This sort of economy is inevitable. With the improvements in technology, we will eventually come to a place where Capitalism can no longer be sustained. That's going to be a troubling period of time, and I imagine that it'll take at least a decade to settle out. Once we've mastered automation, and all of our basic needs (not to mention our superfluous needs) are met without the requirement for employment, we'll have two roads that we can conceivably go down. The first, and I fear, the most likely road, leads to a world along the lines of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine-- a future where we have destroyed ourselves. This road begins with mankind simply sitting back and becoming lazy. At some point many generations down the road, something will go horribly wrong, and no one will remember how to fix anything. I suppose Pixar's Wall-E is also a possibility on this road. Down the other road, is Star Trek. A world where our automation technology has abolished poverty, and everyone works to the betterment of themselves and their world. To accomplish this, it will be very important that everyone be encouraged to choose and ply a profession. It won't matter what it is for any given person, though arts and sciences would be the most important, I think.
The only thing that really bothers me about the second road, and indeed, this is a problem down the first road as well, is the distribution of real estate. The only real answer I can think of, is that the government would have to be in charge of that function, which just doesn't sit right with me. Still, with the right policies, I suppose that in a few generations' time, it won't be much of an issue.
Either way, automation technology (and by extension, Replicator technology, of which, 3D printing is the infancy) has tremendous ramifications for us as a race. It will either hoist us higher, or destroy us.
We do not yet have the technology to support an economic system that is better than Capitalism. We could conceivably develop technology which would make a Capitalist economy exceptionally difficult to continue (extensive and reliable automation technology, or if we want to jump straight to the end, replicator technology a la Star Trek), but until that time comes, Capitalism is the best we'll ever do.
Would you sell a gun to a person who you suspected might hand it to the crazy guy in the corner that you know will shoot you if he has the chance?
Personally, I believe that borders should be generally open, as it seems strange to me, that we should live in a world where one cannot just go and see a bit of the planet they live on, if the mood takes them. However, the fact is that some of those bits of the planet are populated with people who would kill you, given half the opportunity. You can show them all the sympathy and pity you want, and they'll gladly use you as a foot hold while they climb the city walls to start their raid.
When Iran stops threatening nations of Western culture, and instead makes a policy of friendship all over the world, then we'll have no need to give a shit whether or not our technology gets shipped off to them. So long as they hold on to this Muslim Crusade they've got going on over there, we're just going to have to be paranoid about who we sell what to. They may still be able to get the technology elsewhere, but there's no need to make it any easier for them than it has to be.
Evolution cannot provide useful features. It can only remove features that result in few or no viable children. Anything useful has to come from random (not to mention rare) genetic mutation, which in turn, creates a feature that is harmful more often than insignificant, and insignificant more often than useful. For men to evolve condom-breaking penises, a male would first have to be born with a mutation which caused it, and as well, he would have to be driven to mate prodigiously. As for the latter condition, I would expect a condom-breaking penis to be rather uncomfortable for the woman, and therefore, this is a mutation which is unlikely to spread quickly.
No need for extra firing pins, though; a bit of sandpaper is all that is needed to remove the microstamping. But that would be illegal, and we all know criminals wouldn't dare break the law before they go out to murder someone.
Any criminal smart enough to remove the microstamping is smart enough not to use a gun with his own name on attached to it.
Legitimate gun owners tend not to commit crimes with their guns. It's not clear to me that this proposed law is harmful to gun owners. As described, it does not restrict gun ownership, and neither does it further restrict use. Given that, I can't fault it for a bad gun control law. All the same, I can't opine it to be a good gun control law either, because guns used in crimes are typically stolen, and often have their identifying markings removed.
It wasn't simply that she wanted to be the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific. That task would be relatively easy. The quest she'd set about that brought her fate upon her, was to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe flying an airplane-- something few men (if any) had yet accomplished, at the time. She almost did it, too. She started from the United States, headed East, and was last heard from over the Pacific. It's really quite the inspiring story.
I am a diabetic, and I used to use such a pump. These pumps can take an amount of physical abuse reasonable for the normal life of a teenager, and maybe even a physically active teenager (though mine came with a special air-tight and shock-resistant case, for use when swimming and participating in sports; it wasn't actually very useful-- the water when swimming and the sweating while playing sports typically caused the catheter at the injection site to fall out, rendering the whole effort moot). They're fairly sturdy and built to any reasonable requirement a person might have on them in everyday life, but they're not indestructible. I had to have mine replaced under warranty, as it spontaneously fried itself one day. I can only speculate at what caused the failure in mine; I am suspicious that it may very well have been a moisture problem related to being in the front pocket of my jeans as I wandered around.
In any case, my point is, insulin pumps, while they are typically rather robust, are not much more resistant to failure than any other electronic device a person might carry on themselves. If it'll fry a cellphone, you can bet that it'll fry an insulin pump.
Think we'll go over there and find a planet just like Earth, but Rome never fell? Or maybe they had an experiment in causing immortality go horribly wrong?
The funny thing is, when an individual small-ish company with, perhaps, up to a few thousand employees starts sending their jobs over seas, it makes very little impact on the overall economy. But when very large companies, which employ several tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of employees sends their labor-intensive jobs over seas, they're starting to cut out a great deal of their own consumer base, by removing those wages from the cash pool that also buys their products. I suppose it's not such a big deal, if that company also sells a great deal of product in the region of their foreign employees, or if their wages are otherwise only a few transactions away from being used to buy their product, but when we have a great deal of business, both large and small, all doing this, and to diverse foreign populations, that becomes a money sink for our own economy. If we are to continue down this road, we really need to be exporting more of our own domestic products.
Obama has also prolonged our engagement in Afghanistan, and taken us into Libya, for reasons even more dubious than Bush's for taking us into Iraq-- and furthermore, without the approval of Congress. If you're looking for a pacifist to take the presidency, then you're shit out of luck.
If they're intercepting copies of all of our e-mail, then I hope they like bad puns and hokey inspirational religious messages, because that's what they're getting.
While I was playing a moment ago, there were 74 players at peak (that I noted), and never fewer than 68-- in the same instance as me. Total online was 1700+.
My problem with the use of a "gram" to make this measurement, is that a "gram" is a measurement of Mass, rather than a measurement of weight. By presenting the weight in grams, they have illustrated the inaccuracy of their scale, rather than the variance of local gravity. As there doesn't appear to be a unit of weight in the Metric system, they perhaps should have expressed the value in Pounds.
A commendable solution to a nuisance problem, indeed. By my figuring, Robert Jordan may have been able to finish the series himself, if he'd kept the bits about Elayne's quest for the Sun Throne down to the essential details.
Books 9 and 10 have a great deal to do with Elayne taking the throne of Andor, and especially book 10. If those two books put people off of the series, it's a fair bet that Elayne is the reason why. The exciting bits of that sub-plot bear all of the engaging qualities of a World Knitting Championship event. It did not take unduly long for me to groan, "Either just give her the throne or somebody kill her. I don't care anymore." Indeed, when her claim to the throne finally bore fruit, it was not the release of narrative tension that made it a relief, but far from it, a praising thankfulness that this horrible drudgery was over.
Do you recall that Foxconn had to put bars on the upper-floor windows of their facilities, to keep their employees from willfully jumping to their deaths through them? Even the Chinese don't want to work for 31 cents an hour, let alone for the number of hours they're required to work. For how their time goes, they can be said to be alive, but not really living.
As for Apple, on the scale that they're working on, they'd probably actual do better to have their products manufactured here. Smaller businesses can have their products manufactured in China and it will have little impact on the economy, but when we're talking about the amount of money that Apple or say, GM, for the sake of example, pays for labor, the money flows out from their factory workers, out into the economy, and eventually back to Apple in the form of iPhone sales. They'd actually be able to charge more for their product, and people here would still be able to pay it, due to the increased flow rate of the country's money.
It's been a very long time since I've had the story related to me. I don't recall the actual number, only that it was above 200; in the 220s, possibly. In any case, his parents had taken him to a psychologist, who had him take an IQ test.
The freakishly intelligent often die quite young. My grandmother, for example, had a cousin who was formally tested, and found to have an IQ well over 200. He did rather well for himself, up until he died at the ripe old age of 19. I've heard of other examples of this sort of thing, too. They just seem to burn out, for some reason.
Do you believe that a nuclear plant goes into operation immediately when the last construction worker on-site finishes his final designated task? That seems a bizarre way to run things, in any country. The nuclear plant is inspected prior to commencing operations, and is presumed safe until its next inspection. Can you know before the box is open, whether Schrodinger's cat remains alive? This is not a new thought-experiment.
The decision that Japan has made, is that 40 years is a reasonable length of time to check in on a nuclear plant, to see if it still meets current safety standards. It may no longer meet standards because of normal wear and tear on the facility, or it may be because the standards have been raised. Seeing as the previous modus operandi was to build a nuclear plant and let it continue until it explodes, I'd say that this is a clear and marked improvement.
Drugs are illegal because they are a public hazard. I can agree that marijuana, if not made legal, should be de-criminalized (Marijuana use or possession is a stupid thing to imprison someone over, though a fine does seem an appropriate penalty). Harder drugs, however, may remove certain inhibitions that a sober man would hold sacred, or induce proclivities which harm others. Consider PCP, for example. People on PCP have been known to rip their own hands off, to escape handcuffs. A person on PCP does not register pain, and is emotionally volatile with the severe exclusion of discriminating thought. I've heard stories of domestic violence incidents involving PCP, and that sort of thing gets out of hand faster than a water wiener held by a seizing epileptic. If you ever have the opportunity, ask a veteran or retired police officer about his experiences with people using PCP. You're sure to hear something fascinating.
No, the only positive result of legalizing drugs in general is that we'd be rid of a good deal of the personally irresponsible portion of our population within a few years, as they purge themselves from our collective gene pool. If they weren't likely to take a good deal of the undeserving portion of our population with them, I might be in favor of the idea.
I'd also like to point out that if you're concerned about governments doing things such as, "dominating others with authority", then a government with no compunctions about drug use is absolutely the kind of government you'd prefer to avoid. The right distribution mechanism for drugs makes a population's behavior adequately predictable as to enable easy control. If you had control over something that you knew would reliably motivate large masses of populations, would you not use it? Freedom to use hard drugs is no freedom at all. Chemical addiction is a real bitch.
The superior solution to drug crimes, and indeed, illegal immigration, is to pull our troops out of the middle east, and send them down to Mexico and Central America. After ten years' experience hunting religious zealots in the desert, rooting out and neutralizing a collection of organized groups motivated by material gain should be relatively easy. Many would die for the sake of their religious beliefs, but no one believes in drugs in such a way. We'll stop the flow of drugs from South America, as well as the subset of illegal immigrants that we tend to have the most problems with.
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This sort of economy is inevitable. With the improvements in technology, we will eventually come to a place where Capitalism can no longer be sustained. That's going to be a troubling period of time, and I imagine that it'll take at least a decade to settle out. Once we've mastered automation, and all of our basic needs (not to mention our superfluous needs) are met without the requirement for employment, we'll have two roads that we can conceivably go down. The first, and I fear, the most likely road, leads to a world along the lines of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine-- a future where we have destroyed ourselves. This road begins with mankind simply sitting back and becoming lazy. At some point many generations down the road, something will go horribly wrong, and no one will remember how to fix anything. I suppose Pixar's Wall-E is also a possibility on this road. Down the other road, is Star Trek. A world where our automation technology has abolished poverty, and everyone works to the betterment of themselves and their world. To accomplish this, it will be very important that everyone be encouraged to choose and ply a profession. It won't matter what it is for any given person, though arts and sciences would be the most important, I think.
The only thing that really bothers me about the second road, and indeed, this is a problem down the first road as well, is the distribution of real estate. The only real answer I can think of, is that the government would have to be in charge of that function, which just doesn't sit right with me. Still, with the right policies, I suppose that in a few generations' time, it won't be much of an issue.
Either way, automation technology (and by extension, Replicator technology, of which, 3D printing is the infancy) has tremendous ramifications for us as a race. It will either hoist us higher, or destroy us.
We do not yet have the technology to support an economic system that is better than Capitalism. We could conceivably develop technology which would make a Capitalist economy exceptionally difficult to continue (extensive and reliable automation technology, or if we want to jump straight to the end, replicator technology a la Star Trek), but until that time comes, Capitalism is the best we'll ever do.
Would you sell a gun to a person who you suspected might hand it to the crazy guy in the corner that you know will shoot you if he has the chance?
Personally, I believe that borders should be generally open, as it seems strange to me, that we should live in a world where one cannot just go and see a bit of the planet they live on, if the mood takes them. However, the fact is that some of those bits of the planet are populated with people who would kill you, given half the opportunity. You can show them all the sympathy and pity you want, and they'll gladly use you as a foot hold while they climb the city walls to start their raid.
When Iran stops threatening nations of Western culture, and instead makes a policy of friendship all over the world, then we'll have no need to give a shit whether or not our technology gets shipped off to them. So long as they hold on to this Muslim Crusade they've got going on over there, we're just going to have to be paranoid about who we sell what to. They may still be able to get the technology elsewhere, but there's no need to make it any easier for them than it has to be.
Evolution cannot provide useful features. It can only remove features that result in few or no viable children. Anything useful has to come from random (not to mention rare) genetic mutation, which in turn, creates a feature that is harmful more often than insignificant, and insignificant more often than useful. For men to evolve condom-breaking penises, a male would first have to be born with a mutation which caused it, and as well, he would have to be driven to mate prodigiously. As for the latter condition, I would expect a condom-breaking penis to be rather uncomfortable for the woman, and therefore, this is a mutation which is unlikely to spread quickly.
No need for extra firing pins, though; a bit of sandpaper is all that is needed to remove the microstamping. But that would be illegal, and we all know criminals wouldn't dare break the law before they go out to murder someone.
Any criminal smart enough to remove the microstamping is smart enough not to use a gun with his own name on attached to it.
Legitimate gun owners tend not to commit crimes with their guns. It's not clear to me that this proposed law is harmful to gun owners. As described, it does not restrict gun ownership, and neither does it further restrict use. Given that, I can't fault it for a bad gun control law. All the same, I can't opine it to be a good gun control law either, because guns used in crimes are typically stolen, and often have their identifying markings removed.
It wasn't simply that she wanted to be the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific. That task would be relatively easy. The quest she'd set about that brought her fate upon her, was to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe flying an airplane-- something few men (if any) had yet accomplished, at the time. She almost did it, too. She started from the United States, headed East, and was last heard from over the Pacific. It's really quite the inspiring story.
I am a diabetic, and I used to use such a pump. These pumps can take an amount of physical abuse reasonable for the normal life of a teenager, and maybe even a physically active teenager (though mine came with a special air-tight and shock-resistant case, for use when swimming and participating in sports; it wasn't actually very useful-- the water when swimming and the sweating while playing sports typically caused the catheter at the injection site to fall out, rendering the whole effort moot). They're fairly sturdy and built to any reasonable requirement a person might have on them in everyday life, but they're not indestructible. I had to have mine replaced under warranty, as it spontaneously fried itself one day. I can only speculate at what caused the failure in mine; I am suspicious that it may very well have been a moisture problem related to being in the front pocket of my jeans as I wandered around.
In any case, my point is, insulin pumps, while they are typically rather robust, are not much more resistant to failure than any other electronic device a person might carry on themselves. If it'll fry a cellphone, you can bet that it'll fry an insulin pump.
Think we'll go over there and find a planet just like Earth, but Rome never fell? Or maybe they had an experiment in causing immortality go horribly wrong?
The funny thing is, when an individual small-ish company with, perhaps, up to a few thousand employees starts sending their jobs over seas, it makes very little impact on the overall economy. But when very large companies, which employ several tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of employees sends their labor-intensive jobs over seas, they're starting to cut out a great deal of their own consumer base, by removing those wages from the cash pool that also buys their products. I suppose it's not such a big deal, if that company also sells a great deal of product in the region of their foreign employees, or if their wages are otherwise only a few transactions away from being used to buy their product, but when we have a great deal of business, both large and small, all doing this, and to diverse foreign populations, that becomes a money sink for our own economy. If we are to continue down this road, we really need to be exporting more of our own domestic products.
Obama has also prolonged our engagement in Afghanistan, and taken us into Libya, for reasons even more dubious than Bush's for taking us into Iraq-- and furthermore, without the approval of Congress. If you're looking for a pacifist to take the presidency, then you're shit out of luck.
If they're intercepting copies of all of our e-mail, then I hope they like bad puns and hokey inspirational religious messages, because that's what they're getting.
While I was playing a moment ago, there were 74 players at peak (that I noted), and never fewer than 68-- in the same instance as me. Total online was 1700+.
My problem with the use of a "gram" to make this measurement, is that a "gram" is a measurement of Mass, rather than a measurement of weight. By presenting the weight in grams, they have illustrated the inaccuracy of their scale, rather than the variance of local gravity. As there doesn't appear to be a unit of weight in the Metric system, they perhaps should have expressed the value in Pounds.
A commendable solution to a nuisance problem, indeed. By my figuring, Robert Jordan may have been able to finish the series himself, if he'd kept the bits about Elayne's quest for the Sun Throne down to the essential details.
So let's please stop stereotyping people by political party. There's intelligent people and stupid people in both parties.
If only we could get the political parties to nominate their intelligent members instead of their stupid members, we'd all be a world better off.
Books 9 and 10 have a great deal to do with Elayne taking the throne of Andor, and especially book 10. If those two books put people off of the series, it's a fair bet that Elayne is the reason why. The exciting bits of that sub-plot bear all of the engaging qualities of a World Knitting Championship event. It did not take unduly long for me to groan, "Either just give her the throne or somebody kill her. I don't care anymore." Indeed, when her claim to the throne finally bore fruit, it was not the release of narrative tension that made it a relief, but far from it, a praising thankfulness that this horrible drudgery was over.
Do you recall that Foxconn had to put bars on the upper-floor windows of their facilities, to keep their employees from willfully jumping to their deaths through them? Even the Chinese don't want to work for 31 cents an hour, let alone for the number of hours they're required to work. For how their time goes, they can be said to be alive, but not really living.
As for Apple, on the scale that they're working on, they'd probably actual do better to have their products manufactured here. Smaller businesses can have their products manufactured in China and it will have little impact on the economy, but when we're talking about the amount of money that Apple or say, GM, for the sake of example, pays for labor, the money flows out from their factory workers, out into the economy, and eventually back to Apple in the form of iPhone sales. They'd actually be able to charge more for their product, and people here would still be able to pay it, due to the increased flow rate of the country's money.
It's been a very long time since I've had the story related to me. I don't recall the actual number, only that it was above 200; in the 220s, possibly. In any case, his parents had taken him to a psychologist, who had him take an IQ test.
The freakishly intelligent often die quite young. My grandmother, for example, had a cousin who was formally tested, and found to have an IQ well over 200. He did rather well for himself, up until he died at the ripe old age of 19. I've heard of other examples of this sort of thing, too. They just seem to burn out, for some reason.
Do you believe that a nuclear plant goes into operation immediately when the last construction worker on-site finishes his final designated task? That seems a bizarre way to run things, in any country. The nuclear plant is inspected prior to commencing operations, and is presumed safe until its next inspection. Can you know before the box is open, whether Schrodinger's cat remains alive? This is not a new thought-experiment.
The decision that Japan has made, is that 40 years is a reasonable length of time to check in on a nuclear plant, to see if it still meets current safety standards. It may no longer meet standards because of normal wear and tear on the facility, or it may be because the standards have been raised. Seeing as the previous modus operandi was to build a nuclear plant and let it continue until it explodes, I'd say that this is a clear and marked improvement.
Indeed, because I know so many people that use podcasts on YouTube as alternatives to buying CDs. Doesn't everyone?
Drugs are illegal because they are a public hazard. I can agree that marijuana, if not made legal, should be de-criminalized (Marijuana use or possession is a stupid thing to imprison someone over, though a fine does seem an appropriate penalty). Harder drugs, however, may remove certain inhibitions that a sober man would hold sacred, or induce proclivities which harm others. Consider PCP, for example. People on PCP have been known to rip their own hands off, to escape handcuffs. A person on PCP does not register pain, and is emotionally volatile with the severe exclusion of discriminating thought. I've heard stories of domestic violence incidents involving PCP, and that sort of thing gets out of hand faster than a water wiener held by a seizing epileptic. If you ever have the opportunity, ask a veteran or retired police officer about his experiences with people using PCP. You're sure to hear something fascinating.
No, the only positive result of legalizing drugs in general is that we'd be rid of a good deal of the personally irresponsible portion of our population within a few years, as they purge themselves from our collective gene pool. If they weren't likely to take a good deal of the undeserving portion of our population with them, I might be in favor of the idea.
I'd also like to point out that if you're concerned about governments doing things such as, "dominating others with authority", then a government with no compunctions about drug use is absolutely the kind of government you'd prefer to avoid. The right distribution mechanism for drugs makes a population's behavior adequately predictable as to enable easy control. If you had control over something that you knew would reliably motivate large masses of populations, would you not use it? Freedom to use hard drugs is no freedom at all. Chemical addiction is a real bitch.
The superior solution to drug crimes, and indeed, illegal immigration, is to pull our troops out of the middle east, and send them down to Mexico and Central America. After ten years' experience hunting religious zealots in the desert, rooting out and neutralizing a collection of organized groups motivated by material gain should be relatively easy. Many would die for the sake of their religious beliefs, but no one believes in drugs in such a way. We'll stop the flow of drugs from South America, as well as the subset of illegal immigrants that we tend to have the most problems with.
Man, I remember the last time I was on a train and got stopped by a red light. That was a real bitch.
Because the article is about DRM schemes that failed, not about DRM schemes that screwed people over.
"Jumping Rope" or "Skipping Rope" is the activity. "Jump Rope" is a rope dedicated to the purpose.