Drafting table -- you can get them new for ~150 up and cheaper used, if you look around.
Most are adjustable.
Get a tall enough stool and you'll be able to sit down from time to time and keep working.
If you don't want to build stuff with military applications, then you know what--JUST DON'T!
Er, isn't that exactly what Mitch Altman has decided to do?
Actually, if you read up on kendo, which is what the lightsaber styles of the first three movies are based on, you'll see that Kenobi's skills have improved to the point that he realizes that jumping around and swinging is useless.
I don't know shit about Kendo, and I'm betting Lucas' mythology doesn't either, unless you're suggesting Kenobi has more mastery of Jedi lightsabre skills midway through ANH than Yoda himself does at the end of AOTC.
The other argument to be made is that Obi Wan is OLD
So the Yoda of E2:AOTC is YOUNG?
Vader is mostly machine and therefore lacking said midichlorians he wouldn't have the top-notch lightsaber skills anymore either.
What about the rest of his Jedi powers? did they fade with the advent of machinery? Darth Vader looks to have much more command of the force than young Anakin (choking the Imperial Officer from afar in ANH, teleporting inanimate objects at Luke in TESB, etc...)
Lucas should update all the Light-sabre duels, too. As it stands, the Jedi apparently lose their elite close-combat skills over time (e.g. Ben Kenobi & Anakin's sabre-play in E2: AOTC versus Ben Kenobi's and Darth's duel in E4: ANH -- whummmp.... whummmmp... whump-screesh.... whummmmp.)
I correct her when she says something the wrong way, and I explain why. She learns, and so can your wife.
Congratulations. In our house, things don't work that way. In fact, all the correcting in our house seems to be directed at me.
Of course, I'm not talking about grammar. If you can correct your wife's grammar, daily, and still call her your wife, you're wasting your time posting at slashdot. There's millions to be made selling your secret.
(Unless the secret is that she's a non-native speaker. There's still millions to be made in that line, I guess, but it's a crowded market.)
Once again, IANAE, but IANA.. has never stopped me before.
After a bunch of astute description of price/cost/profit and how they inter-relate to the market, this: Apple's Macintosh patents and copyrights (a legally enforced monopoly) have enabled them to sell at a higher price, but into a tiny market that can barely support the engineering effort of maintaining a genuinely different product line.
Certainly the patents etc enable Apple to hold the line against creeping commodification (heh -- I'm used to seeing that in a different context), but their efforts to sell something else -- their design sensibility -- is more interesting. The flat screen iMac is a good computer. It's also SUPER COOL. Plenty of non-BYOB people will buy them because of that (ie, my wife wants one for Easter because it's damn cute, bunny cute, in fact.). The point's the same -- firms have to figure out how to protect their margins...
So profit margins stay low. You take $20 more out in taxes, either they raise the price or they cut back on what goes in the box, because they aren't going to be able to cut back on their net for long and survive.
Of course. You assume they've already become pig farmers (selling at a smidge above cost). If they're that close to the bone already, they aren't gonna make it for long anyway. All this means is that the tax rate, however it's applied, needs to be reasonable. After all, even a brainless parasite knows enough not to slay the host...
Regarding your other comments, in other threads on the relationship among socially desirable outcomes (cleaning up after ourselves), private enterprise, and the state: If the Market can't do it, and the Government can't do it, then who?
if they cannot raise the price to compensate for taxes and other increased costs, they'll just stop making the product, or reduce the quality...
In a competitive market, the market sets prices, not producers. Commodity markets come closest to this happy circumstance (ask a your local corn farmer or pig rancher how much success he has 'passing additional costs on to the consumer'). The PC hardware industry is on the way there. According to free market logic, consumer electronics producers can do those things you note, or they can accept lower profit margins. Why? Consumers will punish those who chince on quality or insist on higher prices. To keep their margins up, they'll need to develop improved products, improved production processes, or sell someting else (Flat screen iMacs instead of Beige Boxen). The consumer wins BOTH lower prices and higher quality (and the entire economy gains increased efficiency as producers seek to reduce costs).
If not all three, then the promises made by legions free marketeers in the op-ed pages and elsewhere have been hollow...
Of course, the downside to having complete and total control over the engine is that you have to do all the calibration yourself. After having programmed the idle control/antistall stepper motor, and the accursed warmup maps, I have a huge amount of resepct for the OEM calibration guys.
Getting a car to idle smoothly under all weather conditions is tough work.
Yeah, I can remember re-tuning the Carb (Solex!) on my 68' Bug -- on the side of the road in a downpour. Turn a couple of screws, jiggle the spring, tap the float, and go. (Even re-timed the ignition while I was at it!) Ran great for another 500 miles.
Totally user-configurable, intuitive interface, requres no specialized tools (except a timing gun).
now multiply those two numbers together to determine the cost of waste disposal using your plan. for one plant. for one year. then ask yourself who is going to pay for that...
Despite all that, some people continue to insist that nuclear power is the cheapest, most reliable source of energy around. Go figure.
Anyway, it's bogus to assume that future civilizations are going to be more ignorant than we are. We can't avoid all possible dangers to the future citizens of the world.
Haven't seen The Mummy recently, have you? If you had, you'd know that back in the 1920's, we came this close to the end of the world, all because some egyptian religio-engineer figured out a more cost-efficient way to dispose of the dangerous by-products of their culture.
If civilization collapses and people are unable to read English or use Geiger counters, I think they have bigger problems than worrying about one dangerous site.
The Rosetta Stone, which holds ancient greek and egyptian writing, translates to "you of the distant future are damn lucky to have found this, otherwise you wouldn't have any idea what the egyptians were going on about with their wall writings..." Progress is about improving on what your forebears have given you. Fortunately, the egyptians didn't give us much, warning-wise (see The Mummy), so we don't have to contribute much to live up to our responsibilities to our progeny. Still, in the words of the immortal Gawain, 'true men can but try.'
People lose their perspective when it comes to nuclear energy. Over 1,000 people a year die because of the relatively mild CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards, yet we're supposed to worry about one reckless miner 10,000 years from now?
In 10,000 years we won't be mining anymore (at least not here on earth). We will, however, be desperate to return to our so-called 'mythical' roots, so of course many of us will be living underground. In fact, in 15,000 years, all of us will be living underground (the ozone layer having faded to a more distant memory than even/.) As you can see, effective warnings are critical since what you're proposing is storing nuclear waste in people's living rooms and pantries.
As to the CAFE standards killing 1000+ a year, well you'd think after 7000 years of civilization, we'd do a better job of warning people about the dangerousness of heavy technical reference tomes falling from 30 story buildings. Look people, stand out of the way when those things start dropping. And as for the folks losing control of their CAFE Standard reference manuals, there oughta be a law: No CAFE Standard reference book reading above the lobby.
So when the wholesale rates shot through the roof (remember, the rates had been kept down forcefully by the govt. for years), and the companies couldn't recoup their costs by charging higher rates to consumers, they folded, one by one.
It's unfortunate (and shoddy thinking) when only one aspect in a very complex situation is presented as a first cause. However, in this case, the poster's wrong-headed axiom in item 1 leads to the even more wrong-headed axiom 2. Here's a clip from a previous post of mine de-bunking another market uber alles stalwart's assertion that Cali De-Reg was de-regulation in name, but not in fact. Keep in mind, and as noted elsewhere in this thread, in the Cali debacle the wholesalers and the retailers were often siblings of the same corporate family; losses incurred to the one were profits to the other (and the twain meet upstream at the holding company -- see PG&E):
"It most certainly was 'power De-regulation.' The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) regulated all aspects of electricity generation in Cali before DeReg, including price. After DeReg, much less control from the PUC (including price). From a highly regulated environment (State-sponsored Monopoly subject to oversight) to the less regulated environment now (retail rates, service guarnatees via the ISO, etc) qualifies as 'De-regulation.'
"I'll try to head few counter-claims off at the pass...
"The canard about artificially low retail rates and naturally high wholesale prices is exactly that, a canard. The high wholesale prices are a result of market manipulation by a handful of the largest players. The retail price 'cap' was originally a price 'floor' intended to guarantee the pre-existing Utilities (who crafted the plan!) a pre-determined rate of profit for a pre-determined period. Power supply in the west was way Way WAY beyond demand for the last fifteen years (one of the reasons the De-Reg plan was hatched). The so-called energy supply crisis is way over-blown and mostly the result of plants (in California, but owned by out of state operators -- another result of De-Reg), being taken off line for maintnenace at inopportune times. One aspect of De-Reg not often commented on: In the Past, Utilities had to ask the PUC before taking a plant offline. The PUC could then coordinate maintnenace and maintain capacity across the system. After De-Reg, maintenance scheduling was left up to the market players. An interesting effect of the DeReg has been the increasingly rigorous maintenance schedule of Cali based power plants.
"If you want to define De-Regulation as No Fucking Rules at all (or whatever..), go right ahead. I'm curious how it might work."
Naturally, there's considerably more involved than energy industry collusion (the pols who voted Yea on this thing, for one), but reducing the problem to one of inefficient communication between sectors (retail to wholesale), won't help us get where we need to: a reliable, cost-efficient power system.
Re:Thinking about emergence
on
Emergence
·
· Score: 1
On the other hand, "The whole is equal to its parts and their interactions" sounds a lot less flashy.
Exactly. From your observation, an Axiom:
Physicists make poor poets.
One Google to find them
on
Emergence
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I would like to know what you think the ideal Intellectual Property laws are
I think this is crucial, and not just for Mr Lessig. As ar as I can tell, those of us for 'weak' IP protection have been waging a fighting retreat. (Or whingeing about it.) That's no way to win a war. Are there efforts underway to turn the tables and go on the offensive (beyond creative licensing)? Maybe the good people at EFF and the ACLU and elsewhere could go on the offensive for a change, encouraging anti-strong IP rights legislators (or, 'Pro-Free IP'), if such exist, to sponsor legislation? Put the other side on the defensive. Make them explain how and why closed and proprietary IP is the better option.
Heck, use 9/11 as effectively as the right has on a host of other issues (following Lessig: Free/Open IP makes innovation possible, which advances civilization, progress, equality, in contrast with the closed and static systems espoused by ultra-conservatives such as bin Laden, which lead only to oppression, murder, and mayhem...).
At the moment, I'm sitting in the office, stuffing several hundred envelopes with tipsheets, a cover letter and other marketing errata to generate some interest and sales in a book our little publishing company put out last spring. It's a good book. The author is a nice person. I hope this mail stuffing works out so we and she can make some money.
Your previous comment about "publisher's rules" to explain why your book isn't Open Source looked like a cop out. It is publisher's rules; without some limited exclusive rights to the material, why should a publisher spend their time and money to spread your ideas?
We probably agree on IP ('probably' because I haven't read your work), if, as you comment elsewhere, you consider the Founder's balance of Freedom and Private Property to be a reasonable compromise. The accelerating drive to carve up the Commons is discouraging, and dangerous, even for publishers.
Anyway, sorry for the previous troll; noxious fumes rising up from the envelope glue have made me a little testy this afternoon.
I mean if everybody gets the rights of the Constitution afforded to them why then do we have citizenship?
To vote. To pay taxes. To sit on juries. To hold political office. The Rights granted by the Constitution are granted to Persons, not 'Citizens.' I'll head off any complaints about semantics by making reference to the provisions for eligibility to be a Congressman:
No
person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen. [Emphasis mine]
If personhood = citizenship, then why did the framers make the distinction between the two when determining eligibility? For further edification on your rights, and mine, and those of visitors from distant lands, I suggest the ACLU (Join Today!).
Uh, no. Take a look here [usdoj.gov] and you'll see that the Attorney General [usdoj.gov] is the head of the DOJ. The President appoints the AG, but the AG does not report directly to the President.
Uh, No! The AG is chief of the DoJ, an Executive Department. The President is the Chief Executive. The buck stops on GWB's desk, whether he wants it to or not, whether he called the shot or not.
Bush may not have ordered the DoJ to do anything one way or another on this or any other case. It's still his DoJ. They made the decision he wanted them to make, or they are a 'rogue' department. Which is it?
Unless you're suggesting GWB is merely a puppet of other masters, in which case you'll get no argument from me.
but Bush can't just "order" the DOJ to stop trying to break up M$.
Of course he can. He's the boss. Perhaps the phrase "Bush has instructed the DoJ..." is a bit over the top, but it is GWB's administration, and as chief executive, the DoJ reports to him. The President is responsible for the actions of his underlings.
Of course, GWB is President due to a technicality of dubious legality, so he can't be held to the same standard as every other President.
Slashdot Mirror
Drafting table -- you can get them new for ~150 up and cheaper used, if you look around. Most are adjustable. Get a tall enough stool and you'll be able to sit down from time to time and keep working.
If you don't want to build stuff with military applications, then you know what--JUST DON'T! Er, isn't that exactly what Mitch Altman has decided to do?
With a 2400 baud modem, who needs rules?
I don't know shit about Kendo, and I'm betting Lucas' mythology doesn't either, unless you're suggesting Kenobi has more mastery of Jedi lightsabre skills midway through ANH than Yoda himself does at the end of AOTC.
So the Yoda of E2:AOTC is YOUNG?
Vader is mostly machine and therefore lacking said midichlorians he wouldn't have the top-notch lightsaber skills anymore either.
What about the rest of his Jedi powers? did they fade with the advent of machinery? Darth Vader looks to have much more command of the force than young Anakin (choking the Imperial Officer from afar in ANH, teleporting inanimate objects at Luke in TESB, etc...)
Lucas should update all the Light-sabre duels, too. As it stands, the Jedi apparently lose their elite close-combat skills over time (e.g. Ben Kenobi & Anakin's sabre-play in E2: AOTC versus Ben Kenobi's and Darth's duel in E4: ANH -- whummmp .... whummmmp... whump-screesh.... whummmmp.)
Congratulations. In our house, things don't work that way. In fact, all the correcting in our house seems to be directed at me.
Of course, I'm not talking about grammar. If you can correct your wife's grammar, daily, and still call her your wife, you're wasting your time posting at slashdot. There's millions to be made selling your secret. (Unless the secret is that she's a non-native speaker. There's still millions to be made in that line, I guess, but it's a crowded market.)
After a bunch of astute description of price/cost/profit and how they inter-relate to the market, this: Apple's Macintosh patents and copyrights (a legally enforced monopoly) have enabled them to sell at a higher price, but into a tiny market that can barely support the engineering effort of maintaining a genuinely different product line.
Certainly the patents etc enable Apple to hold the line against creeping commodification (heh -- I'm used to seeing that in a different context), but their efforts to sell something else -- their design sensibility -- is more interesting. The flat screen iMac is a good computer. It's also SUPER COOL. Plenty of non-BYOB people will buy them because of that (ie, my wife wants one for Easter because it's damn cute, bunny cute, in fact.). The point's the same -- firms have to figure out how to protect their margins...
So profit margins stay low. You take $20 more out in taxes, either they raise the price or they cut back on what goes in the box, because they aren't going to be able to cut back on their net for long and survive.
Of course. You assume they've already become pig farmers (selling at a smidge above cost). If they're that close to the bone already, they aren't gonna make it for long anyway. All this means is that the tax rate, however it's applied, needs to be reasonable. After all, even a brainless parasite knows enough not to slay the host...
Regarding your other comments, in other threads on the relationship among socially desirable outcomes (cleaning up after ourselves), private enterprise, and the state: If the Market can't do it, and the Government can't do it, then who?
if they cannot raise the price to compensate for taxes and other increased costs, they'll just stop making the product, or reduce the quality...
In a competitive market, the market sets prices, not producers. Commodity markets come closest to this happy circumstance (ask a your local corn farmer or pig rancher how much success he has 'passing additional costs on to the consumer'). The PC hardware industry is on the way there. According to free market logic, consumer electronics producers can do those things you note, or they can accept lower profit margins. Why? Consumers will punish those who chince on quality or insist on higher prices. To keep their margins up, they'll need to develop improved products, improved production processes, or sell someting else (Flat screen iMacs instead of Beige Boxen). The consumer wins BOTH lower prices and higher quality (and the entire economy gains increased efficiency as producers seek to reduce costs).
If not all three, then the promises made by legions free marketeers in the op-ed pages and elsewhere have been hollow...
all you need to set the timing on an air cooled VW is a 12v peanut bulb with aligator clips on the leads.
Heck, all you need is a 10mm wrench to loosen the distributor clamp, a lug wrench to turn the crank, and good ears to listen for the spark...
But a civilized man uses a stroboscopic timing gun.
Of course, the downside to having complete and total control over the engine is that you have to do all the calibration yourself. After having programmed the idle control/antistall stepper motor, and the accursed warmup maps, I have a huge amount of resepct for the OEM calibration guys. Getting a car to idle smoothly under all weather conditions is tough work.
Yeah, I can remember re-tuning the Carb (Solex!) on my 68' Bug -- on the side of the road in a downpour. Turn a couple of screws, jiggle the spring, tap the float, and go. (Even re-timed the ignition while I was at it!) Ran great for another 500 miles.
Totally user-configurable, intuitive interface, requres no specialized tools (except a timing gun).
I'm wondering: were this bugs marked "made in USA"?
Try "Made in Taiwan." Or even, "Hecho en Mexico."
now multiply those two numbers together to determine the cost of waste disposal using your plan. for one plant. for one year. then ask yourself who is going to pay for that...
Despite all that, some people continue to insist that nuclear power is the cheapest, most reliable source of energy around. Go figure.
Anyway, it's bogus to assume that future civilizations are going to be more ignorant than we are. We can't avoid all possible dangers to the future citizens of the world.
Haven't seen The Mummy recently, have you? If you had, you'd know that back in the 1920's, we came this close to the end of the world, all because some egyptian religio-engineer figured out a more cost-efficient way to dispose of the dangerous by-products of their culture.
If civilization collapses and people are unable to read English or use Geiger counters, I think they have bigger problems than worrying about one dangerous site.
The Rosetta Stone, which holds ancient greek and egyptian writing, translates to "you of the distant future are damn lucky to have found this, otherwise you wouldn't have any idea what the egyptians were going on about with their wall writings..." Progress is about improving on what your forebears have given you. Fortunately, the egyptians didn't give us much, warning-wise (see The Mummy), so we don't have to contribute much to live up to our responsibilities to our progeny. Still, in the words of the immortal Gawain, 'true men can but try.'
People lose their perspective when it comes to nuclear energy. Over 1,000 people a year die because of the relatively mild CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards, yet we're supposed to worry about one reckless miner 10,000 years from now?
In 10,000 years we won't be mining anymore (at least not here on earth). We will, however, be desperate to return to our so-called 'mythical' roots, so of course many of us will be living underground. In fact, in 15,000 years, all of us will be living underground (the ozone layer having faded to a more distant memory than even /.) As you can see, effective warnings are critical since what you're proposing is storing nuclear waste in people's living rooms and pantries.
As to the CAFE standards killing 1000+ a year, well you'd think after 7000 years of civilization, we'd do a better job of warning people about the dangerousness of heavy technical reference tomes falling from 30 story buildings. Look people, stand out of the way when those things start dropping. And as for the folks losing control of their CAFE Standard reference manuals, there oughta be a law: No CAFE Standard reference book reading above the lobby.
A coupla axioms courtesy of goodwid:
It's unfortunate (and shoddy thinking) when only one aspect in a very complex situation is presented as a first cause. However, in this case, the poster's wrong-headed axiom in item 1 leads to the even more wrong-headed axiom 2. Here's a clip from a previous post of mine de-bunking another market uber alles stalwart's assertion that Cali De-Reg was de-regulation in name, but not in fact. Keep in mind, and as noted elsewhere in this thread, in the Cali debacle the wholesalers and the retailers were often siblings of the same corporate family; losses incurred to the one were profits to the other (and the twain meet upstream at the holding company -- see PG&E):
Naturally, there's considerably more involved than energy industry collusion (the pols who voted Yea on this thing, for one), but reducing the problem to one of inefficient communication between sectors (retail to wholesale), won't help us get where we need to: a reliable, cost-efficient power system.On the other hand, "The whole is equal to its parts and their interactions" sounds a lot less flashy.
Exactly. From your observation, an Axiom:
Er, interesting review.
I googled and filtered, an intro to Emergence the notion, and an excerpt from Emergence the book. (In which Slashdot is discussed.)
Oh, and here's a less interesting book review of Emergence from the Village Voice.
I would like to know what you think the ideal Intellectual Property laws are
I think this is crucial, and not just for Mr Lessig. As ar as I can tell, those of us for 'weak' IP protection have been waging a fighting retreat. (Or whingeing about it.) That's no way to win a war. Are there efforts underway to turn the tables and go on the offensive (beyond creative licensing)? Maybe the good people at EFF and the ACLU and elsewhere could go on the offensive for a change, encouraging anti-strong IP rights legislators (or, 'Pro-Free IP'), if such exist, to sponsor legislation? Put the other side on the defensive. Make them explain how and why closed and proprietary IP is the better option.
Heck, use 9/11 as effectively as the right has on a host of other issues (following Lessig: Free/Open IP makes innovation possible, which advances civilization, progress, equality, in contrast with the closed and static systems espoused by ultra-conservatives such as bin Laden, which lead only to oppression, murder, and mayhem...).
Sure, plenty of Slashdot readers will sign up, but Joe Sixpack is perfectly content with his 28.8K connection to AOL.
Step into the way-back machine and swap 'broadband' for broadcast TV:
The customers will be there when the service is. Having the government install the infrastructure makes it affordable.
What's the matter with you?
At the moment, I'm sitting in the office, stuffing several hundred envelopes with tipsheets, a cover letter and other marketing errata to generate some interest and sales in a book our little publishing company put out last spring. It's a good book. The author is a nice person. I hope this mail stuffing works out so we and she can make some money.
Your previous comment about "publisher's rules" to explain why your book isn't Open Source looked like a cop out. It is publisher's rules; without some limited exclusive rights to the material, why should a publisher spend their time and money to spread your ideas?
We probably agree on IP ('probably' because I haven't read your work), if, as you comment elsewhere, you consider the Founder's balance of Freedom and Private Property to be a reasonable compromise. The accelerating drive to carve up the Commons is discouraging, and dangerous, even for publishers.
Anyway, sorry for the previous troll; noxious fumes rising up from the envelope glue have made me a little testy this afternoon.
but to enter stores, etc., publishers' rules rule.
Then Self Publish. Find a distributor. Market it. All it takes is time and money.
I mean if everybody gets the rights of the Constitution afforded to them why then do we have citizenship?
To vote. To pay taxes. To sit on juries. To hold political office. The Rights granted by the Constitution are granted to Persons, not 'Citizens.' I'll head off any complaints about semantics by making reference to the provisions for eligibility to be a Congressman:
If personhood = citizenship, then why did the framers make the distinction between the two when determining eligibility? For further edification on your rights, and mine, and those of visitors from distant lands, I suggest the ACLU (Join Today!).
Uh, no. Take a look here [usdoj.gov] and you'll see that the Attorney General [usdoj.gov] is the head of the DOJ. The President appoints the AG, but the AG does not report directly to the President.
Uh, No! The AG is chief of the DoJ, an Executive Department. The President is the Chief Executive. The buck stops on GWB's desk, whether he wants it to or not, whether he called the shot or not.
Bush may not have ordered the DoJ to do anything one way or another on this or any other case. It's still his DoJ. They made the decision he wanted them to make, or they are a 'rogue' department. Which is it?
Unless you're suggesting GWB is merely a puppet of other masters, in which case you'll get no argument from me.
EC
This has to do with the fact that Presidents that destroy the economy don't get re-elected.
It's a little late to start saving the economy now...
EC
but Bush can't just "order" the DOJ to stop trying to break up M$.
Of course he can. He's the boss. Perhaps the phrase "Bush has instructed the DoJ..." is a bit over the top, but it is GWB's administration, and as chief executive, the DoJ reports to him. The President is responsible for the actions of his underlings.
Of course, GWB is President due to a technicality of dubious legality, so he can't be held to the same standard as every other President.
EC