Economists have modeled cap and trade versus the other alternatives (in a game theoretic sense) and the results are pretty much clear. Within the framework of a free market, there is no more efficient way of forcing companies to internalize their externalities.
Great. We have an optimal method of internalizing the CO2 externality. Now what is the impact of CO2 output in $$/kg so we can put this method into practice?
The problem I have with cap and trade is not that the method being used is inefficient, but that the value of the carbon credits is being set based on political motives. Rushing into cap and trade without an accurate carbon credit value estimate could end up costing far more than the effects of uncontrolled CO2 emissions. At this point, can we even be sure that increased CO2 output will cause a net loss of overall wealth?
I use one big Gnome desktop across two monitors with some of the panels duplicated on the second monitor. The two monitors behave almost like independent workspaces, windows can be maximized on an individual monitor and only show up in the taskbar for the monitor they're displayed on. The only thing I can't do is switch workspaces on the monitors independently, but I haven't run into many cases where I've had a need to.
Exactly what the difference between using these UAV's and the helicopters that they have already been flying for over a decade
The difference is that a helicopter has a high cost of operation and limited flight time, which prevents unnecessary use. If UAVs are used in a similar manner it could be a cost reduction, but the possibility is there for abuse that would be prohibitively expensive with a helicopter.
Thanks for the clarification. It probably wasn't the best choice of words. As you may have guessed, I am not a lawyer. I was just trying to explain how difficult it would be for an individual to incur the kind of damages that are claimed.
I think the problem is that the $22,750 in statutory damages for each of the 30 infringements that the court ruled to be just, could be construed as excessive. The intent of statutory damages is to recover the losses incurred by the infringement in cases where actual damages are difficult to determine and in some cases incur an additional penalty as a disincentive for future infringement. In order to reach $682,500 in actual damages it would have required proving that the defendant uploaded nearly 2 million copies of the offending MP3s. If my calculations are correct, it would take nearly 8yrs of continuously uploading at 256kbps to do that.
Perhaps it gets overlooked so much because it's difficult to create a car/road traffic analogy that expresses it.
It's not that difficult: It's like living in Nevada and having an 80 mph speed limit on I-80 if you're going to California and a 40 mph limit if you're headed to Utah because California payed to have the speed limits changed to benefit themselves.
Why mandate that everyone should pay the full price upfront for a phone? Is there no possible circumstance where a subsidy could be the best choice for someone?
Whether or not Apple sells an unlocked iPhone is irrelevant since there are many unlocked phones (ranging from basic to high end smart-phones) available. The low demand for unlocked phones in the US is due to most carriers charging the same plan price regardless of whether or not the phone is being subsidized and hiding the total price in an undisclosed subsidy value. Once the consumer is aware of what they would pay for a phone over the course of a contract and have the option of a reduced plan price without a subsidy, many more people will likely opt for the lower total cost of unlocked phone + cheaper service.
The market isn't working now because of a lack of information and very limited alternatives. If they simply required the phone subsidy costs to be spelled out clearly before purchase and separately from the plan pricing (similar to T-mobile's pricing system), the customer could make an informed decision rather than the government deciding for them.
There are days when the sun doesn't shine? Seriously though, Arizona doesn't have too many overcast days and the production profile is similar to demand since the primary use of electricity is air conditioning.
If the VirtualBox "ease-of-use" score is changed to 9 the results look like this:
Sun VirtualBox 3.1 - 8.9 VMware Workstation 7 - 8.6 Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows and Linux - 8.2
Although, to be fair, only the open source edition of VirtualBox is free for unrestricted commercial use, which is missing a couple of features (USB and RDP support).
I'm posting this from a Nokia N900, which does nearly everything you describe. It does have phone functionality built in, but it works just fine without a sim card. Even though it's only been available a few weeks ssh, vim and several other useful apps have been ported with the promise of many more in the near future (debian based Maemo OS). Devices like this and it's predecessors (N800, N810) do exist.
every one that I've seen video of involved a main rotor or tail rotor failure
The more spectacular helicopter crashes happen this way, but loss of power events are more common. The most severe of these occur at low altitudes as there isn't enough time to successfully autorotate. So this type of device should improve survivability in the most common crash/hard landing scenarios.
You purchase a key that allows you access to the same media in different formats from different vendors (if available) and the files need to be downloaded each time you want to play the media on a given device?
How is this better than selling media in a standard format and letting the consumer transcode the file to whatever other formats they choose?
It usually boils down to the claim that bad reputation is bad for business, but, of course, there are many ways to act very unethically and still have good reputation in eyes of most, as the entirety of human history demonstrates.
You're right. There will always be greedy people who will seek out what's in their best interest without regard for others. You're also right that reputation will act as a deterrent to unethical behavior only some of the time. When it doesn't is where the government comes in. Fraud, theft, deception and the other tools these people would use are and should be against the law. Libertarianism doesn't deny human nature. It allows every individual the freedom to act in the manner they choose as long as their actions don't infringe on the rights of others.
(Based on your sig, though, my argument will likely be falling on deaf ears)
Back to libertarianism, it suffers from the same thing: it requires people to have a work ethic and personal responsibility. Some people are like that, but some (many?) are not. They will gladly game the system.
IMHO this isn't entirely true. Libertarianism requires work ethic and personal responsibility to succeed. Those who choose not to or cannot provide for themselves will or will not survive on the voluntary charity of others.
This would have been so much easier to understand with a proper/. car analogy.
Here you go:
It's like locking your car doors and keeping up with the manufacturer recall notices, but ignoring that the remote start system you had installed uses an unencrypted signal.
Text messaging is only one of many things that should not be done while driving (applying makeup, reading a book/newspaper, sorting one's CDs, etc). It should not be necessary to pass a law specifically against these things, but if it is, it should be done at the state level.
I agree. I think insurance companies could provide an incentive to reduce distracted driving if they offer a reduced price in return for a stipulation in the contract that if distracted driving was a primary cause of the accident the maximum coverage defaults to the minimum required by law. It seems to me that this would be a more equitable solution as it doesn't ban any activity, but provides an incentive to avoid them. Of course, this would only work with informed consumers and honest insurance companies.
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Economists have modeled cap and trade versus the other alternatives (in a game theoretic sense) and the results are pretty much clear. Within the framework of a free market, there is no more efficient way of forcing companies to internalize their externalities.
Great. We have an optimal method of internalizing the CO2 externality. Now what is the impact of CO2 output in $$/kg so we can put this method into practice?
The problem I have with cap and trade is not that the method being used is inefficient, but that the value of the carbon credits is being set based on political motives. Rushing into cap and trade without an accurate carbon credit value estimate could end up costing far more than the effects of uncontrolled CO2 emissions. At this point, can we even be sure that increased CO2 output will cause a net loss of overall wealth?
I use one big Gnome desktop across two monitors with some of the panels duplicated on the second monitor. The two monitors behave almost like independent workspaces, windows can be maximized on an individual monitor and only show up in the taskbar for the monitor they're displayed on. The only thing I can't do is switch workspaces on the monitors independently, but I haven't run into many cases where I've had a need to.
from wikipedia:
Abuse is defined as:[1]
1. Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; misuse
Seriously though, what I meant by abuse was using the UAVs for constant surveillance of anyone in public without requiring probable cause.
Exactly what the difference between using these UAV's and the helicopters that they have already been flying for over a decade
The difference is that a helicopter has a high cost of operation and limited flight time, which prevents unnecessary use. If UAVs are used in a similar manner it could be a cost reduction, but the possibility is there for abuse that would be prohibitively expensive with a helicopter.
Thanks for the clarification. It probably wasn't the best choice of words. As you may have guessed, I am not a lawyer. I was just trying to explain how difficult it would be for an individual to incur the kind of damages that are claimed.
I think the problem is that the $22,750 in statutory damages for each of the 30 infringements that the court ruled to be just, could be construed as excessive. The intent of statutory damages is to recover the losses incurred by the infringement in cases where actual damages are difficult to determine and in some cases incur an additional penalty as a disincentive for future infringement. In order to reach $682,500 in actual damages it would have required proving that the defendant uploaded nearly 2 million copies of the offending MP3s. If my calculations are correct, it would take nearly 8yrs of continuously uploading at 256kbps to do that.
Perhaps it gets overlooked so much because it's difficult to create a car/road traffic analogy that expresses it.
It's not that difficult:
It's like living in Nevada and having an 80 mph speed limit on I-80 if you're going to California and a 40 mph limit if you're headed to Utah because California payed to have the speed limits changed to benefit themselves.
Why mandate that everyone should pay the full price upfront for a phone? Is there no possible circumstance where a subsidy could be the best choice for someone?
Whether or not Apple sells an unlocked iPhone is irrelevant since there are many unlocked phones (ranging from basic to high end smart-phones) available. The low demand for unlocked phones in the US is due to most carriers charging the same plan price regardless of whether or not the phone is being subsidized and hiding the total price in an undisclosed subsidy value. Once the consumer is aware of what they would pay for a phone over the course of a contract and have the option of a reduced plan price without a subsidy, many more people will likely opt for the lower total cost of unlocked phone + cheaper service.
Unlocked phones should be mandated by law
The market isn't working now because of a lack of information and very limited alternatives. If they simply required the phone subsidy costs to be spelled out clearly before purchase and separately from the plan pricing (similar to T-mobile's pricing system), the customer could make an informed decision rather than the government deciding for them.
There are days when the sun doesn't shine? Seriously though, Arizona doesn't have too many overcast days and the production profile is similar to demand since the primary use of electricity is air conditioning.
If the VirtualBox "ease-of-use" score is changed to 9 the results look like this:
Sun VirtualBox 3.1 - 8.9
VMware Workstation 7 - 8.6
Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows and Linux - 8.2
Although, to be fair, only the open source edition of VirtualBox is free for unrestricted commercial use, which is missing a couple of features (USB and RDP support).
I'm posting this from a Nokia N900, which does nearly everything you describe. It does have phone functionality built in, but it works just fine without a sim card. Even though it's only been available a few weeks ssh, vim and several other useful apps have been ported with the promise of many more in the near future (debian based Maemo OS). Devices like this and it's predecessors (N800, N810) do exist.
every one that I've seen video of involved a main rotor or tail rotor failure
The more spectacular helicopter crashes happen this way, but loss of power events are more common. The most severe of these occur at low altitudes as there isn't enough time to successfully autorotate. So this type of device should improve survivability in the most common crash/hard landing scenarios.
That may be because the N900 is not available yet (they are only accepting pre-orders) http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
You purchase a key that allows you access to the same media in different formats from different vendors (if available) and the files need to be downloaded each time you want to play the media on a given device?
How is this better than selling media in a standard format and letting the consumer transcode the file to whatever other formats they choose?
It usually boils down to the claim that bad reputation is bad for business, but, of course, there are many ways to act very unethically and still have good reputation in eyes of most, as the entirety of human history demonstrates.
You're right. There will always be greedy people who will seek out what's in their best interest without regard for others. You're also right that reputation will act as a deterrent to unethical behavior only some of the time. When it doesn't is where the government comes in. Fraud, theft, deception and the other tools these people would use are and should be against the law. Libertarianism doesn't deny human nature. It allows every individual the freedom to act in the manner they choose as long as their actions don't infringe on the rights of others.
(Based on your sig, though, my argument will likely be falling on deaf ears)
Back to libertarianism, it suffers from the same thing: it requires people to have a work ethic and personal responsibility. Some people are like that, but some (many?) are not. They will gladly game the system.
IMHO this isn't entirely true. Libertarianism requires work ethic and personal responsibility to succeed. Those who choose not to or cannot provide for themselves will or will not survive on the voluntary charity of others.
or the taxpayers get to keep more of their own money
but that doesn't mean MS is evil for not patching it.
You're right. MS is evil for not allowing anyone else to patch it.
I hope they throw the Fbook at him.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Have you looked at HPTuners (hptuners.com)? They claim the 04 Ion w/ the 2.0L and 2.4L I4 engines are supported.
This would have been so much easier to understand with a proper /. car analogy.
Here you go:
It's like locking your car doors and keeping up with the manufacturer recall notices, but ignoring that the remote start system you had installed uses an unencrypted signal.
Our current system has an open wallet option. If you are dying you can bankrupt your state to try and beat it.
There, fixed that for you.
Text messaging is only one of many things that should not be done while driving (applying makeup, reading a book/newspaper, sorting one's CDs, etc). It should not be necessary to pass a law specifically against these things, but if it is, it should be done at the state level.
I agree. I think insurance companies could provide an incentive to reduce distracted driving if they offer a reduced price in return for a stipulation in the contract that if distracted driving was a primary cause of the accident the maximum coverage defaults to the minimum required by law. It seems to me that this would be a more equitable solution as it doesn't ban any activity, but provides an incentive to avoid them. Of course, this would only work with informed consumers and honest insurance companies.