For one, it doesn't have to compete with existing providers. But the main thing is that peer-to-peer finance has been around for centuries - perhaps you have heard of mutual aid/benefit societies? Guilds to credit unions to microloans - some concept different implementation.
The classic example of great PR is J&J's handling of the Tylenol poisonings. It was all about taking a public relations problem and handling it so people understood there was nothing to fear. Good PR is simply good communications about what you are doing and why. Covering things up is bad PR, and if you get caught - which you eventually will - the situation becomes infinitely worse.
Cohen believes that fuel made from domestic farm products should be subsidized so that they can reduce the need for foreign oil. "We need to develop economical alternative fuel sources that won't fluctuate (like oil prices)," Cohen said. "This observation seems to be missing from the current president's energy plan."
Except, this company was actually given $5 million by the U.S. government - which was at least 25% of the original estimate for construction costs:
In 2003, Changing World Technologies, Inc. touted its Carthage, Missouri Renewable Environmental Solutions (RES) plant as a "green" solution to U.S. dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels...It promised to turn turkey feces and carcasses into crude oil at a predicted construction cost of $15 million and production costs of $15 per barrel...Backed by such promises and with the support of environmental activists, the federal government gave RES a $5 million grant to build the plant. Now, just two years later and $25 million over budget, the RES plan to turn fowl waste into crude oil has run afoul of financial and chemical realities...The new facility cost about $40 million to build, more than twice the original estimate. Then the plant went far over its targeted production costs, with the product coming in at $80 per barrel--five times higher than estimated and twice the market price for crude oil...And now the plant is releasing a stench that's bothering nearby residents."
It's a joint venture of Conagra. It got $5 million in funding from the U.S. government. It doesn't work. It was in fact, "Turkey Credits". Besides laying this on Democrats - who don't control Congress nor were they at Cheney's secret meetings to develop the nation's energy policy once Bush got in office - is simply foolish.
You can't have an informed decision if you don't have the information. Take the NSA wiretap issue, if you didn't know about it at all as the President intended, you wouldn't know to have an opinion on it. The whole point of the press is to bring significant issues to the fore, so we "the people" can hold the government accountable. It's more than reading through slant, it is also having all the relevent information in front of you. Anyone can dictate the conclusion if they can limit the premises.
I don't disagree. However, if you have an employer that has such employment agreements, then you likely have an employer that could be an asshat about doing this.
The Fifth Amendment is about self-incrimination. Remaining silent does not get the charges against you dismissed whereas the States Secret priviledge does exactly that. They aren't the same at all.
Depends on how you define better. A certain class of people get world class care in the United States and can talk about how these countries provide less quality of care than they recieve in the US.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting the link. I'm still not sold on nuclear power, but it is clear I need to take a closer look and get more information on the risks and benefits.
Let me ask you this: In the history of nuclear power, can you show me a single country that has nuclear power plants but no nuclear weapons? If such a case exists, how long did they go before acquiring nuclear weapons or how long have they had nuclear power but not a nuclear weapon?
If no country has nuclear power without nuclear weapons or if you can find correlation between nuclear power and the eventual development of nuclear weapons, then the whole theoretical basis of your argument is flawed. I don't happen to know the history of nuclear power or nuclear weapons for those countries that have them, but intuitively, I suspect there is a correlation. I'd love to see any details that would support your argument, but I'm willing to bet that isn't supported by the facts.
So, logically your argument may be sound. However, I question the truth of your premises.
I'm not an expert on energy and nuclear power. I am aware that there are technology differences and increased levels of safety in comparison to Chernobyl. However, the central question for me is what are the relative risks and benefits when compared to other energy options?
I honestly don't know how they stack up, but I do know enough about nuclear energy to know that misjudging the risks has the potential to put many people's lives in danger and needs to be carefully considered. I don't have an agenda on the issue, but I don't see anything particularly compelling about nuclear energy. If that qualifies as "paranoia", then I guess that makes me paranoid.
I'm pretty rational. I'm thinking a Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant as military target, or nuclear acceptence as a way of proliferating weapons are sufficient reasons to look for other, safer forms of power. Care to explain to me where my logic is wrong here?
You've got the good old tyme free market religion my friend. How about getting some facts?
According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, total R&D spending by the U.S. government was $85.2 billion of the total $283.8 billion spent - 30% of the total in 2003. Compare that figure to 1970 (57%), 1980 (47%), 1990 (40%), and 2000 (25%). As you can see, "With more and more scientific studies paid for out of public dollars" can only reasonably be applied from the period 2000-2003 and it does not factor in proportions. You are just looking at the total dollars spent by government.
Even there, your argument is weak. If you adjust for inflation - I used CPI for my calculations, the increases in government spending on R&D for 2003 is about 20% above the figure in 1970 dollars adjusted for inflation. This figure pales in comparison to the increase in private industry spending - I calculate it is about a 340% increase over 1970 spending using the same metric over the same period.
Care to talk about the impact of this increase in spending for R&D by private industry and its role in bringing more politics into science in the first place? Leaving that issue aside, you don't have to be a climate change scientist to see that there is a pattern of problems - glacial levels, rise in Tsumani/Katrina incidents, pollutant propagation, reduction of species diversification and so forth - that indicate that there is going to be hell to pay.
So while Email remains an extremely useful tool, I think most people are moving on to some form of IM or another, for the sake of speed and immediacy.
I don't know what kind of work you do. However, my experience is that people that adopt IM in the workplace do not have jobs that require them to think much. I may not be writing Kubla Khanm, but I need to concentrate. IM is the enemy of concentration.
IM is great if you work in a collaborative environment, have a job that requires using a computer, do not have to do any complex thinking and need a quick communication tool. One obvious example where it can be a good tool would be an IT help desk.
However, most jobs do not meet that criteria. I'd wager that 9 times out of 10, IM is deployed in situations where it actually brings negative returns to the work performed. I don't think "most people" are moving to IM. If they are, I think most people will be moving away from it shortly when they people start to understand its impact better.
It looks like you are not familiar with what conspiracy is used for in the legal system of the U.S. government. The fact that there are no other charges should make you pause. Here's a clue:
"In order to establish a conspiracy offense it is not necessary for the Government to prove that all of the people named in the indictment were members of the scheme; or that those who were members had entered into any formal type of agreement; or that the members had planned together all of the details of the scheme or the 'overt acts' that the indictment charges would be carried out in an effort to commit the intended crime.
Also, because the essence of a conspiracy offense is the making of the agreement itself (followed by the commission of any overt act), it is not necessary for the Government to prove that the conspirators actually succeeded in accomplishing their unlawful plan.
What the evidence in the case must show beyond a reasonable doubt is:
First: That two or more persons, in some way or manner, came to a mutual understanding to try to accomplish a common and unlawful plan, as charged in the indictment;
Second: That the person willfully became a member of such conspiracy;
Third: That one of the conspirators during the existence of the conspiracy knowingly committed at least one of the methods (or 'overt acts') described in the indictment; and
Fourth: That such 'overt act' was knowingly committed at or about the time alleged in an effort to carry out or accomplish some object of the conspiracy.
An 'overt act' is any transaction or event, even one which may be entirely innocent when considered alone, but which is knowingly committed by a conspirator in an effort to accomplish some object of the conspiracy.
A person may become a member of a conspiracy without knowing all of the details of the unlawful scheme, and without knowing who all of the other members are. So, if a person has an understanding of the unlawful nature of a plan and knowingly and willfully joins in that plan on one occasion, that is sufficient to convict him for conspiracy even though he did not participate before, and even though he played only a minor part."
For the duration of the war on terror, which will be, essentially, forever. Then we don't have to worry about those silly liberals whining about secret courts, holding people in secret prisons without charges or access to a lawyer and we can wiretap everyone without a warrant.
You mean the Constitution wasn't suspended at the start of the War of Drugs? I must have missed that like I missed when the proceeds of illegal drugs moved from funding Contras to Afghan warlords. Double plus good!
How many astronauts have been to the moon? How did they isolate this population to determine that radiation was the cause? Perhaps there is a self-selection bias. Perhaps it is all the flashing bulbs from the pictures that are taken after a successful return. In other words, this causal connection is complete crap.
True. However, can you point to any examples where Cato actually falls into anything remotely close to left wing? For example, take a look at their briefing papers. Where are the position papers on issues of equality that are the hallmark of left-libertarian thought? The fact that there are libertarians with more leftist views as traditionally described does not mean Cato is one of them. In fact, it isn't. It's one of the organizations that promotes the right-wing, free market religion.
Let me be the first to say it. If you have 50 different ways to measure something, you do not have any measurements that matter.
When advertisers are looking at buying media, they want to use a standard metric so that they can do a rough apples to apples comparison. The question advertisers want to know is how much it costs and how many people that might buy their product will see it. In the world of three network TV channels, you could talk about cost per million and you basically have a homogenous mass, so it was pretty easy.
Nowadays, you have media fragmentation and advertisers do not know what to buy. Should you buy commercial time during the NCAA tournament? How about the Simpsons? How about on MTV? Since people are using DVR, maybe it is better to do a product placement and put that Coke can on American Idol. Maybe you should just buy search advertising on Google.
You get the point. While it may be interesting for advertisers to track purchase habits with loyalty cards at grocery stores, through capturing personal information via Google or targeted search results ads, the bottom line is that you can measure it 50 ways till Sunday and it doesn't much help with the central problem - what media do you buy and how much do you buy? Advertisers want an algoritm that breaks it all down and gives them the best bang for their buck.
There is an old saying in advertising, "I know I'm wasting half my money on advertising, I just don't know which half." The reality is that despite all the scary privacy issues that are starting to come into play - advertisers generally have no clue about what they are doing. And you know what? It's only going to get harder. People can talk about getting into the content tail, but it doesn't make the advertiser's job any easier.
You could also just use Hushmail. If it is encrypted on the server and only you have the key, then you have some basic protection in place. Unless you would have to be doing something interesting enough for a three letter agency to spend time cracking it, you probably do not need much more than that. I'm not doing anything that interesting, so it's good enough security for me.
Even if you take an incremental change, say the use of scram jets in passenger aircraft, you are talking about a rather big change in the way the world works. If you can fly to New York to Beijing in 2 hours, you are changing the world.
If he can't imagine where the game might fundamentally change - faster means of transportation (warp drives), fission, or whatever - then he lacks imagination.
To make the obvious connection here, if you look at the Statistical Abstract 2006 Chart 1117 in the Information & Communications section, you will see that household penetration is lower for many things that you would think are near 100%: telephones (95.5%), cable television (69.8%), internet connections (54.4%), etc. Telephones, for example, had a hoursehold penetration rate of 61.8% in 1950 - see page 130 of the Trends in Telephone Service report. You could argue that adoption rates for technologies are faster, but you are still talking a slow climb once you reach a certain threshold.
Slashdot Mirror
For one, it doesn't have to compete with existing providers. But the main thing is that peer-to-peer finance has been around for centuries - perhaps you have heard of mutual aid/benefit societies? Guilds to credit unions to microloans - some concept different implementation.
Hey, why lend when you can give?
Global Giving is the charitable expression of the same idea. Instead of giving at the office to some anonymous organization, why not fund: Renewable Energy to 20 Peruvian Communities, Improving Computer Literacy in Afghanistan, Information Technology for Uganda Medical Students, or whatever else floats your boat.
The classic example of great PR is J&J's handling of the Tylenol poisonings. It was all about taking a public relations problem and handling it so people understood there was nothing to fear. Good PR is simply good communications about what you are doing and why. Covering things up is bad PR, and if you get caught - which you eventually will - the situation becomes infinitely worse.
It's a joint venture of Conagra. It got $5 million in funding from the U.S. government. It doesn't work. It was in fact, "Turkey Credits". Besides laying this on Democrats - who don't control Congress nor were they at Cheney's secret meetings to develop the nation's energy policy once Bush got in office - is simply foolish.
You can't have an informed decision if you don't have the information. Take the NSA wiretap issue, if you didn't know about it at all as the President intended, you wouldn't know to have an opinion on it. The whole point of the press is to bring significant issues to the fore, so we "the people" can hold the government accountable. It's more than reading through slant, it is also having all the relevent information in front of you. Anyone can dictate the conclusion if they can limit the premises.
I don't disagree. However, if you have an employer that has such employment agreements, then you likely have an employer that could be an asshat about doing this.
The Fifth Amendment is about self-incrimination. Remaining silent does not get the charges against you dismissed whereas the States Secret priviledge does exactly that. They aren't the same at all.
Some employers have employment agreements where you cannot work with another organization without management approval. Lame but true.
Depends on how you define better. A certain class of people get world class care in the United States and can talk about how these countries provide less quality of care than they recieve in the US.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting the link. I'm still not sold on nuclear power, but it is clear I need to take a closer look and get more information on the risks and benefits.
Let me ask you this: In the history of nuclear power, can you show me a single country that has nuclear power plants but no nuclear weapons? If such a case exists, how long did they go before acquiring nuclear weapons or how long have they had nuclear power but not a nuclear weapon?
If no country has nuclear power without nuclear weapons or if you can find correlation between nuclear power and the eventual development of nuclear weapons, then the whole theoretical basis of your argument is flawed. I don't happen to know the history of nuclear power or nuclear weapons for those countries that have them, but intuitively, I suspect there is a correlation. I'd love to see any details that would support your argument, but I'm willing to bet that isn't supported by the facts.
So, logically your argument may be sound. However, I question the truth of your premises.
I'm not an expert on energy and nuclear power. I am aware that there are technology differences and increased levels of safety in comparison to Chernobyl. However, the central question for me is what are the relative risks and benefits when compared to other energy options?
I honestly don't know how they stack up, but I do know enough about nuclear energy to know that misjudging the risks has the potential to put many people's lives in danger and needs to be carefully considered. I don't have an agenda on the issue, but I don't see anything particularly compelling about nuclear energy. If that qualifies as "paranoia", then I guess that makes me paranoid.
I'm pretty rational. I'm thinking a Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant as military target, or nuclear acceptence as a way of proliferating weapons are sufficient reasons to look for other, safer forms of power. Care to explain to me where my logic is wrong here?
You've got the good old tyme free market religion my friend. How about getting some facts?
According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, total R&D spending by the U.S. government was $85.2 billion of the total $283.8 billion spent - 30% of the total in 2003. Compare that figure to 1970 (57%), 1980 (47%), 1990 (40%), and 2000 (25%). As you can see, "With more and more scientific studies paid for out of public dollars" can only reasonably be applied from the period 2000-2003 and it does not factor in proportions. You are just looking at the total dollars spent by government.
Even there, your argument is weak. If you adjust for inflation - I used CPI for my calculations, the increases in government spending on R&D for 2003 is about 20% above the figure in 1970 dollars adjusted for inflation. This figure pales in comparison to the increase in private industry spending - I calculate it is about a 340% increase over 1970 spending using the same metric over the same period.
Care to talk about the impact of this increase in spending for R&D by private industry and its role in bringing more politics into science in the first place? Leaving that issue aside, you don't have to be a climate change scientist to see that there is a pattern of problems - glacial levels, rise in Tsumani/Katrina incidents, pollutant propagation, reduction of species diversification and so forth - that indicate that there is going to be hell to pay.
I don't know what kind of work you do. However, my experience is that people that adopt IM in the workplace do not have jobs that require them to think much. I may not be writing Kubla Khanm, but I need to concentrate. IM is the enemy of concentration.
IM is great if you work in a collaborative environment, have a job that requires using a computer, do not have to do any complex thinking and need a quick communication tool. One obvious example where it can be a good tool would be an IT help desk.
However, most jobs do not meet that criteria. I'd wager that 9 times out of 10, IM is deployed in situations where it actually brings negative returns to the work performed. I don't think "most people" are moving to IM. If they are, I think most people will be moving away from it shortly when they people start to understand its impact better.
I'm better acquainted with U.S. law. Are conspiracy laws in the U.K. different to the point where it changes the gist of what I'm saying? You tell me.
It looks like you are not familiar with what conspiracy is used for in the legal system of the U.S. government. The fact that there are no other charges should make you pause. Here's a clue:
"In order to establish a conspiracy offense it is not necessary for the Government to prove that all of the people named in the indictment were members of the scheme; or that those who were members had entered into any formal type of agreement; or that the members had planned together all of the details of the scheme or the 'overt acts' that the indictment charges would be carried out in an effort to commit the intended crime.
Also, because the essence of a conspiracy offense is the making of the agreement itself (followed by the commission of any overt act), it is not necessary for the Government to prove that the conspirators actually succeeded in accomplishing their unlawful plan.
What the evidence in the case must show beyond a reasonable doubt is:
First: That two or more persons, in some way or manner, came to a mutual understanding to try to accomplish a common and unlawful plan, as charged in the indictment;
Second: That the person willfully became a member of such conspiracy;
Third: That one of the conspirators during the existence of the conspiracy knowingly committed at least one of the methods (or 'overt acts') described in the indictment; and
Fourth: That such 'overt act' was knowingly committed at or about the time alleged in an effort to carry out or accomplish some object of the conspiracy.
An 'overt act' is any transaction or event, even one which may be entirely innocent when considered alone, but which is knowingly committed by a conspirator in an effort to accomplish some object of the conspiracy.
A person may become a member of a conspiracy without knowing all of the details of the unlawful scheme, and without knowing who all of the other members are. So, if a person has an understanding of the unlawful nature of a plan and knowingly and willfully joins in that plan on one occasion, that is sufficient to convict him for conspiracy even though he did not participate before, and even though he played only a minor part."
Fantastic comment. Thanks for making it.
You mean the Constitution wasn't suspended at the start of the War of Drugs? I must have missed that like I missed when the proceeds of illegal drugs moved from funding Contras to Afghan warlords. Double plus good!
How many astronauts have been to the moon? How did they isolate this population to determine that radiation was the cause? Perhaps there is a self-selection bias. Perhaps it is all the flashing bulbs from the pictures that are taken after a successful return. In other words, this causal connection is complete crap.
True. However, can you point to any examples where Cato actually falls into anything remotely close to left wing? For example, take a look at their briefing papers. Where are the position papers on issues of equality that are the hallmark of left-libertarian thought? The fact that there are libertarians with more leftist views as traditionally described does not mean Cato is one of them. In fact, it isn't. It's one of the organizations that promotes the right-wing, free market religion.
Let me be the first to say it. If you have 50 different ways to measure something, you do not have any measurements that matter.
When advertisers are looking at buying media, they want to use a standard metric so that they can do a rough apples to apples comparison. The question advertisers want to know is how much it costs and how many people that might buy their product will see it. In the world of three network TV channels, you could talk about cost per million and you basically have a homogenous mass, so it was pretty easy.
Nowadays, you have media fragmentation and advertisers do not know what to buy. Should you buy commercial time during the NCAA tournament? How about the Simpsons? How about on MTV? Since people are using DVR, maybe it is better to do a product placement and put that Coke can on American Idol. Maybe you should just buy search advertising on Google.
You get the point. While it may be interesting for advertisers to track purchase habits with loyalty cards at grocery stores, through capturing personal information via Google or targeted search results ads, the bottom line is that you can measure it 50 ways till Sunday and it doesn't much help with the central problem - what media do you buy and how much do you buy? Advertisers want an algoritm that breaks it all down and gives them the best bang for their buck.
There is an old saying in advertising, "I know I'm wasting half my money on advertising, I just don't know which half." The reality is that despite all the scary privacy issues that are starting to come into play - advertisers generally have no clue about what they are doing. And you know what? It's only going to get harder. People can talk about getting into the content tail, but it doesn't make the advertiser's job any easier.
You could also just use Hushmail. If it is encrypted on the server and only you have the key, then you have some basic protection in place. Unless you would have to be doing something interesting enough for a three letter agency to spend time cracking it, you probably do not need much more than that. I'm not doing anything that interesting, so it's good enough security for me.
Even if you take an incremental change, say the use of scram jets in passenger aircraft, you are talking about a rather big change in the way the world works. If you can fly to New York to Beijing in 2 hours, you are changing the world.
If he can't imagine where the game might fundamentally change - faster means of transportation (warp drives), fission, or whatever - then he lacks imagination.
To make the obvious connection here, if you look at the Statistical Abstract 2006 Chart 1117 in the Information & Communications section, you will see that household penetration is lower for many things that you would think are near 100%: telephones (95.5%), cable television (69.8%), internet connections (54.4%), etc. Telephones, for example, had a hoursehold penetration rate of 61.8% in 1950 - see page 130 of the Trends in Telephone Service report. You could argue that adoption rates for technologies are faster, but you are still talking a slow climb once you reach a certain threshold.