The other people problem is the people running the plants.
The easy solution to this is to have the US Navy staff and operate the plants. They have an enviable safety record, experience in training operators and engineers, and an existing pool of talent.
The other thing to do: Build the new plants (agreed smaller would be better) on former Cold War military bases, since most are Superfund sites anyway.
Thanks for the link. Now, if you'll actually READ the entire report, you'll quickly understand why the chosen methodology is fatally flawed. For starters, if nothing controversial happens in the country during that year, there are no "anti-press" incidents, and the country scores high. That necessarily favors smaller, more homogenous democracies (Denmark is a sterling example).
In the case of the US, the report specifically mentions the "arrest of journalists during anti-Bush rallies", and the failure to grant visas to foreign reporters. So, Mike Wallace participating in an antiwar demonstration and getting busted is a black mark? Under that criteria someone with press credentials is no longer subject to the same laws as the rest of us. And of course, since "press credentials" aren't exactly a concrete indicator of reality, they have in the past and will in the future be used for espionage. Sorry, but International Law is quite clear on the concept, a state may deny entry to anyone it sees as a threat, and like all rights and freedoms, a press pass isn't carte blanche...
You have conveniently forgotten the de-funding of engineering and hard science pursuits and the politicization of NIST during the Clinton Administration. All done by the Religious Left in order to eliminate "corporate welfare". Pot, Kettle, Black.
Absolutely, religion is at the root of America's technological decline. The Animists and Druidists are strangling any attempt at Large Scale Engineering -- new freeways, power plants, railways -- that would better the lives of millions of people.
No, you educateyourself. The fact is that gun control does not work in any place that's even remotely like the US. The vast majority -- over 80% -- of US gun crime consists of gangs killing other gangs over drugs. Want to do something about that? Well, ending the WoD would be a good start...
"Only Americans can innovate" is probably a dangerous stereotype.
This is true historically in only the narrowest of senses. The reality is that the great majority of practical innovations in use throughout the world originated in the United States, and that innovation has driven the US economy since WWII.
Until now.
The Clinton Administration killed off the bulk of government technology research funding ("corporate welfare", don'tcha know), while the current generation of Harvard MBAs views research as a double negative -- unpredictable and long-term. Since research is a 3-5 year pipeline at a minimum, nobody noticed at first.
Until Now.
Japan has one of the stodgiest cultures around, and their huge economy relies heavily on cutting edge technology.
Japan relies largely on the US to innovate; they largely handle the next stage in the pipeline (perfect and variate). Notice that, for example, Japan has a thriving semiconductor industry, but has never successfully challenged the US lead in microprocessors.
I was wondering about this comment myself. I've been running an Eden system pretty much continuously for the past three years, never a problem; an Epia/800 system for about the same time in an industrial environment, again no problem. Have an M6000 compiling KDE on my bench at the moment, running without a hitch. I use laptop drives to keep the heat down, and because they're generally more reliable.
While it's true that research often benefits the industry instead of the institution, it's also clear that the absence of innovation will kill the institution.
In addition, the "side benefits" of research have considerable market value if a company is smart enough to use them: Following the divestiture, a large number of AT&T Long Distance customers indicated that they chose AT&T because of Bell Labs. Other companies have used research lab visits to sway large customers.
What's scary is that the research pipeline has a 3-5 year clock. Meaning that, we're now seeing the result of not investing in research since 2000. Worse, even if we get things moving again, we won't see the effects for another 3-5 years.
For the past five years, most tech companies have been "run by the CFO", meaning that cost reduction was everything, and that pesky, unpredictable thing called innovation was to be avoided (at all cost). This is, of course, the strategic equivalent of holding your breath underwater in the hopes of evolving gills.
It should have been clear from the get-go that Carly wasn't a fan of technology innovation. Research, by it's very nature, is:
Unpredictable in time, money, and outcome, and
Often tells you things you don't want to hear.
The current generation of Harvard MBA CEOs fears innovation for these reasons, and Carly was a prime example. The damage done by her and her ilk to the future of the US tech economy has been considerable: Bell Labs, the former DEC labs, and HP Labs constitituted the bulk of well-referenced (eg, important) computing research in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Without that innovation, the US computing industry isn't competitive with production in Asia, period.
A good example of the Fiorina touch was the closure and large layoff of the former DEC Palo Alto labs (SRC and WRL); they had a clear net positive investment track record of over 1000%, but of course that was over 20 years. Three weeks later, HP announced the opening of a new lab in Singapore, because "we couldn't find enough qualified researchers in Silicon Valley"!
Because the US Government loves to hand out subsidies to failing businesses. It's good press.
Hell, they've been bailing out Amtrak ever since its inception.
First off, Amtrak is actually owned by the government, so the notion of the government bailing it out is nonsense. Secondly, all forms of transportation are subsidized -- that's one of the more useful functions of government. In the case of Amtrak, its subsidy over the past 30 years (about $25 billion) is far less than the annual subsidy to the airline industry.
Absofrigginlutely. Presumably you speak of KSJO (RIP), ClearCutChannel's most recent victim.
That was the last straw for me, I went out the next day and picked up a Sirius Satellite receiver, and have been much, much happier ever since -- big fan of Buzzsaw (Sirius 19).
How would you like it if the area around your cabin was slated for logging (for fire prevention of course, not catering to the timber lobby or anything like that)
Actually, I'd like that very much. I have a place in remote northwest Montana, and my lot is infested with way too many tamaracks. Thanks to the out-of-state envriowhackos, the logging industry has been largely put out of business, unemploying thousands. I've been able to employ a few loggers to pull out trees that were basically weeds to me.
Of course, I have a place up there to get away from the I-know-better-than-you ignoramuses on the Left Coast...
DEC had the world's fastest, most reliable hardware, a flavor of Unix that was rock solid, a heritage on the Internet that went back to the mid 70s (Ethernet, firewalls, VPNs, wireless LANs, even Dave Mill's Fuzzball router ran on PDPs). What it didn't have were marketing people who could find their way out of a wet paper bag -- Ken Olsen saw to that.
Enter the Internet Boom, DEC's last chance at a comeback. How do you market a capable platform around DEC's chimp-loving marketeers? Why, do something that Sun, IBM etc. cannot. Three researchers at DEC did just that, in the summer of 1995.
Yes, we know about AltaVista's bellyflop as a portal. It was painful. But AV sold "more than 1000" AlphaServer 8400s, at an average MSRP over $1M a pop. It succeeded as intended, in spite of the lukewarm financial support from DEC's unimaginitive senior management.
so totalitarianism is defined by gun control laws?
I'd maintain that it's a necessary condition of freedom in a state where government power is limited; certainly the wording of the 2nd Amendment in the US lays it out that way.
Canadians certainly have guns: my Canadian relatives grew up hunting their own meat and the ones in rural areas still do.
Gun ownership is about more than putting meat on the table (not that there's anything wrong with that); what about people who want to be able to defend themselves, and not rely on the state for protection? In any event, all gun ownership in Canada is subject to registration, which has been eventually used throughout the Commonwealth to eventually consfiscate long guns in Australia, as well as the UK itself. If the government knows who's packing, that also dramatically reduces the worth of gun ownership in limiting the power of government.
On the other hand Canadians get to use strong language or show nudity on broadcast TV without pixelation or 3 million dollar fines.
True enough, but on cable or satellite (which the vast majority of people in the US have), I can see all the cussin' and boobies I want. *And*, I can see thugs blown away and other violent/un-PC material that one cannot see on CBC.
[And equal rights = the right to go topless in Ontario (+lots for Ontario)]
Okay, having seen the "Canadian Ballet" in Toronto, I'll grant you that one.
Canadians aren't required to carry identification at all times, or to identify themselves on demand: better than the US on that regard (+1 Canada).
Neither are people in the US; please, please, read the Supreme Court opinion bandied about in this august forum.
'1.totalitarian - characterized by a government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control;
You mean like, say, The Queen? Look, for example, at the previously mentioned cite, and you'll see that The Queen is the source of your ability to bring a matter to justice.
Honest, we like Canadians down here, but we'll have a heck of a lot more respect as soon as you Ditch The uh, er, Queen...
"That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society like Canada."
Yet like any other totalitarian society, Canada lacksthe Right to Keep and Bear Arms (see also Lott). The Right of Free Speech is also incredibly limited by the requirement of not offending anyone, and let's not forget Freedom of the Press is only a secondary consideration.
Canadians are simply more comfortable with less freedom. Then again, so are people in California and Massachusetts...
Rather than cutting them up, why not cut a deal with the Russians and keep a few B52H bombers in water tanker service? With the appropriate firefighting gear in the bomb bay, it would be difficult if not impossible to revert back to a bomber; heck, give the Russians the contract for the firefighting mods.
After all, the BUFF has a proven track record of being stressed properly for low-altitude flight; there are plenty of retired USAF pilots and navigators out there who have 1000+ Time-in-Type, as well as mechanics, spare parts, etc.
Prior to 1983, I went through at least one TI scientific calculator per year -- literally wore them out as an engineering undergrad. After having one go on the fritz during a chemistry final, it was time for a change.
And what a change indeed. Bought an HP-41C, which was quite expensive on a student't budget, but I figured that maybe it would last two or three years. Twenty years later, it's still within arm's reach, looks just like the day I bought it, no bouncing keys, no flickering display.
But the real reason it's still in my arsenal is that it turned out to be the ideal tool for working EE AC circuits problems. The '41 can do complex math, in both polar and rectangular coordinates, and flip back and forth between those two representations with ease. I have fond memories of walking out of a tough exam after only 20 minutes, handing my completed (and aced) test to the very suprised professor. Thanks Dave and Bill!
Through four years of undergrad (in EE and Math, Marquette) and eight years of grad school (EE, Stanford), I never took lecture notes. Not one. Ever. Used to drive some lecturers nuts at first, but then they realized that I was actively listening to them, and one of the few asking questions.
Note taking is an evil distraction, that misleads you into the belief that you're actually getting something out of the lecture, while all you're really doing is taking dictation and not thinking about the bits passing from your ears to your hands. Once you get rid of the note taking crutch, you're forced into critical thinking -- that's how people actually learn.
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The easy solution to this is to have the US Navy staff and operate the plants. They have an enviable safety record, experience in training operators and engineers, and an existing pool of talent.
The other thing to do: Build the new plants (agreed smaller would be better) on former Cold War military bases, since most are Superfund sites anyway.
In the case of the US, the report specifically mentions the "arrest of journalists during anti-Bush rallies", and the failure to grant visas to foreign reporters. So, Mike Wallace participating in an antiwar demonstration and getting busted is a black mark? Under that criteria someone with press credentials is no longer subject to the same laws as the rest of us. And of course, since "press credentials" aren't exactly a concrete indicator of reality, they have in the past and will in the future be used for espionage. Sorry, but International Law is quite clear on the concept, a state may deny entry to anyone it sees as a threat, and like all rights and freedoms, a press pass isn't carte blanche...
You have conveniently forgotten the de-funding of engineering and hard science pursuits and the politicization of NIST during the Clinton Administration. All done by the Religious Left in order to eliminate "corporate welfare". Pot, Kettle, Black.
Absolutely, religion is at the root of America's technological decline. The Animists and Druidists are strangling any attempt at Large Scale Engineering -- new freeways, power plants, railways -- that would better the lives of millions of people.
Here comes.... all the complaints about Ham Radio from the whiny types who couldn't pass the morse code exam...
50-60 Hz AC just happens to be the right frequency to cause ventricular fibrilation of your heart muscle. Somehow, I think that might be more harmful.
Not really. Just bring your Winchester lever action along, and you'll have hours of fun, and the NPCs actually taste good, too.
No, you educate yourself. The fact is that gun control does not work in any place that's even remotely like the US. The vast majority -- over 80% -- of US gun crime consists of gangs killing other gangs over drugs. Want to do something about that? Well, ending the WoD would be a good start...
This is true historically in only the narrowest of senses. The reality is that the great majority of practical innovations in use throughout the world originated in the United States, and that innovation has driven the US economy since WWII.
Until now.
The Clinton Administration killed off the bulk of government technology research funding ("corporate welfare", don'tcha know), while the current generation of Harvard MBAs views research as a double negative -- unpredictable and long-term. Since research is a 3-5 year pipeline at a minimum, nobody noticed at first.
Until Now.
Japan has one of the stodgiest cultures around, and their huge economy relies heavily on cutting edge technology.
Japan relies largely on the US to innovate; they largely handle the next stage in the pipeline (perfect and variate). Notice that, for example, Japan has a thriving semiconductor industry, but has never successfully challenged the US lead in microprocessors.
I was wondering about this comment myself. I've been running an Eden system pretty much continuously for the past three years, never a problem; an Epia/800 system for about the same time in an industrial environment, again no problem. Have an M6000 compiling KDE on my bench at the moment, running without a hitch. I use laptop drives to keep the heat down, and because they're generally more reliable.
In addition, the "side benefits" of research have considerable market value if a company is smart enough to use them: Following the divestiture, a large number of AT&T Long Distance customers indicated that they chose AT&T because of Bell Labs. Other companies have used research lab visits to sway large customers.
For the past five years, most tech companies have been "run by the CFO", meaning that cost reduction was everything, and that pesky, unpredictable thing called innovation was to be avoided (at all cost). This is, of course, the strategic equivalent of holding your breath underwater in the hopes of evolving gills.
- Unpredictable in time, money, and outcome, and
- Often tells you things you don't want to hear.
The current generation of Harvard MBA CEOs fears innovation for these reasons, and Carly was a prime example. The damage done by her and her ilk to the future of the US tech economy has been considerable: Bell Labs, the former DEC labs, and HP Labs constitituted the bulk of well-referenced (eg, important) computing research in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Without that innovation, the US computing industry isn't competitive with production in Asia, period.A good example of the Fiorina touch was the closure and large layoff of the former DEC Palo Alto labs (SRC and WRL); they had a clear net positive investment track record of over 1000%, but of course that was over 20 years. Three weeks later, HP announced the opening of a new lab in Singapore, because "we couldn't find enough qualified researchers in Silicon Valley"!
First off, Amtrak is actually owned by the government, so the notion of the government bailing it out is nonsense. Secondly, all forms of transportation are subsidized -- that's one of the more useful functions of government. In the case of Amtrak, its subsidy over the past 30 years (about $25 billion) is far less than the annual subsidy to the airline industry.
That was the last straw for me, I went out the next day and picked up a Sirius Satellite receiver, and have been much, much happier ever since -- big fan of Buzzsaw (Sirius 19).
Actually, I'd like that very much. I have a place in remote northwest Montana, and my lot is infested with way too many tamaracks. Thanks to the out-of-state envriowhackos, the logging industry has been largely put out of business, unemploying thousands. I've been able to employ a few loggers to pull out trees that were basically weeds to me.
Of course, I have a place up there to get away from the I-know-better-than-you ignoramuses on the Left Coast...
Enter the Internet Boom, DEC's last chance at a comeback. How do you market a capable platform around DEC's chimp-loving marketeers? Why, do something that Sun, IBM etc. cannot. Three researchers at DEC did just that, in the summer of 1995.
Yes, we know about AltaVista's bellyflop as a portal. It was painful. But AV sold "more than 1000" AlphaServer 8400s, at an average MSRP over $1M a pop. It succeeded as intended, in spite of the lukewarm financial support from DEC's unimaginitive senior management.
I'd maintain that it's a necessary condition of freedom in a state where government power is limited; certainly the wording of the 2nd Amendment in the US lays it out that way.
Canadians certainly have guns: my Canadian relatives grew up hunting their own meat and the ones in rural areas still do.
Gun ownership is about more than putting meat on the table (not that there's anything wrong with that); what about people who want to be able to defend themselves, and not rely on the state for protection? In any event, all gun ownership in Canada is subject to registration, which has been eventually used throughout the Commonwealth to eventually consfiscate long guns in Australia, as well as the UK itself. If the government knows who's packing, that also dramatically reduces the worth of gun ownership in limiting the power of government.
On the other hand Canadians get to use strong language or show nudity on broadcast TV without pixelation or 3 million dollar fines.
True enough, but on cable or satellite (which the vast majority of people in the US have), I can see all the cussin' and boobies I want. *And*, I can see thugs blown away and other violent/un-PC material that one cannot see on CBC.
[And equal rights = the right to go topless in Ontario (+lots for Ontario)]
Okay, having seen the "Canadian Ballet" in Toronto, I'll grant you that one.
Canadians aren't required to carry identification at all times, or to identify themselves on demand: better than the US on that regard (+1 Canada).
Neither are people in the US; please, please, read the Supreme Court opinion bandied about in this august forum.
'1.totalitarian - characterized by a government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control;
You mean like, say, The Queen? Look, for example, at the previously mentioned cite, and you'll see that The Queen is the source of your ability to bring a matter to justice.
Honest, we like Canadians down here, but we'll have a heck of a lot more respect as soon as you Ditch The uh, er, Queen...
Yet like any other totalitarian society, Canada lacksthe Right to Keep and Bear Arms (see also Lott). The Right of Free Speech is also incredibly limited by the requirement of not offending anyone, and let's not forget Freedom of the Press is only a secondary consideration.
Canadians are simply more comfortable with less freedom. Then again, so are people in California and Massachusetts...
Thanks for the sympathy. Try to spread a little humor, happen to post the same thing at the same time, get nailed for it. Karma comes, karma goes.
What's next? Tuxburgers?
Rather than cutting them up, why not cut a deal with the Russians and keep a few B52H bombers in water tanker service? With the appropriate firefighting gear in the bomb bay, it would be difficult if not impossible to revert back to a bomber; heck, give the Russians the contract for the firefighting mods.
After all, the BUFF has a proven track record of being stressed properly for low-altitude flight; there are plenty of retired USAF pilots and navigators out there who have 1000+ Time-in-Type, as well as mechanics, spare parts, etc.
Prior to 1983, I went through at least one TI scientific calculator per year -- literally wore them out as an engineering undergrad. After having one go on the fritz during a chemistry final, it was time for a change.
And what a change indeed. Bought an HP-41C, which was quite expensive on a student't budget, but I figured that maybe it would last two or three years. Twenty years later, it's still within arm's reach, looks just like the day I bought it, no bouncing keys, no flickering display.
But the real reason it's still in my arsenal is that it turned out to be the ideal tool for working EE AC circuits problems. The '41 can do complex math, in both polar and rectangular coordinates, and flip back and forth between those two representations with ease. I have fond memories of walking out of a tough exam after only 20 minutes, handing my completed (and aced) test to the very suprised professor. Thanks Dave and Bill!
Note taking is an evil distraction, that misleads you into the belief that you're actually getting something out of the lecture, while all you're really doing is taking dictation and not thinking about the bits passing from your ears to your hands. Once you get rid of the note taking crutch, you're forced into critical thinking -- that's how people actually learn.