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Comment Re:Building Is Cheap, Repairs Are Expensive (Score 1) 244

That's BS. Cars today can be way lighter than decades ago, except for all the safety gear that has to be put in (and yes comfort, such as AC and power everything). A friend of mine built a kit car recently. Virtually no creature comforts to speak of. The required safety systems and mechanics and buffers that have to be put in by law comprised a significant percentage of total weight.

Comment Re:Anecdotal argument against dense (Score 1) 244

Alas, north Americans really do not know how to live in apartments. Mostly, apartment dwellers are regarded as second class citizens. When the common wisdom tells everyone the road to middle-class wealth and financial freedom is through house ownership, people will buy the biggest one they can afford, with the highest leverage they can get away with. Apartment dwellers are regarded as those who do not have such drive and ambition, ie, they are lesser humans.

I would love to find a nice, small, comfortable, upscale apartment in the city, that has such 21st century luxuries like sound insulation, laundry, and common area cleaning services, and is inhabited by people who are socialized and civilized. But, monster houses are for people with money, apartments are for people who have none. The quality of the accommodations reflect that.

High gas prices aren't gonna fix anything, unless they double or triple.

Comment Re:Government roads (Score 1) 244

The user-pay model costs the same as publicly funded. It's just that you're A) no longer being subsidized and B) pay the full cost up front.

For things which only a section of the population is doing, public pay system spreads the cost over the entire population, subsidizing those who use it.

For things which nearly everyone needs, there is no subsidy, but you're paying the full cost up front, instead of spread out over, say 3 years (ex license renewal).

You can't say you're paying more for things, unless you account for all factors. And if you ARE objectively paying more, then your activities were previously subsidized by the rest of the population.

Comment Re:FTFY (Score 1) 87

Obviously no such thing will happen. Money will go into general revenues, never to be seen again. Numerous empty promises and hand waving about improving Internet access will be made.

It's annoying enough already with cybersquatters buying up every domain in sight, there's just no need to add yet another one to the mix. If it was really not about a money grab, they would just give every .co.uk registrant the equivalent .uk domain at no cost, and then phase out .co.uk. Yeah, I don't see that one happening.

Comment Re:Impossible (Score 3, Insightful) 215

Didn't even read TFSummary.

Statistics isn't about being 100%. That's the whole point of trends and probabilities. If there's around 65% voter turnout in an area, within a certain deviation, and one polling station has an 80% voter turnout, that's an anomaly. Usually anything more than 2 standard deviations out is an anomaly, statistically speaking. Nothing implies this is 100% election fraud, or even election fraud at all. It just means something different is happening there.

Comment Re:Apple needs to think a bit more... (Score 1) 266

The matching cannot be exact, and requiring for it to be so is an unfair burden. Equivalent matches in the PC world exist, without being exact. As a counter to this dumb argument, Apple will never match much of the clever and innovative hardware available for PCs. How much does a Mac cost then? Oh yeah, it doesn't even exist. If you want to go down the path "we have hardware you can't match", it's just not a game you will win.

Comment Re:Everyone has it all wrong (Score 1) 257

That's pretty much what I said earlier. It's a dead end field. No one is interested in your decades of experience. They will tell you you're overqualified. No one is still working in this field in their 40s or 50s. They've either moved on to management, or left the field altogether. Why would you even go down this path, knowing you'll have to start over nearly from 0 somewhere else in your midlife?

Comment Re:Everyone has it all wrong (Score 1) 257

Outsourcing has all but guaranteed these fields are perceived as dead-end careers. You're limiting your upward mobility and earning potential by putting yourself into a box bounded by foreign labour. 40, 50 year old programmers you can count on one hand. You're either in management by that time, or a completely different field. No one is interested in your decades of experience. Oh, sure, they will say they do, and in case of the truly expceptional, 1 in a million individuals that may even be true, but what they really want is cheap foreign labor, or young kids who will work their butts off for peanuts, don't go home after 5 and don't mind being preoccupied with work on their weekends, instead of spending time with their family. Contrast to almost any other profession, where being an experienced veteran is something people look forward to.

Comment Re:Bye Apple (Score 1) 451

Well, it has been a while since we heard of something new and exciting cooking in the Apple oven.

This map situation kinda hilites it. To be honest, nothing has really changed at Apple. They've always been doing something like this. It's just that the competition has changed. Apple has been standing still. MacBook: nothing. iMac: nothing. iPods: nothing. iPhone: nothing. iPad: nothing. Just incremental improvements. Which is fine, but there's nothing _new_ on the horizon. Where's the next big thing? Aside from "it's Apple", what is the incentive to buy an Apple product these days over the competition?

Comment Re:This Poll is Dumb (Score 1) 436

BTW, as someone said, you typed a lot of words, but said little. (What is your day job, if I may ask?)

Windows 2000 was a significant improvement over 98 in terms of stability (NT based).

Windows XP was a significant improvement over 2000 in terms of UI streamlining and cruft removal.

Ditto for Windows 7.

Did you jump from 2000 to ME? Or skipped it?

Did you jump from XP to Windows Vista? Or skipped it?

If you didn't, would you in hindsight? Would you recommend "regular" people skipped those?

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