or (oddly enough) any other procedure the two candidates agree on.
Probably because a coin toss could be seen as gambling, or one of the candidates as a shark, whatever. Thus, if both agree that a game of speed-chess decide the issue, it works. In MOST cases candidates are willing to get along to that extent. Most of them are rather tired by the end of an election, and just want to get the issue out of the way.
Other options could be rolling a die(high wins), drawing two cards from a shuffled deck, drawing straws, etc...
Normally speaking, if the majority of people don't think something is legitimate and can be arsed to do something about it, it really doesn't matter what the government says.
I have to ask, why do we need voting machines? I've voted in a number of states, my preference thus far was voting in North Dakota - you filled in a bubble sheet you should be intimately familiar with from school from standardized tests, then it was scanned by a counter as it was fed into the ballet box. The scanner would also reject the ballot if it was improperly filled out(you bubbled in for multiple candidates for president, for example). The ballets are held and are human readable for manual count purposes if necessary(though I think the margin of error for the scanners is actually lower than counting by hand). Handicapped voters can get assistance in various ways. Initial numbers are available within minutes of the polls closing, as they pull the data from the scanners.
The fact that he is black will not hurt him as much as his performance. Everyone has this general mood that everyone else is incompetent right now. And Obama is no exception. Elitist might actually be a plus for Romney -- it might be seen as an indication of competence.
He certainly hasn't given me any impression of competence in leading a country. I should probably have said 'snob' instead.
Obama is a sinking ship. Everyone is abandoning it. Polls might still indicate that the ship is above water, but every sinking ship is above water until it sinks.
He might be taking on water, but the pumps are keeping up, Romney has been taking a shotgun to his own hull. He's lost support, but not that much support. If the Republicans had been able to come up with somebody better, it'd be their election.
This is NYC - They license the company, the car, AND the driver. You need a medallion to operate the car as a taxi. You need a permit to be a driver. You need to meet hundreds of regulations that, among other things, specify the exact models of cars you're allowed to use as a Taxi.
Some of this is safety - the cars are supposed to be relatively new and thus in good shape. Some is being 'fair' - have to pick up anyone, take them to anywhere(in the service area) Some is for consistent service - cleanliness, drivers have to pass a navigation test, etc...
First, I'm a libertarian, so I tend to favor very free markets, but still... The AC was mentioning an anarchy(IE No Government). A true libertarian(as opposed to an anarchist trying to get away from the 'nasty name') is a proponent of limited government. In the case of your example, the very existence of the police precludes anarchy(yes, corporate control would be a form of government), Under a truly 'free' market there wouldn't be any police. Still, let's assume a scenario where gypsy cabs are completely legal.
Your example of a GPS log would be flawed - that would require you have a device averaging several hundred dollars to present to the officer. Less expensive would be a bit of mapwork(google routes) showing that the optimal route would be a lot shorter than what the cabbie took you, and would preclude accusations that you farked with the GPS system(though his bill showing the same mileage within tolerances would support you).
In any case, despite my support for free markets, I DO support a few controls. Call them 'proactive fraud/harm prevention measures'. First step to ask 'Is this a problem, or a solution seeking a problem?'. Rather easy example - Weights & Measurements. We catch companies trying to short customers fairly often. It's unfair to ask consumers to constantly haul precisely calibrated measures around, plus, how can you trust the customer's measure? Fraud is possible on both sides. Thus enter the (theoretically, but at least mostly) neutral third party of the government official, who has the responsibility and duty to randomly check all the pumps, measures, scales and whatnot to ensure they are within tolerances. Back him up with fines of sufficient nature that businesses don't try to cheat and just pay the fines as reducing, but not eliminating, the profit from deliberately mis-calibrated measurements. Same, for the most part, with the FDA/USDA. I'd reform and streamline both, but wouldn't eliminate their function.
The last function would be the enforcement of a 'standard contract' between venders and consumers. Think of it as an efficiency measure - If you can go into the store and know that, outside of prominently published exceptions, you're guaranteed a working product, with a 30 day full money back return policy, and a few other things, it prevents you from 'wasting' time reading every store's individualized contract.
You make the same distinction I do - Nutrition is a part of how 'Healthy' a food is, but not all of it.
Still, there's problems organic foods, in that farmers are still free to use fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. They just have to be 'organic'* ones, and some of those are nastier than the artificial chemical ones. Also, there's the question of foodsafety, as organic certification is separate from safety certification. Fecal matter, E-Coli, Salmonella, etc are all natural and organic, after all. I've read reports that *SOME* organic products have higher levels of contamination than their non-organic counterparts. Given how widespread the field is and how stuff constantly changes, I have no advice beyond 'pay attention to your food source, no matter whether it's organic or not'. For example, I don't worry about organic vegetarian** eggs, but I do worry whether the farm vaccinates the hens against Salmonella.
*Scare-quoted primarily because the distinction on what's organic and not varies by location and certifying authority(if any). **WTH? I want eggs from omnivores - chickens that get sufficient insect protein produce better eggs!;)
How the hell is this consistent at all with, to use a buzzword, American values?
Because cities are where socialist policies hold the most sway in the USA, where 'American Values' are most infringed in the name of safety and security? The taxi commission provides some safety, and a lot of security to taxi companies. It's entrenched.
I'll note that given what I understand of NYC, I'd be looking for a personal point to point transportation system that doesn't need roads. The subways work well for large numbers of people going more or less the same way, we need a more individual solution though.
I'm sorry, but you're spreading some misinformation.
In NYC, in order to 'reduce' traffic* and protect the interests of the taxi drivers, they have their medallion system. Each taxi has to have a medallion to be legal. Medallions are handled like 'real property', in the sense that they can be sold, don't need renewing, etc...
Latest auction prices for the least restrictive medallions is around $1M. Ones marked only for 'independent operators' where the taxi driver is the owner are a bit cheaper, but still more expensive than the car they drive. Cheaper yet(at the moment) are the 'green' medallions that require you to drive a hybrid (Ford Escape, last time I read about it). As such, it's not a $1M 'fee' where you'll never get the money back. It's a $1M investment that you can get back next week by putting it up for auction again.
*Not that it's really worked; the market will find a way. In this case with non-livery cars that you call and they pick you up. Legally only actual taxis can respond to street hails.
1. Have enough coin flippers and you'd have a few that predicted every election up to now correctly, even though they flipped. I've been accurate as well; I'm predicting Obama. See how that works? 2. What's your source on gas prices going up 30% in a month? Or is that just a hope to get Obama voted out over gas prices? 3. Obama might be black, but Romney is seen by many as an entitled elitist ass.
Basically, as has happened the last few incumbent elections, this is the opposite party's election to lose. Obama merely has to hold steady; Romney has been busily shooting himself in the foot.
I say this as a moderate libertarian that hates both choices. Due to various factors though, Obama is leading in my preference by about 10 points - 50% vs 40%. Whoever gets elected, as far as I'm concerned it's pretty much 'New Boss, same as old boss'.
Modern polls take these things into consideration. It's not as if the statistical sciences and algorithmics haven't gotten so advanced that thousands of corporations, trading houses, banks don't use linear and dynamic programming to place billions of dollars of trades each day, in which people are actually "putting their money where their mouth is".
Indeed they do. I've seen the adjustments, they can get very crazy, and one always *hopes* their corrections are, well, correct. But they've gotten to the point that they mostly know what weights to use to mostly correct.
The results from Las Vegas aren't much different giving Obama a 70% chance of being reelected and that's before the dud of the republican convention and the highly successful democratic one.
This might tell you how bad it is. I consider myself a moderate libertarian, and am a registered republican(so I could vote in the primary). I'm seriously favoring voting for Obama, simply because I see Romney being so wrong, and untrustworthy to boot. For one, I want to adjust the tax system so that Romney pays a higher % in taxes than his secretary. Only way to do this is to make capital gains progressive. I haven't heard of doing that even from Obama's camp. My idea - Start at 0% for under $10k/year, max out at like 50% for over $600k. That encourages people to keep up to $200k@5% in investments(as it's tax free), which is generally a heck of a good emergency fund. To even start the 50% tax rate, you'd need over 12M@5%. At which point, like others have pointed out - what else is the dude going to do with the money?
One reason you don't see the jails as full of people as in the USA.
And here I thought it was the lack of a "war on drugs", maximum sentences of 20 years, where we'll toss you in prison for 40 for mere possession, if you have enough of it.
Not many people end up in prison over the more unusual laws. It's normally stuff like violence - murder, assault, robbery. Theft - burglary, theft, shoplifting, and the WoD.
One thing that I'd like to point out is that the RF problem has diminished by the user devices themselves. When you go from 12V switching to under 1V, you're looking at a lot less RF interference coming from the device anyways. Go from kilohertz to mega/gigahertz and you up the interference frequencies; lowering the range they can travel and the odds they'll interfere with the much slower switching electronics in the craft.
Basically, at this point it's hard to tell the average portable consumer device from background noise, as long as it's not intentionally transmitting.
I don't know if that works in the human body though because our immune system will not differentiate helpful bacteria from harmful ones and would probably wipe out such cultures just like any other foreign bacteria based pathogen.
It actually works pretty well - that's what probiotic yoghurt and such
As I understand, viruses also target specific classes of cells. Something to do with protein receptors on the virus being compatible with those on the target cell membrane. The HIV virus for example, targets T4 cells. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
A few viruses can cross the species barrier, most target very specific cells, even the cross-species ones.
A "special" class of virus known as phages targets bacteria (cells) that cause diseases.
Actually phages are viruses that target bacteria in general, not just ones that cause disease. However, we're mostly interested in the ones that target disease causing bacteria.
Another front. I imagine when that scenario occurs, the bacteria and the phage fall into some sort of equilibrium between each other and the host (as the immune system reacts, it too becomes part of the equilibrium) and continue to exist at certain levels. So it would be kind of like a vaccine except where the response body for a certain infection is also foreign.
Phages, like all other viruses, have limited lifespan in the human body on their own. The human body is active with waste scavengers, it's hot, etc... So no, it's not like a vaccination. It's more like antibiotics - you give it to somebody who's sick. Giving to somebody beforehand is going to be approximately worthless. Worse than worthless if the body develops an immune response against IT. As you say, you need a specific phage for a specific bacteria. The advantage once you get past that is no worry about the bacteria becoming immune - the phage evolves to keep up with the bacteria. Combined with the immune response, it's quite effective when you have a matching phage.
It's difficult for these types of remedies to work with FDA standards because of the great number of possible phages, the FDA insist on approving each one.
Indeed. FDA approval is set up for generic drugs and treatments, it's far too intensive for type specific treatments. It'd help if they could get a 'type approval' process.
And one last note, while we are talking about viruses, have you watched a film called "Bourne Legacy"?
Not yet. As for the mutation thing, it's possible. Look up 'Retrovirus'. HIV, Hepatitis, etc... They utilize a enzyme called reverse transcriptase to write their RNA into DNA in the cell. These types of viruses are unusual in that they're based on RNA instead of DNA. It makes them more fragile.
Some of them are capable of making the cell produce more viral bodies without killing the cell, and the cell can be a 'sleeper' for years before activating, normally due to some sort of stress.
Oh yeah - and if you're in Brazil, you're probably out of luck. To my knowledge Brazil has nothing to do with smallpox anymore, retains no stores of the virus(that's the USA and Russia), and probably doesn't even have stocks of the vaccine anymore.
I should note that the smallpox vaccine is one of the nastiest going. You don't need it, don't get it. And this is coming from somebody who's very pro-vaccine(grampa has been handicapped from his fight with polio for most of his life).
You're looking at Federal Level, mostly working for a lab that actually handles the few remaining samples. Military would be the 'easier' subset, just due to scale.
Food-born bacteria that exist naturally in meats or fish double in population every 40 minutes if left at room temperature.
It actually took me a minute to see where this was coming from. I'm talking about disease in general - and how the disease, whether virus, bacteria, or other replicates once it's in the body. Remember, 90% of our vaccines are against viruses, which don't multiply outside the body anyways. Plus, you can't refrigerate your body to slow down the disease.
Basically, with a disease you ALWAYS get a small initial exposure - a virus could be a few dozen actual bodies, but once it gets in the cells it multiplies rapidly, you could have millions of viral bodies within a few days. After a while the immune system starts reacting, and it's generally exponential as well, at least up to the body's resources. Hopefully it ramps up faster than the disease, plus as time goes on the immune system 'learns' the disease and gets better at detecting and neutralizing it.
It takes like 2 hours and 30 minutes for a piece of meat to get to the point where it is no longer consumable.
Depends on the meat, the exact temperatures, exposure, etc... In reality, the 150 minute time span is a general rule of thumb for how long it takes for enough bacteria to multiply to actually cause an infection in an compromised immune system individual. There's additional multiplication necessary to reach levels high enough to cause symptoms.
So I believe the immune system takes action faster if not immediately although perhaps the bodies resistance to a foreign pathogen be minimal at first and increase with time (perhaps exponentially up to a certain point).
It depends on the disease. There are LOTS of already existing defenses against things like bacteria, especially in your digestive tract. It's already a rare bacteria that makes it through the stomach, for example. If it makes it through there, it has to compete against the naturally occurring gut flora. Contact with a skin penetration can be far easier(for the bacteria), as well as inhalation. The human body is actually pretty hostile for bacteria.
Your immune system is more reacting within hours for many diseases - colds, for example. But depending on the disease it can take longer, and can take longer yet to reach maximum response. That's where drugs like antibiotics come in - they rarely actually kill all the bacteria, but it's like opening another front. You already have the ramping immune response, then you go and kill a bunch of the bacteria and more importantly you slow down their reproduction.
Viruses, until relatively recently, we had no option but to support body function until the immune system could control it on it's own. Now we have some drugs that help, but they tend to be expensive. However, it just so happens that once an immune system has 'learned' a virus, it's very good at neutralizing it. It also 'remembers' viruses for varying amounts of time, but trending past 30 years for most. Thus vaccination - which is basically an artificial method to teach the immune system a virus, so it hits 'code 4' almost instantly vs taking days to do so. That way the immune system is hitting like a sledgehammer at 10k viruses, not 10M.
Viruses are, relatively speaking, the sneakier ones, not having biological processes to speak of on their own.
Anthrax would be easier than smallpox - you need a GOOD reason, basically government support to get the smallpox vaccine. Being dead in the wild; I wouldn't worry about it unless you fit special indicators. Anthrax you can get from cattle.
"Immunity through exposure" is exactly how vaccines work. We deliberately weaken the virus/disease, even kill it so that the immune system can 'learn' the signs of the disease so it can react faster if you're exposed later.
Diseases tend to be exponential events. If your immune system can be reacting in hour 8, rather than day 7, your symptoms can be a couple OOM lower in magnitude.
Until we develop some new methods of storing power, I'm afraid we're stuck with the nuke. You're going to need heat/power for the people during the night. Though insulation and thermal mass with stored solar heat should work for the heat. But that's for a larger base.
Actually building something like a solar thermal power station using molten salts and a storage tank big enough for 2 weeks is a large enough undertaking that you'd have to be refining the salts ON the moon.
Solar panels in multiple sites - like 4 solar farms around the face of the moon would theoretically be doable, but the moon is 'only' 1/4 the diameter of the earth; you're still looking at shipping power distances greater than any single power run on Earth. Probably easier to build the huge thermal storage tank.
Thing about not growing any algae in the 2-week lunar night is, it might cut down on your oxygen production. Thus, the idea for the nuclear isotope powered LEDs for use during that half a month where you don't get any natural sunlight. Dunno bout you, tovarisch, but two weeks is a loooong time for me to hold my breath.
The shuttle manages to do over 2 weeks without any plant based O2 production. O2 isn't like electricity; it's actually pretty easy to store. Logically speaking, the amount of O2 released by the growth of an edible plant will exactly offset the O2 needed to metabolize said edible plant. Plant waste(stalks, rinds) will actually give you an imbalance - not enough edible calories for the amount of O2 you have. If you build the base large enough, there should be plenty of O2 even during a 2 week outage; which you then recharge during the 2 week growing spree. You might actually end up bringing some herbivores to eat the remaining parts, or some digestive bacteria or something to metabolize the rest to produce fertilizer(or just dry and burn it).
Finally, I wasn't trying to propose not growing anything during the 'night'. I was proposing having algae be SOME of your food supply, because it grows fast and isn't dependent upon any solar cycle. Let's say it's half your food, and has the same solar efficiency as the rest of your foodstocks(which DO require artificial light during the night). So during the Lunar day you have lots of power - you're directing sunlight into your farm areas, 2/3rds into your algae section, 1/3rd to the other crops to free your electrical generation facilities up for whatever. Then during the night you artificially light your other crops to keep them alive/growing. So you get 2 units of food from your algae during the day, 1 unit of other, during the night you get another 1 unit of other(on average).
Another thing, the ISS doesn't have a 1/6th gravity, it's in microgravity. Asking them to do experiments in 1/6th gravity is not gonna happen unless somebody packs a couple centrifuges onto a resupply mission. This been done yet?
I'm pretty sure they have some, but I was thinking more along the lines of 'we can be reasonably sure it'll work' if we have a plant that grows in earth gravity AND on the shuttle, given proper conditions.
Guess who I stand with.
Well, given that you're dissing my ideas, while making some basic errors(storing ~2 weeks of O2 is that big of a deal when you're hauling nuclear reactors around?), I'd have to say some flavor of JOE.
Remember, my idea was just that - if I was more serious I'd be looking for studies on how edible algae is, how much light it needs, how much light more conventional crops need, how much water/processing is needed, whether there's something else we can grow in such a short cycle. How hard it would be to keep the 'starter culture' alive during the downtime, etc... And that's just off the top of my head. People get paid to figure this stuff out.
That's what I get for working from memory. Minimum size in NYC is 400 square feet; I'm seeing a number of efficiencies more around 250-300square feet. So about double.
Good enough. One thing to be concerned with is retrofitting a building with AC could be extremely expensive. With many heating systems, you don't need any ducting. With central AC, you do.
Though there are various options OTHER than inefficient window AC units - there are ductless AC units that only need a 3-4" hole in the wall, then a line that runs to an actual radiator unit. Options are numerous; which one would be best depends on the actual layout of the building, insulation levels, etc...
I remember reading a special about the NYC schools - they have whole classrooms of fully paid teachers that they don't dare allow to teach for various ways. But because they're not allowed to fire them(Union benefits) without some rather extreme 'due cause', they stick them in a spare classroom. Called them rubber rooms.
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or (oddly enough) any other procedure the two candidates agree on.
Probably because a coin toss could be seen as gambling, or one of the candidates as a shark, whatever. Thus, if both agree that a game of speed-chess decide the issue, it works. In MOST cases candidates are willing to get along to that extent. Most of them are rather tired by the end of an election, and just want to get the issue out of the way.
Other options could be rolling a die(high wins), drawing two cards from a shuffled deck, drawing straws, etc...
and considered legitimate.
Welcome to how ALL government works. ;)
Normally speaking, if the majority of people don't think something is legitimate and can be arsed to do something about it, it really doesn't matter what the government says.
I have to ask, why do we need voting machines? I've voted in a number of states, my preference thus far was voting in North Dakota - you filled in a bubble sheet you should be intimately familiar with from school from standardized tests, then it was scanned by a counter as it was fed into the ballet box. The scanner would also reject the ballot if it was improperly filled out(you bubbled in for multiple candidates for president, for example). The ballets are held and are human readable for manual count purposes if necessary(though I think the margin of error for the scanners is actually lower than counting by hand). Handicapped voters can get assistance in various ways. Initial numbers are available within minutes of the polls closing, as they pull the data from the scanners.
And you expect different results if there were only two candidates in the first place?
Okay, I'm creating a reminder, win or lose I think that your thoughts will be interesting after the election.
The fact that he is black will not hurt him as much as his performance. Everyone has this general mood that everyone else is incompetent right now. And Obama is no exception. Elitist might actually be a plus for Romney -- it might be seen as an indication of competence.
He certainly hasn't given me any impression of competence in leading a country. I should probably have said 'snob' instead.
Obama is a sinking ship. Everyone is abandoning it. Polls might still indicate that the ship is above water, but every sinking ship is above water until it sinks.
He might be taking on water, but the pumps are keeping up, Romney has been taking a shotgun to his own hull. He's lost support, but not that much support. If the Republicans had been able to come up with somebody better, it'd be their election.
This is NYC - They license the company, the car, AND the driver. You need a medallion to operate the car as a taxi. You need a permit to be a driver. You need to meet hundreds of regulations that, among other things, specify the exact models of cars you're allowed to use as a Taxi.
Some of this is safety - the cars are supposed to be relatively new and thus in good shape.
Some is being 'fair' - have to pick up anyone, take them to anywhere(in the service area)
Some is for consistent service - cleanliness, drivers have to pass a navigation test, etc...
First, I'm a libertarian, so I tend to favor very free markets, but still... The AC was mentioning an anarchy(IE No Government). A true libertarian(as opposed to an anarchist trying to get away from the 'nasty name') is a proponent of limited government. In the case of your example, the very existence of the police precludes anarchy(yes, corporate control would be a form of government), Under a truly 'free' market there wouldn't be any police. Still, let's assume a scenario where gypsy cabs are completely legal.
Your example of a GPS log would be flawed - that would require you have a device averaging several hundred dollars to present to the officer. Less expensive would be a bit of mapwork(google routes) showing that the optimal route would be a lot shorter than what the cabbie took you, and would preclude accusations that you farked with the GPS system(though his bill showing the same mileage within tolerances would support you).
In any case, despite my support for free markets, I DO support a few controls. Call them 'proactive fraud/harm prevention measures'. First step to ask 'Is this a problem, or a solution seeking a problem?'. Rather easy example - Weights & Measurements. We catch companies trying to short customers fairly often. It's unfair to ask consumers to constantly haul precisely calibrated measures around, plus, how can you trust the customer's measure? Fraud is possible on both sides. Thus enter the (theoretically, but at least mostly) neutral third party of the government official, who has the responsibility and duty to randomly check all the pumps, measures, scales and whatnot to ensure they are within tolerances. Back him up with fines of sufficient nature that businesses don't try to cheat and just pay the fines as reducing, but not eliminating, the profit from deliberately mis-calibrated measurements. Same, for the most part, with the FDA/USDA. I'd reform and streamline both, but wouldn't eliminate their function.
The last function would be the enforcement of a 'standard contract' between venders and consumers. Think of it as an efficiency measure - If you can go into the store and know that, outside of prominently published exceptions, you're guaranteed a working product, with a 30 day full money back return policy, and a few other things, it prevents you from 'wasting' time reading every store's individualized contract.
You make the same distinction I do - Nutrition is a part of how 'Healthy' a food is, but not all of it.
Still, there's problems organic foods, in that farmers are still free to use fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. They just have to be 'organic'* ones, and some of those are nastier than the artificial chemical ones. Also, there's the question of food safety, as organic certification is separate from safety certification. Fecal matter, E-Coli, Salmonella, etc are all natural and organic, after all. I've read reports that *SOME* organic products have higher levels of contamination than their non-organic counterparts. Given how widespread the field is and how stuff constantly changes, I have no advice beyond 'pay attention to your food source, no matter whether it's organic or not'. For example, I don't worry about organic vegetarian** eggs, but I do worry whether the farm vaccinates the hens against Salmonella.
*Scare-quoted primarily because the distinction on what's organic and not varies by location and certifying authority(if any). ;)
**WTH? I want eggs from omnivores - chickens that get sufficient insect protein produce better eggs!
How the hell is this consistent at all with, to use a buzzword, American values?
Because cities are where socialist policies hold the most sway in the USA, where 'American Values' are most infringed in the name of safety and security? The taxi commission provides some safety, and a lot of security to taxi companies. It's entrenched.
I'll note that given what I understand of NYC, I'd be looking for a personal point to point transportation system that doesn't need roads. The subways work well for large numbers of people going more or less the same way, we need a more individual solution though.
I'm sorry, but you're spreading some misinformation.
In NYC, in order to 'reduce' traffic* and protect the interests of the taxi drivers, they have their medallion system. Each taxi has to have a medallion to be legal. Medallions are handled like 'real property', in the sense that they can be sold, don't need renewing, etc...
Latest auction prices for the least restrictive medallions is around $1M. Ones marked only for 'independent operators' where the taxi driver is the owner are a bit cheaper, but still more expensive than the car they drive. Cheaper yet(at the moment) are the 'green' medallions that require you to drive a hybrid (Ford Escape, last time I read about it). As such, it's not a $1M 'fee' where you'll never get the money back. It's a $1M investment that you can get back next week by putting it up for auction again.
*Not that it's really worked; the market will find a way. In this case with non-livery cars that you call and they pick you up. Legally only actual taxis can respond to street hails.
1. Have enough coin flippers and you'd have a few that predicted every election up to now correctly, even though they flipped. I've been accurate as well; I'm predicting Obama. See how that works?
2. What's your source on gas prices going up 30% in a month? Or is that just a hope to get Obama voted out over gas prices?
3. Obama might be black, but Romney is seen by many as an entitled elitist ass.
Basically, as has happened the last few incumbent elections, this is the opposite party's election to lose. Obama merely has to hold steady; Romney has been busily shooting himself in the foot.
I say this as a moderate libertarian that hates both choices. Due to various factors though, Obama is leading in my preference by about 10 points - 50% vs 40%. Whoever gets elected, as far as I'm concerned it's pretty much 'New Boss, same as old boss'.
Modern polls take these things into consideration. It's not as if the statistical sciences and algorithmics haven't gotten so advanced that thousands of corporations, trading houses, banks don't use linear and dynamic programming to place billions of dollars of trades each day, in which people are actually "putting their money where their mouth is".
Indeed they do. I've seen the adjustments, they can get very crazy, and one always *hopes* their corrections are, well, correct. But they've gotten to the point that they mostly know what weights to use to mostly correct.
The results from Las Vegas aren't much different giving Obama a 70% chance of being reelected and that's before the dud of the republican convention and the highly successful democratic one.
This might tell you how bad it is. I consider myself a moderate libertarian, and am a registered republican(so I could vote in the primary). I'm seriously favoring voting for Obama, simply because I see Romney being so wrong, and untrustworthy to boot. For one, I want to adjust the tax system so that Romney pays a higher % in taxes than his secretary. Only way to do this is to make capital gains progressive. I haven't heard of doing that even from Obama's camp. My idea - Start at 0% for under $10k/year, max out at like 50% for over $600k. That encourages people to keep up to $200k@5% in investments(as it's tax free), which is generally a heck of a good emergency fund. To even start the 50% tax rate, you'd need over 12M@5%. At which point, like others have pointed out - what else is the dude going to do with the money?
One reason you don't see the jails as full of people as in the USA.
And here I thought it was the lack of a "war on drugs", maximum sentences of 20 years, where we'll toss you in prison for 40 for mere possession, if you have enough of it.
Not many people end up in prison over the more unusual laws. It's normally stuff like violence - murder, assault, robbery. Theft - burglary, theft, shoplifting, and the WoD.
One thing that I'd like to point out is that the RF problem has diminished by the user devices themselves. When you go from 12V switching to under 1V, you're looking at a lot less RF interference coming from the device anyways. Go from kilohertz to mega/gigahertz and you up the interference frequencies; lowering the range they can travel and the odds they'll interfere with the much slower switching electronics in the craft.
Basically, at this point it's hard to tell the average portable consumer device from background noise, as long as it's not intentionally transmitting.
I don't know if that works in the human body though because our immune system will not differentiate helpful bacteria from harmful ones and would probably wipe out such cultures just like any other foreign bacteria based pathogen.
It actually works pretty well - that's what probiotic yoghurt and such
As I understand, viruses also target specific classes of cells. Something to do with protein receptors on the virus being compatible with those on the target cell membrane. The HIV virus for example, targets T4 cells. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
A few viruses can cross the species barrier, most target very specific cells, even the cross-species ones.
A "special" class of virus known as phages targets bacteria (cells) that cause diseases.
Actually phages are viruses that target bacteria in general, not just ones that cause disease. However, we're mostly interested in the ones that target disease causing bacteria.
Another front. I imagine when that scenario occurs, the bacteria and the phage fall into some sort of equilibrium between each other and the host (as the immune system reacts, it too becomes part of the equilibrium) and continue to exist at certain levels. So it would be kind of like a vaccine except where the response body for a certain infection is also foreign.
Phages, like all other viruses, have limited lifespan in the human body on their own. The human body is active with waste scavengers, it's hot, etc... So no, it's not like a vaccination. It's more like antibiotics - you give it to somebody who's sick. Giving to somebody beforehand is going to be approximately worthless. Worse than worthless if the body develops an immune response against IT. As you say, you need a specific phage for a specific bacteria. The advantage once you get past that is no worry about the bacteria becoming immune - the phage evolves to keep up with the bacteria. Combined with the immune response, it's quite effective when you have a matching phage.
It's difficult for these types of remedies to work with FDA standards because of the great number of possible phages, the FDA insist on approving each one.
Indeed. FDA approval is set up for generic drugs and treatments, it's far too intensive for type specific treatments. It'd help if they could get a 'type approval' process.
And one last note, while we are talking about viruses, have you watched a film called "Bourne Legacy"?
Not yet. As for the mutation thing, it's possible. Look up 'Retrovirus'. HIV, Hepatitis, etc... They utilize a enzyme called reverse transcriptase to write their RNA into DNA in the cell. These types of viruses are unusual in that they're based on RNA instead of DNA. It makes them more fragile.
Some of them are capable of making the cell produce more viral bodies without killing the cell, and the cell can be a 'sleeper' for years before activating, normally due to some sort of stress.
Oh yeah - and if you're in Brazil, you're probably out of luck. To my knowledge Brazil has nothing to do with smallpox anymore, retains no stores of the virus(that's the USA and Russia), and probably doesn't even have stocks of the vaccine anymore.
I should note that the smallpox vaccine is one of the nastiest going. You don't need it, don't get it. And this is coming from somebody who's very pro-vaccine(grampa has been handicapped from his fight with polio for most of his life).
You're looking at Federal Level, mostly working for a lab that actually handles the few remaining samples. Military would be the 'easier' subset, just due to scale.
Food-born bacteria that exist naturally in meats or fish double in population every 40 minutes if left at room temperature.
It actually took me a minute to see where this was coming from. I'm talking about disease in general - and how the disease, whether virus, bacteria, or other replicates once it's in the body. Remember, 90% of our vaccines are against viruses, which don't multiply outside the body anyways. Plus, you can't refrigerate your body to slow down the disease.
Basically, with a disease you ALWAYS get a small initial exposure - a virus could be a few dozen actual bodies, but once it gets in the cells it multiplies rapidly, you could have millions of viral bodies within a few days. After a while the immune system starts reacting, and it's generally exponential as well, at least up to the body's resources. Hopefully it ramps up faster than the disease, plus as time goes on the immune system 'learns' the disease and gets better at detecting and neutralizing it.
It takes like 2 hours and 30 minutes for a piece of meat to get to the point where it is no longer consumable.
Depends on the meat, the exact temperatures, exposure, etc... In reality, the 150 minute time span is a general rule of thumb for how long it takes for enough bacteria to multiply to actually cause an infection in an compromised immune system individual. There's additional multiplication necessary to reach levels high enough to cause symptoms.
So I believe the immune system takes action faster if not immediately although perhaps the bodies resistance to a foreign pathogen be minimal at first and increase with time (perhaps exponentially up to a certain point).
It depends on the disease. There are LOTS of already existing defenses against things like bacteria, especially in your digestive tract. It's already a rare bacteria that makes it through the stomach, for example. If it makes it through there, it has to compete against the naturally occurring gut flora. Contact with a skin penetration can be far easier(for the bacteria), as well as inhalation. The human body is actually pretty hostile for bacteria.
Your immune system is more reacting within hours for many diseases - colds, for example. But depending on the disease it can take longer, and can take longer yet to reach maximum response. That's where drugs like antibiotics come in - they rarely actually kill all the bacteria, but it's like opening another front. You already have the ramping immune response, then you go and kill a bunch of the bacteria and more importantly you slow down their reproduction.
Viruses, until relatively recently, we had no option but to support body function until the immune system could control it on it's own. Now we have some drugs that help, but they tend to be expensive. However, it just so happens that once an immune system has 'learned' a virus, it's very good at neutralizing it. It also 'remembers' viruses for varying amounts of time, but trending past 30 years for most. Thus vaccination - which is basically an artificial method to teach the immune system a virus, so it hits 'code 4' almost instantly vs taking days to do so. That way the immune system is hitting like a sledgehammer at 10k viruses, not 10M.
Viruses are, relatively speaking, the sneakier ones, not having biological processes to speak of on their own.
Anthrax would be easier than smallpox - you need a GOOD reason, basically government support to get the smallpox vaccine. Being dead in the wild; I wouldn't worry about it unless you fit special indicators. Anthrax you can get from cattle.
"Immunity through exposure" is exactly how vaccines work. We deliberately weaken the virus/disease, even kill it so that the immune system can 'learn' the signs of the disease so it can react faster if you're exposed later.
Diseases tend to be exponential events. If your immune system can be reacting in hour 8, rather than day 7, your symptoms can be a couple OOM lower in magnitude.
7 cps trick? Not familiar with this one. Got any info on it?
A the battery idea isn't 'easier' when you need 2 wks worth of power.
Until we develop some new methods of storing power, I'm afraid we're stuck with the nuke. You're going to need heat/power for the people during the night. Though insulation and thermal mass with stored solar heat should work for the heat. But that's for a larger base.
Actually building something like a solar thermal power station using molten salts and a storage tank big enough for 2 weeks is a large enough undertaking that you'd have to be refining the salts ON the moon.
Solar panels in multiple sites - like 4 solar farms around the face of the moon would theoretically be doable, but the moon is 'only' 1/4 the diameter of the earth; you're still looking at shipping power distances greater than any single power run on Earth. Probably easier to build the huge thermal storage tank.
Thing about not growing any algae in the 2-week lunar night is, it might cut down on your oxygen production. Thus, the idea for the nuclear isotope powered LEDs for use during that half a month where you don't get any natural sunlight. Dunno bout you, tovarisch, but two weeks is a loooong time for me to hold my breath.
The shuttle manages to do over 2 weeks without any plant based O2 production. O2 isn't like electricity; it's actually pretty easy to store. Logically speaking, the amount of O2 released by the growth of an edible plant will exactly offset the O2 needed to metabolize said edible plant. Plant waste(stalks, rinds) will actually give you an imbalance - not enough edible calories for the amount of O2 you have. If you build the base large enough, there should be plenty of O2 even during a 2 week outage; which you then recharge during the 2 week growing spree. You might actually end up bringing some herbivores to eat the remaining parts, or some digestive bacteria or something to metabolize the rest to produce fertilizer(or just dry and burn it).
Finally, I wasn't trying to propose not growing anything during the 'night'. I was proposing having algae be SOME of your food supply, because it grows fast and isn't dependent upon any solar cycle. Let's say it's half your food, and has the same solar efficiency as the rest of your foodstocks(which DO require artificial light during the night). So during the Lunar day you have lots of power - you're directing sunlight into your farm areas, 2/3rds into your algae section, 1/3rd to the other crops to free your electrical generation facilities up for whatever. Then during the night you artificially light your other crops to keep them alive/growing. So you get 2 units of food from your algae during the day, 1 unit of other, during the night you get another 1 unit of other(on average).
Another thing, the ISS doesn't have a 1/6th gravity, it's in microgravity. Asking them to do experiments in 1/6th gravity is not gonna happen unless somebody packs a couple centrifuges onto a resupply mission. This been done yet?
I'm pretty sure they have some, but I was thinking more along the lines of 'we can be reasonably sure it'll work' if we have a plant that grows in earth gravity AND on the shuttle, given proper conditions.
Guess who I stand with.
Well, given that you're dissing my ideas, while making some basic errors(storing ~2 weeks of O2 is that big of a deal when you're hauling nuclear reactors around?), I'd have to say some flavor of JOE.
Remember, my idea was just that - if I was more serious I'd be looking for studies on how edible algae is, how much light it needs, how much light more conventional crops need, how much water/processing is needed, whether there's something else we can grow in such a short cycle. How hard it would be to keep the 'starter culture' alive during the downtime, etc... And that's just off the top of my head. People get paid to figure this stuff out.
That's what I get for working from memory. Minimum size in NYC is 400 square feet; I'm seeing a number of efficiencies more around 250-300square feet. So about double.
Good enough. One thing to be concerned with is retrofitting a building with AC could be extremely expensive. With many heating systems, you don't need any ducting. With central AC, you do.
Though there are various options OTHER than inefficient window AC units - there are ductless AC units that only need a 3-4" hole in the wall, then a line that runs to an actual radiator unit. Options are numerous; which one would be best depends on the actual layout of the building, insulation levels, etc...
I remember reading a special about the NYC schools - they have whole classrooms of fully paid teachers that they don't dare allow to teach for various ways. But because they're not allowed to fire them(Union benefits) without some rather extreme 'due cause', they stick them in a spare classroom. Called them rubber rooms.