I use the Magic Trackpad, which I find ergonomically so much better than a mouse. Even after a long workday (it is not that unusual for me to work 12 hours or even more), my wrist no longer hurts.
Also, there is an OS X program called Time Out, and a free version called Time Out Free, available from the Apple App Store. It has repeating, adjustable timers you can set to remind you to take short breaks. I think the default settings are a minute or two minutes every 15 minutes, and 5 or 10 minutes on the hour. But the times are fully adjustable as are the reminder tones and whether you want a pop-up.
It is true that standing up, at least part of the time, can be a healthy improvement over sitting for 8-10 hours a day. However, I am unaware of any study showing that standing for the entire time is necessary or even desirable. That is the reason for the recent popularity of the adjustable desks, that can be changed from sitting height to standing height. They are much more popular than standing-only desks although quite a bit more expensive, too.
Actually, far too many workspaces are set up at countertop height (34"-36"), which is much too high. A sit-down working desk, especially if you spend a lot of time at the keyboard, should be no higher than 28"-30" off the floor. That is why add-on keyboard drawers hang UNDER the desk, often by 4"-6".
I see what you are saying. And that is true, as far as it goes.
However, we do know some things, to within certain limits of accuracy, about the observable universe. And in our observable universe, overall entropy always increases, even though localized areas of "complexity building" can occur.
"But I don't think anyone can legitimately argue that the US's current space vision is the wrong thing to do in the long term."
I can.
Passing up the opportunity to develop a long-term, industrially-oriented moonbase is nothing short of dropping the ball. The moon gives you a weak gravity well -- but a gravity well -- in which to construct large projects and launch them. It is well enough to say that this might be done better in LEO, but that simply isn't true. We have decades of experience now showing that construction in microgravity is far, far too slow and expensive. You need appreciable gravity in order to do efficient construction. At least at our level of technology.
Being able to construct on the moon -- even if the materials are delivered as pre-assembled modules, as they now are to LEO -- would be a great deal more efficient. And there is a solid evidence that the moon might actually turn out to be feasible to mine. For example, as the Indian survey vehicle determined, there is a significant and possibly even commercially-viable concentration of fissile uranium, right on the surface of the moon.
Passing all this by, in order to launch gigantic vehicles intended for long-duration missions to deeper space, is just plain irresponsible. You are trading top-notch, long-term apples for short-term oranges that are already moldy.
"The fact is that AQ shifts all over the net and phones."
That may be so, but even if it is, it does not mean that
"Parts of it really were needed."
... is a conclusion that logically follows.
Please give me specific instances of those "necessary" parts of the Patriot Act having had some real, tangible benefit... like, say, catching terrorists.
If you can give me some, I might be convinced. Otherwise, I will stick with my original position.
You have continued to miss the point. The school district referenced went from a $400,000 deficit to a $1,500,000 surplus virtually overnight. It can now afford better facilities, better working conditions, and raises for some of the teachers.
Their cut of their own health insurance bills went from 0% to something like 6%, and 10% to 16%, depending on the brackets they were in. Hardly something that is going to break them, especially considering that they were already getting paid substantially more than comparable private-sector jobs (not to mention probably better health-care plans that the private sector) in the first place.
No, read your Smith again, particularly the part about how someone acting on his own, through free trade, benefits society, while centrally planned trade does not.
Smith explains at length that in free trade, the market establishes a meaningful and efficient exchange rate (price signal) for goods. These price signals are the essential drivers of markets, and without them, free markets cannot exist. A free market, according to Smith's explanation, *IS* a capitalist market. They are one and the same. (As the other poster pointed out, he did not use the word "capitalism", but his meaning and his references to capital are perfectly clear, so that's a moot point.)
Since, according to Smith, a market that is not free does not generate the proper price signals for the efficient use of capital, then a market that is not free is not a capitalist market. Q.E.D.
"That's funny, given that it doesn't mention the word "capitalism" even once. Just FYI, the word itself - as a label for a specific economic system - did not appear until mid-19th century ("capital" was known and used before that, of course, including by Smith; but it is a description of a type of property, not of an economic system)."
Sorry again, but it won't wash. Especially the latter part.
From "Wealth of Nations":
"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestick industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestiek to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other eases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good."
Smith is very clearly describing an economic system (and that's not the only place he does it), based on the use of capitalism. It is obvious to the merest idiot that he is referring to what we call "capitalism", even if he doesn't use that particular word. Your splitting of hairs has no bearing on the fundamental argument... which you have lost.
And your "side note" is equally wrong:
"As a side note, it's ironic that you bring Adam Smith into this, as his meaning of "free market" is completely different from yours - he used it in a sense of 'free from monopoly', 'free to compete' - not 'free from government intervention'.... 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'"
Smith refers here and elsewhere to the necessity of some regulation that is necessary to KEEP markets free... essentially anti-trust laws. It is a well-understood principle of economics that monopoly and oligopoly do not constitute free markets. So you are making a pointless statement here. We can't be free of all government regulation, things simply don't work that way. But antitrust laws can be seen, not as government "interference" in free markets, but rather as meta-rules that keep businesses operating within free markets.
Current U.S. monetary policy, in which the government and the Fed directly manipulate the money supply via interest rates, and other aspects of the markets through taxes, subsidies, and social services, cannot even remotely be considered "anti-trust". It is interference in markets, plain and simple. It is intended to be so. And this interference -- again almost by definition, and intentionally -- distort the price signals that are necessary for a "free" market to exist. The price signals which Adam Smith takes so much trouble to expound about.
Again, you are splitting hairs to try to make your point, but you have lost the fundamental essence of the argument, which was whether free markets -- essentially free from outside (such as government) control, are a necessary ingredient of capitalism. They are.
Be careful what you call "law". Unconstitutional legislation or action by the government is technically not "law", even though it looks and smells like one. Although it sometimes operates under the color of law until it eventually gets shut down.
It seems to have escaped the notice of most people in this thread that even consumer-level "devices" eventually get checked, down to the chip level. It would be pretty hard to conceal a credible threat. Further, as someone else already pointed out, beyond a certain "security" level, government and military devices have to be built with U.S. parts, which only makes sense.
So no, the devices are not really much of a threat. But a network would be.
As someone else already explained, the coastline of most of Alaska is irrelevant. Anyone landing there would have a hell of a time getting just about anywhere else.
I agree: we could spend the money currently being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, etc. along our "lower 48" borders instead. The money would stay at home rather than being pissed away overseas, and there are enough people to do a decent job.
"The definition of capitalism that you gave - which was broadly right - is strictly about the mode of property as it pertains to capital (i.e. means of production). This is the definition as it stood pretty much ever since the word has been introduced in political theory."
Sorry, but you're simply wrong. Read Adam Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", published in 1776. It was one of the first ever works of economics, and it defines capitalism in terms of free markets.
"Dude. Inflation IS NOT A PROBLEM. It's absolutely not a problem if there's a robust growth to compensate for it."
According to Keynesian economic theory... but none of the others. The problem here is that Keynesian economics has been shown not to work. Not just once, but again, and again, and again. Most recently in 2008, when the housing and finance "bubble" was CAUSED by the government and Fed using Keynesian theory to manipulate the money supply.
Russia did not have a Keynesian (or very much Capitalist... yet) economy, so it is hardly a good comparison. But even if it did, it is still not a good comparison because during recessions in the United States over the last 80 years (under Keynesian and Keynesian-like Government economic manipulation), wages have NOT kept pace with inflation. So the 2 situations simply aren't comparable.
And yet, during much of that period, the US still had a "robust" economy.
So: you should care because that situation simply hasn't applied here. If it did, I agree, there would not be very much problem.
Yes, I think we are agreed on those points. I was simply trying to point out that without laissez faire governmental policy, what you have is not capitalism, it is central control, which is the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism requires the price signals that are generated by free markets to pick the "winners" and "losers".
When the government interferes (i.e., not "laissez faire"), helps some but not others, bails out some but not others, gives favors to some but not others, it ain't capitalism anymore.
No, you weren't paying attention. The definition of capitalism requires free markets, in which people voluntarily exchange goods for mutual benefits (one of those goods might be money, but not necessarily).
If the government is intervening, then by definition, and also by common sense, you don't have a free market. And therefore it is not capitalism. Capitalism is driven by price signals that are created by the free exchange of goods. When governments intervene, those price signals are distorted, and the markets are no longer sending the proper price signals.
Besides which, if the government is aiding some but not others, then it is again distorting the free exchange of goods, and the government, not the markets, is picking the winners and losers. That falls under the heading of "central planning", or "central control", which is the economic opposite of capitalism.
What the other poster said. Exactly. Self-replication, the seeming creation of greater complexity out of less complexity, is only possible in open systems, that can get information or energy from elsewhere.
The universe, being (as far as we know) a closed system, therefore, can only allow it in relatively small and isolated regions, precisely because of entropy. Local entropy can go down (self-replication) but inevitably it adds to the overall entropy of the universe.
Slashdot Mirror
I use the Magic Trackpad, which I find ergonomically so much better than a mouse. Even after a long workday (it is not that unusual for me to work 12 hours or even more), my wrist no longer hurts.
Also, there is an OS X program called Time Out, and a free version called Time Out Free, available from the Apple App Store. It has repeating, adjustable timers you can set to remind you to take short breaks. I think the default settings are a minute or two minutes every 15 minutes, and 5 or 10 minutes on the hour. But the times are fully adjustable as are the reminder tones and whether you want a pop-up.
It is true that standing up, at least part of the time, can be a healthy improvement over sitting for 8-10 hours a day. However, I am unaware of any study showing that standing for the entire time is necessary or even desirable. That is the reason for the recent popularity of the adjustable desks, that can be changed from sitting height to standing height. They are much more popular than standing-only desks although quite a bit more expensive, too.
Actually, far too many workspaces are set up at countertop height (34"-36"), which is much too high. A sit-down working desk, especially if you spend a lot of time at the keyboard, should be no higher than 28"-30" off the floor. That is why add-on keyboard drawers hang UNDER the desk, often by 4"-6".
I see what you are saying. And that is true, as far as it goes.
However, we do know some things, to within certain limits of accuracy, about the observable universe. And in our observable universe, overall entropy always increases, even though localized areas of "complexity building" can occur.
"But I don't think anyone can legitimately argue that the US's current space vision is the wrong thing to do in the long term."
I can.
Passing up the opportunity to develop a long-term, industrially-oriented moonbase is nothing short of dropping the ball. The moon gives you a weak gravity well -- but a gravity well -- in which to construct large projects and launch them. It is well enough to say that this might be done better in LEO, but that simply isn't true. We have decades of experience now showing that construction in microgravity is far, far too slow and expensive. You need appreciable gravity in order to do efficient construction. At least at our level of technology.
Being able to construct on the moon -- even if the materials are delivered as pre-assembled modules, as they now are to LEO -- would be a great deal more efficient. And there is a solid evidence that the moon might actually turn out to be feasible to mine. For example, as the Indian survey vehicle determined, there is a significant and possibly even commercially-viable concentration of fissile uranium, right on the surface of the moon.
Passing all this by, in order to launch gigantic vehicles intended for long-duration missions to deeper space, is just plain irresponsible. You are trading top-notch, long-term apples for short-term oranges that are already moldy.
"The fact is that AQ shifts all over the net and phones."
That may be so, but even if it is, it does not mean that
"Parts of it really were needed."
... is a conclusion that logically follows.
Please give me specific instances of those "necessary" parts of the Patriot Act having had some real, tangible benefit... like, say, catching terrorists.
If you can give me some, I might be convinced. Otherwise, I will stick with my original position.
"This would not be done if the threat were only hypothetical. "
I did not state that the threat is hypothetical, I stated that it would be hard to do.
Relatively speaking, we would have vastly more reason to have security concerns about a network that about individual devices.
"The US government went into a huge panic a few years ago about hardware hacking---this doesn't happen unless something Very Bad happened"
Utter nonsense. The US government and military have panicked over complete bullshit quite frequently.
You have continued to miss the point. The school district referenced went from a $400,000 deficit to a $1,500,000 surplus virtually overnight. It can now afford better facilities, better working conditions, and raises for some of the teachers.
Their cut of their own health insurance bills went from 0% to something like 6%, and 10% to 16%, depending on the brackets they were in. Hardly something that is going to break them, especially considering that they were already getting paid substantially more than comparable private-sector jobs (not to mention probably better health-care plans that the private sector) in the first place.
I should have added:
"Since, according to Smith, and nearly all non-Keynesian economists, a market that is not free does not generate the proper price signals...
No, read your Smith again, particularly the part about how someone acting on his own, through free trade, benefits society, while centrally planned trade does not.
Smith explains at length that in free trade, the market establishes a meaningful and efficient exchange rate (price signal) for goods. These price signals are the essential drivers of markets, and without them, free markets cannot exist. A free market, according to Smith's explanation, *IS* a capitalist market. They are one and the same. (As the other poster pointed out, he did not use the word "capitalism", but his meaning and his references to capital are perfectly clear, so that's a moot point.)
Since, according to Smith, a market that is not free does not generate the proper price signals for the efficient use of capital, then a market that is not free is not a capitalist market. Q.E.D.
"That's funny, given that it doesn't mention the word "capitalism" even once. Just FYI, the word itself - as a label for a specific economic system - did not appear until mid-19th century ("capital" was known and used before that, of course, including by Smith; but it is a description of a type of property, not of an economic system)."
Sorry again, but it won't wash. Especially the latter part.
From "Wealth of Nations":
"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestick industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestiek to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other eases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good."
Smith is very clearly describing an economic system (and that's not the only place he does it), based on the use of capitalism. It is obvious to the merest idiot that he is referring to what we call "capitalism", even if he doesn't use that particular word. Your splitting of hairs has no bearing on the fundamental argument... which you have lost.
And your "side note" is equally wrong:
"As a side note, it's ironic that you bring Adam Smith into this, as his meaning of "free market" is completely different from yours - he used it in a sense of 'free from monopoly', 'free to compete' - not 'free from government intervention'. ... 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'"
Smith refers here and elsewhere to the necessity of some regulation that is necessary to KEEP markets free... essentially anti-trust laws. It is a well-understood principle of economics that monopoly and oligopoly do not constitute free markets. So you are making a pointless statement here. We can't be free of all government regulation, things simply don't work that way. But antitrust laws can be seen, not as government "interference" in free markets, but rather as meta-rules that keep businesses operating within free markets.
Current U.S. monetary policy, in which the government and the Fed directly manipulate the money supply via interest rates, and other aspects of the markets through taxes, subsidies, and social services, cannot even remotely be considered "anti-trust". It is interference in markets, plain and simple. It is intended to be so. And this interference -- again almost by definition, and intentionally -- distort the price signals that are necessary for a "free" market to exist. The price signals which Adam Smith takes so much trouble to expound about.
Again, you are splitting hairs to try to make your point, but you have lost the fundamental essence of the argument, which was whether free markets -- essentially free from outside (such as government) control, are a necessary ingredient of capitalism. They are.
No, the government prevented them from establishing a network because it did not trust them.
Even the idea that "parts of it were needed" is highly questionable.
Be careful what you call "law". Unconstitutional legislation or action by the government is technically not "law", even though it looks and smells like one. Although it sometimes operates under the color of law until it eventually gets shut down.
It seems to have escaped the notice of most people in this thread that even consumer-level "devices" eventually get checked, down to the chip level. It would be pretty hard to conceal a credible threat. Further, as someone else already pointed out, beyond a certain "security" level, government and military devices have to be built with U.S. parts, which only makes sense.
So no, the devices are not really much of a threat. But a network would be.
As someone else already explained, the coastline of most of Alaska is irrelevant. Anyone landing there would have a hell of a time getting just about anywhere else. I agree: we could spend the money currently being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, etc. along our "lower 48" borders instead. The money would stay at home rather than being pissed away overseas, and there are enough people to do a decent job.
"The universe, being (as far as we know) a closed system..."
Your words:
"There is convincing evidence that the cosmos is a house of mirrors and thus finite and closed."
I fail to see where there is disagreement here.
"The definition of capitalism that you gave - which was broadly right - is strictly about the mode of property as it pertains to capital (i.e. means of production). This is the definition as it stood pretty much ever since the word has been introduced in political theory."
Sorry, but you're simply wrong. Read Adam Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", published in 1776. It was one of the first ever works of economics, and it defines capitalism in terms of free markets.
You lose.
According to Keynesian economic theory... but none of the others. The problem here is that Keynesian economics has been shown not to work. Not just once, but again, and again, and again. Most recently in 2008, when the housing and finance "bubble" was CAUSED by the government and Fed using Keynesian theory to manipulate the money supply.
Russia did not have a Keynesian (or very much Capitalist... yet) economy, so it is hardly a good comparison. But even if it did, it is still not a good comparison because during recessions in the United States over the last 80 years (under Keynesian and Keynesian-like Government economic manipulation), wages have NOT kept pace with inflation. So the 2 situations simply aren't comparable.
And yet, during much of that period, the US still had a "robust" economy.
So: you should care because that situation simply hasn't applied here. If it did, I agree, there would not be very much problem.
I stand corrected. My memory apparently failed me on that one.
Yes, I think we are agreed on those points. I was simply trying to point out that without laissez faire governmental policy, what you have is not capitalism, it is central control, which is the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism requires the price signals that are generated by free markets to pick the "winners" and "losers".
When the government interferes (i.e., not "laissez faire"), helps some but not others, bails out some but not others, gives favors to some but not others, it ain't capitalism anymore.
No, you weren't paying attention. The definition of capitalism requires free markets, in which people voluntarily exchange goods for mutual benefits (one of those goods might be money, but not necessarily).
If the government is intervening, then by definition, and also by common sense, you don't have a free market. And therefore it is not capitalism. Capitalism is driven by price signals that are created by the free exchange of goods. When governments intervene, those price signals are distorted, and the markets are no longer sending the proper price signals.
Besides which, if the government is aiding some but not others, then it is again distorting the free exchange of goods, and the government, not the markets, is picking the winners and losers. That falls under the heading of "central planning", or "central control", which is the economic opposite of capitalism.
What the other poster said. Exactly. Self-replication, the seeming creation of greater complexity out of less complexity, is only possible in open systems, that can get information or energy from elsewhere.
The universe, being (as far as we know) a closed system, therefore, can only allow it in relatively small and isolated regions, precisely because of entropy. Local entropy can go down (self-replication) but inevitably it adds to the overall entropy of the universe.
"which is in all honestly quite pointless."
What's your point?
"Many people win the lottery."
True, but it misses the point: the unions said it would be the downfall of the teachers. It has been anything but.