One thing that seems to have been missed in this discussion:
For much cargo, shipping in a matter of weeks at relatively low cost is perfectly acceptable.
Having a slow, space elevator as one of the shipping options would change the picture-and make some options practical that aren't practical now. We don't ship building materials by overnight air on the surface of the earth. In a practical sense, it can take days or weeks for building materials to get from their manufacturer to their ultimate destination.
Just having any lower cost options to get stuff to orbit is a huge step forward. Also, it is likely the first space elevator won't even be to the surface of the earth, but to the moon, because the engineering problems are less(basically using the moon as a quarry to facilitate orbital development).
A space elevator changes the source of energy that can be used for orbital transport. A rocket needs fuel. A space elevator can use power from a terrestrial power plant-or from an orbiting solar array( a solar array that can be expanded by using the space elevator itself!).
I think we need to step back a moment and ask ourselves what is the US government space program doing really?
What are the things the government should be actively involved in--and where should the government function mainly as a customer?
In the early days of aviation, the government was a major customer for aerial photographs for survey purposes. I think that was a highly legitimate government function. When we have a variety of private _US_ based companies active in various forms of launch services, it is isn't obvious to me the government should be actively competing in that arena. In fact do so may actively slow space development by discouraging private investment in an area in which the government is picking winners.
The big issues in space development include developing a) less expensive routine launch services b) developing an infrastructure for use of non-terrestrial materials
I think the proposals for a space elevator are REALLY interesting, but those are both a bit further off.
I'd love to see an increase in some government sponsored prize awards similar to the X prize, but for the development of new areas--like say demonstration of a lunar space elevator.
I want to see space development happen. I just don't think the management techniques used by organizations like the post office are going to make this happen.
The other thing I would suggest: you get a lot of kin altruism in polygamous societies. That is part of what is going on with suicide bombers. Yes, the suicide bomber dies, but the family gets some money(I think the going rate is $30K) and some substantial prestige. From a standpoint of replicating genes, it may work. One brother dies-and the other gets to have kids.
The issue here is that issuing these visas have various economic consequences. If you look at my articles, I actually did try to outline what I thought might be a more economically sound talent based visa program.
Both Obama and McCain favor expansion of the H-1b program.
What that means in practice is that tech jobs in the US will be largely filled by foreigners because is is cheaper for companies to pay employees with green cards than with cash.
One problem with this article is that is posed H-1b expansion as a "tech" issue. I would agree that many technical folks are deeply concerned about this issue. However, most US tech workers oppose the expansion of these visas-and many managers and many of the actual owners of major tech companies support the expansion of these visas.
Ask yourself this: In a world where in all developed countries, birth rates are negative, what is a chance to go to a place where birth rates are likely to be positive worth?
I suspect that for some people, it would be quite valuable.
Actually the Mayflower passengers were extremely well educated by the standards of the day(several had gone to college which was rare in that era).
Every major country in the world has immigration laws. The reason is simple: the world is filling up and there are few viable frontiers left. Open borders is practical in a world with frontiers-it is not practical in a world that lacks frontiers.
"The consequence of restricting H1b visas is simply that the jobs themselves move overseas." Actually H-1b expansion _helps_ moving jobs overseas. It is hard to move some portions of a project overseas-you need some folks in the US and H-1b helps facilitate that.
PS one thing that is also important here: I don't think the exact mix of people that optimizes economic productivity and social stability long term is necessarily well understood.
It isn't clear to me for example that if Japan wasn't inhabited by a very cohesive group of people that have a common history but instead had a mix of 100 Million people that were assembled by economic incentives that it would necesarily have the same productivity that it has.
As far as the hypocrisy: if you are willing to surrender the value of your US citzenship to some group you identify with, perhaps you should have the right to do so. Until you are willing, I question you wanting to shape policy in a way that more or less mandates that for all Americans-particularly when poll after poll shows broad support for lower immigration than we have had in the US in recent years.
The reason I think you are being hypocritical is that as a US citizen, you hold a very valuable citizenship right. Read my article on the value of citizenship-it is FAR from perfect(and needs refinement), but the theoretic value of US citizenship is 300K or so in present conditions.
For most folks, that is the most valuable property they will ever hold. There is also a deep temptation to mine the value of that citizenship to the benefit of the rich. I personally place a much higher priority on maintaining the property rights that are broadly held than those of a few rich folks(that in my experience are generally thieves and sociopaths).
Anyhow, I do have a degree in economics. I do understand the theory that free movement causes the invisible hand to maximize collective well being. The problem is that econommic nationalism and for that matter unionism both tend to broadly distribute economic rent. If you get rid of these before you have a better structure in place, the result, particularly in a highly developed country, isn't broad increases in wealth long term--it is increasing of wealth held in a few hands.
China and India have made some progress(I actually knew one of the men responsible for selling that idea during the Carter/Reagan administrations)-I honestly haven't studied their situations closely. I do know that China carefully manages their trade and still has a lot of socialist structure.
I think if these countries went more toward pure libertarianism, they'd have a lot of issues of gross economic inequality.
It isn't obvious to me that free movement is necessary for a robust economy. Japan does quite well with little immigration(and borrowing).
Introducing free movement can help with short term optimization issues-but remember, the Black Plague was the result of movement of people.
Anyhow, what I'm more interested in than just unilaterally opening US borders is having an immigration policy that also enhances the ability of Americans that want to to leave. That might involve reciprocity agreements with the EU, Australia and other places where there are signficant numbers that want to move both ways. I can also see having ways for folks to trade citizenship rights.
If you read my articles at the link I supplied, you'll see a lot of material I have assembled-and the articles do have a lot of figures that are important here.
Frankly, I think you are a hypocrite. For $120,000 dollars you could easily buy citizenship in any of a variety of Carribean locations that have no income tax--and little in effective regulations. You stay in the US for real, legitimate reasons. Your property wouldn't get you very far in those locales-unless you have upwards of $2-3 Million in assets(at that point, relinguishing your citizenship may make economic sense).
You also have an exagerrated concept of what your skills would really buy on the world markets. Most Americans do. The fact is a lot of the middle class and upper class in the US are utterly dependent on various forms of welfare to maintain their existance.
My own position here is that we need to even out the overall distribution of governmental largess-with the exception of research grants/prizes(which relate more to a clear, public good).
Anyhow, like it or not, US citizenship is quite valuable. In terms of economic value it has a market value of at least $100,000--and a theoretical value of more like $300,000. If you want to change that, you need to consider political realities. For most folks this is the greatest asset they have-far more important than any private property they are ever likely to accumulate.
Frankly, if your libertarian wet dream were actually tried, it would result in _huge_ inequality of wealth/income very rapidly.
Well, I suspect your proposal has rather little appeal to the mass of the electorate-it will take elections by Diebold to ever get a hearing for that idea.
I think there is some insight in the above post. The thing is, there are huge incentives not only for the poorer Jews to be observant-but also for the poorer Anglo-Protestants. If you look at the chance that someone that isn't an observant christian having kids in the South or Midwest-it is pretty low. The thing is here: Catholics have played a VERY key role in immigration expansion-as did Jewish donors and politicians--but in terms of numbers, there just a lot more Catholic politicians-including JFK and his brothers who helped architect the immigration expansion of the 60's. I don't think US Catholics have benefitted from mass immigration. As a group, Catholics are leaving the church. The only way catholicism in the US maintains itself is through mass immigration. That means immigration is VERY important to the folks that run the catholic church.
Now, the role of evangelicals is tricky here-because a lot of Hispanics are evangelical Christians(about 25-30% or so)-and their numbers are growing rapidly. I suspect that one way this guest worker plan may be architected is to provide a path to citizenship that is specifically accessible to co-religionists of evangelical christians. This might mean something like you can get on a path to citizenship if you take an exam-but the only way to get training for the exam is through specific faith based charities. I would rest assured that if there is any move to contain immigration, there will be enormous effort made to court evangelicals.
It should be noted that the two most popular candidates in this poll rare Ron Paul with a B rating from Americans from Better Immigration(and A- recent record) and Al Gore with an A- lifetime rating.
By Comparison, McCain is a D Hilary Clinton (despite tough talk) earned a D- Barack Obama also earned a D.
ABI is an interest group that advocates restriction of immigration-an F corresponds to loose immigration policy and a A to a restrictive policy. The average congression grade is a C-which is in effect support of one of the loosest immigration policies in the world.
First off, look at Japan and Korea-they have no huge immigration-and no huge foreign borrowing and lots of folks there find engineering an attractive profession.
Who is "we" here. You are indentifying with what Malcolm X called the Slave Mind. Someone locked into the slave mind identifies with their master so much they don't worry about their own interests. Read my article.
Guest worker visas aren't that different than slavery from an economic standpoint. When slavery was introduced in Virginia, the planters there either had to use slave labor-or go someplace else. Long run, the costs of the civil war alone far outstripped any short term economic gains from slavery-which were quite questionable and concentrated in a few hands.
H-1b was a measure to address an economic reality: wages cannot be sustainably lower than the cost of workers to live and reproduce. The engineers of the 60's and 70's didn't have that many kids-so by the 90's economics was setting in. Corporate predators reacted by doling out visas which cost them nothing personally-but often diluted the value of US citizenship. Each of those visas could be sold for at least $100K-and really has a theoretical value closer to $300K. Of course a corporation can get a hard worker when they have something like that to dole out-that costs them NOTHING.
The fundamental structure of the US and global economy is bad. Both are predicated on massive liquidation of assets in places like the US-which is what this immigration really is.
If H-1b were gone and US trade was balanced, we'd see a lot of rich folks making a huge adjustment-and engineering would be a very attractive occupation for Americans. Now, I don't think the corporate leadership in any existing major US tech companies would survive. Those folks would be so distrusted they simply couldn't stay in business. But new companies would arise to take their place quickly. BTW Microsoft is VERY H-1b dependent-and Redhat isn't. I can easily imagine restriction of immigration killing microsoft which I consider a very good thing for the industry long term.
There are real limits to outsourcing-particularly if the leaders of the US had the discipline to stop borrowing hundreds of billion of dollars per year.
Expansion of H-1b has caused more suffering to US tech workers than any other single policy. This needs to be on the table. Paul is anti-H-1b. Gore's record is more mixed(particularly as VP).
Actually, Libertarians typically support _the_ major form of corporate welfare-loose immigration. Ron Paul is an exception on that point(he leans towards tighter immigration rules).
The thing is that citizenship rights are a form of property. If you allow immigrants that don't maintain the property values, you dilute the value of citizenship.
The US gets 10 Million immigration application each year-and takes less than a million legally. If those immigration rights were auctioned off, they'd go for at least $100K in today's market. The current level of entitlements-that libertarians like Charles Murray agree should be maintained is about $10K/year for each adult citizen. What is that worth long term(remember your kids and grandkids get that too)? I'd argue it is worth at lest $300K.
Before I became a software engineer, I worked as a construction worker and on a farm. I've worked side by side with illegal aliens. The simple fact is that the US got along just fine with low levels of immigration-and would again. I suspect some rich folks wouldn't be getting richer as fast as they are now, but for the average american, the economy would be much better with lower levels of immigration. Just look at Japan and Korea. They have no immigration-and their economies are not in shambles-and they don't have the capacity to borrow or the natural resource base the US has.
The reason illegal aliens come to the US is to get a green card-which has considerable economic value. If Green Cards were available at auction, they'd sell for around $100K or more.
It costs an employer nothing to provide a green card-so of course they can get a better employee by faciliating illegal immigration than hiring legal Americans for whom they have to pay a market wage.
That said, the reason for the database is in part to cover up the fact that the Bush administration has refused to enforce any laws against employers that are now on the books. They can use creation of a database as an excuse to ramp up enforcement a bit.
Look, if you want a measure of _fat_ the gold standard id to measure the _density_ of someones's body. This company does testing at Gyms in the Seattle Area. They put folks in a tank--and see how much their body displaces.
There are extremely muscular folks that show up as "fat" according the BMI. In one of his books, fitness guru Clarence Bass talks about a runner he knew who looked rather "normal"-but in fact was _fat_ by accurate body fat measures.
I can easily believe that BMI is _less_ accurate for children than for adults.
The article didn't give pointers to data. I think using an accelerometer on these kids was an interesting idea. What I'd like to see is someone take some additional biometrics--and track diet(maybe have kids wear a tiny camera). The fundamental question here is what marks a kid that gains weight-and a kid that gains fitness--and how can we encourage those specific behaviors.
I can easily imagine for example that overall activity level might not be as important as specific pulses of activity. Some fitness experts claim that over training can actually cause _loss_ of muscle.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing that seems to have been missed in this discussion:
For much cargo, shipping in a matter of weeks at relatively low cost is perfectly acceptable.
Having a slow, space elevator as one of the shipping options would change the picture-and make some options practical that aren't practical now. We don't ship building materials by overnight air on the surface of the earth. In a practical sense, it can take days or weeks for building materials to get from their manufacturer to their ultimate destination.
Just having any lower cost options to get stuff to orbit is a huge step forward. Also, it is likely the first space elevator won't even be to the surface of the earth, but to the moon, because the engineering problems are less(basically using the moon as a quarry to facilitate orbital development).
A space elevator changes the source of energy that can be used for orbital transport. A rocket needs fuel. A space elevator can use power from a terrestrial power plant-or from an orbiting solar array( a solar array that can be expanded by using the space elevator itself!).
I think we need to step back a moment and ask ourselves what is the US government space program doing really?
What are the things the government should be actively involved in--and where should the government function mainly as a customer?
In the early days of aviation, the government was a major customer for aerial photographs for survey purposes. I think that was a highly legitimate government function. When we have a variety of private _US_ based companies active in various forms of launch services, it is isn't obvious to me the government should be actively competing in that arena. In fact do so may actively slow space development by discouraging private investment in an area in which the government is picking winners.
The big issues in space development include developing
a) less expensive routine launch services
b) developing an infrastructure for use of non-terrestrial materials
I think the proposals for a space elevator are REALLY interesting, but those are both a bit further off.
I'd love to see an increase in some government sponsored prize awards similar to the X prize, but for the development of new areas--like say demonstration of a lunar space elevator.
I want to see space development happen. I just don't think the management techniques used by organizations like the post office are going to make this happen.
The other thing I would suggest:
you get a lot of kin altruism in polygamous societies. That is part of what is going on with suicide bombers. Yes, the suicide bomber dies, but the family gets some money(I think the going rate is $30K) and some substantial prestige. From a standpoint of replicating genes, it may work. One brother dies-and the other gets to have kids.
The issue here is that issuing these visas have various economic consequences. If you look at my articles, I actually did try to outline what I thought might be a more economically sound talent based visa program.
What that means in practice is that tech jobs in the US will be largely filled by foreigners because is is cheaper for companies to pay employees with green cards than with cash.
One problem with this article is that is posed H-1b expansion as a "tech" issue. I would agree that many technical folks are deeply concerned about this issue. However, most US tech workers oppose the expansion of these visas-and many managers and many of the actual owners of major tech companies support the expansion of these visas.
Ask yourself this:
In a world where in all developed countries, birth rates are negative, what is a chance to go to a place where birth rates are likely to be positive worth?
I suspect that for some people, it would be quite valuable.
I agree-and we all should get hold of our representatives and let them know that.
The sad situation though is that US jobs for folks born in the US are shrinking-and the wealth holdings of the top 1% are rapidly growing.
Actually the Mayflower passengers were extremely well educated by the standards of the day(several had gone to college which was rare in that era).
Every major country in the world has immigration laws. The reason is simple: the world is filling up and there are few viable frontiers left. Open borders is practical in a world with frontiers-it is not practical in a world that lacks frontiers.
"The consequence of restricting H1b visas is simply that the jobs themselves move overseas."
Actually H-1b expansion _helps_ moving jobs overseas. It is hard to move some portions of a project overseas-you need some folks in the US and H-1b helps facilitate that.
PS one thing that is also important here: I don't think the exact mix of people that optimizes economic productivity and social stability long term is necessarily well understood.
It isn't clear to me for example that if Japan wasn't inhabited by a very cohesive group of people that have a common history but instead had a mix of 100 Million people that were assembled by economic incentives that it would necesarily have the same productivity that it has.
As far as the hypocrisy: if you are willing to surrender the value of your US citzenship to some group you identify with, perhaps you should have the right to do so. Until you are willing, I question you wanting to shape policy in a way that more or less mandates that for all Americans-particularly when poll after poll shows broad support for lower immigration than we have had in the US in recent years.
The reason I think you are being hypocritical is that as a US citizen, you hold a very valuable citizenship right. Read my article on the value of citizenship-it is FAR from perfect(and needs refinement), but the theoretic value of US citizenship is 300K or so in present conditions.
For most folks, that is the most valuable property they will ever hold. There is also a deep temptation to mine the value of that citizenship to the benefit of the rich. I personally place a much higher priority on maintaining the property rights that are broadly held than those of a few rich folks(that in my experience are generally thieves and sociopaths).
Anyhow, I do have a degree in economics. I do understand the theory that free movement causes the invisible hand to maximize collective well being. The problem is that econommic nationalism and for that matter unionism both tend to broadly distribute economic rent. If you get rid of these before you have a better structure in place, the result, particularly in a highly developed country, isn't broad increases in wealth long term--it is increasing of wealth held in a few hands.
China and India have made some progress(I actually knew one of the men responsible for selling that idea during the Carter/Reagan administrations)-I honestly haven't studied their situations closely. I do know that China carefully manages their trade and still has a lot of socialist structure.
I think if these countries went more toward pure libertarianism, they'd have a lot of issues of gross economic inequality.
It isn't obvious to me that free movement is necessary for a robust economy. Japan does quite well with little immigration(and borrowing).
Introducing free movement can help with short term optimization issues-but remember, the Black Plague was the result of movement of people.
Anyhow, what I'm more interested in than just unilaterally opening US borders is having an immigration policy that also enhances the ability of Americans that want to to leave. That might involve reciprocity agreements with the EU, Australia and other places where there are signficant numbers that want to move both ways. I can also see having ways for folks to trade citizenship rights.
If you read my articles at the link I supplied, you'll see a lot of material I have assembled-and the articles do have a lot of figures that are important here.
Frankly, I think you are a hypocrite. For $120,000 dollars you could easily buy citizenship in any of a variety of Carribean locations that have no income tax--and little in effective regulations. You stay in the US for real, legitimate reasons. Your property wouldn't get you very far in those locales-unless you have upwards of $2-3 Million in assets(at that point, relinguishing your citizenship may make economic sense).
You also have an exagerrated concept of what your skills would really buy on the world markets. Most Americans do. The fact is a lot of the middle class and upper class in the US are utterly dependent on various forms of welfare to maintain their existance.
My own position here is that we need to even out the overall distribution of governmental largess-with the exception of research grants/prizes(which relate more to a clear, public good).
Anyhow, like it or not, US citizenship is quite valuable. In terms of economic value it has a market value of at least $100,000--and a theoretical value of more like $300,000. If you want to change that, you need to consider political realities. For most folks this is the greatest asset they have-far more important than any private property they are ever likely to accumulate.
Frankly, if your libertarian wet dream were actually tried, it would result in _huge_ inequality of wealth/income very rapidly.
Well, I suspect your proposal has rather little appeal to the mass of the electorate-it will take elections by Diebold to ever get a hearing for that idea.
I think there is some insight in the above post. The thing is, there are huge incentives not only for the poorer Jews to be observant-but also for the poorer Anglo-Protestants. If you look at the chance that someone that isn't an observant christian having kids in the South or Midwest-it is pretty low. The thing is here: Catholics have played a VERY key role in immigration expansion-as did Jewish donors and politicians--but in terms of numbers, there just a lot more Catholic politicians-including JFK and his brothers who helped architect the immigration expansion of the 60's. I don't think US Catholics have benefitted from mass immigration. As a group, Catholics are leaving the church. The only way catholicism in the US maintains itself is through mass immigration. That means immigration is VERY important to the folks that run the catholic church.
Now, the role of evangelicals is tricky here-because a lot of Hispanics are evangelical Christians(about 25-30% or so)-and their numbers are growing rapidly.
I suspect that one way this guest worker plan may be architected is to provide a path to citizenship that is specifically accessible to co-religionists of evangelical christians. This might mean something like you can get on a path to citizenship if you take an exam-but the only way to get training for the exam is through specific faith based charities.
I would rest assured that if there is any move to contain immigration, there will be enormous
effort made to court evangelicals.
It should be noted that the two most popular candidates in this poll rare
Ron Paul with a B rating from Americans from Better Immigration(and A- recent record)
and Al Gore with an A- lifetime rating.
By Comparison, McCain is a D
Hilary Clinton (despite tough talk) earned a D-
Barack Obama also earned a D.
ABI is an interest group that advocates restriction of immigration-an F corresponds to loose immigration policy and a A to a restrictive policy. The average congression grade is a C-which is in effect support of one of the loosest immigration policies in the world.
My articles on immigration are here
For folks that want to read more of my articles on immigration, here is a link.
First off, look at Japan and Korea-they have no huge immigration-and no huge foreign borrowing and lots of folks there find engineering an attractive profession.
Who is "we" here. You are indentifying with what Malcolm X called the Slave Mind. Someone locked into the slave mind identifies with their master so much they don't worry about their own interests. Read my article.
Guest worker visas aren't that different than slavery from an economic standpoint. When slavery was introduced in Virginia, the planters there either had to use slave labor-or go someplace else. Long run, the costs of the civil war alone far outstripped any short term economic gains from slavery-which were quite questionable and concentrated in a few hands.
H-1b was a measure to address an economic reality: wages cannot be sustainably lower than the cost of workers to live and reproduce. The engineers of the 60's and 70's didn't have that many kids-so by the 90's economics was setting in. Corporate predators reacted by doling out visas which cost them nothing personally-but often diluted the value of US citizenship. Each of those visas could be sold for at least $100K-and really has a theoretical value closer to $300K. Of course a corporation can get a hard worker when they have something like that to dole out-that costs them NOTHING.
The fundamental structure of the US and global economy is bad. Both are predicated on massive liquidation of assets in places like the US-which is what this immigration really is.
If H-1b were gone and US trade was balanced, we'd see a lot of rich folks making a huge adjustment-and engineering would be a very attractive occupation for Americans. Now, I don't think the corporate leadership in any existing major US tech companies would survive. Those folks would be so distrusted they simply couldn't stay in business. But new companies would arise to take their place quickly. BTW Microsoft is VERY H-1b dependent-and Redhat isn't. I can easily imagine restriction of immigration killing microsoft which I consider a very good thing for the industry long term.
There are real limits to outsourcing-particularly if the leaders of the US had the discipline to stop borrowing hundreds of billion of dollars per year.
Expansion of H-1b has caused more suffering to US tech workers than any other single policy. This needs to be on the table. Paul is anti-H-1b. Gore's record is more mixed(particularly as VP).
Actually, Libertarians typically support _the_ major form of corporate welfare-loose immigration. Ron Paul is an exception on that point(he leans towards tighter immigration rules).
The thing is that citizenship rights are a form of property. If you allow immigrants that don't maintain the property values, you dilute the value of citizenship.
The US gets 10 Million immigration application each year-and takes less than a million legally. If those immigration rights were auctioned off, they'd go for at least $100K in today's market. The current level of entitlements-that libertarians like Charles Murray agree should be maintained is about $10K/year for each adult citizen. What is that worth long term(remember your kids and grandkids get that too)? I'd argue it is worth at lest $300K.
Before I became a software engineer, I worked as a construction worker and on a farm. I've worked side by side with illegal aliens. The simple fact is that the US got along just fine with low levels of immigration-and would again. I suspect some rich folks wouldn't be getting richer as fast as they are now, but for the average american, the economy would be much better with lower levels of immigration. Just look at Japan and Korea. They have no immigration-and their economies are not in shambles-and they don't have the capacity to borrow or the natural resource base the US has.
The reason illegal aliens come to the US is to get a green card-which has considerable economic value. If Green Cards were available at auction, they'd sell for around $100K or more.
It costs an employer nothing to provide a green card-so of course they can get a better employee by faciliating illegal immigration than hiring legal Americans for whom they have to pay a market wage.
That said, the reason for the database is in part to cover up the fact that the Bush administration has refused to enforce any laws against employers that are now on the books. They can use creation of a database as an excuse to ramp up enforcement a bit.
Look, if you want a measure of _fat_ the gold standard id to measure the _density_ of someones's body. This company does testing at Gyms in the Seattle Area. They put folks in a tank--and see how much their body displaces.
There are extremely muscular folks that show up as "fat" according the BMI. In one of his books, fitness guru Clarence Bass talks about a runner he knew who looked rather "normal"-but in fact was _fat_ by accurate body fat measures.
I can easily believe that BMI is _less_ accurate for children than for adults.
The article didn't give pointers to data. I think using an accelerometer on these kids was an interesting idea. What I'd like to see is someone take some additional biometrics--and track diet(maybe have kids wear a tiny camera). The fundamental question here is what marks a kid that gains weight-and a kid that gains fitness--and how can we encourage those specific behaviors.
I can easily imagine for example that overall activity level might not be as important as specific pulses of activity. Some fitness experts claim that over training can actually cause _loss_ of muscle.
Kept the world's major purveyor of buggy, insecure, unstable software afloat?