I retract part of what I said earlier. You do understand economics and I agree with your post above. I took some economics at MIT and I wouldn't exactly call it Keynesian. We didn't exactly write essays about the importance of consumption... it dived into econometrics as a method of learning/proving economic theories and there was a focus on the "first principals" or boundary conditions as being being assumptions and therefore the resulting conclusions being predicated on their validity.
You obviously don't understand economics AT ALL. Constant, low inflation is ideal. Inflation is an incentive to purchase goods or invest their money rather than stick the cash under their mattress.
Goods purchased in present dollars are obviously immune to future inflation and investments like bonds have the inflation component priced in. An equity investment is partially shielded because companies can charge more as inflation picks up.
Currently in the US short term interest rates are extremely low - 1.75% apoximately. This is probably LOWER or about equal to the rate of inflation. That means the the federal reserve has built in a penalty for not consuming or being a risk taking investor (equities or long-term bonds). This is a powerful tool that would be lost if we didn't have inflation. Why? because money (ie cash, greenbacks, etc) ALWAYS has an interest rate of 0%.
Without inflation you can get deflation which is much worse. Look at Japan. Interest rates there are basically 0% meaning there is NO incentive to spend money or invest. Their economy has basically stopped producing the marginal good because no one is spending money. Its a equilibrium point that you never want to settle into.
One "bad" thing about inflation can occur when its rate changes. When inflation goes up it devalues capital owners and benefits debtors and laborers (in general). When inflation goes down relative to expectations it increases the value of capital
The other bad thing occurs when the rate of inflation is so high or unpredictable that the currency ceases to be a consistent measurement of value. Even travel to South Amnerica? The menus in the restaurants often don't have the prices listed or they are written in. Why? because the restaurant has to raise its prices so often because of hyper inflation.
They already have that and it has been out for years (atleast 5).
Re:Those aren't LCDs people buy
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LCD Round-up
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I am using a DELL 1702FP right now and I agree. It is a FANTASTIC monitor. I was using the Dell side by side with an analog NEC 1830 for a while and there was no comparison. 1702 by a landslide.
I'd rather have one good one or two good ones. Two cheap PSUs would have double the risk of breakdown. Why? because if one goes the other surely would.
Spend $130 on a nice 650 watt Enermax if you are worried.
You could have 1 fast processor and 3 modest ones. For single theads that require speed the fast processor is enough and the 3 others can handle OS, sound, firewall, "tray" applications.
These other products are outside of Intel's core competence. They will face competition from Motorola, ARM, Cisco, etc in those respective core competences.
Another issue with these products are lower margin. Compared to $300 cpus $5 controller chips aren't very profitable - even in volume.
Intel is the king (currently) of the cpu arms race. If that race ends and it turns into an efficiency or pricing war I think Intel is in trouble. ARM processors are SO cheap, fast (PII/PIII like) and energy efficient. ARM chips keep getting faster... if the Intel/AMD arms race slows down expect more competition.
That is a great idea but its implementation would be extremely difficult.
GUIs try to present the subset of options that are meaningful to the computer in a consistant manner.
For instance if option B is only available if option A has been selected a GUI can help enforce that constraint. A shell type command line can't help the user make acceptable choices (generally).
The graphical framework helps the user organize his internal thought process to work in harmony with the interface. That the interface pushes the user to think a certain way is part of why interface preference is very personal.
Automatics drive me crazy. I really miss the control, especially the control a manual clutch gives. I don't even notice the "hassle" of shifting manually. After a brief learning you aren't conscious of it.
It is SO much easier to brake smoothely with a clutch.
Except that the movie only has to be encoded ONCE and shared. As long as the decoding is easy enough for an average computer it will be widely adopted.
It is unlikely that what makes the Earth special us (that it supports human life naturally) will also make it special to aliens. The earth is only going to be special to aliens in that humans live on it.
There are lots of planets out there. Why choose earth? Why travel very far in the first place?
I just reread my post... erm..... try this instead:
You have just stated the real challenge of bridging the "bombs to starships" gap. A species that manages to dominate its home planet will tend to be aggressive at that point. Then they will have to change to a peaceful, cooperative species. Otherwise they will compete among themselves for the remaining resources and will likely destroy themselves in the process.
You really need to focus on the type of species that CAN bridge the bombs to starship gap. Our impression is that that gap is pretty wide. Therefore only aliens that can live cooperate well enough and long enough to develop and build starships can visit us.
You have just stated the real challenge of bridging the "bombs to starships" gap. The species that dominate a planet will tend to be aggressive. They then must change to a peaceful, cooperative species when they have wiped out all other species lest the destroy themselves.
You really need to focus on the type of species that CAN bridge the bombs to starship gap. Our impression is that that gap is pretty wide and therefore only aliens that can live peacefully for a long time can build the starships necessary to visit us.
You couldn't have missed the point more completely.
We are not a good template for the type of being that would contact us. Why? exactly because we run such a high risk of self annihilation. We probably WON'T survive our adolescence. Perhaps a vistor can teach us a thing or two about what it takes for peace.
I covered the "money" thing as well but I'll try again:
Implicit in their visit it that their motivation is exploration and for what? - Physical goods?
Surviving adolescence as a species is all about quelling the instinct for want and greed. These aliens won't need or want anything material from us. They will already have all they ever want or need.
What is money to an alien? They will have an infinite source of cheap energy. The aliens would probably be able to form any configuration of any element starting from hydrogen which is extemely abundant in the universe. If they did have something they couldn't replicate they will likely have devices that stimulate/simulate every sensation they possess with sufficient resolution as to be indistinguishable from reality.
The aliens will likely have solved age related death and therefore be incredibility patient and safety conscious. Even if they want something they can wait for it- its not like they will run out of time.
My other reply was posted just before yours so I'll assume you didn't see it. In short I agreed with your comment above. Your quote of other raional sources of alien speculation is appreciated.
Rather than repeat my reply over I'll just reference it. I mention Sagan as a source of rational discourse on the topic of speculation on alien species.
Most pop culture sci-fi has glaring incompatibilities and inconsistancies in it. Sagan's sci-fi has a reputation for few to none of those problems.
I have never read Sagan. I have watched some movies based on his work, but that is irrelavent. I mention Sagan because he developed some lines of deduction that seem reasonable to me and many others when it comes to speculating on alien life and contact.
I don't think aliens would be peaceful BECAUSE of Sagan. I happen to AGREE with a line of deduction he proposed. I might come to the same conclusion without Sagan or the credibility he gained with his popularity.
I have a very strong statistical background and a sharp eye for these selectivity issues. I'm not hanging off of Sagan. My post was not derived from any of Sagan's work that I am aware of (and honestly I'm unaware of most of his work).
I'm a sheep? LMAO My first Troll. I am truely honored.
PS I think in many respects Jules Verne was a greater visionary than Sagan.
Isn't it more likely that they would be fantasically interested in us given the apparent dirth of intelligent life in the universe?
This whole "evil" alien thing is ridiculous. To make an analogy- imagine you are an explorer and scientist in a vast sandy desert. You have traveled thousands of miles on foot only to stumble on a TINY oasis. In that oasis is a fantastic looking insect that you are the first to discover in the universe. Would you smash it and move on? or study it and attempt to disturb it as little as possible?
People forget the any alien species sufficently advanced to contact us will have implicitly passed the test of its adolesence. What is the test of adolesence? It occurs when a species technology is sufficently advanced that it can easily destroy itself and the millions of years of evolutionary and cultural development it took to reach the test. Humans began there adolesence with the development of the atomic bomb (more so with fusion based bombs) and probably won't emerge from that adolesence for generations to come.
Interstellar travel and communication is a level of technolgy that is reached after adolesence (atleast the way we understand the universe). First you split the atom then you develop faster than light communication, etc. This is an assumption based on one data point (ourselves) but seems reasonable. How could an alien species exit the gravity well of its own solar system without understanding the process that fuels that star, ie fusion.
Therefore, any alien contact will be a member of a self selected group from the universe of intelligent alien beings that have existed in the universe - the ones that did not destroy themselves.
This post is already getting kind of long be the other thing we know about aliens willing to contact us is that implicitly they want to conact other beings in the universe. Once agin implicitly they are explorers and scientists with respect for other beings.
The last point I'd like to make is that aliens aren't going to mine the earth for its resources or enslave the human race. That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Why would an alien species come all this way for matter that is spread all over the universe? Why would they need it anyhow? They will have fusion reactors that can make any element. Their ship will use anti-matter or something we haven't dreamed of yet. Why do they need slaves? Won't they have robots 100 times smarter than humans to do everything?
Aliens that can contact us MUST be peaceful. It would be disruptive but not violent. These aliens would likely have practice making contact. Read some Carl Sagan books and turn off the 50s B movies please!
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I retract part of what I said earlier. You do understand economics and I agree with your post above. I took some economics at MIT and I wouldn't exactly call it Keynesian. We didn't exactly write essays about the importance of consumption... it dived into econometrics as a method of learning/proving economic theories and there was a focus on the "first principals" or boundary conditions as being being assumptions and therefore the resulting conclusions being predicated on their validity.
You obviously don't understand economics AT ALL. Constant, low inflation is ideal. Inflation is an incentive to purchase goods or invest their money rather than stick the cash under their mattress.
Goods purchased in present dollars are obviously immune to future inflation and investments like bonds have the inflation component priced in. An equity investment is partially shielded because companies can charge more as inflation picks up.
Currently in the US short term interest rates are extremely low - 1.75% apoximately. This is probably LOWER or about equal to the rate of inflation. That means the the federal reserve has built in a penalty for not consuming or being a risk taking investor (equities or long-term bonds). This is a powerful tool that would be lost if we didn't have inflation. Why? because money (ie cash, greenbacks, etc) ALWAYS has an interest rate of 0%.
Without inflation you can get deflation which is much worse. Look at Japan. Interest rates there are basically 0% meaning there is NO incentive to spend money or invest. Their economy has basically stopped producing the marginal good because no one is spending money. Its a equilibrium point that you never want to settle into.
One "bad" thing about inflation can occur when its rate changes. When inflation goes up it devalues capital owners and benefits debtors and laborers (in general). When inflation goes down relative to expectations it increases the value of capital
The other bad thing occurs when the rate of inflation is so high or unpredictable that the currency ceases to be a consistent measurement of value. Even travel to South Amnerica? The menus in the restaurants often don't have the prices listed or they are written in. Why? because the restaurant has to raise its prices so often because of hyper inflation.
They already have that and it has been out for years (atleast 5).
I am using a DELL 1702FP right now and I agree. It is a FANTASTIC monitor. I was using the Dell side by side with an analog NEC 1830 for a while and there was no comparison. 1702 by a landslide.
I'd rather have one good one or two good ones. Two cheap PSUs would have double the risk of breakdown. Why? because if one goes the other surely would.
Spend $130 on a nice 650 watt Enermax if you are worried.
Perhaps 4 processors but not all the same?
You could have 1 fast processor and 3 modest ones. For single theads that require speed the fast processor is enough and the 3 others can handle OS, sound, firewall, "tray" applications.
These other products are outside of Intel's core competence. They will face competition from Motorola, ARM, Cisco, etc in those respective core competences.
Another issue with these products are lower margin. Compared to $300 cpus $5 controller chips aren't very profitable - even in volume.
Intel is the king (currently) of the cpu arms race. If that race ends and it turns into an efficiency or pricing war I think Intel is in trouble. ARM processors are SO cheap, fast (PII/PIII like) and energy efficient. ARM chips keep getting faster... if the Intel/AMD arms race slows down expect more competition.
PS this all goes for AMD also.
That is a great idea but its implementation would be extremely difficult.
GUIs try to present the subset of options that are meaningful to the computer in a consistant manner.
For instance if option B is only available if option A has been selected a GUI can help enforce that constraint. A shell type command line can't help the user make acceptable choices (generally).
The graphical framework helps the user organize his internal thought process to work in harmony with the interface. That the interface pushes the user to think a certain way is part of why interface preference is very personal.
Automatics drive me crazy. I really miss the control, especially the control a manual clutch gives. I don't even notice the "hassle" of shifting manually. After a brief learning you aren't conscious of it.
It is SO much easier to brake smoothely with a clutch.
Except that the movie only has to be encoded ONCE and shared. As long as the decoding is easy enough for an average computer it will be widely adopted.
LMAO. Mod this up.
It is unlikely that what makes the Earth special us (that it supports human life naturally) will also make it special to aliens. The earth is only going to be special to aliens in that humans live on it.
There are lots of planets out there. Why choose earth? Why travel very far in the first place?
and 50s B movies are what I think of when people propose aggressive alien hypothesis.
The Sagan reference was as a point of contrast to the 50 B movie notion of aliens that eat humans, etc, etc....
/.
I probably should have given that sentence its own line to help indicate that.
PS I hope the literary police aren't out. Engineer or not I don't hold myself to any sort of literary standard when writing on
I just reread my post... erm..... try this instead:
You have just stated the real challenge of bridging the "bombs to starships" gap. A species that manages to dominate its home planet will tend to be aggressive at that point. Then they will have to change to a peaceful, cooperative species. Otherwise they will compete among themselves for the remaining resources and will likely destroy themselves in the process.
You really need to focus on the type of species that CAN bridge the bombs to starship gap. Our impression is that that gap is pretty wide. Therefore only aliens that can live cooperate well enough and long enough to develop and build starships can visit us.
You have just stated the real challenge of bridging the "bombs to starships" gap. The species that dominate a planet will tend to be aggressive. They then must change to a peaceful, cooperative species when they have wiped out all other species lest the destroy themselves.
You really need to focus on the type of species that CAN bridge the bombs to starship gap. Our impression is that that gap is pretty wide and therefore only aliens that can live peacefully for a long time can build the starships necessary to visit us.
I like that phrase a lot. Mind if I borrow it?
You couldn't have missed the point more completely.
We are not a good template for the type of being that would contact us. Why? exactly because we run such a high risk of self annihilation. We probably WON'T survive our adolescence. Perhaps a vistor can teach us a thing or two about what it takes for peace.
I covered the "money" thing as well but I'll try again:
Implicit in their visit it that their motivation is exploration and for what? - Physical goods?
Surviving adolescence as a species is all about quelling the instinct for want and greed. These aliens won't need or want anything material from us. They will already have all they ever want or need.
What is money to an alien? They will have an infinite source of cheap energy. The aliens would probably be able to form any configuration of any element starting from hydrogen which is extemely abundant in the universe. If they did have something they couldn't replicate they will likely have devices that stimulate/simulate every sensation they possess with sufficient resolution as to be indistinguishable from reality.
The aliens will likely have solved age related death and therefore be incredibility patient and safety conscious. Even if they want something they can wait for it- its not like they will run out of time.
My other reply was posted just before yours so I'll assume you didn't see it. In short I agreed with your comment above. Your quote of other raional sources of alien speculation is appreciated.
Rather than repeat my reply over I'll just reference it. I mention Sagan as a source of rational discourse on the topic of speculation on alien species.
Most pop culture sci-fi has glaring incompatibilities and inconsistancies in it. Sagan's sci-fi has a reputation for few to none of those problems.
I have never read Sagan. I have watched some movies based on his work, but that is irrelavent. I mention Sagan because he developed some lines of deduction that seem reasonable to me and many others when it comes to speculating on alien life and contact.
I don't think aliens would be peaceful BECAUSE of Sagan. I happen to AGREE with a line of deduction he proposed. I might come to the same conclusion without Sagan or the credibility he gained with his popularity.
I have a very strong statistical background and a sharp eye for these selectivity issues. I'm not hanging off of Sagan. My post was not derived from any of Sagan's work that I am aware of (and honestly I'm unaware of most of his work).
I'm a sheep? LMAO My first Troll. I am truely honored.
PS I think in many respects Jules Verne was a greater visionary than Sagan.
Isn't it more likely that they would be fantasically interested in us given the apparent dirth of intelligent life in the universe?
This whole "evil" alien thing is ridiculous. To make an analogy- imagine you are an explorer and scientist in a vast sandy desert. You have traveled thousands of miles on foot only to stumble on a TINY oasis. In that oasis is a fantastic looking insect that you are the first to discover in the universe. Would you smash it and move on? or study it and attempt to disturb it as little as possible?
People forget the any alien species sufficently advanced to contact us will have implicitly passed the test of its adolesence. What is the test of adolesence? It occurs when a species technology is sufficently advanced that it can easily destroy itself and the millions of years of evolutionary and cultural development it took to reach the test. Humans began there adolesence with the development of the atomic bomb (more so with fusion based bombs) and probably won't emerge from that adolesence for generations to come.
Interstellar travel and communication is a level of technolgy that is reached after adolesence (atleast the way we understand the universe). First you split the atom then you develop faster than light communication, etc. This is an assumption based on one data point (ourselves) but seems reasonable. How could an alien species exit the gravity well of its own solar system without understanding the process that fuels that star, ie fusion.
Therefore, any alien contact will be a member of a self selected group from the universe of intelligent alien beings that have existed in the universe - the ones that did not destroy themselves.
This post is already getting kind of long be the other thing we know about aliens willing to contact us is that implicitly they want to conact other beings in the universe. Once agin implicitly they are explorers and scientists with respect for other beings.
The last point I'd like to make is that aliens aren't going to mine the earth for its resources or enslave the human race. That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Why would an alien species come all this way for matter that is spread all over the universe? Why would they need it anyhow? They will have fusion reactors that can make any element. Their ship will use anti-matter or something we haven't dreamed of yet. Why do they need slaves? Won't they have robots 100 times smarter than humans to do everything?
Aliens that can contact us MUST be peaceful. It would be disruptive but not violent. These aliens would likely have practice making contact. Read some Carl Sagan books and turn off the 50s B movies please!
If enriched Uranium was chemically different than its base cousin then we wouldn't need plants or centerfuges to concentrate it.
Plants will NOT be able to concentrate enriched uranium.
I wish I still had my mod points. This is a good idea.
If it wasn't worth having people like these World Cup boys then companies wouldn't employ them.
Seriously... it takes very special people to do CEO type of jobs. Do you think $20 million a picture actors are more deserving?