Let the damn companies have whatever policies they want, force them to be open about those policies, and then let the people decide which companies they will deal with.
What happens when the company decides to 'monetize their data assets'. Let me give you an example that I have had to deal with for over a year. Apply for a DOE grant with the US government as an individual. The process requires you to sign up with third parties to complete the application process. One of those third parties is Dun and Bradstreet, DOE requires a DUNS number. D&B has a special agreement with the US Govt for people who are signing up for a DUNS only for applying for a grant. But now that D&B has your info they treat you like a business. Within a couple months you will be receiving pre-approved credit card applications, junk mail, sales phone calls, and even white pages/yellow pages listings.
Now I'll tell you what doesn't work. I am personally signed up to opt out of pre-approved credit card applications. Doesn't matter, this is the 'business' you they are sending them to, not the personal you. You have to call each credit card company and threaten to turn them in to your state AG to get them to stop.
Asking D&B to remove the data from their system doesn't work. They say they'll mark it inactive, they will not delete it, and they either have no capability or no desire to segregate the special DUNS info for DOE applicants from the rest. And a year later I'm still receiving offers from new companies buying their business listings.
Getting your phone number removed from the white/yellow pages takes weeks. You'll never get a confirmation or even acknowledgment that they are going to address it. It will just disappear from the web searches one day. Even though the number is on the federal do not call registry and being your home number, it's also a cell number, doesn't deter the sales calls.
Contacting your congressman to address a problem with a Federal Govt grant process doesn't work. You'll get a phone call saying they are investigating it, and never hear back.
Without some teeth in a data retention law, business will collect whatever data they want and use it in any way that is profitable. Privacy policies will not stop them because they can change them at any time in any way that suits them. Since the cost of maintaining databases and cross referencing relationships is only going to get cheaper, this problem will get much worse if society doesn't set rules about what is acceptable.
While that may be an interesting demonstration, I'm going to be pedantic on your "reasonable doubt" conclusion. Since we are discussing an improper dismissal suit, we are talking about a civil case. Reasonable doubt is for criminal cases. Civil cases are decided on a "preponderance of evidence", as in more likely than not. Just throwing doubt on the employers reasons for dismissing the employee might not be enough to win.
The results are a reflection of how the question was asked.
Absolutely. But even more interesting is the sample size. "Over 1000 responded", and with that they are predicting what 308 million Americans think. How can 1000 responses be significant enough to determine how 300+ million would respond?
Not only do we not know how the question was presented, we don't know the demographics of the sample set. 1000 random calls. 1000 company employees. 1000 White House staffers.
people that watch westerns don't watch sci-fi and vice versa.
Really? Because Firefly is right up there on the shelf next to Silverado, True Grit, Lonesome Dove. And Logan's Run, Bladerunner, Minority Report, etc. Can SciFi or western watchers like war movies? Because I have Band of Brothers, Windtalkers, and Tears of the Sun as well.
What makes a series interesting, past the first couple of episodes, is character interaction, not the genre.
How about the "we are the last of our race and fighting for survival", then dropping everyone on a planet and abandoning all their technology. They didn't even strip the fleet for shelter and hunting/farming implements. Or... we have shuttles that can land anywhere on the planet, but we're going to drop you in a field and make you walk for miles to a place suitable restart civilization?
The show was canceled and the writers were done. They just half-assed the finale to wrap things up.
It doesn't help that Syfy is putting these shows on the worst night (Tuesday).
I gave up trying to chase shows around years ago. I just plug them into Tivo and I'm fine until every network tries to stack all the good shows on the same night. Monday and Tuesday are a bit crowded this season. More than two in one timeslot and I start prioritizing.
Caprica would be pretty far down on my list though. I've been watching it, trying to give it a chance, but it's about as boring as the season of BSG with the Apollo/Starbuck relationship story line. I'm not going to miss Caprica.
Something else I have noticed with Syfy series is the photography is very dark. BSG, Caprica, Stargate Universe. I'm trying to figure out if some moron thinks this adds character or if the network is just too cheap to put any detail in the sets. It's almost as annoying as shaky cam directors.
Take the Java and.NET approach, create VMs for various platforms. Even better, build one to support C++. Although hardcore C++ purists might have to choke on a little syntactic sugar for it to gain wide acceptance. A write once, run anywhere C++ with Borland style properties and I'd change in a heartbeat.
It will take all of 5 minutes of your tech's time (if that) to go to the manufacturer's web site and submit an RMA for that part. Another 5 minutes to pack the old part up and ship it.
I never dealt with RMAs, but I have sent a lot of hardware in for repairs under maintenance contracts, and 10 minutes to get something out the door is very optimistic. Generally it is more like 10 to 15 minutes on the website; log in, identify the equipment, select the type of problem, write a description of the problem, and print a mailing label. From there I had to remove a memory card, remove the battery, place it in it's custom designed shipping box with one copy of the return authorization inside and tape it shut, then tape a shipping label on the outside. Then you need to fill out a shipping request so your company can track shipments and take it out the the guy running the UPS station in shipping. Sure, the last part can be grouped with others if you have several to ship, but from experience you're going to spend 1/2 an hour per RMA, assuming no interruptions. I used to do this about once a week.
And all that is assuming you don't need intervention from a vendor rep to approve the RMA.
You're too far away from the city. I live in a town of 3000 that is about 10 minutes from a metro area of 1 million+. I am on the Interstate with a truck stop in town. Gas prices are within a few pennies, higher or lower, depending on what part of the city you compare against. Most of the town's income comes from sales tax, thanks to Quik Trip, McDonalds, Burger King, and all the other fast food joints frequented by travelers. So we have nice streets, plenty of police (town and county), and every street in town gets plowed when it snows.
It's true, you do have to spend 15 minutes getting to a good restaurant, bookstore, or theater. But that also gets you to the new, fashionable shopping center on this side of the metro.
Once upon a time, before the recession, I used to have a 10 minute commute. Once the housing market straightens out I'll probably sell my home, at a premium. (few foreclosures in this area, but demand is low since banks aren't lending) I'm now working on the other side of town with a 45 minute commute. Was nice for the first 8 years though.
I don't think that the article is talking about the real boonies though. Any place that is large enough to maintain a good sized IT operation isn't the kind of boonies that I'm talking about.
Just looking at one town, Macon, Missouri, certainly suits my definition of the boonies. While US 36 might some day become an Interstate highway, Macon is still in the middle of nowhere. It's 2.5 hours from Kansas City, 3.5 hours from Des Moines. And an hour from Hannibal, which isn't exactly a metropolis. Even though Macon is the county seat (of Macon County), it still has a population of less than 6000.
Of course, it is only an hour away from a college town. (MU/Columbia) Not that its likely to benefit your social life much.
screw that. We need to let the bush tax cuts expire, full stop.
I fail to see why you were modded flamebait. Let them expire, balance the budget, and then we can talk about cutting taxes. If you are running a deficit, you want to increase income or decrease spending, not the other way around.
what exactly is wrong with wanting a smaller, more effective government?
Nothing at all wrong with that, if that is what they are really promising. The problem is that when MOST of them talk about smaller government, they aren't talking about spending less. The solution for the last 3 decades has been attempting to reduce size while outsourcing to private businesses. Reagan promised it, and the government was larger when he left than when he started. And the national debt increased 187%. GW Bush promised to be conservative, and we see how that turned out. Outsourcing is what you do when your business is too small to keep talent on staff. And outsourcing will always be more expensive because someone is making a profit on the labor they are supplying.
The thing you have to realize is that every job in government is necessary to provide the services that have been promised. Those people may not be utilized efficiently (how can an agency the size of DHS even function, much less function efficiently), but you can't get rid of them without eliminating service. So if you honestly want smaller government, talk about cutting services. Reduce services and the size of government will drop accordingly.
2) The outcry of lobbyists in the industries that depend on the government wastefulness to pad their bottom line will put out the message that this is "killing private business and costing citizens their jobs."
There is a lot of truth to this. The government won't kill niche markets, even those it creates. You will never see a true overhaul of the tax system because that would hurt companies like Intuit, H&R Block, etc. The government could have addressed this years ago with the requirements for online tax filing, they chose to limit filing to companies that could meet an overly complex set of guidelines.
And despite where you stand on Healthcare, the US government would never nationalize it. Single payer or a 'public option' were never on the table. Those options would eliminate or minimize a middle-man industry. I don't want to get into a debate, but there are some good arguments for the government providing basic services (preventative services to reduce emergency services) while returning private healthcare providers to major medical risk management.
Then there is the government contracting industry. The process won't be simplified because there is a whole industry of contract facilitators. They don't provide any true value to the transaction, they just know how to manipulate an overly complex system. Just like with all the outsourcing that has been done with the military (hiring KBR to run mess halls and reassigning trained soldiers to infantry positions). Supporting 'private security' firms costs us double; we payer higher costs for diplomat's security. And we constantly have train replacements for soldiers who are enticed away with promises of higher pay. Private companies can pay more because the US Government provides all the expensive training.
The federal government has more than sufficient IT talent on staff, but rather than agencies pooling resources they hire outside contractors, often duplicating work that has already been completed. For an example, look at Grants.gov and FedConnect.com. While FedConnect does provide additional features, it duplicates the whole grant application process. There are a number of problems with that; work product developed by contractors is rarely owned by the government (taxpayer). And services provided by 3rd parties may or may not hold citizen data in the same regard as government agencies. I have yet to regret providing information to the Census Bureau, but applying for a DOE grant has allowed Dun and Bradstreet to play fast and loose with my personal information.
Not only would costs be cheaper to handle IT internally, but the product of the work would be given back to taxpayers as well. NASA images and CIA Factbook are examples of taxpayers receiving value from the projects they fund. All those things published out in Pueblo Colorado. Consider this one, with the exception of some libraries, VA's CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System) is open source and free to use. But with ARRA we are giving away billions of tax payer dollars to reinvent the wheel.
At some point between now and 2030 production will start decreasing, as the wells we can reach will be depleted.
Something that many people don't realize is that 'the wells we can reach' changes based on external factors. New technologies make previously 'unreachable' oil available. Look at the effects horizontal drilling and oil extraction from shale have had in the past. And what was 'un-available' at $20 a barrel is producible at $100 a barrel. For many years, US oil companies imported oil that was cheaper than drilling for oil here. Those reserves will be tapped as the economic factors change.
Another problem most peak oil calculations fail to account for is the cost factor in the supply/demand curve. They tend to want to calculate the lifetime of currently producing reserves based on current usage or rising demand. (IE: India and China) At some price point US demand will drop off as other transportation alternatives become more attractive (although public transportation is not likely to be one of them). And demand in India and China, where public transportation is the norm, will likely see small increases in demand for personal use and drops in demand for use in manufacturing and transportation as production costs reach parity with large consumer nations. (US, western Europe) 'Buy American' will have more support when Chinese exports are just as expensive as American products.
It's not impossible that sale of new combustion-powered vehicles to normal consumers will be banned within twenty years,
They won't ever be banned, at least in the US. You can still ride a horse. You can still buy a horse and buggy. But nobody uses them because there are 'better' solutions, and the infrastructure no longer exists. This isn't a CF vs incandescent bulb type change. When enough people buy electric vehicles that you don't have a gas station on every corner, people will give up their ICE cars for daily use.
A car example, since we are talking about cars... You can still drive cars that were built prior to emission controls. You aren't required to update them, they are grandfathered into emission laws in most states. You can buy lead additives (or non-lead replacements) for cars that can't use unleaded gas. I haven't looked recently, but 10 years ago you could buy leaded Av-gas (aviation) and legally use it as long as you paid the road use taxes.
Are you sure you're not taking more into account the stigma of being seen to put little kids at risk of being killed/injured
While that is certainly a concern, in a local town they seem to have placed every school on a major artery. Elementary schools next to busy 4 lane streets. To counter that, they have put up flashing lights and reduced speed zones from 7am to 5pm. But not a single crossing guard. Taking into account that very few kids would be crossing the street during school hours, the risky times would be shortly before and after school. If you were simply worried about the stigma, you would worry about those hours and every time you drove near a public park.
OTOH, 24 hours a day a ticket within that school zone includes a considerably increased fine and I believe extra points on your license. I'm willing to bet most of us discount the risk of an accident and worry more about the financial penalties. Kind of like the texters.
The easiest way would be to dull the surfaces so they don't reflect as much light.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that energy have to go some place? They mentioned using low-e glass in the building, I would think that would increase the reflection on the pool. And dulling the surface or using a darker color would transfer more heat into the building. Something you really don't want in Vegas.
Other than moving the pool or changing the shape of the building, it seems that their only real option is putting something between the pool and the building. Thus the larger, heavier umbrellas.
Studies have found that laws prohibiting bank robberies have failed to reduce the number of thefts while making them more dangerous for innocent bystanders. Police officer's attempts to enforce those laws have only encouraged criminals to carry weapons.
While I think it is ridiculous to write a law to make prosecuting every little driving distraction easier, the fact is the law is there. If people are attempting to be more discreet while still violating the law, the problem isn't that this makes them more dangerous. The problem is that the penalties are not severe enough to stop the behavior.
Example: I'll drive 5 over on the interstate because I know the chance of getting a ticket is slim. I won't drive 5 over in a school zone. The risks are higher and the penalties are nasty.
That really depends on whether you can hit your target under stress. I know a few cops, and none of them shoot like Mel Gibson does in the movies. It's more difficult when you aren't shooting at paper targets. Outside of the range, my dad never fired his service pistol once.
Here's a hint for you. That guy seems to think he's super cop. And from experience, those kind tend to be mediocre at best. Does this guy draw his service pistol at every traffic stop, or just the ones when he's out of uniform, in an unmarked vehicle, and apparently pumped up on adrenaline? And does he realize that the uniformed officer with the marked patrol car BEHIND the motorcycle is likely in his line of fire.
One thing I'm curious about is did the patrolman recognize him as an officer or did he think he was facing a lunatic with a gun and an innocent civilian in between.
How the heck is taking money from me to pay for other people's health care "centrist"?
That shipped sailed a long time ago, it's called Medicare. And it's working quite well.
How is taking money from me and paying for other people's children's education conservative? Largest part of most local property tax levies, FYI.
Some issues aren't about left, right, or center. It's about society. How is it out of all the things that a government can provide, the health of it's population has so little value. How hypocritical is it for a self proclaimed Christian nation to spend all it's money being the world's policeman and then whine because they might have to contribute to keep their neighbor healthy. How have we become this nation of self centered, self involved, egotistical bunch of money worshippers?
Making sure everyone has access to essential health care is called compassion. It's not like we're offering to buy everybody a pony.
And yes, I support letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Until the debt is reasonable (not deficit, debt), nobody deserves a tax break.
I don't know about Maryland, but in my part of the country police NEVER make a traffic stop with an unmarked vehicle. There have been problems with women being assaulted by fake officers. But depending on the situation (it's not possible to determine when the patrol car arrived), if someone in an unmarked car like that cut me off, then jumped out and pulled a weapon, quite likely they would be removing my bike from his teeth.
The apparently off duty officer never should have been involved since there were uniformed officers in marked patrol cars present. This should be a training film on how to do something incredibly unprofessional and stupid that will get your ass fired.
How does SELinux factor into whether or not a desktop firewall should be used? Doesn't pretty much EVERY linux distribution come with IPTables now? I'm guessing SELinux uses it as well, meaning it is using a firewall as well.
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Let the damn companies have whatever policies they want, force them to be open about those policies, and then let the people decide which companies they will deal with.
What happens when the company decides to 'monetize their data assets'. Let me give you an example that I have had to deal with for over a year. Apply for a DOE grant with the US government as an individual. The process requires you to sign up with third parties to complete the application process. One of those third parties is Dun and Bradstreet, DOE requires a DUNS number. D&B has a special agreement with the US Govt for people who are signing up for a DUNS only for applying for a grant. But now that D&B has your info they treat you like a business. Within a couple months you will be receiving pre-approved credit card applications, junk mail, sales phone calls, and even white pages/yellow pages listings.
Now I'll tell you what doesn't work. I am personally signed up to opt out of pre-approved credit card applications. Doesn't matter, this is the 'business' you they are sending them to, not the personal you. You have to call each credit card company and threaten to turn them in to your state AG to get them to stop.
Asking D&B to remove the data from their system doesn't work. They say they'll mark it inactive, they will not delete it, and they either have no capability or no desire to segregate the special DUNS info for DOE applicants from the rest. And a year later I'm still receiving offers from new companies buying their business listings.
Getting your phone number removed from the white/yellow pages takes weeks. You'll never get a confirmation or even acknowledgment that they are going to address it. It will just disappear from the web searches one day. Even though the number is on the federal do not call registry and being your home number, it's also a cell number, doesn't deter the sales calls.
Contacting your congressman to address a problem with a Federal Govt grant process doesn't work. You'll get a phone call saying they are investigating it, and never hear back.
Without some teeth in a data retention law, business will collect whatever data they want and use it in any way that is profitable. Privacy policies will not stop them because they can change them at any time in any way that suits them. Since the cost of maintaining databases and cross referencing relationships is only going to get cheaper, this problem will get much worse if society doesn't set rules about what is acceptable.
While that may be an interesting demonstration, I'm going to be pedantic on your "reasonable doubt" conclusion. Since we are discussing an improper dismissal suit, we are talking about a civil case. Reasonable doubt is for criminal cases. Civil cases are decided on a "preponderance of evidence", as in more likely than not. Just throwing doubt on the employers reasons for dismissing the employee might not be enough to win.
The results are a reflection of how the question was asked.
Absolutely. But even more interesting is the sample size. "Over 1000 responded", and with that they are predicting what 308 million Americans think. How can 1000 responses be significant enough to determine how 300+ million would respond?
Not only do we not know how the question was presented, we don't know the demographics of the sample set. 1000 random calls. 1000 company employees. 1000 White House staffers.
people that watch westerns don't watch sci-fi and vice versa.
Really? Because Firefly is right up there on the shelf next to Silverado, True Grit, Lonesome Dove. And Logan's Run, Bladerunner, Minority Report, etc. Can SciFi or western watchers like war movies? Because I have Band of Brothers, Windtalkers, and Tears of the Sun as well.
What makes a series interesting, past the first couple of episodes, is character interaction, not the genre.
What was wrong with the finale?
How about the "we are the last of our race and fighting for survival", then dropping everyone on a planet and abandoning all their technology. They didn't even strip the fleet for shelter and hunting/farming implements. Or... we have shuttles that can land anywhere on the planet, but we're going to drop you in a field and make you walk for miles to a place suitable restart civilization?
The show was canceled and the writers were done. They just half-assed the finale to wrap things up.
It doesn't help that Syfy is putting these shows on the worst night (Tuesday).
I gave up trying to chase shows around years ago. I just plug them into Tivo and I'm fine until every network tries to stack all the good shows on the same night. Monday and Tuesday are a bit crowded this season. More than two in one timeslot and I start prioritizing.
Caprica would be pretty far down on my list though. I've been watching it, trying to give it a chance, but it's about as boring as the season of BSG with the Apollo/Starbuck relationship story line. I'm not going to miss Caprica.
Something else I have noticed with Syfy series is the photography is very dark. BSG, Caprica, Stargate Universe. I'm trying to figure out if some moron thinks this adds character or if the network is just too cheap to put any detail in the sets. It's almost as annoying as shaky cam directors.
C isn't portable.
Take the Java and .NET approach, create VMs for various platforms. Even better, build one to support C++. Although hardcore C++ purists might have to choke on a little syntactic sugar for it to gain wide acceptance. A write once, run anywhere C++ with Borland style properties and I'd change in a heartbeat.
It will take all of 5 minutes of your tech's time (if that) to go to the manufacturer's web site and submit an RMA for that part. Another 5 minutes to pack the old part up and ship it.
I never dealt with RMAs, but I have sent a lot of hardware in for repairs under maintenance contracts, and 10 minutes to get something out the door is very optimistic. Generally it is more like 10 to 15 minutes on the website; log in, identify the equipment, select the type of problem, write a description of the problem, and print a mailing label. From there I had to remove a memory card, remove the battery, place it in it's custom designed shipping box with one copy of the return authorization inside and tape it shut, then tape a shipping label on the outside. Then you need to fill out a shipping request so your company can track shipments and take it out the the guy running the UPS station in shipping. Sure, the last part can be grouped with others if you have several to ship, but from experience you're going to spend 1/2 an hour per RMA, assuming no interruptions. I used to do this about once a week.
And all that is assuming you don't need intervention from a vendor rep to approve the RMA.
You're too far away from the city. I live in a town of 3000 that is about 10 minutes from a metro area of 1 million+. I am on the Interstate with a truck stop in town. Gas prices are within a few pennies, higher or lower, depending on what part of the city you compare against. Most of the town's income comes from sales tax, thanks to Quik Trip, McDonalds, Burger King, and all the other fast food joints frequented by travelers. So we have nice streets, plenty of police (town and county), and every street in town gets plowed when it snows.
It's true, you do have to spend 15 minutes getting to a good restaurant, bookstore, or theater. But that also gets you to the new, fashionable shopping center on this side of the metro.
Once upon a time, before the recession, I used to have a 10 minute commute. Once the housing market straightens out I'll probably sell my home, at a premium. (few foreclosures in this area, but demand is low since banks aren't lending) I'm now working on the other side of town with a 45 minute commute. Was nice for the first 8 years though.
I don't think that the article is talking about the real boonies though. Any place that is large enough to maintain a good sized IT operation isn't the kind of boonies that I'm talking about.
Just looking at one town, Macon, Missouri, certainly suits my definition of the boonies. While US 36 might some day become an Interstate highway, Macon is still in the middle of nowhere. It's 2.5 hours from Kansas City, 3.5 hours from Des Moines. And an hour from Hannibal, which isn't exactly a metropolis. Even though Macon is the county seat (of Macon County), it still has a population of less than 6000.
Of course, it is only an hour away from a college town. (MU/Columbia) Not that its likely to benefit your social life much.
screw that. We need to let the bush tax cuts expire, full stop.
I fail to see why you were modded flamebait. Let them expire, balance the budget, and then we can talk about cutting taxes. If you are running a deficit, you want to increase income or decrease spending, not the other way around.
what exactly is wrong with wanting a smaller, more effective government?
Nothing at all wrong with that, if that is what they are really promising. The problem is that when MOST of them talk about smaller government, they aren't talking about spending less. The solution for the last 3 decades has been attempting to reduce size while outsourcing to private businesses. Reagan promised it, and the government was larger when he left than when he started. And the national debt increased 187%. GW Bush promised to be conservative, and we see how that turned out. Outsourcing is what you do when your business is too small to keep talent on staff. And outsourcing will always be more expensive because someone is making a profit on the labor they are supplying.
The thing you have to realize is that every job in government is necessary to provide the services that have been promised. Those people may not be utilized efficiently (how can an agency the size of DHS even function, much less function efficiently), but you can't get rid of them without eliminating service. So if you honestly want smaller government, talk about cutting services. Reduce services and the size of government will drop accordingly.
2) The outcry of lobbyists in the industries that depend on the government wastefulness to pad their bottom line will put out the message that this is "killing private business and costing citizens their jobs."
There is a lot of truth to this. The government won't kill niche markets, even those it creates. You will never see a true overhaul of the tax system because that would hurt companies like Intuit, H&R Block, etc. The government could have addressed this years ago with the requirements for online tax filing, they chose to limit filing to companies that could meet an overly complex set of guidelines.
And despite where you stand on Healthcare, the US government would never nationalize it. Single payer or a 'public option' were never on the table. Those options would eliminate or minimize a middle-man industry. I don't want to get into a debate, but there are some good arguments for the government providing basic services (preventative services to reduce emergency services) while returning private healthcare providers to major medical risk management.
Then there is the government contracting industry. The process won't be simplified because there is a whole industry of contract facilitators. They don't provide any true value to the transaction, they just know how to manipulate an overly complex system. Just like with all the outsourcing that has been done with the military (hiring KBR to run mess halls and reassigning trained soldiers to infantry positions). Supporting 'private security' firms costs us double; we payer higher costs for diplomat's security. And we constantly have train replacements for soldiers who are enticed away with promises of higher pay. Private companies can pay more because the US Government provides all the expensive training.
The federal government has more than sufficient IT talent on staff, but rather than agencies pooling resources they hire outside contractors, often duplicating work that has already been completed. For an example, look at Grants.gov and FedConnect.com. While FedConnect does provide additional features, it duplicates the whole grant application process. There are a number of problems with that; work product developed by contractors is rarely owned by the government (taxpayer). And services provided by 3rd parties may or may not hold citizen data in the same regard as government agencies. I have yet to regret providing information to the Census Bureau, but applying for a DOE grant has allowed Dun and Bradstreet to play fast and loose with my personal information.
Not only would costs be cheaper to handle IT internally, but the product of the work would be given back to taxpayers as well. NASA images and CIA Factbook are examples of taxpayers receiving value from the projects they fund. All those things published out in Pueblo Colorado. Consider this one, with the exception of some libraries, VA's CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System) is open source and free to use. But with ARRA we are giving away billions of tax payer dollars to reinvent the wheel.
At some point between now and 2030 production will start decreasing, as the wells we can reach will be depleted.
Something that many people don't realize is that 'the wells we can reach' changes based on external factors. New technologies make previously 'unreachable' oil available. Look at the effects horizontal drilling and oil extraction from shale have had in the past. And what was 'un-available' at $20 a barrel is producible at $100 a barrel. For many years, US oil companies imported oil that was cheaper than drilling for oil here. Those reserves will be tapped as the economic factors change.
Another problem most peak oil calculations fail to account for is the cost factor in the supply/demand curve. They tend to want to calculate the lifetime of currently producing reserves based on current usage or rising demand. (IE: India and China) At some price point US demand will drop off as other transportation alternatives become more attractive (although public transportation is not likely to be one of them). And demand in India and China, where public transportation is the norm, will likely see small increases in demand for personal use and drops in demand for use in manufacturing and transportation as production costs reach parity with large consumer nations. (US, western Europe) 'Buy American' will have more support when Chinese exports are just as expensive as American products.
It's not impossible that sale of new combustion-powered vehicles to normal consumers will be banned within twenty years,
They won't ever be banned, at least in the US. You can still ride a horse. You can still buy a horse and buggy. But nobody uses them because there are 'better' solutions, and the infrastructure no longer exists. This isn't a CF vs incandescent bulb type change. When enough people buy electric vehicles that you don't have a gas station on every corner, people will give up their ICE cars for daily use.
A car example, since we are talking about cars... You can still drive cars that were built prior to emission controls. You aren't required to update them, they are grandfathered into emission laws in most states. You can buy lead additives (or non-lead replacements) for cars that can't use unleaded gas. I haven't looked recently, but 10 years ago you could buy leaded Av-gas (aviation) and legally use it as long as you paid the road use taxes.
Plus what's up with Planet G? Planet M would have been better ;)
I just assumed they were alphabetically challenged. I would have leaned toward Planet F for the sixth member. Or is A the zero of the alphabet?
Are you sure you're not taking more into account the stigma of being seen to put little kids at risk of being killed/injured
While that is certainly a concern, in a local town they seem to have placed every school on a major artery. Elementary schools next to busy 4 lane streets. To counter that, they have put up flashing lights and reduced speed zones from 7am to 5pm. But not a single crossing guard. Taking into account that very few kids would be crossing the street during school hours, the risky times would be shortly before and after school. If you were simply worried about the stigma, you would worry about those hours and every time you drove near a public park.
OTOH, 24 hours a day a ticket within that school zone includes a considerably increased fine and I believe extra points on your license. I'm willing to bet most of us discount the risk of an accident and worry more about the financial penalties. Kind of like the texters.
The easiest way would be to dull the surfaces so they don't reflect as much light.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that energy have to go some place? They mentioned using low-e glass in the building, I would think that would increase the reflection on the pool. And dulling the surface or using a darker color would transfer more heat into the building. Something you really don't want in Vegas.
Other than moving the pool or changing the shape of the building, it seems that their only real option is putting something between the pool and the building. Thus the larger, heavier umbrellas.
And the video I got, all 20m of it, was about Las Vegas pool parties being the new trend. It didn't even mention the Death Ray.
Studies have found that laws prohibiting bank robberies have failed to reduce the number of thefts while making them more dangerous for innocent bystanders. Police officer's attempts to enforce those laws have only encouraged criminals to carry weapons.
While I think it is ridiculous to write a law to make prosecuting every little driving distraction easier, the fact is the law is there. If people are attempting to be more discreet while still violating the law, the problem isn't that this makes them more dangerous. The problem is that the penalties are not severe enough to stop the behavior.
Example: I'll drive 5 over on the interstate because I know the chance of getting a ticket is slim. I won't drive 5 over in a school zone. The risks are higher and the penalties are nasty.
That really depends on whether you can hit your target under stress. I know a few cops, and none of them shoot like Mel Gibson does in the movies. It's more difficult when you aren't shooting at paper targets. Outside of the range, my dad never fired his service pistol once.
Here's a hint for you. That guy seems to think he's super cop. And from experience, those kind tend to be mediocre at best. Does this guy draw his service pistol at every traffic stop, or just the ones when he's out of uniform, in an unmarked vehicle, and apparently pumped up on adrenaline? And does he realize that the uniformed officer with the marked patrol car BEHIND the motorcycle is likely in his line of fire.
One thing I'm curious about is did the patrolman recognize him as an officer or did he think he was facing a lunatic with a gun and an innocent civilian in between.
How the heck is taking money from me to pay for other people's health care "centrist"?
That shipped sailed a long time ago, it's called Medicare. And it's working quite well.
How is taking money from me and paying for other people's children's education conservative? Largest part of most local property tax levies, FYI.
Some issues aren't about left, right, or center. It's about society. How is it out of all the things that a government can provide, the health of it's population has so little value. How hypocritical is it for a self proclaimed Christian nation to spend all it's money being the world's policeman and then whine because they might have to contribute to keep their neighbor healthy. How have we become this nation of self centered, self involved, egotistical bunch of money worshippers?
Making sure everyone has access to essential health care is called compassion. It's not like we're offering to buy everybody a pony.
And yes, I support letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Until the debt is reasonable (not deficit, debt), nobody deserves a tax break.
I don't know about Maryland, but in my part of the country police NEVER make a traffic stop with an unmarked vehicle. There have been problems with women being assaulted by fake officers. But depending on the situation (it's not possible to determine when the patrol car arrived), if someone in an unmarked car like that cut me off, then jumped out and pulled a weapon, quite likely they would be removing my bike from his teeth.
The apparently off duty officer never should have been involved since there were uniformed officers in marked patrol cars present. This should be a training film on how to do something incredibly unprofessional and stupid that will get your ass fired.
When your printer phones home,
Note that I said printer drivers.
How does SELinux factor into whether or not a desktop firewall should be used? Doesn't pretty much EVERY linux distribution come with IPTables now? I'm guessing SELinux uses it as well, meaning it is using a firewall as well.