You also need to account for what I call "legal localization". This is where you have to make changes to the software to account for local laws. I've heard first-hand accounts of large companies getting their products banned for, say listing certain geographical parts of the world as a country. Various local laws regarding what a given program can store, how it does it, how it transfers it, and even what it does all have contributory factors to price increases. Some countries have additional requirements on various programs, some even have additional certifications that must be met.
Locali(s|z)ation is more than language translation.
That said, if your employer was willing to pay you more for the exact same work, would you turn it down (assuming it did not raise your tax bracket and thus result in less net pay)? If not, then why do you expect companies to charge less when the consumer demonstrates they will continue to pay the "going rate"? And why is that bad for them to charge more and still sell their goods but good for you to do the same?
"Actually it's a language issue that created a misunderstanding of intent. In Congressional terms initiative means starting the process and has nothing to do with creation."
But that statement was not made for Congress, nor to Congress. It was made to and for the general populace, which has a specifically different view of what that phrase means. If Gore or his handlers did NOT understand the difference between Congress and the real world that did not bode well for them - they would be doomed to failure as a result. If they did know the difference, then the wording was intentionally done to portray that he did create it but be able to have plausible deniability by talking of context out of context.
1) Polls can EASILY be worded to get people to say one thing in question one and another in question - and the two answers can be diametrically opposite and irreconcilable. 2) Being "for" something is not the same thing as supporting a particular method of getting there.
To demonstrate:
Q) Are you for clean air and water? A) Yes
Yet somehow people aren't coming out in large numbers calling for the immediate cessation of all transportation, sewage, power production, distribution, etc.. To assert a disconnect from the above question and answer and the following statement is to be short-sighted, biased, or plain ignorant.
Other examples:
I am for ethanol powered transportation, but against government subsidy and mandates. I am for better wages but against a minimum wage. I am for solar energy, but against government subsidy and mandates. I am very much in favor of lightweight (not tiny, light weight) vehicles, but against government mandates for the matter.
Polls are worse than elections. Elections at least count a clear decision. Polls simply reflect what the pollsterpollee interaction induces.
Making inferences and policy from polls is today's reading of entrails.
A little random googling and I came up with it taking a ton of coal to produce 2,460 kilowatt hours of electricity. So if 615 people using a 4-watt computer instead of a 100+ watt computer save a ton of coal a week. Not exactly a major impact, but not trivial either.
Yes, it is trivial. It isn't even at the level of spitting in the ocean to raise the sea level.
"oh but if everyone does it" - I hear it coming. Sure, if a billion people do something it may not be. Bu tif everyone gave me a nickel... I've seen those chain letters, and they started looong before email. So yes, hate to burst anyone's bubble (ok, not so much anymore, these bubbles are doing real damage), but what YOU do is trivial, inconsequential, and doesn't matter one spit's worth in the big scheme. Why are these bubbles dangerous? Because people do trivial things that make no difference thinking they are making a difference.
Let us put things in perspective, shall we?
In 2001 the U.S. had some 107 Million households consuming a total of 1.140 Trillion kWh. What are the largest consumers of electricity in said households? refrigerators and Air Conditioning, at about 14-16% each of the total. I bet computers aren't even a blip. If every one of of those households was using a 104kWh PC and switched to this, and didn't need to supplement it, and it was on 40 hours per week (per your assumption), you wouldn't even get to 2%. Yes, that is trivial. Even for a cost of about 30 Billion dollars. And I'm sure that not every one of those households has a computer, so even in a best case scenario your change is trivial. In a more representative sampling of computers in households, you don't break 1%.
On the other hand, improving the insulation of existing homes, most of which have poor insulation and even new homes could see significant improvements, returns a more substantive effect. First, the most power intense time is during the day - when the A/C needs to run. This is when the more expensive "ready reserve" of power stations are used. By reducing the load of A/C alone through improved insulation you get an "always on" savings (it works both ways, better insulation reduces heating costs as well), of a large and intensive load as opposed to an evening minor load. HVAC accounts for about a third of your bill, nationally, with central air about half of that (see above). However, electric space heating accounts for about 10% of the total. So better insulation saves on that aspect too (even for natural gas, heating oil, etc. 3% of electricity use nationally is for powering those pumps and fans)
Next up is refrigerators. Virtually every one of those households has a fridge. For 250 you can either replace an old and horribly inefficient one with a newer and more efficient one, or if already replacing it then for 250 more you can almost always get a much better one. As with insulation, this is an "always on" effect. Unless there is a power outage, the fridge runs 24x7x365 [insert WIlliam Perry joke here]. Even a minor 10% reduction in the cooling space will more than double the effect of this yet-to-be-proven "green computer", and for less money. And this isn't even considering the direct personal savings on the power bill (quick: you have 250 bucks and you want to lower your power bill. One way will get you a 4-5% reduction and the other will get you a 1% reduction. Which is better?). Further, about 1 in 5 households have two fridges, and the secondary is typically an old fridge which is inherently much more inefficient (5-10 years older).
That is why instead of it being a "stupid environmentalist cliche" is is really a "dangerous environmentalist cliche". A 90% reduction of a 2% consumption factor is trivial. A 10% drop in a 40% consumption factor is still arguably trivial but less so than the 1.8%. while at the national level (and personal) it is more expensive.
Once you factor in that most people "need' more than this computer will have to offer, it
"It seems to me that could change rather dramatically if the price of electricity goes up. I wonder what effect his solar array will have if he buys an electric car that can be plugged in."
Unless he works from home (in which case a Hybrid is a very poor choice if the goal is saving money, and merely a poor choice otherwise), the car would be charging at night or in the evening. During these times, solar is zero to marginal, and thus not likely to be "powering" a hybrid, or even a full-electric plug-in.
Also, the cost of maintenance of the solar arrays could go up, not to mention the efficacy of them could go down due to global warming (higher and thicker cloud cover leading to less solar energy reaching the surface), or if someone puts a big building up near him, or bamboo or trees grow into the path, etc., or if a defect in the wiring or installation leads to his house burning down.
About every month I look into solar for my house. And every month I let myself wish it would be cost effective, even though I know it won't be. At least, not for electricity. Now water/home heating, absolutely.
And every time I run through the numbers, solar is a poor investment for someone on the grid.
Ultimately the problem lies with centralized power production and control as the only "allowable" source. Distribution of power generation is more efficient in terms of power delivery, more reliable in the "national security sense" and safer in the health sense in that you can keep the AC, fridge, and freezer on during daytime blackouts.
Humans have not been recording polar ice melt rates for 750,000 years you twit. An ice core is not recorded history. It is sampled history with no direct comparison for verification. Nor do they have the granularity of tracking a few months. There are no markers in the ice cores saying "the ice melted at a rate of x.xxx between May and August, then switch to x.yxyy from August to October...".
To quote the USGS: "This record can include temperature, precipitation , chemistry and gas composition of the lower atmosphere, volcanic eruptions, solar variability, sea-surface productivity and a variety of other climate indicators."
Do you see ice melt rate there? No. We can *ESTIMATE* or *PREDICT*, but we can not verify without actual measurement of ice melt rates. Period. You can cut my tree open and try to estimate how warm or cold it was, but the thermometer hanging in the window is a recording. I'll trust a dime store thermometer over an estimate based on cores - be they ice or trees - any day.
As to the original "summary": "As reported in September of last year, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time known to man. "
No, it was the first time since satellite records starting in 1978. More than semantic differences there. To wit "Those passages have been traversed in the past--with difficulty--including in recent years as ice cover thinned". Furthermore there is disagreement as to what exactly confines the "Northwest Passage".
Now, what you won't here from the disaterbators is that by all accounts, even a seasonal period of ice free Northwest Passage along the entire route is a *GOOD* thing. Shorter travel means less fuel and lower costs. A commercial route along the northern border of Canada is an economic boon waiting to happen.
Oh and the title is wrong. It isn't "on track". There was never a "track" for it to be on. We've been reading/hearing about it for a couple decades, and we've heard this each year for the last several.
"If he gets an owie in his knee he's at the massage therapist, the chiropractor etc. etc. I'd say 95% of these issues would go away if he ate better and exercised."
I'd say 95% of these issues would go away if he grew a pair and manned up. We all bang our knee from time to time, get over it.
This highlights one of the main problems: a growing belief in society that we NEED doctors to tell us what to do. Get some sniffles? Suck it up, blow it out, and stay away from others for a while. Hit your funny bone? Tough, move it around a bit and "walk it off". No need for an emergency room trip.
Kid fall down and scrape a knee? Use some peroxide on it, clean it out, put some ointment and bandage it. No need for the ER.
We saw this decades ago in the military. New families would essentially camp out the ER with sick kids. Why? It was free and they were "entitled to". Saw it in Germany too.
I'm not going to apologize, but I will say your friend needs to quit being a wuss.
"In short, I see within 20-25 years most homes and apartment complexes with cheap solar arrays on their roofs and supercapacitor electrical storage units somewhere in the building."
NIMBY. Nobody want supercharged capacitors sitting behind their walls.
Besides, it doesn't matter how cheaply you make PV cells, apartment buildings will never have them in substantial amounts. Why? Small square footage compared to the people inside means a very low percentage of the power needed is available.
If you want people to use PV as a significant portion of their residential use you need lower population density. Putting 500-1500 people in a building with maybe 10,000 square feet of roof space means your solar cells don't contribute enough for more than one or maybe two apartments.
On the other hand, having people live in singe or double family units that are on 1/3 acre per person and reducing the amount of blacktop to say 9% of the given space, using larger homes with solar power and porches/awnings/etc. as well most homes could replace a substantial amount of their power consumption.
Absent an increase in power output of *several* orders of magnitude combined with a cost drop of a few orders of magnitude, the mythical solar apartment building is just that - a myth.
The "supercity" is a serious detriment to the environment. Dense cities increase energy in a given area while concentrating demand for goods and services (and energy). That means you have to commute to get to work as residential zones, business zones, industrial zones, etc. all spread out the distance from home and work, home and shopping, and home and entertainment. On the flip side, a decentralized and low density area provides space for people to have their own gardens, lots of heat managing landscaping, and short or non-existent commutes - not just to work but to everywhere else.
With low density living and non-segregated use cases, communities that incorporate work, play, and home in a short radius enable a shift toward "community vehicles"; these are the small electric vehicles for areas that don't have high traffic. In such a series of communities, moving to be close to your job becomes more the norm. The value in a home being close to a specific employer is still there, but the "advantage" (and hence monetary value) in a home's location is lowered. I love where I live because I am two miles from just about everything I use. However, I am in the minority because most people have to commute because the zoning laws effectively preclude them from living close.
This is another dangerous and hidden result of zoning. The zoning committee is essentially printing money by artificially creating areas of demand by limiting the supply of places you are "allowed" to build a certain type of building, park, etc..
In 25 years I don't see "most homes" having cheap solar arrays and super anything in the home. I've been hearing it for decades. If you want a 1930's level home and accoutrements, then sure you could do it. Their power levels are low enough to do it for a reasonable cost. I've looked hard for solar options. They are simply not there unless you are rich enough to have at least half an acre and around 100,000 or more you can toss into something you won't get back for decades. And that is with the cost reductions of the last couple decades. Even as costs go down, electrical consumption goes up.
Aha but if you encounter a Fat-Bodied Time Distortion Field (tm), and time slows down for you, say passing 1.2 seconds in subjective to 1.6 in "objective", they are doing you a favor by slowing down your apparent age and your aging process, making you live longer.
Thus perhaps people fat enough to produce time distortion fields should be encouraged and compensated by the skinny who have been freeloading for centuries, if not millennia. Reparations may be in order!
"All models are wrong, to some degree." == All models are wrong. Either they are wrong or they are not wrong.
Precision is not the implication, correctness is. A model is a model because it is incorrect in some way - it is an approximation. "only a little wrong" wrong does not make it not wrong.
Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
The reason the distinction of all models being wrong is important is to limit people believing the model is the real world. Far, far too many "scientists" these days do all of their work in models and believe they are doing real world stuff. Then the real world occasionally slaps them upside the head with the fact that they were wrong. Unfortunately many vocal ones seem to not then realize the model is wrong and is no substituted for the real world.
Not unlike many among the/. community with regards to their models of women.
"I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because so many American men are obese - can't see their dick, let alone get laid, so they buy a gun and get a stupidly huge truck to compensate. But that's just, like, me opinion, man."
Yet that does not fit the description of the vast majority of those instigating crimes with guns. Obesity is not a risk factor or cause of violent crime, nor has it been shown to be a factor in ownership of arms either. Even if it were true that fat white guys who can't get laid go buy guns, so what if they did? I'd be more concerned about that quiet skinny white guy buying bomb materials and stamps every so often, or the arabic man hardly able to speak english taking fly-only lessons at the local flight school, or the quiet little old lady buying strychnine, tea, and a shovel, or any other number of factors each unique to the specific situation.
Yes you are entitled to your opinion and to express it. But that doesn't make you correct in any way whatsoever.
Indeed, the single greatest risk factors for violent seems to be economic status, how much personal responsibility one has, and how much control over their life and community one feels they have. America has a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of the world's countries. Thus we also have the greatest range of economic conditions. Given the risk factors it is not surprising to have a higher crime rate in those terms, though I see how it could be to someone who hasn't bothered to look at things and just wants to make snide remarks about people different then themselves.
Gun control has never been about crime. It has always been abut control, just as restrictions and limitations on weapons prior to guns were.
Switzerland requires you to be trained in an keep a gun. If you think that has no impact on crime you are sadly mistaken. Furthermore affecting the vanishingly small crime rate - the gun related crime rates are so low they don't bother tracking statistically, is a result of the cultural emphasis on self-policing and personal responsibility. With a decentralized police force and a mandatory term in military training, the notion of taking from others and committing breaches of each others' property and lives is somewhat anathema.
Contrasting that the US is increasingly following a path of centralized power and control as well as centralized police authority. I expect this will continue the increase in crimes, particularly violent ones. The further removed from the governed from the government is the less of a focus on personal responsibility and a sense of control over ones life exists. Combined with less than desirable or downright appalling economic conditions you have a recipe for violent crimes with or without gun. Remove these actors and there is no demonstrably significant impact of your race or fitness, the kind of truck you drive, and whether you get laid or not.
Besides, look at what fat people drive. They tend to be small trucks and small cars. If they lose weight and drive big trucks and big cars.
"The notion that a civilian force could "overthrow a tyrannical government" in the US today is quaint at best."
They said the same thing about the colonies with regard to Great Britain, which at the time was arguably the primary superpower.
People like you are looking at the wrong aspect, probably due to a lack of military experience or understanding. The armament of the would be captives is in fact a consideration. A military commander will always prefer to "take" a town or community that has no armaments or that has less as opposed to one that has more.
A bullet from a hunting rifle will kill a soldier just as easily as any other man or woman. Many hunting rifles have larger ammunition than the M-16, which is barely larger than a "22" (.220 vs. 223).
The argument regarding "guns don't kill people, people do" is applicable here as well. Tanks and helicopters don't kill people, their operators do. I grew up in the military and served in it myself as recon troop. Nobody I ever met in the US military would be willing to pull the trigger to send a howitzer round raining into a US village filled with US citizens, guns or no guns unless very extreme circumstances were at hand.
Less so with guns. It is a psychological advantage. It gives the *person* behind the weapon pause to consider not just his or her own life, but the impact of what they are doing. Americans standing up for themselves strikes a chord among soldiers. After all, that is what they have set their life to do.
I'm a bit suprised nobody has mentioned Tiennenmen Square when an unarmed student stopped a Chinese tank by standing in front and not backing down. Maybe I've missed it though.
Such pauses and delays have a tremendous impact when others can hear about it - on either side. People standing up for the right tend to produce more. People who stop and consider the rightness of their own orders tends to produce more. Delays build on delays. The notion that a "civilian force" would be the only force involved is not quaint, it is absurd and shortsighted. It may start that way (and it might not) but it would not stay that way. Sometimes people need a simple moment of inspiration to be moved to great action.
And yes, to your sarcasm weapon stashes have always provided a deterrence to invasions of any physical force based kind. have you missed out on the incidents over the last 20 years? It's funny that people think and post as you have. A small family can keep a US military unit at bay for two weeks (Ruby Ridge), a small compound of people can keep an unit of military troops and armored vehicles (not tanks) at bay for two months (Waco), yet entire communities, cities, and states of armed citizens are somehow powerless.
A modern revolution would likely happen in the same manner as before. It would not be a small town somewhere saying "Oi! lets take over the US today". It would be the result of cities and states acting as a group. Likely similar to the Civil War.
No government is omnipotent, not even the US. They can all be overthrown or resisted. The notion that this is not true is dreamed of and perpetuated by statists and dictators.
"Weight has very little to do with the efficiency of a modern car. Most energy is lost to wind drag"
Bullshit. Weight is 2/3rds of the factors for energy economy in moving vehicles. Tell you what, take a GEO metro (or suitably similar economy car) and stick 500 pounds of weight in it and tell me it doesn't get a significantly different amount of fuel economy. A few pounds at a time, sure no big change. But as I'll refer to below, weight is a much larger factor than aero in non-race cars.
"the primary area weight will effect is kinetic energy."
Things like starting from a stop, accelerating, cornering, coasting, rolling resistance, tire resistance, etc.. Aerodynamics doesn't really start having an effect until you get up to *at a minimum*, high freeeway speeds. Sure at 200MPH it's all about aero. But at 35 it's all about mass. At 75 it's still almost all about mass. Why? Because it is exceedingly rare that anyone simply drives along a dead flat and straight stretch of highway without anybody else around.
Consider this:
"Our imaginary car has a curb weight of 3,527 pounds, a Cd of 0.30, a frontal area of 23.7 square feet and 9 pounds of rolling resistance for every 1,000 pounds of weight.
According to Frasher, "If we put a gas-burning engine in this car, expect reasonable performance and drive it on a combined driving cycle, we can expect to get 23.8 mpg.... Add 10 percent to the drag coefficient, we'll now get 23.3 mpg.... Take 10 percent from the drag coefficient, we'll now get 24.3 mpg." -- Edmunds (yeah not the nest place but at least it had the '10% change" numbers And his numbers are from a standard MPG estimation program that are usually fairly accurate).
Your "example" of a 300 pound passenger in a 300 pound car is roughly equivalent to a 7% drop in fuel economy.
However, reducing the weight of the car by half doubles the fuel economy - provided you shrink the motor to account for it. If you keep the same motor then for every 10% drop in weight you see a ~7% increase in fuel economy. Compare that to the above quote of 10% more aerodynamic (Cd) getting a ~2% increase in fuel economy. Which one sees the more dramatic difference for the same "10%" change in it's measurement? Yes, that would be weight reduction. That same imaginary car above would get 25.5 MPG if they cut the weight by 10%.
But automakers generally don't want to do that. Look at all the gadgets the new cars are getting to make you want to buy a new one. BMW and Mercedes are among the worst in that regard with such things as multiple tv screens and big-ass seats that are plush have 20 pounds of motors 50 pounds of frames, and another 10 pounds in heating/cooling.
Carmakers prefer evolutionary changes to revolutionary ones - like converting an entire line to lightweight materials and design. As a result it will take a major shift to get them to adopt the newer materials and the cost and time saving techniques that go with them. They have a significant investment in existing infrastructure - just like the telcos do in copper.
Cities are like this because central planners think it is a good idea to separate residences (where people live) from commercial (where they work) by many miles, in some cases dozens.
For millions it is legally impossible to live close to work. Suburbs are a direct and actually intended result of zoning committees that want this ridiculous separation of work and living spaces. Many people in cities, cities not suburbs, do not live close to work. Again, it's zoning that is the prime driver here.
Seriously how can you make the claim that the climate of the US is not "that much different" than that of Europe with a straight face?
A significant portion of the US has summer average temperatures in the high 90's or low 100's, with winter that rarely touches freezing. Another huger portion has winters that dump many feet of snow and leave the area in a frozen blanket of ice for significant portions of the year. Many places have both the high temperatures and the low temperatures. The range of temperatures in the continental US is larger than the range of temperatures in "continental Europe".
As to standard of living differences, that claim is also false as has been shown by the UN for at least a couple decades. If you only just now learned that N.A. uses more energy per capita than Europe you must be new to BBC, or slashdot. America also has a much higher GDP. We make more stuff. so even considering energy use per capita is an incomplete and useless thing to do on it's own.
Go ahead, cut off the electricity supply to millions of people living in 110 degree heat so they can't use their air conditioner and compare that to someone in London not needing an air conditioner. Now tell the millions of people in that 100+ degree weather that their standard of living is "not that much different" than those in Europe. Take the heat source away from those in Minnesota or Canada in January so they can use less energy per capita and convince them that their standard of living isn't any different.
The US and the UK, for example, are very similar in how many BTUs are consumed per unit of GDP. Yet we produce more GDP per capita. How does that affect your assertion that North America's energy consumption is excessive. IN terms of GDP, the US is about as efficient as the UK, and much more so than Norway which produced about the same GDP per capita as the US, or Canada which produced far less GDP than the US per capita and consumed far more BTUs per unit of GDP to do it. The big "winner" on that chart is Japan which produced a high GDP/capita with a BTU/GDP far lower than that of Europe.
Shows that the US' energy use has in fact been getting more efficient in that our energy user per dollar of GDP has gone down by 42% since 1980. And for those who might say otherwise, it ha snot risen once over the previous year in that 27 year run. Energy use per capita had a slight uptick in the second half of the 90's but is still down a few points from 1980.
How about next you don't just try to take a swipe at those in a different area with a dumb-ass isolated statistic and do some real research? Even a 10 minute excursion into the data coudl have prevented you from such silliness.
Actually a 20 pound drop in driver weight wouldn't make a measurable difference in fuel economy for most cars.
Seriously, take a 4000 pound car and take 20 pounds of driver out and expect a measurable difference? No, it has to be lighter cars that do not shrink in size. Not just some small weight savings, that will be eaten by new computer systems, many pounds of wiring harness, heavier tires, bigger seats, etc..
The car needs to be designed from the onset to be a lightweight vehicle. The heaviest parts of the vehicle don't get scaled down by saving 20 or even 200 pounds. I'm talking about things like the frame, the brake system, drivetrain, axles, etc.. Cut a thousand pounds of of a 4 door sedan as part of the design and you can then shave off another several hundred pounds through lighter weight components - to include a smaller engine.
It isn't rocket science but it could be aided by rocket scientists - they are very familiar with the effects of mass and design for lightweight vs merely shaving a few pounds.
The other of the two large gains to be had is in teaching people a more efficient means of driving. No the usual (and sometimes wrong) maxims about acceleration and tire pressures don't cut it. I'm talking hands-on real training with vehicles that have "real time" and averaging fuel economy capture and display systems. Let people actually see immediate changes and they will develop a style of driving that works and consumes less fuel. I've personally observed people increase their fuel economy in large SUVs so equipped (and w/proper instruction) by several MPG. Smaller vehicles show similar benefits.
If you think the only safety features added to automobiles in the least few decades is "a few airbags", you are pretty misinformed or ill-informed.
Safety features include such things as traction control, ABS, side impact beams, stiffer upper door channels, air bag switches, airbag detection and control mechanisms, sensors for the airbags, hardware for the airbags to deploy in safely, shoulder harnesses for non-front seats (these require stronger mounts which results in more mass/weight, stiffer cage structures often add weight, padding, larger frame portions to account for larger crumple zones, four wheel steering, automatic leveling, self-adjusting shocks, and more all add significant weight when tallied up. FOr full size vans, for example, I distinctly recall riding around in the back of a Ford Econoline van w/o seats as a child. Nowadays that van requires seats and seating infrastructure. If you don't think that can amount to 500 kilos on it's own, you are willfully ignorant.
Even "just" an airbag system for driver, passenger, and side can easily reach 50-100+ pounds depending on sizing - you have to account for wiring as well as "changing" the areas the airbag deploys from to handle it as well as connectors and indicators.
500 kilo just for safety equipment over the "same" car in the 80's? Easy.
"Rather, in the eternal bigger-is-better orgy, car manufacturers feel compelled to make every iteration of any model a bit bigger than the previous one. "
Demonstrably false from the onset. For example, look at a 1970's Dodge Charger and compare it to the one. Even the Suburban is externally smaller than the older ones. The C6 Corvette is smaller than the previous generation.
Further, cargo capacity changes and usage pattern changes often result in models being larger than they were 30 years ago. Now that Civic is expected to be transportation for a smallish family or expected to not crush the rear occupants like sardines if they get rear-ended (yes, one of those pesky safety features you ignored).
As if that wasn't enough bigger doesn't necessarily require heavier. Lighter materials have dramatically offset the increase in size from the 1980's cars. Using body materials such as fiberglass and/or carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium, etc you could make a full-sized 1970 Dodge Charger today and it would weigh no more, and probably a lot less, than it did then.
Cars are not like software, tossing in a hundred safety changes to the vehicle design add significant amount of physical mass (and hence weight). Just because those who can't be bothered to think about it don't understand this doesn't make them any less real, or make uninformed comments about them insightful.
People in the US do not want to buy light cars for a very solid reason: the 1980's showed them that merely making a car smaller to make it lighter in order to increase fuel economy ratings leads to higher deaths and injuries. The mistake was making the car small, not lightweight. But the media played up on the weight side because the eight side was the alleged benefit.
Lighter cars are safer but only if designed to be so, not if made lighter simply by making them smaller.
"cars aren't the only place where we can save energy, but they are a big one, if we'd just say cars can be a lot lighter, even if they're not as safe, just to get better fuel economy. "
Lighter cars can be safer, they just need to be bigger. Carbon Fiber has a better crush absorption scale - it is smoother than metals. That means it transfers less impact to the occupants. But you want more crumple zone space to account for it. Further UL cars need to be designed that way - simply replacing steel panels with CF doesn't do it. A mid-1970's muscle car body built with carbon fiber - w/o shrinking it, would be a gloriously safe vehicle to be in - even with heavier vehicles on the road. More Weight != safe, Bigger == safer (c.p). The problem isn't the engine or the fuel, the problem with vehicular transportation is the amount of mass carried around to move a small amount of mass. About 66% of energy expenditure in transportation is mass (weight) based. Given the right circumstances, all cars and forms of transportation are fatal at highway conditions. Speed isn't what kills. If that were true airlines would be the most fatal form of transportation.
Fuel economy as a counter to rising prices? Not a chance. The primary driver is the growth of "third world" and Asian countries. The demand created by those nations will prevent US reductions of anything less than 40% or so from having any significant impact. The Chinese, for example, are willing to pay the higher prices. As long as someone else is willing to pay a higher price, and the seller is willing to sell to the highest bidder, your reduction in demand doesn't mean squat.
US demand for liquid fuels is projected to decrease overall by about 330,000 bbl/day in 2008. Meanwhile *worldwide* demand is projected to increase by 1.2 million bbl/day. On the oil side, China is expected to increase by about 500 million bbl/day - more than accounting for US demand decreases in oil. That is *just* China. The EU countries also offset US decreases. The fact of the matter is the US is no longer the master on the demand side of oil. Our influence on oil prices is waning. Another indicator of this is the fact that so far in 2008 our demand has been reduced compared to the same window of 2007. 2007's imports were lower than 2006's which were lower than 2005's. Yet prices are still rising. US Oil consumption is down to levels not seen in 4-5 years. Yet prices still rise.
Demand outstripping supply is a GOOD THING(tm). It means that specific control over oil prices by OPEC goes away. They can raise it, sure, by cutting production. But they can't flood the market with cheap oil. OPEC has a history of doing this when alternatives get competitive. But with demand becoming higher than supply (which will continue), it reaches a point where OPEC simply can not put out enough to cause a major drop in prices. For example, a lot of oil can be extracted at a market price of $75/bbl. But if OPEC can cause the price to drop some 130 to 50, investors will hold off investing in that "new oil" because of that concern. OPEC has done it before. Saudi Arabia's cost to pump and sell a barrel of crude is less than 10 bucks. But they will soon not be able to cause such an event. Viewed from this perspective you don't want to cause a major reduction in oil demand. Additional large sources outside of OPEC will cause an decrease in oil price volatility. which IMO accounts for some $20-45/bbl.
The decrease in volatility along with a reduction in demand driven high prices will create a new "stable" range. I guesstimate it will be in the 75/bbl range. But you can not get there with a market that can be saturated with cheap oil. We need the higher demand. We need to pay the pain of higher prices for a while. Sure it will hurt, but in the end it will be worth it.
That said dollar for dollar, the *best* investment to be had in this country - or most countries even - is *not* in transportation costs, but in home energy - specifically heating and cooling. Every study I've seen that resu
No offense but you simply do not understand what OSS is.
OSS isn't Sourceforge, it isn't Linux, nor Firefox, nor Gimp nor any singular piece of software. It isn't documentation or lack of documentation, bugginess or non-bugginess is also not OSS. After all, any attribute you want to assign to OSS projects/software is equally assignable to non-OSS. Windows is easy to use and well documented? My Arse. If that were true why the multi-billion dollar Windows training industry? Why the multibillion dollar book industry? Simple: the claim is bogus. Most software has bugs and almost every piece of software could be better documented. Thus all of your "reasons" about OSS not being a threat are invalid on their face. I've even seen a lot of commercial software not "EXPLAIN WHAT THE PRODUCT IS" on their website. Your vapor anecdotes notwithstanding this is not an aspect of interest either.
The reason OSS is threat to MS is no market share. It is not mindshare. It is a shift in expectations and beliefs.
How many people 5-10 years ago thought the Windows==computer? Compare that to now. That expectation is shifting, and that expectation is a core principle of the MS business model. It is a long-term growth threat in the sense that it takes time to build and when it reaches "the crisis stage" it is too late. Another aspect of the threat of OSS to MS is "freedom". Nor GNU freedom per-se but vendor freedom - choice. With the growth of Linux, came a fertile ground for other alternatives such as OpenOffice.org - and yes I am well aware of it's history. This led to the creation of a pressure valve. As MS predictably increased their punishment on those not paying the proper financial respect, the existence of this pressure valve allowed some to take it. As more did so the movement for "open document" standards grew more intense and larger. This triggered more people to even *think* about alternatives.
It's that thinking about alternatives that is the crucial chink in the MS business model. It is much like Afghanistan was to the USSR. The illusion that you *need* Microsoft has cracked, and chunks are falling off. That is the single largest threat to MS's business model. People will switch to other alternatives - even if they are proprietary ones for someone else.
The second major aspect of the OSS threat to MS (by way of their business model specifically) is what OSS enables. Consider the use of a supercomputer for something like SETI or protein folding. Now consider the use of distributed computing such as SETI At Home of Folding At Home. OSS enables the tapping of far more developers than can be managed by an organization. It also enables companies to rise quickly and establish dominance. One example is Google. Google would not have happened in a world w/o "a Linux". It would have been cost prohibitive. OSS enables that type of company to shoot up in a relatively few short years to absolute domination. It also enables competitors to work together.
This working together allows competitors of all sizes converge on a common underlying platform and provide for each of them to establish their specialties or "particular advantages". They share the otherwise unmanageable mass of talented programmers and supplement it with their own developers. OSS enabled OSX. Look at the significant turnaround in Mac usage with OSX - even before the Intel switch. This accelerates the shattering of the "Windows is the Computer" illusion which MS bases it's model on.
These are (some of) the major aspects of OSS that are the threat to MS. Not the specific products themselves but what affect of these products, their existence, has on the minds of the people using them. It may take a generational changeover but it is inevitable at this point.
Your problem is you are too busy looking at the bugs on the trees to understand you are looking at a rainforest. The "ecology" of the software and computing world is changing. The way we use the electronic world is changing and it is due to OSS, not MS. Facebook, MySpace, F
Seriously, this is the least bullshit excuse the could come up with? If ANY corporation in the US tried this kind of thing, the wrath of SARBOX would rain down on them like you wouldn't believe.
No, it would not.
SARBOX does not protect against poor judgement, it merely documents it.
IF a plan is proposed and everyone says it handles the risks, and they turn out to be wrong, SARBOX doesn't provide for punishment. And if you think about it, that makes sense.
The best you can do is to analyze the risks as you can identify them, prepare a plan that fits the risks and needs, and then execute the plan and do what you can to ensure the plan is followed. Sarbanes-Oxley essentially insists the plan be made, risks identified and bought off on, and the plan executed. It does and CAN NOT protect from bad decisions. SOX is essentially a CYA plan. If you can prove you went through the steps, SOX passes the bill elsewhere. Contrary to popular, and wrong, opinion, SOX does not mean the management (the "deciders" hehe) have to know anything about the real technical details. Nor should they, really. As long as they have people to do that analysis for them, and said people have not proven themselves untrustworthy of full of bad judgement on the matters.
As far as blaming Bush, that's just stupid. No, wait it's asinine. The decision to move from Lotus to Exchange was not made by Bush. That type of stuff doesn't make it to those levels. It likely never made it past the CIO. That is what they are for.
It isn't like Bush swept into office and replaced all the IT folk. That happens in corporations, sure. But not federal employees. They're special.
For those who think this was allplanned on Bush's part, consider this evidence: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01446.pdf See in particular Page 41 of that PDf, it's a timeline of "the Clinton Administration's IT department"'s failures to properly back up email for years. Oh and look, it happened with an "upgrade" from Netware to NT. You know, minor things like backups not working for 14+ months, and people with names starting with the letter D not being subject to archiving, and having their own implementation of an archiving system, and incurring over 11 Million dollars to not successfully recover the lost emails. They had problems for about 4 years. If Bush is to blame for the current fiasco, Clinton is to blame for the previous one.
Yet somehow, Bush The Ignorant was Bush The Brilliant Mastermind Who Knew that He Would Need To Not Have Emails In The Future. No, you don't get it both ways. Anybody that thinks Bush knows anything more about email than how to use it is being ridiculous. I don't think the man stupid but like most people he probably just writes, reads, and sends email and that's his understanding of it. It goes through the Tubes somehow but that's not his deal.
I figure about 97-99% of the stuff any given (modern) US president is given credit for or assigned the blame for is stuff he (or she when it happens - but no not her either.;) ) is not something they had control over or did. Sadly we avoid dealing with the real culprits or accidents by blaming it on the face.
In this case the main culprit is the underlying technology change coupled with ignorant laws (SOX, for example). Following that is the failure to operate a secondary system for testing and validation that mirrors production.
I find that article at Arstechnica to be blatant political crap instead of good and proper journalism. Like most "journalists" and "articles" these days, sadly. There is almost a non-stop line of email archiving troubles and failures dating back to the mid-nineties by the same group of IT staff, yet somehow that is cut off and the fault laid on Bush. So we all get riled up about Bush, and those people who _actually_ failed remain government employees for the next Administration. And the cycle continues.
And in this case, I think it's somewhat unfair to judge Microsoft too harshly for wanting to game the system any way they could- what company wouldn't have done in their position?
Oh I dunno, maybe all the ones that didn't and don't.
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You also need to account for what I call "legal localization". This is where you have to make changes to the software to account for local laws. I've heard first-hand accounts of large companies getting their products banned for, say listing certain geographical parts of the world as a country. Various local laws regarding what a given program can store, how it does it, how it transfers it, and even what it does all have contributory factors to price increases. Some countries have additional requirements on various programs, some even have additional certifications that must be met.
Locali(s|z)ation is more than language translation.
That said, if your employer was willing to pay you more for the exact same work, would you turn it down (assuming it did not raise your tax bracket and thus result in less net pay)? If not, then why do you expect companies to charge less when the consumer demonstrates they will continue to pay the "going rate"? And why is that bad for them to charge more and still sell their goods but good for you to do the same?
If you think it is too much, don't pay it.
"Actually it's a language issue that created a misunderstanding of intent. In Congressional terms initiative means starting the process and has nothing to do with creation."
But that statement was not made for Congress, nor to Congress. It was made to and for the general populace, which has a specifically different view of what that phrase means. If Gore or his handlers did NOT understand the difference between Congress and the real world that did not bode well for them - they would be doomed to failure as a result. If they did know the difference, then the wording was intentionally done to portray that he did create it but be able to have plausible deniability by talking of context out of context.
1) Polls can EASILY be worded to get people to say one thing in question one and another in question - and the two answers can be diametrically opposite and irreconcilable.
2) Being "for" something is not the same thing as supporting a particular method of getting there.
To demonstrate:
Q) Are you for clean air and water?
A) Yes
Yet somehow people aren't coming out in large numbers calling for the immediate cessation of all transportation, sewage, power production, distribution, etc.. To assert a disconnect from the above question and answer and the following statement is to be short-sighted, biased, or plain ignorant.
Other examples:
I am for ethanol powered transportation, but against government subsidy and mandates.
I am for better wages but against a minimum wage.
I am for solar energy, but against government subsidy and mandates.
I am very much in favor of lightweight (not tiny, light weight) vehicles, but against government mandates for the matter.
Polls are worse than elections. Elections at least count a clear decision. Polls simply reflect what the pollsterpollee interaction induces.
Making inferences and policy from polls is today's reading of entrails.
Yes, it is trivial. It isn't even at the level of spitting in the ocean to raise the sea level.
"oh but if everyone does it" - I hear it coming. Sure, if a billion people do something it may not be. Bu tif everyone gave me a nickel ... I've seen those chain letters, and they started looong before email. So yes, hate to burst anyone's bubble (ok, not so much anymore, these bubbles are doing real damage), but what YOU do is trivial, inconsequential, and doesn't matter one spit's worth in the big scheme. Why are these bubbles dangerous? Because people do trivial things that make no difference thinking they are making a difference.
Let us put things in perspective, shall we?
In 2001 the U.S. had some 107 Million households consuming a total of 1.140 Trillion kWh. What are the largest consumers of electricity in said households? refrigerators and Air Conditioning, at about 14-16% each of the total. I bet computers aren't even a blip. If every one of of those households was using a 104kWh PC and switched to this, and didn't need to supplement it, and it was on 40 hours per week (per your assumption), you wouldn't even get to 2%. Yes, that is trivial. Even for a cost of about 30 Billion dollars. And I'm sure that not every one of those households has a computer, so even in a best case scenario your change is trivial. In a more representative sampling of computers in households, you don't break 1%.
On the other hand, improving the insulation of existing homes, most of which have poor insulation and even new homes could see significant improvements, returns a more substantive effect. First, the most power intense time is during the day - when the A/C needs to run. This is when the more expensive "ready reserve" of power stations are used. By reducing the load of A/C alone through improved insulation you get an "always on" savings (it works both ways, better insulation reduces heating costs as well), of a large and intensive load as opposed to an evening minor load. HVAC accounts for about a third of your bill, nationally, with central air about half of that (see above). However, electric space heating accounts for about 10% of the total. So better insulation saves on that aspect too (even for natural gas, heating oil, etc. 3% of electricity use nationally is for powering those pumps and fans)
Next up is refrigerators. Virtually every one of those households has a fridge. For 250 you can either replace an old and horribly inefficient one with a newer and more efficient one, or if already replacing it then for 250 more you can almost always get a much better one. As with insulation, this is an "always on" effect. Unless there is a power outage, the fridge runs 24x7x365 [insert WIlliam Perry joke here]. Even a minor 10% reduction in the cooling space will more than double the effect of this yet-to-be-proven "green computer", and for less money. And this isn't even considering the direct personal savings on the power bill (quick: you have 250 bucks and you want to lower your power bill. One way will get you a 4-5% reduction and the other will get you a 1% reduction. Which is better?). Further, about 1 in 5 households have two fridges, and the secondary is typically an old fridge which is inherently much more inefficient (5-10 years older).
That is why instead of it being a "stupid environmentalist cliche" is is really a "dangerous environmentalist cliche". A 90% reduction of a 2% consumption factor is trivial. A 10% drop in a 40% consumption factor is still arguably trivial but less so than the 1.8%. while at the national level (and personal) it is more expensive.
Once you factor in that most people "need' more than this computer will have to offer, it
"It seems to me that could change rather dramatically if the price of electricity goes up. I wonder what effect his solar array will have if he buys an electric car that can be plugged in."
Unless he works from home (in which case a Hybrid is a very poor choice if the goal is saving money, and merely a poor choice otherwise), the car would be charging at night or in the evening. During these times, solar is zero to marginal, and thus not likely to be "powering" a hybrid, or even a full-electric plug-in.
Also, the cost of maintenance of the solar arrays could go up, not to mention the efficacy of them could go down due to global warming (higher and thicker cloud cover leading to less solar energy reaching the surface), or if someone puts a big building up near him, or bamboo or trees grow into the path, etc., or if a defect in the wiring or installation leads to his house burning down.
About every month I look into solar for my house. And every month I let myself wish it would be cost effective, even though I know it won't be. At least, not for electricity. Now water/home heating, absolutely.
And every time I run through the numbers, solar is a poor investment for someone on the grid.
Ultimately the problem lies with centralized power production and control as the only "allowable" source. Distribution of power generation is more efficient in terms of power delivery, more reliable in the "national security sense" and safer in the health sense in that you can keep the AC, fridge, and freezer on during daytime blackouts.
Humans have not been recording polar ice melt rates for 750,000 years you twit. An ice core is not recorded history. It is sampled history with no direct comparison for verification. Nor do they have the granularity of tracking a few months. There are no markers in the ice cores saying "the ice melted at a rate of x.xxx between May and August, then switch to x.yxyy from August to October...".
To quote the USGS: "This record can include temperature, precipitation , chemistry and gas composition of the lower atmosphere, volcanic eruptions, solar variability, sea-surface productivity and a variety of other climate indicators."
Do you see ice melt rate there? No. We can *ESTIMATE* or *PREDICT*, but we can not verify without actual measurement of ice melt rates. Period. You can cut my tree open and try to estimate how warm or cold it was, but the thermometer hanging in the window is a recording. I'll trust a dime store thermometer over an estimate based on cores - be they ice or trees - any day.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n1_v15/ai_14902815
As to the original "summary":
"As reported in September of last year, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time known to man. "
No, it was the first time since satellite records starting in 1978. More than semantic differences there. To wit "Those passages have been traversed in the past--with difficulty--including in recent years as ice cover thinned". Furthermore there is disagreement as to what exactly confines the "Northwest Passage".
Now, what you won't here from the disaterbators is that by all accounts, even a seasonal period of ice free Northwest Passage along the entire route is a *GOOD* thing. Shorter travel means less fuel and lower costs. A commercial route along the northern border of Canada is an economic boon waiting to happen.
Oh and the title is wrong. It isn't "on track". There was never a "track" for it to be on. We've been reading/hearing about it for a couple decades, and we've heard this each year for the last several.
That means it was Ballmer.
"If he gets an owie in his knee he's at the massage therapist, the chiropractor etc. etc. I'd say 95% of these issues would go away if he ate better and exercised."
I'd say 95% of these issues would go away if he grew a pair and manned up. We all bang our knee from time to time, get over it.
This highlights one of the main problems: a growing belief in society that we NEED doctors to tell us what to do. Get some sniffles? Suck it up, blow it out, and stay away from others for a while. Hit your funny bone? Tough, move it around a bit and "walk it off". No need for an emergency room trip.
Kid fall down and scrape a knee? Use some peroxide on it, clean it out, put some ointment and bandage it. No need for the ER.
We saw this decades ago in the military. New families would essentially camp out the ER with sick kids. Why? It was free and they were "entitled to". Saw it in Germany too.
I'm not going to apologize, but I will say your friend needs to quit being a wuss.
"In short, I see within 20-25 years most homes and apartment complexes with cheap solar arrays on their roofs and supercapacitor electrical storage units somewhere in the building."
NIMBY. Nobody want supercharged capacitors sitting behind their walls.
Besides, it doesn't matter how cheaply you make PV cells, apartment buildings will never have them in substantial amounts. Why? Small square footage compared to the people inside means a very low percentage of the power needed is available.
If you want people to use PV as a significant portion of their residential use you need lower population density. Putting 500-1500 people in a building with maybe 10,000 square feet of roof space means your solar cells don't contribute enough for more than one or maybe two apartments.
On the other hand, having people live in singe or double family units that are on 1/3 acre per person and reducing the amount of blacktop to say 9% of the given space, using larger homes with solar power and porches/awnings/etc. as well most homes could replace a substantial amount of their power consumption.
Absent an increase in power output of *several* orders of magnitude combined with a cost drop of a few orders of magnitude, the mythical solar apartment building is just that - a myth.
The "supercity" is a serious detriment to the environment. Dense cities increase energy in a given area while concentrating demand for goods and services (and energy). That means you have to commute to get to work as residential zones, business zones, industrial zones, etc. all spread out the distance from home and work, home and shopping, and home and entertainment. On the flip side, a decentralized and low density area provides space for people to have their own gardens, lots of heat managing landscaping, and short or non-existent commutes - not just to work but to everywhere else.
With low density living and non-segregated use cases, communities that incorporate work, play, and home in a short radius enable a shift toward "community vehicles"; these are the small electric vehicles for areas that don't have high traffic. In such a series of communities, moving to be close to your job becomes more the norm. The value in a home being close to a specific employer is still there, but the "advantage" (and hence monetary value) in a home's location is lowered. I love where I live because I am two miles from just about everything I use. However, I am in the minority because most people have to commute because the zoning laws effectively preclude them from living close.
This is another dangerous and hidden result of zoning. The zoning committee is essentially printing money by artificially creating areas of demand by limiting the supply of places you are "allowed" to build a certain type of building, park, etc..
In 25 years I don't see "most homes" having cheap solar arrays and super anything in the home. I've been hearing it for decades. If you want a 1930's level home and accoutrements, then sure you could do it. Their power levels are low enough to do it for a reasonable cost. I've looked hard for solar options. They are simply not there unless you are rich enough to have at least half an acre and around 100,000 or more you can toss into something you won't get back for decades. And that is with the cost reductions of the last couple decades. Even as costs go down, electrical consumption goes up.
Aha but if you encounter a Fat-Bodied Time Distortion Field (tm), and time slows down for you, say passing 1.2 seconds in subjective to 1.6 in "objective", they are doing you a favor by slowing down your apparent age and your aging process, making you live longer.
Thus perhaps people fat enough to produce time distortion fields should be encouraged and compensated by the skinny who have been freeloading for centuries, if not millennia. Reparations may be in order!
"All models are wrong, to some degree." == All models are wrong. Either they are wrong or they are not wrong.
Precision is not the implication, correctness is. A model is a model because it is incorrect in some way - it is an approximation. "only a little wrong" wrong does not make it not wrong.
Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
The reason the distinction of all models being wrong is important is to limit people believing the model is the real world. Far, far too many "scientists" these days do all of their work in models and believe they are doing real world stuff. Then the real world occasionally slaps them upside the head with the fact that they were wrong. Unfortunately many vocal ones seem to not then realize the model is wrong and is no substituted for the real world.
Not unlike many among the /. community with regards to their models of women.
Because we stamped each microorganism with "Made on Earth"?
What guarantee do we have that life on Earth isn't the result of contamination from meteorite impacts?
Why? Because.
Given the gravity differences, an ounce of of pot on Mars would get you *much* higher.
"I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because so many American men are obese - can't see their dick, let alone get laid, so they buy a gun and get a stupidly huge truck to compensate. But that's just, like, me opinion, man."
Yet that does not fit the description of the vast majority of those instigating crimes with guns. Obesity is not a risk factor or cause of violent crime, nor has it been shown to be a factor in ownership of arms either. Even if it were true that fat white guys who can't get laid go buy guns, so what if they did? I'd be more concerned about that quiet skinny white guy buying bomb materials and stamps every so often, or the arabic man hardly able to speak english taking fly-only lessons at the local flight school, or the quiet little old lady buying strychnine, tea, and a shovel, or any other number of factors each unique to the specific situation.
Yes you are entitled to your opinion and to express it. But that doesn't make you correct in any way whatsoever.
Indeed, the single greatest risk factors for violent seems to be economic status, how much personal responsibility one has, and how much control over their life and community one feels they have. America has a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of the world's countries. Thus we also have the greatest range of economic conditions. Given the risk factors it is not surprising to have a higher crime rate in those terms, though I see how it could be to someone who hasn't bothered to look at things and just wants to make snide remarks about people different then themselves.
Gun control has never been about crime. It has always been abut control, just as restrictions and limitations on weapons prior to guns were.
Switzerland requires you to be trained in an keep a gun. If you think that has no impact on crime you are sadly mistaken. Furthermore affecting the vanishingly small crime rate - the gun related crime rates are so low they don't bother tracking statistically, is a result of the cultural emphasis on self-policing and personal responsibility. With a decentralized police force and a mandatory term in military training, the notion of taking from others and committing breaches of each others' property and lives is somewhat anathema.
Contrasting that the US is increasingly following a path of centralized power and control as well as centralized police authority. I expect this will continue the increase in crimes, particularly violent ones. The further removed from the governed from the government is the less of a focus on personal responsibility and a sense of control over ones life exists. Combined with less than desirable or downright appalling economic conditions you have a recipe for violent crimes with or without gun. Remove these actors and there is no demonstrably significant impact of your race or fitness, the kind of truck you drive, and whether you get laid or not.
Besides, look at what fat people drive. They tend to be small trucks and small cars. If they lose weight and drive big trucks and big cars.
"The notion that a civilian force could "overthrow a tyrannical government" in the US today is quaint at best."
They said the same thing about the colonies with regard to Great Britain, which at the time was arguably the primary superpower.
People like you are looking at the wrong aspect, probably due to a lack of military experience or understanding. The armament of the would be captives is in fact a consideration. A military commander will always prefer to "take" a town or community that has no armaments or that has less as opposed to one that has more.
A bullet from a hunting rifle will kill a soldier just as easily as any other man or woman. Many hunting rifles have larger ammunition than the M-16, which is barely larger than a "22" (.220 vs. 223).
The argument regarding "guns don't kill people, people do" is applicable here as well. Tanks and helicopters don't kill people, their operators do. I grew up in the military and served in it myself as recon troop. Nobody I ever met in the US military would be willing to pull the trigger to send a howitzer round raining into a US village filled with US citizens, guns or no guns unless very extreme circumstances were at hand.
Less so with guns. It is a psychological advantage. It gives the *person* behind the weapon pause to consider not just his or her own life, but the impact of what they are doing. Americans standing up for themselves strikes a chord among soldiers. After all, that is what they have set their life to do.
I'm a bit suprised nobody has mentioned Tiennenmen Square when an unarmed student stopped a Chinese tank by standing in front and not backing down. Maybe I've missed it though.
Such pauses and delays have a tremendous impact when others can hear about it - on either side. People standing up for the right tend to produce more. People who stop and consider the rightness of their own orders tends to produce more. Delays build on delays. The notion that a "civilian force" would be the only force involved is not quaint, it is absurd and shortsighted. It may start that way (and it might not) but it would not stay that way. Sometimes people need a simple moment of inspiration to be moved to great action.
And yes, to your sarcasm weapon stashes have always provided a deterrence to invasions of any physical force based kind. have you missed out on the incidents over the last 20 years? It's funny that people think and post as you have. A small family can keep a US military unit at bay for two weeks (Ruby Ridge), a small compound of people can keep an unit of military troops and armored vehicles (not tanks) at bay for two months (Waco), yet entire communities, cities, and states of armed citizens are somehow powerless.
A modern revolution would likely happen in the same manner as before. It would not be a small town somewhere saying "Oi! lets take over the US today". It would be the result of cities and states acting as a group. Likely similar to the Civil War.
No government is omnipotent, not even the US. They can all be overthrown or resisted. The notion that this is not true is dreamed of and perpetuated by statists and dictators.
Bullshit. Weight is 2/3rds of the factors for energy economy in moving vehicles. Tell you what, take a GEO metro (or suitably similar economy car) and stick 500 pounds of weight in it and tell me it doesn't get a significantly different amount of fuel economy. A few pounds at a time, sure no big change. But as I'll refer to below, weight is a much larger factor than aero in non-race cars.
"the primary area weight will effect is kinetic energy."
Things like starting from a stop, accelerating, cornering, coasting, rolling resistance, tire resistance, etc.. Aerodynamics doesn't really start having an effect until you get up to *at a minimum*, high freeeway speeds. Sure at 200MPH it's all about aero. But at 35 it's all about mass. At 75 it's still almost all about mass. Why? Because it is exceedingly rare that anyone simply drives along a dead flat and straight stretch of highway without anybody else around.
Consider this: "Our imaginary car has a curb weight of 3,527 pounds, a Cd of 0.30, a frontal area of 23.7 square feet and 9 pounds of rolling resistance for every 1,000 pounds of weight.
According to Frasher, "If we put a gas-burning engine in this car, expect reasonable performance and drive it on a combined driving cycle, we can expect to get 23.8 mpg.... Add 10 percent to the drag coefficient, we'll now get 23.3 mpg.... Take 10 percent from the drag coefficient, we'll now get 24.3 mpg." -- Edmunds (yeah not the nest place but at least it had the '10% change" numbers And his numbers are from a standard MPG estimation program that are usually fairly accurate).
Your "example" of a 300 pound passenger in a 300 pound car is roughly equivalent to a 7% drop in fuel economy.
However, reducing the weight of the car by half doubles the fuel economy - provided you shrink the motor to account for it. If you keep the same motor then for every 10% drop in weight you see a ~7% increase in fuel economy. Compare that to the above quote of 10% more aerodynamic (Cd) getting a ~2% increase in fuel economy. Which one sees the more dramatic difference for the same "10%" change in it's measurement? Yes, that would be weight reduction. That same imaginary car above would get 25.5 MPG if they cut the weight by 10%.
But automakers generally don't want to do that. Look at all the gadgets the new cars are getting to make you want to buy a new one. BMW and Mercedes are among the worst in that regard with such things as multiple tv screens and big-ass seats that are plush have 20 pounds of motors 50 pounds of frames, and another 10 pounds in heating/cooling.
Carmakers prefer evolutionary changes to revolutionary ones - like converting an entire line to lightweight materials and design. As a result it will take a major shift to get them to adopt the newer materials and the cost and time saving techniques that go with them. They have a significant investment in existing infrastructure - just like the telcos do in copper.
Cities are like this because central planners think it is a good idea to separate residences (where people live) from commercial (where they work) by many miles, in some cases dozens.
For millions it is legally impossible to live close to work. Suburbs are a direct and actually intended result of zoning committees that want this ridiculous separation of work and living spaces. Many people in cities, cities not suburbs, do not live close to work. Again, it's zoning that is the prime driver here.
Seriously how can you make the claim that the climate of the US is not "that much different" than that of Europe with a straight face?
A significant portion of the US has summer average temperatures in the high 90's or low 100's, with winter that rarely touches freezing. Another huger portion has winters that dump many feet of snow and leave the area in a frozen blanket of ice for significant portions of the year. Many places have both the high temperatures and the low temperatures. The range of temperatures in the continental US is larger than the range of temperatures in "continental Europe".
As to standard of living differences, that claim is also false as has been shown by the UN for at least a couple decades. If you only just now learned that N.A. uses more energy per capita than Europe you must be new to BBC, or slashdot. America also has a much higher GDP. We make more stuff. so even considering energy use per capita is an incomplete and useless thing to do on it's own.
Go ahead, cut off the electricity supply to millions of people living in 110 degree heat so they can't use their air conditioner and compare that to someone in London not needing an air conditioner. Now tell the millions of people in that 100+ degree weather that their standard of living is "not that much different" than those in Europe. Take the heat source away from those in Minnesota or Canada in January so they can use less energy per capita and convince them that their standard of living isn't any different.
Consider this chart from UN data in 2005: http://www.zianet.com/ehusman/weblog/uploaded_images/E_Intens_v_pCap_GDP-718899.jpg
The US and the UK, for example, are very similar in how many BTUs are consumed per unit of GDP. Yet we produce more GDP per capita. How does that affect your assertion that North America's energy consumption is excessive. IN terms of GDP, the US is about as efficient as the UK, and much more so than Norway which produced about the same GDP per capita as the US, or Canada which produced far less GDP than the US per capita and consumed far more BTUs per unit of GDP to do it. The big "winner" on that chart is Japan which produced a high GDP/capita with a BTU/GDP far lower than that of Europe.
Indeed:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/energy.html
Shows that the US' energy use has in fact been getting more efficient in that our energy user per dollar of GDP has gone down by 42% since 1980. And for those who might say otherwise, it ha snot risen once over the previous year in that 27 year run. Energy use per capita had a slight uptick in the second half of the 90's but is still down a few points from 1980.
How about next you don't just try to take a swipe at those in a different area with a dumb-ass isolated statistic and do some real research? Even a 10 minute excursion into the data coudl have prevented you from such silliness.
Actually a 20 pound drop in driver weight wouldn't make a measurable difference in fuel economy for most cars.
Seriously, take a 4000 pound car and take 20 pounds of driver out and expect a measurable difference? No, it has to be lighter cars that do not shrink in size. Not just some small weight savings, that will be eaten by new computer systems, many pounds of wiring harness, heavier tires, bigger seats, etc..
The car needs to be designed from the onset to be a lightweight vehicle. The heaviest parts of the vehicle don't get scaled down by saving 20 or even 200 pounds. I'm talking about things like the frame, the brake system, drivetrain, axles, etc.. Cut a thousand pounds of of a 4 door sedan as part of the design and you can then shave off another several hundred pounds through lighter weight components - to include a smaller engine.
It isn't rocket science but it could be aided by rocket scientists - they are very familiar with the effects of mass and design for lightweight vs merely shaving a few pounds.
The other of the two large gains to be had is in teaching people a more efficient means of driving. No the usual (and sometimes wrong) maxims about acceleration and tire pressures don't cut it. I'm talking hands-on real training with vehicles that have "real time" and averaging fuel economy capture and display systems. Let people actually see immediate changes and they will develop a style of driving that works and consumes less fuel. I've personally observed people increase their fuel economy in large SUVs so equipped (and w/proper instruction) by several MPG. Smaller vehicles show similar benefits.
If you think the only safety features added to automobiles in the least few decades is "a few airbags", you are pretty misinformed or ill-informed.
Safety features include such things as traction control, ABS, side impact beams, stiffer upper door channels, air bag switches, airbag detection and control mechanisms, sensors for the airbags, hardware for the airbags to deploy in safely, shoulder harnesses for non-front seats (these require stronger mounts which results in more mass/weight, stiffer cage structures often add weight, padding, larger frame portions to account for larger crumple zones, four wheel steering, automatic leveling, self-adjusting shocks, and more all add significant weight when tallied up. FOr full size vans, for example, I distinctly recall riding around in the back of a Ford Econoline van w/o seats as a child. Nowadays that van requires seats and seating infrastructure. If you don't think that can amount to 500 kilos on it's own, you are willfully ignorant.
Even "just" an airbag system for driver, passenger, and side can easily reach 50-100+ pounds depending on sizing - you have to account for wiring as well as "changing" the areas the airbag deploys from to handle it as well as connectors and indicators.
500 kilo just for safety equipment over the "same" car in the 80's? Easy.
"Rather, in the eternal bigger-is-better orgy, car manufacturers feel compelled to make every iteration of any model a bit bigger than the previous one. "
Demonstrably false from the onset. For example, look at a 1970's Dodge Charger and compare it to the one. Even the Suburban is externally smaller than the older ones. The C6 Corvette is smaller than the previous generation.
Further, cargo capacity changes and usage pattern changes often result in models being larger than they were 30 years ago. Now that Civic is expected to be transportation for a smallish family or expected to not crush the rear occupants like sardines if they get rear-ended (yes, one of those pesky safety features you ignored).
As if that wasn't enough bigger doesn't necessarily require heavier. Lighter materials have dramatically offset the increase in size from the 1980's cars. Using body materials such as fiberglass and/or carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium, etc you could make a full-sized 1970 Dodge Charger today and it would weigh no more, and probably a lot less, than it did then.
Cars are not like software, tossing in a hundred safety changes to the vehicle design add significant amount of physical mass (and hence weight). Just because those who can't be bothered to think about it don't understand this doesn't make them any less real, or make uninformed comments about them insightful.
People in the US do not want to buy light cars for a very solid reason: the 1980's showed them that merely making a car smaller to make it lighter in order to increase fuel economy ratings leads to higher deaths and injuries. The mistake was making the car small, not lightweight. But the media played up on the weight side because the eight side was the alleged benefit.
Lighter cars are safer but only if designed to be so, not if made lighter simply by making them smaller.
"cars aren't the only place where we can save energy, but they are a big one, if we'd just say cars can be a lot lighter, even if they're not as safe, just to get better fuel economy. "
Lighter cars can be safer, they just need to be bigger. Carbon Fiber has a better crush absorption scale - it is smoother than metals. That means it transfers less impact to the occupants. But you want more crumple zone space to account for it. Further UL cars need to be designed that way - simply replacing steel panels with CF doesn't do it. A mid-1970's muscle car body built with carbon fiber - w/o shrinking it, would be a gloriously safe vehicle to be in - even with heavier vehicles on the road. More Weight != safe, Bigger == safer (c.p). The problem isn't the engine or the fuel, the problem with vehicular transportation is the amount of mass carried around to move a small amount of mass. About 66% of energy expenditure in transportation is mass (weight) based. Given the right circumstances, all cars and forms of transportation are fatal at highway conditions. Speed isn't what kills. If that were true airlines would be the most fatal form of transportation.
Fuel economy as a counter to rising prices? Not a chance. The primary driver is the growth of "third world" and Asian countries. The demand created by those nations will prevent US reductions of anything less than 40% or so from having any significant impact. The Chinese, for example, are willing to pay the higher prices. As long as someone else is willing to pay a higher price, and the seller is willing to sell to the highest bidder, your reduction in demand doesn't mean squat.
US demand for liquid fuels is projected to decrease overall by about 330,000 bbl/day in 2008. Meanwhile *worldwide* demand is projected to increase by 1.2 million bbl/day. On the oil side, China is expected to increase by about 500 million bbl/day - more than accounting for US demand decreases in oil. That is *just* China. The EU countries also offset US decreases. The fact of the matter is the US is no longer the master on the demand side of oil. Our influence on oil prices is waning. Another indicator of this is the fact that so far in 2008 our demand has been reduced compared to the same window of 2007. 2007's imports were lower than 2006's which were lower than 2005's. Yet prices are still rising. US Oil consumption is down to levels not seen in 4-5 years. Yet prices still rise.
Demand outstripping supply is a GOOD THING(tm). It means that specific control over oil prices by OPEC goes away. They can raise it, sure, by cutting production. But they can't flood the market with cheap oil. OPEC has a history of doing this when alternatives get competitive. But with demand becoming higher than supply (which will continue), it reaches a point where OPEC simply can not put out enough to cause a major drop in prices. For example, a lot of oil can be extracted at a market price of $75/bbl. But if OPEC can cause the price to drop some 130 to 50, investors will hold off investing in that "new oil" because of that concern. OPEC has done it before. Saudi Arabia's cost to pump and sell a barrel of crude is less than 10 bucks. But they will soon not be able to cause such an event. Viewed from this perspective you don't want to cause a major reduction in oil demand. Additional large sources outside of OPEC will cause an decrease in oil price volatility. which IMO accounts for some $20-45/bbl.
The decrease in volatility along with a reduction in demand driven high prices will create a new "stable" range. I guesstimate it will be in the 75/bbl range. But you can not get there with a market that can be saturated with cheap oil. We need the higher demand. We need to pay the pain of higher prices for a while. Sure it will hurt, but in the end it will be worth it.
That said dollar for dollar, the *best* investment to be had in this country - or most countries even - is *not* in transportation costs, but in home energy - specifically heating and cooling. Every study I've seen that resu
No offense but you simply do not understand what OSS is.
OSS isn't Sourceforge, it isn't Linux, nor Firefox, nor Gimp nor any singular piece of software. It isn't documentation or lack of documentation, bugginess or non-bugginess is also not OSS. After all, any attribute you want to assign to OSS projects/software is equally assignable to non-OSS. Windows is easy to use and well documented? My Arse. If that were true why the multi-billion dollar Windows training industry? Why the multibillion dollar book industry? Simple: the claim is bogus. Most software has bugs and almost every piece of software could be better documented. Thus all of your "reasons" about OSS not being a threat are invalid on their face. I've even seen a lot of commercial software not "EXPLAIN WHAT THE PRODUCT IS" on their website. Your vapor anecdotes notwithstanding this is not an aspect of interest either.
The reason OSS is threat to MS is no market share. It is not mindshare. It is a shift in expectations and beliefs.
How many people 5-10 years ago thought the Windows==computer? Compare that to now. That expectation is shifting, and that expectation is a core principle of the MS business model. It is a long-term growth threat in the sense that it takes time to build and when it reaches "the crisis stage" it is too late. Another aspect of the threat of OSS to MS is "freedom". Nor GNU freedom per-se but vendor freedom - choice. With the growth of Linux, came a fertile ground for other alternatives such as OpenOffice.org - and yes I am well aware of it's history. This led to the creation of a pressure valve. As MS predictably increased their punishment on those not paying the proper financial respect, the existence of this pressure valve allowed some to take it. As more did so the movement for "open document" standards grew more intense and larger. This triggered more people to even *think* about alternatives.
It's that thinking about alternatives that is the crucial chink in the MS business model. It is much like Afghanistan was to the USSR. The illusion that you *need* Microsoft has cracked, and chunks are falling off. That is the single largest threat to MS's business model. People will switch to other alternatives - even if they are proprietary ones for someone else.
The second major aspect of the OSS threat to MS (by way of their business model specifically) is what OSS enables. Consider the use of a supercomputer for something like SETI or protein folding. Now consider the use of distributed computing such as SETI At Home of Folding At Home. OSS enables the tapping of far more developers than can be managed by an organization. It also enables companies to rise quickly and establish dominance. One example is Google. Google would not have happened in a world w/o "a Linux". It would have been cost prohibitive. OSS enables that type of company to shoot up in a relatively few short years to absolute domination. It also enables competitors to work together.
This working together allows competitors of all sizes converge on a common underlying platform and provide for each of them to establish their specialties or "particular advantages". They share the otherwise unmanageable mass of talented programmers and supplement it with their own developers. OSS enabled OSX. Look at the significant turnaround in Mac usage with OSX - even before the Intel switch. This accelerates the shattering of the "Windows is the Computer" illusion which MS bases it's model on.
These are (some of) the major aspects of OSS that are the threat to MS. Not the specific products themselves but what affect of these products, their existence, has on the minds of the people using them. It may take a generational changeover but it is inevitable at this point.
Your problem is you are too busy looking at the bugs on the trees to understand you are looking at a rainforest. The "ecology" of the software and computing world is changing. The way we use the electronic world is changing and it is due to OSS, not MS. Facebook, MySpace, F
Seriously, this is the least bullshit excuse the could come up with? If ANY corporation in the US tried this kind of thing, the wrath of SARBOX would rain down on them like you wouldn't believe.
;) ) is not something they had control over or did. Sadly we avoid dealing with the real culprits or accidents by blaming it on the face.
No, it would not.
SARBOX does not protect against poor judgement, it merely documents it.
IF a plan is proposed and everyone says it handles the risks, and they turn out to be wrong, SARBOX doesn't provide for punishment. And if you think about it, that makes sense.
The best you can do is to analyze the risks as you can identify them, prepare a plan that fits the risks and needs, and then execute the plan and do what you can to ensure the plan is followed. Sarbanes-Oxley essentially insists the plan be made, risks identified and bought off on, and the plan executed. It does and CAN NOT protect from bad decisions. SOX is essentially a CYA plan. If you can prove you went through the steps, SOX passes the bill elsewhere. Contrary to popular, and wrong, opinion, SOX does not mean the management (the "deciders" hehe) have to know anything about the real technical details. Nor should they, really. As long as they have people to do that analysis for them, and said people have not proven themselves untrustworthy of full of bad judgement on the matters.
As far as blaming Bush, that's just stupid. No, wait it's asinine. The decision to move from Lotus to Exchange was not made by Bush. That type of stuff doesn't make it to those levels. It likely never made it past the CIO. That is what they are for.
It isn't like Bush swept into office and replaced all the IT folk. That happens in corporations, sure. But not federal employees. They're special.
For those who think this was allplanned on Bush's part, consider this evidence: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01446.pdf
See in particular Page 41 of that PDf, it's a timeline of "the Clinton Administration's IT department"'s failures to properly back up email for years. Oh and look, it happened with an "upgrade" from Netware to NT. You know, minor things like backups not working for 14+ months, and people with names starting with the letter D not being subject to archiving, and having their own implementation of an archiving system, and incurring over 11 Million dollars to not successfully recover the lost emails. They had problems for about 4 years. If Bush is to blame for the current fiasco, Clinton is to blame for the previous one.
Yet somehow, Bush The Ignorant was Bush The Brilliant Mastermind Who Knew that He Would Need To Not Have Emails In The Future. No, you don't get it both ways. Anybody that thinks Bush knows anything more about email than how to use it is being ridiculous. I don't think the man stupid but like most people he probably just writes, reads, and sends email and that's his understanding of it. It goes through the Tubes somehow but that's not his deal.
I figure about 97-99% of the stuff any given (modern) US president is given credit for or assigned the blame for is stuff he (or she when it happens - but no not her either.
In this case the main culprit is the underlying technology change coupled with ignorant laws (SOX, for example). Following that is the failure to operate a secondary system for testing and validation that mirrors production.
I find that article at Arstechnica to be blatant political crap instead of good and proper journalism. Like most "journalists" and "articles" these days, sadly. There is almost a non-stop line of email archiving troubles and failures dating back to the mid-nineties by the same group of IT staff, yet somehow that is cut off and the fault laid on Bush. So we all get riled up about Bush, and those people who _actually_ failed remain government employees for the next Administration. And the cycle continues.
Oh I dunno, maybe all the ones that didn't and don't.
...and reappearing on April 5th.