In your case, I'd look into throwing away your oil boiler then and either going with resistive heat or having a heat pump installed. Ground source if it makes sense.
On second thought, I'd keep the oil burner as a back up. Loosing heat in a power outage sucks.
Good quality CFLs work great for me, but I will acknowledge that I'm more bothered by blinking lights than color temperature/quality.
Of course, I also install tube flourescents when I can.
One of my relatives rents out property. He wanted to fit CFBs in the lights so he could sell the property as cheap to run. He bought several batches and found some had a very high fail rate in the first year. Others are still going strong many years later. He took back the bad ones and the replacements are fine.
I've heard this a lot. GE bulbs good, Slyvania not so good, no-names horrible, etc... Bad lots happen.
A 5 year MTBF doesn't mean that some won't fail tommorow, just that the odds are against it. Some won't last a week, some may last decades.
Since this must be expensive, presumably the companies that sell them will work out some way to not sell the ones that are going to fail in under a year.
They probably test them as best as they can economically and simply absorb the occasional warranty claim that's annoying enough that most people don't bother with it over a $3 lightbulb.
Would people be far more comfortable building more coal-plants if everyone switched to CFBs to light their homes?
The general idea is that a CFL/CFB uses about 5 times less power for it's light output, thus if everybody switched we wouldn't HAVE to build and operate more coal power plants, preventing the emission of said mercury. The small amount of mercury in a CFL has some people over reacting. Look up the reasons for 'mad as a hatter' to get an idea of how massive our exposure and dumping of it used to be.
If anything, all I'd call for is beefing up the bulb coatings to save the bulb from bursting on the occasional drop.
I wouldn't worry about it as much if we were looking at building more nuclear(more hydro isn't an option in my area), but the NIMBYs have shut that down.
So, instead, I practice shutting off lights in rooms that I'm not in, adjusting my heat during the night and when I'm not at home, and shutting off my computer when I'm not using it. Imagine the change to the electric bill then.
I do this as well. But I still need light, so why NOT go with power saving longer lasting CFLs than incandescents?
Personally, I've had such good luck with CFLs that I love them because once I put one in I don't have to replace it.
Ask yourself when the last time you changed your car headlights was.
Last month. Though I will admit that it's the first light change, and my car had just hit the 5 year old point a couple months ago.
Seriously, the deal with headlights and other long life incandescent lights is that they sacrifice efficiency for longevity. I also paid as much for that light as I would have for a high quality CFL.
The way a filimant light works is that for a given cost and contruction quality level you can make the filiment thin and efficient(relatively), at the cost of it being more fragile and likely to burn out, or you can make it thick and long lasting at the cost of efficiency as the thicker filiment will, on average, emit more infrared per watt than usable light.
For a car, especially the shocks expected you go with a VERY thick filiment that's not actually all that good at producing light, combined with shock absorbtion systems that raise the cost but allow the filament to survive the shocks. It probably also helps that the bulb is nowhere near a person, limiting heat problems, and used on average less than 4 hours a day.
You're probably thinking about CFLs with dimmers, as they're pretty much a on-off technology as you have to have enough voltage to create an arc to produce light.
LEDs are dimmable without using frequency dimmers, a simple variable resistor is sufficient for them.
When I can buy a LED light that will put off as much light as my current 60 watt bulbs
For me, I'd add in a cost justification as well. I'll do it when they reach a cost that justifies their purchase over a incandescent or CFL bulb.
LED house lights are a lot like electric cars...
They're just too expensive at the necessary light levels for a home. Flashlights, being both dimmer on average and portable w/limited power supplies are a different justification.
For the disposal thing, I'd say to allow them into recycling trash. At the very least, properly manufactured CFLs should drop the number of bulbs tossed in the trash by a factor of 10-20.
In many rape cases, the perpetrator is known, but it is difficult to impossible to prove that what happened was rape and not consentual sex.
In many crimes, there either isn't DNA evidence - maybe a condom was used. Or something as simple as a robber or burglar wearing gloves to prevent leaving easy to find fingerprints.
Or the DNA evidence is inconclusive - for example, who would be surprised to find the husband or boyfriend's sperm in a woman? Or the DNA of a family friend in the house?
The other concern with this database is that it becomes more difficult to search through the more you have in the database. For example, take fingerprints - already the FBI database in the USA takes HOURS at the least to perform a search. Imagine what it'd be like if you had all 300 million citizens and millions more immigrants, known visitors, etc...
It's already happened with the firearm fingerprint databases in the two states that implemented them - the police departments have asked to dismantle them, as they've never gotten a hit leading to conviction on them - at a cost of millions. Last time I checked, one of the database had only ever had two hits - neither conclusive. At a cost of millions per year.
I'm surprised they aren't approaching it from a public safety aspect. If you get the DNA from everyone, criminal investigations would only be one of the lesser uses.
It could also be used to identify the body, whether dead or in a coma. In a kidnap case of a baby, it's much faster to use a direct sample of the DNA than to use the parent's to figure it out.
On the other hand, expanding that criminal database has been a national priority for some time. I've read that it's a standard policy right now to arrest people if at all possible - one guy was arrested, hauled in, and sampled because somebody reported that they thought he had a gun - he was searched and no gun was found, he had been kept on camera, so they knew he hadn't discarded one. Yet they hauled him in. Why? Probably for the policy - he had no previous arrest record, and now they had the excuse to get him on file.
I've seen this tendency myself. To a large extent, kids DO pick up a lot of behaviors and values from their parents. If their parents view obeying the laws and respecting the property of others to be optional, their kids will tend to think so as well.
This is part of the reason why kids of broken families tend towards more criminality - they have half the exposure to ethics a whole family would give.
You could use the nuclear reactor as at least a bigeneration plant - produce electricity, then use remaining 'waste' heat* to power the desalination/ethanol/whatever else needs heat plant.
You can get much higher efficiencies this way than a simple electricity generation system.
As a bonus, we can always use the desalination plant as a moderation system - run the reactor full out, but adjust things to produce more electricity when there's high demand, then desalinate lots of water when there isn't. After all, nuclear reactors excel at running at 100% power 90+% of the time, and are expensive enough to build and cheap enough to operate that you don't want to shut the thing off when you don't have to.
*You might have to 'detune' the electricity system a bit to still have the steam hot enough, but eh.
Is there any reason why people can't buy solar panels and put them on their roofs? Are they too expensive? Ugly? Do they not provide enough power for the average home?
1. Nope 2. Very much so 3. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 4. Sure, you just need a lot of them, not to mention a storage bank if you want power when the sun's not out.
Limited exceptions aside, the only thing keeping solar from being part of the standard roof installation is that even with 50-75% subsidization on the part of various government agencies the payback is over 20 years in most cases. If you assume a 5-10% cost of capitol, many systems would never break even.
Cut the cost of panels in half and double the cost of electricity and it makes sense in orders of magnitude more places, such as areas where electricity is extremely expensive, such as some European countries and California when the legislature is having a particularly large cow.
Get the cost of an install that'll cover ~50% of a home's needs down to ~$2-4/watt and I'd expect them to be building factories to build the panels left and right. I say 50% because more than that and you'll likely need battery banks($$$) to go off the grid otherwise the power companies will start doing things like charge a monthly connection fee to pay for infrastructure and maintenance, and refuse to buy power because they have no demand when you have power to sell.
A single watt of panel can be expected to produce ~2-3 kwh a year. If you're paying $.30 a kwh, you're looking at a payback period of around 4-5 years. That's reasonable. The problem: I haven't seen a new panel kit for less than $10/watt, and I only pay $.10 per kwh. So I'm not installing them anytime soon.
Nuclear reactors of this size would be incredibly difficult to crack and create a dirty bomb without fatally irradiating themselves, much less avoid setting off every radiation detector in the area.
Besides, the most likely source of radioactive materials today for a dirty bomb is medical radiation sources.
Yet, they are still establishing colonies and have yet to comply with UN resolutions.
I'm not an Israelite, but if the result of giving back territory, abandoning colonies was MORE attacks, I think that I'd go back to the old system.
As for the money given to the Palestinians, if it'd been used even halfway decently*, they should have been able to have built a fairly decent educational/infrastructure/industrial base.
This is exactly why this conflict isn't going to be solved any time soon. You've got a majority of people on each side who *do* want peace, while at the same time there's a vocal minority that doesn't want peace and blames it on the other side.
They're not going to just cry and go running home after a FREAKING laser attack. Oh no. You can bet that handfuls of Qassam missiles will rain down on a pretty regular basis. What Israel needs is a good read of Dr. Suse's Butter Battle Book and have a sudden outbreak of common sense. Palestine needs to grow the hell up and stop acting like an angry child too.
Probably not, seeing as how the laser has been proposed as a strictly defensive weapon, to shoot down the rockets/missiles that are ALREADY raining down on a 'pretty regular basis'. Matter of fact, the citizens of the town could suddenly decide to start lobbing explosives back the other way and the attacks wouldn't increase significantly, as Palestine is already throwing as much as they can at them.
So New York citizens should also sue over the WTC attacks?
They have. We also invaded at least one country because of it*. Do you suggest that Israel invade and take more territory to solve this problem?
They're also not suing the Palestinians over this, instead are suing their own government for failing to provide a defense.
It's a circle of violence that is not restricted to one side, and the only way to break it is for one side to just stop. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.
I have to agree, but I'll also point out that going by quite a bit of the propaganda on the Palestinian side says that there won't be any peace until all Israelites are 'pushed into the sea'.
History in the area generally shows that any ceasing of aggression on Israel's part is seen more of a sign of impending victory, time to push forward even more.
Maybe something like this laser system might push them to enough despair to actually give it up.
*I figure Iraq wasn't caused by 9/11, but delayed by it. But I know some disagree.
Burglars don't need a target, they can simply pick any house.
1. This is a state/federal ID card, club membership is a separate (private) issue. This would end up being a modification/securing of the traditional Driver's License/ID card, not a replacement for your ATM or SAM's club card. The ID card would be used to back up the private card when necessary. 2. That's why the endorsement would be on the ID card 3. Why do you think I mentioned the diabetic scenario? Heck, there are diabetics who've had that fact tattooed on their chest. 4. The height/weight is providing more proof you're you in a situation where a network link or thumb reader isn't available than a possibly lousy picture. The idea is that even if somebody manages to paste out your picture on the card or look somewhat similar they also need to get the height/weight/eye/hair color stuff or it's going to break down when a 250 pound guy tries to imitate a 120 pound one. It's 'backup' in the 'additional proof' way.
I'm picturing something along the military ID system today. You lose your card, you go down to the local office responsible for issuing/updating/replacing cards.
You tell them your name and ID number. Can't remember your ID number*? Simply provide enough information to uniquely identify yourself, such as birthdate, birthplace, parents' names, etc...
They then pull up your information, verifying additional information that's hard to fake, like a stored image of your old picture, fingerprint, bloodtype, perhaps even DNA.
While you won't be able to kill fake IDs completely, you could make it very difficult to do so. Control the card stock, holographic technology, etc... The real kicker would be the addition of online verification via PIN or fingerprint.
It would be far more sensible to have a card which stated "John Smith, looks like this, has this signature, has this account, with that bank".
Are you sure about that? I mean, do you WANT to keep what you have to keep in your wallet down, don't you? For various reasons my parents have accounts at at least three different banks. Do you propose they keep three different forms of photo ID? Perhaps combined with their ATM cards?
Right now driver's licenses are used for the photo ID part, with ATM cards perhaps used as a backup.
Consider somebody like Jared of subway fame - to maintain a decent photo ID now all he has to do is get his DL redone, maybe a couple others. In your scenario you'd need to get every ID redone, along with every business needing to have the systems necessary to print photo IDs.
Right now having your address on your DL helps in returning it if it's lost, especially in times before the internet.
What you physically put on the ID should be a careful selection of providing the most utility while revealing the least amount of personal information. For an ID card, I think that a good list would be:
1. Citizenship status - good for verifying voting and employment rights. Allows it to act like a 'passport card'. 2. Driver's license - basically just an endorsement. That way places like car rental agencies DON'T need a tie in to the database. 3. Blood type/organ donor/special medical status - Yes, if you're diabetic you might want to have more indicators like a bracelet. 4. Distinguishing characteristics like height/weight to help back up the picture 5. Thumbprint(or other finger) for an additional identity backup.
Well, I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing to have a single card have multiple uses.
Still, today you could have the ID have your picture, maybe a fingerprint, and the name. Everything else is pulled, as necessary, through online databases.
Though having a note that the person has a driver's license(allowing it to behave as a driver's license) might not be bad.
Heck, I've lived in no less that 6 states. I keep this up I have at least a chance of visiting all 50 in my lifetime.
You might not know this, but the first three numbers in your social identifies where you were born. I was born in a small state(ND), and people spot that I was born there all the time when they spot my social. You wouldn't necessarily get a new number when you move.
Still, what do you expect for less than 30 seconds of thought. I think you're right, a state identifier isn't necessarily needed, but I was figuring on pushing most of the administration down to the states, and that would make issuing the numbers without duplication much easier.
That's why I specified ID cards. Besides, many Amish KIDS must have drivers licenses, as they can drive until they reach the point where they choose whether or not to stay Amish. Apparently they sometimes get quite wild until then. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Amish have drivers licenses for their buggies even if they don't drive automobiles. I've seen pictures of them driving on roads, I'm not sure if they get an exemption merely because their vehicle isn't mechanically powered.
The other solutions all have their problems as well. Personally, I think that the fix would be to NOT keep too many records associated with the ID number in addition to proper database controls. Still, a cop determined to stalk a hottie would be able to do so off the basis of her DL, an ID card wouldn't be a significant aid.
He wasn't refused treatment by any means, but apparently he wasn't incredibly coherent when he came in, so they went by his medical records - records which IDed a guy not only with a different bloodtype but with a number of persistent medical conditions requiring treatment that's not healthy for a person without them.
The difficulties later were in trying to get his records purged of the false information - records that would come up every time he came in for treatment. In addition, there were some talks of possibly charging him until he had shown a fair amount of ID.
Doctors can screw up, but from what I remember of the article(it's been a while), he didn't blame the doctors, or even the system until he grew frustrated trying to get stuff fixed. For example, the other guy was STILL getting treatment under his identity, you'd think that that at least would be easy to fix. After a while he wanted the system tightened up a bit, I can certainly understand that.
I seem to remember some british guy almost dying because somebody else had used his identity for years to get medical care, and when he went for treatment there were a number of wtfs because his medical condition didn't match his records.
He also had multiple problems because they kept assuming HE was the faker.
Still, we run into problems like with the new national standards for drivers licenses - they're still possible to fake and or get fraudulently, but more difficult. But at the same time it imposed a massive pain in the butt for states and individuals both. But that's to be expected anytime you tighten security requirements. In addition, look at money. We release new notes with additional security measures, but it'll be decades before the old ones are off the streets - and you can still counterfeit the old style.
Back on the drivers licenses, I'd look into going to a fingerprint type system - Yes, it'd be more of a pain in the butt, especially for those poor people who get their identity stolen and the crook manages to get HIS thumb into the DB. In exchange, as best as possible I'd keep the fingerprints out of law enforcement toolbase. With only one or two fingers, it wouldn't be too useful either for them, at least. I'd also consider a DNA fingerprint designed such that it's the equivalent of a MD5 checksum - any two people are unlikely to have the same fingerprint, but you can't gleam more than identity from it. So no worrying about having your health insurance dropped because you have a tendency towards breast cancer.
Between the photo ID, fingerprint, and PIN, while it wouldn't be impossible to fake somebody's identity, it would be much more difficult. At the same time I'd institute some changes to make establishing an identity for those who somehow slip between the cracks(refugee, adoption from outside the states, born of anti-tech hillbillies, etc...) easier.
On thing to realize is that when you start talking about a system with 300 million plus fingerprints or DNA checksums is that if you're using it to try to find a suspect you can expect it to take some huge resources to get hits.
Slashdot Mirror
In your case, I'd look into throwing away your oil boiler then and either going with resistive heat or having a heat pump installed. Ground source if it makes sense.
On second thought, I'd keep the oil burner as a back up. Loosing heat in a power outage sucks.
Good quality CFLs work great for me, but I will acknowledge that I'm more bothered by blinking lights than color temperature/quality.
Of course, I also install tube flourescents when I can.
One of my relatives rents out property. He wanted to fit CFBs in the lights so he could sell the property as cheap to run. He bought several batches and found some had a very high fail rate in the first year. Others are still going strong many years later. He took back the bad ones and the replacements are fine.
I've heard this a lot. GE bulbs good, Slyvania not so good, no-names horrible, etc... Bad lots happen.
A 5 year MTBF doesn't mean that some won't fail tommorow, just that the odds are against it. Some won't last a week, some may last decades.
Since this must be expensive, presumably the companies that sell them will work out some way to not sell the ones that are going to fail in under a year.
They probably test them as best as they can economically and simply absorb the occasional warranty claim that's annoying enough that most people don't bother with it over a $3 lightbulb.
Would people be far more comfortable building more coal-plants if everyone switched to CFBs to light their homes?
The general idea is that a CFL/CFB uses about 5 times less power for it's light output, thus if everybody switched we wouldn't HAVE to build and operate more coal power plants, preventing the emission of said mercury. The small amount of mercury in a CFL has some people over reacting. Look up the reasons for 'mad as a hatter' to get an idea of how massive our exposure and dumping of it used to be.
If anything, all I'd call for is beefing up the bulb coatings to save the bulb from bursting on the occasional drop.
I wouldn't worry about it as much if we were looking at building more nuclear(more hydro isn't an option in my area), but the NIMBYs have shut that down.
So, instead, I practice shutting off lights in rooms that I'm not in, adjusting my heat during the night and when I'm not at home, and shutting off my computer when I'm not using it. Imagine the change to the electric bill then.
I do this as well. But I still need light, so why NOT go with power saving longer lasting CFLs than incandescents?
Personally, I've had such good luck with CFLs that I love them because once I put one in I don't have to replace it.
Ask yourself when the last time you changed your car headlights was.
Last month. Though I will admit that it's the first light change, and my car had just hit the 5 year old point a couple months ago.
Seriously, the deal with headlights and other long life incandescent lights is that they sacrifice efficiency for longevity. I also paid as much for that light as I would have for a high quality CFL.
The way a filimant light works is that for a given cost and contruction quality level you can make the filiment thin and efficient(relatively), at the cost of it being more fragile and likely to burn out, or you can make it thick and long lasting at the cost of efficiency as the thicker filiment will, on average, emit more infrared per watt than usable light.
For a car, especially the shocks expected you go with a VERY thick filiment that's not actually all that good at producing light, combined with shock absorbtion systems that raise the cost but allow the filament to survive the shocks. It probably also helps that the bulb is nowhere near a person, limiting heat problems, and used on average less than 4 hours a day.
They're very expensive and don't last that much longer - not enough to justify the cost.
You might want to check the brand you've tried, or your power.
I have 6 year old CFLs that are still churning away.
While yes, they're more expensive, consider the mechanics. A CFL uses 1/5th the power that a standard incandescent uses.
60 Watt Bulb: $1 for 4
60 Watt Equiv, 12 watt actual: $9 for 3
Lifespan:
The incandescent will last around a year, being used 4 hours a day.
The CFL will last 5 years.
Average cost per year: $.60 for the CFL, $.25 for the incandescent. But what about the electricity?
4 hours a day @60 watts is 87.6 kwh. Or, in my area, $8.76 in electricity.
4 hours a day @12 watts is 17.5 kwh. $1.75
The cost of the bulb in this case is negligible. It's the difference it makes in your power bills that saves the money.
You're probably thinking about CFLs with dimmers, as they're pretty much a on-off technology as you have to have enough voltage to create an arc to produce light.
LEDs are dimmable without using frequency dimmers, a simple variable resistor is sufficient for them.
When I can buy a LED light that will put off as much light as my current 60 watt bulbs
For me, I'd add in a cost justification as well. I'll do it when they reach a cost that justifies their purchase over a incandescent or CFL bulb.
LED house lights are a lot like electric cars...
They're just too expensive at the necessary light levels for a home. Flashlights, being both dimmer on average and portable w/limited power supplies are a different justification.
For the disposal thing, I'd say to allow them into recycling trash. At the very least, properly manufactured CFLs should drop the number of bulbs tossed in the trash by a factor of 10-20.
Oh, I don't know, maybe erasing the drives makes sense because they contain case files and such?
The replacement drives might support encryption, which is a normal 'corporate' feature.
In many rape cases, the perpetrator is known, but it is difficult to impossible to prove that what happened was rape and not consentual sex.
In many crimes, there either isn't DNA evidence - maybe a condom was used. Or something as simple as a robber or burglar wearing gloves to prevent leaving easy to find fingerprints.
Or the DNA evidence is inconclusive - for example, who would be surprised to find the husband or boyfriend's sperm in a woman? Or the DNA of a family friend in the house?
The other concern with this database is that it becomes more difficult to search through the more you have in the database. For example, take fingerprints - already the FBI database in the USA takes HOURS at the least to perform a search. Imagine what it'd be like if you had all 300 million citizens and millions more immigrants, known visitors, etc...
It's already happened with the firearm fingerprint databases in the two states that implemented them - the police departments have asked to dismantle them, as they've never gotten a hit leading to conviction on them - at a cost of millions. Last time I checked, one of the database had only ever had two hits - neither conclusive. At a cost of millions per year.
I'm surprised they aren't approaching it from a public safety aspect. If you get the DNA from everyone, criminal investigations would only be one of the lesser uses.
It could also be used to identify the body, whether dead or in a coma. In a kidnap case of a baby, it's much faster to use a direct sample of the DNA than to use the parent's to figure it out.
On the other hand, expanding that criminal database has been a national priority for some time. I've read that it's a standard policy right now to arrest people if at all possible - one guy was arrested, hauled in, and sampled because somebody reported that they thought he had a gun - he was searched and no gun was found, he had been kept on camera, so they knew he hadn't discarded one. Yet they hauled him in. Why? Probably for the policy - he had no previous arrest record, and now they had the excuse to get him on file.
I've seen this tendency myself. To a large extent, kids DO pick up a lot of behaviors and values from their parents. If their parents view obeying the laws and respecting the property of others to be optional, their kids will tend to think so as well.
This is part of the reason why kids of broken families tend towards more criminality - they have half the exposure to ethics a whole family would give.
Heck yeah!
You could use the nuclear reactor as at least a bigeneration plant - produce electricity, then use remaining 'waste' heat* to power the desalination/ethanol/whatever else needs heat plant.
You can get much higher efficiencies this way than a simple electricity generation system.
As a bonus, we can always use the desalination plant as a moderation system - run the reactor full out, but adjust things to produce more electricity when there's high demand, then desalinate lots of water when there isn't. After all, nuclear reactors excel at running at 100% power 90+% of the time, and are expensive enough to build and cheap enough to operate that you don't want to shut the thing off when you don't have to.
*You might have to 'detune' the electricity system a bit to still have the steam hot enough, but eh.
Is there any reason why people can't buy solar panels and put them on their roofs? Are they too expensive? Ugly? Do they not provide enough power for the average home?
1. Nope
2. Very much so
3. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
4. Sure, you just need a lot of them, not to mention a storage bank if you want power when the sun's not out.
Limited exceptions aside, the only thing keeping solar from being part of the standard roof installation is that even with 50-75% subsidization on the part of various government agencies the payback is over 20 years in most cases. If you assume a 5-10% cost of capitol, many systems would never break even.
Cut the cost of panels in half and double the cost of electricity and it makes sense in orders of magnitude more places, such as areas where electricity is extremely expensive, such as some European countries and California when the legislature is having a particularly large cow.
Get the cost of an install that'll cover ~50% of a home's needs down to ~$2-4/watt and I'd expect them to be building factories to build the panels left and right. I say 50% because more than that and you'll likely need battery banks($$$) to go off the grid otherwise the power companies will start doing things like charge a monthly connection fee to pay for infrastructure and maintenance, and refuse to buy power because they have no demand when you have power to sell.
A single watt of panel can be expected to produce ~2-3 kwh a year. If you're paying $.30 a kwh, you're looking at a payback period of around 4-5 years. That's reasonable. The problem: I haven't seen a new panel kit for less than $10/watt, and I only pay $.10 per kwh. So I'm not installing them anytime soon.
Nuclear reactors of this size would be incredibly difficult to crack and create a dirty bomb without fatally irradiating themselves, much less avoid setting off every radiation detector in the area.
Besides, the most likely source of radioactive materials today for a dirty bomb is medical radiation sources.
Yet, they are still establishing colonies and have yet to comply with UN resolutions.
I'm not an Israelite, but if the result of giving back territory, abandoning colonies was MORE attacks, I think that I'd go back to the old system.
As for the money given to the Palestinians, if it'd been used even halfway decently*, they should have been able to have built a fairly decent educational/infrastructure/industrial base.
This is exactly why this conflict isn't going to be solved any time soon. You've got a majority of people on each side who *do* want peace, while at the same time there's a vocal minority that doesn't want peace and blames it on the other side.
True.
*By my standards, admittedly
They're not going to just cry and go running home after a FREAKING laser attack. Oh no. You can bet that handfuls of Qassam missiles will rain down on a pretty regular basis. What Israel needs is a good read of Dr. Suse's Butter Battle Book and have a sudden outbreak of common sense. Palestine needs to grow the hell up and stop acting like an angry child too.
Probably not, seeing as how the laser has been proposed as a strictly defensive weapon, to shoot down the rockets/missiles that are ALREADY raining down on a 'pretty regular basis'. Matter of fact, the citizens of the town could suddenly decide to start lobbing explosives back the other way and the attacks wouldn't increase significantly, as Palestine is already throwing as much as they can at them.
So New York citizens should also sue over the WTC attacks?
They have. We also invaded at least one country because of it*. Do you suggest that Israel invade and take more territory to solve this problem?
They're also not suing the Palestinians over this, instead are suing their own government for failing to provide a defense.
It's a circle of violence that is not restricted to one side, and the only way to break it is for one side to just stop. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.
I have to agree, but I'll also point out that going by quite a bit of the propaganda on the Palestinian side says that there won't be any peace until all Israelites are 'pushed into the sea'.
History in the area generally shows that any ceasing of aggression on Israel's part is seen more of a sign of impending victory, time to push forward even more.
Maybe something like this laser system might push them to enough despair to actually give it up.
*I figure Iraq wasn't caused by 9/11, but delayed by it. But I know some disagree.
Burglars don't need a target, they can simply pick any house.
1. This is a state/federal ID card, club membership is a separate (private) issue. This would end up being a modification/securing of the traditional Driver's License/ID card, not a replacement for your ATM or SAM's club card. The ID card would be used to back up the private card when necessary.
2. That's why the endorsement would be on the ID card
3. Why do you think I mentioned the diabetic scenario? Heck, there are diabetics who've had that fact tattooed on their chest.
4. The height/weight is providing more proof you're you in a situation where a network link or thumb reader isn't available than a possibly lousy picture. The idea is that even if somebody manages to paste out your picture on the card or look somewhat similar they also need to get the height/weight/eye/hair color stuff or it's going to break down when a 250 pound guy tries to imitate a 120 pound one. It's 'backup' in the 'additional proof' way.
I have to agree with you, Soup.
I'm picturing something along the military ID system today. You lose your card, you go down to the local office responsible for issuing/updating/replacing cards.
You tell them your name and ID number. Can't remember your ID number*? Simply provide enough information to uniquely identify yourself, such as birthdate, birthplace, parents' names, etc...
They then pull up your information, verifying additional information that's hard to fake, like a stored image of your old picture, fingerprint, bloodtype, perhaps even DNA.
While you won't be able to kill fake IDs completely, you could make it very difficult to do so. Control the card stock, holographic technology, etc... The real kicker would be the addition of online verification via PIN or fingerprint.
*Not everyone has their social memorized.
It would be far more sensible to have a card which stated "John Smith, looks like this, has this signature, has this account, with that bank".
Are you sure about that? I mean, do you WANT to keep what you have to keep in your wallet down, don't you? For various reasons my parents have accounts at at least three different banks. Do you propose they keep three different forms of photo ID? Perhaps combined with their ATM cards?
Right now driver's licenses are used for the photo ID part, with ATM cards perhaps used as a backup.
Consider somebody like Jared of subway fame - to maintain a decent photo ID now all he has to do is get his DL redone, maybe a couple others. In your scenario you'd need to get every ID redone, along with every business needing to have the systems necessary to print photo IDs.
Right now having your address on your DL helps in returning it if it's lost, especially in times before the internet.
What you physically put on the ID should be a careful selection of providing the most utility while revealing the least amount of personal information. For an ID card, I think that a good list would be:
1. Citizenship status - good for verifying voting and employment rights. Allows it to act like a 'passport card'.
2. Driver's license - basically just an endorsement. That way places like car rental agencies DON'T need a tie in to the database.
3. Blood type/organ donor/special medical status - Yes, if you're diabetic you might want to have more indicators like a bracelet.
4. Distinguishing characteristics like height/weight to help back up the picture
5. Thumbprint(or other finger) for an additional identity backup.
Well, I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing to have a single card have multiple uses.
Still, today you could have the ID have your picture, maybe a fingerprint, and the name. Everything else is pulled, as necessary, through online databases.
Though having a note that the person has a driver's license(allowing it to behave as a driver's license) might not be bad.
Heck, I've lived in no less that 6 states. I keep this up I have at least a chance of visiting all 50 in my lifetime.
You might not know this, but the first three numbers in your social identifies where you were born. I was born in a small state(ND), and people spot that I was born there all the time when they spot my social. You wouldn't necessarily get a new number when you move.
Still, what do you expect for less than 30 seconds of thought. I think you're right, a state identifier isn't necessarily needed, but I was figuring on pushing most of the administration down to the states, and that would make issuing the numbers without duplication much easier.
That's why I specified ID cards. Besides, many Amish KIDS must have drivers licenses, as they can drive until they reach the point where they choose whether or not to stay Amish. Apparently they sometimes get quite wild until then. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Amish have drivers licenses for their buggies even if they don't drive automobiles. I've seen pictures of them driving on roads, I'm not sure if they get an exemption merely because their vehicle isn't mechanically powered.
The other solutions all have their problems as well. Personally, I think that the fix would be to NOT keep too many records associated with the ID number in addition to proper database controls. Still, a cop determined to stalk a hottie would be able to do so off the basis of her DL, an ID card wouldn't be a significant aid.
He wasn't refused treatment by any means, but apparently he wasn't incredibly coherent when he came in, so they went by his medical records - records which IDed a guy not only with a different bloodtype but with a number of persistent medical conditions requiring treatment that's not healthy for a person without them.
The difficulties later were in trying to get his records purged of the false information - records that would come up every time he came in for treatment. In addition, there were some talks of possibly charging him until he had shown a fair amount of ID.
Doctors can screw up, but from what I remember of the article(it's been a while), he didn't blame the doctors, or even the system until he grew frustrated trying to get stuff fixed. For example, the other guy was STILL getting treatment under his identity, you'd think that that at least would be easy to fix. After a while he wanted the system tightened up a bit, I can certainly understand that.
I seem to remember some british guy almost dying because somebody else had used his identity for years to get medical care, and when he went for treatment there were a number of wtfs because his medical condition didn't match his records.
He also had multiple problems because they kept assuming HE was the faker.
Still, we run into problems like with the new national standards for drivers licenses - they're still possible to fake and or get fraudulently, but more difficult. But at the same time it imposed a massive pain in the butt for states and individuals both. But that's to be expected anytime you tighten security requirements. In addition, look at money. We release new notes with additional security measures, but it'll be decades before the old ones are off the streets - and you can still counterfeit the old style.
Back on the drivers licenses, I'd look into going to a fingerprint type system - Yes, it'd be more of a pain in the butt, especially for those poor people who get their identity stolen and the crook manages to get HIS thumb into the DB. In exchange, as best as possible I'd keep the fingerprints out of law enforcement toolbase. With only one or two fingers, it wouldn't be too useful either for them, at least. I'd also consider a DNA fingerprint designed such that it's the equivalent of a MD5 checksum - any two people are unlikely to have the same fingerprint, but you can't gleam more than identity from it. So no worrying about having your health insurance dropped because you have a tendency towards breast cancer.
Between the photo ID, fingerprint, and PIN, while it wouldn't be impossible to fake somebody's identity, it would be much more difficult. At the same time I'd institute some changes to make establishing an identity for those who somehow slip between the cracks(refugee, adoption from outside the states, born of anti-tech hillbillies, etc...) easier.
On thing to realize is that when you start talking about a system with 300 million plus fingerprints or DNA checksums is that if you're using it to try to find a suspect you can expect it to take some huge resources to get hits.