And the Fed's so-called "quantitative easing" is different from that... how?
It appears that the debt-backed money system we've been using since 1971 (when Nixon closed the gold window) has run itself out to its logical conclusion: an exponential explosion of debt as we approach the vertical asymptote.
I'm not arguing for a gold standard; a fiat system can work just fine as long as the quantity is controlled sensibly, as you imply. But I don't think that ceding the "issuing power" to private banks is a good solution either. For example, the Bank of North Dakota strikes a good balance. It doesn't issue currency per se, but it does handle all the state's revenues, and makes loans (which is essentially the same thing as issuing currency) to local banks and some other institutional borrowers. And the interest on those loans goes into ND's coffers instead of being paid to, say, Goldman Sachs.
So, contrary to what the GP said, ND is in fact "making a profit" from all this, which is a distinct benefit to all its citizens.
The gov't could at least lose less money if it issued its own currency (beyond just coins) instead of borrowing its money supply from privately owned banks.
If the population of hard-to-spot brown dwarf stars turns out to be higher than previously thought, would the increased mass be enough to account for dark matter?
Moon-Ex CEO Bob Richards was on a panel at the International Symposium on Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) last October. He didn't break any "news" there, but gave a welcome update on the latest developments. Very interesting talk, worth a look.
Thanks for sharing, that's the first time I've seen a somewhat thoughtful and serious (if not rigorous) attempt to debunk Savory's claims. Unfortunately, it disappoints on several fronts. First it gets some key facts wrong. For example, Holistic Management is not a "livestock management system" it is applicable to any context, not just agriculture. The livestock management system used by Savory is called Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing (MIRG) or just "rotational grazing" for short. A minor distinction, perhaps, but one that Savory takes pains to make clear in numerous lectures. So, right out of the gate, it tells me that this author might not know as much as he thinks he does about Savory's methods.
In general, the entire piece is long on "common sense" or "everybody knows that..." claims, and short on actual scientific citations. (I counted zero throughout... maybe I missed one?) It also has some contradictions and logical failings. For example, "Most arid grasslands have low productivity, thus low ability to store new sources of carbon." This ignores the whole point of MIRG, which is to improve the health and productivity of marginal lands, thus increasing their ability to sequester carbon. I could go on, but I don't have all day.
Yes, before and after photos may just be "anecdotal" evidence, but at least they are evidence. I didn't see much in the way of superior or more-rigorous evidence in this article.
Meanwhile, folks like Joel Salatin and thousands of others continue to enjoy success with MIRG on 6 out of 7 continents, in virtually every type of climate where grazing is possible.
Hm.. well... you pretty-much validate my point here. If you are buying TSLA as a "hot stock" investment, then you deserve to take your short-term loss. But if you instead had the "vision" to see this as a long-term opportunity, you might understand why we are still YEARS away from knowing how the TSLA gamble will play out. And you would not be perturbed by random fluctuations in the market.
Seriously, we've heard this gripe before, and gotten over it just fine. They used to complain that it couldn't be done. Then the Roadster proved them wrong. Then they said it couldn't be repackaged for the "mainstream" luxury market, until Tesla started shipping the Model S. Then they said Tesla would never be able to ramp up Model S production to meet demand, until... well, they're still trying to catch up with the backlog of orders, but they are making progress.
And simultaneously they are also (finally) bringing the Model X to market and investing heavily in the Giga Factory to enable high-volume production of ALL electric vehicles, especially their own Model 3.
FTFA: "Tesla has lost its luster, he said, and could soon lose credibility."
Any investor who is so short-sighted as to sell off Tesla shares based on the incidental losses last quarter had no business buying those shares in the first place. Elon has been crystal clear about his plans for Tesla's development right from the beginning. If you're freaked out about strict GAAP losses at such an early stage of growth, then you don't have a realistic understanding of how such large (huge) capital-intensive enterprises bootstrap themselves. Such investors were just looking for a short-term capital gain, and wet their pants at the first sign of slow-down in Tesla's meteoric rise. Good riddance to them.
Bottom line: Tesla has a multi-thousand-customer waiting list for the Model S, and 20K reservations for the Model X... If you do the math, that's a couple BILLION in pent-up demand for a product that only Tesla currently provides. And lucky for them, they haven't even built those factories yet. So unlike the "major players" in the market, they don't have to "re-tool"... they're building from scratch, which gives them an advantage at least as big as the disadvantage you claim.
Either way, when you factor in the cost of fuel, the TCO still works out to be competitive with an average mid-range family sedan, even at the current low price of gas. This advantage is bound to grow over time as the price of oil inevitably rebounds.
If every home and business had a battery system capable of delivering 24 hours of average load, we could switch to 100% renewable energy sources virtually overnight. (It would still take several years, even under ideal conditions, I know.) I'd venture to say that enabling such a transition is Elon's primary impetus for bringing the "home battery" to market.
I'm just spitballin' here, but I bet they'll figure some way to integrate the battery pack with a solar installation in such a way as to satisfy the grid-tie requirements that some states have recently imposed, while still delivering "off-grid" functionality. If, for example, they only start feeding power back into the grid after the battery pack is fully charged, then they could still satisfy some of these local statutes while delivering "effectively" off-grid capability in times of need.
Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. I admit I'd been misled by photographs of visible "floating islands" of debris, but after reading my own Wikipedia link I see that you are right. That is a bummer.
Why do people dump trash in the ocean, anyway? I've always found that puzzling.
It's been over a decade since I first saw thermal polymerization mentioned here. I've often wondered if it would be economical to build a ship around such a contraption in order to trawl through the great ocean gyres, scooping up plastic garbage, squeezing out the water, and rendering it down into some kind of fuel. I reckon the process could be made energy-positive, but whether it would be enough to turn a profit is a tougher question.
For actual artificial photosynthesis, check out Nate Lewis's work at Cal-Tech. In a nutshell: They note that natural photosynthesis is only about 2% efficient, so they are looking to improve on nature in this process, using off-the-shelf semiconductor printing processes. IIRC, they build a "forest" of upright conductive columns a few nano-meters apart, in order to mimic the band-gap of visible photons. He describes it in some detail in this lecture from a couple of years ago.
If you've actually run the numbers, I'm happy to concede the point. but I think it's still an open possibility. And I think the larger point stands: This is all about convenience and flexibility, the ability to get eyes and/or ordnance onto any specific target on the globe in under an hour. If you have a different explanation, please share.
It all depends on how much delta-V you can impart to your projectile, and by what means (and on what vector). Yes, it's a big push, but you've got 80lbs of reaction mass to work with (at least). It's not hard to imagine making this work with a very simple mechanical device. In particular, if you launch a spotter/sniper pair of satellites, they can both be optimized for their particular jobs.
For example, the spotter-sat could eject a small "hummingbird" reentry vehicle shortly after reaching orbit, in order to descend over the target area, and still be hovering on station a half-hour later when then "sniper-sat" comes into range.
IOW, yes that IS how orbital mechanics work, if you can generate enough delta-v, pointed in the right direction. Once you make interface with the upper atmosphere, you've got the ability to "steer" toward your target.
Of course this isn't a cost-saving approach, it's real goal is maximum convenience and flexibility. Let's say I want "eyes" on a particular location ASAP, but I don't have any "birds" on a good trajectory for several hours to come. This would allow me to put a satellite precisely on target in under an hour.
And if they can add a miniature projectile launcher into the same 100lb package, they've basically got a global "kill switch" for a limited range of targets. You wouldn't need more than a few pounds of depleted uranium, shaped into a steerable "bolt" and packed with some high explosive, and the necessary thrust could probably be provided by a simple spring mechanism, just like a crossbow.
With a 100lb mass budget, you could probably even allow enough propellant to get the bird back over the same spot (or near enough to shoot at it) on the very next orbit. Say the satellite costs a $mil, plus another $mil for the launch... that's cheaper, per shot, than some of the ordnance already in service. Or, if you don't mind launching two in rapid succession, you can use the first one as spotter and the second one as sniper.
I wonder how long it will take for the magnitude of that achievement to be noticed, let alone to sink in with T.C. Mits. I have a feeling that it will get mentioned, and Bill Nye will share a few words on CNN, but that it won't get much play in the mainstream press. We'll find out soon enough, I guess.
How can you claim to have any knowledge of the degree to which Iran is enriching its uranium? Citation please! What we've heard from international inspectors seems to indicate that they are playing above board, just as it seemed in the run-up to the Iraq war... Pardon me if some of us get a sense of "deja-vu" in this situation.
Ok, sure. But given the prevailing wind patterns, wiping out Israel with nukes would not have favorable "fallout" for Iran. Therefore, why would they do it? I still don't see it.
It's the same MAD conundrum that kept the USA and USSR from wiping each other out a few decades ago. We survived that threat ok, and the USSR was a much worse threat than puny Iran ever was or will be.
You're right. A nuclear "terrorist" attack is not impossible in the next 10 years, esp. the "dirty bomb" variety. But I don't think even the the "loonies" in Iran would launch a first strike. What possible benefit could be gained? At what cost? The entire proposition is ludicrous. Please explain.
Slashdot Mirror
And the Fed's so-called "quantitative easing" is different from that... how?
It appears that the debt-backed money system we've been using since 1971 (when Nixon closed the gold window) has run itself out to its logical conclusion: an exponential explosion of debt as we approach the vertical asymptote.
I'm not arguing for a gold standard; a fiat system can work just fine as long as the quantity is controlled sensibly, as you imply. But I don't think that ceding the "issuing power" to private banks is a good solution either. For example, the Bank of North Dakota strikes a good balance. It doesn't issue currency per se, but it does handle all the state's revenues, and makes loans (which is essentially the same thing as issuing currency) to local banks and some other institutional borrowers. And the interest on those loans goes into ND's coffers instead of being paid to, say, Goldman Sachs.
So, contrary to what the GP said, ND is in fact "making a profit" from all this, which is a distinct benefit to all its citizens.
The gov't could at least lose less money if it issued its own currency (beyond just coins) instead of borrowing its money supply from privately owned banks.
If the population of hard-to-spot brown dwarf stars turns out to be higher than previously thought, would the increased mass be enough to account for dark matter?
You can't be serious. Of COURSE there will be a "free hardware" movement. It's already beginning to happen...
Hm... well, I got myself all het-up to rant, but seem to have blown it in the first line of text. That pretty much covers it.
G'night...
Moon-Ex CEO Bob Richards was on a panel at the International Symposium on Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) last October. He didn't break any "news" there, but gave a welcome update on the latest developments. Very interesting talk, worth a look.
To welcome our new Killer Robot overlords.
Thanks for sharing, that's the first time I've seen a somewhat thoughtful and serious (if not rigorous) attempt to debunk Savory's claims. Unfortunately, it disappoints on several fronts. First it gets some key facts wrong. For example, Holistic Management is not a "livestock management system" it is applicable to any context, not just agriculture. The livestock management system used by Savory is called Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing (MIRG) or just "rotational grazing" for short. A minor distinction, perhaps, but one that Savory takes pains to make clear in numerous lectures. So, right out of the gate, it tells me that this author might not know as much as he thinks he does about Savory's methods.
In general, the entire piece is long on "common sense" or "everybody knows that..." claims, and short on actual scientific citations. (I counted zero throughout... maybe I missed one?) It also has some contradictions and logical failings. For example, "Most arid grasslands have low productivity, thus low ability to store new sources of carbon." This ignores the whole point of MIRG, which is to improve the health and productivity of marginal lands, thus increasing their ability to sequester carbon. I could go on, but I don't have all day.
Yes, before and after photos may just be "anecdotal" evidence, but at least they are evidence. I didn't see much in the way of superior or more-rigorous evidence in this article.
Meanwhile, folks like Joel Salatin and thousands of others continue to enjoy success with MIRG on 6 out of 7 continents, in virtually every type of climate where grazing is possible.
Those time-traveling immortals should have taken a detour via 2013 to hear Allan Savory's TED Talk: Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change. The action is all in the soil, not up in the sky.
Erm... whaa....? I'm not sure... was there a verb in your second sentence there?
Imagine for a sec that I'm not high on cocaine... how would you explain your point now?
Hm.. well... you pretty-much validate my point here. If you are buying TSLA as a "hot stock" investment, then you deserve to take your short-term loss. But if you instead had the "vision" to see this as a long-term opportunity, you might understand why we are still YEARS away from knowing how the TSLA gamble will play out. And you would not be perturbed by random fluctuations in the market.
And peddling too... ;-)
Seriously, we've heard this gripe before, and gotten over it just fine. They used to complain that it couldn't be done. Then the Roadster proved them wrong. Then they said it couldn't be repackaged for the "mainstream" luxury market, until Tesla started shipping the Model S. Then they said Tesla would never be able to ramp up Model S production to meet demand, until... well, they're still trying to catch up with the backlog of orders, but they are making progress.
And simultaneously they are also (finally) bringing the Model X to market and investing heavily in the Giga Factory to enable high-volume production of ALL electric vehicles, especially their own Model 3.
FTFA: "Tesla has lost its luster, he said, and could soon lose credibility."
Any investor who is so short-sighted as to sell off Tesla shares based on the incidental losses last quarter had no business buying those shares in the first place. Elon has been crystal clear about his plans for Tesla's development right from the beginning. If you're freaked out about strict GAAP losses at such an early stage of growth, then you don't have a realistic understanding of how such large (huge) capital-intensive enterprises bootstrap themselves. Such investors were just looking for a short-term capital gain, and wet their pants at the first sign of slow-down in Tesla's meteoric rise. Good riddance to them.
Bottom line: Tesla has a multi-thousand-customer waiting list for the Model S, and 20K reservations for the Model X... If you do the math, that's a couple BILLION in pent-up demand for a product that only Tesla currently provides. And lucky for them, they haven't even built those factories yet. So unlike the "major players" in the market, they don't have to "re-tool"... they're building from scratch, which gives them an advantage at least as big as the disadvantage you claim.
Either way, when you factor in the cost of fuel, the TCO still works out to be competitive with an average mid-range family sedan, even at the current low price of gas. This advantage is bound to grow over time as the price of oil inevitably rebounds.
If every home and business had a battery system capable of delivering 24 hours of average load, we could switch to 100% renewable energy sources virtually overnight. (It would still take several years, even under ideal conditions, I know.) I'd venture to say that enabling such a transition is Elon's primary impetus for bringing the "home battery" to market.
I'm just spitballin' here, but I bet they'll figure some way to integrate the battery pack with a solar installation in such a way as to satisfy the grid-tie requirements that some states have recently imposed, while still delivering "off-grid" functionality. If, for example, they only start feeding power back into the grid after the battery pack is fully charged, then they could still satisfy some of these local statutes while delivering "effectively" off-grid capability in times of need.
Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. I admit I'd been misled by photographs of visible "floating islands" of debris, but after reading my own Wikipedia link I see that you are right. That is a bummer.
Why do people dump trash in the ocean, anyway? I've always found that puzzling.
It's been over a decade since I first saw thermal polymerization mentioned here. I've often wondered if it would be economical to build a ship around such a contraption in order to trawl through the great ocean gyres, scooping up plastic garbage, squeezing out the water, and rendering it down into some kind of fuel. I reckon the process could be made energy-positive, but whether it would be enough to turn a profit is a tougher question.
For actual artificial photosynthesis, check out Nate Lewis's work at Cal-Tech. In a nutshell: They note that natural photosynthesis is only about 2% efficient, so they are looking to improve on nature in this process, using off-the-shelf semiconductor printing processes. IIRC, they build a "forest" of upright conductive columns a few nano-meters apart, in order to mimic the band-gap of visible photons. He describes it in some detail in this lecture from a couple of years ago.
This. I'll just add my recommendation for "The Straight Dope on Cholesterol" by Dr. Peter Attia. It's available in both text and video formats.
If you've actually run the numbers, I'm happy to concede the point. but I think it's still an open possibility. And I think the larger point stands: This is all about convenience and flexibility, the ability to get eyes and/or ordnance onto any specific target on the globe in under an hour. If you have a different explanation, please share.
It all depends on how much delta-V you can impart to your projectile, and by what means (and on what vector). Yes, it's a big push, but you've got 80lbs of reaction mass to work with (at least). It's not hard to imagine making this work with a very simple mechanical device. In particular, if you launch a spotter/sniper pair of satellites, they can both be optimized for their particular jobs.
For example, the spotter-sat could eject a small "hummingbird" reentry vehicle shortly after reaching orbit, in order to descend over the target area, and still be hovering on station a half-hour later when then "sniper-sat" comes into range.
IOW, yes that IS how orbital mechanics work, if you can generate enough delta-v, pointed in the right direction. Once you make interface with the upper atmosphere, you've got the ability to "steer" toward your target.
Of course this isn't a cost-saving approach, it's real goal is maximum convenience and flexibility. Let's say I want "eyes" on a particular location ASAP, but I don't have any "birds" on a good trajectory for several hours to come. This would allow me to put a satellite precisely on target in under an hour.
And if they can add a miniature projectile launcher into the same 100lb package, they've basically got a global "kill switch" for a limited range of targets. You wouldn't need more than a few pounds of depleted uranium, shaped into a steerable "bolt" and packed with some high explosive, and the necessary thrust could probably be provided by a simple spring mechanism, just like a crossbow.
With a 100lb mass budget, you could probably even allow enough propellant to get the bird back over the same spot (or near enough to shoot at it) on the very next orbit. Say the satellite costs a $mil, plus another $mil for the launch... that's cheaper, per shot, than some of the ordnance already in service. Or, if you don't mind launching two in rapid succession, you can use the first one as spotter and the second one as sniper.
I wonder how long it will take for the magnitude of that achievement to be noticed, let alone to sink in with T.C. Mits. I have a feeling that it will get mentioned, and Bill Nye will share a few words on CNN, but that it won't get much play in the mainstream press. We'll find out soon enough, I guess.
Keeping fingers crossed... ;-)
How can you claim to have any knowledge of the degree to which Iran is enriching its uranium? Citation please! What we've heard from international inspectors seems to indicate that they are playing above board, just as it seemed in the run-up to the Iraq war... Pardon me if some of us get a sense of "deja-vu" in this situation.
Ok, sure. But given the prevailing wind patterns, wiping out Israel with nukes would not have favorable "fallout" for Iran. Therefore, why would they do it? I still don't see it.
It's the same MAD conundrum that kept the USA and USSR from wiping each other out a few decades ago. We survived that threat ok, and the USSR was a much worse threat than puny Iran ever was or will be.
Ditto!
You're right. A nuclear "terrorist" attack is not impossible in the next 10 years, esp. the "dirty bomb" variety. But I don't think even the the "loonies" in Iran would launch a first strike. What possible benefit could be gained? At what cost? The entire proposition is ludicrous. Please explain.