I do not understand how someone can think they should work in a scholarly capacity and expect anonymity while simultaneously having authority.
Wikipedia is arguably NOT a scholarly work, and it certainly has no meaningful "authority". It is not the sole or primary source for any information pretty much by definition. Anonymity or the lack thereof of the writers has nothing to do with whether the information presented is accurate or useful. If Wikipedia were to present too much inaccurate information, people would cease using it as a source. As things stand it is a useful source of information for some limited things. It is up to you to understand where those limits are.
To put it simply: Why should we believe anything Wikipedia says is true if they aren't even truthful about their identities?
Easy. You shouldn't assume anything written on Wikipedia is true. What is written may be true but it also sometimes is false, misleading, confusing or incomplete. You shouldn't assume ANYTHING from a single source is true no matter what that source might be or no matter how good their reputation. The same goes for the organization - in fact the same goes for any organization, not just the Wikipedia Foundation. Listen to what they say and come to your own conclusions based on all the facts available to you.
Power without accountability to the people that you're exercising power over is dangerous.
The only "danger" here is that someone's time might be wasted. If you let that happen to you repeatedly, then you are a fool but nothing worse.
I'd go further and argue that editors should disclose their real names, too, as that provides some accountability for content.
Exactly how will they be accountable? Are you going to fire them? Cut their pay? Call them juvenile names? Tell their mommy?
Some people really more qualified to edit an article than others.
Certainly true but who gets to decide who the "more qualified" person is? Particularly for cases where the differences in qualifications are not large.
Microsoft iceberg aside, the Nokia leadership managed to keep Nokia as the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
Never mind that its market share is plummeting...
They're not looking so hot right now, but they still push more phones into the market than any other company.
Which doesn't matter a spit if they aren't profitable. You can generate tons of revenue giving away $2 for $1 but you'll be out of business faster than you can say Chapter 11. The reason to not immediately press the eject button as an investor in Nokia is that they have about $10 billion in cash.
Why do so many people in finance continue to insist on growth?
Because investors want a return on their investment and the ONLY way for a company to do that is to grow. I invest $100,000 in a company and I want it to become $1,000,000 in a reasonable time frame. Only way a company can do that is to get larger in the sense of developing a larger free cash flow. Furthermore, the human population continues to grow and those additional people will need additional goods and services. Additionally they probably want their standard of living to increase which demands still more growth. Growth by itself is not an undesirable thing. It's when it is growth without regard to the consequences. Growth that causes a larger problem for society.
It also depends on the expectations for a particular company and the risk versus reward ratio. Lots of companies such as utilities do not have prospects of fast growth but they do kick off a lot of cash. They are relatively safe investments so the expectations of growth are rather modest. Conversely, a tech company is a pretty risky venture and is unlikely to have a reliable and predictable cash flow for the next 20 years. As a result investors expect it to grow much faster and expect a return on their investment commensurate with the higher risk they are taking.
We should be focusing on steady state sustainability.
While I don't entirely disagree I'm not sure you have thought through the consequences. Technology advancement depends rather significantly on rewarding people for taking risks. It's easy to not reward growth but then technological development pretty much stops. There is little or no incentive for people do figure out new a better ways of doing things. I'm actually mostly concerned with situations where companies can abuse a public good (like polluting the air or water) without having to pay the full cost of their actions. If we are going to use fossil fuels, so be it. But their FULL cost, including pollution controls should (theoretically) be part of the deal. A big part of the reasons coal and oil are relatively cheap is that they are not fully responsible for the pollution they cause.
On the one hand you have the possible utopia of unlimited "free" stuff.
Nothing is free. Raw materials are not free, energy is not free and labor is not free. Resources are scarce and baring some real genuine miracle always will be.
And on the other, the distopia of companies locking this technology up, and firing (almost all) the workers.
Only people with absolutely no concept of economics believe that. Unless you have effectively unlimited energy and the ability to easily convert that energy into complex matter (like food) with no limit, there is a economic cost. So long as any resources are scarce, human needs and economics are a part of the equation.
Is there any unwavering indicator one way or the other? Is there any unwavering indicator one way or the other?
False choice. Neither is possible. It is impossible to remove scarcity completely from the human experience.
There's an 'interesting' economic problem and endgame in full automation too...
Full automation is not remotely possible with any reasonably foreseeable technology we possess. Not even necessarily for purely technical reasons. The primary limits are actually economic. There are a great many tasks for which are sufficiently complex that the automation required to do the task would cost FAR more than the task is worth. Automation typically has a high up front fixed cost which needs a significant volume or VERY high value to make economically reasonable. When you deal in complex tasks that come in small quantities (and there are LOTS of them), it often makes sense to utilize humans to do the job. It is economically impossible to create flexible automation that is cheap enough for full automation to be possible even if we could technically accomplish it... which we cannot.
The notion that we are going to automate away all the jobs is a foolish notion, particularly when so much of the world can be hired for very low wages.
I understand the need to get people away from gas guzzlers...I do...but how is raising taxes to make it prohibitively expensive to drive at all any different from using the government to just mandate better mileage from the auto makers?
The short answer is that mandated fuel economy standards mostly just affect automobiles. It doesn't affect consumer behavior in any other positive ways. Gasoline taxes have all sorts of interesting second order effects. For example Europe taxes fuel significantly more than the US does. This has over time resulted in significantly better public transportation (trains especially), less suburban sprawl, and widespread use of smaller more efficient automobiles. Higher gasoline taxes would arguably be among the best things we could possible do for the environment.
If your goal is simply to raise the fuel economy of automobiles, then there is little difference between the two approaches. But a fuel tax would do more and thus is arguably the better policy. To be honest though, it is something of an academic discussion because there is no possible way a gasoline tax of any significant size will be passed in our current political environment.
Maybe you could, you know, let people buy the vehicles they want to buy and then if gas is expensive most won't buy gas guzzlers?
And how do you propose to get a several dollar per gallon gasoline/diesel tax passed in our current political environment? That is the only way we are going to make gasoline/diesel significantly more expensive in the near future. Until you can figure that out, the next best alternative is to pass regulations requiring better fuel efficiency and punishing those who fail to meet the standard.
Sure, it would be a good thing in many ways if market forces could be brought to bear. Right now NO ONE makes a fuel efficient version of the pickup I need (yes need) as a daily driver. I don't care about horsepower much but I'm not aware of any pickup sold in the US that gets much better than 25mpg highway. It's perfectly possible to make one, but no one does. The only way one is going to get made is with either higher fuel taxes (never will happen) or with higher CAFE standards. I'd prefer the gas tax but I'll take the CAFE standards. What I don't want is for nothing to get done.
I disagree that "money already should not have any influence" on funding decisions. Past performance is a predictor of future performance.
I'm not talking about information gathered regarding likely performance. Obviously a track record of good (or bad) performance is a factor to consider. I'm talking ONLY about the mere fact that money was already spent. Basically the argument that "since we've already spend $X million it would be a shame to stop now". There needs to be information beyond simply money already spent.
Also bear in mind that past performance is demonstrably NOT always a reliable predictor of future performance. There is voluminous research into this by academics. If you need proof of this you merely have to look at the world of mutual fund managers. A good year one year in investing is absolutely no guarantee of a good year the following year. Even a string of good performance can turn bad quickly. (see Long Term Capital Management) Past performance may be the best information available, but that doesn't make it good information.
I think they are blaming Obama for cancelling the Constellation program, which inevitably turns the $9bn already invested in it into waste.
That is a sunk cost. Under rational decision making, money already spent should not have any influence over forward looking financial decisions. The argument that "we've spend $X billions already which will go to waste" is fallacious logic. The money is gone regardless of whether any future benefit is realized. Only future expenditures matter. If a credible argument can be made that by spending an $Y additional dollars some benefit will be received that is worth $Y dollars, then the project should go ahead. One should NOT make the argument that it needs to have a benefit of $X + $Y because $X is a sunk cost. The money is gone and has no relevance regarding whether additional money should be invested.
Note I'm not making an argument as to whether Constellation is a good or bad program. I honestly have no idea either way. But the argument that we've spend billions already on a project is not a credible argument about why we should continue (or not continue) to spend additional dollars. Investment decisions necessarily should be forward looking.
All wheel drive ( which is what the BMW has, and which is quite different from four wheel drive ) adds considerable stability while driving at constant speed in the wet, or in snow, or on ice.
AWD also helps stability in dry conditions too. Nevertheless, by definition at constant speed or under straight line braking, AWD and 4WD systems are doing nothing different than a 2WD system. It is a DRIVE system - propulsive force. There are many, many sources which will explain this fact. Don't confuse traction control with AWD either.
All wheel drive also helps keep a car stable when braking and during cornering.
It can't help during braking. No propulsive force is (or should be) going to the wheels during straight line braking. AWD does help during cornering because CORNERING IS ACCELERATION. Any curved motion is by definition acceleration. Physics 101.
Seriously, I don't know where you got your ideas about "four wheel drive" but you don't have a clue about vehicle dynamics in the real world
Where did I get my ideas? Working at an automotive test track testing SUVs as an engineer. Are we done with the smartass attitude yet?
Of course I live in the Northeastern US and drive in snow and ice many times a year, and I hold an SCCA competition license, but I'm sure your time spent playing Gran Turismo trumps any real-world experience I have, right ?
And I live in a snowbelt along one of the great lakes, have driven in snow and ice for over 25 years, and have worked as an automotive test engineer testing vehicle stability. SCCA competition doesn't mean you know a thing about physics.
No I said what I meant. There is a reason vehicles engines have horsepower ratings and not energy ratings.
Watt is a unit of power--which is energy per unit time.
It is the application of energy over time that matters when propelling a vehicle. Power is the rate at which work is performed. Work in this case is moving a vehicle. And regardless of the unit of time you use, diesel contains more energy and thus more power per volumetric unit than gasoline.
If you give me two cars that have the same horsepower, one being a diesel and one being a gasoline engine, generally the diesel will go 10-20% farther on the same volume of fuel. That is why comparisons of the price of diesel to the price of gasoline make little sense unless you are talking about vehicles with similar horsepower.
Why do people call incandescent light bulbs "energy wasters", when then can (in the cooler months) defray the work needed to be done by a household heating unit?
Because they are energy wasters. The furnace in your house is FAR more efficient at producing heat than the incandescent bulbs. It's not even a close comparison. Your basic point about how we should be using (and re-using) waste heat as much as possible is a good one but that isn't a reason to use energy wasting technologies for their by-products.
I do love the idea of using waste heat in useful ways but let's not generate waste heat on purpose.
Also keep in mind that diesel in the U.S. is more expensive than high-test.
That varies but bear in mind that it is actually cheaper on a per-horsepower basis. Diesel has to be 15-20% more expensive to cost more for the same amount of horsepower. $/watt, diesel generally comes out ahead, even if it is slightly more per gallon at the pump.
I've driven one. They are fantastic cars. Would be my very first choice in sedans if I were on the market today. Excellent power, good fuel economy, very nicely appointed, rather pricey. A good set of snow tires goes a LONG way to making up for the lack of 4WD. Bear in mind that 4WD only helps you when accelerating. It does nothing for you at constant speed or while braking.
Since when is the Federal Reserve an agency of the United States government?
I would guess ever since the Federal Reserve System was created by an act of Congress, which has been amended some 200 times. All banks are required to be members of the Federal Reserve.
Last time that I checked it was and still is a privately owned corporation.
It is technically private but that doesn't mean it doesn't answer to the government. The Fed needs some independence to do its job properly. But the Fed is a quasi-governmental entity. It is backed up by the full faith and credit of the US government and only exists because Congress delegated some powers to it. It is private in the same sense that Fannie Mae was private. Technically true but well understood that it had the backing of the government.
I don't see how the federal reserve could have given out 16 trillion in secret loans when that represents more than five times the total assets of the federal reserve... Am I missing something?
Yes you are. Investment banks live(d) on short term loans, often literally overnight. They might borrow $2 billion today and repay it tomorrow. Sometimes this money gets borrowed from other banks (commercial paper) or sometimes it is borrowed from the Federal Reserve. This is perfectly normal and nothing to normally get overly exited about. The only thing to get excited about is when it doesn't happen because that means there are liquidity problems. The thing that killed Lehman Brothers was precisely that no one would loan them any money - they basically ran out of liquidity.
The $16 trillion figure is VERY misleading because it isn't one loan or even a few loans. It's a series of very short term loans done repeatedly. Big dollar amounts but we're talking millions to a several billion at any given time spread across many borrowers. This is EXACTLY what the purpose of the Fed is, to be the lender of last resort - to loan money when no one else can/will.
$16 Trillion sounds like a lot (and it is) but the average daily trading volume in bonds is about $800 billion. During the financial crisis almost the only one lending was the government. Doesn't take long to get to $16 trillion in a market where the total market for debt outstanding at any given time is about $90 trillion. The bond market is 2-3X the size of the stock market.
If you read between the lines, you would see that 8 billion is predicted to be the PEAK.
There have been countless predictions of the peak for human population and so far there has been little reason to believe any of them. You don't know when/if human population will peak and neither does anyone else.
Humans aren't dumb animals.
That doesn't mean they can't do some very dumb things. Humans also are very selfish, egotistical, and have a strong sex drive. Add in the fact that they are easily convinced of completely irrational things (see religion), and you are set up for some serious problems.
We don't breed when resources are rare.
Umm, actually we do. Look at any chart of income versus reproduction rates and you'll notice an inverse correlation. Income (resources) goes up and breeding goes down. We DO breed when resources are rare.
People with a lot of kids make the news because they are so RARE, not because they are common.
In parts of the world large families aren't rare at all. Look at the population boom in the Middle East? A huge percentage of the population is under the age of 25. Families with more than 2.5 children aren't remotely rare for much of the world.
Wow, so giving people free money and food doesn't help them out of poverty? Imagine that.
Nope, though it does tend to ward off the worst possible effects of starvation. Helping people out of poverty is a whole different kettle of fish.
Let Africa fix their own problems. They're adults, they can handle it
The problem with that logic is that in a global society, Africa's problems have an annoying habit of becoming other people's problems. Problems in Nigeria or Libya affect global oil production. Lack of government in Somalia results in piracy and terrorism. The AIDS epidemic in Africa doesn't respect national borders. Government upheaval in Egypt threatens Middle East stability and major shipping routes (i.e. the Suez Canal). Africa's vast natural resources are needed in other parts of the world but African problems make that difficult.
The world isn't so simple anymore that the rest of the world can simply ignore Africa until it gets its act together. You are correct that ultimately, African nations will have to find their own way to prosperity but in the mean time ignoring the problems in Africa would only make the problems worse. The real question is "what is the best way to help"? I'm not sure anyone has figured that one out yet.
You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless.
Only if you have lots of money to buy books with or actually want to own the books. There are plenty of books out there that I want to read but have no interest in owning. Libraries do a LOT more than just store books. Libraries offer much that Amazon cannot and will not ever offer. Something like 20% of Americans don't even have a bank account or a credit card. Exactly what value is Amazon to these people?
But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame,
You mean I can get actual (not scanned) 300 year old books, subscriptions to obscure peer-reviewed journals, microfiche of old newpapers, access to a Bloomberg terminal, read thousands of magazines without paying a subscription and the library staff to help with research? Can you point me to the URL where Amazon does all of that?
I think you have no idea what actual university libraries do.
But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame, and you can buy CHEAP from them (used copies of books often cost just a few dollars, even with shipping)
And the selection at a library is FREE. And if they don't have a book, virtually every library can order it for you from another library. Libraries are changing but they are not remotely obsolete.
Which has run its course. Many questions scientists have cannot be answered by Hubble. It's design has limits on its optics. It can't seen well in some of the spectrums we need to look in. And it is 20+ year old technology. Things have advanced significantly since Hubble was designed.
With Webb, you've got a bunch of new technology all shoe-horned onto a single mission, if you screw up just one of them, you fail the mission. That's why the cost blew out the way it did.
You are aware of course that Hubble shoehorned a bunch of new technology in and came in about 2-3X over budget. You did know that right? Hubble got initial funding in the 1970s. It was supposed to launch in 1983 but was delayed due to technical problems until 1990. Hubble is 20+ year old technology. While it has been wildly successful from a science point of view, our needs (or wants) have expanded beyond its capabilities. Webb, like Hubble before it, pushes the boundaries of science and engineering.
So how was SpaceX able to fly two new rockets and a capsule for around half a billion dollars, while NASA has spent... what are they up to?... around eleven billion dollars, and have nothing to show for it.
You are presuming they are pursuing the same goal. You should be careful making that presumption.
$2600 in the 80s is probably worth about $10,000 now, or more.
Using the CPI for inflation, it would be approximately $6788 in 2010 dollars if you are calculating from 1980 or it would be $4512 if you start at 1989.
Can you imagine spending even $5k for a computer now? Or $2k?
Umm, yes. Have you looked at the price of a Macbook Pro? It's not remotely difficult to spec out a Windows or Mac computer that costs significantly more than $2000, and $5000 is not that hard to get to either. Fortunately there is often no need to spend that much but it's not hard to imagine.
If there's one thing that bugs me about NASA, it's their reluctance to reuse successful designs, in favor of starting a new (unproven) platform.
You have a valid point but in their defense a lot of what NASA does involves things that push the frontiers of engineering and science. Often there is no successful design to work from. There is a lot of talk about the James Webb telescope in the news right now. That program pushes the boundaries of our engineering capabilities. Off the shelf isn't really an option. A lot of the value of NASA comes directly from them inventing new things. Numerous multi-billion dollar industries have come from technology developed at NASA. Part of the reason the shuttle program was such a boondoggle was specifically because it took away much of the reason for NASA to think hard about solving new problems.
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I do not understand how someone can think they should work in a scholarly capacity and expect anonymity while simultaneously having authority.
Wikipedia is arguably NOT a scholarly work, and it certainly has no meaningful "authority". It is not the sole or primary source for any information pretty much by definition. Anonymity or the lack thereof of the writers has nothing to do with whether the information presented is accurate or useful. If Wikipedia were to present too much inaccurate information, people would cease using it as a source. As things stand it is a useful source of information for some limited things. It is up to you to understand where those limits are.
To put it simply: Why should we believe anything Wikipedia says is true if they aren't even truthful about their identities?
Easy. You shouldn't assume anything written on Wikipedia is true. What is written may be true but it also sometimes is false, misleading, confusing or incomplete. You shouldn't assume ANYTHING from a single source is true no matter what that source might be or no matter how good their reputation. The same goes for the organization - in fact the same goes for any organization, not just the Wikipedia Foundation. Listen to what they say and come to your own conclusions based on all the facts available to you.
Power without accountability to the people that you're exercising power over is dangerous.
The only "danger" here is that someone's time might be wasted. If you let that happen to you repeatedly, then you are a fool but nothing worse.
I'd go further and argue that editors should disclose their real names, too, as that provides some accountability for content.
Exactly how will they be accountable? Are you going to fire them? Cut their pay? Call them juvenile names? Tell their mommy?
Some people really more qualified to edit an article than others.
Certainly true but who gets to decide who the "more qualified" person is? Particularly for cases where the differences in qualifications are not large.
Microsoft iceberg aside, the Nokia leadership managed to keep Nokia as the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
Never mind that its market share is plummeting...
They're not looking so hot right now, but they still push more phones into the market than any other company.
Which doesn't matter a spit if they aren't profitable. You can generate tons of revenue giving away $2 for $1 but you'll be out of business faster than you can say Chapter 11. The reason to not immediately press the eject button as an investor in Nokia is that they have about $10 billion in cash.
Why do so many people in finance continue to insist on growth?
Because investors want a return on their investment and the ONLY way for a company to do that is to grow. I invest $100,000 in a company and I want it to become $1,000,000 in a reasonable time frame. Only way a company can do that is to get larger in the sense of developing a larger free cash flow. Furthermore, the human population continues to grow and those additional people will need additional goods and services. Additionally they probably want their standard of living to increase which demands still more growth. Growth by itself is not an undesirable thing. It's when it is growth without regard to the consequences. Growth that causes a larger problem for society.
It also depends on the expectations for a particular company and the risk versus reward ratio. Lots of companies such as utilities do not have prospects of fast growth but they do kick off a lot of cash. They are relatively safe investments so the expectations of growth are rather modest. Conversely, a tech company is a pretty risky venture and is unlikely to have a reliable and predictable cash flow for the next 20 years. As a result investors expect it to grow much faster and expect a return on their investment commensurate with the higher risk they are taking.
We should be focusing on steady state sustainability.
While I don't entirely disagree I'm not sure you have thought through the consequences. Technology advancement depends rather significantly on rewarding people for taking risks. It's easy to not reward growth but then technological development pretty much stops. There is little or no incentive for people do figure out new a better ways of doing things. I'm actually mostly concerned with situations where companies can abuse a public good (like polluting the air or water) without having to pay the full cost of their actions. If we are going to use fossil fuels, so be it. But their FULL cost, including pollution controls should (theoretically) be part of the deal. A big part of the reasons coal and oil are relatively cheap is that they are not fully responsible for the pollution they cause.
That reminds me.. I need to pick up some more packs of 100 Watt lightbulbs on the way home tonight.
So you can continue to waste energy and thus, by some twisted logic, continue to stick it to The Man? Great plan!
On the one hand you have the possible utopia of unlimited "free" stuff.
Nothing is free. Raw materials are not free, energy is not free and labor is not free. Resources are scarce and baring some real genuine miracle always will be.
And on the other, the distopia of companies locking this technology up, and firing (almost all) the workers.
Only people with absolutely no concept of economics believe that. Unless you have effectively unlimited energy and the ability to easily convert that energy into complex matter (like food) with no limit, there is a economic cost. So long as any resources are scarce, human needs and economics are a part of the equation.
Is there any unwavering indicator one way or the other? Is there any unwavering indicator one way or the other?
False choice. Neither is possible. It is impossible to remove scarcity completely from the human experience.
There's an 'interesting' economic problem and endgame in full automation too...
Full automation is not remotely possible with any reasonably foreseeable technology we possess. Not even necessarily for purely technical reasons. The primary limits are actually economic. There are a great many tasks for which are sufficiently complex that the automation required to do the task would cost FAR more than the task is worth. Automation typically has a high up front fixed cost which needs a significant volume or VERY high value to make economically reasonable. When you deal in complex tasks that come in small quantities (and there are LOTS of them), it often makes sense to utilize humans to do the job. It is economically impossible to create flexible automation that is cheap enough for full automation to be possible even if we could technically accomplish it ... which we cannot.
The notion that we are going to automate away all the jobs is a foolish notion, particularly when so much of the world can be hired for very low wages.
I understand the need to get people away from gas guzzlers...I do...but how is raising taxes to make it prohibitively expensive to drive at all any different from using the government to just mandate better mileage from the auto makers?
The short answer is that mandated fuel economy standards mostly just affect automobiles. It doesn't affect consumer behavior in any other positive ways. Gasoline taxes have all sorts of interesting second order effects. For example Europe taxes fuel significantly more than the US does. This has over time resulted in significantly better public transportation (trains especially), less suburban sprawl, and widespread use of smaller more efficient automobiles. Higher gasoline taxes would arguably be among the best things we could possible do for the environment.
If your goal is simply to raise the fuel economy of automobiles, then there is little difference between the two approaches. But a fuel tax would do more and thus is arguably the better policy. To be honest though, it is something of an academic discussion because there is no possible way a gasoline tax of any significant size will be passed in our current political environment.
Maybe you could, you know, let people buy the vehicles they want to buy and then if gas is expensive most won't buy gas guzzlers?
And how do you propose to get a several dollar per gallon gasoline/diesel tax passed in our current political environment? That is the only way we are going to make gasoline/diesel significantly more expensive in the near future. Until you can figure that out, the next best alternative is to pass regulations requiring better fuel efficiency and punishing those who fail to meet the standard.
Sure, it would be a good thing in many ways if market forces could be brought to bear. Right now NO ONE makes a fuel efficient version of the pickup I need (yes need) as a daily driver. I don't care about horsepower much but I'm not aware of any pickup sold in the US that gets much better than 25mpg highway. It's perfectly possible to make one, but no one does. The only way one is going to get made is with either higher fuel taxes (never will happen) or with higher CAFE standards. I'd prefer the gas tax but I'll take the CAFE standards. What I don't want is for nothing to get done.
I disagree that "money already should not have any influence" on funding decisions. Past performance is a predictor of future performance.
I'm not talking about information gathered regarding likely performance. Obviously a track record of good (or bad) performance is a factor to consider. I'm talking ONLY about the mere fact that money was already spent. Basically the argument that "since we've already spend $X million it would be a shame to stop now". There needs to be information beyond simply money already spent.
Also bear in mind that past performance is demonstrably NOT always a reliable predictor of future performance. There is voluminous research into this by academics. If you need proof of this you merely have to look at the world of mutual fund managers. A good year one year in investing is absolutely no guarantee of a good year the following year. Even a string of good performance can turn bad quickly. (see Long Term Capital Management) Past performance may be the best information available, but that doesn't make it good information.
How is NASA "vitally important"?
Research out of NASA has resulted in literally hundreds of billions of dollars of economic benefit. FAR more than the cost of NASA to the country.
The only thing NASA gave us that the Air Force couldn't do was Space Shuttle facilities, and we've retired that program anyway.
The Air Force has probes to explore other planets? Didn't know the Air Force had any interest in exploring Pluto.
I think they are blaming Obama for cancelling the Constellation program, which inevitably turns the $9bn already invested in it into waste.
That is a sunk cost. Under rational decision making, money already spent should not have any influence over forward looking financial decisions. The argument that "we've spend $X billions already which will go to waste" is fallacious logic. The money is gone regardless of whether any future benefit is realized. Only future expenditures matter. If a credible argument can be made that by spending an $Y additional dollars some benefit will be received that is worth $Y dollars, then the project should go ahead. One should NOT make the argument that it needs to have a benefit of $X + $Y because $X is a sunk cost. The money is gone and has no relevance regarding whether additional money should be invested.
Note I'm not making an argument as to whether Constellation is a good or bad program. I honestly have no idea either way. But the argument that we've spend billions already on a project is not a credible argument about why we should continue (or not continue) to spend additional dollars. Investment decisions necessarily should be forward looking.
All wheel drive ( which is what the BMW has, and which is quite different from four wheel drive )
adds considerable stability while driving at constant speed in the wet, or in snow, or on ice.
AWD also helps stability in dry conditions too. Nevertheless, by definition at constant speed or under straight line braking, AWD and 4WD systems are doing nothing different than a 2WD system. It is a DRIVE system - propulsive force. There are many, many sources which will explain this fact. Don't confuse traction control with AWD either.
All wheel drive also helps keep a car stable when braking and during cornering.
It can't help during braking. No propulsive force is (or should be) going to the wheels during straight line braking. AWD does help during cornering because CORNERING IS ACCELERATION. Any curved motion is by definition acceleration. Physics 101.
Seriously, I don't know
where you got your ideas about "four wheel drive" but you don't have a clue about vehicle dynamics in the
real world
Where did I get my ideas? Working at an automotive test track testing SUVs as an engineer. Are we done with the smartass attitude yet?
Of course I live in the Northeastern US and drive in snow and ice many times a year, and I hold
an SCCA competition license, but I'm sure your time spent playing Gran Turismo trumps any real-world experience
I have, right ?
And I live in a snowbelt along one of the great lakes, have driven in snow and ice for over 25 years, and have worked as an automotive test engineer testing vehicle stability. SCCA competition doesn't mean you know a thing about physics.
I think you mean $/Joule.
No I said what I meant. There is a reason vehicles engines have horsepower ratings and not energy ratings.
Watt is a unit of power--which is energy per unit time.
It is the application of energy over time that matters when propelling a vehicle. Power is the rate at which work is performed. Work in this case is moving a vehicle. And regardless of the unit of time you use, diesel contains more energy and thus more power per volumetric unit than gasoline.
If you give me two cars that have the same horsepower, one being a diesel and one being a gasoline engine, generally the diesel will go 10-20% farther on the same volume of fuel. That is why comparisons of the price of diesel to the price of gasoline make little sense unless you are talking about vehicles with similar horsepower.
Why do people call incandescent light bulbs "energy wasters", when then can (in the cooler months) defray the work needed to be done by a household heating unit?
Because they are energy wasters. The furnace in your house is FAR more efficient at producing heat than the incandescent bulbs. It's not even a close comparison. Your basic point about how we should be using (and re-using) waste heat as much as possible is a good one but that isn't a reason to use energy wasting technologies for their by-products.
I do love the idea of using waste heat in useful ways but let's not generate waste heat on purpose.
Also keep in mind that diesel in the U.S. is more expensive than high-test.
That varies but bear in mind that it is actually cheaper on a per-horsepower basis. Diesel has to be 15-20% more expensive to cost more for the same amount of horsepower. $/watt, diesel generally comes out ahead, even if it is slightly more per gallon at the pump.
Anyone have experience with the BMW 335d?
I've driven one. They are fantastic cars. Would be my very first choice in sedans if I were on the market today. Excellent power, good fuel economy, very nicely appointed, rather pricey. A good set of snow tires goes a LONG way to making up for the lack of 4WD. Bear in mind that 4WD only helps you when accelerating. It does nothing for you at constant speed or while braking.
Since when is the Federal Reserve an agency of the United States government?
I would guess ever since the Federal Reserve System was created by an act of Congress, which has been amended some 200 times. All banks are required to be members of the Federal Reserve.
Last time that I checked it was and still is a privately owned corporation.
It is technically private but that doesn't mean it doesn't answer to the government. The Fed needs some independence to do its job properly. But the Fed is a quasi-governmental entity. It is backed up by the full faith and credit of the US government and only exists because Congress delegated some powers to it. It is private in the same sense that Fannie Mae was private. Technically true but well understood that it had the backing of the government.
I don't see how the federal reserve could have given out 16 trillion in secret loans when that represents more than five times the total assets of the federal reserve... Am I missing something?
Yes you are. Investment banks live(d) on short term loans, often literally overnight. They might borrow $2 billion today and repay it tomorrow. Sometimes this money gets borrowed from other banks (commercial paper) or sometimes it is borrowed from the Federal Reserve. This is perfectly normal and nothing to normally get overly exited about. The only thing to get excited about is when it doesn't happen because that means there are liquidity problems. The thing that killed Lehman Brothers was precisely that no one would loan them any money - they basically ran out of liquidity.
The $16 trillion figure is VERY misleading because it isn't one loan or even a few loans. It's a series of very short term loans done repeatedly. Big dollar amounts but we're talking millions to a several billion at any given time spread across many borrowers. This is EXACTLY what the purpose of the Fed is, to be the lender of last resort - to loan money when no one else can/will.
$16 Trillion sounds like a lot (and it is) but the average daily trading volume in bonds is about $800 billion. During the financial crisis almost the only one lending was the government. Doesn't take long to get to $16 trillion in a market where the total market for debt outstanding at any given time is about $90 trillion. The bond market is 2-3X the size of the stock market.
If you read between the lines, you would see that 8 billion is predicted to be the PEAK.
There have been countless predictions of the peak for human population and so far there has been little reason to believe any of them. You don't know when/if human population will peak and neither does anyone else.
Humans aren't dumb animals.
That doesn't mean they can't do some very dumb things. Humans also are very selfish, egotistical, and have a strong sex drive. Add in the fact that they are easily convinced of completely irrational things (see religion), and you are set up for some serious problems.
We don't breed when resources are rare.
Umm, actually we do. Look at any chart of income versus reproduction rates and you'll notice an inverse correlation. Income (resources) goes up and breeding goes down. We DO breed when resources are rare.
People with a lot of kids make the news because they are so RARE, not because they are common.
In parts of the world large families aren't rare at all. Look at the population boom in the Middle East? A huge percentage of the population is under the age of 25. Families with more than 2.5 children aren't remotely rare for much of the world.
Wow, so giving people free money and food doesn't help them out of poverty? Imagine that.
Nope, though it does tend to ward off the worst possible effects of starvation. Helping people out of poverty is a whole different kettle of fish.
Let Africa fix their own problems. They're adults, they can handle it
The problem with that logic is that in a global society, Africa's problems have an annoying habit of becoming other people's problems. Problems in Nigeria or Libya affect global oil production. Lack of government in Somalia results in piracy and terrorism. The AIDS epidemic in Africa doesn't respect national borders. Government upheaval in Egypt threatens Middle East stability and major shipping routes (i.e. the Suez Canal). Africa's vast natural resources are needed in other parts of the world but African problems make that difficult.
The world isn't so simple anymore that the rest of the world can simply ignore Africa until it gets its act together. You are correct that ultimately, African nations will have to find their own way to prosperity but in the mean time ignoring the problems in Africa would only make the problems worse. The real question is "what is the best way to help"? I'm not sure anyone has figured that one out yet.
You point to a larger issue with public libraries here. With Amazon they've become almost worthless.
Only if you have lots of money to buy books with or actually want to own the books. There are plenty of books out there that I want to read but have no interest in owning. Libraries do a LOT more than just store books. Libraries offer much that Amazon cannot and will not ever offer. Something like 20% of Americans don't even have a bank account or a credit card. Exactly what value is Amazon to these people?
But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame,
You mean I can get actual (not scanned) 300 year old books, subscriptions to obscure peer-reviewed journals, microfiche of old newpapers, access to a Bloomberg terminal, read thousands of magazines without paying a subscription and the library staff to help with research? Can you point me to the URL where Amazon does all of that?
I think you have no idea what actual university libraries do.
But now Amazon has a selection that puts even university libraries to shame, and you can buy CHEAP from them (used copies of books often cost just a few dollars, even with shipping)
And the selection at a library is FREE. And if they don't have a book, virtually every library can order it for you from another library. Libraries are changing but they are not remotely obsolete.
But there was a successful design, Hubble.
Which has run its course. Many questions scientists have cannot be answered by Hubble. It's design has limits on its optics. It can't seen well in some of the spectrums we need to look in. And it is 20+ year old technology. Things have advanced significantly since Hubble was designed.
With Webb, you've got a bunch of new technology all shoe-horned onto a single mission, if you screw up just one of them, you fail the mission. That's why the cost blew out the way it did.
You are aware of course that Hubble shoehorned a bunch of new technology in and came in about 2-3X over budget. You did know that right? Hubble got initial funding in the 1970s. It was supposed to launch in 1983 but was delayed due to technical problems until 1990. Hubble is 20+ year old technology. While it has been wildly successful from a science point of view, our needs (or wants) have expanded beyond its capabilities. Webb, like Hubble before it, pushes the boundaries of science and engineering.
So how was SpaceX able to fly two new rockets and a capsule for around half a billion dollars, while NASA has spent... what are they up to?... around eleven billion dollars, and have nothing to show for it.
You are presuming they are pursuing the same goal. You should be careful making that presumption.
$2600 in the 80s is probably worth about $10,000 now, or more.
Using the CPI for inflation, it would be approximately $6788 in 2010 dollars if you are calculating from 1980 or it would be $4512 if you start at 1989.
Can you imagine spending even $5k for a computer now? Or $2k?
Umm, yes. Have you looked at the price of a Macbook Pro? It's not remotely difficult to spec out a Windows or Mac computer that costs significantly more than $2000, and $5000 is not that hard to get to either. Fortunately there is often no need to spend that much but it's not hard to imagine.
If there's one thing that bugs me about NASA, it's their reluctance to reuse successful designs, in favor of starting a new (unproven) platform.
You have a valid point but in their defense a lot of what NASA does involves things that push the frontiers of engineering and science. Often there is no successful design to work from. There is a lot of talk about the James Webb telescope in the news right now. That program pushes the boundaries of our engineering capabilities. Off the shelf isn't really an option. A lot of the value of NASA comes directly from them inventing new things. Numerous multi-billion dollar industries have come from technology developed at NASA. Part of the reason the shuttle program was such a boondoggle was specifically because it took away much of the reason for NASA to think hard about solving new problems.