Like I said, it's symbiotic but don't think that they couldn't afford it if they had to. They could, they'd just raise the cost of the food you're eating, the power you consume, etc, until they could.
At which point we'd simply import it from somewhere else at lower rates, simultaneously ending the farming subsidies... Although Monsanto would probably see the above as a declaration of war and have their assassins kill all of the farmers anyways.
It's not a symbiotic relationship anymore. Thanks to subsidy dependence and gene patents, we've got farmers at gun point.
Power density received from the sun at the surface of the earth is 1,366 watts per square meter (wikipedia.com). Tesla claims 53 kW hours of energy in their battery. Assuming 20% efficiency of panels, a 10 hour day (limited either by light or your working hours), and a 45 km round trip commute, driven at peak efficiency, you would need 2.899 square meters of solar panels to charge a tesla for free. Looks like the time could be now.
That's much better than I would have expected, to be honest. What if it was an umbrella-like device that could fold up and out, essentially shading the whole car beneath it? How about telescoping poles on the corners of the car that came up at the push of a button, with a rollable solar panel that stretched between them? That would take less than a minute to set up and be simpler than putting a car cover on.
I looked up averages for parking space dimensions, and it appears 9 feet wide by 20 feet long is a safe working average. We'll round that 180 ft^2 down to 16 m^2... Hell, we could pull it off with 10% efficient panels.
Neanderthal = power weight lifter. Homo Sapiens Sapiens = long distance runner.
I'm glad you brought that up... what's your take on the running man theory? That we outlasted the neanderthals because we evolved as ultra-runners...
If you think we're built for running, as an orthopedic surgeon, how do you feel about the shoe industry and the large number of runners with, well, running injuries?
True, but we also know they fought occasionally and we even have evidence of cannibalization between the two (sub)species. I think rape is just as likely as cohabitation.
I had my hopes up that you would dispel the "Neanderthals were dumb" myth. Shame to see that one still being perpetuated...
Considering Obama's stated love for his Blackberry and his understanding of technology, I wouldn't be too surprised if he actually knew what open source was or heard about Drupal or CMSes......but that's not really the point. We're talking about the Executive Branch here, not Obama himself. The whole point is that the IT people Obama brought in with him have no problem embracing open source. Compare with previous administrations that were ideologically opposed to open source, and you'll see why it's significant. I think this story is highly indicative of the cabinet Obama brought in. Look at what's happening in the FCC regarding net neutrality, EPA actually starting to do their job again, etc.
If anyone describes themselves as a nutritionist, just be slightly weary, alright? What they're saying might be perfectly true, but nutritionist isn't a protected term. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. Dietician is the legally protected term. A dietician is like dentist, and nutritionist is like "toothiologist".
To add to that, I don't think dietician is all that telling, either. It's still a very immature science, and difficult to really call a science. Dieticians don't seem to have any actual, verifiable answers that aren't directly tied to the laws of thermodynamics.
Lawyers, being masters of the law, are, in as much as the precision of their words is necessary for the proper fulfillment of their duties, frequently required to write sentences in varying lengths, the content and precise phrasing of which depends entirely on the desired end state as well as any possible disclaimers which may be required, preferred, or otherwise desirable to ensure a maximal level of ass-covering as would be reasonably expected by their clients.
I'm not arguing your data since I haven't looked it up, but wasn't a significant portion of NASA funding directed to the moon/mars missions by Bush? If you consider that money down the drain, that should be a pretty big cut as well...
And I guarantee you that their teenagers will probably all still rebel, they'll still groggily and grumpily get up for work in the morning, and they'll still grow old wishing that they hadn't fritted their youth away.
We're more or less still living like we lived 5,000 years ago, from a macro perspective. Somehow I don't see that changing any time soon (unless, of course, we all die).
What?! 5,000 years ago, most of us (our societies, that is) were still hunter-gatherers! We had much more free time than we do now, spent all of our "working" time actively pursuing food, had little to no written communication and absolutely no means of mass communication, needed to have a half dozen kids just to reach replacement level, and suffered none of the Western diseases.
That is to say, we were highly physically active, few people had "knowledge" jobs, our communication was limited, and our lifestyle was radically different. There were a few agricultural societies, but relatively few people lived in cities and life was significantly different from modern farm life.
But yes, we all ate, pooped, and reproduced. So do frogs. Nearly everything that makes us "human" has changed significantly since 3,000 BC.
Programmers aren't getting smarter. It would be nice if OS maintainers realized that and better separated UI threads & work threads as a standard practice. It has been done well before.
Read up on Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch if you haven't already. It seems like a much better system, taking threading out of the programmer's hands entirely.
You could have just said "Quicktime". It's a terrible player, and I wish I could remove it entirely. I play my music in iTunes, and I play my videos in VLC. Period.
I think the whole point of this company is that they can actually grant credit and have those credits transfer to other schools. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people on slashdot when I say that all of the freshman general ed material is basic and easily available on the internet, and that only makes it worse when you have to sit through the classes for a year, bored, and paying thousands in tuition for the privilege.
Given an inexpensive "at your own pace" online system, I probably could have completed a whole freshman year load the summer after high school graduation. For the economists out there, that's real money and time saved.
Now look at industries in the US that have been messed with in a similar way by our government, surprisingly there isn't that much difference beyond what corruption explains. What you're arguing against is a pretty fundamental element in economics, and while I question a lot of ideas that economists have, this one has a lot of merit to it.
Like our socialist fire departments, medicare, unemployment insurance, and military? You're right, our defense budget has really fallen as we've moved to privatize the military!
You seem to be arguing the "Government is always bad" point of view. This is a failed argument because government programs have historically ranged from highly successful to stupendously fail. Additionally, many functions simply can not be performed as well by private enterprise.
The profession has taken a hell of a hit since at least Vietnam. Not a lot of good machinists left, especially with most of the older ones dying off or retiring. I can only think of a few machinists who really spent years learning on manual mills and lathes and took the time to learn drafting before moving on to CAD/CAM and CNC.
Add to that the fact that smart people actively avoid skilled vocations these days, and you've got a recipe for an unskilled workforce.
But a school system that sacrifices the very best students in an effort to cater to the very worst - that isn't a good strategy for any society.
Why is it that I only hear this from smart kids who whine about having been bored in school?
There is one very good reason why the public school system has consistently told people like you to get bent. If you track students by ability - all the smart kids together, all the average kids together, all the dumb kids together - you are flushing the dumb ones down the toilet. Even the biggest idiot knows that he has been labeled stupid, and will perform to your expectations. You'll never get them back after that.
Thanks for proving my point! A person with an IQ >145 is sitting in a class with an average IQ of 100, and they're expected to perform at the low level. People need to be challenged to reach their full potential, not be put in a situation where the bar is so low they have to strive to fail.
So how well is this system working? America has almost no trade schools, educational credentials have become inflated, and college degrees are being used as selection criteria for jobs that realistically don't need them. All while we have a drastic shortage in many skilled professions. Compare to a place like Germany with a much more functional, tiered system, that provides plenty of opportunities for the lower tier to get into the upper tier. They ensure that the bottom 25% can still graduate from school with the skills necessary for a job. What does America do to its bottom 25%?
Finally, I'm annoyed that you're arguing such a straw man. Nobody is seriously proposing that we go back to the days of telling kids they'll never amount to anything! We're proposing a system to help the brighter students reach their potential, help them avoid the trap of getting bored and underperforming, and provide more opportunities for the dumber students to be able to succeed in life.
Somebody with an IQ of 85 probably isn't going to be a knowledge worker, and there's nothing wrong with that. We need to constantly expect more out of him while creating an environment that doesn't punish him severely for failing to meet those expectations.
Conversely, in our current system - you may have been bored, but I'd lay even money you turned out just fine. You didn't need the help. You were just a spoiled brat who couldn't think of anyone besides yourself. (Says the former spoiled brat who had his eyes opened by a much less intelligent, but much wiser man than me. Thanks Josh.)
I can't speak for the GP, but I was a brilliant, enthusiastic, loving and caring kid. I liked everyone, and I was always curious and asking questions. School slowly wore me out, especially when we spent hours covering material that I would grasp in a matter of minutes. I would take the time to learn the material, teach my friends the material, and then still have to sit through hours of re-explanation. My grades slowly dipped as I stopped bothering to do homework (I could still ace the tests, so why bother?). They kicked me out of the gifted/honors programs (homework was usually 30% of the grade), which meant I started high school in the "normal" classes. Needless to say, my grades got even lower, and I started becoming more reclusive. I was bored out of my skull, but whenever I got interested in it and asked hard questions my teachers couldn't understand them (liberal arts/child development majors). Around my junior year I realized my life would just get more boring if I didn't bring my grades up, but by then it was too late. I competed in the Academic Decathlon (and got some gold medals), scored a 1470 on my SATs and I had a 2.3 GPA. I couldn't get into any of the universities because of that GPA, and I ended up having to join the military.
By the time I got out of the military, most of my friends (people I had previously tutored) were finishing their PhDs. Sure, there's still hope for me, but I'l
hahaha, no, i sure don't. the only real programming i do is CNC programming and i don't think that really counts as real programming.
It doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, it sounds like your job requires a lot of skill. I used to be a machinist myself, and I think the profession gets a heck of a lot less respect than it deserves. That said, it's still not Engineering. Just like a "Culinary Engineer" isn't an Engineer, and neither is a Hospitality Engineer. These are bogus job titles people thought up to make jobs sound important, nothing more.
As a quick aside, though, I knew a lot of machinists who had better a understanding than the mechanical engineers.
It's true... and sad. I have the utmost respect for people who don't wave the "doctor" honorary around like it's a 12" penis. I would never use it myself, unless I ended up in an academic environment where the lack of the honorary leads most people to think you're still a student.
I've read up on property law, but I don't understand how air could be treated as private property under property law, at least in the US. By definition of it being fluid and subject to such atmospheric forces, you're unlikely to have the exact same air in one place a second time. You can't specifically mark any air as belonging to any one entity. Of course there is no existing method for someone to acquire the property rights for it to begin with, so there is no way for somebody to actually own it as of yet.
If you burn something into very fine particulate smoke, and the smoke spreads out so that it covers the entire globe, but only with a concentration of 1 part per quadrillion, who do you pay for polluting their property? What if 1/4 of the population of the planet is burning the same stuff, and the increased concentration is strong enough to trigger asthma attacks in 10% of the population?
I think I somewhat see your angle at this, but I can't see anything that would resemble a sane implementation of it. Can you be more specific or direct me to any legal articles on the subject?
You call that trying? I can tell you now the qualificatioons in the climate and earth sciences on that list dwarf those on the IPCC list. Including the IPCC authors who wrote dissenting opinions that were never published but they still got listed as authors on the report. that is of course until they threatened to sue the IPCC. but, I guess you wouldn't respect their opinions would you?
I certainly don't respect your opinion, especially if you think a bunch of Electrical Engineers, Computer Scientists, and Veterinary Doctors are qualified to comment on climate models.
Slashdot Mirror
Like I said, it's symbiotic but don't think that they couldn't afford it if they had to. They could, they'd just raise the cost of the food you're eating, the power you consume, etc, until they could.
At which point we'd simply import it from somewhere else at lower rates, simultaneously ending the farming subsidies... Although Monsanto would probably see the above as a declaration of war and have their assassins kill all of the farmers anyways.
It's not a symbiotic relationship anymore. Thanks to subsidy dependence and gene patents, we've got farmers at gun point.
Power density received from the sun at the surface of the earth is 1,366 watts per square meter (wikipedia.com). Tesla claims 53 kW hours of energy in their battery. Assuming 20% efficiency of panels, a 10 hour day (limited either by light or your working hours), and a 45 km round trip commute, driven at peak efficiency, you would need 2.899 square meters of solar panels to charge a tesla for free. Looks like the time could be now.
That's much better than I would have expected, to be honest. What if it was an umbrella-like device that could fold up and out, essentially shading the whole car beneath it? How about telescoping poles on the corners of the car that came up at the push of a button, with a rollable solar panel that stretched between them? That would take less than a minute to set up and be simpler than putting a car cover on.
I looked up averages for parking space dimensions, and it appears 9 feet wide by 20 feet long is a safe working average. We'll round that 180 ft^2 down to 16 m^2... Hell, we could pull it off with 10% efficient panels.
Neanderthal = power weight lifter.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens = long distance runner.
I'm glad you brought that up... what's your take on the running man theory? That we outlasted the neanderthals because we evolved as ultra-runners...
If you think we're built for running, as an orthopedic surgeon, how do you feel about the shoe industry and the large number of runners with, well, running injuries?
True, but we also know they fought occasionally and we even have evidence of cannibalization between the two (sub)species. I think rape is just as likely as cohabitation.
I had my hopes up that you would dispel the "Neanderthals were dumb" myth. Shame to see that one still being perpetuated...
Considering Obama's stated love for his Blackberry and his understanding of technology, I wouldn't be too surprised if he actually knew what open source was or heard about Drupal or CMSes... ...but that's not really the point. We're talking about the Executive Branch here, not Obama himself. The whole point is that the IT people Obama brought in with him have no problem embracing open source. Compare with previous administrations that were ideologically opposed to open source, and you'll see why it's significant. I think this story is highly indicative of the cabinet Obama brought in. Look at what's happening in the FCC regarding net neutrality, EPA actually starting to do their job again, etc.
To paraphrase Dara Ó Briain:
To add to that, I don't think dietician is all that telling, either. It's still a very immature science, and difficult to really call a science. Dieticians don't seem to have any actual, verifiable answers that aren't directly tied to the laws of thermodynamics.
Lawyers, being masters of the law, are, in as much as the precision of their words is necessary for the proper fulfillment of their duties, frequently required to write sentences in varying lengths, the content and precise phrasing of which depends entirely on the desired end state as well as any possible disclaimers which may be required, preferred, or otherwise desirable to ensure a maximal level of ass-covering as would be reasonably expected by their clients.
Think I'm ready to apply to law school yet?
I did that. It's big. And loud. Uses about the same amount of power as a small space heater. I still like it though :)
That's a feature! It doubles as a space heater.
I'm not arguing your data since I haven't looked it up, but wasn't a significant portion of NASA funding directed to the moon/mars missions by Bush? If you consider that money down the drain, that should be a pretty big cut as well...
And I guarantee you that their teenagers will probably all still rebel, they'll still groggily and grumpily get up for work in the morning, and they'll still grow old wishing that they hadn't fritted their youth away.
We're more or less still living like we lived 5,000 years ago, from a macro perspective. Somehow I don't see that changing any time soon (unless, of course, we all die).
What?! 5,000 years ago, most of us (our societies, that is) were still hunter-gatherers! We had much more free time than we do now, spent all of our "working" time actively pursuing food, had little to no written communication and absolutely no means of mass communication, needed to have a half dozen kids just to reach replacement level, and suffered none of the Western diseases.
That is to say, we were highly physically active, few people had "knowledge" jobs, our communication was limited, and our lifestyle was radically different. There were a few agricultural societies, but relatively few people lived in cities and life was significantly different from modern farm life.
But yes, we all ate, pooped, and reproduced. So do frogs. Nearly everything that makes us "human" has changed significantly since 3,000 BC.
Wait, I thought the gays liked being probed ?
Only the guys :(... the gay girls never let me probe them!
Not to mention that extra 10+ GB of free space :)
Programmers aren't getting smarter. It would be nice if OS maintainers realized that and better separated UI threads & work threads as a standard practice. It has been done well before.
Read up on Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch if you haven't already. It seems like a much better system, taking threading out of the programmer's hands entirely.
You could have just said "Quicktime". It's a terrible player, and I wish I could remove it entirely. I play my music in iTunes, and I play my videos in VLC. Period.
Agreed. I hate the fact that I can't seem to do anything to make VLC the default for videos on my computer.... screw quicktime!
I think the whole point of this company is that they can actually grant credit and have those credits transfer to other schools. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people on slashdot when I say that all of the freshman general ed material is basic and easily available on the internet, and that only makes it worse when you have to sit through the classes for a year, bored, and paying thousands in tuition for the privilege.
Given an inexpensive "at your own pace" online system, I probably could have completed a whole freshman year load the summer after high school graduation. For the economists out there, that's real money and time saved.
Now look at industries in the US that have been messed with in a similar way by our government, surprisingly there isn't that much difference beyond what corruption explains. What you're arguing against is a pretty fundamental element in economics, and while I question a lot of ideas that economists have, this one has a lot of merit to it.
Like our socialist fire departments, medicare, unemployment insurance, and military? You're right, our defense budget has really fallen as we've moved to privatize the military!
You seem to be arguing the "Government is always bad" point of view. This is a failed argument because government programs have historically ranged from highly successful to stupendously fail. Additionally, many functions simply can not be performed as well by private enterprise.
The profession has taken a hell of a hit since at least Vietnam. Not a lot of good machinists left, especially with most of the older ones dying off or retiring. I can only think of a few machinists who really spent years learning on manual mills and lathes and took the time to learn drafting before moving on to CAD/CAM and CNC.
Add to that the fact that smart people actively avoid skilled vocations these days, and you've got a recipe for an unskilled workforce.
But a school system that sacrifices the very best students in an effort to cater to the very worst - that isn't a good strategy for any society.
Why is it that I only hear this from smart kids who whine about having been bored in school?
There is one very good reason why the public school system has consistently told people like you to get bent. If you track students by ability - all the smart kids together, all the average kids together, all the dumb kids together - you are flushing the dumb ones down the toilet. Even the biggest idiot knows that he has been labeled stupid, and will perform to your expectations. You'll never get them back after that.
Thanks for proving my point! A person with an IQ >145 is sitting in a class with an average IQ of 100, and they're expected to perform at the low level. People need to be challenged to reach their full potential, not be put in a situation where the bar is so low they have to strive to fail.
So how well is this system working? America has almost no trade schools, educational credentials have become inflated, and college degrees are being used as selection criteria for jobs that realistically don't need them. All while we have a drastic shortage in many skilled professions. Compare to a place like Germany with a much more functional, tiered system, that provides plenty of opportunities for the lower tier to get into the upper tier. They ensure that the bottom 25% can still graduate from school with the skills necessary for a job. What does America do to its bottom 25%?
Finally, I'm annoyed that you're arguing such a straw man. Nobody is seriously proposing that we go back to the days of telling kids they'll never amount to anything! We're proposing a system to help the brighter students reach their potential, help them avoid the trap of getting bored and underperforming, and provide more opportunities for the dumber students to be able to succeed in life.
Somebody with an IQ of 85 probably isn't going to be a knowledge worker, and there's nothing wrong with that. We need to constantly expect more out of him while creating an environment that doesn't punish him severely for failing to meet those expectations.
Conversely, in our current system - you may have been bored, but I'd lay even money you turned out just fine. You didn't need the help. You were just a spoiled brat who couldn't think of anyone besides yourself. (Says the former spoiled brat who had his eyes opened by a much less intelligent, but much wiser man than me. Thanks Josh.)
I can't speak for the GP, but I was a brilliant, enthusiastic, loving and caring kid. I liked everyone, and I was always curious and asking questions. School slowly wore me out, especially when we spent hours covering material that I would grasp in a matter of minutes. I would take the time to learn the material, teach my friends the material, and then still have to sit through hours of re-explanation. My grades slowly dipped as I stopped bothering to do homework (I could still ace the tests, so why bother?). They kicked me out of the gifted/honors programs (homework was usually 30% of the grade), which meant I started high school in the "normal" classes. Needless to say, my grades got even lower, and I started becoming more reclusive. I was bored out of my skull, but whenever I got interested in it and asked hard questions my teachers couldn't understand them (liberal arts/child development majors). Around my junior year I realized my life would just get more boring if I didn't bring my grades up, but by then it was too late. I competed in the Academic Decathlon (and got some gold medals), scored a 1470 on my SATs and I had a 2.3 GPA. I couldn't get into any of the universities because of that GPA, and I ended up having to join the military.
By the time I got out of the military, most of my friends (people I had previously tutored) were finishing their PhDs. Sure, there's still hope for me, but I'l
hahaha, no, i sure don't. the only real programming i do is CNC programming and i don't think that really counts as real programming.
It doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, it sounds like your job requires a lot of skill. I used to be a machinist myself, and I think the profession gets a heck of a lot less respect than it deserves. That said, it's still not Engineering. Just like a "Culinary Engineer" isn't an Engineer, and neither is a Hospitality Engineer. These are bogus job titles people thought up to make jobs sound important, nothing more.
As a quick aside, though, I knew a lot of machinists who had better a understanding than the mechanical engineers.
It's true... and sad. I have the utmost respect for people who don't wave the "doctor" honorary around like it's a 12" penis. I would never use it myself, unless I ended up in an academic environment where the lack of the honorary leads most people to think you're still a student.
I've read up on property law, but I don't understand how air could be treated as private property under property law, at least in the US. By definition of it being fluid and subject to such atmospheric forces, you're unlikely to have the exact same air in one place a second time. You can't specifically mark any air as belonging to any one entity. Of course there is no existing method for someone to acquire the property rights for it to begin with, so there is no way for somebody to actually own it as of yet.
If you burn something into very fine particulate smoke, and the smoke spreads out so that it covers the entire globe, but only with a concentration of 1 part per quadrillion, who do you pay for polluting their property? What if 1/4 of the population of the planet is burning the same stuff, and the increased concentration is strong enough to trigger asthma attacks in 10% of the population?
I think I somewhat see your angle at this, but I can't see anything that would resemble a sane implementation of it. Can you be more specific or direct me to any legal articles on the subject?
You call that trying? I can tell you now the qualificatioons in the climate and earth sciences on that list dwarf those on the IPCC list. Including the IPCC authors who wrote dissenting opinions that were never published but they still got listed as authors on the report. that is of course until they threatened to sue the IPCC. but, I guess you wouldn't respect their opinions would you?
I certainly don't respect your opinion, especially if you think a bunch of Electrical Engineers, Computer Scientists, and Veterinary Doctors are qualified to comment on climate models.
Here's a quick list of the consensus on man-made climate change and here is another showing that the petition project is bunk.
Any supposed "negative" externality is easily dealt with under a proper system of property rights.
If someone causes damage to you or your property - they are liable. Period.
How would that work with common property, such as the air, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc.?
"Big asteroids hit about every 68 million years"
And the last one was 65 million years ago, so we have another 3 million years to go. If we haven't got starships by then theres something wrong.
Please tell me you were kidding or trolling...