The common USB turntable is just a bad joke. Anybody using one is a clown.
"Clown" is obviously a bit harsh, but what else would you recommend for the 60-something with a modern computer and sound system and a huge vinyl collection? I have relatives with hundreds of the things, and they want them on the computer, in the living room, etc. I'm looking for a solution for ripping hundreds of LPs.
My relatives have wireless broadband at 3mb/2mb down/up for $65/month. Satellite was far more expensive, had monthly caps, and super high latency. There really aren't any great options out there, but wireless isn't bad. Good enough to switch to VoIP and pay for itself at least:)
I too am not thrilled about the new Maps. However, I'm certain Google will release a standalone app, just like the new Youtube app came out a few days ago in anticipation of being no longer bundled.
I can understand wanting to use Google Maps, and I'm sure that will still be possible, if only through browser. However, Google is responsible for the atrociously terrible "navigation" in iPhones. If the articles I've read are correct, Google only wants to give the good features (voice turn-by-turn navigation, etc.) to Android.
Given how poorly Google's iOS Map app navigates, I'm upset that Apple didn't ditch them already. Maybe now I can finally chuck my Garmin.
My concern would be the charging efficiency compared to a wired charger.
Now, I don't know about the efficiency of this kind of wireless charger or of wired chargers for that matter, but I'd expect a consumer grade wireless charger to be less efficient than a wired one. If we're going to put a few hundred million of these things in service I'd like to know what the energy penalty will be.
But this will save energy on other uses. Most people leave their chargers and wall warts plugged into outlets all the time. If they're using one Qi for multiple devices, it could replace several vampire drain devices. Many of these use 1-2 watts 24x7. My iPad charger actually uses 0.0, but my AA battery charger uses 0.5 on standby and 1.3 while charging one AA.
My iPhone charger draws anywhere from 3-4 watts when charging. Qi would increase that to ~6 watts for, say, an hour. So let's round everything up and say it'll cost me an extra 4 watt hours per day. I won't plug/unplug the battery charger all the time, but I will put it on the charging mat only when I need to use it... and I use it less than 25% of the time. So if the battery charger can go down to 0 vampire drain 16 hours a day I save 8 watts and lose... 8 watts? to inefficiency. Assuming my charger is 100% efficient and lots of other things.
If these mats have low standby power drain and are used for low voltage/amp devices, replacing numerous wall warts and chargers could offset many/most/all of the efficiency losses. Obviously lots of assumptions here, but worth a thought. Plus the problem of devices being broken due to tripping, broken connectors, and similar problems.
They aren't, for the most part, interested in the ability to top off at the airport.
I fly ~140,000 miles per year. In every single airport there are hordes of people hunting for outlets to charge their gadgets. I'm not saying the solution is going wireless, I am saying that a claim that folks aren't searching out power at airports is uninformed.
Agreed entirely. I would like to note, though, that travel power strips and surge protectors are extremely affordable and quite portable. I've kept one in my laptop bag or briefcase for years. Nobody has ever denied me access to a power outlet, and it usually leads to a few other people thanking me. Also extremely useful in universities, libraries, coffee shops, etc.
What can you do about global warming and peak oil, at least in the short term?
WTF, Insightful?
Is it a rhetorical question, and are you really implying that we cannot do anything about global warming & peak oil in the short term?
On the top of my head, here are some stuff you could start *today* :
* turn your air conditioning off, or choose an higher set temperature
* eat less meat
* buy local and seasonal food
* take the bus, tram or bike to commute. If you have to take the car, bring a colleague with you
* don't buy any gadget that you would stop using after a few days/weeks
* don't plan to take the plane for your next holidays
* generally try to use less energy that your neighbor
* spread the word
There you go!
All of the other critiques were good, but I would also like to point out that none of these are short-term solutions. They are ALL long-term. Drastically reducing GHG emissions will ultimately slow and possibly reverse global warming. However, if the entire planet suddenly stopped emitting overnight, AGW would continue to increase for a while. Many of the feedback cycles are already in play, and the CO2 is already in the atmosphere.
The only way to immediately cool the planet (in under a year) is probably some sort of engineering solution. Blocking the sky, putting reflective particles in orbit, making Mt. Fuji blow, etc. Wonder what sort of impact Fuji will have on this study?
Lose in court? The point is not whether they win or lose. It's about keeping people in line. Look at recent stories where the US government seized websites, servers, etc. Shut down businesses. A year later, they quietly drop the case. Lives have been ruined, companies closed. What then? Sue the US government? Good luck with that. Do you really want to spend your entire life for the next several years trying to sue the government?
Sorry to shatter your view of the world, but there's no accountability in government.
I see your point, but there is a ton of accountability in government. You think nobody would be fired if the cops destroyed a nativity scene at a prominent church?
The problem is that there is only accountability on issues voters care about. And voters couldn't care less about these issues.
Do you have evidence that any of them has been sued by Coke or Pepsi?
There are some huge legal differences. Recipes aren't protected. They may be trade secrets, but patent and copyright do not apply. If Coke's recipe was leaked, anyone would be allowed to make it.
However, if a soda manufacturer produced a soda called "Coke", we can all be confident that Coke would sue. I'm sure they have numerous design patents and trademarks, and a similar-looking can would also be in danger. Hence, while competitors could use Coke's recipe if they could legally get their hands on it, they could not legally apply Coke's designs to confuse consumers into thinking they were selling Coke.
What confuses me isn't that a large part of americans still favour a private insurance based system. The confusing bit is that there is a majority that supports a single-payer system, but that it is STILL difficult politically.
Then please allow me to clear it up for you;
The truth is that a majority of Americans do not support a single-payer system. Indeed, when the Affordable Care Act was being debated in Congress poll after poll after poll showed sentiment running around 70% against it or any single payer system. There have been a few polls since then that have shown a thin margin of support, but they have all been found to be flawed in one way or another (sampling only in cities, large oversample of Democrats, faulty sample weighting, etc.) In most polls "Obamacare" is still highly unpopular.
You actually just muddied the waters rather than "clearing it up". I'm assuming you understand polling well, so the truth is that you are lying.
Polling to expand medicare ("medicare for all") has consistently been ~60%. I've seen it higher, but I have rarely seen it lower.
Polling for "single-payer" is lower, but usually still a majority. Americans don't like that term. They also don't like anything that says "social". This does not mean they don't favor a single-payer system. It just means they don't like systems that are called single-payer.
Your 70% claim sounds like a fabrication to me, but I have not, in the last decade, seen expansion of medicare polling anywhere near as low as 30%. The ACA is despised by the left (who want single-payer/medicare/nationalized healthcare) and by the right (who are mad Obama stole their idea), hence combined opposition is much higher than the number of people who oppose all universal coverage schemes.
Just a tiny sidebar, you actually come off as a bit holier-than-thou to me. The whole "yes, we're eternally saved, but we don't take joy" thing... What if I said "yes, atheists are universally smarter, but we don't take any joy in it"? I don't blame you, I think it's a fairly natural byproduct of having a black-and-white worldview while being certain of your own beliefs.
In addition, why do you have to throw in the "and more"? I don't know how you define "anti-Christian", but if somebody wants to be holier-than-thou AND have the strength of a majority behind them, they need to pick a religion. Not a lot of room for atheists to be holy. In my experience, the bigger an asshole someone is, the more they need to cloak themselves in religion. Not at all saying "more religious = more asshole", just that assholes may benefit far more from pretending to be religious than from being openly non-religious. See: prison populations.
I have met many "true" Christians. However, the best "Christians" I have met have been atheist, non-religious, or quietly religious.
Bulk cargo shipping is still fairly cheap. Last I saw it was about $1500 per container, but it may be higher or lower these days. However, shipping to Hawaii isn't the same as shipping to the US.
First, Hawaii has a fairly low total volume compared to, say, a huge mainland harbor. If you're importing 500,000 widgets, you will probably not have the ship stop at Hawaii to drop off 2,000 of them first, then come to the US and feed your logistics chain. I admittedly do not know anything about Hawaiian operations, but I would imagine most companies: ship from China to Los Angeles, process goods into their supply chain, re-ship some small subset to Hawaii. I can't think of any physical product that wouldn't be more expensive for me to distribute in AK or HI.
Getting back to the poster's point, though, I think he was talking about air freight vs. cargo ship. For a good demonstration of that impacting costs, look at what happened when Pakistan shut off supply routes to Afghanistan. $100/gallon diesel, anyone?
At one extreme is the "Political Philosopher" who theorizes about the "best" forms of political action. At the other extreme is the "Political Technician" who concentrates the means of obtaining thier "preferred" political situation. Sandwiched in the middle is a narrow band of real "Political Scientists" who try to understand the principles behind politics and derive principles that predict the outcomes of various actions. Although these people are hamperred by lack of a "laboratory" in which to conduct experiments and control variables, they have tools such as Logic and Mathematics, particularly Calculus and Statistics, that they can use to evaluate different political actions.
Hacker comes across as a "Technician" and gets a discount on credibility from me.
I'd say there is some merit to that, but you're applying it all wrong. The two are not mutually exclusive. Hacker is a real political scientist. He also has some preferred outcomes that he argues for, and he argues that we should make certain changes to achieve them. I would argue that it's pretty hard to study an issue in serious depth without ending up at some preferred policy or outcome. You wouldn't expect a cancer researcher to be indifferent about smoking, diet, or exercise anymore than you would expect a political scientist to not have a policy recommendation.
In the context of a NYT Op-Ed, Hacker is doing what I would expect him to do. It's not real science, but NYT Op-Eds rarely (if ever) are. At the least, it's generating some real debate about education in the US... a system that needs real reform.
Population growth looks like it's going to take off soon because the largest generation of human beings in history is reaching breeding age.
Highly unlikely. Watch Hans Rosling's TED Talk on Population Growth. I agree with his assessment. Unless we crash first, we will probably hit 10 billion... but not because of a new baby boom.
No, and then you run into the Men's Wearhouse, which simultaneously ALLOWS and FORBIDS different things. A few months ago I went to change my password, fought through the errors until I found special characters that they allowed, saved it in LastPass. Tried to sign on a few days later, and it said my password (accepted in the change password form) was too long. Went through the password reset, and, just for fun, tried that same password again... and it still there.
They allow 16 characters and in the change password field, but only 12 characters on sign-on. Ridiculous. Also might have issues with "!", just can't remember.
The ones that really piss me off are the gambling games. They have (for now) found a way to bypass gambling regulations, charging for chips and whatnot, while failing to actually reward the winners.
Ahhh...hahahahaha! Oh, my, god, what a fucking JOKE! There might be maybe 2 universities where this idyllic scenario actually plays out (and even then probably not at the undergrad level). Wayyyy over here in the real world, that never fucking actually happens, and if it's your justification for traditional education, then it's an enormous rationalization of keeping things the way they are.
FTR, it happened at my top tier university. I'm not saying the department head knew every single student, but the best professors knew the best students. Most of my professors knew me by name, and one even provided feedback, from memory, on a paper I had written a week after he had graded it. Another offered to coauthor a paper with me after I approached him with an idea.
Of course, classes are large and TAs do much of the grading, but in my experience, the best researchers were also the most accessible. At least, they were accessible to bright students who had a genuine interest.
I think this issue needs to be approached on two levels. 1. Continued reduction in carbon emissions. 2. Let mother nature do her job. We can help her by planting more trees, ie replacing the ones that have been removed/destroyed through deforestation. I don't know, call me crazy, but that seems more logical then dumping a crap load of iron in the ocean. The rise in CO2 levels did not happen over night, therefore we should not expect a decrease in levels to happen overnight either. Seriously, if people truly want to help this planet, go home and plant 5-10 trees in your yard.
Two big problems with that. 1) Emissions are increasing. 2) "Mother nature" isn't super mom.
I can't remember the numbers, but even IF emissions stabilized at 2012 levels you would have to do a hell of a lot more than replace a few trees to achieve declining CO2. Replacing every road with densely packed vegetation would be a good start, but mostly because it would get rid of cars. IIRC, we would have to double or triple the total plant life on the planet to achieve real CO2 reductions. And that only works if emissions don't continue to increase. Further, you are forgetting the Texas factor. For every tree you plant, somebody in Texas buys a bigger truck to spite you. I suspect the "feel good" factor in tree-planting leads to an increase in emissions.
IMO, this is a huge collective action problem. The science is very clear, and the ideal policy is very clear (or at least there are a few good ones), but they will never happen. Not while sovereign states compete in an anarchic system. Nothing will be done until the incentives favor action.
Incentives can be changed by new technologies/economies or cataclysm. Cold fusion would obviously do the trick. A new process that makes solar panels 90% efficient and 10% of current prices would also work. Cataclysm will work for incentivizing geoengineering but not prevention. I suspect several major crop failures in the US will spur some American action.
No, if you honestly think multiple degrees of global warming would probably be a "boon", I don't believe you know that you are a corporate shill. Possibly, on this issue, a bit of a fool.
However, I do agree that an ice age would be worse than global warming.
Good point. It looks like I [mostly] wrongly assumed that LastPass was also using multifactor tokens for encryption. Apparently they do use the Yubi Key's static key in the local encryption process, but I can't find the specifics.
Given your reply, I'd agree that there's still some room for improvement. However, assuming they aren't compromised and nobody discovers my password, LastPass has dramatically increased my security. KeePass had terrible browser integration and a UI that didn't work for me, so I didn't use it for many passwords.
With LP, I was able to go through and upgrade all of my passwords, using security check to look for duplicates and weak passwords. Actually, I just checked. I have 394 unique passwords.
I'm not sure I fully follow, but LastPass does support various forms of multifactor authentication. I could give you my LP password and feel reasonably secure you won't be able to get in.
I was thinking the same thing, only in the other direction. The latter after all is simply the most common method of waste disposal in the world, with an relatively long transport in the middle between generation and disposal. Recycling quickly gets complicated since it needs to be sorted and there's always some sort of contamination. Then you need to find someone to use the recycled materials.
Obviously we can't discuss this much without actual figures and stats, which I don't have. The few numbers I've seen seem to support both of our views.
I have a feeling that most countries are optimizing pretty well for their given situations... that they generally don't recycle beyond what is feasible for them. Japan has insane recycling rules and forces its citizens to sort their own trash... I've heard reports of as many as 44 categories in one city. This helps them externalize the sorting costs, but they take this step because they are out of landfill space and having trouble shipping it. As shipping costs increase and available landfill space decreases, it makes sense for Japan to begin this conversion sooner than other countries would need to.
Some materials are definitely cheaper to ship overseas than dispose of properly. Electronics, hazardous waste, etc. are all obvious examples. And most developed countries seem to do this.
As you point out, some recycled materials are more valuable than others. The recycling program I'm most familiar with makes profit from its metals and glasses (ground and repurposed into something like a concrete filler IIRC). I believe they also made money from either paper or plastics, but I can't remember which one. The other was roughly break-even.
In the end, though, I'm sure we can all agree that landfills are unsustainable in the long-term for many countries, barring revolutionary advances in transportion (drastically reduced costs). Advances in materials and processes combined with growing resource consumption should ultimately lead to higher rates of profitable recycling. Cost-benefit does and will vary between countries.
I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious what you see as the key products.
IMO, the iPod was a marketing success but not a very revolutionary product. I liked my Archos better for everything but interface. If anything, I'd consider the iPod a marketing and UI design failure by every competitor. I know this is slashdot, but all the pre-iPod mp3 players I used felt like they were designed by linux geeks.
I'd say the iPhone was substantially better than any other product on the market at the time. The iPad is essentially a sized-up iPhone, but I'd be willing to grant it as a separate product.
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The common USB turntable is just a bad joke. Anybody using one is a clown.
"Clown" is obviously a bit harsh, but what else would you recommend for the 60-something with a modern computer and sound system and a huge vinyl collection? I have relatives with hundreds of the things, and they want them on the computer, in the living room, etc. I'm looking for a solution for ripping hundreds of LPs.
undoing moderation. You're definitely not offtopic :)
My relatives have wireless broadband at 3mb/2mb down/up for $65/month. Satellite was far more expensive, had monthly caps, and super high latency. There really aren't any great options out there, but wireless isn't bad. Good enough to switch to VoIP and pay for itself at least :)
I too am not thrilled about the new Maps. However, I'm certain Google will release a standalone app, just like the new Youtube app came out a few days ago in anticipation of being no longer bundled.
I can understand wanting to use Google Maps, and I'm sure that will still be possible, if only through browser. However, Google is responsible for the atrociously terrible "navigation" in iPhones. If the articles I've read are correct, Google only wants to give the good features (voice turn-by-turn navigation, etc.) to Android.
Given how poorly Google's iOS Map app navigates, I'm upset that Apple didn't ditch them already. Maybe now I can finally chuck my Garmin.
My concern would be the charging efficiency compared to a wired charger.
Now, I don't know about the efficiency of this kind of wireless charger or of wired chargers for that matter, but I'd expect a consumer grade wireless charger to be less efficient than a wired one. If we're going to put a few hundred million of these things in service I'd like to know what the energy penalty will be.
One of the URLs a previous poster gave: up to 75% efficient.
But this will save energy on other uses. Most people leave their chargers and wall warts plugged into outlets all the time. If they're using one Qi for multiple devices, it could replace several vampire drain devices. Many of these use 1-2 watts 24x7. My iPad charger actually uses 0.0, but my AA battery charger uses 0.5 on standby and 1.3 while charging one AA.
My iPhone charger draws anywhere from 3-4 watts when charging. Qi would increase that to ~6 watts for, say, an hour. So let's round everything up and say it'll cost me an extra 4 watt hours per day. I won't plug/unplug the battery charger all the time, but I will put it on the charging mat only when I need to use it... and I use it less than 25% of the time. So if the battery charger can go down to 0 vampire drain 16 hours a day I save 8 watts and lose... 8 watts? to inefficiency. Assuming my charger is 100% efficient and lots of other things.
If these mats have low standby power drain and are used for low voltage/amp devices, replacing numerous wall warts and chargers could offset many/most/all of the efficiency losses. Obviously lots of assumptions here, but worth a thought. Plus the problem of devices being broken due to tripping, broken connectors, and similar problems.
They aren't, for the most part, interested in the ability to top off at the airport.
I fly ~140,000 miles per year. In every single airport there are hordes of people hunting for outlets to charge their gadgets. I'm not saying the solution is going wireless, I am saying that a claim that folks aren't searching out power at airports is uninformed.
Agreed entirely. I would like to note, though, that travel power strips and surge protectors are extremely affordable and quite portable. I've kept one in my laptop bag or briefcase for years. Nobody has ever denied me access to a power outlet, and it usually leads to a few other people thanking me. Also extremely useful in universities, libraries, coffee shops, etc.
WTF, Insightful? Is it a rhetorical question, and are you really implying that we cannot do anything about global warming & peak oil in the short term?
On the top of my head, here are some stuff you could start *today* : * turn your air conditioning off, or choose an higher set temperature * eat less meat * buy local and seasonal food * take the bus, tram or bike to commute. If you have to take the car, bring a colleague with you * don't buy any gadget that you would stop using after a few days/weeks * don't plan to take the plane for your next holidays * generally try to use less energy that your neighbor * spread the word
There you go!
All of the other critiques were good, but I would also like to point out that none of these are short-term solutions. They are ALL long-term. Drastically reducing GHG emissions will ultimately slow and possibly reverse global warming. However, if the entire planet suddenly stopped emitting overnight, AGW would continue to increase for a while. Many of the feedback cycles are already in play, and the CO2 is already in the atmosphere. The only way to immediately cool the planet (in under a year) is probably some sort of engineering solution. Blocking the sky, putting reflective particles in orbit, making Mt. Fuji blow, etc. Wonder what sort of impact Fuji will have on this study?
Lose in court? The point is not whether they win or lose. It's about keeping people in line. Look at recent stories where the US government seized websites, servers, etc. Shut down businesses. A year later, they quietly drop the case. Lives have been ruined, companies closed. What then? Sue the US government? Good luck with that. Do you really want to spend your entire life for the next several years trying to sue the government?
Sorry to shatter your view of the world, but there's no accountability in government.
I see your point, but there is a ton of accountability in government. You think nobody would be fired if the cops destroyed a nativity scene at a prominent church?
The problem is that there is only accountability on issues voters care about. And voters couldn't care less about these issues.
There are hundreds of companies making colas.
Do you have evidence that any of them has been sued by Coke or Pepsi?
There are some huge legal differences. Recipes aren't protected. They may be trade secrets, but patent and copyright do not apply. If Coke's recipe was leaked, anyone would be allowed to make it.
However, if a soda manufacturer produced a soda called "Coke", we can all be confident that Coke would sue. I'm sure they have numerous design patents and trademarks, and a similar-looking can would also be in danger. Hence, while competitors could use Coke's recipe if they could legally get their hands on it, they could not legally apply Coke's designs to confuse consumers into thinking they were selling Coke.
Then please allow me to clear it up for you;
The truth is that a majority of Americans do not support a single-payer system. Indeed, when the Affordable Care Act was being debated in Congress poll after poll after poll showed sentiment running around 70% against it or any single payer system. There have been a few polls since then that have shown a thin margin of support, but they have all been found to be flawed in one way or another (sampling only in cities, large oversample of Democrats, faulty sample weighting, etc.) In most polls "Obamacare" is still highly unpopular.
You actually just muddied the waters rather than "clearing it up". I'm assuming you understand polling well, so the truth is that you are lying.
Polling to expand medicare ("medicare for all") has consistently been ~60%. I've seen it higher, but I have rarely seen it lower.
Polling for "single-payer" is lower, but usually still a majority. Americans don't like that term. They also don't like anything that says "social". This does not mean they don't favor a single-payer system. It just means they don't like systems that are called single-payer.
Your 70% claim sounds like a fabrication to me, but I have not, in the last decade, seen expansion of medicare polling anywhere near as low as 30%. The ACA is despised by the left (who want single-payer/medicare/nationalized healthcare) and by the right (who are mad Obama stole their idea), hence combined opposition is much higher than the number of people who oppose all universal coverage schemes.
A quick write-up on "single-payer" versus "medicare" can be found here: http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/12/09/two-thirds-support-3/
Just a tiny sidebar, you actually come off as a bit holier-than-thou to me. The whole "yes, we're eternally saved, but we don't take joy" thing... What if I said "yes, atheists are universally smarter, but we don't take any joy in it"? I don't blame you, I think it's a fairly natural byproduct of having a black-and-white worldview while being certain of your own beliefs.
In addition, why do you have to throw in the "and more"? I don't know how you define "anti-Christian", but if somebody wants to be holier-than-thou AND have the strength of a majority behind them, they need to pick a religion. Not a lot of room for atheists to be holy. In my experience, the bigger an asshole someone is, the more they need to cloak themselves in religion. Not at all saying "more religious = more asshole", just that assholes may benefit far more from pretending to be religious than from being openly non-religious. See: prison populations.
I have met many "true" Christians. However, the best "Christians" I have met have been atheist, non-religious, or quietly religious.
I think it would help for you to understand the law better. In jury trials, judges determine issues of law and juries determine issues of fact...
Insert jury nullification rant here. :)
Bulk cargo shipping is still fairly cheap. Last I saw it was about $1500 per container, but it may be higher or lower these days. However, shipping to Hawaii isn't the same as shipping to the US.
First, Hawaii has a fairly low total volume compared to, say, a huge mainland harbor. If you're importing 500,000 widgets, you will probably not have the ship stop at Hawaii to drop off 2,000 of them first, then come to the US and feed your logistics chain. I admittedly do not know anything about Hawaiian operations, but I would imagine most companies: ship from China to Los Angeles, process goods into their supply chain, re-ship some small subset to Hawaii. I can't think of any physical product that wouldn't be more expensive for me to distribute in AK or HI.
Getting back to the poster's point, though, I think he was talking about air freight vs. cargo ship. For a good demonstration of that impacting costs, look at what happened when Pakistan shut off supply routes to Afghanistan. $100/gallon diesel, anyone?
At one extreme is the "Political Philosopher" who theorizes about the "best" forms of political action.
At the other extreme is the "Political Technician" who concentrates the means of obtaining thier "preferred" political situation.
Sandwiched in the middle is a narrow band of real "Political Scientists" who try to understand the principles behind politics and derive principles that predict the outcomes of various actions. Although these people are hamperred by lack of a "laboratory" in which to conduct experiments and control variables, they have tools such as Logic and Mathematics, particularly Calculus and Statistics, that they can use to evaluate different political actions.
Hacker comes across as a "Technician" and gets a discount on credibility from me.
I'd say there is some merit to that, but you're applying it all wrong. The two are not mutually exclusive. Hacker is a real political scientist. He also has some preferred outcomes that he argues for, and he argues that we should make certain changes to achieve them. I would argue that it's pretty hard to study an issue in serious depth without ending up at some preferred policy or outcome. You wouldn't expect a cancer researcher to be indifferent about smoking, diet, or exercise anymore than you would expect a political scientist to not have a policy recommendation.
In the context of a NYT Op-Ed, Hacker is doing what I would expect him to do. It's not real science, but NYT Op-Eds rarely (if ever) are. At the least, it's generating some real debate about education in the US... a system that needs real reform.
Population growth looks like it's going to take off soon because the largest generation of human beings in history is reaching breeding age.
Highly unlikely. Watch Hans Rosling's TED Talk on Population Growth. I agree with his assessment. Unless we crash first, we will probably hit 10 billion... but not because of a new baby boom.
...they have little left to say.
That's what I thought about the Tea Party. It turns out they don't need to say anything coherent, they just need to keep yelling louder.
No, and then you run into the Men's Wearhouse, which simultaneously ALLOWS and FORBIDS different things. A few months ago I went to change my password, fought through the errors until I found special characters that they allowed, saved it in LastPass. Tried to sign on a few days later, and it said my password (accepted in the change password form) was too long. Went through the password reset, and, just for fun, tried that same password again... and it still there.
They allow 16 characters and in the change password field, but only 12 characters on sign-on. Ridiculous. Also might have issues with "!", just can't remember.
The ones that really piss me off are the gambling games. They have (for now) found a way to bypass gambling regulations, charging for chips and whatnot, while failing to actually reward the winners.
Can somebody tell me what makes these legal?
Ahhh...hahahahaha! Oh, my, god, what a fucking JOKE! There might be maybe 2 universities where this idyllic scenario actually plays out (and even then probably not at the undergrad level). Wayyyy over here in the real world, that never fucking actually happens, and if it's your justification for traditional education, then it's an enormous rationalization of keeping things the way they are.
FTR, it happened at my top tier university. I'm not saying the department head knew every single student, but the best professors knew the best students. Most of my professors knew me by name, and one even provided feedback, from memory, on a paper I had written a week after he had graded it. Another offered to coauthor a paper with me after I approached him with an idea.
Of course, classes are large and TAs do much of the grading, but in my experience, the best researchers were also the most accessible. At least, they were accessible to bright students who had a genuine interest.
I think this issue needs to be approached on two levels. 1. Continued reduction in carbon emissions. 2. Let mother nature do her job. We can help her by planting more trees, ie replacing the ones that have been removed/destroyed through deforestation. I don't know, call me crazy, but that seems more logical then dumping a crap load of iron in the ocean. The rise in CO2 levels did not happen over night, therefore we should not expect a decrease in levels to happen overnight either. Seriously, if people truly want to help this planet, go home and plant 5-10 trees in your yard.
Two big problems with that. 1) Emissions are increasing. 2) "Mother nature" isn't super mom.
I can't remember the numbers, but even IF emissions stabilized at 2012 levels you would have to do a hell of a lot more than replace a few trees to achieve declining CO2. Replacing every road with densely packed vegetation would be a good start, but mostly because it would get rid of cars. IIRC, we would have to double or triple the total plant life on the planet to achieve real CO2 reductions. And that only works if emissions don't continue to increase. Further, you are forgetting the Texas factor. For every tree you plant, somebody in Texas buys a bigger truck to spite you. I suspect the "feel good" factor in tree-planting leads to an increase in emissions.
IMO, this is a huge collective action problem. The science is very clear, and the ideal policy is very clear (or at least there are a few good ones), but they will never happen. Not while sovereign states compete in an anarchic system. Nothing will be done until the incentives favor action.
Incentives can be changed by new technologies/economies or cataclysm. Cold fusion would obviously do the trick. A new process that makes solar panels 90% efficient and 10% of current prices would also work. Cataclysm will work for incentivizing geoengineering but not prevention. I suspect several major crop failures in the US will spur some American action.
No, if you honestly think multiple degrees of global warming would probably be a "boon", I don't believe you know that you are a corporate shill. Possibly, on this issue, a bit of a fool.
However, I do agree that an ice age would be worse than global warming.
Good point. It looks like I [mostly] wrongly assumed that LastPass was also using multifactor tokens for encryption. Apparently they do use the Yubi Key's static key in the local encryption process, but I can't find the specifics.
Given your reply, I'd agree that there's still some room for improvement. However, assuming they aren't compromised and nobody discovers my password, LastPass has dramatically increased my security. KeePass had terrible browser integration and a UI that didn't work for me, so I didn't use it for many passwords.
With LP, I was able to go through and upgrade all of my passwords, using security check to look for duplicates and weak passwords. Actually, I just checked. I have 394 unique passwords.
I'm not sure I fully follow, but LastPass does support various forms of multifactor authentication. I could give you my LP password and feel reasonably secure you won't be able to get in.
I was thinking the same thing, only in the other direction. The latter after all is simply the most common method of waste disposal in the world, with an relatively long transport in the middle between generation and disposal. Recycling quickly gets complicated since it needs to be sorted and there's always some sort of contamination. Then you need to find someone to use the recycled materials.
Obviously we can't discuss this much without actual figures and stats, which I don't have. The few numbers I've seen seem to support both of our views.
I have a feeling that most countries are optimizing pretty well for their given situations... that they generally don't recycle beyond what is feasible for them. Japan has insane recycling rules and forces its citizens to sort their own trash... I've heard reports of as many as 44 categories in one city. This helps them externalize the sorting costs, but they take this step because they are out of landfill space and having trouble shipping it. As shipping costs increase and available landfill space decreases, it makes sense for Japan to begin this conversion sooner than other countries would need to.
Some materials are definitely cheaper to ship overseas than dispose of properly. Electronics, hazardous waste, etc. are all obvious examples. And most developed countries seem to do this.
As you point out, some recycled materials are more valuable than others. The recycling program I'm most familiar with makes profit from its metals and glasses (ground and repurposed into something like a concrete filler IIRC). I believe they also made money from either paper or plastics, but I can't remember which one. The other was roughly break-even.
In the end, though, I'm sure we can all agree that landfills are unsustainable in the long-term for many countries, barring revolutionary advances in transportion (drastically reduced costs). Advances in materials and processes combined with growing resource consumption should ultimately lead to higher rates of profitable recycling. Cost-benefit does and will vary between countries.
I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious what you see as the key products.
IMO, the iPod was a marketing success but not a very revolutionary product. I liked my Archos better for everything but interface. If anything, I'd consider the iPod a marketing and UI design failure by every competitor. I know this is slashdot, but all the pre-iPod mp3 players I used felt like they were designed by linux geeks.
I'd say the iPhone was substantially better than any other product on the market at the time. The iPad is essentially a sized-up iPhone, but I'd be willing to grant it as a separate product.