I've found little call for these skills outside of the financial and defense industries. My conscience won't allow me to accept money from either. The medical/pharmaceutical industries undoubtedly require complex software, but the unavoidable animal testing at the end of the pipeline probably lifts its body count higher even than the defense industry's. And academia pays in degrees, not dollars. So what's left? Do any ethical businesses have a pressing need for high-performance computing, or is it basically a hobbyist niche?"
Grow up. Seriously. Learn to separate unethical behavior from the institutions where it exists. Learn that EVERY institution and industry has its share of unethical behavior by people and by firms. Working at a financial/medical/defense firm does not make one unethical. The fact that a firm works in the finance/medical/defense industry does not make what the firm does unethical. There are ethical lines that can be crossed but that is true in EVERY industry. If you insist on avoiding any industry and company unless they have a perfect record that fits your particular ethical standards, you are going to find yourself with precisely zero options.
You think animal testing is unethical? Fine. Stop using modern medicines which don't require it. That's a choice you can make for yourself. You'll find yourself without very many options I'm afraid because medicines do need to be tested, not just on animals but on people too. There is NO way to find out if they work without this testing and this testing WILL kill people and animals. That's why it's very strictly controlled so that the net benefit significantly outweighs the risks but the risks will always be there. You can minimize the harm but you can't eliminate it without doing greater harm to the populace.
I can make similar arguments for finance (go ahead and stop banking) or defense (go ahead and live in a lawless place like Somalia) if you think they are unethical. Your choice. Just don't pretend that your ethical standards mean that I'm unethical just because I happen to be an accountant.
Patents and copyrights are used only to protect past acompilishments not create new ones.
The entire purpose of patents and copyrights is to create incentives for new works. Patents and copyright attempt to address the free rider problem. Without some reasonable assurance of protection, a lot of beneficial works would never be created.
None of this is to say the laws for patents and copyrights aren't badly in need of updating. They very much are broken in their current form. But the idea of protecting inventive works against the free rider problem is demonstrably beneficial.
Stronger IP protections are only used to slow down growth. It is all but ignored by growing economies.
This is where your argument falls apart. Without relatively strong IP protections, there are fewer incentives to create new work because there are so many copycats. Those same growing economies grow largely by imitating established economies with established IP protections. They tend to create very few (not zero but few) new and innovative works. You can only grow to a limited extent by copying other people. Eventually you have to create your own works and sooner or later that requires some form of IP protection. The exact model can vary but for better or worse there is presently no better solution to the free rider problem out there.
Much like taxing cigarettes. If cigarettes are so bad for the individual (as the government states - and anyone with a fucking brain knows) why is the government in the cigarette business?
Because the government learned its lesson from Prohibition. Banning it doesn't work but taxing it does apparently mitigate the problem. If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em.
Taxing soda won't do anything but hand over more money to the government. It won't stop a thing and people know it.
Actually the really perverse bit is that sugar is subsidized by the government. A lot of the obesity problem we have arguably stem from that subsidy. So we're taxing something that we're subsidizing? Why not just eliminate the subsidy? You'll accomplish much the same thing with a lot less overhead.
Want to stop children drinking soda? then simply make it illegal for them to do so. (Which I don't agree with)
We tried something like that in the 1920s. Didn't work then. Won't work now.
If they were climate scientists then they would have been publicly ridiculed, had their funding called into question, had their email subpoenaed, been threatened over the internet and finally ended up as merely a footnote in "the debate". Instead, they are particle physicists, so good science was accomplished.
That's because particle physics doesn't (presently) threaten anyone's business model. If they give off even a whiff of costing companies money you can bet that their credibility will be questioned. Particularly if the companies threatened are extremely wealthy energy companies.
Evolution does not explain how life came into being.
Actually it might if you take into account the fact that all living things are simply a collection of chemicals. Living things are chemical reactions so it stands to reason that non-living things might evolve into living things. It's just chemistry. The distinction between living and non-living is a rather arbitrary one. Living things can become non-living. No reason to assume it can't work the other direction as well.
I'm not saying that "gravity" is actually a series of elves pulling us down so we don't float out of the atmosphere, but there is a non-zero chance of it. I don't treat those who believe in that particular notion as crackpots.
Really? You should. Just because you can conceive of a notion does not automatically mean there is a even a tiny chance of it being real. To treat people with clearly absurd notions as anything other than crackpots is simply intellectual cowardice. For example I think the notion of Noah's Ark as outlined in the bible is utterly ridiculous. Anyone who treats it as an actual story that might have happened even remotely close to as-written is an idiot and deserves to be treated as such. I make no apologies for this stance. Anyone who actually believes every animal on earth lined up in pairs to get on a boat is an imbecile. (curious how the notion of how all the plants survived or how the animals ate is never addressed)
They don't have any right to privacy either, and can not force you to turn them off, or confiscate & erase the evidence.
They may not have any right to privacy but they certainly can, in real life, force you to turn them off, confiscate and erase the evidence. Doesn't mean it is legal for them to do so but they certainly are capable of doing it and probably will get away with it too. After all, once the evidence is deleted it becomes your word against theirs and they tend to hold the advantage there. Obviously cops should be held at least to the same standards as regular citizens (if not higher standard) but we know that it doesn't always work out the way it should in actual practice. The certainly aren't going to get thrown in jail and probably not even reprimanded and they know it.
If the politicians can't convince enough people that the war is justified can you please tell me WHY there should be war?
Because the majority isn't always right, doesn't always have the facts and votes are about perceptions instead of reality. There is a very good reason that military hierarchy isn't a democracy. Furthermore the democratic process is slow. Sometimes that's a very good thing, sometimes it is not. Don't get me wrong, I think there need to be some pretty severe curbs on the ability of our elected leaders to commit our troops to battle. That's why we have separation of powers and the executive branch doesn't control the money for the armed forces in our country. No money = very short war.
If you think the majority of your people will be so stupid in such serious and important matters, then using the same reasoning you should do away with democratic elections too right?
There is a huge difference between voting on a leader and voting on all the issues the leader will deal with. There are many issues that each of us don't have much experience with. I am not an expert on national security but I am actually pretty good at evaluating candidates for a job. I've interviewed many people often for jobs I'm not personally an expert in. Lots of people (most in fact) have the ability to evaluate talent even in areas where they lack the talent themselves. So yes, the public IS uninformed and stupid about many specific matters relating to national security but they are NOT uninformed and stupid about how to determine if someone else is knowledgeable about that topic. The job of a democracy is to hire leaders with specific knowledge, not to decide on most of those issues directly themselves. Doesn't mean the voters will always get it right (refer to George Bush if you need a good example of a badly chosen leader) but they usually do a good job in the long run.
Furthermore if the public really wants to stop their leaders from starting wars in the US, all they have to do is amend the Constitution. The power to control our leaders already exists and doesn't require mass executions. Direct democracy results in the tyranny of the majority.
If they attack first, the leaders can nuke them to bits if they think its justified.
In an age of nuclear weapons and weaponized biological agents, waiting for someone to attack you and only then responding is tantamount to suicide. Do you really want to wait for someone who is willing to be a suicide bomber to attack you with a nuclear weapon before responding?
researchers have discovered that a microprocessor used by the US military
What chip? What does it do? Is it important? There are lots of chips in use that in no way shape or form are sensitive or important and the presence of a back door would be meaningless. Just because the military uses it doesn't mean anything by itself. This "article" sounds like someone trying to justify a research grant or a company trying to generate fear to sell a competing product.
Shouldn't be walking away from the grill due to safety reasons? What kind of condition is your grill in?
Doesn't matter. Mine is in excellent condition but I still wouldn't walk away from it for more time than it takes to grab something from my kitchen. Just like I wouldn't leave an active stove or oven unattended inside the house. I'm not saying you can't take your eyes off it for a few minutes if the situation seems reasonably secure but leaving it alone long enough for remote monitoring equipment to become useful is probably a bad idea.
Do you recommend I stand there for hours while something cooks?
In most cases yes. (It's ok if you sit down but don't go far away) Plus if you are cooking something that actually takes hours, you probably are barbequing instead of grilling. It doesn't take hours to cook a steak, or hamburger or chicken. Maybe if you are roasting a whole turkey but you probably aren't doing that on the grill anyway.
There aren't enough US ships to protect all the cargo ships, and its part of the reason why iran's control of the strait of hormuz is so important, even without the fancy battleships.
US ships don't have to be everywhere, just like police don't have to be everywhere all the time.
If Iran really started causing serious problems in the Straights of Hormuz, they would sooner or later have to tangle with the US Navy and probably the navies of the EU as well. I don't think Iran's leaders are really quite so dumb give the recent object lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. The US doesn't want armed conflict with Iran but there is little doubt the US could crush Iran's military without much difficulty. Kind of hard to control the area with a bunch of aircraft carriers parked off the coast and no military hardware remaining.
In the old days kings used to lead their soldiers into battle.
Some did. Most didn't. We just hear about the ones that did because they are more interesting.
Basically, if leaders are going to send troops on an _offensive_ war/battle (not defensive war) there must be a referendum on the war.
I agree with the principle but in practice it's not always so easy to tell the difference. The best way to deal with some threats is not always to simply wait for the attack to come and respond.
If there are not enough votes for the war, those leaders get put on deathrow. At a convenient time later, a referendum is held to redeem each leader. Leaders that do not get enough votes get executed. For example if too many people stay at home and don't bother voting - the leaders get executed.
Your suggestion above is utterly batshit insane. Your solution to kill people to avoid killing people is pretty much the dumbest idea I've ever read. It's as dumb as the "pro life" zealots who kill doctors to stop abortions. Wars are almost never popular. Furthermore even if we did implement such an idiotic policy, no one else would and thus in any armed conflict our leaders would have an incentive to take the non-violent path even if that was a bad idea. Good policies are frequently not popular policies.
I guess a thermometer is a "gadget"
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Grilling For Geeks
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The only "gadget" that is really necessary is a decent thermometer appropriate to the task at hand. I say it is a gadget because if you really know what you are doing a thermometer is optional. (I'm not that good so I use thermometers heavily when cooking and have a wide variety of them - the most gadgety one I have is an infrared thermometer for non-contact temp readings) A good grill, a fire extinguisher, some tongs and possibly a spatula are pretty much the only requirements. You really shouldn't be walking away from the grill while cooking for safety reasons so I don't really understand the point of remote monitoring except for really low & slow cooking like BBQ. The best "gadget" you can get is a geeky cookbook like the ones Alton Brown writes.
Almost all of the "NASA" rockets and spacecraft were built by independent contractors.
Yes but NASA owned them after they were built. NASA does not own SpaceX's equipment. They are launching stuff on behalf of NASA but it's not different than NASA contracting the Russians to launch for them. It wasn't contract manufacturing like Boeing does for NASA, it was their own product. The technology isn't the revolutionary bit, the economics and funding models are.
Ever since Tienanmen Square, I've wanted to avoid buying anything Chinese.
First off, I don't know where you live but I'm pretty sure wherever it is your government has done some pretty evil things as well. You should be careful about where you ride that high horse of yours.
Second, if you want to avoid a repeat of Tienanmen do you really think keeping the Chinese people in poverty will make things better in any way? I've been to China. The people there are good, decent people every bit as deserving of opportunity as anyone else. Yes their government behaved badly but I don't buy the argument that an entire people should be punished for the actions of their power drunk leaders, especially for actions that happened over 20 years ago. Should we stop buying anything from the US because of the Jim Crow laws? How about Guantanamo? Don't be in such a rush to punish because few of us are blameless in our behavior.
I'm just waiting for the Chinese economy to crash, just like Japan's did years ago, and the US did.
You really shouldn't. If the Chinese economy crashes the rest of the world's economy will follow closely behind. That's not something to be desired.
Why would you buy local (assuming it is not cheaper)?
Reasons that come to mind immediately include convenience, liking the product and liking the relationship with the local vendor. For instance I live in a location where I can buy cherries and blueberries from local growers or I can get them from remote (often foreign) locations. The price difference is negligible, the local produce is at least as good (and usually better), it's easy for me to get and I like the fact that my money stays local and helps people I share a tax base with which benefits me indirectly.
I've worked doing global sourcing in the past and have no moral issue with buying products from non-local sources. But everything being equal I'm going to support my neighbor before I support the guy in the other hemisphere.
Yet, Earth failed to have acid rain until we started heavily using combustion processes for energy.
Acid rain does occur naturally primarily thanks to volcanos and lightning as well as some other phenomena. Human activity has exacerbated the problem significantly but to say humans are solely responsible for it would be incorrect.
This really is Economics 101. The maximum profit margin comes at the point where the supply curve and the demand curve meet.
Not correct. The most common model is that profit is maximized where Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost meet for an oligopoly. That is not not same thing as where the supply and demand curves meet. In fact when modeling a monopoly or oligopoly there is no supply curve because the firms get to choose how much to supply regardless of demand.
If the money that's paying for it is coming from taxes, its not commercial.
You are correct in a sense. The current primary customer (NASA) happens to be a government agency and that agency does pay with tax dollars. Saying it is commercial is very much a short hand for a more complicated story. SpaceX also already has contracts with private sector companies as well. Furthermore its operations and R&D were funded privately initially to the tune of something like $400 million. Funding from NASA has come from progress payments on launch contracts. The fact that NASA is a government agency is somewhat incidental to the operations of SpaceX. Our company has had the government as a customer (we've sent products into space) in the past but that doesn't mean we aren't a private company or that what we do isn't commercial.
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
No it isn't reason enough. Or rather, it is a reason with some rather severe limits to feasibility. Economic resources are finite and there are competing demands for them. "Because it's cool" will almost always lose to more practical concerns like economic security. If you can figure out how to sustainably fund the project, we can make it happen.
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see a moon base but the arguments for one are simply too abstract right now.
I still don't understand this. We have the technology to do it, we have the people wanting to do it, and we have another group of people wanting to live and work there. Why don't we build a base on moon?
Economics. There is presently no reasonable near term economic justification for a moon base. While there might eventually be such a justification, it doesn't exist at the moment. That's not to say there is no justification for a base - there are reasons to do it, just not near term economic ones. That means the only way to fund it is with tax revenue and good luck getting congress to fund a hugely expensive and risky moon base given the current economy. Even far less costly and easier to justify scientific missions are getting squeezed. Any economic benefits from a moon base are indirect, hard to quantify and will take considerable time to be realized.
BTW we don't actually have the technology to do it yet. It's feasible for us to develop it but there is a substantial amount of R&D that would have to happen before it is actually possible not limited to developing the heavy lift rockets, material delivery systems, habitats, etc. There has been some R&D but it's mostly been quasi-theoretical academic work, not practical engineering. What practical engineering there once was has been shut down for 40 years.
That depends entirely on the purpose of the medical device. "Medical devices" covers a lot of products that serve a lot of different purposes. For some devices internet access would be pointless, for others internet access would be dangerous, and for still others internet access makes perfect sense. It depends entirely on what you are doing with it and what the risks are. There is nothing inherently wrong with hooking up a medical device to the internet, provided that the risks of doing so have been adequately addressed.
Receiving time from a GPS receiver is much safer.
Use of NTP does not require internet access. How the time is (securely) transmitted to devices is a separate issue than what protocol is used. You can use NTP on a network that is completely segregated from any other network and it works just fine.
By holding onto the wealth generated, and not paying the wealth out to shareholders, you reduce the tax liability for your shareholders, often for years and years.
While it can reduce tax liability, not paying a dividend does not necessarily result in the best return to investors. (you sort of mention this) Retaining the cash only makes sense if the company can generate a better return on the cash than the investor can themselves. You are quite correct that it does avoid taxes but the goal is not to avoid taxes but to maximize return on investment. If the stock price stagnates for a sufficient period of time, the investor could do better even with low risk treasury bonds eventually even accounting for taxes. You are taking a risk either way.
I'd much rather not pay taxes as my wealth accumulates until such time as I need the income and the wealth is taxed at the lower "capital gains" rate and not at the higher "Marginal Tax" rates.
You are assuming the stock will appreciate sufficiently for the capital gains rate to matter. That is not even remotely a certainty, particularly when talking about stocks like Facebook.
God knows what he might have come up with to save the Apple II if he hadn't had the accident.
Possibly nothing. Yes he is a brilliant guy. But it is entirely possible that his (hypothetical) next act would have been a failure. Woz was the right guy in the right place at the right time. Maybe he would have continued to pump out brilliant products. Maybe not. It's quite possible he was forced to quit while he was ahead. I appreciate your optimism but his first act was a pretty hard act to follow and he hasn't really pumped out much technology of note since.
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I've found little call for these skills outside of the financial and defense industries. My conscience won't allow me to accept money from either. The medical/pharmaceutical industries undoubtedly require complex software, but the unavoidable animal testing at the end of the pipeline probably lifts its body count higher even than the defense industry's. And academia pays in degrees, not dollars. So what's left? Do any ethical businesses have a pressing need for high-performance computing, or is it basically a hobbyist niche?"
Grow up. Seriously. Learn to separate unethical behavior from the institutions where it exists. Learn that EVERY institution and industry has its share of unethical behavior by people and by firms. Working at a financial/medical/defense firm does not make one unethical. The fact that a firm works in the finance/medical/defense industry does not make what the firm does unethical. There are ethical lines that can be crossed but that is true in EVERY industry. If you insist on avoiding any industry and company unless they have a perfect record that fits your particular ethical standards, you are going to find yourself with precisely zero options.
You think animal testing is unethical? Fine. Stop using modern medicines which don't require it. That's a choice you can make for yourself. You'll find yourself without very many options I'm afraid because medicines do need to be tested, not just on animals but on people too. There is NO way to find out if they work without this testing and this testing WILL kill people and animals. That's why it's very strictly controlled so that the net benefit significantly outweighs the risks but the risks will always be there. You can minimize the harm but you can't eliminate it without doing greater harm to the populace.
I can make similar arguments for finance (go ahead and stop banking) or defense (go ahead and live in a lawless place like Somalia) if you think they are unethical. Your choice. Just don't pretend that your ethical standards mean that I'm unethical just because I happen to be an accountant.
Patents and copyrights are used only to protect past acompilishments not create new ones.
The entire purpose of patents and copyrights is to create incentives for new works. Patents and copyright attempt to address the free rider problem. Without some reasonable assurance of protection, a lot of beneficial works would never be created.
None of this is to say the laws for patents and copyrights aren't badly in need of updating. They very much are broken in their current form. But the idea of protecting inventive works against the free rider problem is demonstrably beneficial.
Stronger IP protections are only used to slow down growth. It is all but ignored by growing economies.
This is where your argument falls apart. Without relatively strong IP protections, there are fewer incentives to create new work because there are so many copycats. Those same growing economies grow largely by imitating established economies with established IP protections. They tend to create very few (not zero but few) new and innovative works. You can only grow to a limited extent by copying other people. Eventually you have to create your own works and sooner or later that requires some form of IP protection. The exact model can vary but for better or worse there is presently no better solution to the free rider problem out there.
"The rest of us" shouldn't have to pay for anybody's choices. How about everybody pays for their own healthcare expenses? Gosh, what a concept!
Tell me how well that works out for you when you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer treatment out of pocket.
We have insurance to spread the risk, not to encourage people to take stupid risks and make intentionally bad choices.
Much like taxing cigarettes. If cigarettes are so bad for the individual (as the government states - and anyone with a fucking brain knows) why is the government in the cigarette business?
Because the government learned its lesson from Prohibition. Banning it doesn't work but taxing it does apparently mitigate the problem. If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em.
Taxing soda won't do anything but hand over more money to the government. It won't stop a thing and people know it.
Actually the really perverse bit is that sugar is subsidized by the government. A lot of the obesity problem we have arguably stem from that subsidy. So we're taxing something that we're subsidizing? Why not just eliminate the subsidy? You'll accomplish much the same thing with a lot less overhead.
Want to stop children drinking soda? then simply make it illegal for them to do so. (Which I don't agree with)
We tried something like that in the 1920s. Didn't work then. Won't work now.
If they were climate scientists then they would have been publicly ridiculed, had their funding called into question, had their email subpoenaed, been threatened over the internet and finally ended up as merely a footnote in "the debate". Instead, they are particle physicists, so good science was accomplished.
That's because particle physics doesn't (presently) threaten anyone's business model. If they give off even a whiff of costing companies money you can bet that their credibility will be questioned. Particularly if the companies threatened are extremely wealthy energy companies.
Evolution does not explain how life came into being.
Actually it might if you take into account the fact that all living things are simply a collection of chemicals. Living things are chemical reactions so it stands to reason that non-living things might evolve into living things. It's just chemistry. The distinction between living and non-living is a rather arbitrary one. Living things can become non-living. No reason to assume it can't work the other direction as well.
I'm not saying that "gravity" is actually a series of elves pulling us down so we don't float out of the atmosphere, but there is a non-zero chance of it. I don't treat those who believe in that particular notion as crackpots.
Really? You should. Just because you can conceive of a notion does not automatically mean there is a even a tiny chance of it being real. To treat people with clearly absurd notions as anything other than crackpots is simply intellectual cowardice. For example I think the notion of Noah's Ark as outlined in the bible is utterly ridiculous. Anyone who treats it as an actual story that might have happened even remotely close to as-written is an idiot and deserves to be treated as such. I make no apologies for this stance. Anyone who actually believes every animal on earth lined up in pairs to get on a boat is an imbecile. (curious how the notion of how all the plants survived or how the animals ate is never addressed)
They don't have any right to privacy either, and can not force you to turn them off, or confiscate & erase the evidence.
They may not have any right to privacy but they certainly can, in real life, force you to turn them off, confiscate and erase the evidence. Doesn't mean it is legal for them to do so but they certainly are capable of doing it and probably will get away with it too. After all, once the evidence is deleted it becomes your word against theirs and they tend to hold the advantage there. Obviously cops should be held at least to the same standards as regular citizens (if not higher standard) but we know that it doesn't always work out the way it should in actual practice. The certainly aren't going to get thrown in jail and probably not even reprimanded and they know it.
If the politicians can't convince enough people that the war is justified can you please tell me WHY there should be war?
Because the majority isn't always right, doesn't always have the facts and votes are about perceptions instead of reality. There is a very good reason that military hierarchy isn't a democracy. Furthermore the democratic process is slow. Sometimes that's a very good thing, sometimes it is not. Don't get me wrong, I think there need to be some pretty severe curbs on the ability of our elected leaders to commit our troops to battle. That's why we have separation of powers and the executive branch doesn't control the money for the armed forces in our country. No money = very short war.
If you think the majority of your people will be so stupid in such serious and important matters, then using the same reasoning you should do away with democratic elections too right?
There is a huge difference between voting on a leader and voting on all the issues the leader will deal with. There are many issues that each of us don't have much experience with. I am not an expert on national security but I am actually pretty good at evaluating candidates for a job. I've interviewed many people often for jobs I'm not personally an expert in. Lots of people (most in fact) have the ability to evaluate talent even in areas where they lack the talent themselves. So yes, the public IS uninformed and stupid about many specific matters relating to national security but they are NOT uninformed and stupid about how to determine if someone else is knowledgeable about that topic. The job of a democracy is to hire leaders with specific knowledge, not to decide on most of those issues directly themselves. Doesn't mean the voters will always get it right (refer to George Bush if you need a good example of a badly chosen leader) but they usually do a good job in the long run.
Furthermore if the public really wants to stop their leaders from starting wars in the US, all they have to do is amend the Constitution. The power to control our leaders already exists and doesn't require mass executions. Direct democracy results in the tyranny of the majority.
If they attack first, the leaders can nuke them to bits if they think its justified.
In an age of nuclear weapons and weaponized biological agents, waiting for someone to attack you and only then responding is tantamount to suicide. Do you really want to wait for someone who is willing to be a suicide bomber to attack you with a nuclear weapon before responding?
researchers have discovered that a microprocessor used by the US military
What chip? What does it do? Is it important? There are lots of chips in use that in no way shape or form are sensitive or important and the presence of a back door would be meaningless. Just because the military uses it doesn't mean anything by itself. This "article" sounds like someone trying to justify a research grant or a company trying to generate fear to sell a competing product.
Shouldn't be walking away from the grill due to safety reasons? What kind of condition is your grill in?
Doesn't matter. Mine is in excellent condition but I still wouldn't walk away from it for more time than it takes to grab something from my kitchen. Just like I wouldn't leave an active stove or oven unattended inside the house. I'm not saying you can't take your eyes off it for a few minutes if the situation seems reasonably secure but leaving it alone long enough for remote monitoring equipment to become useful is probably a bad idea.
Do you recommend I stand there for hours while something cooks?
In most cases yes. (It's ok if you sit down but don't go far away) Plus if you are cooking something that actually takes hours, you probably are barbequing instead of grilling. It doesn't take hours to cook a steak, or hamburger or chicken. Maybe if you are roasting a whole turkey but you probably aren't doing that on the grill anyway.
There aren't enough US ships to protect all the cargo ships, and its part of the reason why iran's control of the strait of hormuz is so important, even without the fancy battleships.
US ships don't have to be everywhere, just like police don't have to be everywhere all the time.
If Iran really started causing serious problems in the Straights of Hormuz, they would sooner or later have to tangle with the US Navy and probably the navies of the EU as well. I don't think Iran's leaders are really quite so dumb give the recent object lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. The US doesn't want armed conflict with Iran but there is little doubt the US could crush Iran's military without much difficulty. Kind of hard to control the area with a bunch of aircraft carriers parked off the coast and no military hardware remaining.
In the old days kings used to lead their soldiers into battle.
Some did. Most didn't. We just hear about the ones that did because they are more interesting.
Basically, if leaders are going to send troops on an _offensive_ war/battle (not defensive war) there must be a referendum on the war.
I agree with the principle but in practice it's not always so easy to tell the difference. The best way to deal with some threats is not always to simply wait for the attack to come and respond.
If there are not enough votes for the war, those leaders get put on deathrow. At a convenient time later, a referendum is held to redeem each leader. Leaders that do not get enough votes get executed. For example if too many people stay at home and don't bother voting - the leaders get executed.
Your suggestion above is utterly batshit insane. Your solution to kill people to avoid killing people is pretty much the dumbest idea I've ever read. It's as dumb as the "pro life" zealots who kill doctors to stop abortions. Wars are almost never popular. Furthermore even if we did implement such an idiotic policy, no one else would and thus in any armed conflict our leaders would have an incentive to take the non-violent path even if that was a bad idea. Good policies are frequently not popular policies.
The only "gadget" that is really necessary is a decent thermometer appropriate to the task at hand. I say it is a gadget because if you really know what you are doing a thermometer is optional. (I'm not that good so I use thermometers heavily when cooking and have a wide variety of them - the most gadgety one I have is an infrared thermometer for non-contact temp readings) A good grill, a fire extinguisher, some tongs and possibly a spatula are pretty much the only requirements. You really shouldn't be walking away from the grill while cooking for safety reasons so I don't really understand the point of remote monitoring except for really low & slow cooking like BBQ. The best "gadget" you can get is a geeky cookbook like the ones Alton Brown writes.
Almost all of the "NASA" rockets and spacecraft were built by independent contractors.
Yes but NASA owned them after they were built. NASA does not own SpaceX's equipment. They are launching stuff on behalf of NASA but it's not different than NASA contracting the Russians to launch for them. It wasn't contract manufacturing like Boeing does for NASA, it was their own product. The technology isn't the revolutionary bit, the economics and funding models are.
Ever since Tienanmen Square, I've wanted to avoid buying anything Chinese.
First off, I don't know where you live but I'm pretty sure wherever it is your government has done some pretty evil things as well. You should be careful about where you ride that high horse of yours.
Second, if you want to avoid a repeat of Tienanmen do you really think keeping the Chinese people in poverty will make things better in any way? I've been to China. The people there are good, decent people every bit as deserving of opportunity as anyone else. Yes their government behaved badly but I don't buy the argument that an entire people should be punished for the actions of their power drunk leaders, especially for actions that happened over 20 years ago. Should we stop buying anything from the US because of the Jim Crow laws? How about Guantanamo? Don't be in such a rush to punish because few of us are blameless in our behavior.
I'm just waiting for the Chinese economy to crash, just like Japan's did years ago, and the US did.
You really shouldn't. If the Chinese economy crashes the rest of the world's economy will follow closely behind. That's not something to be desired.
Why would you buy local (assuming it is not cheaper)?
Reasons that come to mind immediately include convenience, liking the product and liking the relationship with the local vendor. For instance I live in a location where I can buy cherries and blueberries from local growers or I can get them from remote (often foreign) locations. The price difference is negligible, the local produce is at least as good (and usually better), it's easy for me to get and I like the fact that my money stays local and helps people I share a tax base with which benefits me indirectly.
I've worked doing global sourcing in the past and have no moral issue with buying products from non-local sources. But everything being equal I'm going to support my neighbor before I support the guy in the other hemisphere.
Importers make the economy grow.
So do exporters.
Yet, Earth failed to have acid rain until we started heavily using combustion processes for energy.
Acid rain does occur naturally primarily thanks to volcanos and lightning as well as some other phenomena. Human activity has exacerbated the problem significantly but to say humans are solely responsible for it would be incorrect.
This really is Economics 101. The maximum profit margin comes at the point where the supply curve and the demand curve meet.
Not correct. The most common model is that profit is maximized where Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost meet for an oligopoly. That is not not same thing as where the supply and demand curves meet. In fact when modeling a monopoly or oligopoly there is no supply curve because the firms get to choose how much to supply regardless of demand.
If the money that's paying for it is coming from taxes, its not commercial.
You are correct in a sense. The current primary customer (NASA) happens to be a government agency and that agency does pay with tax dollars. Saying it is commercial is very much a short hand for a more complicated story. SpaceX also already has contracts with private sector companies as well. Furthermore its operations and R&D were funded privately initially to the tune of something like $400 million. Funding from NASA has come from progress payments on launch contracts. The fact that NASA is a government agency is somewhat incidental to the operations of SpaceX. Our company has had the government as a customer (we've sent products into space) in the past but that doesn't mean we aren't a private company or that what we do isn't commercial.
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
No it isn't reason enough. Or rather, it is a reason with some rather severe limits to feasibility. Economic resources are finite and there are competing demands for them. "Because it's cool" will almost always lose to more practical concerns like economic security. If you can figure out how to sustainably fund the project, we can make it happen.
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see a moon base but the arguments for one are simply too abstract right now.
I still don't understand this. We have the technology to do it, we have the people wanting to do it, and we have another group of people wanting to live and work there. Why don't we build a base on moon?
Economics. There is presently no reasonable near term economic justification for a moon base. While there might eventually be such a justification, it doesn't exist at the moment. That's not to say there is no justification for a base - there are reasons to do it, just not near term economic ones. That means the only way to fund it is with tax revenue and good luck getting congress to fund a hugely expensive and risky moon base given the current economy. Even far less costly and easier to justify scientific missions are getting squeezed. Any economic benefits from a moon base are indirect, hard to quantify and will take considerable time to be realized.
BTW we don't actually have the technology to do it yet. It's feasible for us to develop it but there is a substantial amount of R&D that would have to happen before it is actually possible not limited to developing the heavy lift rockets, material delivery systems, habitats, etc. There has been some R&D but it's mostly been quasi-theoretical academic work, not practical engineering. What practical engineering there once was has been shut down for 40 years.
Medical devices should not have Internet access.
That depends entirely on the purpose of the medical device. "Medical devices" covers a lot of products that serve a lot of different purposes. For some devices internet access would be pointless, for others internet access would be dangerous, and for still others internet access makes perfect sense. It depends entirely on what you are doing with it and what the risks are. There is nothing inherently wrong with hooking up a medical device to the internet, provided that the risks of doing so have been adequately addressed.
Receiving time from a GPS receiver is much safer.
Use of NTP does not require internet access. How the time is (securely) transmitted to devices is a separate issue than what protocol is used. You can use NTP on a network that is completely segregated from any other network and it works just fine.
By holding onto the wealth generated, and not paying the wealth out to shareholders, you reduce the tax liability for your shareholders, often for years and years.
While it can reduce tax liability, not paying a dividend does not necessarily result in the best return to investors. (you sort of mention this) Retaining the cash only makes sense if the company can generate a better return on the cash than the investor can themselves. You are quite correct that it does avoid taxes but the goal is not to avoid taxes but to maximize return on investment. If the stock price stagnates for a sufficient period of time, the investor could do better even with low risk treasury bonds eventually even accounting for taxes. You are taking a risk either way.
I'd much rather not pay taxes as my wealth accumulates until such time as I need the income and the wealth is taxed at the lower "capital gains" rate and not at the higher "Marginal Tax" rates.
You are assuming the stock will appreciate sufficiently for the capital gains rate to matter. That is not even remotely a certainty, particularly when talking about stocks like Facebook.
God knows what he might have come up with to save the Apple II if he hadn't had the accident.
Possibly nothing. Yes he is a brilliant guy. But it is entirely possible that his (hypothetical) next act would have been a failure. Woz was the right guy in the right place at the right time. Maybe he would have continued to pump out brilliant products. Maybe not. It's quite possible he was forced to quit while he was ahead. I appreciate your optimism but his first act was a pretty hard act to follow and he hasn't really pumped out much technology of note since.