Hollywood come to Oz and NZ to make movies because it's cheaper than California, one of the stated reasons is it's cheaper is because the employer doesn't have to buy the local (unionized) crew workers overpriced health insurance. In my 15yrs of blue collar experience unions were a godsend, in my 20+yrs as a white collar worker they have been irrelevant. People who haven't had that "working poor" experience simply don't comprehend why they would need a union, the biggest workplace safety risk they have ever faced is a nasty paper cut.

The difference in power between a white and blue collar is stark. The difference manifests itself straight away, for example the employer will pay several thousand dollars just to find a professional, where as he can get any number of low-skilled workers by placing a $50 classified.

In my experience the biggest difference is between white and blue is manners. The first thing that struck me in my first office job was that people said please and thank-you because you did some task that you are paid to do. That single stark difference nails the problem in a word - "respect". People in general and employers in particular have zero respect for low-skilled labour unless the job requires them to risk their lives on a daily basis.

This lack of respect is an unfortunate part of human nature, low-skilled labour is cheap and abundant but humans generally only respect that which is expensive and rare. The answer isn't to tilt at windmills and try and change human nature, the only practical answer is for low-skilled workers to unite and demand the respect they deserve for doing a job that you wouldn't do yourself unless you were really, really, desperate.

Now if there was only some way we could equate the words "unionist" and "communist" in the mind of the public then lots of low-skilled workers will vehemently argue against their own self interest and human nature dictates the rest of us will agree with them.

Professionals have resources, amateurs have time. The reason he has to wait 5hrs has nothing to do with his ability and everything to do with his resources. The reason he can't bear to wait 5hrs has everything to do with his personality and nothing to do with his status as an amateur.

Oblig anaology: The guy is like a gardener complaining he has to wait a year for fruit to appear on his tree and that when it does 1/3 of it will be inedible, while at the same time having that much fruit he is giving it away to friends and relatives..

Yes 3D printing seems to present about the same level of difficulty to hobbyists as computers did in the 80's. Loading my Apple from an old audio tape recorder failed maybe 30-50% of the time. The trick to getting reliability closer to 4 out of 5 was to mark the position of the volume knob with a pen. Of course that could have been fixed with money. Money could also have removed the annoying "family wants to watch TV" interrupt from the monitor.

If 3D printing takes off anything like computing did in the 80's then it will be a gold mine in the 2020's and the hobbyists who managed to make it "just work" (for a reasonable price) will be billionaires. It won't replace mass production but it could seriously disrupt the spare parts industry.

All ROM is writable at least once.

Because it's unfair to try an innocent man! - Q

However I agree the OP is an idiot who has never seen the inside of a corporate server room and is way too enthusiastic about giving the state the power to kill it's own citizens.

Not really, I grew up in the 60's, most middle class households with school aged kids had a set of encyclopedia, the expense would compare well with a good PC and internet connection. Second hand sets were dirt cheap but somewhat outdated.

WP news and opinion departments live in different galaxies and often contradict each other.

Yep, most of what comes from a modern coal plant is steam and CO2, it's the CO2 that is currently a problem. Note also that scrubbers were installed after Regan introduced cap and trade for sulfur emissions a couple of decades ago (to avert problems with acid rain). Soot was more or less controlled by the various clean air acts in the 70's. Of course it is possible to scrub the CO2 but the current costs of doing so would make coal uncompetitive.

Speaking as a 50-something grandfather. There's about 10-15 years where you are forced to listen to your kids music, it's only after they leave home that you can go back to exclusively listening to the good stuff.

You are not separate from the universe, you're part of it. One of many entities that allows the universe to observe and talk to itself. - Sagan (paraphrased).

If anything your post shows your own bias. Nothing has changed since I was a kid in HS when government spooks were following John Lennon and Jane Fonda around all day. Your list does not show that Obama is behind those "scandals" what it shows is that governments of both colors continue to support an environment in which individuals are likely to engage in such behavior. Worst still the judiciary and the military are also in lockstep agreement. It's not a conspiracy it's a state of mind, a patronizing world view that seems to be shared by virtually all those who wield serious political power.

Yes but also remember that a lot of the "conquered" could be more accurately described as "converted". To be a Roman citizen in Rome's heyday meant the emperor would literally provide you with bread (in the form of ~1kg of free grain per day), and there were technological benefits such as plumbing, roads, and circuses that made the roman way of life appealing to many Europeans and N. Africans. People flocked to Rome and Rome responded by expanding and sucking in more resources from new territory. When the Roman culture expanded to it's geographical and political limits the benefits could no longer be supported and people drifted back to the old way of doing things for a few centuries.

Having said that there is no doubt Romans were expert propagandists, just ask the Vandals.

Caller: "Hello? USA?
BOOOM!!!!
USA: Yes?

# - Cap filter be dammed!

I was born in the 50's you insensitive clod!

Age? - Wisdom emerges from experience, experience is whatever fails to kill you.