The big value of uber is that it fixes these issues. If they ditched the stupid Ayn Rand techno-liberalism stuff then they could probably replace all the world's taxis just by fixing these endemic problems with getting into a vehicle with a stranger.
The big delusion is that Uber wants to fix these issues.
Uber requires the status quo to operate. They need the legitimate taxi industry to incur the much larger overheads they currently do whilst Uber ignores them. If the playing field was levelled tomorrow, Uber would see a flood of competition that would drown them. Uber isn't working to make things better, the "stupid Ayn Rand techno-liberalism" propaganda is just that, propaganda. Uber needs things to remain the same to survive... which it's not doing a good job of as it is, losing $100 million a quarter.
However if the playing feild was lowered to Uber's level, we'd also see a race to the bottom and then you'll see why your ancestors implemented taxi regulations to begin with.
If you think a regulated taxi industry is bad... Go live somewhere where there isn't one. Taxi gangs literally operate like mafias, enforcing turf and shaking down people on the street. In some places they prevent public transport systems by literally dragging the drivers out of the buses and beating them in broad daylight. I've seen what happens when your "fixes" are applied to the taxi industry, it's not pretty.
Here in America, [...] Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, they'll be able to raise prices for riders and drive their "contractors" (employees without rights) down to third-world wages by getting them to compete with each other to be the lowest bidder.
Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, anyone will be able to offer a service like Uber, because the barriers to entry will have been removed — at Uber's considerable legal expense.
Its cute that you believe that.
The regulatory barriers may be removed but given how Uber treats its competitors I'd bet that once they've driven out their competitors they'll implement their own barriers to entry... and remember kiddo's, just because they're not governmental barriers does not mean their not artificial barriers.
With complete control of the market, Uber will be in a position to intimidate, cajole, threat and outright DOS any startups and given that they've already tried to do it to Lyft, do you honestly think they wont do it when they have a monopoly?
However it wont ever come to that because in a few years, Uber will be a joke you say when you dont have enough wind to pass. They're already losing money hand over fist (to the tune of US$100 million a quarter) so here's what will happen. The taxi industries will have to tough it out for a few years because Uber will slowly claw back the drivers cut, given that most drivers are not making money as it is more and more will realise working for Uber is a losing proposition. This means you're going to end up with the least competent drivers and the most dangerous cars working for Uber, even the irrational hate of the "taxi industry" wont stop them haemorrhaging customers because paying more for a taxi is safer and smells better than an Uber jitney.
speed: outside of a few concept sports cars, diesel isnt about speed but torque. in trucking we compensate by turbocharging our engines, to make the lives of normal drivers easier. without turbos it would take ten minutes or more to get up to speed. the tradeoff is bad mileage.
This... But what so many people dont get about torque, it's pulling power, not speed power. This is why diesels are used in applications where you need to haul more rather than go fast. Not just trucks but tractors, marine, mining and locomotives. You dont see diesels in aviation because they're too damn heavy.
My housemate has a diesel ute (pickup) that produces 450 Nm of torque from it's 2.5L turbo diesel. My car on the other hand only produces 260 Nm from it's 2L turbo petrol... My car is twice as fast because horsepower (or more specifically, power to weight) determines acceleration and top speed, my car produces 180 KW whilst his makes 130KW. Then again, his pickup can tow 2.5 tons where as mine might tow 300 KG (I'm not sure if an S15 has even ever been fitted with a tow bar, so that's only a guess).
However they're bad for passenger cars because they are more polluting, more expensive and slower. A modern low capacity turbo petrol like a Ford Ecoboost is faster and as efficient as a diesel as well as being lighter, cheaper and less complex. Diesels have become a complete false economy unless you need the pulling power.
Anyone who has owned both can tell you, the clean diesel TDIs don't smell, never emit black smoke and the tail pipe stays clean and doesn't fill with soot the way the old cars did.
The thing is, I dont trust the owners to tell the truth about their cars, especially VW owners who seem to be a very special kind of delusional.
I trust the people who fix them and the people who design engines. Every mechanic I know will warn you away from VW on reliability issues and then warn you twice about VW Diesels. They do smell and they do emit particles even if you cant see them. I know a person who designs drive systems for marine applications, he says you'll never get a clean diesel and half of his job is hiding the unclean parts of heavy diesel engines.
I find the fact that VW owners wont admit their car stinks when they're smelling the same air as me to be amazingly delusional. VW owners are highly suspect when they pretend their erm... shit doesn't stink.
Diesel engines are more expensive than gasoline engines (because they have to be built stronger, and have a turbocharger). Hybrids are also more expensive than gasoline engines (because they have an extra battery and electric motor, or at least an oversized alternator, depending on design). Diesel hybrids would be more expensive twice.
That said, I'd love to have one.
Diesels dont need a turbocharger... They're just hopeless without one.
Diesel fanboys need to drive an old Toyota Hiace with the 2.8 Naturally Aspirated diesel. It will quickly cure them of their delusional fanboyism.
Add back in tariffs (which makes free market zealots cry but we can sell those tears for a profit).
The Australians do that now. The result is not higher paying jobs for Australians, it has done little to improve their overall income.
What it has achieved there is to raise the cost of goods to 60% above what everyone else pays. Everything made in Australia is hideously expensive, but the import tariffs run 50%, or the imports are outright blocked by crooked regulations. At the end of the day, Australia is a case study in why protectionist economics is a disaster.
This.
However trade tariffs and restrictions have been slowly been eroded over the last two decades and its resulted in prices dropping from 60% or more above other developed nations to "price in Hong Kong plus shipping" for many items. Drop shipping has been a huge boon to Australians (and the retailers smart enough to figure out which way the wind was blowing... not you Dick Smith).
Cars are a huge sticking point. Whilst free trade agreements have made things like Toyota Corollas pretty cheap, manufacturers like BMW, Audi and others have realised they can charge a huge premium in Australia because we cant import their cars privately. A 235i is A$30,000 more in Australia than the UK or US price. The car import ban was meant to protect a failing car industry in Australia and guess what, the factories are still closing their doors because the government turned the public money tap off. Protectionism is an abject failure.
How dare he provide an useful service at a reasonable cost? He's a monster, I tell ya!
Well the money laundering and racketeering are small time stuff, just charges to sweeten the pot. It's copyright infringement that's the real crime here. Such a heinous and despicable crime, I hear they cant keep the Infingers at San Quentin any more as the murders and rapists might start learning from them, they're having to build a new wing at ADX Florence just for them.
I still don't understand, why we don't have self-driving trains already
We do. The elevated trains in Chicago went from four employees to three to two down to one, who is basically just there for emergencies.
They won't do unmanned self-driving trains because people would freak out if they didn't think there was at least one human manning the train. Not everyone is enlightened as we few, we happy delusional few, we band of nerds who actually believe we're all going to be riding in self-driving cars in our lifetime.
It's the same with airplanes. There's no need for pilots and co-pilots on commercial passenger airlines any more. But take the pilot out of the cockpit and a lot of people ain't gonna fly anywhere.
Hi, It looks like you're delusional about automated controls, would you like some help.
Autopilot is far from infallible, that's why we need two pilots in the cockpit. People on US Air flight 1549 will sure as fuck be glad there were real humans in the cockpit. ILS are regularly turned off or degraded for a variety of reasons, this is reason behind Asiana 214 which crashed at SFO. There is a lot of wisdom in refusing to fly on a plane without pilots.
Aslo pilots aren't sitting in the cockpit drinking coffee whilst the plane is on autopilot, they are constantly checking systems and adjusting settings. It is a full time job. In an Airbus plane there are four flight control computers, if more than 1 of these computers has a conflict with the others the whole system boots control directly back to the pilot.
Secondly, automated cars are not the silver bullet you imagine them to be. Why, People, that's why. Automated cars will be programmed to travel at the speed limit, slow down for adverse or inclement weather, they will keep to the inside lane, they will maintain safe distances, they will slow down for potential hazards or areas that could potentially have hazards. This means people who think they know better (I.E. most drivers) will take manual control because they think tailgating, lane weaving and speeding is faster.
I have a Mazda 6 with a Ford 3.0 Duratec engine (that's what they used to put in the V6 version). I have abused this vehicle and the engine is still going strong after 300 000 km.
It'd probably be a good idea to send that engine back to Detroit so they can find out why it didn't break down.
This is part of a general shift away from expensive, financially speculative "shoe leather journalism" toward cheap, profitable "opinion journalism". This is why on breaking news stories you'll see broadcast news services filling up time with frank speculation, which is the cheapest to produce kind of "information" there is. The intersection of slashed news-gathering capability and a 7x24 news cycle leaves them in a situation like having a half pat of butter to spread on a whole loaf of bread.
This.
I know a few journo's, they've all switched careers to marketing (or corporate communications if you prefer) because it was a more honest career.
Science is in the open, but I pin most of the reporting woes on reporters that really don't understand what they are reporting on.
That isn't really the problem. The problem is that most science is boring, making for boring reports. No-one buys boring newspapers, especially in this day an age. So editors and reporters change key details and make some things up completely just to get eyeballs.
Every paper who printed the headline "everything is just fine" has gone out of business.
its sort of weird how people condone male rape in jail as just a part of the process but if this was a women going to jail no one would be cheering or begging for her to get raped....
Sorry, I just get tired of seeing people make remarks like the one posted....and yes, this dude should totally get thrown into the worst jail we can send him. Although its not like he's much different from the rest of the scumbag pharma companies out there....
I think the whole "Pound me in the arse prison" meme has grown a life of it's own and has eclipsed the reality of the situation. Given how Max and SuperMax prisons work these days prisoners don't get enough alone time with each other these days. I'm sure it still happens, but not to the degree the movies and internet make out.
However I agree with your other point. This guy should go to supermax where he gets about 15 minutes of daylight a day IF he behaves, however because corporate criminals don't want that precedent set, he's going to go to a nice minimum security "work farm". Others in the Pharma industry don't even want this guy to get anything more than a slap on the wrist and a paid federal holiday. They definitely don't want to see him in maximum security, not even with their worst example because they know they could also be tried for similar crimes and will be found guilty if they piss off the wrong person.
The basic idea behind Romneycare/Obamacare is sound, the implementation of it seems to be painfully flawed. The rest of the modern world solves the major costs of healthcare through taxes and requires the pharmacies to offer the cheapest variant of a specific drug (different manufacturers have to compete) to push down costs.
Healthcare in the US is a sick story.
This.
The reason its implementation was flawed is because its political rivals recognised it as a good idea and sought to destroy it through any means necessary simply because it was a rivals good idea. Australia experienced the same thing recently with the NBN, a good idea with a good plan wrecked by the Coalition because it wasn't their idea.
Most, if not all other developed nations nations who have implemented single and public payer health systems are paying far less per capita for health care .
And this guy exhibits the classic traits of a psychopath. Sociopaths tend to be loners and live on the fringe of society and have trouble dealing with people, psychopaths on the other hand are excellent manipulators and easily blend into society. Both have a complete disregard for society, laws and other people however.
Retailers post pictures on their wall saying "Do no accept checks from this person". It's just a reputation system committed to paper. It's not really a problem, but it's also not something the government (police) should be involved in because government blacklists violate due process rights.
Your society still accepts personal cheques?
What is it like in 1950's land?
However the real issue here is the speed at which data can be shared and the lack of checks and balances. One false accusation and your reputation is ruined across town, not just in the store where your jilted ex works.
However the Libertardian businessgeniuses have assured me because this is being run by PRIVATE INDUSTRY (yay, hooray) it's perfectly safe and will never be abused.
"We want a revenue stream sustained for 10 years without us having to constantly develop new games and enter into the lottery that is mobile games today....... We also want it to never rain during the daytime, or when we are out and about."
This.
But it's their own damn fault. They chased after the casual dollar with such reckless abandon, completely ignoring the core gamer crowd. The problem with this is that casual gamers spend a lot when games are a fad, but it completely disappears when the fad is over. Casual gamers are extremely fickle and the publishers hate that, however they also hate work and spending money on things like development (especially when marketing is soooooo much better).
They dug their own hole by chasing casual gamers, now they have to be burred in it.
The Soviet Union needed to devote 40% of its GDP just to keeping up appearances with the US over the decades...and didn't. Compare vs 2-4% of the US.
The Empire is not like the Soviet Union, it's more like the modern day dictatorships we have. Pretty much after the Emperor dissolved the Galactic Senate it was more like Nazi Germany without the nationalism. Access to a vast economic system with a strong military manufacturing base and large armies that are pretty much under the direct control of one person.
Hitler had massive amounts of resources to pour into both military science and military research. It is important to note that the only reason that the Nazi's are not around today is because their leader kept interfering in the day to day operations of the military, changing projects to suit his personal desires rather than the needs of the state and ordering stupid and ill advised invasions. Pretty certain the Emperor had a similar problem.
It's all quite straightforward. The Judge demanded that they ensure the penalties fit the crime basically - and they were unwilling to do so, so he threw it out.
That is it in a nutshell.
Australian here, I've been following this for quite some time and this conclusion was pretty much what was expected. DBC LLC came over here to Australia with no idea how the Australian legal system worked or the Australian psyche and thought they could throw their weight around like they did in the US. It failed miserably, not because of the technical merit of their case (which they won) but because they didn't get that our judges worked for the good of Australia, not for greedy corporations.
The Judge, Justice Perram had to rule in favour of DBC LLC because they were correct to the "letter of the law" as Americans would say but he sure as hell would not let them profit from it (which violated the "spirit of the law"). This is why the court had to vet the letters and provide a $600,000 bond. I'm not sure if they're going to get that back either.
This sets a precedent that demonstrates the Australian courts cannot be used to extort the public even if you are technically right.
It is not that simple you have rights as a renter. You may not have the right to sublet however.
This.
That means you may not use the property as a commercial enterprise. To me, owners asking for a cut is a very, very fair compromise on that rule.
Before some smart arse pipes up and says "but it's no different to having a home office", first let me say, you're an idiot because it's completely different. As a home office you're running a business out of your abode, as an AirBNB you're running your abode AS A BUSINESS.
The big victory here, was that the Germans swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The Germans considered Patton to be the most formidable General that the Allies had. Unfortunately for Patton, he was on the shit-list, because he slapped a patient in a field hospital in Italy, who Patton mistakenly claimed was just suffering from cowardice.
The German spooks heard of this, but discarded it quickly. Why would an Army sideline a brilliant General, just because he slapped a simple enlisted man? At any rate the "Patton Threat" really played a crucial role in all this, and helped the Normandy landings to be a success.
Personal Note: I met an old German soldier a long time back, and we discussed the Normandy landings. He said, "We were waiting the whole time for Patton to land in Calais."
Hey, fooled you, most awesomely!
This was no error on the part of the Germans, well at least not a stupid one. The Allies deliberately built a huge propaganda machine centred around Patton for the express purpose fooling the Germans into believing that Patton was leading the invasion and it would be at the Pas de Calais. It wasn't just propaganda either, everything from false intelligence fed through double agents to using Hollywood experts to build an entire fake army around Patton.
And as you said, the Germans swallowed it hook, line and sinker. When Hitler's aides woke him and informed him of the Normandy landings he dismissed it as another raid and refused to allow the release of armoured reinforcements because he was that convinced the invasion would be at Calais. A deception that saves thousands of allied lives.
We get the Skyline in the UK, and we had the R34. It's just that importing a used but immaculate one costs far, far less.
The UK has always been able to import the R series Skyline, its the V series I was talking about. The 350z was the first V series available in the UK but there is an entire family of cars built around the same chassis and drive train configuration. Most of them are not sold by Nissan outside Japan sadly.
Nissan killed the R series Skyline after the R34 in 2002, the R35 is a different car altogether which is I guess why they dropped the Skyline moniker from it.
or example, a lot of used Japanese cars get shipped to Europe
Not arguing with your point (it's quite correct) but Japan is a bit of a special case because the Shaken laws make keeping a car for more than 3-5 years prohibitively expensive. Only the good Japanese cars end up in the UK, the cheaper ones (so most of them) end up in other LHD countries like India and Thailand.
Its good if you want to buy a Lexus or Japanese registered Euro Supercar but not worth it for your average Camry or Pulsar. Also the models they don't sell outside Japan like the V35 and 36 Skylines or Toyota Century/Nissan Fuga limousines.
US cars usually end up in countries that are more friendly to the US like the Philippines or places around South America. It's not surprising to see them in the hands of ISIS but most of their stock would have originated in Africa or Europe rather than the US (the Hilux isn't sold and is not permitted to be imported into in the US).
*Older models, before Toyota yuppified them and screwed them up.
Until recently I had no idea why Americans thought this.
Then I found out you don't get the good Toyotas, namely the Toyota Hilux and J70 Land Crusier..
The US only gets the J200 Land Cruiser Prado, which most places usually just call the Prado as the Land Cruiser is the J70. The J200 Prado is a soft, squishy mum tank with an automatic transmission meant to be driven to the shops or school and back by soft, squishy people. The J70 Land Cruiser is a rough, rugged beast with a manual transmission meant to be driven by men, men who work, men who work in very inhospitable places and is relied upon to get them to the arse end of the world and back after a hard days slog.
I can see why the J70 wouldn't sell in the US not being an auto, but no reason why the Hilux wouldn't as it comes in both manual and automatic transmissions. It would decimate the F150 sales because it will just keep going for decades with only the most basic of oil changes done 5000 miles later than required. Ford needs to keep it on the "do not import" list (which hopefully the Silvia S15 falls off soon as I'm looking at selling mine).
Truck was sold at auction. Purchased by exporter. Exported to Turkey. Purchased by ISIS agent there. Smuggled across the border.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people involved were shady and a government with a brain would follow the paper trail of this specific truck and figure out who should go to jail.
You're over thinking it.
There's no need to smuggle it, an importer probably delivered direct with a free tub of hummus and some African chilli chicken.
Whilst the hummus is manky, I highly recommend the chicken.
Seriously though, previous owner was an idiot for not removing his logo. You can never trust a car dealer to do anything they don't have to, to a trade in and a lot of old cars from western nations end up overseas.
Slashdot Mirror
The big value of uber is that it fixes these issues. If they ditched the stupid Ayn Rand techno-liberalism stuff then they could probably replace all the world's taxis just by fixing these endemic problems with getting into a vehicle with a stranger.
The big delusion is that Uber wants to fix these issues.
Uber requires the status quo to operate. They need the legitimate taxi industry to incur the much larger overheads they currently do whilst Uber ignores them. If the playing field was levelled tomorrow, Uber would see a flood of competition that would drown them. Uber isn't working to make things better, the "stupid Ayn Rand techno-liberalism" propaganda is just that, propaganda. Uber needs things to remain the same to survive... which it's not doing a good job of as it is, losing $100 million a quarter.
However if the playing feild was lowered to Uber's level, we'd also see a race to the bottom and then you'll see why your ancestors implemented taxi regulations to begin with.
If you think a regulated taxi industry is bad... Go live somewhere where there isn't one. Taxi gangs literally operate like mafias, enforcing turf and shaking down people on the street. In some places they prevent public transport systems by literally dragging the drivers out of the buses and beating them in broad daylight. I've seen what happens when your "fixes" are applied to the taxi industry, it's not pretty.
Here in America, [...] Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, they'll be able to raise prices for riders and drive their "contractors" (employees without rights) down to third-world wages by getting them to compete with each other to be the lowest bidder.
Once Uber has driven its competition out of business, anyone will be able to offer a service like Uber, because the barriers to entry will have been removed — at Uber's considerable legal expense.
Its cute that you believe that.
The regulatory barriers may be removed but given how Uber treats its competitors I'd bet that once they've driven out their competitors they'll implement their own barriers to entry... and remember kiddo's, just because they're not governmental barriers does not mean their not artificial barriers.
With complete control of the market, Uber will be in a position to intimidate, cajole, threat and outright DOS any startups and given that they've already tried to do it to Lyft, do you honestly think they wont do it when they have a monopoly?
However it wont ever come to that because in a few years, Uber will be a joke you say when you dont have enough wind to pass. They're already losing money hand over fist (to the tune of US$100 million a quarter) so here's what will happen. The taxi industries will have to tough it out for a few years because Uber will slowly claw back the drivers cut, given that most drivers are not making money as it is more and more will realise working for Uber is a losing proposition. This means you're going to end up with the least competent drivers and the most dangerous cars working for Uber, even the irrational hate of the "taxi industry" wont stop them haemorrhaging customers because paying more for a taxi is safer and smells better than an Uber jitney.
speed: outside of a few concept sports cars, diesel isnt about speed but torque. in trucking we compensate by turbocharging our engines, to make the lives of normal drivers easier. without turbos it would take ten minutes or more to get up to speed. the tradeoff is bad mileage.
This... But what so many people dont get about torque, it's pulling power, not speed power. This is why diesels are used in applications where you need to haul more rather than go fast. Not just trucks but tractors, marine, mining and locomotives. You dont see diesels in aviation because they're too damn heavy.
My housemate has a diesel ute (pickup) that produces 450 Nm of torque from it's 2.5L turbo diesel. My car on the other hand only produces 260 Nm from it's 2L turbo petrol... My car is twice as fast because horsepower (or more specifically, power to weight) determines acceleration and top speed, my car produces 180 KW whilst his makes 130KW. Then again, his pickup can tow 2.5 tons where as mine might tow 300 KG (I'm not sure if an S15 has even ever been fitted with a tow bar, so that's only a guess). However they're bad for passenger cars because they are more polluting, more expensive and slower. A modern low capacity turbo petrol like a Ford Ecoboost is faster and as efficient as a diesel as well as being lighter, cheaper and less complex. Diesels have become a complete false economy unless you need the pulling power.
Anyone who has owned both can tell you, the clean diesel TDIs don't smell, never emit black smoke and the tail pipe stays clean and doesn't fill with soot the way the old cars did.
The thing is, I dont trust the owners to tell the truth about their cars, especially VW owners who seem to be a very special kind of delusional.
I trust the people who fix them and the people who design engines. Every mechanic I know will warn you away from VW on reliability issues and then warn you twice about VW Diesels. They do smell and they do emit particles even if you cant see them. I know a person who designs drive systems for marine applications, he says you'll never get a clean diesel and half of his job is hiding the unclean parts of heavy diesel engines.
I find the fact that VW owners wont admit their car stinks when they're smelling the same air as me to be amazingly delusional. VW owners are highly suspect when they pretend their erm... shit doesn't stink.
Diesel engines are more expensive than gasoline engines (because they have to be built stronger, and have a turbocharger). Hybrids are also more expensive than gasoline engines (because they have an extra battery and electric motor, or at least an oversized alternator, depending on design). Diesel hybrids would be more expensive twice.
That said, I'd love to have one.
Diesels dont need a turbocharger... They're just hopeless without one.
Diesel fanboys need to drive an old Toyota Hiace with the 2.8 Naturally Aspirated diesel. It will quickly cure them of their delusional fanboyism.
Add back in tariffs (which makes free market zealots cry but we can sell those tears for a profit).
The Australians do that now. The result is not higher paying jobs for Australians, it has done little to improve their overall income.
What it has achieved there is to raise the cost of goods to 60% above what everyone else pays. Everything made in Australia is hideously expensive, but the import tariffs run 50%, or the imports are outright blocked by crooked regulations. At the end of the day, Australia is a case study in why protectionist economics is a disaster.
This.
However trade tariffs and restrictions have been slowly been eroded over the last two decades and its resulted in prices dropping from 60% or more above other developed nations to "price in Hong Kong plus shipping" for many items. Drop shipping has been a huge boon to Australians (and the retailers smart enough to figure out which way the wind was blowing... not you Dick Smith).
Cars are a huge sticking point. Whilst free trade agreements have made things like Toyota Corollas pretty cheap, manufacturers like BMW, Audi and others have realised they can charge a huge premium in Australia because we cant import their cars privately. A 235i is A$30,000 more in Australia than the UK or US price. The car import ban was meant to protect a failing car industry in Australia and guess what, the factories are still closing their doors because the government turned the public money tap off. Protectionism is an abject failure.
How dare he provide an useful service at a reasonable cost? He's a monster, I tell ya!
Well the money laundering and racketeering are small time stuff, just charges to sweeten the pot. It's copyright infringement that's the real crime here. Such a heinous and despicable crime, I hear they cant keep the Infingers at San Quentin any more as the murders and rapists might start learning from them, they're having to build a new wing at ADX Florence just for them.
We do. The elevated trains in Chicago went from four employees to three to two down to one, who is basically just there for emergencies.
They won't do unmanned self-driving trains because people would freak out if they didn't think there was at least one human manning the train. Not everyone is enlightened as we few, we happy delusional few, we band of nerds who actually believe we're all going to be riding in self-driving cars in our lifetime.
It's the same with airplanes. There's no need for pilots and co-pilots on commercial passenger airlines any more. But take the pilot out of the cockpit and a lot of people ain't gonna fly anywhere.
Hi, It looks like you're delusional about automated controls, would you like some help.
Autopilot is far from infallible, that's why we need two pilots in the cockpit. People on US Air flight 1549 will sure as fuck be glad there were real humans in the cockpit. ILS are regularly turned off or degraded for a variety of reasons, this is reason behind Asiana 214 which crashed at SFO. There is a lot of wisdom in refusing to fly on a plane without pilots.
Aslo pilots aren't sitting in the cockpit drinking coffee whilst the plane is on autopilot, they are constantly checking systems and adjusting settings. It is a full time job. In an Airbus plane there are four flight control computers, if more than 1 of these computers has a conflict with the others the whole system boots control directly back to the pilot.
Secondly, automated cars are not the silver bullet you imagine them to be. Why, People, that's why. Automated cars will be programmed to travel at the speed limit, slow down for adverse or inclement weather, they will keep to the inside lane, they will maintain safe distances, they will slow down for potential hazards or areas that could potentially have hazards. This means people who think they know better (I.E. most drivers) will take manual control because they think tailgating, lane weaving and speeding is faster.
I have a Mazda 6 with a Ford 3.0 Duratec engine (that's what they used to put in the V6 version). I have abused this vehicle and the engine is still going strong after 300 000 km.
It'd probably be a good idea to send that engine back to Detroit so they can find out why it didn't break down.
You mean "Fucked On Race Day" also "Found On Rubbish Dump".
This is part of a general shift away from expensive, financially speculative "shoe leather journalism" toward cheap, profitable "opinion journalism". This is why on breaking news stories you'll see broadcast news services filling up time with frank speculation, which is the cheapest to produce kind of "information" there is. The intersection of slashed news-gathering capability and a 7x24 news cycle leaves them in a situation like having a half pat of butter to spread on a whole loaf of bread.
This.
I know a few journo's, they've all switched careers to marketing (or corporate communications if you prefer) because it was a more honest career.
Science is in the open, but I pin most of the reporting woes on reporters that really don't understand what they are reporting on.
That isn't really the problem. The problem is that most science is boring, making for boring reports. No-one buys boring newspapers, especially in this day an age. So editors and reporters change key details and make some things up completely just to get eyeballs.
Every paper who printed the headline "everything is just fine" has gone out of business.
its sort of weird how people condone male rape in jail as just a part of the process but if this was a women going to jail no one would be cheering or begging for her to get raped....
Sorry, I just get tired of seeing people make remarks like the one posted....and yes, this dude should totally get thrown into the worst jail we can send him. Although its not like he's much different from the rest of the scumbag pharma companies out there....
I think the whole "Pound me in the arse prison" meme has grown a life of it's own and has eclipsed the reality of the situation. Given how Max and SuperMax prisons work these days prisoners don't get enough alone time with each other these days. I'm sure it still happens, but not to the degree the movies and internet make out.
However I agree with your other point. This guy should go to supermax where he gets about 15 minutes of daylight a day IF he behaves, however because corporate criminals don't want that precedent set, he's going to go to a nice minimum security "work farm". Others in the Pharma industry don't even want this guy to get anything more than a slap on the wrist and a paid federal holiday. They definitely don't want to see him in maximum security, not even with their worst example because they know they could also be tried for similar crimes and will be found guilty if they piss off the wrong person.
The basic idea behind Romneycare/Obamacare is sound, the implementation of it seems to be painfully flawed. The rest of the modern world solves the major costs of healthcare through taxes and requires the pharmacies to offer the cheapest variant of a specific drug (different manufacturers have to compete) to push down costs.
Healthcare in the US is a sick story.
This.
The reason its implementation was flawed is because its political rivals recognised it as a good idea and sought to destroy it through any means necessary simply because it was a rivals good idea. Australia experienced the same thing recently with the NBN, a good idea with a good plan wrecked by the Coalition because it wasn't their idea.
Most, if not all other developed nations nations who have implemented single and public payer health systems are paying far less per capita for health care .
The guy is obviously a sociopath.
According to Google CEOs tend to be Psychopaths.
And this guy exhibits the classic traits of a psychopath. Sociopaths tend to be loners and live on the fringe of society and have trouble dealing with people, psychopaths on the other hand are excellent manipulators and easily blend into society. Both have a complete disregard for society, laws and other people however.
Retailers post pictures on their wall saying "Do no accept checks from this person". It's just a reputation system committed to paper. It's not really a problem, but it's also not something the government (police) should be involved in because government blacklists violate due process rights.
Your society still accepts personal cheques?
What is it like in 1950's land?
However the real issue here is the speed at which data can be shared and the lack of checks and balances. One false accusation and your reputation is ruined across town, not just in the store where your jilted ex works.
However the Libertardian businessgeniuses have assured me because this is being run by PRIVATE INDUSTRY (yay, hooray) it's perfectly safe and will never be abused.
This.
But it's their own damn fault. They chased after the casual dollar with such reckless abandon, completely ignoring the core gamer crowd. The problem with this is that casual gamers spend a lot when games are a fad, but it completely disappears when the fad is over. Casual gamers are extremely fickle and the publishers hate that, however they also hate work and spending money on things like development (especially when marketing is soooooo much better).
They dug their own hole by chasing casual gamers, now they have to be burred in it.
The Soviet Union needed to devote 40% of its GDP just to keeping up appearances with the US over the decades...and didn't. Compare vs 2-4% of the US.
The Empire is not like the Soviet Union, it's more like the modern day dictatorships we have. Pretty much after the Emperor dissolved the Galactic Senate it was more like Nazi Germany without the nationalism. Access to a vast economic system with a strong military manufacturing base and large armies that are pretty much under the direct control of one person. Hitler had massive amounts of resources to pour into both military science and military research. It is important to note that the only reason that the Nazi's are not around today is because their leader kept interfering in the day to day operations of the military, changing projects to suit his personal desires rather than the needs of the state and ordering stupid and ill advised invasions. Pretty certain the Emperor had a similar problem.
It's all quite straightforward. The Judge demanded that they ensure the penalties fit the crime basically - and they were unwilling to do so, so he threw it out.
That is it in a nutshell.
Australian here, I've been following this for quite some time and this conclusion was pretty much what was expected. DBC LLC came over here to Australia with no idea how the Australian legal system worked or the Australian psyche and thought they could throw their weight around like they did in the US. It failed miserably, not because of the technical merit of their case (which they won) but because they didn't get that our judges worked for the good of Australia, not for greedy corporations.
The Judge, Justice Perram had to rule in favour of DBC LLC because they were correct to the "letter of the law" as Americans would say but he sure as hell would not let them profit from it (which violated the "spirit of the law"). This is why the court had to vet the letters and provide a $600,000 bond. I'm not sure if they're going to get that back either.
This sets a precedent that demonstrates the Australian courts cannot be used to extort the public even if you are technically right.
It is not that simple you have rights as a renter. You may not have the right to sublet however.
This.
That means you may not use the property as a commercial enterprise. To me, owners asking for a cut is a very, very fair compromise on that rule.
Before some smart arse pipes up and says "but it's no different to having a home office", first let me say, you're an idiot because it's completely different. As a home office you're running a business out of your abode, as an AirBNB you're running your abode AS A BUSINESS.
The big victory here, was that the Germans swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The Germans considered Patton to be the most formidable General that the Allies had. Unfortunately for Patton, he was on the shit-list, because he slapped a patient in a field hospital in Italy, who Patton mistakenly claimed was just suffering from cowardice.
The German spooks heard of this, but discarded it quickly. Why would an Army sideline a brilliant General, just because he slapped a simple enlisted man? At any rate the "Patton Threat" really played a crucial role in all this, and helped the Normandy landings to be a success.
Personal Note: I met an old German soldier a long time back, and we discussed the Normandy landings. He said, "We were waiting the whole time for Patton to land in Calais."
Hey, fooled you, most awesomely!
This was no error on the part of the Germans, well at least not a stupid one. The Allies deliberately built a huge propaganda machine centred around Patton for the express purpose fooling the Germans into believing that Patton was leading the invasion and it would be at the Pas de Calais. It wasn't just propaganda either, everything from false intelligence fed through double agents to using Hollywood experts to build an entire fake army around Patton.
And as you said, the Germans swallowed it hook, line and sinker. When Hitler's aides woke him and informed him of the Normandy landings he dismissed it as another raid and refused to allow the release of armoured reinforcements because he was that convinced the invasion would be at Calais. A deception that saves thousands of allied lives.
We get the Skyline in the UK, and we had the R34. It's just that importing a used but immaculate one costs far, far less.
The UK has always been able to import the R series Skyline, its the V series I was talking about. The 350z was the first V series available in the UK but there is an entire family of cars built around the same chassis and drive train configuration. Most of them are not sold by Nissan outside Japan sadly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_FM_platform
Nissan killed the R series Skyline after the R34 in 2002, the R35 is a different car altogether which is I guess why they dropped the Skyline moniker from it.
Not arguing with your point (it's quite correct) but Japan is a bit of a special case because the Shaken laws make keeping a car for more than 3-5 years prohibitively expensive. Only the good Japanese cars end up in the UK, the cheaper ones (so most of them) end up in other LHD countries like India and Thailand.
Its good if you want to buy a Lexus or Japanese registered Euro Supercar but not worth it for your average Camry or Pulsar. Also the models they don't sell outside Japan like the V35 and 36 Skylines or Toyota Century/Nissan Fuga limousines.
US cars usually end up in countries that are more friendly to the US like the Philippines or places around South America. It's not surprising to see them in the hands of ISIS but most of their stock would have originated in Africa or Europe rather than the US (the Hilux isn't sold and is not permitted to be imported into in the US).
*Older models, before Toyota yuppified them and screwed them up.
Until recently I had no idea why Americans thought this. Then I found out you don't get the good Toyotas, namely the Toyota Hilux and J70 Land Crusier..
The US only gets the J200 Land Cruiser Prado, which most places usually just call the Prado as the Land Cruiser is the J70. The J200 Prado is a soft, squishy mum tank with an automatic transmission meant to be driven to the shops or school and back by soft, squishy people. The J70 Land Cruiser is a rough, rugged beast with a manual transmission meant to be driven by men, men who work, men who work in very inhospitable places and is relied upon to get them to the arse end of the world and back after a hard days slog.
I can see why the J70 wouldn't sell in the US not being an auto, but no reason why the Hilux wouldn't as it comes in both manual and automatic transmissions. It would decimate the F150 sales because it will just keep going for decades with only the most basic of oil changes done 5000 miles later than required. Ford needs to keep it on the "do not import" list (which hopefully the Silvia S15 falls off soon as I'm looking at selling mine).
Best guess.
Truck was sold at auction. Purchased by exporter. Exported to Turkey. Purchased by ISIS agent there. Smuggled across the border.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people involved were shady and a government with a brain would follow the paper trail of this specific truck and figure out who should go to jail.
You're over thinking it.
There's no need to smuggle it, an importer probably delivered direct with a free tub of hummus and some African chilli chicken.
Whilst the hummus is manky, I highly recommend the chicken.
Seriously though, previous owner was an idiot for not removing his logo. You can never trust a car dealer to do anything they don't have to, to a trade in and a lot of old cars from western nations end up overseas.