if someone has cancer, and is exhausted and nauseous after receiving their chemotherapy, you should fire him too?
Of course not. You send them home on long-term disability and replace them. Companies have an obligation to be sympathetic, but not outright charitable. There's no reasonable expectation for a company to continue paying someone a full salary and receiving nothing in return, simply because the person has a crippling illness. That's what insurance is for. Salary is payment in exchange for work.
Most medical professionals consider alcoholism a disease.
Provably false and thus unworthy of further comment.
Ever notice that the two most popular sports in America are Football and Baseball?
No, but that might simply be because it's not true. The most popular sports in America are Football and NASCAR. Look it up.
This month, as the 2006 season kicks off Feb. 11 at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR racing is second only to the National Football League (NFL) in television ratings.
"Piracy" is definitely a good way of avoiding rip offs.
And shoplifting is a good way to avoid overpaying for stuff. Sneaking into concerts is a good way of avoiding Ticketmaster's exorbitant administration fees.
if the shoe was on the other foot the Indians would have killed all of the white men, and if any were left over today they sure as shit wouldn't be getting special rights and privileges in an Indian society. Nor would any of them be emotionally weak enough to feel guilty about a victory on the battlefield.
"Don't be fooled Timmy, If a Cow had the chance he'd kill you and everyone you care about!" -- Troy McLure.
Am I the only one who was reminded of this quote by the parent's wildly fanatical fearmongering?
Honestly, why do you think that any of these people deserve more than to be paid for the actual work they did?That's the very question I'm trying to aim at the artists themselves! You've dismissed all the peripheral work that goes into an album as extraneous, yet you haven't explained why the artists themselves should be the only ones to enjoy perpetual royalties from the end product. The end product that is a direct result of the work of dozens, even hundreds, of people. What makes the singer(s) so special that they deserve the lion's share of the windfall? Is there no talent/creativity involved in writing the tabs for the music, or the lyrics? Is there no artistic touch involved in mixing the tracks together just right? Is that not art?
What about the producer? The guy who actually fronted the cash for all the people who contributed to the album? He took a chance on the singer. If the album flops, he can't turn around and demand that the sound techs, musicians, composers and everybody else give him his money back. He suffers financially if the album fails, so why shouldn't he benefit financially if the album is a success? Why would you cut him out of the loop, when he's the one that made it possible for the singer's work to be heard (in a high-production-value recording) by the masses?
Why are modern products flimsy? Because people are cheap.
That's really all there is to it. That's why McDonald's is more popular than [INSERT_FANCY_RESTAURANT_HERE], that's why WalMart got so huge so fast, that's why the Chevy Cavalier/Cobalt is so incredibly popular. They're all cheap.
People care about quality, until they have to pay for it. When push comes to shove, they'll buy what's cheapest.
I have little doubt that companies can make longer-lasting products. It just costs them more money, and people will flock to their (cheaper) competitors. It's a cut-throat market out there, and the winner is the one with the lowest sale price.
On the other hand, however, I'm convinced that there are certain products which could be improved dramatically, but which are intentionally designed to fail. For example, light bulbs. Incandescent light bulbs have been around for over 100 years, yet their design is almost completely unchanged. They're good for a few thousand hours, then the filament burns out and you have to buy more. You can't convince me that light bulb manufacturers haven't figured out how to build a light bulb that will never burn out. How hard could it be? Make the filament just a fraction thicker, maybe devise a technique to remove a higher percentage of the oxygen from the bulb... something, anything. I'm positive they know how, and I'm positive they're simply choosing not to, because if we only had to buy a dozen or so lightbulbs over our entire lives, they wouldn't make nearly as much money. Obviously, it's more profitable for them to keep us buying a pack of lightbulbs every few months.
Cars are similar. I'm sure there are techniques they could use to make cars last much, much longer than they do. Airplanes have to endure far more punishing environments than cars, and yet their lifespans are undeniably much longer. Why hasn't some of that aviation construction know-how made its way into roadgoing vehicles? Because if Corolla's lasted 20 years, Toyota wouldn't make as much money.
Infringe all you want, just don't get caught. If you pirate something, send a check for the cost of the music directly to the performer. If enough people do that, maybe performers will get the message that the recording (rather, hard media selling, good sound men will always be needed!) industry as we have it today is dinosaur and isn't needed. Uhm, OK, but what about all the other people who put legitimate work into the album and who would be completely screwed by the system you're proposing? You know, the faceless, nameless people who
Composed the music
Wrote the lyrics
Played the instruments to make the music
Mixed the album
Promoted the album
Discovered the singer in the first place
Created the cover art for the CD
Produced the album
etc.
Or are they unimportant in your eyes?
You know, people who espouse the kind of tactics you're condoning make me furious. Why do people like you just seem to assume that the artist deserves all the money? Has it ever occurred to you that your very starting premise is flawed? Why should the spoiled, whiny, drug-addicted, self-centered, egotistical singer get all the money for showing up (late) at the studio, singing a few songs that someone else wrote for them, then going off, getting drunk, and partying while the real work begins, making the album? I'd love to hear an answer from one of you "all-the-money-to-the-artist" types.
Anyone want to lay odds regarding whether the TV networks will view this as a problem or an opportunity? Of course, they'll see it as a problem that must be "solved," rather than an opportunity to be seized. There is so much money to be made here for innovative and visionary content providers, so much cross-promotion and integration they could take advantage of, and yet you just know the "old guard" will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo, even as their marketshare/revenues decline over the upcoming years.
It's sad, really. I would have hoped that the "younger" networks like MTV and Spike would have jumped aboard and shown the path, but the only network I can think of who has even remotely embraced the dual-delivery model of TV and online media is the Comedy Network/Comedy Central.
Escalade is more efficient than 747
on
An Inconvenient Truth
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Basically, 747 gets between 69.8 to 100mpg passenger miles per gallon.
HowStuffWorks fudged their math a bit. Their numbers actually work out to 76 miles per gallon per person, not 100 as they claimed. If you take the speed they use (550 mph), that's actually a mile every 6.55 seconds, not every 5 seconds. Burning 3600 gallons/hour, that's 6.55 gallons per mile, or 0.0131 gallons per person per mile (they claimed 0.01), or 76 miles per gallon per person. However, you concede that it ranged between 69.8 and 100, so that's fine.
My problem is that both you and HowStuffWorks insist on comparing a full airplane with an almost-empty roadgoing vehicle. The Cadillac Escalade, as I said, gets 20 mpg highway, or 0.05 gallons per mile. Split among 8 passengers, that's 0.00625 gallons per person per mile, or 160 miles per person per gallon, which is still well above HowStuffWorks' optimistic calculation of 100 miles per person per gallon for the 747.
I'm not denying that flying isn't faster. I'm saying that there is absolutely no way you can manipulate the math to try and portray it as anything better than what it is. And "what it is" is the absolutely least-fuel-efficient way to travel that is possible.
Of course their more efficient than personal automobiles, but that's pretty much a given.
That's just it though, they're not. They're barely half as efficient as even the most inefficient personal automobiles. A Humvee is more fuel efficient than a jumbo jet. Try comparing a half-full Airbus 320 with a Prius carrying a family of 4. The jet compares horrendously.
Jets are a lot faster than other vehicles, but they are the least efficient at it. When you fly in a jet, you are trading fuel-efficiency for travel time.
Actually, in terms of fuel used, jumbo jets are the most efficient way to move large quantities of people.
You have it exactly backwards. Commercial aviation is the least fuel-efficient way to move people. Maybe you meant to say jumbo jets in particular are more fuel-efficient than other jet aircraft? You might be correct in that case, assuming that the jumbo jet is always completely filled with passengers, which of course is not true.
A 747 burns 3300 gallons of fuel per hour and cruises at 490 knots. Neglecting to consider takeoff and landing, that means that over a 5 hour flight, the plane will have burned 16,500 gallons of fuel and traveled 2450 nautical miles (2821 statute miles). Assuming the plane is completely booked and is carrying 524 passengers (actual seating capacity varies by model and airline), then each passenger is responsible for 31.5 gallons of fuel.
A Cadillac Escalade gets 20 miles per gallon in highway driving. Filled to capacity (as our 747 was. Fair is fair, after all), it seats 8 people. Traveling the same distance (2821 miles) at 20 miles per gallon, this "gas-guzzling SUV" will suck down 141 gallons of premium. Each passenger is responsible for 17.6 gallons of fuel.
The 747, operating under ideal conditions, is barely half as "efficient" as the much-maligned, gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade. And you want to hold it up as the pinnacle of efficiency? Better check your numbers. Be glad I didn't bring up busses or trains.
And I didn't even go into the fact that the 747 is spewing its exhaust directly into the thin, upper atmosophere, where it can do the most damage.
How to fix that issue: pass a law that you have to pay any employee or contracted employee a sum that is at least the prevailing wage for the area in which the company is located, and national laws also must apply.
I'm not sure if you realize this or not, so don't take offense, but I want to make sure you realize that US laws don't apply in other countries. Hopefully, you understand that the country "passing the law" that you're suggesting would have to be the "poor" country being outsource to, since any laws passed in the "rich" country being outsource from do not apply. The US doesn't run the world. They just act like they do.
That said, your solution has several major problems, but the most obvious one is, "why would a country that desperately needs foreign investments pass a law that would discourage companies from investing in their workers?" Why would India pass a law requiring foreign companies to pay their Indian workers outrageously high (by Indian standards) salaries, with the obvious result of said companies simply packing up and moving to a country without such laws?
That doesn't make it impossible, that just means that people would be unwilling to do it.
If by "unwilling to do it," you mean, "will starve to death in a matter of days," then you're right. You display a remarkable lack of understanding of economics. The GDP is the Gross domestic product. The grand total. The maximum. If a project's cost is greater than the grand total of everything you are producing, then that means everyone would have to give up their entire income, plus produce more, and give up that income too. Meanwhile, they have no money for food and shelter. The other things that they'd normally spend money on would suddenly see their revenues drop to 0, since everyone (their own owners and employees included) are suddenly devoting their entire income to the project. Since stores can't stay open without customers, every single industry (except the "Sun Umbrella" project) would have to close down, and lay off all their employees. Suddenly, your entire population (again, except for the "Sun Umbrella" employees) are unemployed, cold, and hungry, yet must still find a way to contribute MORE money than they were making before they lost their job.
Of course, it's even far more complicated and dire than I just described. With all the business closed down, they're not paying any taxes anymore, so the burden on the (unemployed) citizens rises even more dramatically, even though nobody has any income anymore. Are you starting to see how ridiculous this is?
Spending more than your GDP on a single project is not just a matter of "convincing people." It literally is, just plain impossible to do.
But seriously, when has playing God ever worked for mankind?
Hospitals and medicine, vaccines, condoms and other contraceptives, abortions, airplanes (man wasn't meant to fly), submarines (man wasn't meant to be underwater > 4-5 minutes), artificial insemination and other fertility drugs/therapies, orgran transplants, blood/marrow donations, gene therapy, space travel, building irrigation systems to allow farms to thrive on otherwise barren lands, building dykes to allow people to inhabit land that would otherwise be perpetually flooded (New Orleans notwithstanding)... should I go on? Seems like playing God has improved both our quality and length of life, in many, many areas.
It's a shame that DVR makers are so scared of lawsuits from the networks, affiliates, etc. that they cave so easily on this issue.
Why? Are you willing to pay significantly more money for a PVR that skips commercials, or would you expect such a feature to be included for free? Of course, people will expect the feature for free. So why does it surprise you that PVR makers would shy away from a feature which is virtually guaranteed to invite expensive lawsuits, without a commensurate increase in unit price?
Are you talking about the BitTorrent guy? Or the child porn website that got shut down last week? Because if you're defending the purveyor of gigs and gigs of child porn, I'm afraid you've got an uphill battle, my friend. Although your sentence could easily describe either crime.
Lots of objectionable material can be depicted as innocuous 1's and 0's. That doesn't make it OK.
Maybe the solutions isn't more jails, but rather decriminalizing things that aren't crimes, like addiction.
The harmful behaviour of drug addicts isn't the using of the drugs themselves. If junkies bought drugs with their own money, then quietly shot up in the corner and never bothered anyone, it wouldn't be an issue. The problem is that these junkies, being incapable of holding a job, yet still needing money to feed their addiction, turn to other harmful behaviours, and those do affect other people. Mugging, robbery, burglary, prostitution all go hand-in-hand with drug use. Also, their behaviours while high are harmful. Many drugs make the user more aggressive and violent. They impede your judgement and ability to drive, making them dangerous weapons on the roads.
People who blindly advocate decriminalizing all drugs are naive, and would be well-served to spend a day with an addict to educate themselves on the reality of what it's like to live that life. The drug use itself isn't the problem, but it's a symptom. The people who are in prison for "using drugs" are not innocent drug users. That's simply all they got caught for. But make no mistake: they are liars, cheaters, thieves, burglars and in many cases, much worse. They merely got away with those other crimes. If you swept through a neighborhood and locked up all the drug users, you'd see virtually all other property crime disappear.
What's more likely? Kids play video games and thus want to kill their friends and acquaintances in real life...OR...kid has very few friends, is picked on a lot in school, is abused or ignored by his parents, has the self esteem of a pea and plays video games BECAUSE of all the above reasons and then goes to school and kills 15 people (shitty frag count, btw).
Why can't you fanatics fathom that it's possible it could be a combination of both?
There is no evidence that cushioning or motion control technologies have done anything to reduce the incidence of injury over the years. Indeed, some groups, including westerners on concrete, run in bare feet, without obviously higher injury rates than those wearing "good" running shoes, though peer-reviewed studies are scarce. The biomechanics of running and running injuries are simply not well understood. As such it's difficult to claim that any particular design can reduce injury rates.
Well, "evidence" didn't cure my shinsplits. But custom orthotics and a good pair of motion-control running shoes did. I haven't had shinsplints at all since I made the switch, so even if it is bunk, it worked for me, for whatever reason.
While nobody denies that there is a substantial markup built into the price of a pair of Nikes, my point was simply that the $20 pair of sneakers the grandparent was referring to are even more shoddily-made, and are constructed of lower-quality materials. While the expensive name-brand shoes are certainly overpriced, the truth is that they are in fact better shoes than a bargain-brand at WalMart. They more properly support your foot, are made of better materials, and will hold up to more wear.
Also, as far as I know, Saucony running shoes are made in the USA. They are expensive, and they are great shoes, worth every penny.
I think we all need to send a polite letter to Mr. Yankovic that we cannot purchase his music because of his distributor. With any luck, that will add a semi-important figure to the cause.
"The cause?" "The cause???" What "cause?" The plight of some piddly little Hong Kong company that makes its money by skirting international trade laws? You think Weird Al is going to pull the plug on his most successful album ever to stand up for the right to illegally import non-compliant electronics in Europe?
Why must I buy a pair of fucking shoes for $80+ when a pair that are $20 are just as good (if not BETTER)? same goes for pants, shirts, you name it
I have to disagree with you there. In most cases, the old adage "you get what you pay for" holds true. Take running shoes for example. A good pair of running shoes is going to set you back at least $100, no matter what. If you buy anything cheaper, you're simply risking injury. That's just what it costs to make a good pair of running shoes.
Or how about sunglasses? Yes, Oakleys and Ray Bans are overpriced, but they actually are much better sunglasses than the kind on the spinning rack at the local drug store.
That said, while I do often buy name brand products when they are legitimately better, I resent advertising for them. I don't wear shirts with a big "Nike" swoosh plastered on the chest. I'm not a walking billboard. Why would I pay $35 for the "privilege" of walking around advertising for your brand? They should be paying me! I buy nice things that are high quality and will hold up to use, I just don't like to give them free advertising.
No pastime is worth less than another simply because it isn't considered acceptable by other people, all that counts is how happy you are with it.
That's rather naive and simplistic. Is lying in an ally, shooting up heroin as worthwhile as building a ball field for your son's school? Like it or not, your life affects other people. To neglect, or even outright ignore, your family and friends because you'd rather spend your time staring at a computer screen than interacting with your own acquaintances, is hurtful. And that's why it "isn't considered acceptable." The way you describe it, you make it sound like the things society doesn't "consider acceptable" are arbitrary and unimportant. Some may be (gay marriage), but others are discouraged for good reason (philandering).
Much as you'd like for there to be some generic, blanket statement to cover it all ("all that counts is how happy you are with it"), that's not reality. In real life, reading, exercising, and volunteering are undeniably "better" pastimes than compulsive gambling or vandalism.
I wonder, over the many millions of years that the earth has been around, how many other meteorites of this size or larger have struck ground and subsequently been covered with layers of dirt
Interestingly enough, most meteors and meteorites are found in the Antarctic. Not because it gets struck more frequently, but rather because of how much easier it is to find them. When you see a (black) rock lying on top of 2 miles of (white) ice, it's a safe bet it fell from the sky.
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if someone has cancer, and is exhausted and nauseous after receiving their chemotherapy, you should fire him too?
Of course not. You send them home on long-term disability and replace them. Companies have an obligation to be sympathetic, but not outright charitable. There's no reasonable expectation for a company to continue paying someone a full salary and receiving nothing in return, simply because the person has a crippling illness. That's what insurance is for. Salary is payment in exchange for work.
Most medical professionals consider alcoholism a disease.
Provably false and thus unworthy of further comment.
No, but that might simply be because it's not true. The most popular sports in America are Football and NASCAR. Look it up. This month, as the 2006 season kicks off Feb. 11 at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR racing is second only to the National Football League (NFL) in television ratings.
"Piracy" is definitely a good way of avoiding rip offs.
And shoplifting is a good way to avoid overpaying for stuff. Sneaking into concerts is a good way of avoiding Ticketmaster's exorbitant administration fees.
What the hell is wrong with you?
if the shoe was on the other foot the Indians would have killed all of the white men, and if any were left over today they sure as shit wouldn't be getting special rights and privileges in an Indian society. Nor would any of them be emotionally weak enough to feel guilty about a victory on the battlefield.
"Don't be fooled Timmy, If a Cow had the chance he'd kill you and everyone you care about!" -- Troy McLure.
Am I the only one who was reminded of this quote by the parent's wildly fanatical fearmongering?
Honestly, why do you think that any of these people deserve more than to be paid for the actual work they did?That's the very question I'm trying to aim at the artists themselves! You've dismissed all the peripheral work that goes into an album as extraneous, yet you haven't explained why the artists themselves should be the only ones to enjoy perpetual royalties from the end product. The end product that is a direct result of the work of dozens, even hundreds, of people. What makes the singer(s) so special that they deserve the lion's share of the windfall? Is there no talent/creativity involved in writing the tabs for the music, or the lyrics? Is there no artistic touch involved in mixing the tracks together just right? Is that not art?
What about the producer? The guy who actually fronted the cash for all the people who contributed to the album? He took a chance on the singer. If the album flops, he can't turn around and demand that the sound techs, musicians, composers and everybody else give him his money back. He suffers financially if the album fails, so why shouldn't he benefit financially if the album is a success? Why would you cut him out of the loop, when he's the one that made it possible for the singer's work to be heard (in a high-production-value recording) by the masses?
Why are modern products flimsy? Because people are cheap.
That's really all there is to it. That's why McDonald's is more popular than [INSERT_FANCY_RESTAURANT_HERE], that's why WalMart got so huge so fast, that's why the Chevy Cavalier/Cobalt is so incredibly popular. They're all cheap.
People care about quality, until they have to pay for it. When push comes to shove, they'll buy what's cheapest.
I have little doubt that companies can make longer-lasting products. It just costs them more money, and people will flock to their (cheaper) competitors. It's a cut-throat market out there, and the winner is the one with the lowest sale price.
On the other hand, however, I'm convinced that there are certain products which could be improved dramatically, but which are intentionally designed to fail. For example, light bulbs. Incandescent light bulbs have been around for over 100 years, yet their design is almost completely unchanged. They're good for a few thousand hours, then the filament burns out and you have to buy more. You can't convince me that light bulb manufacturers haven't figured out how to build a light bulb that will never burn out. How hard could it be? Make the filament just a fraction thicker, maybe devise a technique to remove a higher percentage of the oxygen from the bulb... something, anything. I'm positive they know how, and I'm positive they're simply choosing not to, because if we only had to buy a dozen or so lightbulbs over our entire lives, they wouldn't make nearly as much money. Obviously, it's more profitable for them to keep us buying a pack of lightbulbs every few months.
Cars are similar. I'm sure there are techniques they could use to make cars last much, much longer than they do. Airplanes have to endure far more punishing environments than cars, and yet their lifespans are undeniably much longer. Why hasn't some of that aviation construction know-how made its way into roadgoing vehicles? Because if Corolla's lasted 20 years, Toyota wouldn't make as much money.
Just my opinion.
Or are they unimportant in your eyes?
You know, people who espouse the kind of tactics you're condoning make me furious. Why do people like you just seem to assume that the artist deserves all the money? Has it ever occurred to you that your very starting premise is flawed? Why should the spoiled, whiny, drug-addicted, self-centered, egotistical singer get all the money for showing up (late) at the studio, singing a few songs that someone else wrote for them, then going off, getting drunk, and partying while the real work begins, making the album? I'd love to hear an answer from one of you "all-the-money-to-the-artist" types.
Anyone want to lay odds regarding whether the TV networks will view this as a problem or an opportunity? Of course, they'll see it as a problem that must be "solved," rather than an opportunity to be seized. There is so much money to be made here for innovative and visionary content providers, so much cross-promotion and integration they could take advantage of, and yet you just know the "old guard" will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo, even as their marketshare/revenues decline over the upcoming years.
It's sad, really. I would have hoped that the "younger" networks like MTV and Spike would have jumped aboard and shown the path, but the only network I can think of who has even remotely embraced the dual-delivery model of TV and online media is the Comedy Network/Comedy Central.
Basically, 747 gets between 69.8 to 100mpg passenger miles per gallon.
HowStuffWorks fudged their math a bit. Their numbers actually work out to 76 miles per gallon per person, not 100 as they claimed. If you take the speed they use (550 mph), that's actually a mile every 6.55 seconds, not every 5 seconds. Burning 3600 gallons/hour, that's 6.55 gallons per mile, or 0.0131 gallons per person per mile (they claimed 0.01), or 76 miles per gallon per person. However, you concede that it ranged between 69.8 and 100, so that's fine.
My problem is that both you and HowStuffWorks insist on comparing a full airplane with an almost-empty roadgoing vehicle. The Cadillac Escalade, as I said, gets 20 mpg highway, or 0.05 gallons per mile. Split among 8 passengers, that's 0.00625 gallons per person per mile, or 160 miles per person per gallon, which is still well above HowStuffWorks' optimistic calculation of 100 miles per person per gallon for the 747.
I'm not denying that flying isn't faster. I'm saying that there is absolutely no way you can manipulate the math to try and portray it as anything better than what it is. And "what it is" is the absolutely least-fuel-efficient way to travel that is possible.
Of course their more efficient than personal automobiles, but that's pretty much a given.
That's just it though, they're not. They're barely half as efficient as even the most inefficient personal automobiles. A Humvee is more fuel efficient than a jumbo jet. Try comparing a half-full Airbus 320 with a Prius carrying a family of 4. The jet compares horrendously.
Jets are a lot faster than other vehicles, but they are the least efficient at it. When you fly in a jet, you are trading fuel-efficiency for travel time.
Actually, in terms of fuel used, jumbo jets are the most efficient way to move large quantities of people.
You have it exactly backwards. Commercial aviation is the least fuel-efficient way to move people. Maybe you meant to say jumbo jets in particular are more fuel-efficient than other jet aircraft? You might be correct in that case, assuming that the jumbo jet is always completely filled with passengers, which of course is not true.
A 747 burns 3300 gallons of fuel per hour and cruises at 490 knots. Neglecting to consider takeoff and landing, that means that over a 5 hour flight, the plane will have burned 16,500 gallons of fuel and traveled 2450 nautical miles (2821 statute miles). Assuming the plane is completely booked and is carrying 524 passengers (actual seating capacity varies by model and airline), then each passenger is responsible for 31.5 gallons of fuel.
A Cadillac Escalade gets 20 miles per gallon in highway driving. Filled to capacity (as our 747 was. Fair is fair, after all), it seats 8 people. Traveling the same distance (2821 miles) at 20 miles per gallon, this "gas-guzzling SUV" will suck down 141 gallons of premium. Each passenger is responsible for 17.6 gallons of fuel.
The 747, operating under ideal conditions, is barely half as "efficient" as the much-maligned, gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade. And you want to hold it up as the pinnacle of efficiency? Better check your numbers. Be glad I didn't bring up busses or trains.
And I didn't even go into the fact that the 747 is spewing its exhaust directly into the thin, upper atmosophere, where it can do the most damage.
How to fix that issue: pass a law that you have to pay any employee or contracted employee a sum that is at least the prevailing wage for the area in which the company is located, and national laws also must apply.
I'm not sure if you realize this or not, so don't take offense, but I want to make sure you realize that US laws don't apply in other countries. Hopefully, you understand that the country "passing the law" that you're suggesting would have to be the "poor" country being outsource to, since any laws passed in the "rich" country being outsource from do not apply. The US doesn't run the world. They just act like they do.
That said, your solution has several major problems, but the most obvious one is, "why would a country that desperately needs foreign investments pass a law that would discourage companies from investing in their workers?" Why would India pass a law requiring foreign companies to pay their Indian workers outrageously high (by Indian standards) salaries, with the obvious result of said companies simply packing up and moving to a country without such laws?
That doesn't make it impossible, that just means that people would be unwilling to do it.
If by "unwilling to do it," you mean, "will starve to death in a matter of days," then you're right. You display a remarkable lack of understanding of economics. The GDP is the Gross domestic product. The grand total. The maximum. If a project's cost is greater than the grand total of everything you are producing, then that means everyone would have to give up their entire income, plus produce more, and give up that income too. Meanwhile, they have no money for food and shelter. The other things that they'd normally spend money on would suddenly see their revenues drop to 0, since everyone (their own owners and employees included) are suddenly devoting their entire income to the project. Since stores can't stay open without customers, every single industry (except the "Sun Umbrella" project) would have to close down, and lay off all their employees. Suddenly, your entire population (again, except for the "Sun Umbrella" employees) are unemployed, cold, and hungry, yet must still find a way to contribute MORE money than they were making before they lost their job.
Of course, it's even far more complicated and dire than I just described. With all the business closed down, they're not paying any taxes anymore, so the burden on the (unemployed) citizens rises even more dramatically, even though nobody has any income anymore. Are you starting to see how ridiculous this is?
Spending more than your GDP on a single project is not just a matter of "convincing people." It literally is, just plain impossible to do.
But seriously, when has playing God ever worked for mankind?
Hospitals and medicine, vaccines, condoms and other contraceptives, abortions, airplanes (man wasn't meant to fly), submarines (man wasn't meant to be underwater > 4-5 minutes), artificial insemination and other fertility drugs/therapies, orgran transplants, blood/marrow donations, gene therapy, space travel, building irrigation systems to allow farms to thrive on otherwise barren lands, building dykes to allow people to inhabit land that would otherwise be perpetually flooded (New Orleans notwithstanding)... should I go on? Seems like playing God has improved both our quality and length of life, in many, many areas.
It's a shame that DVR makers are so scared of lawsuits from the networks, affiliates, etc. that they cave so easily on this issue.
Why? Are you willing to pay significantly more money for a PVR that skips commercials, or would you expect such a feature to be included for free? Of course, people will expect the feature for free. So why does it surprise you that PVR makers would shy away from a feature which is virtually guaranteed to invite expensive lawsuits, without a commensurate increase in unit price?
All for sharing a 1s and 0s.
Are you talking about the BitTorrent guy? Or the child porn website that got shut down last week? Because if you're defending the purveyor of gigs and gigs of child porn, I'm afraid you've got an uphill battle, my friend. Although your sentence could easily describe either crime.
Lots of objectionable material can be depicted as innocuous 1's and 0's. That doesn't make it OK.
Maybe the solutions isn't more jails, but rather decriminalizing things that aren't crimes, like addiction.
The harmful behaviour of drug addicts isn't the using of the drugs themselves. If junkies bought drugs with their own money, then quietly shot up in the corner and never bothered anyone, it wouldn't be an issue. The problem is that these junkies, being incapable of holding a job, yet still needing money to feed their addiction, turn to other harmful behaviours, and those do affect other people. Mugging, robbery, burglary, prostitution all go hand-in-hand with drug use. Also, their behaviours while high are harmful. Many drugs make the user more aggressive and violent. They impede your judgement and ability to drive, making them dangerous weapons on the roads.
People who blindly advocate decriminalizing all drugs are naive, and would be well-served to spend a day with an addict to educate themselves on the reality of what it's like to live that life. The drug use itself isn't the problem, but it's a symptom. The people who are in prison for "using drugs" are not innocent drug users. That's simply all they got caught for. But make no mistake: they are liars, cheaters, thieves, burglars and in many cases, much worse. They merely got away with those other crimes. If you swept through a neighborhood and locked up all the drug users, you'd see virtually all other property crime disappear.
What's more likely? Kids play video games and thus want to kill their friends and acquaintances in real life...OR...kid has very few friends, is picked on a lot in school, is abused or ignored by his parents, has the self esteem of a pea and plays video games BECAUSE of all the above reasons and then goes to school and kills 15 people (shitty frag count, btw).
Why can't you fanatics fathom that it's possible it could be a combination of both?
The great thing about the internet is that, to be offended by something on the internet you actually have to intentionally search for it.
Really? Ever seen TubGirl? Were you searching for her?
There is no evidence that cushioning or motion control technologies have done anything to reduce the incidence of injury over the years. Indeed, some groups, including westerners on concrete, run in bare feet, without obviously higher injury rates than those wearing "good" running shoes, though peer-reviewed studies are scarce. The biomechanics of running and running injuries are simply not well understood. As such it's difficult to claim that any particular design can reduce injury rates.
Well, "evidence" didn't cure my shinsplits. But custom orthotics and a good pair of motion-control running shoes did. I haven't had shinsplints at all since I made the switch, so even if it is bunk, it worked for me, for whatever reason.
While nobody denies that there is a substantial markup built into the price of a pair of Nikes, my point was simply that the $20 pair of sneakers the grandparent was referring to are even more shoddily-made, and are constructed of lower-quality materials. While the expensive name-brand shoes are certainly overpriced, the truth is that they are in fact better shoes than a bargain-brand at WalMart. They more properly support your foot, are made of better materials, and will hold up to more wear.
Also, as far as I know, Saucony running shoes are made in the USA. They are expensive, and they are great shoes, worth every penny.
I think we all need to send a polite letter to Mr. Yankovic that we cannot purchase his music because of his distributor. With any luck, that will add a semi-important figure to the cause.
"The cause?" "The cause???" What "cause?" The plight of some piddly little Hong Kong company that makes its money by skirting international trade laws? You think Weird Al is going to pull the plug on his most successful album ever to stand up for the right to illegally import non-compliant electronics in Europe?
Get over yourself!
Why must I buy a pair of fucking shoes for $80+ when a pair that are $20 are just as good (if not BETTER)? same goes for pants, shirts, you name it
I have to disagree with you there. In most cases, the old adage "you get what you pay for" holds true. Take running shoes for example. A good pair of running shoes is going to set you back at least $100, no matter what. If you buy anything cheaper, you're simply risking injury. That's just what it costs to make a good pair of running shoes.
Or how about sunglasses? Yes, Oakleys and Ray Bans are overpriced, but they actually are much better sunglasses than the kind on the spinning rack at the local drug store.
That said, while I do often buy name brand products when they are legitimately better, I resent advertising for them. I don't wear shirts with a big "Nike" swoosh plastered on the chest. I'm not a walking billboard. Why would I pay $35 for the "privilege" of walking around advertising for your brand? They should be paying me! I buy nice things that are high quality and will hold up to use, I just don't like to give them free advertising.
No pastime is worth less than another simply because it isn't considered acceptable by other people, all that counts is how happy you are with it.
That's rather naive and simplistic. Is lying in an ally, shooting up heroin as worthwhile as building a ball field for your son's school? Like it or not, your life affects other people. To neglect, or even outright ignore, your family and friends because you'd rather spend your time staring at a computer screen than interacting with your own acquaintances, is hurtful. And that's why it "isn't considered acceptable." The way you describe it, you make it sound like the things society doesn't "consider acceptable" are arbitrary and unimportant. Some may be (gay marriage), but others are discouraged for good reason (philandering).
Much as you'd like for there to be some generic, blanket statement to cover it all ("all that counts is how happy you are with it"), that's not reality. In real life, reading, exercising, and volunteering are undeniably "better" pastimes than compulsive gambling or vandalism.
I wonder, over the many millions of years that the earth has been around, how many other meteorites of this size or larger have struck ground and subsequently been covered with layers of dirt
Interestingly enough, most meteors and meteorites are found in the Antarctic. Not because it gets struck more frequently, but rather because of how much easier it is to find them. When you see a (black) rock lying on top of 2 miles of (white) ice, it's a safe bet it fell from the sky.