If you are in the EU but outside the UK (and I think Germany), you have to order books from Amazon.com. A free book costs $2 to deliver over whispernet
Essentially people try and convey information to the other bidders through the amounts of their bid. Like putting an area code at the end of a large bid to indicate that is the market you want.
Former Reliability Engineer here. Not sure for bulbs, since my experience was automotive, but I imaging it is similar. In general, we tried to determine all the factors that lead to failure - vibration, force, impurities, sunlight etc, then you try to accelerate these. So for sunlight, you might raise the intensity of UV etc. There are settings so X hours of acceleration == to X years normal use. These settings are developed in a variety of ways. After you run the test, you apply some stats analysis and a bit of handwaving and proclaim 25 years.
The entire Rock of Gibraltar was turned into a fortress during the war. The civilian population was evacuated, and additional tunnels and artillery placed in the rock. I am not sure that the German siege weapons could have reduced a block of granite into rubble.
With sufficient heavy artillery, while you might not be able to breach into the fortifications, you can certainly mess it up enough to stop it from shooting back.
It would not have been necessary to actually take Gibraltar -- only to silence it's guns, and place enough artillery west of it to block the strait.
The website appears to have been created in response to the inability of the police to bring the person, allegedly responsible, into a courtroom to explain why he is in possession of a stolen laptop.
For number 2. you could argue that they are mercantilist. Most of the enterprises are state backed, much like the Dutch or British East India companies. So the state takes a pretty big role in determining which companies will succeed.
You could argue that the Chinese state as a whole is in fact a large corporation.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need(s)."
A leaders best ability is to lead. Hence, you would end up with intellectuals, scientists, economists and others who have a strong grasp of complex theories and systems. Opposed to having actors and political pretty boys leading.
Marx's saying goes even further with the corporate metaphor. The lower the 'worker' in the 'corporation' the less they get 'paid'/'need'. How is there any real difference with how Walmart views its minimum wage workers to how China views its farmers or sweatshop workers? From the top they're all just pawns to make a profit.
Canada, Australia, most countries with a points based immigration system are much easier. My story was much like the grandparents. Moved to the US at 14 and bounced around between visas H4 -> F1 -> H1B. I didn't get my green card with the rest of my family because I turned 21 while the application was pending. I am in Europe now and will NEVER deal with US immigration again. There is truly nothing that will make me want to live in that limbo again.
I think if you dig a bit deeper into most people's motivations for wanting to be rich, you will find out that independence is the really reason. Without any evidence I think that people want to be rich, so they don't have to worry about money.
I think Aristotle Onassis' theory is a bit more accurate:
“If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.”
Furthermore, the best approximation to human behaviour I know is that human beings will do whatever it takes to maximise ... not their wealth, not their freedom, but... their status.
For nice middle-class me, going to prison for drug dealing would be a huge step down in my status. For some kid in the ghetto, though, it could easily be the opposite.
My grandfather worked at a state prison in NH. He was friends with an inmate who made the prison his home. Whenever his sentence ended, he would break into a house and wait for the owner to find him and call the police to take him back to prison. He was a pretty nice guy, and fairly smart - he even helped critique the first electronic security system at the prison. (He picked the lock with a ballpoint pen and walked into the warden's office to tell him exactly what was wrong with the system!)
>"Furthermore, the best approximation to human behaviour I know is that human beings will do whatever it takes to maximise ... not their wealth, not their freedom, but... their status."
// Many people choose to take on a lower "status" though.
Chasing "the good life" or "down-sizing" for example.
This is, to my mind at least, a hankering for something more meaningful than financial acumen or societal position.
Well of course the great part and the worst flaw of my status-maximization theory is that it can't be disproved. The guy who gives up a high-paying job in finance to go become a starving artist is arguably maximising his status ("Oooh look at that guy following his dream and not caring about money") and so is the guy who makes the reverse decision ("Being an artist is for try-hard suckers, look at my money!").
It's hard to find an example of someone unambiguously lowering their own status, since voluntarily lowering your status in order to achieve some other aim can be, in itself, a status-raising activity.
It appears you're messing with your definition of status in order to make such statements. Could you give a succinct definition of what you mean by "status"?
Status is defined by the general populus, others define your status, your place in the "pecking order". People regarding your actions as positive ('following his dream, blah blah') doesn't mean your status is increased.
"a starving artist is arguably maximising his status"
Yes, it depends on your definition of status .. so ...
Yeah there was a TED Talk that touched on money and happiness. Apparently $60,000/year was the cognitive (or material) line necessary so that the average person could stop worrying about money.
“Below 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I’ve rarely seen lines so flat.”
I wonder if you could frame this as an expression of basic economic principles. The very most valuable thing is that which cannot be bought for any price: time.
