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Comment Re:You mean Tata (Score 1) 191

Tata could pass the Japanese brands for quality in a few years.

It takes about 15 years of steady progress to get from "shitty ______ car" to "I'd consider ______ cars these days"

The Korean cars are very acceptable in quality, and the price difference between them and the Japanese of similar models is almost enough to make the switch.

Comment Re:Wasn't there a book about this? (Score 1) 138

Again, evolution is not goal driven.

Animals have A or B, but AB is not evolutionary advantageous to survive. This is not goal, it is a simple statement of what exists. The explanation is that A moves to B along an evolutionary line, where none of the AB survive long term. This is a result, not a goal. Further evidenced by lack of any animals that progressed from B back to A (result, not goal).

As I said, A has advantages, B has advantages, but AB appears to have neither, due to lack of any remaining AB hybrids. A mutates and starts progressing towards B, it either stops and reverts at some point, staying A or it continues to B. However, the AB stage is temporary, thus indicating long term viability of AB is limited if it exists at all.

Again, you keep insisting goal driven results of advantages.

Do you understand the difference between goal and result? Goals require intelligence, results simply exists. Advantages lead to certain results. Disadvantages lead to different results, but results none the less. Evolution is all about results of traits towards viability. Viability is the "goal" ;) In my sentance, I clearly show that A progress towards B in such a way that AB doesn't remain behind. That is a result, not a goal. The viability of AB is what I am questioning, since there is no such thing long term. Viability of half stages is in question.

The Term Superiority is one of resultant progression. As far as I know, B never revered back to A.

Dogs and wolves are both Canines, and not enough differences exist to support your hypothesis. I've seen tamed wolves and wild dogs, to the point where the wild dogs were more dangerous to humans than tamed wolves. ;)

Comment Re:Supply and demand (Score 1) 190

upply and demand curves are unrealistic in that they do not take into account competition, captured markets, shortages of raw material, labor shortages, lack of capital, disruptive technologies

Supply / Demand curves do explain all those things. The problem is, there are so many intersecting supplies (labor, goods, capital) that it gets very complex very quickly.

and they assume instant information exchange

No, actually they don't require instant anything. The only assumption is, that information is known eventually. Those that have access to more information can make better buying/production/selling choices and be more efficient. The whole supply / demand thing is not about maximizing profits, or lowering costs or anything else like that. It is about efficiency of capital/resources in production. Econ 101 is about gaining efficiencies in the marketplace to move the supply or demand curves along their axis.

disruptive technologies

Disruptive technologies are simply large changes in efficiencies within a market. We call them disruptive because of the effect on marketplace inefficiencies. I learned this almost 20 years ago, when the cost to do something is too expensive, you do not do it. Often we don't do things not because they are impossible, but rather they are too expensive. The issue is that we call those things "impossible" or "cost prohibitive", but when changes in technology vastly improve efficiencies they disrupt whole markets.

Take a look at 3D printers, which are changing ALL sorts of industries. I had a plastic clip in my car break when I was fixing something else. The only place I could find the clip, was at the dealership, and they wanted $20 for $.10 worth of plastic. Disruptive technology allows me to print the thing (printer is sunk cost) for the price of electricity and materials. And my replacement is actually better than the part that was there (modified improvements). Do enough of that, and my $500 3D printer pays for itself.

Comment Re:Wasn't there a book about this? (Score 1) 138

Evolution is results driven, not goal driven that is true. Now figure out how the results of two partial stages has an advantage over surviving that doesn't last for any length of time.

Stage A has advantages, as experienced in animals having A
Stage B has advantages, as experienced in animals having B

No animals have A and B, but somehow we are supposed to believe that animals having A/B existed and had enough advantage to beat out those having A, on their way to having B, but the A/B didn't beat out those who ended up B only. This would indicate that B is evolutionary superior(advantageous) to A, such that many animals starting at A, and developing B, ended up at B, while completely replacing the A/B combinations.

The problem is, there are no evolutionary advantage to A/B or else we would see more examples in nature. This would simply mean that A/B is not viable long term. Requiring evolutionary process from A to B to be relatively quick, so that A exists (and stays A) and B exists (and stays that way) but A/B doesn't exist very long.

Comment Re:Wasn't there a book about this? (Score 1) 138

"I can't figure out how evolution could have worked, ergo it must be impossible."

Actually, having a brain causes me to think about such things. I do understand evolution. And if it were an advantage, at all, some species would likely to have both. But none exist. So having half teeth and half beak wasn't so good after all, but apparently it was good enough to get from teeth to beak for all birds, and not just some.

Comment Re:Move to a gated community (Score 1) 611

I always thought that they should build two layered freeways, bottom layer for the shorter routes, and the top layer with VERY limited on and off choices for mid/long range commuters. The number one reason for traffic problems is people weaving in and out of lanes to hit their offramp.

Because weaving in and out of traffic gets you there a whole minute faster!

Comment Why not ask who are in charge of defining words? (Score 1) 173

If you were going to ask a "someone" how they meant to define "derived work", you would ask Congress, not the author(s) of one out of a million contracts which happen to make use of that term.

You're right that it's upsetting that (mostly) people who don't really work with copyright would end up answering it, but that's the nature of law, or at least until you start electing[/appointing/etc] authors. (Cynic: or until those people start funding election campaigns.)

It's only after you have determined that something is a derived work, that you go study licenses. Until that point, licenses are irrelevant.

Comment Re:Supply and demand (Score 1) 190

Price equilibrium is the hallmark of capitalism. The thing that people often miss, because of how much government interferes with pricing models is that Supply will meet Demand at a price point that makes sense for the economics to work. People like the author have almost no experience looking at Econ 101 style supply demand graphs, so they have no idea how economics really works.

Eventually, Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar will all be priced about the same, for the same kind of ride. Sidecar is interesting, because it is demand side (Customers) driven, and Lyft and Uber are supply side driven. Eventually, these two sides will end up being about the same price.

The real problem I see, are the people crying for "Regulation" simply because they don't like the new models. My answer is, you have a regulated industry (Cabs), use them and stop complaining about the others. If the others can't compete, then there is a problem with their economic model that depends upon Government regulation to keep prices artificially high.

Comment Re:Wasn't there a book about this? (Score 2, Interesting) 138

The problem with macro evolution is the inherent issues with the "in between" stages that are mostly useless, being neither good for one thing they are coming from or good for the thing they are changing into.

The example I use is Butterflies, which change from a crawling creature to one that flies, mid life. Incredible "random" feat if you ask me.

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