The energy is free, just like the wind, you just need to spend some money to collect it.
Oil is free, like the wind. You just need to spend some money to collect it. Nuclear is free, just like the wind. You just need to spend some money to collect it.
Repeat for any other energy source you can think of.
Vegas gets its water from Lake Mead. How do you propose we get that water to central California?
Is the concept of an example of unsustainable and stupid water usage too difficult? I'll make it simpler. We are diverting lots of water to central California, more than appears to be sustainable. We should stop doing that.
That's great that you know what should or shouldn't have happen. Brav-fucking-O . Now, how about a solution?
[slow clap] Oh aren't you precious. [/slow clap]
Here's a solution to the Vegas issue. Drain the damn swimming pools and restrict the amount of water available in the city to sustainable worst case levels. It's a desert and if Vegas dries up and blows away that would be fine. People can go somewhere else to gamble and pick up hookers. Here's a solution the Central Valley issue. Adjust water policies to be based on the low end of long term sustainable usage. If that means less farming in the Central Valley then so be it.
You may be unaware, but you can get heat from this big ball in the sky (we like to call it 'the Sun"). A few parabolic trough mirrors can concentrate it nicely for things like heating lots of water....
You may be unaware that doing that at industrial scale is hugely expensive and requires more land than is probably feasible. Explain to me how you are going to use a "few parabolic trough mirrors" to heat millions of gallons of water each day such that you evaporate it all. How will this work when the sun isn't shining?
Just because it works in your back yard doesn't mean it works at large scale.
Most areas flooded experienced little effect on local vegetation and I should know, I live in south Queens (not effected by Sandy though, I am north of the Belt Parkway.) A few plants and trees died but that was about it. Everyone still has green lawns and plenty of trees.
Cute how you think there is meaningful amounts of vegetation in NYC.
Shut down the Hoover Dam and destroy the ecosystem of the Colorado river to teach California a lesson.
They've already basically destroyed much of the ecosystem of the Colorado river. Hell, it doesn't even reach the ocean any more. I'm not really sure how much more damage they could really do to the river.
Desalination plants don't boil water to filter the salt out
Incorrect. Quite a few of them do boil the water. Some through vaccuum distillation which lowers the energy requirements but it still is boiling the water. Reverse osmosis is the principle competitive technology to distillation methods but both exist.
Agriculture uses about 70%, with industry using 20% and urban populations using 10% of the water. Agriculture, you know, that stuff you eat from those greedy bastards in California.
Much of the Central Valley in California is really a semi-arid desert. Farm in a desert and it should not be shocking to anyone that you'll run into water shortages sooner or later.
Plus a non-trivial amount of water that could be used for farming is diverted to places like Las Vegas that simply should never have been built in the first place. You don't build a major metropolitan area in the middle of a desert unless you have no alternatives. And you certainly don't put swimming pools there. I've ever heard some foolish talk about diverting water from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi to support these desert communities. (which fortunately will not happen)
2) Southern California is a semi-desert anyway... always has been, always will be (well, within the next few centuries, anyway).3) If they hadn't been so busy diverting existing water to save some obscure and hyper-local species of fish...
These two arguments contradict one another. If it's a desert then realistically they shouldn't have been diverting the water that said fish depends on in the first place. It only became an issue because water was diverted that shouldn't have been. You don't build stuff or farm in a desert when you don't have to. Las Vegas and Phoenix should not exist in anything close to their current form.
To me all you need to do is boil water to strip the salt, you sell the salt and the water back.
The difficulty is not the ability to do it, it is that the energy requirements make it economically uncompetitive. Boiling that much water and then collecting the condensation generally takes a LOT of energy which is quite expensive in most cases. Places with a desert like climate and abundant energy resources (like the Middle East) can result in desalinization plants that are economically sensible but in much of the world it's just not competitive. Theoretically you could have a nuclear powered desalinization plant that might be economically competitive but I'm not aware that anyone has done this yet.
you sell the salt and the water back.
Doesn't work when it cost you more to get the salt and water than it costs to truck/pipe it in from elsewhere. Salt in this case is a byproduct but you wouldn't be able to sell it profitably or even on a breakeven basis given current prices in most places. Same with the water if it is being sold to farmers. It makes their crops economically uncompetitive with those from areas not experiencing drought.
Obviously it is more proccessing, and more expensive than getting just ground water or rain water because of that but how much more expensive can it really be?
Is there a way of transferring stock (for instance an S&P500 ETF) as easily as bitcoins can be transferred?
Virtually all stock transfers are done electronically so the answer is yes. In fact it is a fairly trivial exercise done daily by millions of people worldwide. Stock can be sold through exchanges but it can also be sold directly and the infrastructure to track all this is available.
Bitcoin has more intrinsic value than stocks because because it's a limited resource whereas stocks can split and reverse split and are available at the whim of the company offering them.
A stock split has NO effect on the value of a company. A stock split is almost exactly like trading a $20 bill for two $10 bills. The total amount of money you have is unchanged. What gives a share of stock value is the assets (particularly future cash flows) that it gives you rights over.
Bitcoin CANNOT have intrinsic value because intrinsic value is defined as value independent of market value. A digital currency by definition has no value independent of its market value.
That's because stock shares ARE pieces of the company. It is literally a share in ownership and a claim to a portion of the assets controlled by that company including future free cash flows.
Hell I have framed on my wall a Certificate for Pan American Airlines Stock that is 100% worthless.
But you seem to completely misunderstand why it is worthless. The stock certificate holds no value just like the paper in a dollar bill has no significant value. It's the assets it gives you claim to that have value. Companies most certainly have value while they exist and are generating cash flows. Think of owning a company as owning a mine that mines cash flows. Sometimes the mine runs dry and then it is no longer valuable. Pan-Am is a cash flow mine that ran dry similar to a gold mine that ran out of gold.
You want your currency to actually have worth, you back it with Gold.
What gives currency value? Belief that it has value. What gives gold value? Belief that it has value. Gold has magical properties that make it valuable for reasons different than any other asset, including currency. It's worth what people believe it to be worth based on supply and demand. Nothing more, nothing less. Tying the value of a currency to gold (a peg) has certain consequences but it does not change what gives it value in the first place.
Sure, conflict with China is possible, but with the USSR it was seen as almost inevitable.
Conflict with the USSR did happen but mostly through proxy battles. It was called the Cold *War* for a reason. The main worry on both sides was of a nuclear first strike by the other. I think for the most part both sides were fairly rational. Day to day most people didn't think a shooting war was likely though that opinion depended significantly on exactly when you asked.
China has no territorial claims outside of Taiwan (which both the US and Taiwan itself acknowledge to be part of China) and a handful of disputed islands.
China has territory disputes with Taiwan, Japan, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, North and South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. Most of these are of little consequence but they are very real. Furthermore China is starting to extend their economic reach to places like Africa and South America so disputes over resources and trade are likely to increase in the future.
I lived in China for several years, and learned to speak the language. Chinese people like Americans. They don't see us as enemies or even rivals.
I've been to China myself and I agree that the Chinese people are very friendly. More so than most of the other countries in the region I've been to. I don't think they see us as enemies though I disagree that there isn't a rivalry. I think it is mostly a friendly rivalry though I worry that as China's military power increases it may become less so. China's interests and US interests haven't butted heads too much but I don't think that will remain the case forever. I think China aspires to be a world power (who can blame them?) and there is a very real chance they will accomplish that feat. They already are an economic world power and arguably a political one too.
I think we do tend to show China less respect than we probably should. But then I think the US tends to show most countries less respect than they deserve.
The Soviet Union had ICBMs targeted at American cities
You seriously think China doesn't? China has the capability and I'm sure both China and the USA have some nukes with the other's name on them. It's not as tense as the cold war was (I'm old enough to have lived through a good bit of the cold war) but any time you have two large nation states there is always the possibility of military conflict.
I'm not hugely worried about getting into a shooting war with China but it's hardly inconceivable. Most likely source would be Taiwan. Also could be issues with Japan or on the Korean peninsula.
It is nothing remotely like blackface comedy. Nerds do not have anywhere close to the history of racism and slavery and abuse that black people do. The comparison between the two is absurd on the face of it.
It's not for nerds, but for people who want to laugh at nerds.
I'm a nerd and I laugh at it. But maybe I actually have a sense of humor and can laugh at myself.
We weren't supposed to be laughing at the nerdy Radar
Radar wasn't nerdy. He was supposed to be a naive farmboy who was more clever than he seemed at first.
r the obviously gay Klinger
Klinger wasn't gay. He was trying to get a Section 8 discharge (the kind you get for being crazy) and dressed in women's clothing among other things to get it. What made it funny is that it was obvious even at a glance that he wasn't crazy at all so they never discharged him.
Hot Lips Hulahan not supposed to be the dumbass blonde?
No. She was supposed to be a rulebook quoting pain in the ass and involved with Frank Burns who was a dumbass.
M*A*S*H, specifically the comedy years. It was nothing at all like the appalling Nerd Blackface that The Big Bang Theory is.
"Appalling nerd blackface"? Before you go claiming some equivalency to blackface plays, please point out to the rest of the class where in the course of US history nerds were systematically enslaved, denied voting rights, subjected to Jim Crow laws, forbidden to marry non-nerds, declared to be sub-human, segregated, forced to sit in the back of buses, refused service, denied basic civil rights, etc. Where is the constitutional amendment protecting nerds as a protected class? When did nerds need their version of a Civil Rights act?
I also agree TBBT has blackface or 'coon show' qualities.
REALLY? Point out to me the 400 years of slavery or some equivalent to Jim Crow laws. Show me where in the history of the US geeks were not allowed to marry non-geeks. Show me where in the constitution they had to put in an amendment protecting nerds. Show me where nerds were prevented from voting. Thinking blackface shows and TBBT are in any meaningful way equivalent is both arrogant and absurd.
I don't care if you like the show or not. People's senses of humor vary and it's fine if you don't think it is funny. But you seriously need to stop taking life too seriously and laugh a bit.
And your 401k is managed by people so naive as to allow that? They don't themselves adopt similar technologies and strategies to mitigate that?
The people who manage your 401K are not paid for performance. They do not give a shit if you make or lose money. They get paid either way. Furthermore what makes you think they aren't in on the fleecing? It might not be the folks managing the 401K but it may very well be some other arm of the company managing your 401K.
The CEO isn't the guy who does the technical work. His job is to find money for the company and provide vague "direction". Pixel counts are totally beneath him.
CEOs don't start in that role and they don't get that job by being idiots. Katzenberg has worked in the film industry since 1974. I'm pretty sure he's got a clue what a pixel is.
That said, Katzenberg appears to all evidence I can find to be pretty much a weasel.
Slashdot Mirror
The energy is free, just like the wind, you just need to spend some money to collect it.
Oil is free, like the wind. You just need to spend some money to collect it. Nuclear is free, just like the wind. You just need to spend some money to collect it.
Repeat for any other energy source you can think of.
Nothing is free. Thermodynamics ensures that.
Neither of you seems to understand what the word 'drught' means.
I'm not sure I know what "drught" means either. Care to elaborate for us? [/teasing]
Vegas gets its water from Lake Mead. How do you propose we get that water to central California?
Is the concept of an example of unsustainable and stupid water usage too difficult? I'll make it simpler. We are diverting lots of water to central California, more than appears to be sustainable. We should stop doing that.
That's great that you know what should or shouldn't have happen. Brav-fucking-O . Now, how about a solution?
[slow clap] Oh aren't you precious. [/slow clap]
Here's a solution to the Vegas issue. Drain the damn swimming pools and restrict the amount of water available in the city to sustainable worst case levels. It's a desert and if Vegas dries up and blows away that would be fine. People can go somewhere else to gamble and pick up hookers. Here's a solution the Central Valley issue. Adjust water policies to be based on the low end of long term sustainable usage. If that means less farming in the Central Valley then so be it.
Why can't food be grown in the Great Plains instead of the Mojave Desert?
It is grown there. However we're draining a lot of the aquifers in the Great Plains too since we plant crops like corn that use a LOT of water.
You may be unaware, but you can get heat from this big ball in the sky (we like to call it 'the Sun"). A few parabolic trough mirrors can concentrate it nicely for things like heating lots of water....
You may be unaware that doing that at industrial scale is hugely expensive and requires more land than is probably feasible. Explain to me how you are going to use a "few parabolic trough mirrors" to heat millions of gallons of water each day such that you evaporate it all. How will this work when the sun isn't shining?
Just because it works in your back yard doesn't mean it works at large scale.
It will keep going for another billion years or more, you just have to collect the radiated energy.
Neat. So you've figured out a way to collect that radiated energy for free then? If so then your Nobel prize await!
Most areas flooded experienced little effect on local vegetation and I should know, I live in south Queens (not effected by Sandy though, I am north of the Belt Parkway.) A few plants and trees died but that was about it. Everyone still has green lawns and plenty of trees.
Cute how you think there is meaningful amounts of vegetation in NYC.
Shut down the Hoover Dam and destroy the ecosystem of the Colorado river to teach California a lesson.
They've already basically destroyed much of the ecosystem of the Colorado river. Hell, it doesn't even reach the ocean any more. I'm not really sure how much more damage they could really do to the river.
Desalination plants don't boil water to filter the salt out
Incorrect. Quite a few of them do boil the water. Some through vaccuum distillation which lowers the energy requirements but it still is boiling the water. Reverse osmosis is the principle competitive technology to distillation methods but both exist.
Agriculture uses about 70%, with industry using 20% and urban populations using 10% of the water. Agriculture, you know, that stuff you eat from those greedy bastards in California.
Much of the Central Valley in California is really a semi-arid desert. Farm in a desert and it should not be shocking to anyone that you'll run into water shortages sooner or later.
Plus a non-trivial amount of water that could be used for farming is diverted to places like Las Vegas that simply should never have been built in the first place. You don't build a major metropolitan area in the middle of a desert unless you have no alternatives. And you certainly don't put swimming pools there. I've ever heard some foolish talk about diverting water from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi to support these desert communities. (which fortunately will not happen)
2) Southern California is a semi-desert anyway... always has been, always will be (well, within the next few centuries, anyway).3) If they hadn't been so busy diverting existing water to save some obscure and hyper-local species of fish...
These two arguments contradict one another. If it's a desert then realistically they shouldn't have been diverting the water that said fish depends on in the first place. It only became an issue because water was diverted that shouldn't have been. You don't build stuff or farm in a desert when you don't have to. Las Vegas and Phoenix should not exist in anything close to their current form.
To me all you need to do is boil water to strip the salt, you sell the salt and the water back.
The difficulty is not the ability to do it, it is that the energy requirements make it economically uncompetitive. Boiling that much water and then collecting the condensation generally takes a LOT of energy which is quite expensive in most cases. Places with a desert like climate and abundant energy resources (like the Middle East) can result in desalinization plants that are economically sensible but in much of the world it's just not competitive. Theoretically you could have a nuclear powered desalinization plant that might be economically competitive but I'm not aware that anyone has done this yet.
you sell the salt and the water back.
Doesn't work when it cost you more to get the salt and water than it costs to truck/pipe it in from elsewhere. Salt in this case is a byproduct but you wouldn't be able to sell it profitably or even on a breakeven basis given current prices in most places. Same with the water if it is being sold to farmers. It makes their crops economically uncompetitive with those from areas not experiencing drought.
Obviously it is more proccessing, and more expensive than getting just ground water or rain water because of that but how much more expensive can it really be?
Consult wikipedia for a quick answer.
could it not be done in a way where we use the salt water in a new type of energy generating plant, that collects the steam and makes it usable?
There are waste heat desalinization plants being experimented with.
Stocks do have intrinsic value because owning a stock is equivalent to owning a company
It's not equivalent to owning a company. It IS owning a company or at least some fractional amount of the company. No need for equivocation.
Is there a way of transferring stock (for instance an S&P500 ETF) as easily as bitcoins can be transferred?
Virtually all stock transfers are done electronically so the answer is yes. In fact it is a fairly trivial exercise done daily by millions of people worldwide. Stock can be sold through exchanges but it can also be sold directly and the infrastructure to track all this is available.
Bitcoin has more intrinsic value than stocks because because it's a limited resource whereas stocks can split and reverse split and are available at the whim of the company offering them.
A stock split has NO effect on the value of a company. A stock split is almost exactly like trading a $20 bill for two $10 bills. The total amount of money you have is unchanged. What gives a share of stock value is the assets (particularly future cash flows) that it gives you rights over.
Bitcoin CANNOT have intrinsic value because intrinsic value is defined as value independent of market value. A digital currency by definition has no value independent of its market value.
I cant trade them in for pieces of the company...
That's because stock shares ARE pieces of the company. It is literally a share in ownership and a claim to a portion of the assets controlled by that company including future free cash flows.
Hell I have framed on my wall a Certificate for Pan American Airlines Stock that is 100% worthless.
But you seem to completely misunderstand why it is worthless. The stock certificate holds no value just like the paper in a dollar bill has no significant value. It's the assets it gives you claim to that have value. Companies most certainly have value while they exist and are generating cash flows. Think of owning a company as owning a mine that mines cash flows. Sometimes the mine runs dry and then it is no longer valuable. Pan-Am is a cash flow mine that ran dry similar to a gold mine that ran out of gold.
You want your currency to actually have worth, you back it with Gold.
What gives currency value? Belief that it has value. What gives gold value? Belief that it has value. Gold has magical properties that make it valuable for reasons different than any other asset, including currency. It's worth what people believe it to be worth based on supply and demand. Nothing more, nothing less. Tying the value of a currency to gold (a peg) has certain consequences but it does not change what gives it value in the first place.
Sure, conflict with China is possible, but with the USSR it was seen as almost inevitable.
Conflict with the USSR did happen but mostly through proxy battles. It was called the Cold *War* for a reason. The main worry on both sides was of a nuclear first strike by the other. I think for the most part both sides were fairly rational. Day to day most people didn't think a shooting war was likely though that opinion depended significantly on exactly when you asked.
China has no territorial claims outside of Taiwan (which both the US and Taiwan itself acknowledge to be part of China) and a handful of disputed islands.
China has territory disputes with Taiwan, Japan, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, North and South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. Most of these are of little consequence but they are very real. Furthermore China is starting to extend their economic reach to places like Africa and South America so disputes over resources and trade are likely to increase in the future.
I lived in China for several years, and learned to speak the language. Chinese people like Americans. They don't see us as enemies or even rivals.
I've been to China myself and I agree that the Chinese people are very friendly. More so than most of the other countries in the region I've been to. I don't think they see us as enemies though I disagree that there isn't a rivalry. I think it is mostly a friendly rivalry though I worry that as China's military power increases it may become less so. China's interests and US interests haven't butted heads too much but I don't think that will remain the case forever. I think China aspires to be a world power (who can blame them?) and there is a very real chance they will accomplish that feat. They already are an economic world power and arguably a political one too.
I think we do tend to show China less respect than we probably should. But then I think the US tends to show most countries less respect than they deserve.
The Soviet Union had ICBMs targeted at American cities
You seriously think China doesn't? China has the capability and I'm sure both China and the USA have some nukes with the other's name on them. It's not as tense as the cold war was (I'm old enough to have lived through a good bit of the cold war) but any time you have two large nation states there is always the possibility of military conflict.
I'm not hugely worried about getting into a shooting war with China but it's hardly inconceivable. Most likely source would be Taiwan. Also could be issues with Japan or on the Korean peninsula.
Big Bang Theory is like blackface comedy.
It is nothing remotely like blackface comedy. Nerds do not have anywhere close to the history of racism and slavery and abuse that black people do. The comparison between the two is absurd on the face of it.
It's not for nerds, but for people who want to laugh at nerds.
I'm a nerd and I laugh at it. But maybe I actually have a sense of humor and can laugh at myself.
We weren't supposed to be laughing at the nerdy Radar
Radar wasn't nerdy. He was supposed to be a naive farmboy who was more clever than he seemed at first.
r the obviously gay Klinger
Klinger wasn't gay. He was trying to get a Section 8 discharge (the kind you get for being crazy) and dressed in women's clothing among other things to get it. What made it funny is that it was obvious even at a glance that he wasn't crazy at all so they never discharged him.
Hot Lips Hulahan not supposed to be the dumbass blonde?
No. She was supposed to be a rulebook quoting pain in the ass and involved with Frank Burns who was a dumbass.
M*A*S*H, specifically the comedy years. It was nothing at all like the appalling Nerd Blackface that The Big Bang Theory is.
"Appalling nerd blackface"? Before you go claiming some equivalency to blackface plays, please point out to the rest of the class where in the course of US history nerds were systematically enslaved, denied voting rights, subjected to Jim Crow laws, forbidden to marry non-nerds, declared to be sub-human, segregated, forced to sit in the back of buses, refused service, denied basic civil rights, etc. Where is the constitutional amendment protecting nerds as a protected class? When did nerds need their version of a Civil Rights act?
[crickets]
I thought so...
I also agree TBBT has blackface or 'coon show' qualities.
REALLY? Point out to me the 400 years of slavery or some equivalent to Jim Crow laws. Show me where in the history of the US geeks were not allowed to marry non-geeks. Show me where in the constitution they had to put in an amendment protecting nerds. Show me where nerds were prevented from voting. Thinking blackface shows and TBBT are in any meaningful way equivalent is both arrogant and absurd.
I don't care if you like the show or not. People's senses of humor vary and it's fine if you don't think it is funny. But you seriously need to stop taking life too seriously and laugh a bit.
And your 401k is managed by people so naive as to allow that? They don't themselves adopt similar technologies and strategies to mitigate that?
The people who manage your 401K are not paid for performance. They do not give a shit if you make or lose money. They get paid either way. Furthermore what makes you think they aren't in on the fleecing? It might not be the folks managing the 401K but it may very well be some other arm of the company managing your 401K.
Frankly there is nowhere to run.
The CEO isn't the guy who does the technical work. His job is to find money for the company and provide vague "direction". Pixel counts are totally beneath him.
CEOs don't start in that role and they don't get that job by being idiots. Katzenberg has worked in the film industry since 1974. I'm pretty sure he's got a clue what a pixel is.
That said, Katzenberg appears to all evidence I can find to be pretty much a weasel.
It's not an endorsement but it is a recognition. Which is exactly what Bitcoin needs to increase adoption.
They "recognize" penny stocks too but that doesn't make them a sane place to put your money.