Man I don't get this. If there is one thing I truely hate about having to use Windows XP at work it is that I DONT have the dock and expose. The taskbar is a cluttered mess. Windows get arranged in a pretty random sequence, and when you got a lot of apps running its nearly impossible to quickly switch to the right window fast. I much prefer the Dock and expose: I click the app I want to use and then I flick the mouse in the upper left corner to use expose to select the correct window to work with, unless that is already in front (if I don't have that many windows).
If an IM needs my attention the app jumps up and down. I just click the app icon and all the IM windows are brough to front and I quickly see where the messages are comming. I don't see why think that is a problem.
I hate how there is no way to switch to all windows in an application in Windows because the concept of a running app does not exist in the taskbar, only the concept of open windows. Actually I don't know why windows have a window manager at all, because working with anything but fullsized windows in Windows is just a pain in the neck. The GUI doesn't seem to have been designed to deal with multiple open windows on the screen at the same time. And it shows when you see a windows user on Mac. The first thing he/she tries to do is to cover up the whole screen with one window. I don't really know why, coz usually they sit there with a word document taking up a quarter of the with of the screen and the rest is just blank white. So it is not like all that window space is used for anything.
Only thing I concede is the directory thing. I really wish folders were at the top. It is perhaps my main annoyance with Mac.
Alternately, China could stop dicking around with piecemeal reform and institute capitalism, democracy, and the rule of law. If China had half the per-capita GNP of Tiawan, they could easily surpass the United States economically. But as long as they cling to the vestiges of a totalitarian command economy, they won't do it.
China can hardly be called a communist country anymore. That would only be on paper. China is just another capitalist dictatorship. I don't know were you got the idea they they still have a command economy?
Right now China could probably not have done any better economically than they do. Citing Taiwans GDP is futile. China started going down the capitalist path much later. They have much more catching up to do. But at +10% growth a year I don't see how a radical reform like you suggest could do any better. I mean, you don't think they are doing any good until they have +20% growth?
However what western style democracy and capitalism could bring is a more sustainable and healthy growth. A growth that doesn't destroy the environment as much as current Chinese growth and that doesn't stomp on reqular people, and doesn't cause dangerous buildups of structural weakness in the economy. But as Iraq showed, you can't introduce Democracy over night.
American way of thinking about Democracy is inherently broken. Because the US was made a democracy after one war of independence, they think the same can be done elsewhere. Forgetting that the US was a export of European liberal ideas and institutions that had matured in Europe over centuries. These ideas and institutions have to mature in China too.
"Alas, the majority of us voters here in the USA disagree with you, sir -- we vote Republican because we think our economy is grows stronger when taxes are low and national interests are defended boldly."
But the Republicans have almost never done such a thing. Tax cuts on paper is not the same as real tax cuts. If you knew something about economy you should know that there are no real tax cuts unless the budget is balanced. If the budget is not balanced, either debt increases or money is printed to pay. This causes inflation which is effectively a government tax. Whatever tax cut you get on paper is eaten up by inflation. Or future generations has to repay it if it was financed through debt.
Republicans seem to do the worst of both worlds. They make the budget more unbalanced by both cutting the taxes (on paper) and increasing the expenses by huge increases in military spending.
Anyway US taxes are not that low. Most asian countries have lower as far as I know. And most countries even in Europe have lower corporate tax.
Does giving food and shelter to a homeless count as "meeting every need"? I don't expect government to brush my teeth. But I sure expect it to keep law and order, build roads, and fulfill a number of other important needs of a country.
If the US is so free, why is every drug illegal even soft drugs? Isn't it peoples own problem if they screw themselves up? Why should government tell me how to live my life? Why is prostitution mostly illegal? Isn't sex between two consenting adults a private matter and not a matter for the government?
Mind you I wouldn't do any. But I don't see why it should be the business of government to interfere with if anybody else wish to do so. With social freedom it simply seems to be a lot of limits in the US. Another example, why can't you consume alcohol when 21? If I drink alcohol on my own property under 21 why should that be any of the governments business?
Well an issue is what makes something American. If Intel manufacturers and design all their chips outside of the US, are they still an American company even if the HQ is in the US? Now this is not the case at the moment. But just food for thought, because a lot of research by these companies are not done in the US.
E.g. whole lines of microprocessors by intel were developed in Israel. A lot of research centers exist in China and India.
And what are the American universities best in? Educating or doing research? As far as I know the rankings are usually based on research. A number of universities in the US today are being blamed for neglecting education in favor of research.
There is no denying that. But what seems to be a problem in the US is to implement technology. Why is it that so many small countries with did little of invention behind the internet have so much better wired country? I am not talking about merely penetration but also things like technology services. E.g. voting through the internet, paying your taxes, getting bank loans etc. Or why is it that e.g. German car makers are often earlier with putting hitech in their cars than American car makers when that high tech has often origianlly been invented in the US?
Perhaps the US is just too top heavy? Very good at the top but not good enough farther down.
But we are;-) I traveled outside Scandinavia. And although a lot of things sure suck up north (e.g. the weather) I am always left with the impression that things are really better at home. Stuff just seems so much better thought out. The US seemed very old fashion in many ways. Except when it comes to serving food fast and effecient . Of course I am totally biased;-)
I think that is stretching it way too far to suggest that specialization and free trade is an American ivention or phenomenon or whatever you like to call it. The US has made significant contributions to mass production, but specialization and free trade existed long before US style mass production. And I don't see how the US is a great model for how to industrialize a nation. Every country is different and have to take different paths. The US can not be used as a model for a lot of coutries simply because the US is way too large.
E.g. to take the example of Norway, my home country which I know best. We could not industrialize on the same broad base as the US, because of much smaller population. Instead we specialized on a few selected areas and let others take care of the rest.
And I object to this view that the US is responsible for the whole modern world. I know that is not stated specifically, but statements like "The United States made a lot of things easily accessible for the global community, which was no small feat" implies it. While the US sure made a big contribution, it is not the only one.
The US has benefited at least as much if not more from inovations in the rest of the world as it has from the US. The car was invented in Germany, modern fully automatic cell phone networks in Scandinavia, Just in Time production in Japan etc. The US can be thankfull for those inventions too.
Perhaps this was not your intention, but it is an annoying aspect of Americans that they always expect the rest of the world to thank them for everything. Like this: "We saved your asses in WW1 and WW2". As if nobody else participated. When is the US going to thank the others who helped the US not lose any of those wars?
I don't buy this playing with numbers. If there was any merit to this the large population centers in the US should have had much better Broadband access. New York alone contains more people than all of Sweden and Norway combined. I am sure New York City takes up far less space than Norway and Sweden combined. So why don't cities like LA, New York and Chicago have at least as good broadband penetration as nordic countries? From what I read they don't.
This is too bad. I had hoped that the Winows Vista copy protection was solid. In fact I hope that all MS software copy protection is unbreakable and a pain in the butt. This way people will be forced to look at alternatives. At the moment Windows and other big software packages has the unfair advantage of being an expensive product that you can get for free (by pirating). If that was not possible people would have to consider other options like Linux or cheap shareware.
I wrote more about it here: http://eriksrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2007/02/whe n-rolls-royce-cost-less-than-skoda.html
Why I think pirating is imoral and bad for the economy.
This is just another example of an endless chain of examples of the American hysteria over nudity and sex. I never been in a society so obsessed about sex and at the same time so condemming about it. I live in the Netherlands were every other city has a red light district so I should have something to compare with;-) Why can't American just accept that nudity and sex is normal thing. It doesn't damage peoples head to see it!
" And not the fact that the country is run by a nutcase who claims the Holocast is a myth and wants Israel wiped off the map? And Iran also signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty forbidding nuclear weapons. That is why their nuclear program is provocative."
I don't like the leadership in Iran anymore than anybody else, and I do believe they want nukes. However they are stating that they are pursuing nuclear energy. The non-proliferation treaty does not forbid them from that. So in this respect they have done nothing wrong and the US should not be provoced by their actions.
You can't put people in prison for crimes they haven't commited yet even if there is a high likelyhood that they will commit the crime.
Nor does hyperbole retoric qualify. Wasn't it Reagan that called the Soviet Union the evil empire and said it should be destroyed? Once he even said he had outlawed it and that they were starting bombing. By your argument a country run by a man like that should not be allowed to own nukes.
That an insurance based healt care system would be ineffcient, have high cost and partial coverage was predicted by the an economic model by Nobel prize winners Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz. The problem is related to assymetric information.
Contrary to popular belief European health care is not socialized. Some of it is, but in Europe the whole spectra exist. The difference between Europe and the US is that every European system has a full coverage scheme and most systems with private health insurance prevent insurance companies from doing risk assesments on you or deny you coverage for a basic package. The result of this is that insurance companies don't spend huge amount of money and paper work trying to assess your risk.
Another myth is that places with socialized medicine does not use the free market at all. E.g. hospitalization is basically free in Norway. But going to the physician cost money although the prices are subsidized. But that still means they have to compete for customers. People will go wheree they get better quality and service.
You are also allowed to choose hospital and the hospitals get payed for how many patiants they treat. So there can be competition among hospitals and an incentive to become more efficient even in a socialized system.
I think people forget that the principles of the free market can be used within government, just as the priciples of planned economy can be used by private enterprise (monopolies e.g.). The American sceptism towards government and government intervention is hurting the American health care system. You should allow government to regulate the health care market in a such a way that it actually becomes a free market. The way it is now, the market is not free.
From what I read the public health care in the US nowadays is not that bad. The Veteran Hospitals are supposed to be the ones that score the best in the country from several articles I have read (better than private). Which is suprising since in a country like the US where private health care is so large one would expect private healthcare to take all the good doctors and surgeons and leave the public with the bad ones.
You assumptions about immigration is just plain wrong. Britain also has a large number of immigrants. Not only that but the study pretty much excluded immigrants and minorities. Not only that but it said that lower class british are better off than upper class Americans. How can you explain that?
That is just ridiculous. You don't try to avoid breaking your leg because it costs money. I don't know about you but my main reason for trying to avoid breaking my leg is because it hurts and would handicap me for a long time if it happened.
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Man I don't get this. If there is one thing I truely hate about having to use Windows XP at work it is that I DONT have the dock and expose. The taskbar is a cluttered mess. Windows get arranged in a pretty random sequence, and when you got a lot of apps running its nearly impossible to quickly switch to the right window fast. I much prefer the Dock and expose: I click the app I want to use and then I flick the mouse in the upper left corner to use expose to select the correct window to work with, unless that is already in front (if I don't have that many windows). If an IM needs my attention the app jumps up and down. I just click the app icon and all the IM windows are brough to front and I quickly see where the messages are comming. I don't see why think that is a problem. I hate how there is no way to switch to all windows in an application in Windows because the concept of a running app does not exist in the taskbar, only the concept of open windows. Actually I don't know why windows have a window manager at all, because working with anything but fullsized windows in Windows is just a pain in the neck. The GUI doesn't seem to have been designed to deal with multiple open windows on the screen at the same time. And it shows when you see a windows user on Mac. The first thing he/she tries to do is to cover up the whole screen with one window. I don't really know why, coz usually they sit there with a word document taking up a quarter of the with of the screen and the rest is just blank white. So it is not like all that window space is used for anything. Only thing I concede is the directory thing. I really wish folders were at the top. It is perhaps my main annoyance with Mac.
Alternately, China could stop dicking around with piecemeal reform and institute capitalism, democracy, and the rule of law. If China had half the per-capita GNP of Tiawan, they could easily surpass the United States economically. But as long as they cling to the vestiges of a totalitarian command economy, they won't do it. China can hardly be called a communist country anymore. That would only be on paper. China is just another capitalist dictatorship. I don't know were you got the idea they they still have a command economy? Right now China could probably not have done any better economically than they do. Citing Taiwans GDP is futile. China started going down the capitalist path much later. They have much more catching up to do. But at +10% growth a year I don't see how a radical reform like you suggest could do any better. I mean, you don't think they are doing any good until they have +20% growth? However what western style democracy and capitalism could bring is a more sustainable and healthy growth. A growth that doesn't destroy the environment as much as current Chinese growth and that doesn't stomp on reqular people, and doesn't cause dangerous buildups of structural weakness in the economy. But as Iraq showed, you can't introduce Democracy over night. American way of thinking about Democracy is inherently broken. Because the US was made a democracy after one war of independence, they think the same can be done elsewhere. Forgetting that the US was a export of European liberal ideas and institutions that had matured in Europe over centuries. These ideas and institutions have to mature in China too.
"Alas, the majority of us voters here in the USA disagree with you, sir -- we vote Republican because we think our economy is grows stronger when taxes are low and national interests are defended boldly." But the Republicans have almost never done such a thing. Tax cuts on paper is not the same as real tax cuts. If you knew something about economy you should know that there are no real tax cuts unless the budget is balanced. If the budget is not balanced, either debt increases or money is printed to pay. This causes inflation which is effectively a government tax. Whatever tax cut you get on paper is eaten up by inflation. Or future generations has to repay it if it was financed through debt. Republicans seem to do the worst of both worlds. They make the budget more unbalanced by both cutting the taxes (on paper) and increasing the expenses by huge increases in military spending. Anyway US taxes are not that low. Most asian countries have lower as far as I know. And most countries even in Europe have lower corporate tax.
Does giving food and shelter to a homeless count as "meeting every need"? I don't expect government to brush my teeth. But I sure expect it to keep law and order, build roads, and fulfill a number of other important needs of a country. If the US is so free, why is every drug illegal even soft drugs? Isn't it peoples own problem if they screw themselves up? Why should government tell me how to live my life? Why is prostitution mostly illegal? Isn't sex between two consenting adults a private matter and not a matter for the government? Mind you I wouldn't do any. But I don't see why it should be the business of government to interfere with if anybody else wish to do so. With social freedom it simply seems to be a lot of limits in the US. Another example, why can't you consume alcohol when 21? If I drink alcohol on my own property under 21 why should that be any of the governments business?
Well an issue is what makes something American. If Intel manufacturers and design all their chips outside of the US, are they still an American company even if the HQ is in the US? Now this is not the case at the moment. But just food for thought, because a lot of research by these companies are not done in the US. E.g. whole lines of microprocessors by intel were developed in Israel. A lot of research centers exist in China and India. And what are the American universities best in? Educating or doing research? As far as I know the rankings are usually based on research. A number of universities in the US today are being blamed for neglecting education in favor of research.
There is no denying that. But what seems to be a problem in the US is to implement technology. Why is it that so many small countries with did little of invention behind the internet have so much better wired country? I am not talking about merely penetration but also things like technology services. E.g. voting through the internet, paying your taxes, getting bank loans etc. Or why is it that e.g. German car makers are often earlier with putting hitech in their cars than American car makers when that high tech has often origianlly been invented in the US? Perhaps the US is just too top heavy? Very good at the top but not good enough farther down.
But we are ;-) I traveled outside Scandinavia. And although a lot of things sure suck up north (e.g. the weather) I am always left with the impression that things are really better at home. Stuff just seems so much better thought out. The US seemed very old fashion in many ways. Except when it comes to serving food fast and effecient . Of course I am totally biased ;-)
I think that is stretching it way too far to suggest that specialization and free trade is an American ivention or phenomenon or whatever you like to call it. The US has made significant contributions to mass production, but specialization and free trade existed long before US style mass production. And I don't see how the US is a great model for how to industrialize a nation. Every country is different and have to take different paths. The US can not be used as a model for a lot of coutries simply because the US is way too large. E.g. to take the example of Norway, my home country which I know best. We could not industrialize on the same broad base as the US, because of much smaller population. Instead we specialized on a few selected areas and let others take care of the rest. And I object to this view that the US is responsible for the whole modern world. I know that is not stated specifically, but statements like "The United States made a lot of things easily accessible for the global community, which was no small feat" implies it. While the US sure made a big contribution, it is not the only one. The US has benefited at least as much if not more from inovations in the rest of the world as it has from the US. The car was invented in Germany, modern fully automatic cell phone networks in Scandinavia, Just in Time production in Japan etc. The US can be thankfull for those inventions too. Perhaps this was not your intention, but it is an annoying aspect of Americans that they always expect the rest of the world to thank them for everything. Like this: "We saved your asses in WW1 and WW2". As if nobody else participated. When is the US going to thank the others who helped the US not lose any of those wars?
I don't buy this playing with numbers. If there was any merit to this the large population centers in the US should have had much better Broadband access. New York alone contains more people than all of Sweden and Norway combined. I am sure New York City takes up far less space than Norway and Sweden combined. So why don't cities like LA, New York and Chicago have at least as good broadband penetration as nordic countries? From what I read they don't.
Who wants to permantently lose USB port to a dongle?
This is absolutely no excuse. If you don't like the product or the price don't buy it. Get a Mac or use Linux instead.
This is too bad. I had hoped that the Winows Vista copy protection was solid. In fact I hope that all MS software copy protection is unbreakable and a pain in the butt. This way people will be forced to look at alternatives. At the moment Windows and other big software packages has the unfair advantage of being an expensive product that you can get for free (by pirating). If that was not possible people would have to consider other options like Linux or cheap shareware. I wrote more about it here: http://eriksrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2007/02/whe n-rolls-royce-cost-less-than-skoda.html
Why I think pirating is imoral and bad for the economy.
This is just another example of an endless chain of examples of the American hysteria over nudity and sex. I never been in a society so obsessed about sex and at the same time so condemming about it. I live in the Netherlands were every other city has a red light district so I should have something to compare with ;-) Why can't American just accept that nudity and sex is normal thing. It doesn't damage peoples head to see it!
" And not the fact that the country is run by a nutcase who claims the Holocast is a myth and wants Israel wiped off the map? And Iran also signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty forbidding nuclear weapons. That is why their nuclear program is provocative." I don't like the leadership in Iran anymore than anybody else, and I do believe they want nukes. However they are stating that they are pursuing nuclear energy. The non-proliferation treaty does not forbid them from that. So in this respect they have done nothing wrong and the US should not be provoced by their actions. You can't put people in prison for crimes they haven't commited yet even if there is a high likelyhood that they will commit the crime. Nor does hyperbole retoric qualify. Wasn't it Reagan that called the Soviet Union the evil empire and said it should be destroyed? Once he even said he had outlawed it and that they were starting bombing. By your argument a country run by a man like that should not be allowed to own nukes.
That an insurance based healt care system would be ineffcient, have high cost and partial coverage was predicted by the an economic model by Nobel prize winners Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz. The problem is related to assymetric information. Contrary to popular belief European health care is not socialized. Some of it is, but in Europe the whole spectra exist. The difference between Europe and the US is that every European system has a full coverage scheme and most systems with private health insurance prevent insurance companies from doing risk assesments on you or deny you coverage for a basic package. The result of this is that insurance companies don't spend huge amount of money and paper work trying to assess your risk. Another myth is that places with socialized medicine does not use the free market at all. E.g. hospitalization is basically free in Norway. But going to the physician cost money although the prices are subsidized. But that still means they have to compete for customers. People will go wheree they get better quality and service. You are also allowed to choose hospital and the hospitals get payed for how many patiants they treat. So there can be competition among hospitals and an incentive to become more efficient even in a socialized system. I think people forget that the principles of the free market can be used within government, just as the priciples of planned economy can be used by private enterprise (monopolies e.g.). The American sceptism towards government and government intervention is hurting the American health care system. You should allow government to regulate the health care market in a such a way that it actually becomes a free market. The way it is now, the market is not free.
Brazil actually has a growing obesity problem. And their diet is supposedly not that great. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/13/news/brazil .php
From what I read the public health care in the US nowadays is not that bad. The Veteran Hospitals are supposed to be the ones that score the best in the country from several articles I have read (better than private). Which is suprising since in a country like the US where private health care is so large one would expect private healthcare to take all the good doctors and surgeons and leave the public with the bad ones. You assumptions about immigration is just plain wrong. Britain also has a large number of immigrants. Not only that but the study pretty much excluded immigrants and minorities. Not only that but it said that lower class british are better off than upper class Americans. How can you explain that?
That is just ridiculous. You don't try to avoid breaking your leg because it costs money. I don't know about you but my main reason for trying to avoid breaking my leg is because it hurts and would handicap me for a long time if it happened.