Few if any energy production technologies fully pay for their pollution at the moment
Yeah, yeah. So what? Lots of things have external economic costs that aren't properly accounted for.
So? Add them to the list of economic corrections to be made. Which ones are causing the most harm to the most people at the moment - get them fixed first, then the year after, start on the next level of seriousness. Oh, sorry, that's not the answer that you want to hear, because in a year or two it'll have you, me, and everyone else having to face up to the damage that we are causing to other people's children's world. Shit damn, I don't want to have to do that, because I stand to have no benefit from it. I bet you're afraid of that future too. Oh well, your children's loss as a result of your irresponsibility. Ain't life a bitch.
Either the editor is confirmed post-modernist bent on proving relative truth or he's an old-time editor clumsily putting, "I don't care about the facts, I want a good story" into newer language.
Well, contrary to the finest traditions of/. (and other post-modernist "media"), I RTFA'd:
We believe there is no such thing as objective news. Typically, mainstream media presents itself as objective but is actually skewed towards promoting the corporate agenda of the ultra-wealthy.
It's an editor with a definite agenda. Which if he (she? ; not sure ; WGAF?) weren't so willing to put it into grey and white on the page, would be slightly disconcerting.
I think that only a modest amount of selective quoting would allow the sacked journo to use these public statements by his former boss as really strong adverts for him getting hired by a (hopefully) larger and (more hopefully) better paying publication. That's a reference to cry for.
OK, it would also be a flag to the likes of Murdoch that "this guy has got TROUBLE written all over his CV", but I'd be surprised if one wanted to go from working for [such a forgettable paper as the one I've already forgotten the name of] to working for the Aussie scumbag.
Which reminds me to buy a non-Murdoch newspaper this afternoon.
My commiserations. Actually, I've just done a bit of Google-Earthing : it looks as if you've got some tens of metres of freeboard compared to the lake level, and a further few tens of metres of variation across the city. So, as long as you choose where to move to and get the sale done in the next few years, you should be able to secure accommodation that doesn't really have to worry about increasing rainfall on the Rockies raising the lake level. At least not for the rest of your life. But get the move done before the rest of the proles realise that the "aware" people are snagging all the ground above flood level. Might be worthwhile investing in a bit of slum landlording too, if your local conditions look like the profit margin will be good.
I don't think it's a question of if humans would survive extreme climate change, just a question of how much of the population would survive.
Too many. They'll breed up to be a problem again in a few centuries again, unless something significant is done to change human nature. Which is unlikely. (My bet is that the planet's population in 2100 is likely to be closer to it's population in 1900 then in 2000. What a waste of a century and a half.)
The second is nonsense; the reason these are more expensive are because they are less efficient.
Few if any energy production technologies fully pay for their pollution at the moment (nuclear doesn't properly pay for it's waste storage or treatment ; similarly coal doesn't properly pay for storage or treatment of it's gaseous waste products). Once the playing field is levelled so that all generating technologies are charged on a "the polluter pays" principle, I think that you'll find that the costs are different. How many acres of actively CO2-absorbing forest (or algal growth, to produce a biofuel) would your average coal-fired power plant need to plant each year to offset the coal it burns? Quite a lot, and that'll need to be paid for. Likewise, the nuclear plant across the river is going to have to pay for something (an undefined or to-be-developed technology) that can store it's waste until it is (for example) no more than twice natural background radiation within 500km of the plant. Which is going to cost. But don't worry about it - your children (if you choose to have any) will pay for my energy usage, and I think that's just fine. (If you choose to not have children, then someone else's children will pay for our energy usage, and I assume that's as dandy with you as it is with me.)
what you forget is they can live without our money only slightly less than we can live without their oil.
What you seem to be forgetting is that the major part of Russia's oil and gas production is for internal use on their internal markets. Export is a (relatively) small part of their production, and they're utterly ecstatic about the prices they can get for their oil and gas on the external markets. One of the common tricks I play on trainees at work, when we're chatting in the tea shack on whichever oil rig we're on this week, is to ask them which country is the largest oil producer in the world (1) today, (2) in 1970, (3) in 1930. Invariably, they think that "America" and "Saudi Arabia" figure in the answers, and are wrong. The answer to all 3 questions is Russia. Most amateurs taking about the western oil industry mistake the word "producer" for "exporter".
Also, I suspect that you've got some severely dubious assumptions about the Russian economy, probably through typical westerner's ignorance, but since I've not been to Russia for a couple of years now (I was working when the wife and daughter last went to visit Babushka), I can't claim any particularly up-to-date knowledge of the state of the Russian economy.
You're prevented from leaving? How? Has someone stolen or sequestered your passport, or does the government not allow you one? Or is it the case that you can't find another country that is willing to let you in? Boy, you must have done something seriously bad if even Haiti won't let you in.
Oh, you meant to say that you can't be bothered with leaving? Well why didn't you say that then? And eventually, the US government will succeed in driving you out of the country, which will be their loss and your gain.
But... American copyright law doesn't apply outside America...
Are you sure?
Sounds like excellent reasons to not waste my time with American content, nor using American businesses. Eventually the country will collapse under the weight of it's debts and cease to be of relevance.
I take it that SW have video of the complainant strapped into a Clockwork-Orange-esque eye-opening head restraint, so that he couldn't claim to have not seen the policy.
Do not give the airlines ideas. Please.
Why not? I've always thought of flying to work in terms of "brace! brace! brace for impact!, take a deep breath as your head goes under the water, then punch the window out. Do not inflate your lifejacket until you've exited the wreckage." and about a 50% survival rate from crashes. I don't see any reason for other people to have an easier travel experience.
Full cavity search for all passengers, without exception. After the search, you put on the teflon one-piece suit for your flight. Baggage is not a problem - post it ahead of you, or after you. Hand baggage is similarly not a problem.
our own policies which they were made aware of before booking".
I take it that SW have video of the complainant strapped into a Clockwork-Orange-esque eye-opening head restraint, so that he couldn't claim to have not seen the policy. Also, can the complainant actually read? Did he understand the policy well-enough to answer questions on it under torture in a Moroccan prison (MI-6 would probably help SW to get around any constitutional constraints ; that seems to be their job). That there was a policy present seems perfectly reasonable ; whether the passenger in question had actually read it, let alone understood it, is a much more open question. That he should have read it, well, that's why online contracts have features like an "I agree to the Ts-&-Cs, which I have read" button. I guess that it won't be long before all airline booking companies start to implement a combination of "enter your approximate weight" box in combination with enforced display of the relevant terms of the contract, as part of the booking process. Which would be fine - the airlines clearly don't want this sort of business. Just FYI, approximately half of the flights I take require me, and every other passenger (but not the pilots), to be weighed as part of the check-in procedure. Check-in desks have weighing pads next to the baggage scales. There might be something new about this to you, but nothing new for me.
I never did understnad this so-called "problem of evil". If you accept that god exists, then the existence of evil simply indicates that god is either not interested in the actions and suffering of us^h^h humans (maybe s/he only pays attention to intelligences the size of bandersnatchi? Who knows? Or cares?), or that god is actually the vicious, vindictive psychopath that his/her followers represent him/her as. In either case, the "problem of evil" disappears.
Fry's stocks their component section about as well as a saloon in a ghost town.
A good stock of spirits?
Do you realise how lucky, lucky, lucky you are to have a choice within reasonable distance of where you're staying? In a town of 1/4 to 1/3 million (depending on how much of the hinterland you count), we've a choice of Maplins (OK, but hardly good) or B&Q (mains power stuff and some car voltage stuff). Or mail order.
If you want to see his head explode try to explain for each.
Please come from again? (Which by the grammar-error equivalent of Godwin's Law, is almost certainly not the grammatically correct Intercal that I intend.)
Maybe an international treaty should be drafted that changes the spelling when crossing the Mid-Atlantic trench?
Better add a rider to that for swapping the spellings of "trench" and "ridge", so that a Sam Spade in London would wear a "ridge" coat. You could swap "up" and "down" too, while you're at it.
Actually I was about to make the same point about any Go players in that state, but you beat me to it. Your soccer refereeing sounds like a good test case. Obviously you've got to register, and because you control matches, all of the people who play in matches in your league(s) obviously need to register (get the first couple of registrations in quietly, so that precedent is established, before making thousands of copies of the registration form and distributing them).
I would expect that minors would experience some difficulty registering, so you'd need to get the soccer-mummys to sign up on their l'il-terr'sts behalf. Best to get the police on hand for crowd control when you hand out those forms. Try doing it at half-time, so you've got them in a defined area and can catch the ones who try to escape the perimeter guards. Bring plenty of spare charges for the tasers. No need for the press - phone them and tell them to not send any camera crews.
Best use for a sports team that I've heard this year - better even than experimenting in retroactive birth control using a chain saw.
The sun is a great target and a solar filter costs about $20 tops.
Is this some use of the word "tops" with which I am unfamiliar? For about $20 (£13) you'll be able to get an A4 sheet decent-quality double-coated Mylar "eclipse filter" material, which with a little care you could make into an adequate, safe whole-aperture solar filter for your scope. Actually, you might just get enough to make 2 filters - a main and a spare. They are delicate. Anything better than that is going to cost more ; probably a lot more. (Yes, agreed, the sun is a good target ; but be realistic about the costs. with a class of kids and expecting to repeat the classes in subsequent years, I'd be budgeting on replacing the filter every year. Anything much less would be playing with fire. And burned-out retinas.)
If I do that how the hell am I supposed to formulate a semi written out thought and get it submitted so it doesn't just look like I'm yelling out FIRST POST, without paying for it of course.
Do you hear that sound? That's the sound of enlightenment dawning.
Suppose that a bank employee carries around a laptop that allows him access to mortgage records. [...] With the power to edit records safely in hand, the thieves sell your house, your car, your children out from under you.
You have a mortgage on your children? What's the going price?
"Billion" once meant a million million in the UK; they have now adopted the American definition of a thousand million to avoid confusion
Err, and your opinion represents the opinion of approximately how many citizens of the UK?
When I was growing up (here in the UK), I suffered from confusion because as a million is the square of a thousand, then surely a billion should be the square of a million, and a trillion the square of a billion etc etc. Since then, I learned about scientific notation at school, and I'm perfectly happy with using the unambiguous SI prefixes where any degree of precision is required. But the ambiguity that has been introduced by the American mis-use of "billion" (and latterly of "trillion", as in "trillion dollar budget deficit") has meant that all use of that term has to be accompanied by the definition that you are using as you write (since a different definition can be the default where the writing is read). That seems to be the general opinion in the UK, regardless of what foreigners say about our language.
So, if you want to be precisely understood, just use mega-, giga-, tera-, etc ; if you're talking for effect only, use whatever your local language is but expect to be misunderstood.
So, If I see a couple staring hungrily at 10h 11m 22.14s +49 27m 15.3s, then I can deduce what he's planning to be doing in approximately 5 weeks. Upsilon Andromedae or 58 Eridani for me.
Slashdot Mirror
So? Add them to the list of economic corrections to be made. Which ones are causing the most harm to the most people at the moment - get them fixed first, then the year after, start on the next level of seriousness.
Oh, sorry, that's not the answer that you want to hear, because in a year or two it'll have you, me, and everyone else having to face up to the damage that we are causing to other people's children's world. Shit damn, I don't want to have to do that, because I stand to have no benefit from it. I bet you're afraid of that future too. Oh well, your children's loss as a result of your irresponsibility. Ain't life a bitch.
Well, contrary to the finest traditions of /. (and other post-modernist "media"), I RTFA'd :
It's an editor with a definite agenda. Which if he (she? ; not sure ; WGAF?) weren't so willing to put it into grey and white on the page, would be slightly disconcerting.
I think that only a modest amount of selective quoting would allow the sacked journo to use these public statements by his former boss as really strong adverts for him getting hired by a (hopefully) larger and (more hopefully) better paying publication. That's a reference to cry for.
OK, it would also be a flag to the likes of Murdoch that "this guy has got TROUBLE written all over his CV", but I'd be surprised if one wanted to go from working for [such a forgettable paper as the one I've already forgotten the name of] to working for the Aussie scumbag.
Which reminds me to buy a non-Murdoch newspaper this afternoon.
My commiserations.
Actually, I've just done a bit of Google-Earthing : it looks as if you've got some tens of metres of freeboard compared to the lake level, and a further few tens of metres of variation across the city. So, as long as you choose where to move to and get the sale done in the next few years, you should be able to secure accommodation that doesn't really have to worry about increasing rainfall on the Rockies raising the lake level. At least not for the rest of your life.
But get the move done before the rest of the proles realise that the "aware" people are snagging all the ground above flood level. Might be worthwhile investing in a bit of slum landlording too, if your local conditions look like the profit margin will be good.
This sort of effect was predicted two decades ago at least ; get over it.
Too many. They'll breed up to be a problem again in a few centuries again, unless something significant is done to change human nature. Which is unlikely.
(My bet is that the planet's population in 2100 is likely to be closer to it's population in 1900 then in 2000. What a waste of a century and a half.)
Few if any energy production technologies fully pay for their pollution at the moment (nuclear doesn't properly pay for it's waste storage or treatment ; similarly coal doesn't properly pay for storage or treatment of it's gaseous waste products). Once the playing field is levelled so that all generating technologies are charged on a "the polluter pays" principle, I think that you'll find that the costs are different.
How many acres of actively CO2-absorbing forest (or algal growth, to produce a biofuel) would your average coal-fired power plant need to plant each year to offset the coal it burns? Quite a lot, and that'll need to be paid for. Likewise, the nuclear plant across the river is going to have to pay for something (an undefined or to-be-developed technology) that can store it's waste until it is (for example) no more than twice natural background radiation within 500km of the plant. Which is going to cost.
But don't worry about it - your children (if you choose to have any) will pay for my energy usage, and I think that's just fine. (If you choose to not have children, then someone else's children will pay for our energy usage, and I assume that's as dandy with you as it is with me.)
What you seem to be forgetting is that the major part of Russia's oil and gas production is for internal use on their internal markets. Export is a (relatively) small part of their production, and they're utterly ecstatic about the prices they can get for their oil and gas on the external markets.
One of the common tricks I play on trainees at work, when we're chatting in the tea shack on whichever oil rig we're on this week, is to ask them which country is the largest oil producer in the world (1) today, (2) in 1970, (3) in 1930. Invariably, they think that "America" and "Saudi Arabia" figure in the answers, and are wrong. The answer to all 3 questions is Russia. Most amateurs taking about the western oil industry mistake the word "producer" for "exporter".
Also, I suspect that you've got some severely dubious assumptions about the Russian economy, probably through typical westerner's ignorance, but since I've not been to Russia for a couple of years now (I was working when the wife and daughter last went to visit Babushka), I can't claim any particularly up-to-date knowledge of the state of the Russian economy.
You're prevented from leaving? How? Has someone stolen or sequestered your passport, or does the government not allow you one?
Or is it the case that you can't find another country that is willing to let you in? Boy, you must have done something seriously bad if even Haiti won't let you in.
Oh, you meant to say that you can't be bothered with leaving? Well why didn't you say that then?
And eventually, the US government will succeed in driving you out of the country, which will be their loss and your gain.
By "go ape", do you mean "devolve"?
Sounds like excellent reasons to not waste my time with American content, nor using American businesses. Eventually the country will collapse under the weight of it's debts and cease to be of relevance.
Why not? I've always thought of flying to work in terms of "brace! brace! brace for impact!, take a deep breath as your head goes under the water, then punch the window out. Do not inflate your lifejacket until you've exited the wreckage." and about a 50% survival rate from crashes. I don't see any reason for other people to have an easier travel experience.
Full cavity search for all passengers, without exception. After the search, you put on the teflon one-piece suit for your flight. Baggage is not a problem - post it ahead of you, or after you. Hand baggage is similarly not a problem.
I take it that SW have video of the complainant strapped into a Clockwork-Orange-esque eye-opening head restraint, so that he couldn't claim to have not seen the policy. Also, can the complainant actually read? Did he understand the policy well-enough to answer questions on it under torture in a Moroccan prison (MI-6 would probably help SW to get around any constitutional constraints ; that seems to be their job).
That there was a policy present seems perfectly reasonable ; whether the passenger in question had actually read it, let alone understood it, is a much more open question. That he should have read it, well, that's why online contracts have features like an "I agree to the Ts-&-Cs, which I have read" button.
I guess that it won't be long before all airline booking companies start to implement a combination of "enter your approximate weight" box in combination with enforced display of the relevant terms of the contract, as part of the booking process. Which would be fine - the airlines clearly don't want this sort of business.
Just FYI, approximately half of the flights I take require me, and every other passenger (but not the pilots), to be weighed as part of the check-in procedure. Check-in desks have weighing pads next to the baggage scales. There might be something new about this to you, but nothing new for me.
But ... American copyright law doesn't apply outside America, so why should I bother to read an article about such obscurities?
I never did understnad this so-called "problem of evil". If you accept that god exists, then the existence of evil simply indicates that god is either not interested in the actions and suffering of us^h^h humans (maybe s/he only pays attention to intelligences the size of bandersnatchi? Who knows? Or cares?), or that god is actually the vicious, vindictive psychopath that his/her followers represent him/her as. In either case, the "problem of evil" disappears.
A good stock of spirits?
Do you realise how lucky, lucky, lucky you are to have a choice within reasonable distance of where you're staying? In a town of 1/4 to 1/3 million (depending on how much of the hinterland you count), we've a choice of Maplins (OK, but hardly good) or B&Q (mains power stuff and some car voltage stuff). Or mail order.
Please come from again?
(Which by the grammar-error equivalent of Godwin's Law, is almost certainly not the grammatically correct Intercal that I intend.)
Better add a rider to that for swapping the spellings of "trench" and "ridge", so that a Sam Spade in London would wear a "ridge" coat. You could swap "up" and "down" too, while you're at it.
Actually I was about to make the same point about any Go players in that state, but you beat me to it.
Your soccer refereeing sounds like a good test case. Obviously you've got to register, and because you control matches, all of the people who play in matches in your league(s) obviously need to register (get the first couple of registrations in quietly, so that precedent is established, before making thousands of copies of the registration form and distributing them).
I would expect that minors would experience some difficulty registering, so you'd need to get the soccer-mummys to sign up on their l'il-terr'sts behalf. Best to get the police on hand for crowd control when you hand out those forms. Try doing it at half-time, so you've got them in a defined area and can catch the ones who try to escape the perimeter guards. Bring plenty of spare charges for the tasers. No need for the press - phone them and tell them to not send any camera crews.
Best use for a sports team that I've heard this year - better even than experimenting in retroactive birth control using a chain saw.
Is this some use of the word "tops" with which I am unfamiliar? For about $20 (£13) you'll be able to get an A4 sheet decent-quality double-coated Mylar "eclipse filter" material, which with a little care you could make into an adequate, safe whole-aperture solar filter for your scope. Actually, you might just get enough to make 2 filters - a main and a spare. They are delicate.
Anything better than that is going to cost more ; probably a lot more.
(Yes, agreed, the sun is a good target ; but be realistic about the costs. with a class of kids and expecting to repeat the classes in subsequent years, I'd be budgeting on replacing the filter every year. Anything much less would be playing with fire. And burned-out retinas.)
Do you hear that sound? That's the sound of enlightenment dawning.
You have a mortgage on your children? What's the going price?
Err, and your opinion represents the opinion of approximately how many citizens of the UK?
When I was growing up (here in the UK), I suffered from confusion because as a million is the square of a thousand, then surely a billion should be the square of a million, and a trillion the square of a billion etc etc.
Since then, I learned about scientific notation at school, and I'm perfectly happy with using the unambiguous SI prefixes where any degree of precision is required. But the ambiguity that has been introduced by the American mis-use of "billion" (and latterly of "trillion", as in "trillion dollar budget deficit") has meant that all use of that term has to be accompanied by the definition that you are using as you write (since a different definition can be the default where the writing is read).
That seems to be the general opinion in the UK, regardless of what foreigners say about our language.
So, if you want to be precisely understood, just use mega-, giga-, tera-, etc ; if you're talking for effect only, use whatever your local language is but expect to be misunderstood.
So, If I see a couple staring hungrily at 10h 11m 22.14s +49 27m 15.3s, then I can deduce what he's planning to be doing in approximately 5 weeks.
Upsilon Andromedae or 58 Eridani for me.
(Groombridge 1618 is 15.9 light years away.)
"hot", or "swappable" ; pick one.
It's certainly a contender. That's making me think.