Not that impractical. A lot of power goes into heating and cooling - applications that are quite happy to wait for a few minutes. It's just a matter of communication and incentive. A protocol by which the grid operator can broadcast "Wind just died, turn off your air-con" and appliances will react accordingly. Much the same as the current on-peak-off-peak system in principle, but operating dynamically over minutes rather than a static schedule over hours.
Could even link it to smart meters - raise and lower the price of electricity by a few percent so end users have an incentive to buy appliances that track the changing price.
Inflation, like credit, is the double-edged sword of economics. You need it - a little inflation is vital for an economy to function, not least because it makes that credit available. If it isn't carefully controlled though, it can grow out of hand and destroy everything.
Gold is not practical as an everyday means of exchange either - there are a lot of ways to commit fraud with it. Alloys, plating, shaving coins. It's also very vulnerable to theft, and can only be used with a direct physical transaction - no good for buying things online. It was 'good enough' for a long time, but there's a reason the banking industry grew. First as a way to make managing gold more practical by keeping track of who owned the gold rather than actually moving the gold around, and eventually just doing away with gold altogether.
Bitcoin fixes some of the advantages of gold, but it brings new problems of its own. Like the verification delay, and a fundamental limit on transaction processing rate. There are wallet sites that can sort all that out, if you are willing to trust your bitcoins to them... just like you once had to trust your gold to banks. History repeats.
The political mindset works differently from the scientific mindset. It's reversed.
First, you decide what policies you support - based on things like the party platform, and ideological alignment, and what the voters seem to support. Then you go looking for facts you can cite in support of these policies.
You have to see it from the perspective of the common person.
Which of these two perspectives are they going to agree with?
"Ok, I've got some numbers here, and I'm afraid we are heading for disaster due to science-science-science. I know it's hard to understand, but you have to trust us experts. A lot of people are going to die if you don't do as we say: We need to get rid of all the cheapest energy sources. I'm afraid it'll slow the economy, and everything you buy will cost more. Also we'll need you to get rid of that car and start taking the tube with all those stinky hobos on it - but that won't be a problem, because we're also going to triple the cost of gas, at least. Also we need a lot of tax money for mitigation efforts."
"Yeah, see that guy? He's a liar. Everything is great! America rules, we got cheap energy. Everyone in the country owns a car - it's our symbol of freedom, go where you want, when you want. Don't let the liberals drive us into poverty. And he says scientists are concerned? Well, don't worry about that, I had a hunt around and I've found at least twenty scientists willing to testify on television that it's all a hoax."
He is spending vast amounts of money on philanthropic projects.
I think it might be out of a sense of guilt, as after his years of building Microsoft using very aggressive, often underhanded and sometimes outright illegal business practices he was a much-hated figure.
The media gave Trump help because he is ratings gold. He naturally hogs the spotlight - every time attention started to drift he would say something outrageous. The entire world either loved him or loved to hate him, and they'd eat up every column and every second of footage either way. Of course they sidelined all the other Republican candidates - in an attention economy, how could any compete with The Donald? He'd already made himself a character before even entering politics.
UK person here! Just to clarify, guns are very, very rare in this country. It's possible to get a gun license, but only under very narrow circumstances - you need to show a specific purpose, and self-defence doesn't count. In the case of farmers, rifles are out - weapons firing bullets, due to their long range, are the most heavily restricted, though a very small number of licenses are granted for sporting purposes - on the condition they only be fired at approved ranges. Farmers can get a license to own a shotgun for pest control purposes, but in practice very few farmers actually do this for reasons of simple practicality: Shooting foxes is hard work, it's more practical to use other means in most places. Like a really good fence. Also, unlike the US, our gun license has strict conditions - background checks, mandated storage requirements (ie, it has to go in a gun safe) backed up by inspection, restrictions on where the gun may be used.
So, to correct you: Yes, farmers in the UK may own guns. But only a very small number actually do.
Not practical: You have only very limited resources, and there are a few billion people who need them. Kind to everyone results in you living in a cardboard box so you can send all your earnings to build infrastructure in whatever country is most impoverished these days. You have to make choices - how much of your resources to use for charity, how much for your own luxuries, and who to direct the charity portion towards. That refers to time as well as money. Those choices will always be suspect, because people just instinctively spend more of their resources on people they feel some shared group membership with.
Unfortunately such terms both define and are defined by the political situation. The US has only two real political parties (there are smaller ones, but in a FPTP system they have absolutely zero power and everyone knows it), so naturally politics has to organise into two major camps.
I read right-wing media for entertainment. I noticed that every time the government did something they disapprove of, it was "the Obama administration" - even when the government agency in question had absolutely nothing to with Obama or anyone he directly appointed at all.
It's easy to make fun of creationists - but it's easy because, a lot of the time, they make it easy. I've seen a lot of creationist materials, and I don't mean from your local church - things by the big names in the field, the ones who command an audience and resources. Ham, pre-arrest Hovind, even Prager university has produced a few videos on the subject - though they mostly keep to politics, and stuck to old-earth. Their arguments are just repetative - it's the same long-discredited lines, over and over and over and over. Arguing with them is like slamming your head against a wall. Every impact hurts, but when you look up the wall has not changed in the slightest. Their views are not derived from rational arguments, and so cannot be shifted by arguments either.
The Pi issue wasn't about poor defaults: It was about the designers making the assumption, which turned out to be wrong, that every user would know the importance of changing the password before putting their device on the internet. It turns out that even for the more technically-minded people who would usually buy a pi, a lot of them are completely ignorant of the most basic of security practices.
It's not really for carbon, that's just hype. It's for particulate pollution. It tends to be a serious problem in urban areas due to a very high density of combustion-powered vehicles.
I'd like to see someone calculate how much of this moss you'd need to improve air quality though - I suspect it will be an impractical amount.
Two of the worst cities for pollution in Europe are Paris and London - both due to a high density of cars. London got so desperate they set up a congestion charge zone, and Paris is establishing car-free areas to serve as havens from the smog.
In the US, it's neither: It's a business. You get as much healthcare as you are willing and able to pay for. That shows how out-of-step they are with the rest of the developed world.
It's difficult to take the moral high ground about the Democrat loss when the Republican candidate won. A man who is not only willing to appoint personal friends and even family members to positions of power, but doesn't even try to hide it.
If encryption is illegal, it soon will be. There are a lot of people on the internet who are up to No Good in a some small way and would like to remain hidden - mostly just sillyness like making insulting jokes, downloading films or plotting which forum to invade and troll.
For example, I like the policies of the Lib Dems more than either Conservative or Labour. And it doesn't matter, because my constituency was, based on past elections, almost certain to go Conservative. There was a very small chance it would go Labour.
So who to support? I could vote Lib Dem, but that's a wasted vote: There's no way they are going to win. I could vote knowing it was wasted, because then I am at least helping tip the numbers towards the point when other people might start to see them as a viable option, but that is a very distant goal. So it comes down to the question that any American readers here will very familiar with: "I don't want to support either of these two options, but which one do I oppose the most?"
I ended up voting Labour. And the end result? Conservative 55.6% Labour 36.5% UKIP 3.6% Lib Dem 2.5% Green 1.5%
It's a self-reenforcing system: Once two parties secure the top spot, it effectively locks out everyone else as voters see the pointlessness of voting for a party that can't win. A natural duopoly forms.
You could look at the individual candidates, but there's not a great deal of point in that except in local issues. That's what party whips are for: To make sure that on issues of national importance, MPs vote according to the wishes of party leaders regardless of their own views on the matter.
I didn't look up the figures for the UK, but a while ago I did a few rough ten-year calculations for deaths by terrorism verses other causes for the US.
Lightning beat terrorists, but terrorists beat sharks.
In Australia, sharks beat terrorists.
Obviously all pale into insignificance besides heart disease, cancer, road traffic accidents, non-terrorism murders, and most other causes.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that impractical. A lot of power goes into heating and cooling - applications that are quite happy to wait for a few minutes. It's just a matter of communication and incentive. A protocol by which the grid operator can broadcast "Wind just died, turn off your air-con" and appliances will react accordingly. Much the same as the current on-peak-off-peak system in principle, but operating dynamically over minutes rather than a static schedule over hours.
Could even link it to smart meters - raise and lower the price of electricity by a few percent so end users have an incentive to buy appliances that track the changing price.
Inflation, like credit, is the double-edged sword of economics. You need it - a little inflation is vital for an economy to function, not least because it makes that credit available. If it isn't carefully controlled though, it can grow out of hand and destroy everything.
Gold is not practical as an everyday means of exchange either - there are a lot of ways to commit fraud with it. Alloys, plating, shaving coins. It's also very vulnerable to theft, and can only be used with a direct physical transaction - no good for buying things online. It was 'good enough' for a long time, but there's a reason the banking industry grew. First as a way to make managing gold more practical by keeping track of who owned the gold rather than actually moving the gold around, and eventually just doing away with gold altogether.
Bitcoin fixes some of the advantages of gold, but it brings new problems of its own. Like the verification delay, and a fundamental limit on transaction processing rate. There are wallet sites that can sort all that out, if you are willing to trust your bitcoins to them... just like you once had to trust your gold to banks. History repeats.
Storage, and demand management. Demand management can go a long way.
The political mindset works differently from the scientific mindset. It's reversed.
First, you decide what policies you support - based on things like the party platform, and ideological alignment, and what the voters seem to support. Then you go looking for facts you can cite in support of these policies.
You have to see it from the perspective of the common person.
Which of these two perspectives are they going to agree with?
"Ok, I've got some numbers here, and I'm afraid we are heading for disaster due to science-science-science. I know it's hard to understand, but you have to trust us experts. A lot of people are going to die if you don't do as we say: We need to get rid of all the cheapest energy sources. I'm afraid it'll slow the economy, and everything you buy will cost more. Also we'll need you to get rid of that car and start taking the tube with all those stinky hobos on it - but that won't be a problem, because we're also going to triple the cost of gas, at least. Also we need a lot of tax money for mitigation efforts."
"Yeah, see that guy? He's a liar. Everything is great! America rules, we got cheap energy. Everyone in the country owns a car - it's our symbol of freedom, go where you want, when you want. Don't let the liberals drive us into poverty. And he says scientists are concerned? Well, don't worry about that, I had a hunt around and I've found at least twenty scientists willing to testify on television that it's all a hoax."
"Has he actually invested in it anywhere, ever?"
He is spending vast amounts of money on philanthropic projects.
I think it might be out of a sense of guilt, as after his years of building Microsoft using very aggressive, often underhanded and sometimes outright illegal business practices he was a much-hated figure.
The media gave Trump help because he is ratings gold. He naturally hogs the spotlight - every time attention started to drift he would say something outrageous. The entire world either loved him or loved to hate him, and they'd eat up every column and every second of footage either way. Of course they sidelined all the other Republican candidates - in an attention economy, how could any compete with The Donald? He'd already made himself a character before even entering politics.
"Nuclear bombs could be useful for mining, dredging and other large-scale earthmoving projects."
Don't forget recreational use. Make one hell of a fireworks display.
There's always a line to debate. What about grenades?
The Davy Crockett could be fired by one person. You need three to carry it, but only one to actually fire it.
UK person here! Just to clarify, guns are very, very rare in this country. It's possible to get a gun license, but only under very narrow circumstances - you need to show a specific purpose, and self-defence doesn't count. In the case of farmers, rifles are out - weapons firing bullets, due to their long range, are the most heavily restricted, though a very small number of licenses are granted for sporting purposes - on the condition they only be fired at approved ranges. Farmers can get a license to own a shotgun for pest control purposes, but in practice very few farmers actually do this for reasons of simple practicality: Shooting foxes is hard work, it's more practical to use other means in most places. Like a really good fence. Also, unlike the US, our gun license has strict conditions - background checks, mandated storage requirements (ie, it has to go in a gun safe) backed up by inspection, restrictions on where the gun may be used.
So, to correct you: Yes, farmers in the UK may own guns. But only a very small number actually do.
Not practical: You have only very limited resources, and there are a few billion people who need them. Kind to everyone results in you living in a cardboard box so you can send all your earnings to build infrastructure in whatever country is most impoverished these days. You have to make choices - how much of your resources to use for charity, how much for your own luxuries, and who to direct the charity portion towards. That refers to time as well as money. Those choices will always be suspect, because people just instinctively spend more of their resources on people they feel some shared group membership with.
Unfortunately such terms both define and are defined by the political situation. The US has only two real political parties (there are smaller ones, but in a FPTP system they have absolutely zero power and everyone knows it), so naturally politics has to organise into two major camps.
I read right-wing media for entertainment. I noticed that every time the government did something they disapprove of, it was "the Obama administration" - even when the government agency in question had absolutely nothing to with Obama or anyone he directly appointed at all.
It's easy to make fun of creationists - but it's easy because, a lot of the time, they make it easy. I've seen a lot of creationist materials, and I don't mean from your local church - things by the big names in the field, the ones who command an audience and resources. Ham, pre-arrest Hovind, even Prager university has produced a few videos on the subject - though they mostly keep to politics, and stuck to old-earth. Their arguments are just repetative - it's the same long-discredited lines, over and over and over and over. Arguing with them is like slamming your head against a wall. Every impact hurts, but when you look up the wall has not changed in the slightest. Their views are not derived from rational arguments, and so cannot be shifted by arguments either.
So, not creationist questions, then?
The Pi issue wasn't about poor defaults: It was about the designers making the assumption, which turned out to be wrong, that every user would know the importance of changing the password before putting their device on the internet. It turns out that even for the more technically-minded people who would usually buy a pi, a lot of them are completely ignorant of the most basic of security practices.
Challenging them with science, yes. But this bill isn't about science, it's about politics.
It's not really for carbon, that's just hype. It's for particulate pollution. It tends to be a serious problem in urban areas due to a very high density of combustion-powered vehicles.
I'd like to see someone calculate how much of this moss you'd need to improve air quality though - I suspect it will be an impractical amount.
Two of the worst cities for pollution in Europe are Paris and London - both due to a high density of cars. London got so desperate they set up a congestion charge zone, and Paris is establishing car-free areas to serve as havens from the smog.
In the US, it's neither: It's a business. You get as much healthcare as you are willing and able to pay for. That shows how out-of-step they are with the rest of the developed world.
It's difficult to take the moral high ground about the Democrat loss when the Republican candidate won. A man who is not only willing to appoint personal friends and even family members to positions of power, but doesn't even try to hide it.
"Encryption is not steganography."
If encryption is illegal, it soon will be. There are a lot of people on the internet who are up to No Good in a some small way and would like to remain hidden - mostly just sillyness like making insulting jokes, downloading films or plotting which forum to invade and troll.
A vote without considering party is pointless.
For example, I like the policies of the Lib Dems more than either Conservative or Labour. And it doesn't matter, because my constituency was, based on past elections, almost certain to go Conservative. There was a very small chance it would go Labour.
So who to support? I could vote Lib Dem, but that's a wasted vote: There's no way they are going to win. I could vote knowing it was wasted, because then I am at least helping tip the numbers towards the point when other people might start to see them as a viable option, but that is a very distant goal. So it comes down to the question that any American readers here will very familiar with: "I don't want to support either of these two options, but which one do I oppose the most?"
I ended up voting Labour. And the end result?
Conservative 55.6%
Labour 36.5%
UKIP 3.6%
Lib Dem 2.5%
Green 1.5%
It's a self-reenforcing system: Once two parties secure the top spot, it effectively locks out everyone else as voters see the pointlessness of voting for a party that can't win. A natural duopoly forms.
You could look at the individual candidates, but there's not a great deal of point in that except in local issues. That's what party whips are for: To make sure that on issues of national importance, MPs vote according to the wishes of party leaders regardless of their own views on the matter.
I didn't look up the figures for the UK, but a while ago I did a few rough ten-year calculations for deaths by terrorism verses other causes for the US.
Lightning beat terrorists, but terrorists beat sharks.
In Australia, sharks beat terrorists.
Obviously all pale into insignificance besides heart disease, cancer, road traffic accidents, non-terrorism murders, and most other causes.