Don't forget that most electricity comes from fossil fuels so the car neither green nor sustainable nor renewable.
Forgive me if I'm being a bit presumptuous about your own beliefs, however, I feel the need to rant a bit here. I am simply sick and tired of people seemingly determined to attack or attempt to discredit anything related to green policies. I find it ridiculous that so many climate skeptics want to turn it into an 'us versus them' game where you have to tear down everything the other side supports.
I'm a climate skeptic myself. I'm skeptical that man has as much to do with climate change as many seem to believe they do. I'm skeptical of their models for the future. I'm skeptical that climate change will be as damaging to the world as they predict if it does continue unabated. I'm skeptical that policies such as carbon taxes will have a significant impact on preventing climate change even if all their models are right, much less enough to outweigh their economic cost.
Even with all of that said, you seem to be putting down the buying of electric cards. Okay you could go after the tax credit, but that's not the fault of the person buying it. No matter what happens to be true regarding climate change, it's hard to argue against reduced pollution and less dependence on foreign oil. If the market can support electric cars, then that's great!
Just because you're a skeptic, and against government intervention on the climate change front, doesn't mean you can't support a green personal lifestyle and try to promote such behavior in others. If anything, you should be more inclined to do so. That way, at least you'll have something to assuage your guilt over being obstructionist with climate policies in the case it turns out you were dead wrong.
Don't forget that electricity isn't free. I think you'd be hard pressed to end up in the black as far as simple dollars went even if it's only $10k less. Still, it's nearing the price point where I'd be interested if it weren't for one critical point. I live in a condo and park in the parking lot outside. There's simply no place for me to plug it in there. For the many people who live in apartments/condos, this is a deal breaker.
It can become a bit of a catch 22 as well. The apartment owner/association isn't going to pay to wire up the parking lots unless there's a lot of demand for it from those living there. There won't be demand for it from those living there unless a lot of them own electric cars. And very few people are going to buy an electric car if they can't plug it in overnight.
Sadly, even skimming the article I didn't see any data by manufacturer of android devices or, even better, by individual model. That information would have been quite useful.
that should lose tons of money because they don't get to make up for it with 5lbs of junk mail per month.
If they want new revenue, they should offer a service where you can pay to not receive any mail that isn't addressed to people living at the address. I can guarantee you I'd pay more to never have flyers, local news, and coupon booklets stuffed into my mailbox addressed to 'Current Resident' than they'd be losing in my share of the revenue. It'd be better for the environment too with less wasted paper.
I don't have any statistical data, but I find it unlikely that most people go their entire lives without losing anything. Unless I'm just the extreme outlier who has had tons of bad experiences with USPS. It's hard to verify exactly what is lost, but between mail that never showed up that people swore they sent, mail people tell me they never received that I know I sent, and neighbors mail that I've received, I estimate I'm up to around 20 something lost.
I've also more than once had mail that had clearly been opened and looked through. I've twice had mail show up more than a month after the postmark date (hey at least they found those pieces that they lost.) Nor is this just one bad mail carrier. I've had these experiences spread across 6 different addresses, in five different cities and two different states. Every one of those six addresses had problems.
I follow the policy of not sending anything by USPS that I can't afford to lose. If it's important, I stick it in a box and send it UPS. It's more expensive, but I've never had a single problem with them. That's why I would be thrilled to see private competition for letter delivery, was the final nail in the coffin of the post office as we know it.
'Will not' might be a bit strong. Unless there's a significant change to plan costs, I think it's all but inevitable that texting will die out. Wireless data dead zones are only going to become rarer. In addition, some people are in areas that already have rock solid data access. Plus, most people don't like spending more money for something than they have to. Once enough people figure out they can use email like text messages, many are going to want to cancel their text plans.
And even if some people resist, if their friends start telling them to stop texting them because it costs them money, or even figure out how to block them completely, they may be forced to adapt. I'm not saying texting will die in 2012, just that we may very well start to see it go into decline in the years to come.
I do wonder how much longer it will bear texting. Now that larger and larger percentages of the cell phone market have smartphones, why pay for a separate text plan when email can do everything texting can better? I get a sound on my phone whenever I receive an email just like a text. I also can view and search all my emails from the gmail client and enjoy the use of a keyboard for replies whenever I'm at a computer (which is a rather significant percent of the time.) All this, and it doesn't cost a cent more than the data plan I have anyway.
Of course I've never had a texting plan to begin with. Too much cost for too little benefit. I'm sure I'm not alone here in being in front of my computer the vast majority of the time. For the few times I couldn't be reached via email, a phone call was still possible. The hardest part was teaching friends/family that if they text me, I'm not going to get it, because I do have text messages blocked.
You know what violent protesting accomplishes? A lot of publicity yes, but negative publicity. There's hardly a faster way to alienate potential supporters than acts of violence. I know I'm far less interested in helping their cause than I was prior to the riots in London. Now I'm rooting for them to find the people responsible for the riots and throw the law at them to hopefully discourage such acts in the future.
I've never had a land line. The only reason I can see to keep them is wanting to hang on to a number everyone knows. Even then it's probably worth biting the bullet and getting rid of it. If you have a family and want a shared line that's always on, it's probably cheaper to add another number to your cell phone plan and just have a cell phone that stays at home 24/7.
I, on the other hand, would never even dream of getting a rescue dog. Although in all seriousness, I wouldn't dream of getting any dog. As a single guy who spends a lot of hours each week at work, it would hardly be fair to my canine companion. Besides, no kids and no pets does more for the environment right there than all but the most extreme actions environmentalists would propose I take.
Hopefully, eventually the technology will get good enough that it's far safer than a human driver and they'll require everyone use it. Not to mention that if everyone meticulously obeyed the speed limit, they might be able to raise the speed limit. I know there are people who drive what they safely can in an area, but there are other people who just always drive X MPH faster than whatever the speed limit says.
Besides, as much as some people feel the speed limit is arbitrarily kept too low, if a situation becomes dangerous because some people are following the speed limit and others aren't, it's those who aren't following it that are at fault if anything happens.
My site uses a simple substitution cipher. With the characters I allow for a password there's over 80! possible keys. I'm confident my users all use sufficiently random passwords that no one would be able to analyze the cipher based on the data they hacked.
Your math for the distance is spot on, but I checked quickly and even for a compact, the average length of a car is nearly 15 feet according to http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-07-15-little-big-cars_N.htm. That makes 88 feet less than 6 car lengths. Regardless I'm nitpicking a bit. More importantly, you don't need to wait a full three seconds after the person in front of you moves.
That would be true if you accelerated at exactly the same rate as them, but if you do so a bit more slowly, you can start much sooner. I do follow the three second rule and recommend others do as well. I've never rear ended anyone, but I have had more than one situation where someone slammed the breaks in front of me and I would have had I been following as close behind as most other drivers around here do.
On the most recent occasion, the person behind me came about as close as you can get from hitting me. If I hadn't inched up a bit more at the last second, he probably would have hit me, and I didn't stop nearly as quickly as the car in front of me did, which I had no trouble avoiding.
Actually, it's a million dollars of insurance per customer. Of course, they're paying far less than a million per customer for that insurance, as the security company knows the average customer is going to cost them far less than that.
I've long been confused by why so many Christians are so adamantly opposed to the principles behind evolution. Yet at the same time they don't try to challenge the distance of the stars or the speed of light. If a 6,000 year old universe really is true, the only way we'd be able to see the stars is if they were created along with the light they would have been sending out if they'd been around for billions of years.
If that were the case, why would it be so hard to accept that the creator the universe would have made life on earth instantaneously but set it up as if it were billions of years old, complete with the mechanics that would have allowed for it to develop on its own. Is it really any different than video game designer who creates a history for the world they developed that can be inferred to have happened despite never actually existing?
I also find some fault on the evolutionist side. At least in my school, a biology class with a large focus on evolution was mandatory, while physics was an elective class. In my opinion, physics would be useful to far more students. Even ignoring the career applications of the material, Americans could certainly use the extra practice in math more than the rote memorization that is high school biology.
If they simply switched the two and made physics mandatory and biology optional, they would avoid many lawsuits, parental complaints, and general headaches. Now, I don't support refraining from teaching anything just because it's considered controversial, but as I previously stated, my logic would seem to indicate physics would be the better choice for a mandatory science class if one were to ignore the controversy.
So to me it appears like the decision was made almost because of the known controversy, and I consider being deliberately provocative just as bad as capitulating to any pressure. If physics is the more useful subject it should be the mandatory science, and avoiding much of the hassle of teaching evolution is just a bonus. Of course, that's only if you look at the science courses in a vacuum. If you consider some of the other mandatory curriculum, there are things I would have cut far sooner than biology.
Well, according to some theories, democracy can't exist indefinitely. Eventually the voters realize that they can just vote themselves money and start electing the people who will give them the most. Obviously that's not sustainable in the long run, and will eventually lead to national default and/or the collapse of the economy. I don't think it's quite so set in stone as that, but I certainly find such an outcome plausible.
I don't think I would wish to replace our mixed economy/democracy with any communist/socialist system I've ever heard of, however. I don't trust in the goodness of mankind enough to believe that we'd all do our fair part without the fear of poverty or the hope for riches. At least not without some other carrots or sticks taking their place.
So the question becomes, without income incentives, how do you get people to train for/do jobs for which the demand is much higher than the supply of people wanting to do them? One solution is to force some people into jobs they may not otherwise take with the risk of jail or other punishment if they refuse. Say there was a shortage of doctors and I had been told that I was mentally capable of the job and good at dealing with blood, so I had to be doctor.
The thought of doing that as my career is so abhorrent to me that I would attempt to flee the country if they made such a demand. Even in a less extreme case, I would much rather deal with all the financial risks of capitalism than with the tyranny of not being able to choose my own path in life.
Of course I'm well aware that there are far less extreme version of communist or socialist governments. Many maintain a very mixed economy with a good number of aspects of capitalism still present, such as different wages for different jobs. The government just takes a more direct hand in the economy, eliminating the obscenely wealthy, controlling businesses directly, and regulating their hiring, wages, etc.
Such a system can have some success when well managed, at least in the short term. However, it still puts far too much power in the hands of the government for my liking. Leadership in governments changes hands fairly regularly on a historical scale. It stands to reason that sooner or later the person(s) in power will mismanage the economy rather severely. I think no matter what your political view you'll agree that's happened in the US on more than one occasion.
Now imagine if those responsible for the mismanagement had complete control over the entire economy, and not just government spending. The errors in judgment would only be compounded due to the larger scale. A decision that might have only lead to an economic slowdown could now lead to the complete collapse of the economy.
Whatever system is in use, I'm a firm believer in dividing up the power among a large number of people. Statistically, at least some of them will be getting it right at any one time.
Then why haven't the DS and DSi had TV out? (Where's the consumer version of IS Nitro Capture in the way that Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player were the consumer versions of Wide Boy?) Why can't the 3DS have TV out even in 2D mode?
Yeah, this was pretty much a deal breaker for me. I chose to only get a PSP as I can keep it connected to my TV at all times. I don't take it with me when I travel, as I use that as an excuse to take a break from video games and catch up on some reading. Besides, it would be possible as the 3DS has the option to turn off 3D. That's the way I'd want to play it anyway, as I get enough eye strain as it is, so I'd be happy with a TV out that didn't support 3D.
If they leave it out, then, especially considering the price, I'll probably skip another generation of Nintendo handhelds.
It's certainly one of the warmest years on record. However, if you go by the satellite records he wants to use in the first place, that title is still held by 1998.
Yeah, there are actually a couple of satellite temperate datasets commonly in use already. UAH and RSS I believe. Most likely any agreement would just be to use one of those datasets.
Only the largest entities can afford this sort of trading backbone--you and I have no such luxuries and have to rely on brokers to even stand a chance.
If you want to day trade or do other short term trading. However, that was almost never a good idea, even before high-frequency trading. It's still possible for the average investor to take more of a Warren Buffet approach to investing. Always go for the long term. He's advised people to think about stocks as owning a stake in the company and to invest in ones you believe have a solid long term business strategy. Considering yourself a partial owner makes you feel more tied to your investment and less likely to reflexively sell because of short term fluctuations.
I don't know the technical details of any of this, but didn't the other OS removal occur months ago? I assume that was fear from Sony that they were getting close to a hack that would allow piracy. It's possible that the decision did buy them some extra piracy free time. You also can't assume the current hack wouldn't have been discovered by someone else even if they'd left Other OS active.
Even with my limited knowledge, I'll grant that pirated software will probably be available sooner because of the Other OS removal than it would have otherwise. However, I don't subscribe to the opinion many seem to have that only those upset by the Other OS removal were capable of discovering the PS3's security flaw. Likewise, I don't consider it at all certain that had they not removed it, it would have remained perpetually piracy free.
That said, at this point in its lifetime, they're probably already beginning development on the PS4. Having people find the vulnerabilities on the PS3 will help Sony avoid the same mistakes on the PS4 (and possibly lead to the firing of those who made them). I'm sure they would have preferred another year or so before it was found, but in the long run, it may only help them make their next iteration more secure.
Hopefully you will be able to save several Million, because it only takes one year of being I'll to burn more then $1 Mill in medical expenses.
This does bring up an interesting ethics question I've long pondered. I believe that we should support those who need health care even if they can't afford it. However, is there a limit to the amount of support we should provide before we cut them off? As heartless as it sounds, I've decided the answer is yes.
I'll use an extreme example to make my point. Imagine someone had an illness the caused them excruciating pain, truly made life virtually unlivable for them. Now someone discovered a treatment but it involves them taking daily pills of some ridiculously expensive substance to make. Such that you would have to utilize 5% of the US's economic output simply to make enough for the person to live off of.
Should we provide that for the person? What if there were 10,000 people with the condition and economy of scale didn't make it any more efficient as you made it for more people? Should we consider them lost causes and refuse treatment? It would be heartbreaking to make that decision, but I think the answer has to be yes. What's more, I think one would reach the point you would have to refuse treatment long before 5% of the US's economy.
Although that does bring up the further question of how much is too much? $100 million a year? $10 million a year? I'd hate to be the person who had to come up with that number, but I do believe a line in the sand has to be drawn somewhere.
I couldn't find a single question where giving the right answer wasn't something that would look bad for a Republican and/or good for a Democrat or at the very least create some cognitive dissonance among Republican beliefs.
Which question were you referring to? The (factual) one about President Obama's place of birth, or the (similarly factual) one about whether or not global warming is happening?
A lot of those questions were pure matters of fact, and Fox News' audience was factually wrong. This is not a matter of looking bad, this is a matter of things which are actually true.
You misunderstand, I'm not questioning the truth of the answers. I'm claiming that a person is more likely to answer incorrectly on a question where the answer reflects poorly on their beliefs. Especially with multiple choice questions.
Picking the much more conservative Fox News crowd and giving them questions conservatives don't like the answers to will naturally disadvantage them. If you picked questions where the correct answers that made liberals look bad, I'd wager heavily the Fox News crowd would score much higher than MSNBC viewers or the Daily Show/Colbert Report group.
I'm not going to defend Fox News, but reading the questions they asked it's obvious this whole survey was designed in a way to create the answer they found. I couldn't find a single question where giving the right answer wasn't something that would look bad for a Republican and/or good for a Democrat or at the very least create some cognitive dissonance among Republican beliefs.
1. In these situations, Republicans aren't going to want to admit the truth even if they know it is true.
2. A conservative leaning news organization is less likely to have reported this news in the first place.
3. If they truly don't know the answer, Republicans will more likely pick an answer that would reflect well upon their beliefs and Democrats likewise.
If you reversed the questions and asked things where the correct answer reflects badly on Democrats, you would find very different results. Say if they were about Charles Rangel's ethics violations or Robert Byrd filibustering the Civil Rights Act. If every question were designed so that the truth reflected poorly on Democrats, I'm sure the result would have been that Fox News made for better informed listeners.
No matter how tech savvy the group of users, isn't it all but a given that most common passwords will be weak ones? There's always going to be a subset of users that just use simple passwords. More interesting would be a comparison of what percentage of the users had these weak passwords compared to other, less tech oriented sites.
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Don't forget that most electricity comes from fossil fuels so the car neither green nor sustainable nor renewable.
Forgive me if I'm being a bit presumptuous about your own beliefs, however, I feel the need to rant a bit here. I am simply sick and tired of people seemingly determined to attack or attempt to discredit anything related to green policies. I find it ridiculous that so many climate skeptics want to turn it into an 'us versus them' game where you have to tear down everything the other side supports.
I'm a climate skeptic myself. I'm skeptical that man has as much to do with climate change as many seem to believe they do. I'm skeptical of their models for the future. I'm skeptical that climate change will be as damaging to the world as they predict if it does continue unabated. I'm skeptical that policies such as carbon taxes will have a significant impact on preventing climate change even if all their models are right, much less enough to outweigh their economic cost.
Even with all of that said, you seem to be putting down the buying of electric cards. Okay you could go after the tax credit, but that's not the fault of the person buying it. No matter what happens to be true regarding climate change, it's hard to argue against reduced pollution and less dependence on foreign oil. If the market can support electric cars, then that's great!
Just because you're a skeptic, and against government intervention on the climate change front, doesn't mean you can't support a green personal lifestyle and try to promote such behavior in others. If anything, you should be more inclined to do so. That way, at least you'll have something to assuage your guilt over being obstructionist with climate policies in the case it turns out you were dead wrong.
Don't forget that electricity isn't free. I think you'd be hard pressed to end up in the black as far as simple dollars went even if it's only $10k less. Still, it's nearing the price point where I'd be interested if it weren't for one critical point. I live in a condo and park in the parking lot outside. There's simply no place for me to plug it in there. For the many people who live in apartments/condos, this is a deal breaker.
It can become a bit of a catch 22 as well. The apartment owner/association isn't going to pay to wire up the parking lots unless there's a lot of demand for it from those living there. There won't be demand for it from those living there unless a lot of them own electric cars. And very few people are going to buy an electric car if they can't plug it in overnight.
Sadly, even skimming the article I didn't see any data by manufacturer of android devices or, even better, by individual model. That information would have been quite useful.
that should lose tons of money because they don't get to make up for it with 5lbs of junk mail per month.
If they want new revenue, they should offer a service where you can pay to not receive any mail that isn't addressed to people living at the address. I can guarantee you I'd pay more to never have flyers, local news, and coupon booklets stuffed into my mailbox addressed to 'Current Resident' than they'd be losing in my share of the revenue. It'd be better for the environment too with less wasted paper.
I don't have any statistical data, but I find it unlikely that most people go their entire lives without losing anything. Unless I'm just the extreme outlier who has had tons of bad experiences with USPS. It's hard to verify exactly what is lost, but between mail that never showed up that people swore they sent, mail people tell me they never received that I know I sent, and neighbors mail that I've received, I estimate I'm up to around 20 something lost.
I've also more than once had mail that had clearly been opened and looked through. I've twice had mail show up more than a month after the postmark date (hey at least they found those pieces that they lost.) Nor is this just one bad mail carrier. I've had these experiences spread across 6 different addresses, in five different cities and two different states. Every one of those six addresses had problems.
I follow the policy of not sending anything by USPS that I can't afford to lose. If it's important, I stick it in a box and send it UPS. It's more expensive, but I've never had a single problem with them. That's why I would be thrilled to see private competition for letter delivery, was the final nail in the coffin of the post office as we know it.
'Will not' might be a bit strong. Unless there's a significant change to plan costs, I think it's all but inevitable that texting will die out. Wireless data dead zones are only going to become rarer. In addition, some people are in areas that already have rock solid data access. Plus, most people don't like spending more money for something than they have to. Once enough people figure out they can use email like text messages, many are going to want to cancel their text plans.
And even if some people resist, if their friends start telling them to stop texting them because it costs them money, or even figure out how to block them completely, they may be forced to adapt. I'm not saying texting will die in 2012, just that we may very well start to see it go into decline in the years to come.
I do wonder how much longer it will bear texting. Now that larger and larger percentages of the cell phone market have smartphones, why pay for a separate text plan when email can do everything texting can better? I get a sound on my phone whenever I receive an email just like a text. I also can view and search all my emails from the gmail client and enjoy the use of a keyboard for replies whenever I'm at a computer (which is a rather significant percent of the time.) All this, and it doesn't cost a cent more than the data plan I have anyway.
Of course I've never had a texting plan to begin with. Too much cost for too little benefit. I'm sure I'm not alone here in being in front of my computer the vast majority of the time. For the few times I couldn't be reached via email, a phone call was still possible. The hardest part was teaching friends/family that if they text me, I'm not going to get it, because I do have text messages blocked.
You know what violent protesting accomplishes? A lot of publicity yes, but negative publicity. There's hardly a faster way to alienate potential supporters than acts of violence. I know I'm far less interested in helping their cause than I was prior to the riots in London. Now I'm rooting for them to find the people responsible for the riots and throw the law at them to hopefully discourage such acts in the future.
I've never had a land line. The only reason I can see to keep them is wanting to hang on to a number everyone knows. Even then it's probably worth biting the bullet and getting rid of it. If you have a family and want a shared line that's always on, it's probably cheaper to add another number to your cell phone plan and just have a cell phone that stays at home 24/7.
I, on the other hand, would never even dream of getting a rescue dog. Although in all seriousness, I wouldn't dream of getting any dog. As a single guy who spends a lot of hours each week at work, it would hardly be fair to my canine companion. Besides, no kids and no pets does more for the environment right there than all but the most extreme actions environmentalists would propose I take.
Hopefully, eventually the technology will get good enough that it's far safer than a human driver and they'll require everyone use it. Not to mention that if everyone meticulously obeyed the speed limit, they might be able to raise the speed limit. I know there are people who drive what they safely can in an area, but there are other people who just always drive X MPH faster than whatever the speed limit says.
Besides, as much as some people feel the speed limit is arbitrarily kept too low, if a situation becomes dangerous because some people are following the speed limit and others aren't, it's those who aren't following it that are at fault if anything happens.
My site uses a simple substitution cipher. With the characters I allow for a password there's over 80! possible keys. I'm confident my users all use sufficiently random passwords that no one would be able to analyze the cipher based on the data they hacked.
Your math for the distance is spot on, but I checked quickly and even for a compact, the average length of a car is nearly 15 feet according to http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-07-15-little-big-cars_N.htm. That makes 88 feet less than 6 car lengths. Regardless I'm nitpicking a bit. More importantly, you don't need to wait a full three seconds after the person in front of you moves.
That would be true if you accelerated at exactly the same rate as them, but if you do so a bit more slowly, you can start much sooner. I do follow the three second rule and recommend others do as well. I've never rear ended anyone, but I have had more than one situation where someone slammed the breaks in front of me and I would have had I been following as close behind as most other drivers around here do.
On the most recent occasion, the person behind me came about as close as you can get from hitting me. If I hadn't inched up a bit more at the last second, he probably would have hit me, and I didn't stop nearly as quickly as the car in front of me did, which I had no trouble avoiding.
Actually, it's a million dollars of insurance per customer. Of course, they're paying far less than a million per customer for that insurance, as the security company knows the average customer is going to cost them far less than that.
I've long been confused by why so many Christians are so adamantly opposed to the principles behind evolution. Yet at the same time they don't try to challenge the distance of the stars or the speed of light. If a 6,000 year old universe really is true, the only way we'd be able to see the stars is if they were created along with the light they would have been sending out if they'd been around for billions of years.
If that were the case, why would it be so hard to accept that the creator the universe would have made life on earth instantaneously but set it up as if it were billions of years old, complete with the mechanics that would have allowed for it to develop on its own. Is it really any different than video game designer who creates a history for the world they developed that can be inferred to have happened despite never actually existing?
I also find some fault on the evolutionist side. At least in my school, a biology class with a large focus on evolution was mandatory, while physics was an elective class. In my opinion, physics would be useful to far more students. Even ignoring the career applications of the material, Americans could certainly use the extra practice in math more than the rote memorization that is high school biology.
If they simply switched the two and made physics mandatory and biology optional, they would avoid many lawsuits, parental complaints, and general headaches. Now, I don't support refraining from teaching anything just because it's considered controversial, but as I previously stated, my logic would seem to indicate physics would be the better choice for a mandatory science class if one were to ignore the controversy.
So to me it appears like the decision was made almost because of the known controversy, and I consider being deliberately provocative just as bad as capitulating to any pressure. If physics is the more useful subject it should be the mandatory science, and avoiding much of the hassle of teaching evolution is just a bonus. Of course, that's only if you look at the science courses in a vacuum. If you consider some of the other mandatory curriculum, there are things I would have cut far sooner than biology.
Well, according to some theories, democracy can't exist indefinitely. Eventually the voters realize that they can just vote themselves money and start electing the people who will give them the most. Obviously that's not sustainable in the long run, and will eventually lead to national default and/or the collapse of the economy. I don't think it's quite so set in stone as that, but I certainly find such an outcome plausible.
I don't think I would wish to replace our mixed economy/democracy with any communist/socialist system I've ever heard of, however. I don't trust in the goodness of mankind enough to believe that we'd all do our fair part without the fear of poverty or the hope for riches. At least not without some other carrots or sticks taking their place.
So the question becomes, without income incentives, how do you get people to train for/do jobs for which the demand is much higher than the supply of people wanting to do them? One solution is to force some people into jobs they may not otherwise take with the risk of jail or other punishment if they refuse. Say there was a shortage of doctors and I had been told that I was mentally capable of the job and good at dealing with blood, so I had to be doctor.
The thought of doing that as my career is so abhorrent to me that I would attempt to flee the country if they made such a demand. Even in a less extreme case, I would much rather deal with all the financial risks of capitalism than with the tyranny of not being able to choose my own path in life.
Of course I'm well aware that there are far less extreme version of communist or socialist governments. Many maintain a very mixed economy with a good number of aspects of capitalism still present, such as different wages for different jobs. The government just takes a more direct hand in the economy, eliminating the obscenely wealthy, controlling businesses directly, and regulating their hiring, wages, etc.
Such a system can have some success when well managed, at least in the short term. However, it still puts far too much power in the hands of the government for my liking. Leadership in governments changes hands fairly regularly on a historical scale. It stands to reason that sooner or later the person(s) in power will mismanage the economy rather severely. I think no matter what your political view you'll agree that's happened in the US on more than one occasion.
Now imagine if those responsible for the mismanagement had complete control over the entire economy, and not just government spending. The errors in judgment would only be compounded due to the larger scale. A decision that might have only lead to an economic slowdown could now lead to the complete collapse of the economy.
Whatever system is in use, I'm a firm believer in dividing up the power among a large number of people. Statistically, at least some of them will be getting it right at any one time.
Then why haven't the DS and DSi had TV out? (Where's the consumer version of IS Nitro Capture in the way that Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player were the consumer versions of Wide Boy?) Why can't the 3DS have TV out even in 2D mode?
Yeah, this was pretty much a deal breaker for me. I chose to only get a PSP as I can keep it connected to my TV at all times. I don't take it with me when I travel, as I use that as an excuse to take a break from video games and catch up on some reading. Besides, it would be possible as the 3DS has the option to turn off 3D. That's the way I'd want to play it anyway, as I get enough eye strain as it is, so I'd be happy with a TV out that didn't support 3D.
If they leave it out, then, especially considering the price, I'll probably skip another generation of Nintendo handhelds.
It's certainly one of the warmest years on record. However, if you go by the satellite records he wants to use in the first place, that title is still held by 1998.
Yeah, there are actually a couple of satellite temperate datasets commonly in use already. UAH and RSS I believe. Most likely any agreement would just be to use one of those datasets.
Only the largest entities can afford this sort of trading backbone--you and I have no such luxuries and have to rely on brokers to even stand a chance.
If you want to day trade or do other short term trading. However, that was almost never a good idea, even before high-frequency trading. It's still possible for the average investor to take more of a Warren Buffet approach to investing. Always go for the long term. He's advised people to think about stocks as owning a stake in the company and to invest in ones you believe have a solid long term business strategy. Considering yourself a partial owner makes you feel more tied to your investment and less likely to reflexively sell because of short term fluctuations.
I don't know the technical details of any of this, but didn't the other OS removal occur months ago? I assume that was fear from Sony that they were getting close to a hack that would allow piracy. It's possible that the decision did buy them some extra piracy free time. You also can't assume the current hack wouldn't have been discovered by someone else even if they'd left Other OS active.
Even with my limited knowledge, I'll grant that pirated software will probably be available sooner because of the Other OS removal than it would have otherwise. However, I don't subscribe to the opinion many seem to have that only those upset by the Other OS removal were capable of discovering the PS3's security flaw. Likewise, I don't consider it at all certain that had they not removed it, it would have remained perpetually piracy free.
That said, at this point in its lifetime, they're probably already beginning development on the PS4. Having people find the vulnerabilities on the PS3 will help Sony avoid the same mistakes on the PS4 (and possibly lead to the firing of those who made them). I'm sure they would have preferred another year or so before it was found, but in the long run, it may only help them make their next iteration more secure.
Hopefully you will be able to save several Million, because it only takes one year of being I'll to burn more then $1 Mill in medical expenses.
This does bring up an interesting ethics question I've long pondered. I believe that we should support those who need health care even if they can't afford it. However, is there a limit to the amount of support we should provide before we cut them off? As heartless as it sounds, I've decided the answer is yes.
I'll use an extreme example to make my point. Imagine someone had an illness the caused them excruciating pain, truly made life virtually unlivable for them. Now someone discovered a treatment but it involves them taking daily pills of some ridiculously expensive substance to make. Such that you would have to utilize 5% of the US's economic output simply to make enough for the person to live off of.
Should we provide that for the person? What if there were 10,000 people with the condition and economy of scale didn't make it any more efficient as you made it for more people? Should we consider them lost causes and refuse treatment? It would be heartbreaking to make that decision, but I think the answer has to be yes. What's more, I think one would reach the point you would have to refuse treatment long before 5% of the US's economy.
Although that does bring up the further question of how much is too much? $100 million a year? $10 million a year? I'd hate to be the person who had to come up with that number, but I do believe a line in the sand has to be drawn somewhere.
Which question were you referring to? The (factual) one about President Obama's place of birth, or the (similarly factual) one about whether or not global warming is happening?
A lot of those questions were pure matters of fact, and Fox News' audience was factually wrong. This is not a matter of looking bad, this is a matter of things which are actually true.
You misunderstand, I'm not questioning the truth of the answers. I'm claiming that a person is more likely to answer incorrectly on a question where the answer reflects poorly on their beliefs. Especially with multiple choice questions.
Picking the much more conservative Fox News crowd and giving them questions conservatives don't like the answers to will naturally disadvantage them. If you picked questions where the correct answers that made liberals look bad, I'd wager heavily the Fox News crowd would score much higher than MSNBC viewers or the Daily Show/Colbert Report group.
I'm not going to defend Fox News, but reading the questions they asked it's obvious this whole survey was designed in a way to create the answer they found. I couldn't find a single question where giving the right answer wasn't something that would look bad for a Republican and/or good for a Democrat or at the very least create some cognitive dissonance among Republican beliefs.
1. In these situations, Republicans aren't going to want to admit the truth even if they know it is true.
2. A conservative leaning news organization is less likely to have reported this news in the first place.
3. If they truly don't know the answer, Republicans will more likely pick an answer that would reflect well upon their beliefs and Democrats likewise.
If you reversed the questions and asked things where the correct answer reflects badly on Democrats, you would find very different results. Say if they were about Charles Rangel's ethics violations or Robert Byrd filibustering the Civil Rights Act. If every question were designed so that the truth reflected poorly on Democrats, I'm sure the result would have been that Fox News made for better informed listeners.
No matter how tech savvy the group of users, isn't it all but a given that most common passwords will be weak ones? There's always going to be a subset of users that just use simple passwords. More interesting would be a comparison of what percentage of the users had these weak passwords compared to other, less tech oriented sites.