Wait, the Soviets beat us into space? I thought my fairy-tale US education told me that we beat everybody at everything for completely sound logical and ethical reasons!?!?!
What is going to make or break this technology would be the weight of the battery pack needed to store all that extra energy to provide surge and low end torque. Prius has a very tiny battery, relatively, just enough to propel the car for about 2 miles. We might need a battery midway between Prius and Chevy Volt/Nissan Leaf for this technology to work. Of course, the fine tolerance manufacturing, durability of the engine and seals (the bugaboo of Wankel) and other issues might crop up.
But the basic idea is plausible. Giving it one and half (guarded) thumbs up.
The article also mentioned shedding 1000lbs by using this motor.
That's a free half-ton for more batteries which should cover the surge and low-end torque problems you mentioned.
Wouldn't that also significantly increase cost? Efficiency aside, people aren't going to buy into it for personal vehicles unless the cost is equivalent.
I agree, we already have tons of layers of bureaucracy in place, but it doesn't mean it's a good reason or excuse to add more layers. You having lived in a country with a single-payer system has nothing to do with the way the US government works, it only highlights the efficiency of that government. I would say that "cry about additional bureaucracy" is definitely not overblown. Take any major program in the US for example. They're highly bureaucratic and inefficient, and they get more and more so as time goes on (no matter which party is in control).
I'm not necessarily arguing for or against that health care bill, I'm just highlighting various good reasons that may have opposed your original post in the way of playing devil's advocate. On a more personal level, I respect your opinion that you want a single-payer system and there are many good arguments for that. I however don't think that would work well in this country, and it stands against many of my own personal beliefs on the government's role in this country and I'm unconvinced that'd it'd really benefit the masses.
I assure you that the majority of politicians are not voting "according to their personal values". If they did that, it might be a better government. That isn't the situation. The situation is how to Overrun The Other Guy or how to Get Elected Again. Bills that are drafted up have more of a potential to stem from some kind of personal values but if it does, it quickly gets retarded in order to play the politics game.
I would otherwise disagree with your statements that separate the two dominant parties in our government, especially in terms of tactics and voting records. The numbers and history is there. It's very rare anybody works together if they can otherwise help it.
I'm not implying that the Republican party did anything to cut budget or size in the last hundred years. People voting for the Republican party might have different values than the actual results, but I couldn't lay that down as a blanket statement either. Hell, why does this have to be about Republicans vs. Democrats anyway? People voting in those parties don't uniformly agree on the issue. I was merely pointing out that you can't assume you know what's going on in somebody's head, and that there are more reasons other than your own personal individual gain to vote a certain way.
And how would that make the government smaller? Although you might not agree with people on the "right", they still represent roughly 50% of the population. You can't ignore that. To do so is arrogant and foolish.
You'd also be making insurance companies the bad guy when that's not necessarily the case (only a contributing factor). That paints a picture of hubris and knee-jerk reactions with no thought to the consequences.
So, please kindly explain why if you'd run the government why it'd be so much better than all those other idiots that ran it before you. Please keep in mind that 50% of the population think you are complete bonkers.
The new healthcare bill merely adds a layer of bureaucracy. Yes, a huge cost to clinics and hospitals is the large number of uninsured people that they end up having to cover, thus raising the bills for everyone else. If everyone is forced to have insurance, theoretically these costs could be reduced. However, now you have umpteen billion new government branches you have to pay for. And what happens to those that can't afford to be forced to buy insurance? Their insurance bill gets paid for by the government (it's just another form of Medicaid). For every dollar reduced that you get charged at the hospital, the amount you spend on your insurance and extra taxes goes up two dollars. Insurance companies don't make a crazy amount per person. You'd scoff at the amount per year they net on the average person. The only reason they have billions of dollars is because they're serving billions of people. If you force them to cover people, you can't claim it's going to be cheaper because now you're covering millions more people with probably very costly illnesses.
And no, that's not an argument. That's simple accounting fact. The only thing I want the healthcare reform proponents to admit is that it'll cost us all more money.
Flash isn't the protocol. I believe that was well pointed out. You need an application to actually use that protocol. Nobody's putting VLC in their web pages. There's over 98% market penetration for Flash. Name one browser plugin that is multi-platform that has that same kind of market penetration and then we'll talk.
Oh, the FBI won't have the time of day to look at your decrypted email. They'll be too busy tracking down identity thieves. I hope they like paperwork.
And I'd very much like to see an engineer working under a system that's comparable to what teachers have to work with.
Obviously you've never worked for my employer, who thinks everything can run on steam and pixie dust and the entire department is viewed as some kind of waste of cash that needs to be rid of ASAP.
What teachers have to work with... pfffft. If you're a good teacher, you can worth with a stick and a patch of loose dirt to teach a large variety of subjects.
Well, Flash isn't a protocol, it's a runtime. A video player in flash is an application. It can deliver different video encoded in a set number of codecs, which is what h.264 and webM is. Flash does not yet support webM. There is no viable alternative to Flash right now for streaming live video, especially with the same market penetration.
Yes, socialism vs. capitalism arguments go 'round and 'round. It doesn't really accomplish anything. The real problem is the costs associated, and where that cost comes from. Yes, I realize some of the cost is from people without insurance. I'm talking more about the doctors' malpractice insurance (tort reform), equipment costs, hospital practices, etc. Doctor shortage is an issue that would plague your wait times and how much attention they can give any one individual. For that, I'm a big fan of the increasing number of PAs you see here in the US. They are well educated and highly qualified to do many tasks without the time and cash investment of full-out med school. We need more of them.
If they have wheel chairs and oxygen tanks, it sounds like they got what they needed. It's not like free health care would make the lame walk and cure lung cancer.
Furthermore, someone in a wheel chair is most likely taken care of already with Federal dollars. The lung cancer guy? Don't blame the government that you wasted your lungs by smoking.
I know, those two details are nitpicking, but that was a bad example. However, I also don't think you are necessarily entitled to receiving health care just because you were born here. Those people in the halls probably think the same thing. Your personal health doesn't necessarily affect your personal political views. For some it does, others it doesn't. Either way, you're making an awfully large assumption about those people you saw in the town halls. This kind of healthcare bill makes the big government bigger, and many people just don't want that. Or maybe they don't want the government telling them they have to purchase something by just existing. There's a million possible reasons that it serves their own interests. They believe this country would be a better place without the bill. Who are you to deny them their opinions? It doesn't make them stupid.
Lastly, don't make the mistake of calling someone who opposes the free health care view unsympathetic, heartless, etc. That's not the issue here.
Wrong. Before the financial meltdown there were guaranteed waiting times, usually measured in weeks. GPs are supposed to see you within 3 days tops, cancer specialists within 2 weeks.
Now we have a right-wing government those guarantees have gone out the window, but it certainly is possible to have a fully public healthcare system that works reasonably well. It isn't as if private healthcare is problem-free either.
No, but as it stands, the federally funded clinics are packed. If you don't believe me try to make an appointment with one in any city of any decent size in the USA and say you don't have insurance. They can't turn you away, but could be waiting over 6 weeks (for a "city" still under a million people with clinics all over the place). Those with insurance? Sometimes that afternoon, if not within a few days. Emergency care is another story, but then it depends on what you define as "emergency care". Going in on a Saturday via the ER is not emergency care.
If you can figure out the doctor shortage, the wait times might not be the same. However, people who deny the simple fact that something free gets more traffic than something not free is in denial. There's only so many doctors and clinics to go around.
First, who are you to determine someone else's best interests? Just because someone writes "Republican" on their voter registration card doesn't mean they agree with everything said. Second, idiocy is equal opportunity and is not affiliated with any party. Voters are idiots in general.
Whoever it was, the fuckers still voted for it. Nobody had plans for FREE universal health care. Your opinion on if we need that or not aside, if you perceived that to be some kind of promise than shame on you for hearing only what you wanted to hear.
Nope, completely wrong; the left wing die hards have been criticizing him for a while. It's the moderates who like him. I'm a little disappointed in how he's done, though even now he is still head and shoulders above GWB, or how McCain would have been.
LOL. I laugh every time I hear or read something like this. Here's the formula: "Nah, Obama is X and the Y are the ones who hate him, the X are the ones who love him!". Choose any two parties and I've heard it.
OK, really, it depends on what issue you are focusing on on if you think Obama is more left/right/centrist. It also doesn't work to put all his views into one bucket. I personally find Obama to be the worst of the left and the right in terms of views I disagree with from both sides.
How do you know how McCain would have been? Speculation is never really all that helpful. Comparing to GWB is a more fair assessment. Though I would say the Congress at the time is just as much to blame personally, just like any serving Congress during any presidential term.
Tying all this in, Obama and GWB are about the same when it comes to respecting your rights and privacy: there is no respect. They are from two different parties, yet both have this awful trait that comes from whatever party you think that comes from. I don't think McCain or Hillary for that matter would have been any different, either.
While I understand that a little bit, they're perfectly within their legal rights to do what they want with it. Unless they're using GPL'd code, they don't have to contribute anything. In a perfect world everybody would contribute everything they do, but if you want that then choose a difference license. Linux is built with only the restriction that anything that uses GPL'd code (using API's does NOT count!!!) then you are legally required to open that up. If you aren't, then you aren't facing that requirement. If Google really is patching the kernel and recompiling, I don't see how you couldn't obtain that patch legally. This argument just doesn't make sense.
A larger desktop market share and acceptance by the general population?
Larger desktop share would be nice, but technically I would say Linux (especially the kernel) is accepted by the general population even if they don't know it's Linux running their phone, gps, web page, etc.
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean contributions back to the kernel for the general public and so the kernel doesn't really benefit from that.
Oh come on, you don't think it'd be hella cool to have completely silent conversations? No more riding in the elevator with the jackass yapping loudly into his "bluetooth".
First, the US public school system is horrible. So yes, if I were hiring somebody it'd be at least partially reassuring that they did more than the bare minimum (high school grad or GED). It doesn't necessarily measure how smart or skilled you are, but it gives me something to start with. Many high school grads can barely put 2+2 together, even though they got B's in H.S. Our education system exists solely to push people through, whether they earned it or not. Once you fix that, then I could agree with your argument more.
There's very few people I know with degrees that are actually swimming in their education debt (1 person). There's a handful I know that went into careers they didn't go to school for, and for some of those it was their choice to do that. I know ZERO people who actually regret getting their degree because of debt. That speaks volumes to me.
You're also ignoring the fact that there's tons of "higher" education options in the US. You can go 4 years to a college if you want a bachelors, but you don't have to. Lots of in-demand technical jobs are hiring 2-year associate degree students, where many of them got their education from a cheap community college or something equivalent. There's tons of very specific programs too that are very cheap that can be done in even less time, you can do alongside a job, and will catapult you ahead of where you are now while giving you some sense of direction in your career. Many of these also mix classes with hands-on training. It doesn't take 4 years of college to become a licensed plumber for example (which earns a very decent living). You can argue the quality of said educations all you want, but if it gets you a better job or fulfills a goal, then it works just fine.
If you can't find something that fits you and your wallet, you aren't looking in the right places.
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Wait, the Soviets beat us into space? I thought my fairy-tale US education told me that we beat everybody at everything for completely sound logical and ethical reasons!?!?!
Maybe according to Hollywood. Prison can get pretty gay sometimes.
What is going to make or break this technology would be the weight of the battery pack needed to store all that extra energy to provide surge and low end torque. Prius has a very tiny battery, relatively, just enough to propel the car for about 2 miles. We might need a battery midway between Prius and Chevy Volt/Nissan Leaf for this technology to work. Of course, the fine tolerance manufacturing, durability of the engine and seals (the bugaboo of Wankel) and other issues might crop up.
But the basic idea is plausible. Giving it one and half (guarded) thumbs up.
The article also mentioned shedding 1000lbs by using this motor.
That's a free half-ton for more batteries which should cover the surge and low-end torque problems you mentioned.
Wouldn't that also significantly increase cost? Efficiency aside, people aren't going to buy into it for personal vehicles unless the cost is equivalent.
I agree, we already have tons of layers of bureaucracy in place, but it doesn't mean it's a good reason or excuse to add more layers. You having lived in a country with a single-payer system has nothing to do with the way the US government works, it only highlights the efficiency of that government. I would say that "cry about additional bureaucracy" is definitely not overblown. Take any major program in the US for example. They're highly bureaucratic and inefficient, and they get more and more so as time goes on (no matter which party is in control).
I'm not necessarily arguing for or against that health care bill, I'm just highlighting various good reasons that may have opposed your original post in the way of playing devil's advocate. On a more personal level, I respect your opinion that you want a single-payer system and there are many good arguments for that. I however don't think that would work well in this country, and it stands against many of my own personal beliefs on the government's role in this country and I'm unconvinced that'd it'd really benefit the masses.
I assure you that the majority of politicians are not voting "according to their personal values". If they did that, it might be a better government. That isn't the situation. The situation is how to Overrun The Other Guy or how to Get Elected Again. Bills that are drafted up have more of a potential to stem from some kind of personal values but if it does, it quickly gets retarded in order to play the politics game.
I would otherwise disagree with your statements that separate the two dominant parties in our government, especially in terms of tactics and voting records. The numbers and history is there. It's very rare anybody works together if they can otherwise help it.
I'm not implying that the Republican party did anything to cut budget or size in the last hundred years. People voting for the Republican party might have different values than the actual results, but I couldn't lay that down as a blanket statement either. Hell, why does this have to be about Republicans vs. Democrats anyway? People voting in those parties don't uniformly agree on the issue. I was merely pointing out that you can't assume you know what's going on in somebody's head, and that there are more reasons other than your own personal individual gain to vote a certain way.
And how would that make the government smaller? Although you might not agree with people on the "right", they still represent roughly 50% of the population. You can't ignore that. To do so is arrogant and foolish.
You'd also be making insurance companies the bad guy when that's not necessarily the case (only a contributing factor). That paints a picture of hubris and knee-jerk reactions with no thought to the consequences.
So, please kindly explain why if you'd run the government why it'd be so much better than all those other idiots that ran it before you. Please keep in mind that 50% of the population think you are complete bonkers.
The new healthcare bill merely adds a layer of bureaucracy. Yes, a huge cost to clinics and hospitals is the large number of uninsured people that they end up having to cover, thus raising the bills for everyone else. If everyone is forced to have insurance, theoretically these costs could be reduced. However, now you have umpteen billion new government branches you have to pay for. And what happens to those that can't afford to be forced to buy insurance? Their insurance bill gets paid for by the government (it's just another form of Medicaid). For every dollar reduced that you get charged at the hospital, the amount you spend on your insurance and extra taxes goes up two dollars. Insurance companies don't make a crazy amount per person. You'd scoff at the amount per year they net on the average person. The only reason they have billions of dollars is because they're serving billions of people. If you force them to cover people, you can't claim it's going to be cheaper because now you're covering millions more people with probably very costly illnesses.
And no, that's not an argument. That's simple accounting fact. The only thing I want the healthcare reform proponents to admit is that it'll cost us all more money.
Flash isn't the protocol. I believe that was well pointed out. You need an application to actually use that protocol. Nobody's putting VLC in their web pages. There's over 98% market penetration for Flash. Name one browser plugin that is multi-platform that has that same kind of market penetration and then we'll talk.
Oh, the FBI won't have the time of day to look at your decrypted email. They'll be too busy tracking down identity thieves. I hope they like paperwork.
And I'd very much like to see an engineer working under a system that's comparable to what teachers have to work with.
Obviously you've never worked for my employer, who thinks everything can run on steam and pixie dust and the entire department is viewed as some kind of waste of cash that needs to be rid of ASAP.
What teachers have to work with... pfffft. If you're a good teacher, you can worth with a stick and a patch of loose dirt to teach a large variety of subjects.
Well, Flash isn't a protocol, it's a runtime. A video player in flash is an application. It can deliver different video encoded in a set number of codecs, which is what h.264 and webM is. Flash does not yet support webM. There is no viable alternative to Flash right now for streaming live video, especially with the same market penetration.
Yes, socialism vs. capitalism arguments go 'round and 'round. It doesn't really accomplish anything. The real problem is the costs associated, and where that cost comes from. Yes, I realize some of the cost is from people without insurance. I'm talking more about the doctors' malpractice insurance (tort reform), equipment costs, hospital practices, etc. Doctor shortage is an issue that would plague your wait times and how much attention they can give any one individual. For that, I'm a big fan of the increasing number of PAs you see here in the US. They are well educated and highly qualified to do many tasks without the time and cash investment of full-out med school. We need more of them.
This actually made me LOL. I guess there's a sucker born every minute. Pretty clever hack!
If they have wheel chairs and oxygen tanks, it sounds like they got what they needed. It's not like free health care would make the lame walk and cure lung cancer.
Furthermore, someone in a wheel chair is most likely taken care of already with Federal dollars. The lung cancer guy? Don't blame the government that you wasted your lungs by smoking.
I know, those two details are nitpicking, but that was a bad example. However, I also don't think you are necessarily entitled to receiving health care just because you were born here. Those people in the halls probably think the same thing. Your personal health doesn't necessarily affect your personal political views. For some it does, others it doesn't. Either way, you're making an awfully large assumption about those people you saw in the town halls. This kind of healthcare bill makes the big government bigger, and many people just don't want that. Or maybe they don't want the government telling them they have to purchase something by just existing. There's a million possible reasons that it serves their own interests. They believe this country would be a better place without the bill. Who are you to deny them their opinions? It doesn't make them stupid.
Lastly, don't make the mistake of calling someone who opposes the free health care view unsympathetic, heartless, etc. That's not the issue here.
The same rules apply to US citizens crossing the border into their own country. And no, we aren't fans of it either.
You end up waiting 12+ months for treatment
Wrong. Before the financial meltdown there were guaranteed waiting times, usually measured in weeks. GPs are supposed to see you within 3 days tops, cancer specialists within 2 weeks.
Now we have a right-wing government those guarantees have gone out the window, but it certainly is possible to have a fully public healthcare system that works reasonably well. It isn't as if private healthcare is problem-free either.
No, but as it stands, the federally funded clinics are packed. If you don't believe me try to make an appointment with one in any city of any decent size in the USA and say you don't have insurance. They can't turn you away, but could be waiting over 6 weeks (for a "city" still under a million people with clinics all over the place). Those with insurance? Sometimes that afternoon, if not within a few days. Emergency care is another story, but then it depends on what you define as "emergency care". Going in on a Saturday via the ER is not emergency care.
If you can figure out the doctor shortage, the wait times might not be the same. However, people who deny the simple fact that something free gets more traffic than something not free is in denial. There's only so many doctors and clinics to go around.
First, who are you to determine someone else's best interests? Just because someone writes "Republican" on their voter registration card doesn't mean they agree with everything said. Second, idiocy is equal opportunity and is not affiliated with any party. Voters are idiots in general.
Whoever it was, the fuckers still voted for it. Nobody had plans for FREE universal health care. Your opinion on if we need that or not aside, if you perceived that to be some kind of promise than shame on you for hearing only what you wanted to hear.
Nope, completely wrong; the left wing die hards have been criticizing him for a while. It's the moderates who like him. I'm a little disappointed in how he's done, though even now he is still head and shoulders above GWB, or how McCain would have been.
LOL. I laugh every time I hear or read something like this. Here's the formula: "Nah, Obama is X and the Y are the ones who hate him, the X are the ones who love him!". Choose any two parties and I've heard it.
OK, really, it depends on what issue you are focusing on on if you think Obama is more left/right/centrist. It also doesn't work to put all his views into one bucket. I personally find Obama to be the worst of the left and the right in terms of views I disagree with from both sides.
How do you know how McCain would have been? Speculation is never really all that helpful. Comparing to GWB is a more fair assessment. Though I would say the Congress at the time is just as much to blame personally, just like any serving Congress during any presidential term.
Tying all this in, Obama and GWB are about the same when it comes to respecting your rights and privacy: there is no respect. They are from two different parties, yet both have this awful trait that comes from whatever party you think that comes from. I don't think McCain or Hillary for that matter would have been any different, either.
While I understand that a little bit, they're perfectly within their legal rights to do what they want with it. Unless they're using GPL'd code, they don't have to contribute anything. In a perfect world everybody would contribute everything they do, but if you want that then choose a difference license. Linux is built with only the restriction that anything that uses GPL'd code (using API's does NOT count!!!) then you are legally required to open that up. If you aren't, then you aren't facing that requirement. If Google really is patching the kernel and recompiling, I don't see how you couldn't obtain that patch legally. This argument just doesn't make sense.
A larger desktop market share and acceptance by the general population?
Larger desktop share would be nice, but technically I would say Linux (especially the kernel) is accepted by the general population even if they don't know it's Linux running their phone, gps, web page, etc.
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean contributions back to the kernel for the general public and so the kernel doesn't really benefit from that.
Oh come on, you don't think it'd be hella cool to have completely silent conversations? No more riding in the elevator with the jackass yapping loudly into his "bluetooth".
Basically, people are terrible. I'm amazed we kept it together long enough to get here.
Well, thanks to modern medicine and warning labels, the idiots thrive. So, goodbye natural selection!
You are ignoring a few things.
First, the US public school system is horrible. So yes, if I were hiring somebody it'd be at least partially reassuring that they did more than the bare minimum (high school grad or GED). It doesn't necessarily measure how smart or skilled you are, but it gives me something to start with. Many high school grads can barely put 2+2 together, even though they got B's in H.S. Our education system exists solely to push people through, whether they earned it or not. Once you fix that, then I could agree with your argument more.
There's very few people I know with degrees that are actually swimming in their education debt (1 person). There's a handful I know that went into careers they didn't go to school for, and for some of those it was their choice to do that. I know ZERO people who actually regret getting their degree because of debt. That speaks volumes to me.
You're also ignoring the fact that there's tons of "higher" education options in the US. You can go 4 years to a college if you want a bachelors, but you don't have to. Lots of in-demand technical jobs are hiring 2-year associate degree students, where many of them got their education from a cheap community college or something equivalent. There's tons of very specific programs too that are very cheap that can be done in even less time, you can do alongside a job, and will catapult you ahead of where you are now while giving you some sense of direction in your career. Many of these also mix classes with hands-on training. It doesn't take 4 years of college to become a licensed plumber for example (which earns a very decent living). You can argue the quality of said educations all you want, but if it gets you a better job or fulfills a goal, then it works just fine.
If you can't find something that fits you and your wallet, you aren't looking in the right places.