This is only true if don't care who, from the rest of the candidates, will win (as long as its not Paul).
Besides, there are many reasons why Paul won't win, and first of all is the fact that the issues covered here are almost meaningless in this campaign (at least as it seems from Isreal...)
And you're missing the whole point again. ask Pres. Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney why invading Iraq was a good idea, then you might get some good answers. As for asking "informed individuals who are not involved with it", I wish you luck finding them. I'm not involved and therefore don't take myself as informed, but I can ask you how could someone become informed, if he's not involved, and an ex-employee of NASA is the closest I can get to this. Ask critics? How is it better than asking NASA workers?
The point is not that they think it's worth it, the point is why it's worth it.
Who would you ask for the reasons for space exploration if not those working on it? What exactly do we know about space exploration that we can give an answer relating to the actual costs and to the missions planned ahead?
They asked the right people for the matter of "Why?". They should have asked them no other question.
It's the best way to ensure the survival of humanity, and in the long run it's a very good economical investment (as it's a n investment in science and technology). However, in the short run it brings nothing to the common man (except pride and owe, maybe). So the question is, what do you want.
By the way, I've seen someone talking about private space exploration, but we must remember the amazingly high costs and the relatively high chances of failure in any specific operation. There is no way a private "for profit" organization will take such expenses with this odds against it, not until it's relatively safe and simple due to government-funded research. It is no coincidence that most modern inventions (computers, for example) were made by government-funded bodies or at least, by a company that it's main costumer is the government.
Democracy is not perfect, obviously, but in the words of Winston Churchil:
"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
The problem some religious people have with Evolution is that it allows disbelief in god. Without Evolution, you need the watchmaker, and this is one of the best arguments for the existence of a creator. Logically, there is not much different between the spontaneous creation of simple and complex mechanisms (if its creation, there is a great difference when we're talking about evolving mechanisms), but in the human mind there is a great difference. Many might accept the Big Bang with no creator, only few would accept spontaneous creation of earth as it is now.
So, although Evolution "does not require abandoning belief in God" it allows it, and this is bad enough for those who choose religious dogma over scientific discoveries.
OLPC isn't about cheap laptops, it's about open laptops. A child can learn a lot more from an XO then classmate, simply because in XO you can see what's going on.
What you get is children who learn to think as engineers (from software, but the point is the way you think, you can apply it to anything), which is probably the best way to build an economy.
Canada and Australia currently supply more then 50% of the uranium in the world. Australia also holds about 40% of the known reserves. I think I can live with them as "the new Saudi Arabia of energy".
However, in the long run, we'll have to use other sources of energy. Solar and fusion, simply because we'll probably run out of cheap uranium before the 23rd century. (unless we'll be able to extract the uranium from the seas, then we'll probably have enough for several thousand years).
How is it relevant to global warming? After all, oil is generated if you burn it or not, it doesn't matter. The question isn't how much energy there is in earth, because then sending satellites into orbit is the best thing you can do (do you know how much energy there is in a 500 kilo satellite? Its 500*c^2!). There is a great difference between heat and energy. There might be problems with this technology, like birds catching fire in midair, or missing the receiver and burning a city, but it's not global warming.
Math is not that simple. Most people can't understand most of the proofs even with explanations to each symbol and links to the theorems used in the proof. Actually, by the way, most people can't understand the theorems themselves, because the actual objects of the theorem are based on high level math. As for the symbols, the reason symbols are reused is to allow people to read. Otherwise you'll have hundreds of new symbols (or thousands) and it will take a considerable time just to be able to recognize a significant part of them, or have long words for every symbol, so theorems (and proofs) will be unreadable.
As for the actual question, a proof should obviously be in the relevant wikibook. It should be in wikipedia only if it gives some insight into the theorem, it is standard and it is on the same level as the theorem. However, the said book is practically nonexistent, at the moment, so all those pages of mathematical proofs should be passed to it, and all the pages of theorems in wikipedia should be linked there.
You would also get the same pattern if you'll have a mssive "silent majority" that support Putin but won't usually vote. Then areas with higher turnout will also more strongly support Putin. I don't believe this is the case, the "higher then 100% turnout" ad the fact the his party gets just enough votes to change the consitution seems to me to support rigging, but this is another valid explanation for this pattern.
More choice is when you release movies in both formats and the client can choose. Having two formats when no machine can support both of them isn't more choice by any rational definition. It's like saying that splitting your country into two distinct countries with no means to move from one to the other is giving you more choice, you can choose in which one you want to live.
It is also worth mentioning that the problem is not MS investing money in making content available in HD DVD format. The problem is in investing it in making the content unavailable in Blu-ray format.
Those black holes are the result of collapse of the core itself, as I understand. The core is (relatively) very dense, and along time it collapse together to one hole. Here they are talking about a stellar black hole, one that is believed to be, basicly, one collapsed star. Along those lines it might be a possible explanation to claim it was in a three-stars system, and this "stellar" black hole is actually the remains of two stars (joined after at least one of them collapsed). Of course this might not be possible, I am not an astronomer and I have no access to the actual data.
You must remember the difference between "traditional sales" and "sales". Online music shops are not traditional, and they aren't counted. What is the effect of illegal file-sharing on online music sales? It might be greater then the decline in traditional sales, then it would be entirely correct to say that illegal file-sharing has a positive effect on sales.
In a geostationary orbit, you will have more than 23 hours of full light each day, so you will get (by your estimates) about 5M$ a year. And doesn't the energy cost increase continuously?
I will not argue over what the Founding Fathers intended, but slavery was accepted by them, it was not forbidden by the constitution, and some of them held slaves (Washington, for example). Anyway, I am not american, so I don't really care what were their intentions. As for women's voting, the point is not whether women are less likely to vote by the standards you propse, but should they have a vote. In the system you propse, should they be tested. The Founding Fathers were (at least most of them) male-chauvinist and racist. I don't blame them, they lived in the 18th century, but we must remember that they lived in the 18th century. They build a mechanism that fitted the world as they knew it, not the modern world. Modern things you might need from the government you will find research (that today cost so much that only the government can allow itself basic research), and some way to support the economy (like subsidies for education. This method works well in northern europe). Public works might do as well, if you'll invent new ones all the time (that worked in the great depression, held you fine until you had all the public works you could care for in the war), but that's not what you meant, right?.
Study a little history and you will find it plainly evident that every nation which has ever become a police state or a fascist dictatorship did so by allowing its government to become too large and too powerful and too involved in the everyday lives of its citizens and by considered myriad things other than defense, public works, and law enforcement to be its business. This is nonsense, you are replacing the reason and the outcome. Any totalitaric regime is too involved in the everyday lives of its citizens, but it usually what it does after seizing power. Take the Nazis as an example, or the USSR. In the first, you had a democratic government that became a totalitaristic one by first giving all the power to one man, than removing every opposition. Most totalitaristic aspect were relatively late. By the way, the first thing they did was a lot of public works (roads, etc.), from 1933 and on (they used the opposition for this as well, obviously). With the USSR, they rose from the ruins of a weak government (the democratic government from february 1917) and they became totalitaristic only in the early 1920, after the end of the civil war, when their force was based over the Red Army (by the way, a socialistic country could be free, see Ukrain at the same time (with Makhno) for example, or read Kropotkin).
You seem to misunderstand the meaning of a "progressive" tax. The point is not only that rich people pay more, but that they pay higher percentage of their income\spending. This is the reason you will need different levels of taxation for different products. If you earn 50,000$ a month, you can easily pay 50% of it to the government. If you earn 5,000$ a month, it will not be so simple.
You can do it by returning money to people based on how much money you think they need, but this will not simplify things. Those rates will have to change continuosly with time, and will depend not only on the number of members in the household but on their ages, where they live, maybe even their religion. Is a "kosher" food a luxury? There are places kosher food might cost 400% more then non-kosher.
The last thing I would like to indicate, is that even if you're not "filthy rich" I would guess you are not poor as well. You can afford most things you need, including proper health care and education, which is usually pretty expensive. So am I, by the way. The point is, that money is, as you indicated, pretty useless if you have enough. If you don't have enough, it is one of the most important things in the world. For a joyous life you need first to satisfy your basic needs (food, shelter, etc.), then something for you security (social security as well), and only then you will move to higher things that will give "real meaning" to your life. Maslow described it pretty well.
You assume that the Founding Fathers intended for 90% of the government to come from local/state level, it might even be correct. However, the question is not what were their intentions but what is written in the constitution. By the way, they also intended for black people to be slaves and for women to have no vote, do you think anyone who think differently should not be entitled to vote?
You might not say there is only one correct way to do things, but you definitly say there is a very small number of ways, and they can't be very different from yours.
As for income tax, it allows you a higher level of taxation over those who can handle it (that is, relatively rich people). This allows Capitalism to work, without an income tax, the ever-growing income differences will make one of the two systems collapse - the Democracy or the Capitalism.
You could get the same effect from sales tax, but only if you make it progressive by different levels of taxation on different products, so basic products will be (at least, almost) tax free, and luxuries will be taxed heavily. It is more complex, as you'll have to devise a mechanism for defining the taxation level for every product, and the complexity will make it exploitable, just as with the income tax.
You forgot two factors:
1) You won't place your ground based power stations on the equator, but in your country. The amount of power is multiplied by the cosine of the angle between the zenith and the sun.
2) Even if you are on the equator, the sun will be in zenith only at noon. In the morning/evening there is light, but much less, so you'll have to change your number from 400 W/m^2 to about 254 W/m^2.
Now, I don't know how did you got this 1,000 number you started from, but I'll take their numbers, they seem pretty accurate.
By the way looking in wikipedia is always a good idea.
If the object releasing the energy is rotating. This happens in pulsars, for example, and should happen when a massive rotating star collapses into a black hole, and in astrometric binary stars (when only one partner is actually a star, the other is a dead star), with an accretion disk.
And I don't understand why do they have to guess before doing some serious research. They have given to possible explanations, collision of two nuetron stars, that sould produce radiation in higher frequencies (gamma ray, see Gamma Ray Bursts) and black hole evaporation, which shouldn't be that intensive (unless when the black hole is spinning, the energy released should be 11 orders of magnitude higher, see Black Hole Evaporation).
Of course, I might be wrong. First, I'm not an astronomer. Second, I understand most things about black holes and nuetron stars suppose to include aspects of relativity and quantum theory, so both should not be applied to them... (as they contradict)
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This is only true if don't care who, from the rest of the candidates, will win (as long as its not Paul).
Besides, there are many reasons why Paul won't win, and first of all is the fact that the issues covered here are almost meaningless in this campaign (at least as it seems from Isreal...)
Of what it was last year, of course.
The question is how is the use measured?
And you're missing the whole point again. ask Pres. Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney why invading Iraq was a good idea, then you might get some good answers. As for asking "informed individuals who are not involved with it", I wish you luck finding them. I'm not involved and therefore don't take myself as informed, but I can ask you how could someone become informed, if he's not involved, and an ex-employee of NASA is the closest I can get to this. Ask critics? How is it better than asking NASA workers?
You might ask the Slashdot community why should we support computers, they might give you some insightful/informative answers. Maybe even a funny one.
The point is not that they think it's worth it, the point is why it's worth it.
Who would you ask for the reasons for space exploration if not those working on it? What exactly do we know about space exploration that we can give an answer relating to the actual costs and to the missions planned ahead?
They asked the right people for the matter of "Why?". They should have asked them no other question.
It's the best way to ensure the survival of humanity, and in the long run it's a very good economical investment (as it's a n investment in science and technology). However, in the short run it brings nothing to the common man (except pride and owe, maybe). So the question is, what do you want.
By the way, I've seen someone talking about private space exploration, but we must remember the amazingly high costs and the relatively high chances of failure in any specific operation. There is no way a private "for profit" organization will take such expenses with this odds against it, not until it's relatively safe and simple due to government-funded research. It is no coincidence that most modern inventions (computers, for example) were made by government-funded bodies or at least, by a company that it's main costumer is the government.
I say, take the right to vote from anyone who disagrees with me, since they are simply wrong.
Democracy is not perfect, obviously, but in the words of Winston Churchil:
"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
The problem some religious people have with Evolution is that it allows disbelief in god. Without Evolution, you need the watchmaker, and this is one of the best arguments for the existence of a creator. Logically, there is not much different between the spontaneous creation of simple and complex mechanisms (if its creation, there is a great difference when we're talking about evolving mechanisms), but in the human mind there is a great difference. Many might accept the Big Bang with no creator, only few would accept spontaneous creation of earth as it is now. So, although Evolution "does not require abandoning belief in God" it allows it, and this is bad enough for those who choose religious dogma over scientific discoveries.
OLPC isn't about cheap laptops, it's about open laptops. A child can learn a lot more from an XO then classmate, simply because in XO you can see what's going on. What you get is children who learn to think as engineers (from software, but the point is the way you think, you can apply it to anything), which is probably the best way to build an economy.
Canada and Australia currently supply more then 50% of the uranium in the world. Australia also holds about 40% of the known reserves. I think I can live with them as "the new Saudi Arabia of energy".
However, in the long run, we'll have to use other sources of energy. Solar and fusion, simply because we'll probably run out of cheap uranium before the 23rd century. (unless we'll be able to extract the uranium from the seas, then we'll probably have enough for several thousand years).
How is it relevant to global warming? After all, oil is generated if you burn it or not, it doesn't matter. The question isn't how much energy there is in earth, because then sending satellites into orbit is the best thing you can do (do you know how much energy there is in a 500 kilo satellite? Its 500*c^2!). There is a great difference between heat and energy. There might be problems with this technology, like birds catching fire in midair, or missing the receiver and burning a city, but it's not global warming.
Math is not that simple. Most people can't understand most of the proofs even with explanations to each symbol and links to the theorems used in the proof. Actually, by the way, most people can't understand the theorems themselves, because the actual objects of the theorem are based on high level math. As for the symbols, the reason symbols are reused is to allow people to read. Otherwise you'll have hundreds of new symbols (or thousands) and it will take a considerable time just to be able to recognize a significant part of them, or have long words for every symbol, so theorems (and proofs) will be unreadable.
As for the actual question, a proof should obviously be in the relevant wikibook. It should be in wikipedia only if it gives some insight into the theorem, it is standard and it is on the same level as the theorem. However, the said book is practically nonexistent, at the moment, so all those pages of mathematical proofs should be passed to it, and all the pages of theorems in wikipedia should be linked there.
You would also get the same pattern if you'll have a mssive "silent majority" that support Putin but won't usually vote. Then areas with higher turnout will also more strongly support Putin. I don't believe this is the case, the "higher then 100% turnout" ad the fact the his party gets just enough votes to change the consitution seems to me to support rigging, but this is another valid explanation for this pattern.
More choice is when you release movies in both formats and the client can choose. Having two formats when no machine can support both of them isn't more choice by any rational definition. It's like saying that splitting your country into two distinct countries with no means to move from one to the other is giving you more choice, you can choose in which one you want to live.
It is also worth mentioning that the problem is not MS investing money in making content available in HD DVD format. The problem is in investing it in making the content unavailable in Blu-ray format.
Why is it badly named? A solar mass is excatly as the mass of sol (our sun). Sounds like a good name to me.
Those black holes are the result of collapse of the core itself, as I understand. The core is (relatively) very dense, and along time it collapse together to one hole. Here they are talking about a stellar black hole, one that is believed to be, basicly, one collapsed star. Along those lines it might be a possible explanation to claim it was in a three-stars system, and this "stellar" black hole is actually the remains of two stars (joined after at least one of them collapsed). Of course this might not be possible, I am not an astronomer and I have no access to the actual data.
You must remember the difference between "traditional sales" and "sales". Online music shops are not traditional, and they aren't counted. What is the effect of illegal file-sharing on online music sales? It might be greater then the decline in traditional sales, then it would be entirely correct to say that illegal file-sharing has a positive effect on sales.
In a geostationary orbit, you will have more than 23 hours of full light each day, so you will get (by your estimates) about 5M$ a year.
And doesn't the energy cost increase continuously?
You seem to misunderstand the meaning of a "progressive" tax. The point is not only that rich people pay more, but that they pay higher percentage of their income\spending. This is the reason you will need different levels of taxation for different products. If you earn 50,000$ a month, you can easily pay 50% of it to the government. If you earn 5,000$ a month, it will not be so simple.
You can do it by returning money to people based on how much money you think they need, but this will not simplify things. Those rates will have to change continuosly with time, and will depend not only on the number of members in the household but on their ages, where they live, maybe even their religion. Is a "kosher" food a luxury? There are places kosher food might cost 400% more then non-kosher.
The last thing I would like to indicate, is that even if you're not "filthy rich" I would guess you are not poor as well. You can afford most things you need, including proper health care and education, which is usually pretty expensive. So am I, by the way. The point is, that money is, as you indicated, pretty useless if you have enough. If you don't have enough, it is one of the most important things in the world. For a joyous life you need first to satisfy your basic needs (food, shelter, etc.), then something for you security (social security as well), and only then you will move to higher things that will give "real meaning" to your life. Maslow described it pretty well.
You assume that the Founding Fathers intended for 90% of the government to come from local/state level, it might even be correct. However, the question is not what were their intentions but what is written in the constitution. By the way, they also intended for black people to be slaves and for women to have no vote, do you think anyone who think differently should not be entitled to vote? You might not say there is only one correct way to do things, but you definitly say there is a very small number of ways, and they can't be very different from yours. As for income tax, it allows you a higher level of taxation over those who can handle it (that is, relatively rich people). This allows Capitalism to work, without an income tax, the ever-growing income differences will make one of the two systems collapse - the Democracy or the Capitalism. You could get the same effect from sales tax, but only if you make it progressive by different levels of taxation on different products, so basic products will be (at least, almost) tax free, and luxuries will be taxed heavily. It is more complex, as you'll have to devise a mechanism for defining the taxation level for every product, and the complexity will make it exploitable, just as with the income tax.
You forgot two factors:
1) You won't place your ground based power stations on the equator, but in your country. The amount of power is multiplied by the cosine of the angle between the zenith and the sun.
2) Even if you are on the equator, the sun will be in zenith only at noon. In the morning/evening there is light, but much less, so you'll have to change your number from 400 W/m^2 to about 254 W/m^2.
Now, I don't know how did you got this 1,000 number you started from, but I'll take their numbers, they seem pretty accurate.
By the way looking in wikipedia is always a good idea.
So you prefer a software accepting 29.2.2100 as a vaild date. I hope you'll change your mind in time...
If the object releasing the energy is rotating. This happens in pulsars, for example, and should happen when a massive rotating star collapses into a black hole, and in astrometric binary stars (when only one partner is actually a star, the other is a dead star), with an accretion disk.
And I don't understand why do they have to guess before doing some serious research. They have given to possible explanations, collision of two nuetron stars, that sould produce radiation in higher frequencies (gamma ray, see Gamma Ray Bursts) and black hole evaporation, which shouldn't be that intensive (unless when the black hole is spinning, the energy released should be 11 orders of magnitude higher, see Black Hole Evaporation).
Of course, I might be wrong. First, I'm not an astronomer. Second, I understand most things about black holes and nuetron stars suppose to include aspects of relativity and quantum theory, so both should not be applied to them... (as they contradict)