Slashdot Mirror

LOL!

It's not about how old she is, buddy. It's about how hot she is. While there is a correlation, you'd be surprised how many 30 yr. old women are very beautiful.

BTW, name a few of your favorite actresses, and we'll discuss their age. They might be older than you realize.

The median age in the US is 33 yrs. old: see this site http://www.adherents.com/adh_dem.html for details.

That is why I chose that age. Did you look at the site I originally quoted? Let's say you are interested in datin 20yr old women. The median height is about 64.5 inches (5 ft, 4.5 in). The median weight is about 130 lbs. So we are talking two std. deviations above the mean in terms of IQ. This means you are ruling out everyone that is NOT two std. deviations above the mean. Given this, we eliminate about (IIRC) 65% of the female population. Going back to a website I found earlier, here's what that leaves you:

females in US: 145,532,800.
65% of 145,532,800: 94,596,320.
leaves you with: 50,936,480.
not too shabby, yet. Now we eliminate everyone not between 18 and say 24 (a group which only represents 9.3% of the total female population).
(go to this link for my source).

This leaves us with 9.3% of 50,936,480: 4,737,092.64. This isn't looking so good for you.

Based on another page, approximately 4% of them aren't going to be interested in dating a male--leaves you with: 4,737,092.64-4,737,092.64(.04)=4,547,608.9344.

This isn't a sizeable portion of the population, even if it seems like a large number. If you want more depressing news, consider this: the population of the US is not evenly distributed. People in your selected age group are only going to comprise 9.3% of your locales population (on average). 4547608.9344 is only 1.5967728% of the US population. Good luck!

Just a little information for you amusement.

From the article:

> However, the system's commercial future is uncertain.
> "The question is: how much are people prepared to pay
> for it, and how often will they use it?" says Rob Morland,
> of technology consultants Scientific Generics near Cambridge.
> "That's a tough one."

I've posted earlier on this...

The solution could be to use cell phones + cameras + GPS to effectively do collaborative cartography. i.e. units could be both consumers and producers of information - both raw picture data and processed maps - like much of the internet today.

A person could take pictures or video, each frame having a GPS timespace-stamp, and load it onto his computer at home, which could then participate with thousands of other computers in feature extraction using freely available mapping sources like TIGER data. Annotations to mapping information could include: GPS timespace stamps, voice or text annotation, accelerometer data (for data on observer orientation and acceleration). The latter could also help improve feature extraction from multiple images in a video (for eg: Intel OpenCV vision library uses stereo cameras for feature detection).

Throw in concepts like local P2P exchanges by mobile units (for eg: my PDA has GPS, your cellphone has a camera & GPRS, both can communicate over bluetooth --> potential for a win-win situation for us both), distributed image storage and feature extraction, novel types of feature recognition (eg: ATM screens, McDonald outlets), multiple freenet-like distributed cartography servers --- the concept can get quit interesting. - for users, also potentially for cartography vendors even though they will have to improve their value proposition.

EMPLOYMENT
1990 1995 2000 2001 2002
Employed (mil)
125.8 132.3 142.6 143.7 144.9
Unemployed (mil)
7.0 7.4 5.7 6.8 8.4
Unemployment rate (percent)
5.6 5.6 4.0 4.7 5.8

The first thing you can do is to quit pretending that solution to big government is to elect more politicians who favor big government. If you're planning on voting Democrat or Green, you're part of the problem, because those two parties favor larger and more intrusive government.

Clinton reduced the percentage working for the government. Bush increased it again. If you want to vote for someone who supports a small government, vote for a Democrat.

Have you ever been to the country, where like 75% of America lives?

Sorry, buddy. See here. Less than 25% of the US population lives in rural areas, and that number is decreasing.

In 2003, a report was generated for 1998 data, where I found a quick stat of 96.2% of households has at least one phone, 36.3% has at least once cell phone (of 102,652,000 households). US Population in 1998 was est at 269,094,000.

Before that, maybe the U.S. should first tackle the phoneless problem, seeing that there are 5 million households(5%) without a phone(pdf.

The economy of the US churns more jobs PER MONTH than are out sourced.

I was about to respond to each reply, but to save time:

According to the US Department of Commerce
"the average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2002 was $18,392 in annual income;
compared with $14,348 for a family of three"

With that kind of income in relationship to their family size, food is a major factor in their budjet. If they are saving even 10% or one free month a year, that is a big savings in relationship to their income.

They might get clothes for their kids with that kind of money...

50 million people? The census says their are 292,864,554 people in the united states. 17 percent of the population swaps mp3's? That seems a little high.

Actually, yes we are.

Rank County Percent Lower Bound Upper Bound
8 San Francisco County, CA 47.8 46.6 49.0
17 San Mateo County, CA 43.0 40.4 45.6
18 Santa Clara County, CA 42.9 41.3 44.6
36 Santa Cruz County, CA 40.0 35.7 44.3
38 Alameda County, CA 39.6 38.0 41.3
54 Contra Costa County, CA 35.9 33.9 37.9

69 Orange County, CA 33.0 31.8 34.2

Could you post a reference?

The only line going into someones house that's more pervasive than the phone line are power lines

Not true: Telephone service goes to 92.1% of U.S. households. Plumbing goes to
>99% of U.S. households.

Not that I'm proposing IP-over-water-pipes or anything...

The only line going into someones house that's more pervasive than the phone line are power lines

Not true: Telephone service goes to 92.1% of U.S. households. Plumbing goes to
>99% of U.S. households.

Not that I'm proposing IP-over-water-pipes or anything...

Total exports from US companies to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2002. ...

Total exports from US companies to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 2002. ...

People won't vote third party, they only vote for the current reigning Demopublican party.

The democrats and republicans use rhetoric to convince the less intelligent that there's actually a difference between the two...

1) NO PRESIDENT has direct influence on the economy

So don't vote...

2) The DJIA is about the same as it was when Clinton left office

DJIA

3) The unemployment rate today is LESS than the average throughout the 1990s (ya know, when Clinton was there)

Not true. Interestingly enough, under Bush the percent working for the government has increased from 15.8 - 16.5 %. Bush is definitley a big government kind of guy.

4) Every economist is saying the economy is improving.

Why don't you just meantion one instead of this "every economist" that no one has heard about.

5) The tax cuts you are complaining about contributed to all of this. This is not a "fluke" by any stretch.

The tax cuts has lead to a huge deficit, which is basicly a huge tax increase on everyone, rich and poor. Of course, the rich are lucky, and have got most of the tax cuts to compensate for this unfortunate tax increase on the nation. Bush the tax increase.

Reagan's supply-side economics proved that huge growth can occur by cutting taxes.

Regean had to reverse his tax cuts. Bush senior had to increase taxes more (read his lips). Clinton increased them even more, and the boom came.

Bush is using the SAME policy, and we will see SIMILAR results in 5-8 years just as we did under Reagan

... when we have a fisical responsible democrate in the White house. Thank God for the republicans with their booms 8 years after leaving office, a boom they gave us even "no president has direct influence on the economy".

Well, we're a bit over 6 billion now. It's more like 6,348,951,839. Wait. Now it's 6,348,951,840. And now 6,348,951,841...

22 million more jobs, but how much will the population increase by then?

The US Census Bureau reported that US population grew by one percent between July 1, 2002 and July 1, 2003, to 290.8 million. Let's make a wild-ass guess at what the population will be in January 2010.

July 2003 to Jan 2004 is about six months, so let's add (1.01)^0.5 to 290.8 million, to make 292.3 million.

Now, from Jan 2004 to Jan 2010 is 6 years, so let's add (1.01)^6 to 292.3 million, to make 310.3 million.

Bottom line: with some simple assumptions, population growth to 2010 will be about 18 million.

So in terms of *real* job growth, the BLS is actually predicting a population-adjusted increase of 3 million jobs, not 22 million.

Or, they could have just assumed a population growth of 22 million and assumed that job growth would also be 22 million. That's the great thing about predictions: you can hide your assumptions and get away with a few sound bites.

--Rob

22 million more jobs, but how much will the population increase by then?

The US Census Bureau reported that US population grew by one percent between July 1, 2002 and July 1, 2003, to 290.8 million. Let's make a wild-ass guess at what the population will be in January 2010.

July 2003 to Jan 2004 is about six months, so let's add (1.01)^0.5 to 290.8 million, to make 292.3 million.

Now, from Jan 2004 to Jan 2010 is 6 years, so let's add (1.01)^6 to 292.3 million, to make 310.3 million.

Bottom line: with some simple assumptions, population growth to 2010 will be about 18 million.

So in terms of *real* job growth, the BLS is actually predicting a population-adjusted increase of 3 million jobs, not 22 million.

Or, they could have just assumed a population growth of 22 million and assumed that job growth would also be 22 million. That's the great thing about predictions: you can hide your assumptions and get away with a few sound bites.

--Rob

The US GDP for 2003 was roughly $10,479Billion. Of this the entire software industry was $181Billion (2%) Imports in total were $1,200Billion

It seems there's still lots of people doing things for a living. Ask one if they need help.

People seems to forget that for most countries Domestic trade has always been and probably will continue to be the main focus of economic activity.

No it wouldn't- it would be seventh or eighth, depending on its relationship to Ohio:

http://www.census.gov/statab/www/part6.html

The information on that page seems to be from the CIA "Factbook". I would not trust anything coming out any spy agency, even if it were my own country. First of all, CIA most likely manipulates information to suit its own purposes (eg. claim a country is made up of this many people of a particular group when in fact it isn't (Iraq and the census "controversy" comes to mind)). Second, as you pointed out, the listing is totally useless since it uses inconsistent antiquated, obsolete, and racist categories (eg. mongoloid*). I would not trust anything out of the CIA, whether it claims to be correct or not. Lastly, the listed info is totally useless--even if it were true--because someone (CIA in this case) chose whether to lump people togeter into categories or not (eg. white vs Italian/German/etc vs European).

The best place to get information is from the UN or some NGO. I don't think the UN collects ethnic data (at least not for all countries) so probably nothing there. I don't know of any NGO either (although I'm sure there are some). So the last place to find ethnic info is from census carried out by each country (needless to say, one should ignore everything coming out of totalitarian countries, dictatorships, monarchies, etc**).

Just looked up some info and here are some links:

US Census
Canadian data Canadian data that is detailed (but includes people who are doublecounted)

Having posted thos links, I have to admit that they are not directly comparable. US census is too simplistic (at least from what I can find). On top of that, it would be preferable to have percentages worked out in a pie-chart, instead of just a bunch of numbers :( Overall, I think Canada is FAR more diverse than USA.

I do think though that if you look at those numbers objectively, the lower numbers of black, and hispanic populations in Canada would swing the pendulum in the US's favor.

Not really. Even though Canada doesn't have the same size of black and hispanics***, it has many more smaller ethnic groups (like chinese, south Asians, Arabs, etc). So Canada is indeed more diverse.

Having said that, some cities in USA are very diverse. A city like New York is diverse (in fact, it is one of the most diverse cities in the world).

But checkboxes on a census form is not the entire answer. Because 'white' could mean many things. We do have a huge Russian population here, where they are maintaining a lot of their Russian culture. So, while they are 'white', their culture is different.

You CAN figure out ethnic groups with a census but the way USA does it is very unscientific and primitive. I imagine it is done that way because of conservative influences. Conservatives attempt to assimilate people (eg. USA) whereas liberals attempt to diverse people (eg. Canada). First of all, you should not use something vague like skin colour. Something like "white" or "black" is totally meaningless. Instead of asking whether people are white, the government should be asking to check off 'German', 'English', and so forth.

(* Mongoloid isn't exactly discriminatory but it is very inaccurate).

(** If you must know why one can't trust ethnic information coming out of an autocratic country, it is because governments use that to carry out their discriminatory activities. For instance, many services provided by government are tied to the size of the population (eg. a library gets a grant based on the size of the population in that area. By manipulating ethnic data, governments can alter their fiscal policies to discriminate against others. This is generally true outside multicultural countries like USA and Canada since ethnic groups are geogra

I find it rather ironic that so many people in America, the land of capitalism, hate outsourcing so much. This is simple economics right out of Adam Smith.

This is not about economics, this is about culture and people. Even Adam Smith would agree that a broke consumer is no good.

Take a look at other cultures/societies and see what they do for each other. In the US, smaller ethnic groups _pay more_ for products from others in the same ethnic group so that they help each other (take that Adam). In Japan, they give people jobs instead of welfare.

Also, it is beyond extorsion for people to pay 22x the _per capita_ income to someone. That is equivalent to $792 million a year here in the us based on an average income of 36,000. When you wave that much money to people, they will hop. This is why its illegal for sweepstakes in the US not to have ways of winning the prize without buying the product.

One good benefit for Americans is that this allows their employers to use that money elsewhere.

The trend for this "elsewhere" is in the C?O's pocket.

But for the most part Indians need these jobs much worse than we do.

Well fuckit dude, Vietnam was never won, go ahead and save these guys while we are at it. I could always fight with the illegals for a labor job.

I'm willing to bet that as far as possessions go, the average unemployed computer geek is significanlty better off than the Indian worker who "stole" his job.

Look again at the $792 million a year figure, and tell me this again.

I think most Americans respect the Census department. But I can't quite see them leading a coup. "Stand up and be counted!" Well, it does have a certain ring to it...

The census is handled by a Bureau, not a Department. The Census Bureau is part of the Department of Commerce.

It's a shame that people don't know the basic organizational structure of the executive bureaucracy. (Unless you are not a U.S. citizen, which is a valid reason to not know.)

The reason that no-one has remarked on the minority status of men is not, as you suppose, that only you have noticed this sinister development. It is because everyone has known it for years and years and years. Women make up a majority of the population in most countries. Over the last three decades, the population of the UK has fluctuated very little from a 48.7:51.3 male-to-female ratio. This is entirely due to women's greater life expectancy. In fact, the population under the age of 65 has a majority of males (52.4%). Although I don't have the age-based numbers to hand, the USA and Canada both have largely female populations (about 50.9% in the USA, 50.5% in Canada). I think you'll find similar numbers elsewhere.

Ah, I was going with a 350Mil estimate we toss around at work. Looks like 290Mil is closer. Thanks - I used to think it was 250Mil and they made fun of me... (I forget what evidence we used) I guess I was pretty close after all.

And what about the over 12% of the population of the US that live under the poverty line? It's easy to say "That's $67 a year..." but in a country where poverty is a way of life for so many, how can you justify taking even more money away from people to give Bush a tribute to himself?

I'm paying $20 for mine ($15.71 USD @ 0.785237). I wouldn't call it a deal really though, since the government sees fit to subsidize them. Its a whole other debate whether this kind of thing is in the same category as highways and other infrastructure. I just don't think its fair to compare US ISP prices to Canadian ones, the rules of the game are very different.

I'm not sure what you meant by the Canadians have less money thing though. The gap between rich-vs-poor is probably much smaller in Canada than the US. But I don't think you can make a general assumption that we have less money. For example, if you compare your average Canadian Joe with his southern counterpart, Canada Joe is much better off this January than he was last January. I tried to take a look at the overall median income for both countries in 2000 (The only common recent year I can seem to find statistical data for), we're pretty equal.

USA $42,148 USD ($60,832.21 CDN @ 0.6929 - Dec1999 exchange rate) or at todays rate $53,679.69 CDN
Canada = $55,016 CDN

I don't know exactly how to compare the two considering the rise and fall of the US $ over the past few years. There's too many other factors like taxation rates, and services available, and regional conditions for me to make a call on it. My idea of an urban ghetto is probably very different than USA Joe's too. I say urban ghetto, because my previous job had me travelling in northern Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Let me tell you, some of those reserves are scary places to be, but I think the reasons may be very different, and the populations are much much smaller.

I'm going to submit before I get the urge to haul out my Stats 100 text. (Which reminds me, the comparison of US to Canadian tuition rates would be another interesting study)

Teachers could NOT keep up with the kids in computer classes, which left a whole slew of kids "left behind" per se (thanks Bush).

Maybe it's me, but this sounds to be more of a problem with the teachers (and possibly the local school board) than anything Bush has done...

The federal government somehow gets blame or credit for the condition of public schools, but people forget that public schools are really local institutions. Only about 7% of Elementary and Secondary education funding comes from the Federal government. School policies and curriculums are set at the local and state level; The Federal government can ususally only make recommendations or support specific programs.

If your school's policies are stupid, chances are your local government is the responsible party, not the federal government. The good thing about this, however, is that it's pretty easy for you to go voice your opinion at your local school board meeting. Flying to D.C. to have a chat with the President is a little more difficult.

Most people have 3+ computers in their homes nowadays. High-bandwidth connectivity is becoming widely available.

I would like to see some support for this statement. Unless you're counting every home device that has a processor in it as a "computer" (i.e., you're car is a computer), then this statement is pulled out of your butt. I had difficulty quickly finding recent stats online, but the 2000 U.S. census had 51% of households having at least ONE computer at home, a bare majority (source, download the first report). Even given that this number has increased in the last 4 years, has it increased substantially enough that the number of people with 3+ computers is 50.1% or more? I find that highly doubtful. And mind you, this is just for the U.S.

Don't even get me started on how limited the availability of broadband is in most of the world...

Of course, you probably didn't mean to include everybody in your "most people" statement. Probably what you meant is "most people of upper middle class income living in highly industrialized countries" or "most white people" or "most slashdot readers". Now this would be more correct, as well as identifying the demographic most likely to buy a product like this. But it also glosses over the fact that most people in the world are not as privileged as yourself (or me for that matter, though I only have 1 (functioning) computer at home - guess that means I'm deprived by your standards). So get a little perspective on how most of the world really lives before making asinine statements like that.

No, real manufacturing output (after adjusting for inflation) has doubled in the last twenty years. Your data only covers 14 years. See the link I provided for full references.

Well, that only doubles the headcount. The current live human population is about the same as the dead - exponential growth and all that. This means that half the people who have ever existed are still alive. Here are some numbers.

Mighty skeptical aren't we? I don't think there is much I can do to prove to you that libraries exist. Perhaps you should try and visit one? For starters, google for "public library locations" and include the name of your favorite town.

No, it is simply a canard that income has anything to do with internet access.

The U.S. Census says otherwise:

More affluent and more highly educated adults are more likely to have computers or use the Internet.

It's on page six, on this document, among others.

It is also false that an Internet connection is in every library or that a library is in every town. Once again, check your facts. If the facts don't correspond to your personal beliefs - perhaps it is time to reevaluate them?

If you really want to get polling information about political stuff, use the internet....Now, of course the results will be skewed because only people who are informed and interested in the issue at hand will vote.

More likely, the data will be skewed due to the fact that only 2 in 5 households have internet access and most of that is concentrated in higher-income, white and Asian households. If you want go with more current estimates of around 149 million of the 291 million people that live in the U.S. - 51 percent of the population - have Internet access. According to a fairly recent Pew Study as much as 24% of the U.S. population is completely disconnected from the Internet - and this research suggests that's the way they want it.

Now, if you contrast this with the fact that in the 1990's the number of people without a landline telephone was around 5%, you start to see that there is a methodological problem with both approaches that gets worse as the number of people without landline phones climbs. Even if you want to argue that Internet use is probably strongly correlated to voting - due to the fact that the Census says this about people that vote:

The characteristics of people who are most likely to go to the polls are a reflection of both the racial/ethnic composition of the citizen population and the attributes of people with the biggest stakes in society: older individuals, homeowners, married couples, and people with more schooling, higher incomes, and good jobs.

If you factor that Internet use skews to younger demographics such as college students that do not necessarily fit the profile of voters, you still can get the sense that this isn't a good research methodology that can be extrapolated to the general U.S. population.

Of course, there are problems even with the data I cite here, just look at the number of refused answers for the Pew Study to see one example. At present, pretty much any survey company worth its salt such as MRI, Simmons and others do at home personal interviews. The approach of the Census also provides a notable example and which is why I relied so much on their data here.

Good data simply requires more effort - and political pollsters are either going to have to live with some ambiguity or they are going to have to spend more money and time to get good results.

If you really want to get polling information about political stuff, use the internet....Now, of course the results will be skewed because only people who are informed and interested in the issue at hand will vote.

More likely, the data will be skewed due to the fact that only 2 in 5 households have internet access and most of that is concentrated in higher-income, white and Asian households. If you want go with more current estimates of around 149 million of the 291 million people that live in the U.S. - 51 percent of the population - have Internet access. According to a fairly recent Pew Study as much as 24% of the U.S. population is completely disconnected from the Internet - and this research suggests that's the way they want it.

Now, if you contrast this with the fact that in the 1990's the number of people without a landline telephone was around 5%, you start to see that there is a methodological problem with both approaches that gets worse as the number of people without landline phones climbs. Even if you want to argue that Internet use is probably strongly correlated to voting - due to the fact that the Census says this about people that vote:

The characteristics of people who are most likely to go to the polls are a reflection of both the racial/ethnic composition of the citizen population and the attributes of people with the biggest stakes in society: older individuals, homeowners, married couples, and people with more schooling, higher incomes, and good jobs.

If you factor that Internet use skews to younger demographics such as college students that do not necessarily fit the profile of voters, you still can get the sense that this isn't a good research methodology that can be extrapolated to the general U.S. population.

Of course, there are problems even with the data I cite here, just look at the number of refused answers for the Pew Study to see one example. At present, pretty much any survey company worth its salt such as MRI, Simmons and others do at home personal interviews. The approach of the Census also provides a notable example and which is why I relied so much on their data here.

Good data simply requires more effort - and political pollsters are either going to have to live with some ambiguity or they are going to have to spend more money and time to get good results.

If you really want to get polling information about political stuff, use the internet....Now, of course the results will be skewed because only people who are informed and interested in the issue at hand will vote.

More likely, the data will be skewed due to the fact that only 2 in 5 households have internet access and most of that is concentrated in higher-income, white and Asian households. If you want go with more current estimates of around 149 million of the 291 million people that live in the U.S. - 51 percent of the population - have Internet access. According to a fairly recent Pew Study as much as 24% of the U.S. population is completely disconnected from the Internet - and this research suggests that's the way they want it.

Now, if you contrast this with the fact that in the 1990's the number of people without a landline telephone was around 5%, you start to see that there is a methodological problem with both approaches that gets worse as the number of people without landline phones climbs. Even if you want to argue that Internet use is probably strongly correlated to voting - due to the fact that the Census says this about people that vote:

The characteristics of people who are most likely to go to the polls are a reflection of both the racial/ethnic composition of the citizen population and the attributes of people with the biggest stakes in society: older individuals, homeowners, married couples, and people with more schooling, higher incomes, and good jobs.

If you factor that Internet use skews to younger demographics such as college students that do not necessarily fit the profile of voters, you still can get the sense that this isn't a good research methodology that can be extrapolated to the general U.S. population.

Of course, there are problems even with the data I cite here, just look at the number of refused answers for the Pew Study to see one example. At present, pretty much any survey company worth its salt such as MRI, Simmons and others do at home personal interviews. The approach of the Census also provides a notable example and which is why I relied so much on their data here.

Good data simply requires more effort - and political pollsters are either going to have to live with some ambiguity or they are going to have to spend more money and time to get good results.

If you really want to get polling information about political stuff, use the internet....Now, of course the results will be skewed because only people who are informed and interested in the issue at hand will vote.

More likely, the data will be skewed due to the fact that only 2 in 5 households have internet access and most of that is concentrated in higher-income, white and Asian households. If you want go with more current estimates of around 149 million of the 291 million people that live in the U.S. - 51 percent of the population - have Internet access. According to a fairly recent Pew Study as much as 24% of the U.S. population is completely disconnected from the Internet - and this research suggests that's the way they want it.

Now, if you contrast this with the fact that in the 1990's the number of people without a landline telephone was around 5%, you start to see that there is a methodological problem with both approaches that gets worse as the number of people without landline phones climbs. Even if you want to argue that Internet use is probably strongly correlated to voting - due to the fact that the Census says this about people that vote:

The characteristics of people who are most likely to go to the polls are a reflection of both the racial/ethnic composition of the citizen population and the attributes of people with the biggest stakes in society: older individuals, homeowners, married couples, and people with more schooling, higher incomes, and good jobs.

If you factor that Internet use skews to younger demographics such as college students that do not necessarily fit the profile of voters, you still can get the sense that this isn't a good research methodology that can be extrapolated to the general U.S. population.

Of course, there are problems even with the data I cite here, just look at the number of refused answers for the Pew Study to see one example. At present, pretty much any survey company worth its salt such as MRI, Simmons and others do at home personal interviews. The approach of the Census also provides a notable example and which is why I relied so much on their data here.

Good data simply requires more effort - and political pollsters are either going to have to live with some ambiguity or they are going to have to spend more money and time to get good results.

- The primary purpose of a marriage is to grant legal status to a man and a woman for the purpose of raising a family.

I agree that is the main traditional purpose of marriage. It is not the current reality, though. According to the U.S Census Bureau 1997 Population Profile, there are more U.S. marriages without children than ones with children: 28.8% (childless) vs. 25.0% (with children) of all households. If we generously assume that half of that 28.8% are couples whose children are now out of the house, then you still get 14.4% of all of the U.S. marriages are childless. Given that the report stated that there were 99.6 million households in 1996, that means that there were at least 14 million couples in the U.S. enjoying the legal status of marriage without producing the desired and protected social benefit(eg kids).

Now look at that pg 29 chart again. Notice that it shows non-family households totaled 5.1% in 1996. That works out to about 5 million non-married multi-person households. Lets assume that sexual preference statistics hold and that roughly 10% of those households are same-sex relationships. That means there were about 1 million gay/lesbian couples living together in the U.S. in 1996. Lets further assume that ALL of them would get married if they could (a bad assumption but bear with me). That means that the total number of childless marriages would, at most, go from 14 million to 15 million. That's a change of 7%. This is neither a threat to the American Way Of Life (TM, Pat. Pend, Your mileage may vary) or a huge change. Even if homosexuality weirds you out (it does me even though I've got a few gay friends), this is obviously an outdated reason to restrict marrage to bisexual couples. There are enough married couples already who, by choice or circumstance, are not having kids. Adding a few more to that list isn't going to do any harm and may in fact do some social good.

- Marriage is 'special'. Places that have allowed same sexed marriages have seen increased divorce and infidelity. Same sexed marriage takes away the 'specialness' of marriage.,

This isn't a secular argument, its a thinly disquised religious argument. I'll eat my copy of the King James Bible if you can show me REAL statistics that back this up. Even if true, divorce has risen to near the 50% mark without the morally-corrupting influence of same-sex marriages. And infidelity increases, why? Are all the straight married dudes trying to re-affirm their masculinity with a little after-hours "work" becsuse they saw the gay couple next door kissing goodbye in the morning? Please throw this argument back into the oven, it hasn't cooked yet.

- Marriage is not a right, it is, at best, a tradition or custom. Marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman.

A textbook example of circular reasoning: "marriages can't be same-sex, because marriages aren't same-sex". As far as it being "at best a tradition or custom", in our society it carries considerably more legal weight and privilege than simple tradition and custom. There are real, tangible benefits to marrage: clear lines of inheritance, property co-ownership, inclusion in medical benefits, etc. Of course the social aspect is just as important too. Being married you get the benefit of the social acknowledgement of your commitment to your partner. I argue that marriage not only isn't a quaint little custom, it is the foundation of society at large and thus IS a right. Just because the sexual preferences of the two people weirds us out doesn't mean we should deny them the right and the privilege of joining together in civil union.

A very long response to a short post.

Happy Holidays,

I.V.

So it looks as if Spain, Ireland, Greece, Norway, Portugal and Belgium all have better home ownership rates than the US. A more interesting figure is which way the rates are headed over time. Home ownership rates in Germany and France, for example, are dropping very quickly.

Not that I have much of clue as to exactly how this pertains to anything under discussion.

And let me just mention that the lameness filter sucks when the majority of one's post is tabular data. The only purpose of this final paragraph is to increase the average character count per line so as to get this post through the lameness filter.

A more pressing problem that receives far too little attention is the issue of overpopulation. The ecological, economic, and social problems that will be caused by the uncontrolled growth of the human population have the potential to make global warming look like a walk in the park.

Exactly. Your prior scree about oil companies can be forgiven since you point this out. Population must stop growing so quickly. Everything else is a distant second. You can rape the first world of all it's wealth, stop all waste, eliminate all contaminants and none of it will matter, because when we make 20 billion of ourselves we're screwed.

The activists will go on whining about SUV's and western per capita energy consumption because it's a lot more fun to point the finger at wealthy people than it is to accuse the third world of overpopulation. The fact is that one of the few segments of the human race that isn't growing exponentially is wealthy westerners. For all their so-called evils, they've managed to figure out how to exist without having litters.

Census.gov projects a zero-immigration population growth from 2004-2100 of about 98 million. That's 35% over 96 years. Meanwhile, over here ones learns about the UN projecting a 300% increase in global population during the same period; about 15 gigapeople by 2100. That's if the average life expectancy doesn't go exponential...

Start talking about population first and I might be willing to listen when you want to talk about the mileage my car gets. Till then, fuck off.

Are you INSANE? $62,000/year is probably about twice the average income

According to the US Census Bureau, median income for a family of 4, across the US was 63,278 in 2001. The number quoted for India is also family income.

There are 260 million people in the USA

Actually, it's an estimated 292,674,546 as of 19:54 EST Nov 24, 2003

I don't care WHAT the aim is. THEY aren't peaceful protestors then and they draw the fair attention of law enforcement. However, if they're just picking people because they protest, there's a serious check or balance missing somewhere.

And no, the protestor's don't represent the People. Reread the post - I said the gov't is SUPPOSED to represent the People and I believe that's becoming less and less the case. And actually, even if you read it the way you did, yes, those protestors ARE part of the people in the context of the statement. They're, presumably, U.S. citizens and are / should be afforded the same rights as non-protesting citizens.

I suspect that this will be a bigger success than you realize.

First, there are a number of factors you missed. Current broadband subscribers are dying to get it: DSL is about $5 more, and cable broadband is about $25 more (that's why Qwest and Comcast are complaining). Companies will order more than one connection. Government will order hundreds or thousands of connections. The article touched briefly on what was planned for Provo, one of the smaller cities: Since each intersection has low-resolution cameras installed for controlling traffic lights, they intended to connect each camera up to the network so that crashes and congestion can be viewed remotely. At each sporting event or traffic jam, the entire city's traffic pattern could then be sent to a central location and be more carefully coordinated. That's a few hundred connections right there for a single city.

Second, Your numbers are off. In one instance, you concluded that 2.8M * 12 = 67M which obviously wrong.

Rather than using the approximate numbers given in the article, I went to the census results for the area For the 4 counties involved in the project (Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Weber), there were 531,977 (not 248,000) households and 40,862 (not 34,500) businesses in 2000. Each of these counties is also experiencing rapid growth internally and due to in-migration.

Using the 2000 information, double your number of households, and increase your businesses by 1/3. That brings the elegible base up to 570,000, or 600,000 by the time it is implemented. You suggested that 33% of the population would be interested, but knowing the area, I'd suggest it is closer to 40-50%. The cost of $28/month is much less than what the Qwest/Comcast monopolies want to charge, even for DSL, so expect a huge price war (which is what the two companies were complaining about -- no more price gouging.) Qwest's current charges for 640k DSL is $32/month, + $5/month for modem, plus $100 install fee, plus ISP fees. Comcast is charging $53/month + modem + install for only slightly faster speeds. The Utopia system's $28/month + install is a great deal, considering you can run whatever you want on it, and you get substantially faster speeds.

Assuming your conservative base of 1/3 adoption and one line per business, that's 200,000 installations, $5,600,000 per month, $67,200,000 per year. Assuming a 2/5 adoption rate gives $80,640,000/year.

But there will be more users than just homes and businesses, and businesses are going to take more than one line each. My company will probably end up with 20 or more. Government facilities are planning on massive use of the system, including joining the system up to all the traffic lights and detection systems.

My current company works on traffic detection. Detection stations need to be connected online, and most are currently attached through CDPD modems or fairly expensive fiber cables anyway. Moving over to this service would give huge bandwidth benefits (converting from 9600-19200 baud CDPD to optical) and big savings (a few hundred each month per CDPD modem or wired connections, moving to $28 plus installation costs.) I've been in meetings where this project was discussed, including seeing the numbers run and seeing the savings to the company.

There are a lot more people interested in this than you might suspect, including a substantial cost savings to thousands of companies and geeks in the area.

frob

We've already paid for that. The U.S. Census Bureau's Tiger [sic] map database.

The TIGER files are a good place to start with a new mapping endeavor, but they are not an end unto themselves. A people's mapping project would do well to use a distributed approach that builds on what the TIGER files offers.

We've already paid for that. The U.S. Census Bureau's Tiger map database. You can get the files on CD or DVD, or via ftp. You'll need GIS software. Try GRASS.

It surprises me that they didn't use the TIGER data, available from the US Census Bureau.

Klynas Engineering makes a great product called Streets-On-A-Disk that covers any mapping need you might have. I used it as the mapping backend for a custom automatic vehicle location package I wrote. The software has a nifty API interface for external control and works great. The tech support rocks too - Scott, the president of the company and the guy who wrote the program, has provided me with tons of useful info. I have no interest in the company, I'm just a very satisfied customer.

It surprises me that they didn't use the TIGER data, available from the US Census Bureau.

Klynas Engineering makes a great product called Streets-On-A-Disk that covers any mapping need you might have. I used it as the mapping backend for a custom automatic vehicle location package I wrote. The software has a nifty API interface for external control and works great. The tech support rocks too - Scott, the president of the company and the guy who wrote the program, has provided me with tons of useful info. I have no interest in the company, I'm just a very satisfied customer.