I believe that that was a result of a company hired to weed convicted felons out of the voter lists(they're ineligable by law in Florida) getting overzealus, and well, stupid.
Problems always happen, but you have to be careful of confusing stupidicy/incompetance with conspiricy.
This is why you want good auditing controls. Problems will always happen, or even be caused, the motivations of some to win at any cost is high enough that some will try to cheat.
Bloody word dropping. The correct sentence would be 'While some say the color accuracy is worse'. This mostly mattered to publishers, who actually care about exact tones for printing. You know, the people who actually bothered to tune their monitors occasionally.
I'd even argue that the power consumption is a minor point. Most people don't care that much about a monitor that's hopefully not on all the time (standby between an LCD and a properly designed CRT won't be that much different).
The space savings, however, are incredible, and LCDs have essentially taken over the midrange market. CRT's can be produced cheap, so they still have some of the bottom end, and some of the top end for the color accuracy issue. Kinda like obscenely expensive stereo equipment featuring vacuum tubes?
Plenty of gold plated connectors out there. Gold($583), while a valuable metal, is not so expensive when you start talking about platinum($1164), quantities of copper($3.31), nickel($13.22), etc...
A strip of gold, while it might be expensive, has to be looked at in the context of expense. If it's worth it, it'll be used in a moment.
Practical, as in workable, technically feasable, yes.
Practical as in 'Economical', no.
Practical as in having no disadvantages over gasoline? Not yet. Practical as in having enough advantages over their disadvantages, as compared to gasoline power? Not Yet.
Look at the spread of CDs, then DVDs, No longer did you need to worry about rewinding, can instantly chapter forward, no worry about magnets, overall smaller form factor, etc...
Then look at the popularity of LCD monitors. While say the color accuracy is worse, that doesnt' matter to most consumers. Meanwhile they're smaller, lighter, take less power, don't have flicker from refresh rates, etc...
Now, give LiIon technology some time to drop in price even more, gasoline to increase again and the equations might change. But by my last figuring, you'd have to drive as much as a taxi in order to even approach the pay off point, and it'd better be all city driving.
I'd make them replace the rechargable batteries then. I'd tell them that the batteries are rechargable, give them the charger, and make sure they're charged up when they get them.
I'd also point out that if they don't return everything, including the batteries, they have to pay to replace them.
You can also seen this done with hybrid engines costing more yet not costing more to make. Though I dont know enough about that to make a solid arguement. Feel free to shred what I just said.
Yet a hybrid DOES cost more than a non-hybrid of the same power, especially when you consider the whole fuel train. Going to a hybrid power solution adds complexity, additional materials, etc... Right now that cost is $3-5k for automobiles.
As for this tech, even if it's ultimately cheaper to produce, you're still going to have retooling costs for the factories, so the price will be initially higher, but then, like what was said, this technology is ultimately transparent to the end user. So in order to be able to command a price premium it'd have to be able to provide something current chips don't have: IE faster speed/higher capacities. So your nice new 32 GByte USB key will use this tech at a price premium, then it'd trickle down until it pushes the older, less efficient technology into the waste bin.
What, it's just like a long piece of cotton thread or something? That's very fucking confidence-inspiring, I don't think.
In a sense it is, though it's far, far stronger than a cotton thread for it's weight. It has to be. You see, it has to be able to support the weight of the 22,000 miles of cable at the top. Sure, the top can be thicker and will weigh less comparativly speaking, but you'll want the bottom part as light as you can make it and still be able to hold both itself(many miles long) and the cargo.
I've done this before: hold up a section of rope, cable, whatever. note it's weight. Now pick up a piece 10-100 times larger. Now imagine this difference, but extended thousands, tens of thousands of times. Well before 22,000 miles, all known ropes will have snapped from their own weight if you tried to string them up into geosynchronous orbit.
A critical problem with that simulation is stated at the bottom:
So far no atmospheric effects are considered. The elevator will probably start burning up on re-entry at some point. That may cause a tether fragment to end up in a long duration orbit.
A carbon nanotube cable is not only incredably strong, it's also very light. Therefore, it's going to be heavily effected by the earth's atmosphere.
Another little problem with that simulation is that I don't see a time scale. He does state that each 'frame' is six minutes and forty seconds. There's quite a few frames in there, so we're easily talking about DAYS while stuff happens.
The only reason I'd think would be that it's considered one of the high points of american achievement. Not so much anymore, but look at the trouble caused by the wrecks.
For that matter, crashing into the space shuttle is easily doable while it sits on it's pad. If they can hit the pentagon, they'd be able to hit the shuttle. Then you figure in the LH/LOX and solid boosters and you have the potential for a big boom/fire.
The space elevator would easily be safer than the shuttle.
Why couldn't you ship everything by boat? Heck, you could put most of the machine shops inside a boat. The only reason for flights would be for people or stuff you forgot. The reason for flying people is that it's cheaper to pay to fly them than to have them sit idle on a boat for two to three weeks. Though you could probably just send the machinists in with their ship, have them work on the way.
Actually, the groundside station would be the easiest part. The hard part is the orbital station. The way it works, you don't build up, you build it in orbit and drop it down.
As for hitting it with a plane - well, the thing's going to be 22,000 miles up. Most planes don't fligh more than a couple miles up. If the line is severed, only a mile or two will drop, the rest will sit there until the satellite can drop more. As for the dropping, the line will be so light that it'll more drift down than crash down.
Two different measures. You're measuring radius vs diameter. But then again, I made a NASA mars probe mistake, and was comparing KM for the moon to miles for Mercury. Oops.
Also, Saturn's moon Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury, so size is proving a purely arbitrary thing in this argument. I just did a quick check. Mercury is smaller than our moon.
I remember thinking and talking on another forum about this months ago. The final consenus of what's needed to make a planet was:
1. Sufficient mass/gravity to pull the body into a roughly spherical shape, within a few percent at least. Even mount everest, at almost 9 km, would only make a.07% difference compared to the earth's diameter. At around 6% of the earth's gravity, I believe the decision was that pluto would barely qualify. 2. Orbits a sun, not another body. This is decided by centers of rotation. Our moon is huge compared to most moon/planet relations, but the moon's center of rotation(in relation to the earth) is within the earth. If the center of rotation is outside the planet, it's a binary system, both can count as planets. 3. Doesn't share orbits with a significant number of other objects not orbitally tied to each other (IE asteroid belt). What's significant? More than 3 or 4?
You've just shown that you have no understanding of this issue. For example: your 145,000 tons of uranium is an isotope with a half-life of about 4 billion years. (The small amount of U235 has a half life of 700 million years, and doesn't change the overall total much.) Thorium is similar: it has a half-life of 14 billion years.
I'd suggest reading his post a bit better, he changed topics to talking about nuclear waste, which tends to be very hot indeed.
But let's do the math
It's not the best source, but This document seems to think that 4-13 watts/kilogram is the range for a spent fuel assembly in it's first year outside the reactor. Rods seem to run 320-658kg. at 13 watts/kilogram, 1 heavy rod will run ~8.5 kilowatts. At 5% efficiency, as mentioned elsewhere on the thread, we're back down to 427 watts. That would result in 3.7 kw/hours of electricity a year, worth ~$.45 at retail electricity rates. Probably not worth it.;)
For the math freaks: I rounded my posts, not the calcs.
If they really think that MY guns don't have a deterrent effect that also covers their house, tell them to do this: place a sign in your front yard that says "This is a gun free home".
Heh, a few communities back in the 70's tried this. The signs came down after a couple months because the police were overwhelmed.
Of course, during my search, the number of webpages put up by otherwise intelligent people who just don't get it is astonishing.
It's very simple: A policy against carry of weapons will have no effect on the criminals. Unless you put airport style security up*, you have virtually no control over what people bring into your workplace. I can conceal a full size 1911 while wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts. However, I've been trained, investigated, tested, and issued a permit. I'm not the one you have to worry about.
Nope there's a real difference in my mind. A competition can be as hands off as a track race. Two stores can compete without ever touching them. Pacifists can compete.
When I was talking about violence, I was literally talking about somebody coming out and threatening(and carrying out) threats ranging from beating somebody up to killing them. I was talking about outright theft of products and resources, the reduction of one group to slavery.
I'll admit, I was skipping the whole 'nonviolent competition' angle. I view a certain amount of competition as a very healthy part of cooperation, in a wider sense. Different people have different ideas, and how are you to figure out which way is most efficient if you don't try them? Besides, with human nature, people often perform better when they're trying to outdo their peers.
Ghandi and Thich Quang Duc spring to mind as two examples of people who's non-violent actions made a tremendous difference.
Wow, you were able to name more than one pacifist. Think about this: How many mass murderers, dictators can you name? How many martyrs to the cause of pacifism can you find? Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. All people who would probably have killed Ghandi without a second thought. The tanks of tiemann square.
The only thing mitigating this position is our human infallability and imperfect information, and thus we must act as if they are people unless absolutely convinced otherwise.
That's why, especially if they're not caught in the act, I support the court system. It's primarily a finder of fact. As it operates after the fact, it has far more control in the way of attempting a correction, a rehabilitative course of action, though I feel that the current interpretation of the constitution(the idea that distress=pain=cruel=forbidden) limits the effectivness of our correctional system.
The use of violence must always be considered carefully, as the unintended consequences of such actions are very unpredictable.
I find them to actually be fairly predictable. You have anger and hatred responses, resentment if the offended party recognizes such a force disparity that retaliation will be ineffective. Thing is, Goblins tend to be bullies. They're going to hate and resent authority no matter what, and not respect any authority not grounded in violence. Add in a healthy shot of stupid and self-delusion and you end up with pretty much a no win situation.(See middleeast)
You see, I see violence as a final solution, after other correctional measures are deemed inadequate. Why is it final? Because the other party shouldn't be able to function in the incorrect fashion afterwards.
Violence, as they say breeds violence. Every act of violence is a justification for another act of violence, and the cycle continues.
That usually occurs when you don't use enough of it. Personally, I'm rather fond of overkill. The whole Israel-Hezbollah thing? From what I've read I probably would have been nastier.
If I knew that by allowing myself to be killed, I could make a statement that lowered the overall level of violence and suffering in the world, I might do it. Might. I'm no saint. But the point remains, non violence can change the world, and has.
That's your decision. Personally, I'd prefer to kill the ones who'd otherwise commit the violence. There aren't really any situations that I can think of that would have me allowing myself to be killed defusing the situation. I'm fond of Cold War mutual annihilation scenarios. Actually, I'm happy with the ability to destroy the other side, with them convinced that I'll destroy them if they cross that line.
We will always have goblins: the sociopaths and psychopaths. We don't even know if we can afford to breed them out of the gene pool. Many of the genes for those conditions, if you don't get them all, can lead to genius and great leadership ability. So we
You think that that post is violent? I'd recommend checking out some of my other ones.
slaves are not pacifisits, they are broken and oppressed
What I meant is that, historically, the fate of those who would practice pacifism would end up being slaves(or dead). While breaking and oppressing a people is one way to make slaves, being a true pacifist is doing half the oppressor's work for them. Unless there's a society(capable of practicing violence) willing to protect them, a pacifist is at the mercy of anyone willing to commit violence upon them, and that's not something you can often count on.
The addition of this license will have no effect on military units, because no civilian court will approach them to prosecute infringment on the license
Exactly. The only militaries I see honoring this license is the American/European ones, and they generally already have alternatives.
It's kinda like posting a 'no guns' sign on the door to a business. Do you really think that the robber/distraught spouse/spree killer is going to pay any attention? Or will they inversely view the sign as an opportunity, that there will be no armed resistance here? It's actually been born out. In states where the law provides for posting of the signs*, places that do post suffer an increased robbery rate than those that don't post.
*IE they have legal weight in disallowing CCW permit holders from carrying their weapons onto the property
Without cooperation, we would be less than ants. Cooperation is a more successful strategy, and therefore will win out over competition in the end. Given that, the end of violence is unavoidable. Sorry to rain on your pessimism parade.
Not Necessarily.
What happens when the violence capable group decides to steal all of the pacifist group's production? It's not like the pacifist group can really stop them. This allows the violent group to live better than the non-violent group(Look at the Sunnis in Iraq, or various slave holding societies in history). On the downside, the oppressed population lives much worse. Heck, the noble-serf relationship during the midieval periods.
Now, in the end, cooperation is the cheaper, more efficient option, and most of those capable of choosing not to employ violence have seen that in the modern world. I'm normally a very cooperative person, but I acknowledge that, given the right circumstances, I will do my best to kill 'fellow' human beings. Attempting to shoot up a school? Don't be suprised if I do my best to kill you. Get yourself killed attempting to rob, rape, or kill fellow humans? Don't be suprised when I cheer your death, rather than weeping for it.
There are various names for these type of people. Criminals, Critters, Goblins. They stand for the sad wastes of humanity who, in their refusing to abide by the laws of civilized society, waste far more than their share, deliberatly. Steal a $100 stereo, in the process causing $500 damage. Wreck somebody else's $20,000 car 'for the fun of it'. Rape somebody, costing thousands of dollars of therapy to return them to something resembling happy, productive life. Or worse, kill somebody, depriving humanity of their contributions.*
The difference between me and a pacifist is that I believe that there are reasons to use violence. The difference between me and a goblin is that I believe that such violence should only be used in self defense, or the defense of society, humanity.
To use the terms of some self-defense proponents, there are sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves.
*I'll admit, I'm also pleased when I hear about goblin on goblin violence
Pacifism attemts to sidestep the whole violence issue. Unlike error-free code, with pacifism you're depending upon all others to also follow a policy of pacifism. That's like not programing security controls into an OS on the basis that 'nobody will try to do anything bad'.
There are people out there who are perfectly willing to harm or kill you to get what they want. If you lack or refuse to use any means to defend yourself, don't be suprised when somebody uses violence to force you to do what they want. And no, calling the cops is not true pacifism, that's simply getting somebody else to commit violence on your behalf so you can feel good about being a 'pacifist'.
Pacifists can only survive as slaves, or when others are willing to protect them. There's a realm of difference between those who are willing to commit violence to protect themselves and those willing to commit violence for their own ends.
Does anybody really think that an agressive military will pay any attentian to this license?
Would they need much more? Even if they did the would need less shielding since the DC wouldn't be emitting any 60hz "hum".
Nope. A better wording would be 'slightly more insulation to maintain the same safety margin as other cables'. Standard power wire in my area is rated to 600V-900V, when it's only intended to carry 120.
Insulation doesn't do anything to prevent RF hum unless it also incorporates shielding. What it's for is to stop shorts, where electricity travels somewhere other than the wires(and intended devices). At enough voltage bare air isn't enough, thus lighting and such.
Too little insulation and at least some of the voltage can 'jump' the insulation to the other wire, reducing efficiency and increasing wire heat. You could theoretically also electricute or shock somebody with not enough, but that generally only happens when the insulation is compromised.
My question is do any systems still use 60hz as a time reference? Back in the old days a lot of internal clocks used the 60hz signal as a time reference since it was very stable over time, and it was cheap:).
Simple answer: AC electric motors are optimized for it, can can burn out or at least operate inefficiently if it's not the right hertz. Plug in electric drills, the various pumps and motors for your AC(including your refridgerator), machine shop equipment, etc...
High voltage DC would eliminate the need for the big buss bars that they used in low voltage systems. I would take a look at some of the Navy research in the DC power area. All US diesel electric subs used DC motors. The US navy built two turbo-electric subs that I know used DC power. The larger one failed but that is still okay since that means we could learn from it's problems. The Navy should have a large amount of information on high power DC systems and safety procedures.
As I mentioned, the loss of power through resistive losses would go down. As a correllary, if you up the voltage you can reduce the size of the wiring. A bus bar is simply a specialized form of wiring.
Yes, the navy is used to DC wiring, and in some of the worst conditions as well (salt water&humidity).
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I believe that that was a result of a company hired to weed convicted felons out of the voter lists(they're ineligable by law in Florida) getting overzealus, and well, stupid.
Problems always happen, but you have to be careful of confusing stupidicy/incompetance with conspiricy.
This is why you want good auditing controls. Problems will always happen, or even be caused, the motivations of some to win at any cost is high enough that some will try to cheat.
Bloody word dropping. The correct sentence would be 'While some say the color accuracy is worse'. This mostly mattered to publishers, who actually care about exact tones for printing. You know, the people who actually bothered to tune their monitors occasionally.
I'd even argue that the power consumption is a minor point. Most people don't care that much about a monitor that's hopefully not on all the time (standby between an LCD and a properly designed CRT won't be that much different).
The space savings, however, are incredible, and LCDs have essentially taken over the midrange market. CRT's can be produced cheap, so they still have some of the bottom end, and some of the top end for the color accuracy issue. Kinda like obscenely expensive stereo equipment featuring vacuum tubes?
Plenty of gold plated connectors out there. Gold($583), while a valuable metal, is not so expensive when you start talking about platinum($1164), quantities of copper($3.31), nickel($13.22), etc...
A strip of gold, while it might be expensive, has to be looked at in the context of expense. If it's worth it, it'll be used in a moment.
Practical, as in workable, technically feasable, yes.
Practical as in 'Economical', no.
Practical as in having no disadvantages over gasoline? Not yet.
Practical as in having enough advantages over their disadvantages, as compared to gasoline power? Not Yet.
Look at the spread of CDs, then DVDs, No longer did you need to worry about rewinding, can instantly chapter forward, no worry about magnets, overall smaller form factor, etc...
Then look at the popularity of LCD monitors. While say the color accuracy is worse, that doesnt' matter to most consumers. Meanwhile they're smaller, lighter, take less power, don't have flicker from refresh rates, etc...
Now, give LiIon technology some time to drop in price even more, gasoline to increase again and the equations might change. But by my last figuring, you'd have to drive as much as a taxi in order to even approach the pay off point, and it'd better be all city driving.
I'd make them replace the rechargable batteries then. I'd tell them that the batteries are rechargable, give them the charger, and make sure they're charged up when they get them.
I'd also point out that if they don't return everything, including the batteries, they have to pay to replace them.
You can also seen this done with hybrid engines costing more yet not costing more to make. Though I dont know enough about that to make a solid arguement. Feel free to shred what I just said.
Yet a hybrid DOES cost more than a non-hybrid of the same power, especially when you consider the whole fuel train. Going to a hybrid power solution adds complexity, additional materials, etc... Right now that cost is $3-5k for automobiles.
As for this tech, even if it's ultimately cheaper to produce, you're still going to have retooling costs for the factories, so the price will be initially higher, but then, like what was said, this technology is ultimately transparent to the end user. So in order to be able to command a price premium it'd have to be able to provide something current chips don't have: IE faster speed/higher capacities. So your nice new 32 GByte USB key will use this tech at a price premium, then it'd trickle down until it pushes the older, less efficient technology into the waste bin.
In a sense it is, though it's far, far stronger than a cotton thread for it's weight. It has to be. You see, it has to be able to support the weight of the 22,000 miles of cable at the top. Sure, the top can be thicker and will weigh less comparativly speaking, but you'll want the bottom part as light as you can make it and still be able to hold both itself(many miles long) and the cargo.
I've done this before: hold up a section of rope, cable, whatever. note it's weight. Now pick up a piece 10-100 times larger. Now imagine this difference, but extended thousands, tens of thousands of times. Well before 22,000 miles, all known ropes will have snapped from their own weight if you tried to string them up into geosynchronous orbit.
And publicity like this, where they have a policy of discriminating against the elderly will help them?
A critical problem with that simulation is stated at the bottom:
So far no atmospheric effects are considered. The elevator will probably start burning up on re-entry at some point. That may cause a tether fragment to end up in a long duration orbit.
A carbon nanotube cable is not only incredably strong, it's also very light. Therefore, it's going to be heavily effected by the earth's atmosphere.
Another little problem with that simulation is that I don't see a time scale. He does state that each 'frame' is six minutes and forty seconds. There's quite a few frames in there, so we're easily talking about DAYS while stuff happens.
The very concept is much like building a bridge across the atlantic ocean in 1900
While ships are very efficient and planes are fast, I'd like to point out that there are those still lobbying for a tunnel through the atlantic.
Also, why would a terrorist want to attack it?
The only reason I'd think would be that it's considered one of the high points of american achievement. Not so much anymore, but look at the trouble caused by the wrecks.
For that matter, crashing into the space shuttle is easily doable while it sits on it's pad. If they can hit the pentagon, they'd be able to hit the shuttle. Then you figure in the LH/LOX and solid boosters and you have the potential for a big boom/fire.
The space elevator would easily be safer than the shuttle.
Why couldn't you ship everything by boat? Heck, you could put most of the machine shops inside a boat. The only reason for flights would be for people or stuff you forgot. The reason for flying people is that it's cheaper to pay to fly them than to have them sit idle on a boat for two to three weeks. Though you could probably just send the machinists in with their ship, have them work on the way.
Actually, the groundside station would be the easiest part. The hard part is the orbital station. The way it works, you don't build up, you build it in orbit and drop it down.
As for hitting it with a plane - well, the thing's going to be 22,000 miles up. Most planes don't fligh more than a couple miles up. If the line is severed, only a mile or two will drop, the rest will sit there until the satellite can drop more. As for the dropping, the line will be so light that it'll more drift down than crash down.
Two different measures. You're measuring radius vs diameter. But then again, I made a NASA mars probe mistake, and was comparing KM for the moon to miles for Mercury. Oops.
The Moon:
3476 km in diameter, 7.349E22 kg
Mercury:
4,880 km, 3.30E23 kg
Mercury's 40% larger in diameter and about 5 times more massive.
Also, Saturn's moon Titan is bigger than the planet Mercury, so size is proving a purely arbitrary thing in this argument.
.07% difference compared to the earth's diameter. At around 6% of the earth's gravity, I believe the decision was that pluto would barely qualify.
I just did a quick check. Mercury is smaller than our moon.
I remember thinking and talking on another forum about this months ago. The final consenus of what's needed to make a planet was:
1. Sufficient mass/gravity to pull the body into a roughly spherical shape, within a few percent at least. Even mount everest, at almost 9 km, would only make a
2. Orbits a sun, not another body. This is decided by centers of rotation. Our moon is huge compared to most moon/planet relations, but the moon's center of rotation(in relation to the earth) is within the earth. If the center of rotation is outside the planet, it's a binary system, both can count as planets.
3. Doesn't share orbits with a significant number of other objects not orbitally tied to each other (IE asteroid belt). What's significant? More than 3 or 4?
Well subsitute electron gun for 'laser', and three instead of one and you'd be right. Okay, I'll admit it's one gun(assembly), but three beams.
You've just shown that you have no understanding of this issue. For example: your 145,000 tons of uranium is an isotope with a half-life of about 4 billion years. (The small amount of U235 has a half life of 700 million years, and doesn't change the overall total much.) Thorium is similar: it has a half-life of 14 billion years.
;)
I'd suggest reading his post a bit better, he changed topics to talking about nuclear waste, which tends to be very hot indeed.
But let's do the math
It's not the best source, but This document seems to think that 4-13 watts/kilogram is the range for a spent fuel assembly in it's first year outside the reactor. Rods seem to run 320-658kg. at 13 watts/kilogram, 1 heavy rod will run ~8.5 kilowatts. At 5% efficiency, as mentioned elsewhere on the thread, we're back down to 427 watts. That would result in 3.7 kw/hours of electricity a year, worth ~$.45 at retail electricity rates. Probably not worth it.
For the math freaks: I rounded my posts, not the calcs.
If they really think that MY guns don't have a deterrent effect that also covers their house, tell them to do this: place a sign in your front yard that says "This is a gun free home".
Heh, a few communities back in the 70's tried this. The signs came down after a couple months because the police were overwhelmed.
Welp, managed to find a modern equivalent.
Of course, during my search, the number of webpages put up by otherwise intelligent people who just don't get it is astonishing.
It's very simple: A policy against carry of weapons will have no effect on the criminals. Unless you put airport style security up*, you have virtually no control over what people bring into your workplace. I can conceal a full size 1911 while wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts. However, I've been trained, investigated, tested, and issued a permit. I'm not the one you have to worry about.
*and not even completely then.
You are conflating competition and violence
Nope there's a real difference in my mind. A competition can be as hands off as a track race. Two stores can compete without ever touching them. Pacifists can compete.
When I was talking about violence, I was literally talking about somebody coming out and threatening(and carrying out) threats ranging from beating somebody up to killing them. I was talking about outright theft of products and resources, the reduction of one group to slavery.
I'll admit, I was skipping the whole 'nonviolent competition' angle. I view a certain amount of competition as a very healthy part of cooperation, in a wider sense. Different people have different ideas, and how are you to figure out which way is most efficient if you don't try them? Besides, with human nature, people often perform better when they're trying to outdo their peers.
Ghandi and Thich Quang Duc spring to mind as two examples of people who's non-violent actions made a tremendous difference.
Wow, you were able to name more than one pacifist. Think about this: How many mass murderers, dictators can you name? How many martyrs to the cause of pacifism can you find? Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. All people who would probably have killed Ghandi without a second thought. The tanks of tiemann square.
The only thing mitigating this position is our human infallability and imperfect information, and thus we must act as if they are people unless absolutely convinced otherwise.
That's why, especially if they're not caught in the act, I support the court system. It's primarily a finder of fact. As it operates after the fact, it has far more control in the way of attempting a correction, a rehabilitative course of action, though I feel that the current interpretation of the constitution(the idea that distress=pain=cruel=forbidden) limits the effectivness of our correctional system.
The use of violence must always be considered carefully, as the unintended consequences of such actions are very unpredictable.
I find them to actually be fairly predictable. You have anger and hatred responses, resentment if the offended party recognizes such a force disparity that retaliation will be ineffective. Thing is, Goblins tend to be bullies. They're going to hate and resent authority no matter what, and not respect any authority not grounded in violence. Add in a healthy shot of stupid and self-delusion and you end up with pretty much a no win situation.(See middleeast)
You see, I see violence as a final solution, after other correctional measures are deemed inadequate. Why is it final? Because the other party shouldn't be able to function in the incorrect fashion afterwards.
Violence, as they say breeds violence. Every act of violence is a justification for another act of violence, and the cycle continues.
That usually occurs when you don't use enough of it. Personally, I'm rather fond of overkill. The whole Israel-Hezbollah thing? From what I've read I probably would have been nastier.
If I knew that by allowing myself to be killed, I could make a statement that lowered the overall level of violence and suffering in the world, I might do it. Might. I'm no saint. But the point remains, non violence can change the world, and has.
That's your decision. Personally, I'd prefer to kill the ones who'd otherwise commit the violence. There aren't really any situations that I can think of that would have me allowing myself to be killed defusing the situation. I'm fond of Cold War mutual annihilation scenarios. Actually, I'm happy with the ability to destroy the other side, with them convinced that I'll destroy them if they cross that line.
We will always have goblins: the sociopaths and psychopaths. We don't even know if we can afford to breed them out of the gene pool. Many of the genes for those conditions, if you don't get them all, can lead to genius and great leadership ability. So we
You think that that post is violent? I'd recommend checking out some of my other ones.
slaves are not pacifisits, they are broken and oppressed
What I meant is that, historically, the fate of those who would practice pacifism would end up being slaves(or dead). While breaking and oppressing a people is one way to make slaves, being a true pacifist is doing half the oppressor's work for them. Unless there's a society(capable of practicing violence) willing to protect them, a pacifist is at the mercy of anyone willing to commit violence upon them, and that's not something you can often count on.
The addition of this license will have no effect on military units, because no civilian court will approach them to prosecute infringment on the license
Exactly. The only militaries I see honoring this license is the American/European ones, and they generally already have alternatives.
It's kinda like posting a 'no guns' sign on the door to a business. Do you really think that the robber/distraught spouse/spree killer is going to pay any attention? Or will they inversely view the sign as an opportunity, that there will be no armed resistance here? It's actually been born out. In states where the law provides for posting of the signs*, places that do post suffer an increased robbery rate than those that don't post.
*IE they have legal weight in disallowing CCW permit holders from carrying their weapons onto the property
I think it had something to do with a philosophy of 'a pound in time saves nine' or such.
By taking out the problem now, by paying the price now, we prevent far greater expense, in both time and money, in the future.
Without cooperation, we would be less than ants. Cooperation is a more successful strategy, and therefore will win out over competition in the end. Given that, the end of violence is unavoidable. Sorry to rain on your pessimism parade.
Not Necessarily.
What happens when the violence capable group decides to steal all of the pacifist group's production? It's not like the pacifist group can really stop them. This allows the violent group to live better than the non-violent group(Look at the Sunnis in Iraq, or various slave holding societies in history). On the downside, the oppressed population lives much worse. Heck, the noble-serf relationship during the midieval periods.
Now, in the end, cooperation is the cheaper, more efficient option, and most of those capable of choosing not to employ violence have seen that in the modern world. I'm normally a very cooperative person, but I acknowledge that, given the right circumstances, I will do my best to kill 'fellow' human beings. Attempting to shoot up a school? Don't be suprised if I do my best to kill you. Get yourself killed attempting to rob, rape, or kill fellow humans? Don't be suprised when I cheer your death, rather than weeping for it.
There are various names for these type of people. Criminals, Critters, Goblins. They stand for the sad wastes of humanity who, in their refusing to abide by the laws of civilized society, waste far more than their share, deliberatly. Steal a $100 stereo, in the process causing $500 damage. Wreck somebody else's $20,000 car 'for the fun of it'. Rape somebody, costing thousands of dollars of therapy to return them to something resembling happy, productive life. Or worse, kill somebody, depriving humanity of their contributions.*
The difference between me and a pacifist is that I believe that there are reasons to use violence. The difference between me and a goblin is that I believe that such violence should only be used in self defense, or the defense of society, humanity.
To use the terms of some self-defense proponents, there are sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves.
*I'll admit, I'm also pleased when I hear about goblin on goblin violence
Pacifism attemts to sidestep the whole violence issue. Unlike error-free code, with pacifism you're depending upon all others to also follow a policy of pacifism. That's like not programing security controls into an OS on the basis that 'nobody will try to do anything bad'.
There are people out there who are perfectly willing to harm or kill you to get what they want. If you lack or refuse to use any means to defend yourself, don't be suprised when somebody uses violence to force you to do what they want. And no, calling the cops is not true pacifism, that's simply getting somebody else to commit violence on your behalf so you can feel good about being a 'pacifist'.
Pacifists can only survive as slaves, or when others are willing to protect them. There's a realm of difference between those who are willing to commit violence to protect themselves and those willing to commit violence for their own ends.
Does anybody really think that an agressive military will pay any attentian to this license?
You might be suprised, given that no real permanent injury was done, it was a personal friend of his, and he stated that he'd 'been peppered before'.
Would they need much more? Even if they did the would need less shielding since the DC wouldn't be emitting any 60hz "hum".
:).
Nope. A better wording would be 'slightly more insulation to maintain the same safety margin as other cables'. Standard power wire in my area is rated to 600V-900V, when it's only intended to carry 120.
Insulation doesn't do anything to prevent RF hum unless it also incorporates shielding. What it's for is to stop shorts, where electricity travels somewhere other than the wires(and intended devices). At enough voltage bare air isn't enough, thus lighting and such.
Too little insulation and at least some of the voltage can 'jump' the insulation to the other wire, reducing efficiency and increasing wire heat. You could theoretically also electricute or shock somebody with not enough, but that generally only happens when the insulation is compromised.
My question is do any systems still use 60hz as a time reference? Back in the old days a lot of internal clocks used the 60hz signal as a time reference since it was very stable over time, and it was cheap
Simple answer: AC electric motors are optimized for it, can can burn out or at least operate inefficiently if it's not the right hertz. Plug in electric drills, the various pumps and motors for your AC(including your refridgerator), machine shop equipment, etc...
High voltage DC would eliminate the need for the big buss bars that they used in low voltage systems.
I would take a look at some of the Navy research in the DC power area. All US diesel electric subs used DC motors. The US navy built two turbo-electric subs that I know used DC power. The larger one failed but that is still okay since that means we could learn from it's problems.
The Navy should have a large amount of information on high power DC systems and safety procedures.
As I mentioned, the loss of power through resistive losses would go down. As a correllary, if you up the voltage you can reduce the size of the wiring. A bus bar is simply a specialized form of wiring.
Yes, the navy is used to DC wiring, and in some of the worst conditions as well (salt water&humidity).
I was working off of the basis that AC current tends to throw you off of it, while DC current will lock your muscles, keeping you in the circuit.