What you are looking at IS the State, unless you stay constantly vigilant.
Yes, exactly. And obviously we are not there yet. However, from what I can see, we are going towards this. It may not be once corporation, but even if it is ten, twenty or thirty corporations that control most economic activity, this is concerning to me. Of particular concern is the American food supply, both its creation and its distribution. Small farms are disappearing, with huge corporate owned farms becoming dominant. I believe this is a dangerous concentration of power.
However, the elephant in the room is wealth distribution. The wealthiest Americans own a concerningly large portion of the national wealth right now. And it is a simple mathematical fact in the American system that wealth leads to political power. Thus, the American political system is now acting primarly in the interests of the most wealthy. The right wing, which is the most owned by the wealthy, push "low tax" and "small government" policies, whose sole aim is to increase the wealth of the most wealthy relative to the rest of the nation. And the "tea party" movement will not fix this. It will in fact make it far far worse.
It is a historical fact that the ONLY way America has found of leveling out wealth distribution is via a progressive income tax system. Following WWII, the top tax bracket (over $500000) was more than 90%. These tax rates effectively created the American middle class. In 1980, the upper tax bracket rate collapsed, and this began the decline of the American middle class. Seemingly paradoxically, the decline of the middle class has led to economic decline as well.
I would advise that if you value the future economic well being of your children and grand-children, that you perform a political and economic reality check.
Government should be small, on the side of the people and transparent when at all possible. Also, Importantly we should never have a regulation or law that we are compelled to live under that can not be easily explained and understood.
Ok, I agree with the "on the side of the people" and the "transparent" part. The "small" part might be nice. However, I would like you to consider a thought experiment, basically a reducto ad absurdum. Imagine a world in which there is only one corporation that controls all trade. I mean all. All goods must be bought through this corporation, and all people work through this corporation. What would the role of government be then? What if a person disagreed with that corporation? What if that corporation chose to banish that person from working? This would mean that this person would basically be out on the street with no chance of work. Would the government's role be to protect that person? Should the government act to break up that huge corporation to preserve trade? Would it? Or would the State have become the corporation?
National Defense, Infrastructure, Foreign Relations, Border Security, Protecting Individual Rights, Protecting trade between the states, Ensuring a uniform set of laws that normal people can understand and follow.
What happens when the rights of an individual conflicts with the rights of a huge corporation?
The State will always wield its power badly. The more power you give them past what is 100% absolutely needed results in worse than what you want to be protected from. Always.
You completely missed my point. If you try to eliminate the democratic State, the corporation will become the State. Only it will not be restricted by the laws of a democratic government. It will make its own defacto laws.
I am a right leaning libertarian and I think Musk is doing well. It is his business and he can try to accomplish whatever he wants.
I too believe that Elon Musk is awesome. He embodies the best of the free enterprise system. The problem is that most on the right, and that includes the funders of the tea party movement, espouse policies that will result not in a proper system of free enterprise where the best and brightest rise to the top, but rather a system where entrenched players act ruthlessly to maintain there positions of power. Whenever a small player looks too competitive, they will just absorb that player.
The idea that the removal of government power will result in a world where super-humans like Musk will be free to make life better for all of us is, I believe, a delusion. The simple fact is that you can never, ever eliminate the State and its power. There will always be some organization making laws that all society must follow. What is happening in the US is that the power of the State has migrated into private hands. Congress is now, for all intents and purposes owned by private corporations, who get Congress to write laws in their own interest (they are already writing laws to hinder the disruptive Space X) And if Congress lost the ability to control society, the power would then migrate into the hands of the largest corporations, which would basically mean a return to a feudalist society of lords and serfs. And judging by the fact that you are spending time posting on a plebian board such as slashdot, you are likely to be a serf, and not a lord. Doesn't sound very libertarian to me.
If you watch the Tesla news lately, I think it is apparent that the current American launch monopolists have initiated a wide ranging propaganda and political campaign against SpaceX. Examples of this are here and here, as well as comment boards on various articles about Space X. The memes I have noticed emphasized are first and foremost that SpaceX is cutting corners (aimed at legislators), that Space X is the beneficiary of "corporate welfare", and that Musk is a "communist bum" (aimed at right-leaning readers).
One of the primary reasons I think this is evidence of an organized campaign is the timing. Space X initiated the campaign against the Russian rocket engines being used by ULA, as well as objecting to the bulk purchases of launch contracts by the Airforce from ULA, thus locking Space X out of a significant number of launches before it gains certification. I can imagine this as a directive from ULA exectives being given around that time. Such campaigns typically take a few weeks to work-up. They take studies of public opinion, come up with themes to base their campaign around, and then test those themes with the public, often with focus groups. This lag of a few weeks for propaganda campaigns is typical when an organization suddenly decides to initiate a campaign based on new information. Watch for it next time you see a government or corporation being attacked by a new threat. This lag of two or more weeks between threat and response is typical I believe of an organized propaganda campaign.
This is a presentation on fusion I watched recently. It is by a Skunkworks engineer, made at Google's Solve for X program. It looks plausible to me. Would anyone care to comment on it?
Excellent post, containing actual arguments and links to real papers. Unfortunately we have to put up with provocateurs here, many of whom are likely paid to post, and most of whom have almost no idea of what they are talking about. To those of you who find these corrupt denier posters troubling, remember that science is an unending search for truth. It is the best way we have of comprehending the physical world. What the deniers do is the exact opposite of science.
We who follow science have truth and morality on our side. The power of the catholic church was once threatened by the scientist Galileo's scientific assertions that the Earth went around the Sun. He was persecuted but he stood his ground in defence of scientific truth. Now the power of oil billionaires is threatened by the scientific fact that carbon emissions are warming the Earth. They are using all their expertise in "public relations" to undermine any real action to reduce their power. But we must remember that no matter what the Grima Wormtongue deniers say, the well being of our grandchildren depends on breaking the power of these corrupt psychopathic billionaires. We must break our addiction to oil.
Of course all threats by corporations regarding regulation have proven to be true. Collapsible steering columns, air bags, anti-lock brakes and other government mandated technology standards have nearly destroyed the auto industry, as the American car companies promised they would.
You're going a little over board on the fatigue issue with Aluminum. How many times do you think you'd have to tap that frame with your fingernail?
If you are really worried about it, get a steel frame.
Not really. Riding on city roads places constant stress on frames. The zero fatigue limit on aluminum bikes basically means that your bike frame has a limit on how much it can be ridden. Ride it enough and it will crack. I have personally seen two cracked aluminum frames.
At the very least, I would never buy an aluminum frame unless I know that the frame is an aluminum alloy that has a non-zero fatigue limit. I would also never buy a used aluminum downhill bike.
Once I learned about carbon fiber thermoplastics, I realized that carbon fiber would be amenable to mass production. The idea is that you lay down the fibers using robotic technology. Then you encase the fiber in a plastic resin that becomes soft at high temperatures. Now you have made a flat carbon fiber sheet similar to sheet steel. Finally you use a hot press that presses the sheet into nearly any shape desired...ie. car parts. This is similar to how we form steel into car body parts. This processes is highly suitable for mass production. So yes, carbon fiber is becoming mainstream.
...CF is lighter and more rigid than aluminum, but if it gets a crack or gouge in it, the frame can't be mended... it has to be tossed...
Aluminum bikes have problems too. Pure aluminum has zero fatigue limit, which means that it WILL eventually crack. Zero fatigue limit means that even the smallest stress on an aluminum frame will cause it to fatigue. If you knocked on an aluminum frame with your fingernail enough times in the same spot, it would eventually fail.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The American government has been bought and paid for by private interests/corporations. Under FDR's description, that makes it fascist, or nearly so. Elect Chris Christy as President and that will settle it. He is a dangerous man.
Roosevelt once stated that this type of centralization of power in the private sector that corporations have today, could eventually lead to fascism. In some way, I don't think he was too far off.
Thank you for mentioning Roosevelt. I did a search just now and came up with his address to Congress on curbing monopolies in 1938. I think it gives me more of an idea as to the real reasons for WWII: private power versus public power.
Here is an exerpt:
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.
Is it really so hard to just grind the beans and brew it yourself? I do this every morning.
I totally agree. These machines make crap coffee for a massive premium price. They are the ink-jet printers of coffee. And I despise the amount of waste produced.
I use an espresso machine and a decent grinder to make Americano's in the morning...it takes a very short period of time, probably comparable to the kuereg. A cappuccino takes a bit longer with milk steaming, but still fairly fast. And I get a lovely crema which tastes oh so good.
Volcanoes emit CO2, though currently not at a rate even close to what we are emitting. However, with a long trend rising intensity of volcanic eruption, volcanoes can emit enough CO2 to substantially warm the planet.
Environmentalists certainly want you to believe that. It's funny how a group can hate humanity as much as they do and yet not commit mass suicide.
They are the ultimate hypocrites. They want the REST OF US to starve without GMO crops and transportation of food. But they themselves are far too heroic to die, of course.
Only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed 'trolling.' By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were 'non-commenters,' meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters
What of the percentage of trolls who are in fact paid to post on particular political issues. If I were extremely wealthy and wanted to push public opinion in a certain direction, I think that hiring internet trolls would be a relatively inexpensive way of reaching the public.
It is a fairly common idea in the ideology of many of those who run our education system that if you give students the ability to chose their professors or teachers, they will chose the best professors or teachers. The idea is to make education a marketable commodity with professors and teachers as service providers and students as consumers. There is a deep and fundamental flaw in this view. Markets are indeed extraordinarily good at satisfying consumer demand. The problem is that too many students are not demanding a quality education, but rather the highest possible grade, possibly with the least amount of effort. In other words too many students value the credential rather than the education it is meant to represent. Thus, the market system for education works against the Public Interest, putting an upward pressure on grades and a downwards pressure on standards.
What are some solutions to this quandry? The problem is often that grades for particular courses consist only of a percentage. In most schools and universities those percentages in a particular course do not differentiate between different professors or teachers. Thus a grade given by a challenging professor and one given by an easy professor are difficult to distinguish. The proposal in TFA might help the situation, but I think there is another way. What if each professor got a score not based on the evaluation by students but rather by how his students scored in other courses, especially those that follow his own course. This score for a professor would be like an adjustment factor for his grades. Let's say most students in one professor's Calculus II class who get 75% usually go on to get an 85% score in Calculus III. Thus, this professor's grades would be deemed better than another professor's grades whose 75% students usually go on to score 65% in Calculus III.
This system would reduce pressure on professors to raise grades, especially if students understood this rating system. All that would matter would be that the professor be consistent year after year. It might seem complicated to implement but in our world of computers and databases, I don't think it would be impossible to create. It wouldn't be necessary to follow all of a professor's students, only a few in order to gain a correlation. Indeed, all it would initially require would be for each professor or teacher to be given a unique code which would be attached to each grade given to each student. The rest would be data mining by whatever authority has access to the data.
Mandatory insurance is not health care reform. Yes I realize that there is more to the ACA than that but really if you want to provide health care for your citizens there are a lot better solutions out there. Unfortunately there is a fear of socialized health care in the US.
To quote Otto von Bismarck: "Politics is the art of the possible."
You see how well the last few years have gone. Every month GWB is looking so much better than Obama.
Yeah, GWB would have brought in sweeping health care reforms. Every time I hear statements like the above I am reminded how intellectually lazy the American intelligentsia is.
They awarded Obama the Peace Prize because he was personally spearheading negotiations with the Russians to reduce nuclear armament stockpiles. This didn't go anywhere largely because Congress would have vetoed any meaningful concessions. My source on this is 1 degree of separation from Obama (he works with people who would have worked with Obama.
I beg to differ. Try this experiment. Place a thick pillow on the ground, or perhaps two. Stand on these pillows with one leg and no other support for one minute. If your pillow stance is unstable enough, your foot will have to move around rapidly to maintain your balance, since by not being able to change the location of your foot on the pillow, you must instead change the orientation of your foot. I suspect that this robot is actually testing specifically the ability of ankle joints to maintain balance, since there is almost no side stepping visible on the part of the robot. The Boston Dynamics robots referred to in other posts often seem to rely mainly on sidestepping for balance, and often have peg legs instead of feet and ankles. This robot seems likely to be a proof of concept of one particular method of balance that in future robots will be combined with other methods of balance.
Slashdot Mirror
What you are looking at IS the State, unless you stay constantly vigilant.
Yes, exactly. And obviously we are not there yet. However, from what I can see, we are going towards this. It may not be once corporation, but even if it is ten, twenty or thirty corporations that control most economic activity, this is concerning to me. Of particular concern is the American food supply, both its creation and its distribution. Small farms are disappearing, with huge corporate owned farms becoming dominant. I believe this is a dangerous concentration of power.
However, the elephant in the room is wealth distribution. The wealthiest Americans own a concerningly large portion of the national wealth right now. And it is a simple mathematical fact in the American system that wealth leads to political power. Thus, the American political system is now acting primarly in the interests of the most wealthy. The right wing, which is the most owned by the wealthy, push "low tax" and "small government" policies, whose sole aim is to increase the wealth of the most wealthy relative to the rest of the nation. And the "tea party" movement will not fix this. It will in fact make it far far worse.
It is a historical fact that the ONLY way America has found of leveling out wealth distribution is via a progressive income tax system. Following WWII, the top tax bracket (over $500000) was more than 90%. These tax rates effectively created the American middle class. In 1980, the upper tax bracket rate collapsed, and this began the decline of the American middle class. Seemingly paradoxically, the decline of the middle class has led to economic decline as well.
I would advise that if you value the future economic well being of your children and grand-children, that you perform a political and economic reality check.
Government should be small, on the side of the people and transparent when at all possible. Also, Importantly we should never have a regulation or law that we are compelled to live under that can not be easily explained and understood.
Ok, I agree with the "on the side of the people" and the "transparent" part. The "small" part might be nice. However, I would like you to consider a thought experiment, basically a reducto ad absurdum. Imagine a world in which there is only one corporation that controls all trade. I mean all. All goods must be bought through this corporation, and all people work through this corporation. What would the role of government be then? What if a person disagreed with that corporation? What if that corporation chose to banish that person from working? This would mean that this person would basically be out on the street with no chance of work. Would the government's role be to protect that person? Should the government act to break up that huge corporation to preserve trade? Would it? Or would the State have become the corporation?
National Defense, Infrastructure, Foreign Relations, Border Security, Protecting Individual Rights, Protecting trade between the states, Ensuring a uniform set of laws that normal people can understand and follow.
What happens when the rights of an individual conflicts with the rights of a huge corporation?
So then, what is the purpose of the State?
The State will always wield its power badly. The more power you give them past what is 100% absolutely needed results in worse than what you want to be protected from. Always.
You completely missed my point. If you try to eliminate the democratic State, the corporation will become the State. Only it will not be restricted by the laws of a democratic government. It will make its own defacto laws.
I am a right leaning libertarian and I think Musk is doing well. It is his business and he can try to accomplish whatever he wants.
I too believe that Elon Musk is awesome. He embodies the best of the free enterprise system. The problem is that most on the right, and that includes the funders of the tea party movement, espouse policies that will result not in a proper system of free enterprise where the best and brightest rise to the top, but rather a system where entrenched players act ruthlessly to maintain there positions of power. Whenever a small player looks too competitive, they will just absorb that player.
The idea that the removal of government power will result in a world where super-humans like Musk will be free to make life better for all of us is, I believe, a delusion. The simple fact is that you can never, ever eliminate the State and its power. There will always be some organization making laws that all society must follow. What is happening in the US is that the power of the State has migrated into private hands. Congress is now, for all intents and purposes owned by private corporations, who get Congress to write laws in their own interest (they are already writing laws to hinder the disruptive Space X) And if Congress lost the ability to control society, the power would then migrate into the hands of the largest corporations, which would basically mean a return to a feudalist society of lords and serfs. And judging by the fact that you are spending time posting on a plebian board such as slashdot, you are likely to be a serf, and not a lord. Doesn't sound very libertarian to me.
If you watch the Tesla news lately, I think it is apparent that the current American launch monopolists have initiated a wide ranging propaganda and political campaign against SpaceX. Examples of this are here and here, as well as comment boards on various articles about Space X. The memes I have noticed emphasized are first and foremost that SpaceX is cutting corners (aimed at legislators), that Space X is the beneficiary of "corporate welfare", and that Musk is a "communist bum" (aimed at right-leaning readers).
One of the primary reasons I think this is evidence of an organized campaign is the timing. Space X initiated the campaign against the Russian rocket engines being used by ULA, as well as objecting to the bulk purchases of launch contracts by the Airforce from ULA, thus locking Space X out of a significant number of launches before it gains certification. I can imagine this as a directive from ULA exectives being given around that time. Such campaigns typically take a few weeks to work-up. They take studies of public opinion, come up with themes to base their campaign around, and then test those themes with the public, often with focus groups. This lag of a few weeks for propaganda campaigns is typical when an organization suddenly decides to initiate a campaign based on new information. Watch for it next time you see a government or corporation being attacked by a new threat. This lag of two or more weeks between threat and response is typical I believe of an organized propaganda campaign.
This is a presentation on fusion I watched recently. It is by a Skunkworks engineer, made at Google's Solve for X program. It looks plausible to me. Would anyone care to comment on it?
Excellent post, containing actual arguments and links to real papers. Unfortunately we have to put up with provocateurs here, many of whom are likely paid to post, and most of whom have almost no idea of what they are talking about. To those of you who find these corrupt denier posters troubling, remember that science is an unending search for truth. It is the best way we have of comprehending the physical world. What the deniers do is the exact opposite of science.
We who follow science have truth and morality on our side. The power of the catholic church was once threatened by the scientist Galileo's scientific assertions that the Earth went around the Sun. He was persecuted but he stood his ground in defence of scientific truth. Now the power of oil billionaires is threatened by the scientific fact that carbon emissions are warming the Earth. They are using all their expertise in "public relations" to undermine any real action to reduce their power. But we must remember that no matter what the Grima Wormtongue deniers say, the well being of our grandchildren depends on breaking the power of these corrupt psychopathic billionaires. We must break our addiction to oil.
Of course all threats by corporations regarding regulation have proven to be true. Collapsible steering columns, air bags, anti-lock brakes and other government mandated technology standards have nearly destroyed the auto industry, as the American car companies promised they would.
You're going a little over board on the fatigue issue with Aluminum. How many times do you think you'd have to tap that frame with your fingernail?
If you are really worried about it, get a steel frame.
Not really. Riding on city roads places constant stress on frames. The zero fatigue limit on aluminum bikes basically means that your bike frame has a limit on how much it can be ridden. Ride it enough and it will crack. I have personally seen two cracked aluminum frames.
At the very least, I would never buy an aluminum frame unless I know that the frame is an aluminum alloy that has a non-zero fatigue limit. I would also never buy a used aluminum downhill bike.
Once I learned about carbon fiber thermoplastics, I realized that carbon fiber would be amenable to mass production. The idea is that you lay down the fibers using robotic technology. Then you encase the fiber in a plastic resin that becomes soft at high temperatures. Now you have made a flat carbon fiber sheet similar to sheet steel. Finally you use a hot press that presses the sheet into nearly any shape desired...ie. car parts. This is similar to how we form steel into car body parts. This processes is highly suitable for mass production. So yes, carbon fiber is becoming mainstream.
...CF is lighter and more rigid than aluminum, but if it gets a crack or gouge in it, the frame can't be mended... it has to be tossed...
Aluminum bikes have problems too. Pure aluminum has zero fatigue limit, which means that it WILL eventually crack. Zero fatigue limit means that even the smallest stress on an aluminum frame will cause it to fatigue. If you knocked on an aluminum frame with your fingernail enough times in the same spot, it would eventually fail.
America looks more and more like a communist country every coming decade.
I think the words you were looking for are "totalitarian police state", or the like.
I think given this speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Congress in 1938, the best description would be a fascist state. It certainly isn't communism.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The American government has been bought and paid for by private interests/corporations. Under FDR's description, that makes it fascist, or nearly so. Elect Chris Christy as President and that will settle it. He is a dangerous man.
Roosevelt once stated that this type of centralization of power in the private sector that corporations have today, could eventually lead to fascism. In some way, I don't think he was too far off.
Thank you for mentioning Roosevelt. I did a search just now and came up with his address to Congress on curbing monopolies in 1938. I think it gives me more of an idea as to the real reasons for WWII: private power versus public power.
Here is an exerpt:
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.
Well, considering that conventional warfare is a nono, and nuclear warfare is a BIG NONO, but economic warfare is fair game, I'd say you have a point.
Money is soft power. Military weapons are hard power. This difference is quite obvious to Ukranians in Crimea.
Is it really so hard to just grind the beans and brew it yourself? I do this every morning.
I totally agree. These machines make crap coffee for a massive premium price. They are the ink-jet printers of coffee. And I despise the amount of waste produced.
I use an espresso machine and a decent grinder to make Americano's in the morning...it takes a very short period of time, probably comparable to the kuereg. A cappuccino takes a bit longer with milk steaming, but still fairly fast. And I get a lovely crema which tastes oh so good.
Volcanoes emit CO2, though currently not at a rate even close to what we are emitting. However, with a long trend rising intensity of volcanic eruption, volcanoes can emit enough CO2 to substantially warm the planet.
Environmentalists certainly want you to believe that. It's funny how a group can hate humanity as much as they do and yet not commit mass suicide.
They are the ultimate hypocrites. They want the REST OF US to starve without GMO crops and transportation of food. But they themselves are far too heroic to die, of course.
Strawman
Only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed 'trolling.' By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were 'non-commenters,' meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters
What of the percentage of trolls who are in fact paid to post on particular political issues. If I were extremely wealthy and wanted to push public opinion in a certain direction, I think that hiring internet trolls would be a relatively inexpensive way of reaching the public.
It is a fairly common idea in the ideology of many of those who run our education system that if you give students the ability to chose their professors or teachers, they will chose the best professors or teachers. The idea is to make education a marketable commodity with professors and teachers as service providers and students as consumers. There is a deep and fundamental flaw in this view. Markets are indeed extraordinarily good at satisfying consumer demand. The problem is that too many students are not demanding a quality education, but rather the highest possible grade, possibly with the least amount of effort. In other words too many students value the credential rather than the education it is meant to represent. Thus, the market system for education works against the Public Interest, putting an upward pressure on grades and a downwards pressure on standards.
What are some solutions to this quandry? The problem is often that grades for particular courses consist only of a percentage. In most schools and universities those percentages in a particular course do not differentiate between different professors or teachers. Thus a grade given by a challenging professor and one given by an easy professor are difficult to distinguish. The proposal in TFA might help the situation, but I think there is another way. What if each professor got a score not based on the evaluation by students but rather by how his students scored in other courses, especially those that follow his own course. This score for a professor would be like an adjustment factor for his grades. Let's say most students in one professor's Calculus II class who get 75% usually go on to get an 85% score in Calculus III. Thus, this professor's grades would be deemed better than another professor's grades whose 75% students usually go on to score 65% in Calculus III.
This system would reduce pressure on professors to raise grades, especially if students understood this rating system. All that would matter would be that the professor be consistent year after year. It might seem complicated to implement but in our world of computers and databases, I don't think it would be impossible to create. It wouldn't be necessary to follow all of a professor's students, only a few in order to gain a correlation. Indeed, all it would initially require would be for each professor or teacher to be given a unique code which would be attached to each grade given to each student. The rest would be data mining by whatever authority has access to the data.
Mandatory insurance is not health care reform. Yes I realize that there is more to the ACA than that but really if you want to provide health care for your citizens there are a lot better solutions out there. Unfortunately there is a fear of socialized health care in the US.
To quote Otto von Bismarck: "Politics is the art of the possible."
You see how well the last few years have gone. Every month GWB is looking so much better than Obama.
Yeah, GWB would have brought in sweeping health care reforms. Every time I hear statements like the above I am reminded how intellectually lazy the American intelligentsia is.
They didn't award it to Obama for anything.
They awarded Obama the Peace Prize because he was personally spearheading negotiations with the Russians to reduce nuclear armament stockpiles. This didn't go anywhere largely because Congress would have vetoed any meaningful concessions. My source on this is 1 degree of separation from Obama (he works with people who would have worked with Obama.
No human has vibrating feet.
I beg to differ. Try this experiment. Place a thick pillow on the ground, or perhaps two. Stand on these pillows with one leg and no other support for one minute. If your pillow stance is unstable enough, your foot will have to move around rapidly to maintain your balance, since by not being able to change the location of your foot on the pillow, you must instead change the orientation of your foot. I suspect that this robot is actually testing specifically the ability of ankle joints to maintain balance, since there is almost no side stepping visible on the part of the robot. The Boston Dynamics robots referred to in other posts often seem to rely mainly on sidestepping for balance, and often have peg legs instead of feet and ankles. This robot seems likely to be a proof of concept of one particular method of balance that in future robots will be combined with other methods of balance.