why can't they corner the market on alternative fuels? They're still going to gouge you, whether it's $1.50/litre of gas, or a $1.50/litre of hydrogen or $1.50/kWh or whatever.
I suspect they'll do just what you recommend, but not until they calculate that conditions are right to do so. Starting their transition to renewables "too soon" would cost them development and infrastructure money, while also decreasing demand for their current product, thus reducing their profits two different ways.
Or to put it another way, when you see the oil companies pushing energy technologies other than oil in a significant way, that's when you'll know the world's oil supply really has started to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Second, it's a tax on you. Not what you earn, not where you live, not what you own, but you.
Don't want to pay the tax? There's an obvious escape clause: get yourself some health insurance and quit trying to freeload your risk onto the backs of responsible citizens.
It seems to me that people ought to plan for their own health care, not ignore the problem and then when their lack of foresight finally bites them in the ass, force the rest of society to pay for it. But of course there will always be those who won't do that voluntarily, in which case I think society is within its rights to handle the problem via legislation. But don't take it from me, here's the Republican Presidential Candidate saying the exact same thing.
If you move everyone into urban areas, then good luck raising your own chickens, cows, pigs, and growing all your grains, fruits, and vegetables in downtown $YOURCITY.
Once all the Americans live in the cities, the only people left afuera will be the undocumented agricultural workers. It's all part of the secret plan to cede the Southwest back to Mexico.
Oil Guy: Do you find it ironic that we denounce global warming, but use higher temps and lower ice mass to get more oil for more Carbon emissions?
Tobacco Guy: no, not at all.
It's funny you should mention tobacco... every time I hear about the push to drill in the (newly ice-free) Arctic, this image (of the cancer victim who has figured out that his newly installed throat-hole makes a fine nicotine delivery mechanism) is what comes to mind.
But try booting windows off a read-only drive that randomly stopped allowing writes the last time the OS was running. You aren't going to get very far, and I think the majority of people would consider that a dead drive.
I'd consider that a poorly designed OS. What is it that absolutely positively has to be written to the hard drive as part of the boot process?
I believe it was Gauntlet that was one of the first big hits, post laser disc, that really "rescued" video games. [...] I couldn't count how many hours I spent shoving quarters into that game.
Was it even possible to play that game without shoving in another quarter every 30 seconds? IIRC it was an endless war of attrition...
They then figured out it could also work for cars 60 years later, and called it a breakthrough in technology.
To be fair, the cost, size, weight, and safety standards are a little more stringent in the private passenger car market. I suspect the breakthroughs involved meeting those requirements.
Why, why, why are these stories always "save peoples lives" angled? How cool would it be to dive with this stuff running in your veins?
Dunno if I'd want to have to inject myself with a hypodermic every 3 minutes while diving. On the other hand, if there was a pill I could swallow that would somehow release oxygen into my bloodstream via the intestines, that would be pretty cool. As a bonus it could double as a propulsion device.
One tablet per child laptops are great, but if you've never seen one before, you need someone to show you how to use it. Touchscreens are far more intuitive, which is why Nicholas Negroponte, who founded the One Laptop per Child initiative, is turning his attention to tablets instead:
Together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, he delivered solar-powered tablets to a handful of villages in Ethiopia, one per child. Each tablet was preloaded with educational software, but no instructions, and logged how the children interacted with the device. Within two weeks the children, who previously couldn't read, were using an average of 57 apps each and learning to recite the alphabet.
Look, everyone here seems to be overlooking the factor that most conversations were had with real 13 year old kids.
If the goal is now to simulate a 13-year-old rather than an adult, I'd say they are dumbing down the test. Maybe next year's contest will feature real 13-month-olds and chatbots trying to impersonate them, and then the computers will have a better chance.:^P
That's her choice. No one has any business "protecting her for her own good."
Perhaps, but Apple has some business protecting themselves for their own good. If knowingly aiding someone in breaking the law is also against the law, then Apple is well within its rights to refuse to break the law.
She may be linked to Iran, but the philosophy of the US is freedom. People are free to screw with their lives if they want.
The philosophy of the US may be freedom, but it's the laws of the US that count in a courtroom.
Ideally, fuel efficient cars will keep the peaks down.
They'll help, but OTOH every single person in China wants their own car now, and many of them can now afford to buy one as well, traffic and smog be damned. So the likelihood of the world ever seeing a significant gas surplus is small.
Most people drive in the day time. So installing solar panels does little for you.
Untrue -- with a grid-tied solar system you sell electricity to the power company during the day (when it is most needed) and then recharge your car at night (when there is less demand and so the rates are cheaper). Works fine. There is no rule that says your solar array has to attach directly to your car.
In real life, that'd be a serious conundrum.. if you nudge someone just a little off center, they'd be likely to dislocate their shoulder or break a leg as it hit the edge of the portal at high velocity.. or worse.
It's true, it's a very dangerous situation. these guys seem to have figured out a solution, however.
What would happen if you stuck someone in one of these infinite loops, then gradually brought the two portals closer together until they were an inch apart? I imagine you'd wind up with some serious bloody hamburger as body parts were forced to overlap and inhabit the same space simultaneously.
I think they would be crushed against themselves... yuck:^P
That's not really true. It's true that it's easier to con someone if you can take advantage of their greed or dishonesty to help rope them in, but even honest people can be conned -- for example, the infamous "hi Grandma, I'm stuck in Tasmania and my wallet was stolen, please send money ASAP" email relies on Grandma's concern for her grandchild, not on her dishonesty.
It'd have to be piston driven from behind because no velocity of air can dislodge certain viscosity materials and no reasonable air pressure can move heavy metals.
Your speculations are rendered moot by the fact that this system has been operating successfully for 35 years now.
I believe it can be done properly, but all I've seen from trash tubes are disgustingly dirty chutes that could not be properly cleaned and tended to attract cockroaches and the like.
The beauty of this system reveals itself when you see a cloud of cockroaches whizzing down the tunnel at 60MPH...
For myself I am convinced that the leaders of Iran will use an atomic bomb if they were to possess one.
Yes, they will detonate it as soon as they have it -- at an Iranian test site, to demonstrate to the world that Iran is now a member of the "nuclear club" and therefore largely safe from being bullied or invaded. Iran isn't stupid, they saw what happened to Iraq, whose government made the mistake of not actually having any WMDs on hand to use as a deterrent against foreign aggression.
Would Iran attack a foreign country (e.g. Israel of the US) with a nuclear bomb? Not unless they were suicidal, or desperate. And Iran's government didn't get where it is today by making idiotic self-destructive moves, and they are well aware that a nuclear attack would result in the destruction of their government, if not their entire country. MAD applies just as much to small countries as it does to large ones.
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One would think transporting oil a billion miles would cut into your profit margin.
Bah, transporting it back to Earth would be a waste of time -- instead I'll use it to power my space lab in space.
why can't they corner the market on alternative fuels? They're still going to gouge you, whether it's $1.50/litre of gas, or a $1.50/litre of hydrogen or $1.50/kWh or whatever.
I suspect they'll do just what you recommend, but not until they calculate that conditions are right to do so. Starting their transition to renewables "too soon" would cost them development and infrastructure money, while also decreasing demand for their current product, thus reducing their profits two different ways.
Or to put it another way, when you see the oil companies pushing energy technologies other than oil in a significant way, that's when you'll know the world's oil supply really has started to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
What about those who would like to have insurance but still can't fucking afford it?
Here you go.
Second, it's a tax on you. Not what you earn, not where you live, not what you own, but you.
Don't want to pay the tax? There's an obvious escape clause: get yourself some health insurance and quit trying to freeload your risk onto the backs of responsible citizens.
It seems to me that people ought to plan for their own health care, not ignore the problem and then when their lack of foresight finally bites them in the ass, force the rest of society to pay for it. But of course there will always be those who won't do that voluntarily, in which case I think society is within its rights to handle the problem via legislation. But don't take it from me, here's the Republican Presidential Candidate saying the exact same thing.
If you move everyone into urban areas, then good luck raising your own chickens, cows, pigs, and growing all your grains, fruits, and vegetables in downtown $YOURCITY.
Once all the Americans live in the cities, the only people left afuera will be the undocumented agricultural workers. It's all part of the secret plan to cede the Southwest back to Mexico.
Oil Guy: Do you find it ironic that we denounce global warming, but use higher temps and lower ice mass to get more oil for more Carbon emissions?
Tobacco Guy: no, not at all.
It's funny you should mention tobacco... every time I hear about the push to drill in the (newly ice-free) Arctic, this image (of the cancer victim who has figured out that his newly installed throat-hole makes a fine nicotine delivery mechanism) is what comes to mind.
But try booting windows off a read-only drive that randomly stopped allowing writes the last time the OS was running. You aren't going to get very far, and I think the majority of people would consider that a dead drive.
I'd consider that a poorly designed OS. What is it that absolutely positively has to be written to the hard drive as part of the boot process?
I believe it was Gauntlet that was one of the first big hits, post laser disc, that really "rescued" video games. [...] I couldn't count how many hours I spent shoving quarters into that game.
Was it even possible to play that game without shoving in another quarter every 30 seconds? IIRC it was an endless war of attrition...
They then figured out it could also work for cars 60 years later, and called it a breakthrough in technology.
To be fair, the cost, size, weight, and safety standards are a little more stringent in the private passenger car market. I suspect the breakthroughs involved meeting those requirements.
Why, why, why are these stories always "save peoples lives" angled? How cool would it be to dive with this stuff running in your veins?
Dunno if I'd want to have to inject myself with a hypodermic every 3 minutes while diving. On the other hand, if there was a pill I could swallow that would somehow release oxygen into my bloodstream via the intestines, that would be pretty cool. As a bonus it could double as a propulsion device.
The issue here is that tablets don't offer any great benefit we don't already have with laptops, if anything they are less productive.
One advantage tablets have over laptops is ease of use for people who aren't familiar with computers.
One tablet per child laptops are great, but if you've never seen one before, you need someone to show you how to use it. Touchscreens are far more intuitive, which is why Nicholas Negroponte, who founded the One Laptop per Child initiative, is turning his attention to tablets instead:
Together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, he delivered solar-powered tablets to a handful of villages in Ethiopia, one per child. Each tablet was preloaded with educational software, but no instructions, and logged how the children interacted with the device. Within two weeks the children, who previously couldn't read, were using an average of 57 apps each and learning to recite the alphabet.
Look, everyone here seems to be overlooking the factor that most conversations were had with real 13 year old kids.
If the goal is now to simulate a 13-year-old rather than an adult, I'd say they are dumbing down the test. Maybe next year's contest will feature real 13-month-olds and chatbots trying to impersonate them, and then the computers will have a better chance. :^P
You give them a way to quickly kill themselves.
No need for that -- if they're on Mars, simply stepping outside will suffice.
Excellent. Except that the shipper/buyer DIDN'T say that. The employee had no idea what the destination of the iPad was.
So you keep insisting. But the fact is, you don't know that, you only have the media report's word for that.
That's her choice. No one has any business "protecting her for her own good."
Perhaps, but Apple has some business protecting themselves for their own good. If knowingly aiding someone in breaking the law is also against the law, then Apple is well within its rights to refuse to break the law.
She may be linked to Iran, but the philosophy of the US is freedom. People are free to screw with their lives if they want.
The philosophy of the US may be freedom, but it's the laws of the US that count in a courtroom.
We voted to have the fire at the Cherry Point refinery? I missed that one.
See what happens when you forget to vote?
Ideally, fuel efficient cars will keep the peaks down.
They'll help, but OTOH every single person in China wants their own car now, and many of them can now afford to buy one as well, traffic and smog be damned. So the likelihood of the world ever seeing a significant gas surplus is small.
Most people drive in the day time. So installing solar panels does little for you.
Untrue -- with a grid-tied solar system you sell electricity to the power company during the day (when it is most needed) and then recharge your car at night (when there is less demand and so the rates are cheaper). Works fine. There is no rule that says your solar array has to attach directly to your car.
In real life, that'd be a serious conundrum.. if you nudge someone just a little off center, they'd be likely to dislocate their shoulder or break a leg as it hit the edge of the portal at high velocity.. or worse.
It's true, it's a very dangerous situation. these guys seem to have figured out a solution, however.
What would happen if you stuck someone in one of these infinite loops, then gradually brought the two portals closer together until they were an inch apart? I imagine you'd wind up with some serious bloody hamburger as body parts were forced to overlap and inhabit the same space simultaneously.
I think they would be crushed against themselves... yuck :^P
If all of the landowners in an area vote to secede, they can secede.
Then again there was that whole Civil War thing, which suggests that not everyone agrees about that principle.
Makes me wonder how someone like that could ever become a top-ranked manager to begin with.
One of the downsides of being 85 is that you likely don't have as much mental capacity as you did earlier in your career.
You cannot con an honest man!
That's not really true. It's true that it's easier to con someone if you can take advantage of their greed or dishonesty to help rope them in, but even honest people can be conned -- for example, the infamous "hi Grandma, I'm stuck in Tasmania and my wallet was stolen, please send money ASAP" email relies on Grandma's concern for her grandchild, not on her dishonesty.
It'd have to be piston driven from behind because no velocity of air can dislodge certain viscosity materials and no reasonable air pressure can move heavy metals.
Your speculations are rendered moot by the fact that this system has been operating successfully for 35 years now.
I believe it can be done properly, but all I've seen from trash tubes are disgustingly dirty chutes that could not be properly cleaned and tended to attract cockroaches and the like.
The beauty of this system reveals itself when you see a cloud of cockroaches whizzing down the tunnel at 60MPH...
For myself I am convinced that the leaders of Iran will use an atomic bomb if they were to possess one.
Yes, they will detonate it as soon as they have it -- at an Iranian test site, to demonstrate to the world that Iran is now a member of the "nuclear club" and therefore largely safe from being bullied or invaded. Iran isn't stupid, they saw what happened to Iraq, whose government made the mistake of not actually having any WMDs on hand to use as a deterrent against foreign aggression.
Would Iran attack a foreign country (e.g. Israel of the US) with a nuclear bomb? Not unless they were suicidal, or desperate. And Iran's government didn't get where it is today by making idiotic self-destructive moves, and they are well aware that a nuclear attack would result in the destruction of their government, if not their entire country. MAD applies just as much to small countries as it does to large ones.