This stuff is why I don't understand people that consistently blame government for cost overruns, but never consider that corporations game the system to maximize their profits. We could probably cut the federal budget in half if the contractors working on government jobs stopped doing stuff like this to pad their spreadsheets.
Yeah, we sent men to the moon 60 years ago.. and had no workable plan for actually staying there. It was all political theater, not a concerted effort to build a viable colony.
Mars is just as much theater really. It's going to be hellishly difficult to get people there and back again. Unless there is a VERY solid groundwork behind the effort, it'll be another flashy "We did this!" mission. NASA can't afford to make any mistakes in what might be their only chance to get funded for something like this for the next century, so they're taking their time.
A traditional rigid module for the ISS is about 15 tons with 106 cubic meters of space. Bigelow's 330 module is 20 tons with 330 cubic meters of internal space. So 210% more internal volume for only 5 more tons of mass.
Filling that volume up can be done by several smaller rocket launches rather than 1 huge rocket launch for a traditional module, which is cheaper and easier to do. Furthermore, the internal components can be changed around unlike more traditional built in components.
There will still be call for the traditional rigid structures, especially for equipment it otherwise wouldn't be conceivable to send up individually. For large living space, hydroponics, or other general purpose zones the inflatable structures will be superior.
We really do know. Bigelow has put up inflatable habitats for testing before, this is just the first time NASA's used one. NASA is a very conservative organization, in the safety sense, which is great but slow.
I'm surprised the Russians never went anywhere with this technology. Their safety record is somewhat equal to your average town carnival, but they've made a lot of discoveries about living in space that the ISS uses.
There's a difference between "demanding improvement" and feeling that improvement is rounding them up and pushing them out of sight of their betters. Generally using words like "filth", "degenerates" or "animals" tells us which side of the argument you're on.
During the Gold Rush era people were complaining about Native Americans.
Has there ever been a time when people weren't complaining about the Native Americans? It 'is' how we justified taking all this land after all.
As for the rest of your statement, 9 out of 10 conservatives would say the Native Americans were better off being used as slave labor in capitalist endeavor rather than allowing them to remain in their tribal communist communities. They were improving their lot in life!
God Bless your confused little conservative heart!
In case you're wondering, yes that was said in the voice reserved for 'omg this retard is eating his own shit again' but nice.
It's always about taxes TAXES!! with conservatives. If it was taxes, then why are Mississippi and Kansas going bankrupt? They've lowered their tax rates to the point they don't exist (if you're rich already). Why didn't all those jobs gravitate to them instead of all the way over to China?
If only Americans weren't so privileged, what with expecting living wages and being able to have shelter. If only we didn't have a work ethic that allowed our corporate overlords to work us 7 days a week, 15 hours a day like China (and Kansas!). If only we allowed slave labor like China!
Oh the irony that true conservatives had to turn to a communist nation to find labor that understands it's place in the scheme of things.
Yes. You may notice that cities are overwhelmingly run by liberals.
I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble.
Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.
Yet our middle class is vanishing. Perhaps because the well paid manufacturing jobs that were shifted out to China were replaced with part time Wal-Mart jobs and public assistance.
Kansas is doing a lot better in terms of education than, say, California. And the high cost of living in places like California means that people tend be a lot better off elsewhere. For example, Alabama, Wyoming, Kansas, and Georgia come out ahead of California in terms of average salary once you adjust for cost of living.
Kansas is bleeding teachers. They've had so many teachers move out of the state they can only keep schools open by hiring unlicensed teachers to fill the gaps. The Kansas Supreme Court found the state's funding of schools to be unconstitutional. If that's your metric for "pretty good", don't bother replying, you have nothing worth saying.
Conservative economic voodoo policies have created the greatest wealth disparity this country has seen in it's entire history. Welcome to the Oligarchy you conservatives sold us into, but hey as long as we have cops doing genital checks outside public restrooms it was worth it for you I guess.
Hmmm so 'liberals' are responsible for urban decay.. has nothing to do with conservative 'job creators' creating all those jobs in China that used to be here..
Not to mention when I think of hellholes these days it's Kansas, Mississippi.. conservative led and falling apart because surprise surprise you can't cut taxes to nothing AND afford even minimal government. Let's not even talk about how they destroy their teachers.
...are you telling me you can be successful without a STEM degree?? Unpossible!
Also, this pretty much double's down on the common wisdom that programmers suck at being human or relating to humans and can't translate 'human' into code. As much as their Aspie little hearts wish they could.
There's a reason when a disaster occurs that calls come into to donate to the Red Cross, not send more money to FEMA...
Because they're stupid? Something like 30% or more of the money you donate to the Red Cross goes to fundraisers and management, not people in need.
Most charities are scams and spend the majority of the dollars they rake in from sympathetic chumps on their own executives or to professional fund raising firms.
Because there was no sufficient demand for it in the first place. Economics 101.
Yes, all the places that had to start their own municipal ISP's after begging their incumbent providers to sell them service repeatedly fell on deaf ears was not "sufficient demand". "Sufficient demand" is code for "profitable demand". For some services, like medicines or utilities, the needs of the people to access those products trumps the need for quick and easy profits.
Of course, they want to make profit, what's wrong with that?
Nice deflection there. First you say corporations "make the world better" and rather than defend that statement which is so obviously wrong a 4 year old can poke holes in it, you ask why is making a profit wrong. In and of itself, profit isn't wrong, as long as the methods and means to create that profit do no public harm.
The government does that — when it picks the "winner" based on the sympathies and biases of the bureaucrat(s), who do not spend his own money and is not even planning to use the purchased service himself (and sometimes even take bribes). This — government picking the winner — is what kills the competition and allows the thus-picked winners to do all those nasty things you claim to be unhappy about.
You simply can't admit your own delusion. You fault government officials for taking bribes to rig the market BUT WON'T FAULT BUSINESSES FOR PAYING THE BRIBES!!! Where do you think the money comes from? Some secret government bureau that bribes itself??? If businesses weren't fronting the money, there wouldn't be corrupt government officials! The two things are not separate from each other.
Plus the government creating standards and the occasional monopoly can also CREATE a market. The only reason we have coast to coast telephone service today is because the government subsidized it, gave Bell a monopoly on it to pay for it all, and provided right-of-way for the lines. If they hadn't "picked the winner", we'd have the phone system of your average 3rd world country and Verizon's equipment wouldn't talk to AT&T's.
Damn you Libertardian's are thick sometimes. Government does more to help business than hinder it, especially when it comes to holding back the unrestrained greed and forcing standards which enable equal competition.
There is no law in the US, that provides for capital punishment over ethics violations. You would have to become above the law yourself to start killing people over it...
I was talking about "killing" corporations, which are only "people" in legalistic terms. Because a corporate death penalty for egregious corporate behavior would be a good thing.
Nobody but suckers invests in an IPO anyway. By the time the IPO comes around, the VC's have already negotiated themselves all the profits. The IPO is just to rake in some bucks from the dumb bastards who think they're going to be instant millionaires. Sure they'll drive the stock up hundreds of points and then it'll sink like a rock and trade for under $1 a share for months once people figure out it's actual value.
The only 'winners' are the people who staged the game but never played.
You people, you do everything you can to deflect from the corporate greed that creates these situations.
Why did this service need to be provided by the government? Because corporations don't want to serve the public good, they only want to make as much profit as possible. They kill competition, don't deliver half what their marketing material promises, outright lie, dodge their customers and do whatever they can to force their beleaguered customers into arbitration or other avenues to limit their accountability when they're inevitably held accountable.
The reason those regulations are so insanely complicated? Decades of corporate sharks chipping away at the laws to create new and ever more inventive ways to steal from the public.
The solution is to force corporations to adhere to some damn ethics. Hold CEO's responsible and if corporations are people? Then how about we 'execute' a couple, just to remind the rest that they're not above the law.
Odd, you point out the government side of the problem.. but not the corporate side that takes the money, pockets it and ignores the reason they were given the money in the first place.
So keep in mind when voting, we need more regulation and oversight of corporations that take government money folks.
On the face of it, it seems so simple: you eat more than you burn -> you get fatter. However, that doesn't address the question of why people eat more than they need, and especially why it turns out to be almost impossible for most to stop doing it.
Nowhere in your argument did you consider or mention that gut bacteria varies from person to person and has quite a bit to do with how many calories get converted into fat. Lean people seemingly have better gut bacteria, and studies have shown that transplanting a lean persons bacteria to an overweight person can help them shed pounds.
Also, eating is literally necessary to live. People talk about being addicted to food, well yes, and we're addicted to oxygen and water too dumbasses. Our bodies are trying to hold onto every calorie possible in case there's no next meal for a while, it's survival biology.
Make a restaurant and advertise that you have portion sizes 1/2 everyone elses, see how long you stay in business. It's an ingrained mindset that's carried over for yes, two generations.
Also this?:
No, the problem simply lies in the mentality of 'bigger is better'.
Well duh-huh, that's exactly what I said. Larger sizes were presented as being more value for the buck when eating out, so to American minds, BIG = VALUE.
As for the countries hit hardest by WWII? Again, duh-huh, they were hit hard by WWII. They didn't have the immediate economic boom the US did afterwards, have tended to be more protectionist towards traditional culture (In the face of otherwise omnipresent Americanism) and have different perceptions of value.
** When I was a school child, there were no video games or internet. When you wanted to play, you got some friends together and had a pickup game of baseball or you rode your bikes around town or did some other outdoor activity. We were physically active on a daily basis, while now the normal entertainment is to sit still and play games. There's nothing wrong with games, but every hour spent doing that is one hour not spent running around outside burning calories.
When you were a kid, you played on playground equipment that was barely safer than just handing kids a box of razor blades. Nobody asked just why Mr. Johnson always had a pocket full of candy and liked to watch the children play all day. You would have killed your parents to get your hands on one of the video games we have now, you just didn't have a choice and can feel nostalgic about it.
** Sugar based sodas were consumed in moderation, or often, not at all. There were no "64 Oz Big Gulps", and no one ever drank sodas in my school. Your choices were milk or water. Parents rarely let children consume sodas.
And a lot of those kids grew up and said "I'm not going to be MY parents, here baby, have all the soda you want!" Besides, mommy and daddy are too busy working 24/7 to maintain our lifestyle to actually pay attention to you.
** There was less acceptance of overweight people, more social shaming. I won't say that was a good thing - shaming people can cause long term emotional harm and hurts in other ways. But one byproduct of this is that no one wanted to be "that fat kid". (My school had just one fat kid, where now childhood obesity is systemic, and I see 3rd graders who look... morbidly obese).
Congrats, you made fat people feel horrible and caused years of mental therapy and possible physical violence, but as long as they put down a hamburger mission accomplished I guess. You must feel proud. Not like anorexia is any kind of problem at all. Or like overeating can be caused by emotional trauma like hazing.
Now I'm nearing 60 and still normal weight. I have an easier time going up multiple flights of steps than, I would estimate, around 2/3 of the people who are in their 20's, because I'm carrying 50, 100, sometimes even 200 pounds less than they are at the same height.
We invented elevators and escalators because stairs suck, and now we shame people for using them.
There's a reason for the huge serving sizes, that is hard to back away from now. After the Great Depression and the austerity of WWII, restaurants started offering larger meals as a value proposition to attract customers. Now it's just expected and it's really difficult to tell people who are accustomed to 24oz steaks that they have to pay nearly the same amount for a 12oz. They'll just feel you're trying to scam them.
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This stuff is why I don't understand people that consistently blame government for cost overruns, but never consider that corporations game the system to maximize their profits. We could probably cut the federal budget in half if the contractors working on government jobs stopped doing stuff like this to pad their spreadsheets.
Yeah, we sent men to the moon 60 years ago.. and had no workable plan for actually staying there. It was all political theater, not a concerted effort to build a viable colony.
Mars is just as much theater really. It's going to be hellishly difficult to get people there and back again. Unless there is a VERY solid groundwork behind the effort, it'll be another flashy "We did this!" mission. NASA can't afford to make any mistakes in what might be their only chance to get funded for something like this for the next century, so they're taking their time.
A traditional rigid module for the ISS is about 15 tons with 106 cubic meters of space. Bigelow's 330 module is 20 tons with 330 cubic meters of internal space. So 210% more internal volume for only 5 more tons of mass.
Filling that volume up can be done by several smaller rocket launches rather than 1 huge rocket launch for a traditional module, which is cheaper and easier to do. Furthermore, the internal components can be changed around unlike more traditional built in components.
There will still be call for the traditional rigid structures, especially for equipment it otherwise wouldn't be conceivable to send up individually. For large living space, hydroponics, or other general purpose zones the inflatable structures will be superior.
We really do know. Bigelow has put up inflatable habitats for testing before, this is just the first time NASA's used one. NASA is a very conservative organization, in the safety sense, which is great but slow.
I'm surprised the Russians never went anywhere with this technology. Their safety record is somewhat equal to your average town carnival, but they've made a lot of discoveries about living in space that the ISS uses.
Once inflated those walls will be hard as steel, albeit with a nice cloth covering.
That's like saying "Thanks for this highway, I can really enjoy my moped now!"
Oh boo hoo. "He said words and he was held accountable!!" That's life. If you want to be in the public eye be prepared to deal with the fallout.
There's a difference between "demanding improvement" and feeling that improvement is rounding them up and pushing them out of sight of their betters. Generally using words like "filth", "degenerates" or "animals" tells us which side of the argument you're on.
During the Gold Rush era people were complaining about Native Americans.
Has there ever been a time when people weren't complaining about the Native Americans? It 'is' how we justified taking all this land after all.
As for the rest of your statement, 9 out of 10 conservatives would say the Native Americans were better off being used as slave labor in capitalist endeavor rather than allowing them to remain in their tribal communist communities. They were improving their lot in life!
God Bless your confused little conservative heart!
In case you're wondering, yes that was said in the voice reserved for 'omg this retard is eating his own shit again' but nice.
It's always about taxes TAXES!! with conservatives. If it was taxes, then why are Mississippi and Kansas going bankrupt? They've lowered their tax rates to the point they don't exist (if you're rich already). Why didn't all those jobs gravitate to them instead of all the way over to China?
If only Americans weren't so privileged, what with expecting living wages and being able to have shelter. If only we didn't have a work ethic that allowed our corporate overlords to work us 7 days a week, 15 hours a day like China (and Kansas!). If only we allowed slave labor like China!
Oh the irony that true conservatives had to turn to a communist nation to find labor that understands it's place in the scheme of things.
Yes. You may notice that cities are overwhelmingly run by liberals.
I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble.
Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.
Yet our middle class is vanishing. Perhaps because the well paid manufacturing jobs that were shifted out to China were replaced with part time Wal-Mart jobs and public assistance.
Kansas is doing a lot better in terms of education than, say, California. And the high cost of living in places like California means that people tend be a lot better off elsewhere. For example, Alabama, Wyoming, Kansas, and Georgia come out ahead of California in terms of average salary once you adjust for cost of living.
Kansas is bleeding teachers. They've had so many teachers move out of the state they can only keep schools open by hiring unlicensed teachers to fill the gaps. The Kansas Supreme Court found the state's funding of schools to be unconstitutional. If that's your metric for "pretty good", don't bother replying, you have nothing worth saying.
Conservative economic voodoo policies have created the greatest wealth disparity this country has seen in it's entire history. Welcome to the Oligarchy you conservatives sold us into, but hey as long as we have cops doing genital checks outside public restrooms it was worth it for you I guess.
If you want to live in a curated life, move to Disney Land, buy the clothes they tell you to wear, work the job they tell you to work.
Rest of us will be dealing with real life. You won't be missed.
Hmmm so 'liberals' are responsible for urban decay.. has nothing to do with conservative 'job creators' creating all those jobs in China that used to be here..
Not to mention when I think of hellholes these days it's Kansas, Mississippi.. conservative led and falling apart because surprise surprise you can't cut taxes to nothing AND afford even minimal government. Let's not even talk about how they destroy their teachers.
...are you telling me you can be successful without a STEM degree?? Unpossible!
Also, this pretty much double's down on the common wisdom that programmers suck at being human or relating to humans and can't translate 'human' into code. As much as their Aspie little hearts wish they could.
There's a reason when a disaster occurs that calls come into to donate to the Red Cross, not send more money to FEMA...
Because they're stupid? Something like 30% or more of the money you donate to the Red Cross goes to fundraisers and management, not people in need.
Most charities are scams and spend the majority of the dollars they rake in from sympathetic chumps on their own executives or to professional fund raising firms.
Because there was no sufficient demand for it in the first place. Economics 101.
Yes, all the places that had to start their own municipal ISP's after begging their incumbent providers to sell them service repeatedly fell on deaf ears was not "sufficient demand". "Sufficient demand" is code for "profitable demand". For some services, like medicines or utilities, the needs of the people to access those products trumps the need for quick and easy profits.
Of course, they want to make profit, what's wrong with that?
Nice deflection there. First you say corporations "make the world better" and rather than defend that statement which is so obviously wrong a 4 year old can poke holes in it, you ask why is making a profit wrong. In and of itself, profit isn't wrong, as long as the methods and means to create that profit do no public harm.
The government does that — when it picks the "winner" based on the sympathies and biases of the bureaucrat(s), who do not spend his own money and is not even planning to use the purchased service himself (and sometimes even take bribes). This — government picking the winner — is what kills the competition and allows the thus-picked winners to do all those nasty things you claim to be unhappy about.
You simply can't admit your own delusion. You fault government officials for taking bribes to rig the market BUT WON'T FAULT BUSINESSES FOR PAYING THE BRIBES!!! Where do you think the money comes from? Some secret government bureau that bribes itself??? If businesses weren't fronting the money, there wouldn't be corrupt government officials! The two things are not separate from each other.
Plus the government creating standards and the occasional monopoly can also CREATE a market. The only reason we have coast to coast telephone service today is because the government subsidized it, gave Bell a monopoly on it to pay for it all, and provided right-of-way for the lines. If they hadn't "picked the winner", we'd have the phone system of your average 3rd world country and Verizon's equipment wouldn't talk to AT&T's.
Damn you Libertardian's are thick sometimes. Government does more to help business than hinder it, especially when it comes to holding back the unrestrained greed and forcing standards which enable equal competition.
There is no law in the US, that provides for capital punishment over ethics violations. You would have to become above the law yourself to start killing people over it...
I was talking about "killing" corporations, which are only "people" in legalistic terms. Because a corporate death penalty for egregious corporate behavior would be a good thing.
Nobody but suckers invests in an IPO anyway. By the time the IPO comes around, the VC's have already negotiated themselves all the profits. The IPO is just to rake in some bucks from the dumb bastards who think they're going to be instant millionaires. Sure they'll drive the stock up hundreds of points and then it'll sink like a rock and trade for under $1 a share for months once people figure out it's actual value.
The only 'winners' are the people who staged the game but never played.
Capitalism self corrects around it and uses our worst side -- the greed -- to make the world better.
No, it does not make the world better. It just has really impressive marketing to make you think it does.
'The Market' does not choose the best choice, just the most profitable one. Its only metric of 'good' is profit, and nothing else matters.
You people, you do everything you can to deflect from the corporate greed that creates these situations.
Why did this service need to be provided by the government? Because corporations don't want to serve the public good, they only want to make as much profit as possible. They kill competition, don't deliver half what their marketing material promises, outright lie, dodge their customers and do whatever they can to force their beleaguered customers into arbitration or other avenues to limit their accountability when they're inevitably held accountable.
The reason those regulations are so insanely complicated? Decades of corporate sharks chipping away at the laws to create new and ever more inventive ways to steal from the public.
The solution is to force corporations to adhere to some damn ethics. Hold CEO's responsible and if corporations are people? Then how about we 'execute' a couple, just to remind the rest that they're not above the law.
Funny, NY's free gigabit WiFi is working just fine.
Odd, you point out the government side of the problem.. but not the corporate side that takes the money, pockets it and ignores the reason they were given the money in the first place.
So keep in mind when voting, we need more regulation and oversight of corporations that take government money folks.
On the face of it, it seems so simple: you eat more than you burn -> you get fatter. However, that doesn't address the question of why people eat more than they need, and especially why it turns out to be almost impossible for most to stop doing it.
Nowhere in your argument did you consider or mention that gut bacteria varies from person to person and has quite a bit to do with how many calories get converted into fat. Lean people seemingly have better gut bacteria, and studies have shown that transplanting a lean persons bacteria to an overweight person can help them shed pounds.
There are other issues with weight gain and weight loss that have more to do with simplistic "just eat less" advice. It's a mutlifaceted problem and no two people have exactly the same mix of causes. Lab animals, with the most regulated diets of any living thing in the world, have been gaining weight and scientists don't know why. Unfortunately as a society we celebrate the people who run a mile and drop 50 pounds and expect everyone to be the same if only they had more willpower.
Also, eating is literally necessary to live. People talk about being addicted to food, well yes, and we're addicted to oxygen and water too dumbasses. Our bodies are trying to hold onto every calorie possible in case there's no next meal for a while, it's survival biology.
Make a restaurant and advertise that you have portion sizes 1/2 everyone elses, see how long you stay in business. It's an ingrained mindset that's carried over for yes, two generations.
Also this?:
No, the problem simply lies in the mentality of 'bigger is better'.
Well duh-huh, that's exactly what I said. Larger sizes were presented as being more value for the buck when eating out, so to American minds, BIG = VALUE.
As for the countries hit hardest by WWII? Again, duh-huh, they were hit hard by WWII. They didn't have the immediate economic boom the US did afterwards, have tended to be more protectionist towards traditional culture (In the face of otherwise omnipresent Americanism) and have different perceptions of value.
** When I was a school child, there were no video games or internet. When you wanted to play, you got some friends together and had a pickup game of baseball or you rode your bikes around town or did some other outdoor activity. We were physically active on a daily basis, while now the normal entertainment is to sit still and play games. There's nothing wrong with games, but every hour spent doing that is one hour not spent running around outside burning calories.
When you were a kid, you played on playground equipment that was barely safer than just handing kids a box of razor blades. Nobody asked just why Mr. Johnson always had a pocket full of candy and liked to watch the children play all day. You would have killed your parents to get your hands on one of the video games we have now, you just didn't have a choice and can feel nostalgic about it.
** Sugar based sodas were consumed in moderation, or often, not at all. There were no "64 Oz Big Gulps", and no one ever drank sodas in my school. Your choices were milk or water. Parents rarely let children consume sodas.
And a lot of those kids grew up and said "I'm not going to be MY parents, here baby, have all the soda you want!" Besides, mommy and daddy are too busy working 24/7 to maintain our lifestyle to actually pay attention to you.
** There was less acceptance of overweight people, more social shaming. I won't say that was a good thing - shaming people can cause long term emotional harm and hurts in other ways. But one byproduct of this is that no one wanted to be "that fat kid". (My school had just one fat kid, where now childhood obesity is systemic, and I see 3rd graders who look... morbidly obese).
Congrats, you made fat people feel horrible and caused years of mental therapy and possible physical violence, but as long as they put down a hamburger mission accomplished I guess. You must feel proud. Not like anorexia is any kind of problem at all. Or like overeating can be caused by emotional trauma like hazing.
Now I'm nearing 60 and still normal weight. I have an easier time going up multiple flights of steps than, I would estimate, around 2/3 of the people who are in their 20's, because I'm carrying 50, 100, sometimes even 200 pounds less than they are at the same height.
We invented elevators and escalators because stairs suck, and now we shame people for using them.
There's a reason for the huge serving sizes, that is hard to back away from now. After the Great Depression and the austerity of WWII, restaurants started offering larger meals as a value proposition to attract customers. Now it's just expected and it's really difficult to tell people who are accustomed to 24oz steaks that they have to pay nearly the same amount for a 12oz. They'll just feel you're trying to scam them.