It is very similar to the BP disaster. I'm sure all of the oil companies operate this way BP's luck just ran out.
Actually, it's extremely clear to anyone who knows anything about the industry, that BP is the bottom of the barrel. Sure, other oil companies cut corners, but BP is by far the worst offender.
This can be seen by the lay-person quite easily, just by noting that whenever there has been a major accident in the recent past, BP has been to blame. Deepwater being just one. Take the Alaska oil pipeline leak of just a couple years ago, or BP's refinery explosion in 2005. All three caused by gross negligence on BP's part. By all means, try to name any other major oil company with a recent track record worse than BP's. The only difference this time, is that they hit the disaster jackpot, and the consequences are vastly more catastrophic than BP's more routine failures, which simply result in small fines. It is most appropriate that this disaster has exceeded the Exxon Valdez spill, eliminating any and all debate over the title of the most disastrous oil company in western history.
BP's existence (as a major player) is a result of acquiring numerous other small oil services companies at bottom dollar, and cutting operating costs even lower to bring them into competition. This fact/behavior/mindset has been outlined in numerous after-accident reports, particularly the BP US refinery explosion.
any solution created by beaurocrats is going to have serious inherent drawbacks.
What is your background, or your sources, which allow you to claim to know that government is vastly less efficient than private companies? Or are you just spouting urban myths and legends?
I've seen the insides of several large companies, and the problems you list are on display, in full force, in every one of them. I also see massive amounts of flagrant waste and stupidity on display on a routine basis.
What makes you so sure a politician is worse than a corporate manager, in this or any other regard?
You forgot the part where SpaceX didn't do any R&D. Instead, they used old technologies developed by... wait for it... NASA.
Wasn't it NASA who claimed that re-using old Saturn V rocket designs wouldn't be any cheaper than designing an entirely new rocket, hence the birth of Ares?
If Hollywood had half a brain between the lot of them, they'd start a pilot episode channel via the different on-demand delivery systems (Hulu/Netflix/Comcast VOD/Verizon VOD) and get their pilots screened to an order of magnitude more people.
I'm instantly reminded of The Tick (the live action TV series). Why? Because the pilot was great, while all subsequent episodes bore no similarity to the pilot, and were simply horrible.
Just TRY and come up with a tier system that results in the top 1% paying 40% of their income in taxes, that doesn't result in a $500 gallon of milk...
Nothing you can come up with negates the fact that those at the very top will inherently pay a tiny fraction of their income in taxes, while those who earn LESS will pay MORE. Regressive is the proper name for it.
people need to be able to save money to invest and income tax stops that.
The rich save / invest their money. The poor are too poor to do so and must spend everything to stay alive. Everyone else (in the middle) is a fractional shade of these two types, depending on their exactly income.
Income tax does not prevent investment or savings in the slightest. What it does is prevent a million different ways of hiding your money, trying to avoid paying taxes.
Prices have dropped to the point that you can buy a color laser printer for less than the purchase price of an inkjet and 2 sets of refills (the toner should outlast all three sets of ink cartridges), and 3rd party refilled toner cartridges work out to half a cent/page for black, and about 5c/page for color.
Don't get me wrong. Samsung's cheap color lasers are far from perfect, and the almost constant problem of mis-fed paper is greatly irritating, but I'd still never consider going back to ink. When my current printer needs a new drum (more expensive than the printer) I'm going to have to debate getting a newer model of an equally crappy printer, upgrading to a more expensive decent color laser, or maybe (not likely) paying 75% as much for a low-end monochrome laser that's a bit more reliable.
We should have NO INCOME TAX, we should have FLAT SALES TAX and then poor people should be able to file for a tax refund at the end of the year.
Only if you want the very rich to pay far less in taxes.
The refund idea helps the poor a little bit, but then penalizes them if they rise just above the poverty level where there's no more refund. And much more than that, there's no refunds for the middle class, so they get screwed paying 80% of taxes to support the government, while the extremely weathy only spend a fraction of their money buying taxable items, and even then, are very, very easily able to fix ways around those sales taxes, like importing.
I've posted citations, and explained, repeated, exactly how and why a flat tax fails miserably. You've done nothing but screaming assertions with no basis. Goodbye.
There is no way in which your statement can possibly anything but utterly factually incorrect.
Event "I got mine" shills for the wealthy at fairtax.org recognize and acknowledge this, and offer "coupons" to the poor to try and offset this. Unfortunately, this does nothing for the middle class, who then shoulder the majority of the tax burden. Once you sp
at the highest bracket.. which should be up to 35% but can be almost *entirely* shifted from actually paying taxes to *other* things.. reducing tax liability to less than 10%...
Not true in the slightest. You see, this is something completely unsupported by any evidence, with numbers you just made up on the spot. Anyone making better than median income, and paying less than 10% in taxes, is a flagrant tax cheat, and can expect to soon go to jail.
Warren Buffet (in that notably non-progressive top 1% tax bracket) pays 17.7%. While that's far less than he should pay, it's well over 10%. And more to the point, a flat 10% tax will not provide enough of a tax base to support the US government, so in reality, the rate will be far higher.
Additionally, you continue to ignore what I keep saying. While a flat tax is unfair, a logarithmic tax would be very simple, and naturally and smoothly progressive. It would not required special cases and loopholes to get it's progressive nature, and it would not need to be amended every year for inflation and the like to maintain a reasonably fair tax schedule.
Users are pretty much self sufficient on Macs. End of story.
I'd love to see the Macs setting up the redundant T-1s in the comm room, configuring ideal BGP route advertisements, and monitoring the connection.
And how good are Macs at writing custom programs? If you aren't wasting tons of time because routine tasks just aren't optimized as much as they could be on-site, you must not be doing much of anything on those computers.
Best thing that could be done is have a flat rate that actually pays the bills it needs to pay for the government,.
No, a flat tax is inherently unfair. It is a regressive tax, which places an inordinate burden on the poor. 10% of your income is nothing to a millionaire, but it's too heavy a burden for someone struggling to live on minimum wage. And don't try to tell me that's fair, as an overwhelming majority of people would certainly say it's inherently unfair that 1% of the population control 1/4 of all the wealth.
A logarithmic scale (rather than a flat tax) would be extremely simple, would have no loopholes, and would appropriately tax all involved.
And the Engineers are absolutely sure that would prevent a civilization-threatening catastrophe! Because they're ALWAYS right!
No. Engineers are sure that is the only thing that would prevent a certain type of problem, and therefore omitting it leaves you open to catastrophe on the (statistically small) chance that particular problem arises.
Only a jackass (like me) would consider ANY other possibility.
By assuming you know every subject better than the experts, you certainly do make a jackass out of yourself. And by opting to not take their advice, you're proving how short-sighted and irresponsible you are.
the only FAIR tax system is a COMPLEX tax system, simply because society itself is complex, and always will be complex, in a rich society
I'm not so sure this is true. It needs to be more complex than a flat tax, but if we eliminated all the social engineering and pork-esque intentionally introduced loopholes in tax law, it could be extremely simple. Consider that income tax could be on a simple logarithmic scale, and sales tax could be reduced to consistent statewide percentage (on non-food items; no tax on unprocessed food).
I wish I could tag this one as duh. Weather is bound to be generated when you pass a hot jet engine through a cold cloud. Not to mention the heat of the fuselage generate from air friction.
Give yourself a "duh" there, because a quick reading of TFA reveals you're wrong in every respect as to the mechanism.
For example, turboprops are more significant contributors, precisely because they are more efficient, and less "hot". And there's little effect on very cold clouds, it's the in-between ones which get pushed to the tipping point.
But the weirdest is one channel (and all of its subchannels) that plays audio properly, but the video plays too fast, before freezing every second or so to let the audio catch back up. No idea if its something the network is doing on its broadcast, a weird artifact of bad reception, or if my TV just isn't processing the video data right or what.
It's ION (PAX) isn't it? I've never cared enough to figure out what it is, but they're doing something god-awful with the video, like doubling the framerate and separating out the fields. It doesn't have the problems you're describing, but it looks so horrible and jumpy I never even consider watching it.
if you're not pushing flops, you have a lot of hardware lying around unused
I guess you never use SSL/TLS on any of your web sites.
they should have used ARMs
I'm sure ARM wants you to believe so. But somehow, I don't think they're complete morons, so I'm going to assume they have some modest idea WTH they were doing, and they aren't going to be humbled by 5 seconds of thought by a random/.er. Of course, you're free to provide some evidence, and actually prove the point.
Wind power seems promising, but the available sites are limited.
California is vastly ahead of the curve. Yes, we've used up 50% of our wind generating capacity, but nowhere else is that the case. If the other 49 put in the effort, they could displace a large amount of their fossil fuel usage.
Solar cells are useful, at least in the daytime. But they're expensive to make and take up a lot of land. You only get about 50 watts per square meter over 24 hours, or about 1KWh per day.
Solar-thermal is extremely cheap. They literally use flat mirrors, or curved pieces of shiny metal. They don't work in small scale like on your roof-top, but otherwise they're superior to PV in every way. Liquid Sodium plants look to keep the power flowing around the clock, and for a couple entire days (you know, you'll want electricity right after the sun blows up) providing a very good option for base load. Yes, it takes space, but really a miniscule fraction of available land area can provide all the electricity we need. And it just happens that the land we need to use is in the middle of the desert, where land is dirt cheap.
As for PV, it's a good option in that it's very close to the point of consumption, reducing demand on the grid. Additionally, it eliminates your "land" problem, since roof-tops aren't being productively utilized as-is. And whatever you may think about them, there's no question they have been improving at a quick rate for years, and so look quite promising for that reason alone.
Energy efficiency improvement is useful, but once you get past the first 25% or so, it gets hard. The more efficient equipment may in the end a lose.
Well, converting from incandescent to fluorescent lighting increased efficieny about 4X. If you look at converting from resistive electric heating, to a geothermal heat-pump, you can get a 5X improvement. Lighting and heating/cooling, the two largest domestic energy consumers, way over 25% improvements to be had. Anything else?
I guess we could throw PCs in there too. Cheap PSUs running at 60% efficiency can now be replaced with units that are as much as 95% efficient. And in a more general sense, these PSU improvements can apply to LCDs, TV, video consoles, et al., as well.
Yes, but the performance of Clamwin is horrible, taking at least 2X as long as any other Windows antivirus application, and also eating up lots of RAM for no good reason. In our tests, we've found at least a couple (old) Windows viruses which ClamAV definitions do not pick-up, etc.
I've long wished Clamwin was an option, but it simply is not.
In fact, the US is the ONLY superpower in the world today.
We're no longer a nation of thinkers and doers,
Go grab some statistics about the nation today, and X years ago. With any measure you can come up with, you'll find the US is just as well off today as it was X years ago.
We tax those that work and innovate and we subsidize those that do not work and only consume.
Look up some numbers, and you'll find the US has lower taxes now, than we have through much of the nation's history.
Federal Income Taxes on 1mil USD were 77% in 1918. Earning more than $100,000 in 1950 would result in 91% tax rates. Today, taxes top-out at a mere 35%.
. We tax those that work and innovate and we subsidize those that do not work and only consume.
Yeah, get to work you blood-sucking orphans! Stop mooching off the gub'mint!
We're doomed if entitlements aren't eliminated,
Actually, we're doomed if Medicare costs aren't brought under control. But hey, right-wing shills just want their taxes cut further, they don't want health care reform!
There's plenty of free anti-virus software out there that is better than any of the racketeering paid-for versions.
That's fine, as long as you don't use your PC for any commercial purposes at all. All the free antivirus software specifically says it's for non-commercial use only, leaving small business, and the like, in limbo.
This is the most basic part of being employed. You walk into your manager's office, close the door, point out how many new, important, and unwanted responsibilities you now have.
How confrontational you want to get is up to you, and largely depends on how willing you are to quit. You can take the soft approach, and just say you think a raise is in order, or else you'd prefer to relinquish your new duties, and sit quietly, hoping he comes back with a reasonable figure. Alternatively, if it's worth playing chicken with your job, you can name a figure, and be intractable when he tries to say how little money they have, and names some lower figure instead.
Personally, I'm a bit more of a pain in the ass... I don't believe in arm-twisting my employer every time they should be doing the right thing. If they can't figure out I've done a hell of a lot for them, and compensate me appropriately, I'm finding another job ASAP, and giving my two weeks' notice. Of course that invariably results in a counter-offer, but I simply turn them down flat, since they've shown their lack of respect for me every day up to that point. They're probably just looking to keep me on for a couple months, until they can find and train someone a bit cheaper, and then fire me without warning. Continuing to work for an employer who isn't doing good by you, without having to be asked (or threatened) constantly, is idiotic.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's extremely clear to anyone who knows anything about the industry, that BP is the bottom of the barrel. Sure, other oil companies cut corners, but BP is by far the worst offender.
This can be seen by the lay-person quite easily, just by noting that whenever there has been a major accident in the recent past, BP has been to blame. Deepwater being just one. Take the Alaska oil pipeline leak of just a couple years ago, or BP's refinery explosion in 2005. All three caused by gross negligence on BP's part. By all means, try to name any other major oil company with a recent track record worse than BP's. The only difference this time, is that they hit the disaster jackpot, and the consequences are vastly more catastrophic than BP's more routine failures, which simply result in small fines. It is most appropriate that this disaster has exceeded the Exxon Valdez spill, eliminating any and all debate over the title of the most disastrous oil company in western history.
BP's existence (as a major player) is a result of acquiring numerous other small oil services companies at bottom dollar, and cutting operating costs even lower to bring them into competition. This fact/behavior/mindset has been outlined in numerous after-accident reports, particularly the BP US refinery explosion.
I highly recomend the following article:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/dec/22/bz-victims-of-bp-refinery-explosion-force-company-/
If only in they had predicted an imminent disaster that would overshadow all others in 2007 when that article was written...
What is your background, or your sources, which allow you to claim to know that government is vastly less efficient than private companies? Or are you just spouting urban myths and legends?
I've seen the insides of several large companies, and the problems you list are on display, in full force, in every one of them. I also see massive amounts of flagrant waste and stupidity on display on a routine basis.
What makes you so sure a politician is worse than a corporate manager, in this or any other regard?
Except that's not bureaucracy at all.
The bureaucracy comes in when X is applied to Y, where it really doesn't belong.
eg. People get hurt when testing rocket engines. New safety regulations say valet parking personnel now requires bullet-proof barricades.
Wasn't it NASA who claimed that re-using old Saturn V rocket designs wouldn't be any cheaper than designing an entirely new rocket, hence the birth of Ares?
Governor Schwarzenegger retorts:
"IT'S NOT A TUBER!!!"
I'm instantly reminded of The Tick (the live action TV series). Why? Because the pilot was great, while all subsequent episodes bore no similarity to the pilot, and were simply horrible.
If you're poor, you can not.
Just TRY and come up with a tier system that results in the top 1% paying 40% of their income in taxes, that doesn't result in a $500 gallon of milk...
Nothing you can come up with negates the fact that those at the very top will inherently pay a tiny fraction of their income in taxes, while those who earn LESS will pay MORE. Regressive is the proper name for it.
The rich save / invest their money. The poor are too poor to do so and must spend everything to stay alive. Everyone else (in the middle) is a fractional shade of these two types, depending on their exactly income.
Income tax does not prevent investment or savings in the slightest. What it does is prevent a million different ways of hiding your money, trying to avoid paying taxes.
Regressive tax:
I earn 75,001/year, and spend every penny. My tax rate is 20%.
Rich Guy A earns 10,000,001/year, and spends 1/10th of it. His tax rate is 2%.
Even more likely, however, is exploiting the law by making foreign purchases, even perhaps living abroad where sales taxes are lower or nonexistent.
Prices have dropped to the point that you can buy a color laser printer for less than the purchase price of an inkjet and 2 sets of refills (the toner should outlast all three sets of ink cartridges), and 3rd party refilled toner cartridges work out to half a cent/page for black, and about 5c/page for color.
Don't get me wrong. Samsung's cheap color lasers are far from perfect, and the almost constant problem of mis-fed paper is greatly irritating, but I'd still never consider going back to ink. When my current printer needs a new drum (more expensive than the printer) I'm going to have to debate getting a newer model of an equally crappy printer, upgrading to a more expensive decent color laser, or maybe (not likely) paying 75% as much for a low-end monochrome laser that's a bit more reliable.
Mike Judge beat you too it...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
Only if you want the very rich to pay far less in taxes.
The refund idea helps the poor a little bit, but then penalizes them if they rise just above the poverty level where there's no more refund. And much more than that, there's no refunds for the middle class, so they get screwed paying 80% of taxes to support the government, while the extremely weathy only spend a fraction of their money buying taxable items, and even then, are very, very easily able to fix ways around those sales taxes, like importing.
I've posted citations, and explained, repeated, exactly how and why a flat tax fails miserably. You've done nothing but screaming assertions with no basis. Goodbye.
Yes. A flat tax is, by definition, inherently a regressive tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax
A regressive tax is defined as burdening the poor disproportionately more than the rich.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax
There is no way in which your statement can possibly anything but utterly factually incorrect.
Event "I got mine" shills for the wealthy at fairtax.org recognize and acknowledge this, and offer "coupons" to the poor to try and offset this. Unfortunately, this does nothing for the middle class, who then shoulder the majority of the tax burden. Once you sp
Not true in the slightest. You see, this is something completely unsupported by any evidence, with numbers you just made up on the spot. Anyone making better than median income, and paying less than 10% in taxes, is a flagrant tax cheat, and can expect to soon go to jail.
"According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the federal tax system is progressive for all but the richest 1% of Americans.": http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/12-11-HistoricalTaxRates.pdf#page=6
Warren Buffet (in that notably non-progressive top 1% tax bracket) pays 17.7%. While that's far less than he should pay, it's well over 10%. And more to the point, a flat 10% tax will not provide enough of a tax base to support the US government, so in reality, the rate will be far higher.
Additionally, you continue to ignore what I keep saying. While a flat tax is unfair, a logarithmic tax would be very simple, and naturally and smoothly progressive. It would not required special cases and loopholes to get it's progressive nature, and it would not need to be amended every year for inflation and the like to maintain a reasonably fair tax schedule.
I'd love to see the Macs setting up the redundant T-1s in the comm room, configuring ideal BGP route advertisements, and monitoring the connection.
And how good are Macs at writing custom programs? If you aren't wasting tons of time because routine tasks just aren't optimized as much as they could be on-site, you must not be doing much of anything on those computers.
No, a flat tax is inherently unfair. It is a regressive tax, which places an inordinate burden on the poor. 10% of your income is nothing to a millionaire, but it's too heavy a burden for someone struggling to live on minimum wage. And don't try to tell me that's fair, as an overwhelming majority of people would certainly say it's inherently unfair that 1% of the population control 1/4 of all the wealth.
A logarithmic scale (rather than a flat tax) would be extremely simple, would have no loopholes, and would appropriately tax all involved.
No. Engineers are sure that is the only thing that would prevent a certain type of problem, and therefore omitting it leaves you open to catastrophe on the (statistically small) chance that particular problem arises.
By assuming you know every subject better than the experts, you certainly do make a jackass out of yourself. And by opting to not take their advice, you're proving how short-sighted and irresponsible you are.
I'm not so sure this is true. It needs to be more complex than a flat tax, but if we eliminated all the social engineering and pork-esque intentionally introduced loopholes in tax law, it could be extremely simple. Consider that income tax could be on a simple logarithmic scale, and sales tax could be reduced to consistent statewide percentage (on non-food items; no tax on unprocessed food).
Give yourself a "duh" there, because a quick reading of TFA reveals you're wrong in every respect as to the mechanism.
For example, turboprops are more significant contributors, precisely because they are more efficient, and less "hot". And there's little effect on very cold clouds, it's the in-between ones which get pushed to the tipping point.
No, it's merely pointing out I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than you.
You still haven't provided any evidence to support your point.
It's ION (PAX) isn't it? I've never cared enough to figure out what it is, but they're doing something god-awful with the video, like doubling the framerate and separating out the fields. It doesn't have the problems you're describing, but it looks so horrible and jumpy I never even consider watching it.
I guess you never use SSL/TLS on any of your web sites.
I'm sure ARM wants you to believe so. But somehow, I don't think they're complete morons, so I'm going to assume they have some modest idea WTH they were doing, and they aren't going to be humbled by 5 seconds of thought by a random /.er. Of course, you're free to provide some evidence, and actually prove the point.
California is vastly ahead of the curve. Yes, we've used up 50% of our wind generating capacity, but nowhere else is that the case. If the other 49 put in the effort, they could displace a large amount of their fossil fuel usage.
Solar-thermal is extremely cheap. They literally use flat mirrors, or curved pieces of shiny metal. They don't work in small scale like on your roof-top, but otherwise they're superior to PV in every way. Liquid Sodium plants look to keep the power flowing around the clock, and for a couple entire days (you know, you'll want electricity right after the sun blows up) providing a very good option for base load. Yes, it takes space, but really a miniscule fraction of available land area can provide all the electricity we need. And it just happens that the land we need to use is in the middle of the desert, where land is dirt cheap.
As for PV, it's a good option in that it's very close to the point of consumption, reducing demand on the grid. Additionally, it eliminates your "land" problem, since roof-tops aren't being productively utilized as-is. And whatever you may think about them, there's no question they have been improving at a quick rate for years, and so look quite promising for that reason alone.
Well, converting from incandescent to fluorescent lighting increased efficieny about 4X. If you look at converting from resistive electric heating, to a geothermal heat-pump, you can get a 5X improvement. Lighting and heating/cooling, the two largest domestic energy consumers, way over 25% improvements to be had. Anything else?
I guess we could throw PCs in there too. Cheap PSUs running at 60% efficiency can now be replaced with units that are as much as 95% efficient. And in a more general sense, these PSU improvements can apply to LCDs, TV, video consoles, et al., as well.
Yes, but the performance of Clamwin is horrible, taking at least 2X as long as any other Windows antivirus application, and also eating up lots of RAM for no good reason. In our tests, we've found at least a couple (old) Windows viruses which ClamAV definitions do not pick-up, etc.
I've long wished Clamwin was an option, but it simply is not.
In fact, the US is the ONLY superpower in the world today.
Go grab some statistics about the nation today, and X years ago. With any measure you can come up with, you'll find the US is just as well off today as it was X years ago.
Look up some numbers, and you'll find the US has lower taxes now, than we have through much of the nation's history.
Here's just one chart, of just one : http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates-graph.php
Federal Income Taxes on 1mil USD were 77% in 1918. Earning more than $100,000 in 1950 would result in 91% tax rates. Today, taxes top-out at a mere 35%.
Yeah, get to work you blood-sucking orphans! Stop mooching off the gub'mint!
Actually, we're doomed if Medicare costs aren't brought under control. But hey, right-wing shills just want their taxes cut further, they don't want health care reform!
That's fine, as long as you don't use your PC for any commercial purposes at all. All the free antivirus software specifically says it's for non-commercial use only, leaving small business, and the like, in limbo.
This is the most basic part of being employed. You walk into your manager's office, close the door, point out how many new, important, and unwanted responsibilities you now have.
How confrontational you want to get is up to you, and largely depends on how willing you are to quit. You can take the soft approach, and just say you think a raise is in order, or else you'd prefer to relinquish your new duties, and sit quietly, hoping he comes back with a reasonable figure. Alternatively, if it's worth playing chicken with your job, you can name a figure, and be intractable when he tries to say how little money they have, and names some lower figure instead.
Personally, I'm a bit more of a pain in the ass... I don't believe in arm-twisting my employer every time they should be doing the right thing. If they can't figure out I've done a hell of a lot for them, and compensate me appropriately, I'm finding another job ASAP, and giving my two weeks' notice. Of course that invariably results in a counter-offer, but I simply turn them down flat, since they've shown their lack of respect for me every day up to that point. They're probably just looking to keep me on for a couple months, until they can find and train someone a bit cheaper, and then fire me without warning. Continuing to work for an employer who isn't doing good by you, without having to be asked (or threatened) constantly, is idiotic.