You do need a supermajority to pass legislation in the US. First of all, the senate and the house has to agree. A minority of 40 senators can filibuster a bill, making sure it never reaches a vote. Moreover, you need support from certain key committee members. So you need at least
(1) Support from key senators and representatives.
(2) Support (or not too strong opposition) from 60% of senators.
(3) A majority in the house.
(4) Avoid a veto from the president, or much higher support to override a veto.
Maybe that's why things rarely get done in the US.
I just priced out two identical systems. One E1505n notebook with ubuntu 7.04. It comes with 512MB memory by default. Choosing 1GB and making no other changes makes the grand total $649, compared to $699 for the E1505 with Vista Home Basic. So that's $50 cheaper. I guess it makes sense to offer 512MB as an option only for the linux system, as I think ubuntu can handle that better than Vista.
It seems to me that the systems are identical, except for the wireless card. The windows version comes with Dell Wireless as standard while the linux version only has an Intel wireless card which is $29 extra for the windows version. So maybe it's more accurate to say that the price difference is $49+$29=$78 for identical systems. That sounds pretty good to me, I'd get one of these if I were in the market for a laptop right now.
I can't believe the NYT still requires people to make up random personal data to read their newspaper. Seriously, has anyone here ever given out real information when registering an account with the NYT? Even without services like bugmenot, the information they'll get from datamining their visitors will be too full of noise to be of any use.
I just read an article in the economist, which was mostly about Murdoch trying to buy the Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal. But the economist implied that the same could happen to the NYT, because that newspaper is also badly run. I can believe that. While I enjoy reading their newspaper if I can get my hands on a copy, they still have a very poor understanding of how the internet works.
And we do. For example, all the editors of the very prestigious but very expensive math journal Topology recently resigned. The same editors then started a new journal, Journal of Topology, with much lower prices. The researchers already do all the work anyway, so this is a much better arrangement.
All the editors of the math journal Topology, which is an overpriced Elsevier journal, resigned effectively the end of last year: http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/toplet.pdf (pdf warning). Instead the same editors are starting a new, open access journal. I think we will see more of this as more and more scientists are fed up with overpriced, limited access journals, and libraries start dropping subscriptions. We are fully capable of running the journals ourselves, we already do most the work anyway.
If everyone has $85,000, an average car could sell for $20,000. If we double the amount of money to $200,000, that same car would now cost as much as $47,000. Having a few dollars more than the average in the first example is *always* going to be better than having half as much in the second. That hundred grand isn't worth as much! Consider that the "cost of living:" health care, transportation, even groceries are all going to increase by more than double. The fact that doubling the amount of money everyone has and doubling the prices doesn't change anything is beside the point. Instead, ask yourself the following question. Would you be more happy if everyone, including yourself, could only afford to bike, or if you could afford one car but everyone else could afford two cars?
Besides, being a millionaire today is much better than being a millionaire a century ago if you can avoid being jealous of the Joneses. Think of all the toys you can buy for a million dollars that didn't even exist a hundred years ago, not to mention the much more advanced health care you have access too. Of course, you could do things with a million dollars a hundred years ago that you can't do now, but I'd rather have my modern toys and advanced health care.
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You do need a supermajority to pass legislation in the US. First of all, the senate and the house has to agree. A minority of 40 senators can filibuster a bill, making sure it never reaches a vote. Moreover, you need support from certain key committee members. So you need at least
(1) Support from key senators and representatives.
(2) Support (or not too strong opposition) from 60% of senators.
(3) A majority in the house.
(4) Avoid a veto from the president, or much higher support to override a veto.
Maybe that's why things rarely get done in the US.
I just priced out two identical systems. One E1505n notebook with ubuntu 7.04. It comes with 512MB memory by default. Choosing 1GB and making no other changes makes the grand total $649, compared to $699 for the E1505 with Vista Home Basic. So that's $50 cheaper. I guess it makes sense to offer 512MB as an option only for the linux system, as I think ubuntu can handle that better than Vista.
It seems to me that the systems are identical, except for the wireless card. The windows version comes with Dell Wireless as standard while the linux version only has an Intel wireless card which is $29 extra for the windows version. So maybe it's more accurate to say that the price difference is $49+$29=$78 for identical systems. That sounds pretty good to me, I'd get one of these if I were in the market for a laptop right now.
I can't believe the NYT still requires people to make up random personal data to read their newspaper. Seriously, has anyone here ever given out real information when registering an account with the NYT? Even without services like bugmenot, the information they'll get from datamining their visitors will be too full of noise to be of any use.
I just read an article in the economist, which was mostly about Murdoch trying to buy the Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal. But the economist implied that the same could happen to the NYT, because that newspaper is also badly run. I can believe that. While I enjoy reading their newspaper if I can get my hands on a copy, they still have a very poor understanding of how the internet works.
And we do. For example, all the editors of the very prestigious but very expensive math journal Topology recently resigned. The same editors then started a new journal, Journal of Topology, with much lower prices. The researchers already do all the work anyway, so this is a much better arrangement.
All the editors of the math journal Topology, which is an overpriced Elsevier journal, resigned effectively the end of last year: http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/toplet.pdf (pdf warning). Instead the same editors are starting a new, open access journal. I think we will see more of this as more and more scientists are fed up with overpriced, limited access journals, and libraries start dropping subscriptions. We are fully capable of running the journals ourselves, we already do most the work anyway.
Besides, being a millionaire today is much better than being a millionaire a century ago if you can avoid being jealous of the Joneses. Think of all the toys you can buy for a million dollars that didn't even exist a hundred years ago, not to mention the much more advanced health care you have access too. Of course, you could do things with a million dollars a hundred years ago that you can't do now, but I'd rather have my modern toys and advanced health care.