U.S. tend to ignore completely or downplay significantly the contributions of Werner Von Braun). You could probably fit everyone in the U.S. who recognizes the name Sergey Korolyov into one room, though no one in history did more to put machine and man into space than he did.
If it makes you feel any better, pretty much every profession is suffering now. IT may have been excluded from past recessions. But with the increases in outsourcing, it was only a matter of time before it got hit too.
A union isn't going to fix a shitty economy. And bringing one in will only add one more incentive for a company to outsource to India or China. I like the idea of a union too, but I also know their limitations.
Wouldn't it be nice if the developers were suddenly compelled to tell the actual truth in an interview? It would go something like:
Interviewer: Where did you get the idea for Natal/Kinect?
Don Mattrick: Steve Balmer saw that the Wii was making a shitload of money and told us to copy it. That was the genesis.
Interviewer: Why did you decide to go with the body motion idea?
Don Mattrick: It was a way to rip off the motion control thing without violating any of Nintendo's patents.
Interviewer: So, where will the games for this be going?
Don Mattrick: Wherever the Wii games go, we'll follow.
Interviewer: Are you worried about the competition?
Don Mattrick: Not really, the Wii is going to kick both our's and Sony's asses on motion control. We're just trying to grab some of the crumbs before people realize that our console is five years old now and starting to show its age.
Interviewer: Well...um...thanks for your candid responses.
Don Mattrick: I hate you. I'm going to go get drunk now.
According to Box Office Mojo, the average movie ticket price in 1980 was $2.69 ($2.23 in 1977 when Star Wars came out). I'm not sure where you were paying $4.50 in 1977, but it must have been in the middle of Manhattan or something.
You really want a laugh? The U.S. pays more for its health care per citizen than any other country in the world. And yet 40 million of those citizens don't have any insurance or consistent way to get any health care at all.
No, fire departments exist because someone puts up the money to pay firefighters, buy them a truck, build them a station, and buy them equipment. No money = no firefighting. This guy was from a county that elected not to put up the money, so he gets no firefighting.
Not all forms of entertainment have dropped. Ticket prices for movies and concerts have increased by substantial amounts, even adjusting for inflation. Back in 1980, a console game would cost you about $30 ($77 adjusted in today's dollars). A movie ticket would cost about $2.50 (about $6.50 in today's dollars). Now, unless you're buying some sort of special edition, console games cost a lot less that $77 (and that's even more impressive considering what it costs to develop a game today vs. what it cost in 1980). But movie tickets cost a lot MORE than $6.50 (and god help you if it's in 3D, you'll need a loan for that).
And concert tickets...jesus, if you even have to ask. I can remember paying $25 for good concert tickets (for mainstream bands) just 20 years ago. Today it's crazy what you pay even for tickets to no-name bands' concerts.
If you end every friendship with everyone who has some nutty or controversial ideas, you're either going to end up very lonely or in an echo chamber where all of your friends just agree with you constantly.
I spotted this shirt at the mall that was just SOOOO amazing! I'm attaching pics, including some of my dog sitting the shirt. Isn't he just ADORABLE???!!! XO
Don't worry, this is nothing compared to the price we'll ultimately pay for leaving the gold standard, and all these decades of ever-increasing deficit spending. When all that money in your bank account and wallet turn to worthless dust, you won't have to worry about federal taxes anymore.
You ever been to Fulton? Trust me, it's a pretty safe assumption. And as others have pointed out, the problem with a fine is that he could easily have just refused to pay it after-the-fact (the city has no authority to impose fines on county residents). This boils down to one of those personal responsibility issues. He chose to live in a county with no fire service. He chose not to pay a fee to get fire service. He got no fire service. It's not very complicated.
At some point we decided as a society that taxing a billionaire and a homeless person at the same rate was unfair. After all, it's a helluva lot easier for a billionaire to make another billion than for someone who is poor to make their first billion. Taxing them both at an equal rate, with no regards for their relative earning potential and power is nigh delusional. A billionaire buying a gallon of milk and someone who is barely surviving buying a gallon of milk are two very different transactions. Basing all of our taxes solely on the assumption that a given purchase means exactly the same to both of these parties seems naive. A regressive income tax acknowledges that a wealthier person has a privileged position to earn money much more easily than a poorer person, especially above a certain threshold.
Don't feel bad though. If the U.S. were run by a real socialist (and not an imaginary one concocted by the tea partiers), income taxes above a certain threshold would be at 100%. Or even worse, wealth above a certain threshold would simply be nationalized. Many mainstream politicians have proposed this in the past. Go look at what Huey Long proposed for dealing with his era's recession (if you want to see what a *real* U.S. socialist looks like).
Yes, it has an appeal. The problem is that this would make any larger "common good" projects impossible. Some services (like road building and maintenance, for example) don't lend themselves well to an opt-in approach. It's not like we can tell Jim the cheapskate, who opts out of everything, that he can't use the roads, or the parks, or the bridges. How do I deal with someone who wants to opt-out of paying his fair share of a prison, or a flooding project, or anything else that benefits everyone in the area? If I've got a project to reduce smog, and someone elects to not pay their fair share, do I tell them they can't breath the air?
That's how taxes work. If they didn't, no one would ever pay them.
Now, some states/cities/counties elect to not have taxes, or to have very low taxes. As a consequence they are not able to provide many public services, such as fire service. This guy elected to live in such a state and such a county.
Slashdot Mirror
There was also an excellent docudrama done of this book. Sadly, it only aired a few times in the U.S. (on the National Geographic channel) and isn't available on video in the U.S. (only in Region 2). There is a real animosity in the U.S., institutional or otherwise, to anything which presents the space race from any other perspective than NASA's (and even the NASA documentaries in the U.S. tend to ignore completely or downplay significantly the contributions of Werner Von Braun). You could probably fit everyone in the U.S. who recognizes the name Sergey Korolyov into one room, though no one in history did more to put machine and man into space than he did.
Maybe all the North Koreans left for China a long time ago and Kim Jung Il is just having us on.
Being someone who is very rich I can tell you that bald eagle tastes a lot like giant panda.
If a species goes extinct in the woods, and some whiny group of hippies never knew it existed, did it really ever exist?
The same reason it's illegal to pass secrets about U.S. reactors to Russia and other countries...because it could be used for sabotage.
If it makes you feel any better, pretty much every profession is suffering now. IT may have been excluded from past recessions. But with the increases in outsourcing, it was only a matter of time before it got hit too.
A union isn't going to fix a shitty economy. And bringing one in will only add one more incentive for a company to outsource to India or China. I like the idea of a union too, but I also know their limitations.
I felt the same way when the last Members Only jacket rolled off the line.
Wouldn't it be nice if the developers were suddenly compelled to tell the actual truth in an interview? It would go something like:
Interviewer: Where did you get the idea for Natal/Kinect?
Don Mattrick: Steve Balmer saw that the Wii was making a shitload of money and told us to copy it. That was the genesis.
Interviewer: Why did you decide to go with the body motion idea?
Don Mattrick: It was a way to rip off the motion control thing without violating any of Nintendo's patents.
Interviewer: So, where will the games for this be going?
Don Mattrick: Wherever the Wii games go, we'll follow.
Interviewer: Are you worried about the competition?
Don Mattrick: Not really, the Wii is going to kick both our's and Sony's asses on motion control. We're just trying to grab some of the crumbs before people realize that our console is five years old now and starting to show its age.
Interviewer: Well...um...thanks for your candid responses.
Don Mattrick: I hate you. I'm going to go get drunk now.
According to Box Office Mojo, the average movie ticket price in 1980 was $2.69 ($2.23 in 1977 when Star Wars came out). I'm not sure where you were paying $4.50 in 1977, but it must have been in the middle of Manhattan or something.
You really want a laugh? The U.S. pays more for its health care per citizen than any other country in the world. And yet 40 million of those citizens don't have any insurance or consistent way to get any health care at all.
He was the decider. Gonna git 'em, dead or alive.
I hated playing as that stupid wolf.
She's that whiny singer my girlfriend used to listen too...or was that Alanis Morrisette? Well, either way, the point is that my girlfriend sucked.
If rednecks are a race, I bet it's a NASCAR race.
No, fire departments exist because someone puts up the money to pay firefighters, buy them a truck, build them a station, and buy them equipment. No money = no firefighting. This guy was from a county that elected not to put up the money, so he gets no firefighting.
Tennessee doesn't have oil. Alaska is more analogous to TX, and they don't even need a income *or* sales tax.
Not all forms of entertainment have dropped. Ticket prices for movies and concerts have increased by substantial amounts, even adjusting for inflation. Back in 1980, a console game would cost you about $30 ($77 adjusted in today's dollars). A movie ticket would cost about $2.50 (about $6.50 in today's dollars). Now, unless you're buying some sort of special edition, console games cost a lot less that $77 (and that's even more impressive considering what it costs to develop a game today vs. what it cost in 1980). But movie tickets cost a lot MORE than $6.50 (and god help you if it's in 3D, you'll need a loan for that).
And concert tickets...jesus, if you even have to ask. I can remember paying $25 for good concert tickets (for mainstream bands) just 20 years ago. Today it's crazy what you pay even for tickets to no-name bands' concerts.
If you end every friendship with everyone who has some nutty or controversial ideas, you're either going to end up very lonely or in an echo chamber where all of your friends just agree with you constantly.
I spotted this shirt at the mall that was just SOOOO amazing! I'm attaching pics, including some of my dog sitting the shirt. Isn't he just ADORABLE???!!! XO
Don't worry, this is nothing compared to the price we'll ultimately pay for leaving the gold standard, and all these decades of ever-increasing deficit spending. When all that money in your bank account and wallet turn to worthless dust, you won't have to worry about federal taxes anymore.
You ever been to Fulton? Trust me, it's a pretty safe assumption. And as others have pointed out, the problem with a fine is that he could easily have just refused to pay it after-the-fact (the city has no authority to impose fines on county residents). This boils down to one of those personal responsibility issues. He chose to live in a county with no fire service. He chose not to pay a fee to get fire service. He got no fire service. It's not very complicated.
At some point we decided as a society that taxing a billionaire and a homeless person at the same rate was unfair. After all, it's a helluva lot easier for a billionaire to make another billion than for someone who is poor to make their first billion. Taxing them both at an equal rate, with no regards for their relative earning potential and power is nigh delusional. A billionaire buying a gallon of milk and someone who is barely surviving buying a gallon of milk are two very different transactions. Basing all of our taxes solely on the assumption that a given purchase means exactly the same to both of these parties seems naive. A regressive income tax acknowledges that a wealthier person has a privileged position to earn money much more easily than a poorer person, especially above a certain threshold.
Don't feel bad though. If the U.S. were run by a real socialist (and not an imaginary one concocted by the tea partiers), income taxes above a certain threshold would be at 100%. Or even worse, wealth above a certain threshold would simply be nationalized. Many mainstream politicians have proposed this in the past. Go look at what Huey Long proposed for dealing with his era's recession (if you want to see what a *real* U.S. socialist looks like).
Yes, it has an appeal. The problem is that this would make any larger "common good" projects impossible. Some services (like road building and maintenance, for example) don't lend themselves well to an opt-in approach. It's not like we can tell Jim the cheapskate, who opts out of everything, that he can't use the roads, or the parks, or the bridges. How do I deal with someone who wants to opt-out of paying his fair share of a prison, or a flooding project, or anything else that benefits everyone in the area? If I've got a project to reduce smog, and someone elects to not pay their fair share, do I tell them they can't breath the air?
That's how taxes work. If they didn't, no one would ever pay them.
Now, some states/cities/counties elect to not have taxes, or to have very low taxes. As a consequence they are not able to provide many public services, such as fire service. This guy elected to live in such a state and such a county.