Why would they even need to pass such a law?

Good luck with that

Well that's an interesting issue (and quite controversial here as well).

One friend of mine works as a dental assistant, and lives in social housing. She takes home maybe 2000 a month after taxes, maybe less, so if she didn't have social housing she couldn't afford to live in Amsterdam, anywhere.

Another friend of mine works at a bank. He now makes quite a bit of money, but keeps his social housing and basically gets to bank an extra few hundred a month due to his social housing status.

You might read my whole post before commenting, I quote (myself):

Plus "climbers" are envisioned to come in multiple forms and be able to pass each other. You might have a "human transport climber" that ascends at 20km / h but is unable to hold more than a few people and crew and a cargo climber that is bigger but slower.

Maybe I am a bit off on my numbers of height / speed but IANASEE (I am not a space elevator engineer) but it would appear the SEEs have done the number crunching already :)

Low earth orbit is only about 200 km in space. Even if you're talking about a speed of 1 km per day you'll still be able to deliver payloads to LEO within the year. Rockets still exist with their $25k per kg fee for stuff you need in space NOW but the space elevator has the ability to bring things into space at a much cheaper rate (maybe $300 / kg)

Plus "climbers" are envisioned to come in multiple forms and be able to pass each other. You might have a "human transport climber" that ascends at 20km / h but is unable to hold more than a few people and crew and a cargo climber that is bigger but slower.

Wikipedia, as always, is a good starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Lifetime is not an issue.

Just look at the Empire State Building. 80 years old and nobody's going to demolish it. Or the flatiron building. 115 years old, no problems there.

Construction can be done in such a way that an arcology can last. That's not an issue.

I'm more likely to ask WHY? Given if things with climate change do go downhill it could be our last resort but why do it if it's not necessary?

I see the benefits and the drawbacks of both. The dutch idea is that they want to keep neighborhoods intact. So, gentrification doesn't happen really. I look at the north end in Boston as a great example: none of the ethnic italians (who are mostly all very old at this point) can afford to keep their places so it's becoming a sort of italian themed area (and not an Italian area).

On the other hand, the policies of the government make it VERY hard to find a place to live. Once you have one, you're golden, but getting one can take months. And it's not uncommon to have emergency situations where people are unable to find a place to live.

This is a similar reason why I would never live in NYC (and think twice about Boston). Housing just costs too damned much. And worse, if housing costs a lot all the other living expenses cost more. Groceries charge more because they pay higher rent, ditto for any other basic needs..

I'm sad to say I have to agree with Curunir... Apple has this nasty habit of breaking adapters for reasons I can't understand and then failing to provide a way to intermingle the old and new ones without buying a new computer. The new magsafe adaptors come to mind.

Ahhh but it's not just because it's shiny. Apple is so easy my mom actually bought an iPhone on her own and managed to get all kinds of apps. She wouldn't have been able to do that with Android and don't get me started on what happened when she brought home a PC laptop. (She's been a mac user for probably 7 years but the salesman somehow convinced her to go with a PC, based on price, he sold her a shitty little netbook with the new windows. After 7 years of no computer questions I had to resume my role as her tech support).

They're that easy because they spend a lot of time researching how to be easy to use.

It doesn't matter if a system is technically superior if it is inaccessible to users or hard to understand.

Don't believe me? Well ten years ago on slashdot I heard similar statements about how people should start using Sparcstations or whatever technology was better than the status quo. Despite the better design of the Sparc processors, Intel won. Despite the benefits of Linux / FOSS, most people still use Windows.

Sad people are so misguided, I know, but it's an unfortunate truth about humanity.

How exactly would this work? You'd be able to airplay GPS to the screen in front of you for a turn by turn play?

While it would be great if all cars used some sort of standard system, for now I'm happy they're using any kind of standard.

In a few years time, either Android phones will start having an iPhone compatibility mode, or a standard will emerge.

(Frankly I don't know which will happen since both have happened in the past)

I live in Europe and you might find our way of managing population density a bit, well, shall we say unamerican?

In Amsterdam, the local municipality decides how much rent you're allowed to charge in flats. It goes by a points system. Say a shower will be one point, while a bathtub will be 5. Add up all the points and you determine whether you are in a luxury (free market) apartment or social housing.

If you're luxury housing, you can charge whatever the market will bear, up to a point based on the luxury apartment formula.

If you're social housing, only social housing tenants may live in the apartment. Social housing rents are subsidized and they are VERY low. Like say $400 for an apartment in city center. The social housing buildings are owned by non-profits whose sole purpose is to provide social housing.

Now you might think this is similar to the US, but here's where it gets a little different than the US (and a bit unamerican).

Social housing income thresholds are very high, something like the equivalent of $100k a year in the US. Yup, that's right, social housing is designed not just for the poor but the middle class. You might miss having a bathtub, but you won't mind when you live in the city center and don't have to pay ridiculous rent. Of course, to get in social housing you'll need to apply and wait a few years for a vacancy to open up. You can apply once you're 18, I suggest doing as the dutch do, applying once you go off to University. Then, by the time you look for a job, you'll already have a slot. Or you might find an emergency. For instance, if you were just divorced and living in your ex's house maybe you have a reason for priority.

Of course maybe you don't want to pick the city you live in when you're in college, or you made a bad choice. You still have options. "Luxury" apartment rents are capped based on a certain formula. You can get a much higher rent from a luxury apartment, but you'll never be able to charge above a certain rate. So even though you might pay a lot of rent, you won't pay as much as in America. (My 2 bedroom "luxury apartment" rent in Amsterdam, walking distance to city center, is less than the rent on my 1 bedroom apartment was when I lived in Boston -- and I could only afford to live in a suburb, Malden, almost at the end of the orange line).

And, if you were smart and applied when you were 18, you may be able to rent out your "social housing" apartment, and rent a new apartment in your new city with the money. It's technically illegal, but as any economist will tell you, when you apply artificial constraints to supply or price a booming black market is sure to follow.

And "Living Fraud" is a big crime here and there's actually police who check to see if you're following the laws.

Additionally, because of the artificial constraints on rent you can forget about property values reflecting what you could get without these controls. After all, who will pay $1 million for an apartment when you can rent an apartment for $400 a month?

Still want to import European housing policies to the good old USA? The good news is you won't need to hire new police officers you can just maybe reassign DEA agents when you get a more sensible drug policy.

Then why is there an article about this happening 2 weeks ago?

Actually for debts to tax authorities due process can be suspended if the government can show they believe providing you with notice of their collections efforts will cause you to hide the money, spend the money, or otherwise dispose of the funds.

I found this out the hard way. The state of MA, due to an error, believed I never filed a tax return and owed them money. When I found out, I told them I was going to dispute it, and a few days after I filed an abatement my accounts were frozen, and I had a tax lien in my name.

Technically, this is illegal (they're supposed to let me dispute the charges and there is supposed to actually be a judgement as to whether or not my case had merit). However, when I tried to get legal help, I found out the reason they could do this because they simply told a judge they had to have the lien so I didn't run away with my money. (Which is funny because I'm unemployed and just on this side of broke -- the judge should have laughed them out of town).

When I fought it, the lien and the frozen accounts were reversed promptly, but not without a big pain in the ass.

I'm afraid from what I understand, this is typical. Even if the IRS is wrong, the cards are stacked in their favor if they believe you're right (or incorrectly believe you to be an international man of mystery tax dodger). And until you convince them otherwise, they can make your life VERY miserable.

You need to get real legal advice and stop asking slashdot for help on your problems.

Well that's quite interesting....