And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern.
Do they? The UK has historically had much lower levels of violence than the US, but since the UK imposed restrictions on gun ownership while the US relaxed restrictions, the gap has narrowed. Both countries have gotten safer, but the US has gotten safer much faster. In the early 80s the UK homicide rate per capita was 9X the US rate. Today it's 4X.
I'm not saying that supports those you're trying to contradict, just that I don't think your conclusion holds, either.
Doing a bit more Googling, the current fastest production motorcycle in the world is the Lightning LS-128 -- an electric, and the bike, by the way that ran away with the Pike's Peak challenge last year (granted that air-breathing bikes are at a disadvantage at 14,000 feet). Top speed is 218 mph, 0-60 time is below two seconds.
However that's #1 for top speed. For raw acceleration the current champion (also electric) is the Killacycle. 0-60 in 0.97 seconds.
Cost is an issue on these bikes, obviously, but for raw performance electric is unbeatable.
I'm sure you can find a much faster electric motorcycle than the Mission RS, and probably for less money. It was just the first one that came up in a Google search.
Yeah, introducing nitromethane-burning vehicles (I use the term loosely) whose fuel consumption is measured in gallons per second into a conversation about mass-produced consumer automobiles is pretty silly.
That`s a rocket engine not a combustion engine.. still he should have used most 4 wheeled combustion engine vehicules rather than a simple `combustion engine` shortcut while referring to those.
Top Fuel dragsters are internal combustion, not rocket engines, though they do burn "rocket fuel" (nitromethane).
Comparing motorcyles and dragsters to heavy four-door sedans seems a bit disingenuous. There are electric motorcycles and dragsters. On the motorcycle front, how would your machine compare to the Mission RS (0-60 in less than 3 seconds)? Granted that the Mission costs a wee bit more than $6800.
If the only alternative is central planning -- which has proven to be just about the worst possible economic structure -- then your argument supports my point.
Isn't that a bit like saying that without central planning there would be no way for businesses to start, since no government agency would be able to write the check needed to start an approved business?
Not in the slightest.
There is no question that public ownership of companies is a major force driving the US economy. That doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of doing things.
I like the idea of going smaller, not bigger. Small enough to make them easily replaceable by the average person -- say, 5 kg. Assuming 100 kg gives you 3000 km, and assuming the weight scales linearly, then 5 kg would be 150 km. That would roughly double the range of something like a Nissan LEAF, for negligible cost (beyond the cost of the Al battery). Provide slots for four of them, and arrange to sell the batteries through fuel stations, and you could use an EV in exactly the same way you'd use a gasoline-powered car. Include a rechargeable batter for very short range trips, and for a place to store power recovered from regenerative braking, and you'd have a car that makes hybrids completely obsolete.
Looking at specific energies, I'm not sure what to think. Assuming 3 mi/kWh, 3000 kg for 1800 mi is 6 kWh, 22 mJ, per kg. That's pretty impressive. Almost two orders of magnitude higher than Li-ion, and very nearly 50% of the specific energy of gasoline! If someone seriously has a battery technology that can approach gasoline that closely... that's huge. Even if battery manufacture isn't particularly efficient, energy-wise, the ability to shift between energy sources may well offset it.
It seems too good to be true... which usually means it is.
If the cost is about the same, it might even be worth considering, say, four 5 kg Al batteries with 600 km range. Then you'd refuel about as often as you do with a gasoline engine, but you'd do it by swapping out solid objects which are light enough to be easily managed by the average person.
My expectation is that rechargeable batteries plus recharging is cheaper, though. Still a combination of Li-ion for daily use plus Al for longer-range would make a lot of sense and be a lot cheaper and lighter than a hybrid with much the same range characteristics -- especially if you could swap Al batteries at a standard fuel station.
Smaller EVs like the LEAF and i-MiEV get ~4 mi/kWh. Of course they could have used a non-production vehicle which is lighter and therefore more efficient.
Areas that have to import water aren't the only areas that need to be careful of water usage. I'll grant that there are probably some areas that have so much water they don't need to be concerned. I haven't ever lived in one.
Flat rates only work where water is abundant. Where I live, it's really important that water be metered so that people have an incentive to keep their consumption down.
This is not money "sequestered" anywhere, it's value derived from the operations of a productive operation.
It is only a derivative in the sense that its value is related to the productivity of the operations. If I spend $10M on Apple stock, Apple has exactly $0 more available to it in order to conduct its business.
What you're buying is the ownership that someone else already purchased with money that did go to Apple to conduct its business.
Granted, a high market cap does allow companies to issue new stock (which doesn't happen much)
It's actually really common in Silicon Valley. For example Apple issues lots of new stock all the time. All (I think) goes to employees in the form of stock options or stock grants, but it's definitely stock issued to fund operations, since it's part of the employee compensation.
Oh, and even during an IPO most of the money raised doesn't go towards operating the business - it goes to rewarding the previous owners.
This varies. Often a percentage of the IPO take is earmarked for cash to be added to the balance sheet. But even when it isn't, it doesn't change the fact that you are funding the company, it just adds a layer of indirection because the possibility of that IPO is what motivated the earlier investments. Given that many companies never make it to IPO, there's actually a fair amount of leverage there... your IPO stock purchase effectively motivated investments in a lot of companies that didn't actually do IPOs.
Ultimately investing in a stock is much more about investing in your own future value than investing in the company's future value.
Regardless, without public corporate ownership, the pool of capital available for companies to build their businesses would be a small fraction of what it is. Although, as you point out, the funding is often very indirect, it's public markets that make much of the capital available that drives establishment and growth of businesses.
So... what kinds of guns has Ford made on their fancy printers? I'd like to see some comparisons of guns made with the four different printing processes.
If you are correct that taxes collect themselves, then why couldn't billing use the same technology?
I think the point is that there is a tax collection system in place already. Adding a line item on the form to cover water is not going to increase the cost and complexity of the system.
Does that tax collection system meter water usage and adjust the tax bill accordingly? It's the metering and allocation of costs to individual households that's the expensive part, regardless of whether you do it on the tax form or via another billing system.
Note that I don't object to municipal fiber, but this argument about water via taxes rather than monthly billing is silly.
Slashdot Mirror
If that's the explanation, then we should see and end to the decline in the US over the next generation or so.
And, repeatedly, when gun laws are relaxed, there is a short initial period of increased violence, followed by a decidedly downward trend in crime." which is false. In the UK increased restrictions on gun ownership actually show the opposite pattern.
Do they? The UK has historically had much lower levels of violence than the US, but since the UK imposed restrictions on gun ownership while the US relaxed restrictions, the gap has narrowed. Both countries have gotten safer, but the US has gotten safer much faster. In the early 80s the UK homicide rate per capita was 9X the US rate. Today it's 4X.
I'm not saying that supports those you're trying to contradict, just that I don't think your conclusion holds, either.
Doing a bit more Googling, the current fastest production motorcycle in the world is the Lightning LS-128 -- an electric, and the bike, by the way that ran away with the Pike's Peak challenge last year (granted that air-breathing bikes are at a disadvantage at 14,000 feet). Top speed is 218 mph, 0-60 time is below two seconds.
However that's #1 for top speed. For raw acceleration the current champion (also electric) is the Killacycle. 0-60 in 0.97 seconds.
Cost is an issue on these bikes, obviously, but for raw performance electric is unbeatable.
I'm sure you can find a much faster electric motorcycle than the Mission RS, and probably for less money. It was just the first one that came up in a Google search.
Yeah, introducing nitromethane-burning vehicles (I use the term loosely) whose fuel consumption is measured in gallons per second into a conversation about mass-produced consumer automobiles is pretty silly.
Oh, one more cool Top Fuel video. This shows the fuel pump for a single cylinder. The pumps can flow ~100 gallons per minute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTbQuhhluY
Crazy stuff.
That`s a rocket engine not a combustion engine.. still he should have used most 4 wheeled combustion engine vehicules rather than a simple `combustion engine` shortcut while referring to those.
Top Fuel dragsters are internal combustion, not rocket engines, though they do burn "rocket fuel" (nitromethane).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Fuel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VF0JwxQqcA
Comparing motorcyles and dragsters to heavy four-door sedans seems a bit disingenuous. There are electric motorcycles and dragsters. On the motorcycle front, how would your machine compare to the Mission RS (0-60 in less than 3 seconds)? Granted that the Mission costs a wee bit more than $6800.
If the only alternative is central planning -- which has proven to be just about the worst possible economic structure -- then your argument supports my point.
Isn't that a bit like saying that without central planning there would be no way for businesses to start, since no government agency would be able to write the check needed to start an approved business?
Not in the slightest.
There is no question that public ownership of companies is a major force driving the US economy. That doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of doing things.
For example?
Unfortunately the website looks like it hasn't been changed in 20 years either.
And? Content is what matters, not fads.
Why?
(Note that I don't know if that's the best app for ISS detection. It's just the first one that came up.)
I like the idea of going smaller, not bigger. Small enough to make them easily replaceable by the average person -- say, 5 kg. Assuming 100 kg gives you 3000 km, and assuming the weight scales linearly, then 5 kg would be 150 km. That would roughly double the range of something like a Nissan LEAF, for negligible cost (beyond the cost of the Al battery). Provide slots for four of them, and arrange to sell the batteries through fuel stations, and you could use an EV in exactly the same way you'd use a gasoline-powered car. Include a rechargeable batter for very short range trips, and for a place to store power recovered from regenerative braking, and you'd have a car that makes hybrids completely obsolete.
Looking at specific energies, I'm not sure what to think. Assuming 3 mi/kWh, 3000 kg for 1800 mi is 6 kWh, 22 mJ, per kg. That's pretty impressive. Almost two orders of magnitude higher than Li-ion, and very nearly 50% of the specific energy of gasoline! If someone seriously has a battery technology that can approach gasoline that closely... that's huge. Even if battery manufacture isn't particularly efficient, energy-wise, the ability to shift between energy sources may well offset it.
It seems too good to be true... which usually means it is.
If the cost is about the same, it might even be worth considering, say, four 5 kg Al batteries with 600 km range. Then you'd refuel about as often as you do with a gasoline engine, but you'd do it by swapping out solid objects which are light enough to be easily managed by the average person.
My expectation is that rechargeable batteries plus recharging is cheaper, though. Still a combination of Li-ion for daily use plus Al for longer-range would make a lot of sense and be a lot cheaper and lighter than a hybrid with much the same range characteristics -- especially if you could swap Al batteries at a standard fuel station.
Smaller EVs like the LEAF and i-MiEV get ~4 mi/kWh. Of course they could have used a non-production vehicle which is lighter and therefore more efficient.
Closed source gets more code review than opensource apparently.
Clearly you've never worked in the software industry.
Clearly neither did any of the code inspectors that reviewed the code for 16 years...
Non sequiteur.
Areas that have to import water aren't the only areas that need to be careful of water usage. I'll grant that there are probably some areas that have so much water they don't need to be concerned. I haven't ever lived in one.
Closed source gets more code review than opensource apparently.
Clearly you've never worked in the software industry.
:-)
BTDT.
Flat rates only work where water is abundant. Where I live, it's really important that water be metered so that people have an incentive to keep their consumption down.
This is not money "sequestered" anywhere, it's value derived from the operations of a productive operation.
It is only a derivative in the sense that its value is related to the productivity of the operations. If I spend $10M on Apple stock, Apple has exactly $0 more available to it in order to conduct its business.
What you're buying is the ownership that someone else already purchased with money that did go to Apple to conduct its business.
Granted, a high market cap does allow companies to issue new stock (which doesn't happen much)
It's actually really common in Silicon Valley. For example Apple issues lots of new stock all the time. All (I think) goes to employees in the form of stock options or stock grants, but it's definitely stock issued to fund operations, since it's part of the employee compensation.
Oh, and even during an IPO most of the money raised doesn't go towards operating the business - it goes to rewarding the previous owners.
This varies. Often a percentage of the IPO take is earmarked for cash to be added to the balance sheet. But even when it isn't, it doesn't change the fact that you are funding the company, it just adds a layer of indirection because the possibility of that IPO is what motivated the earlier investments. Given that many companies never make it to IPO, there's actually a fair amount of leverage there... your IPO stock purchase effectively motivated investments in a lot of companies that didn't actually do IPOs.
Ultimately investing in a stock is much more about investing in your own future value than investing in the company's future value.
Regardless, without public corporate ownership, the pool of capital available for companies to build their businesses would be a small fraction of what it is. Although, as you point out, the funding is often very indirect, it's public markets that make much of the capital available that drives establishment and growth of businesses.
So... what kinds of guns has Ford made on their fancy printers? I'd like to see some comparisons of guns made with the four different printing processes.
It is if you ask them.
I think your sarcasm detector is broken.
I think the point is that there is a tax collection system in place already. Adding a line item on the form to cover water is not going to increase the cost and complexity of the system.
Does that tax collection system meter water usage and adjust the tax bill accordingly? It's the metering and allocation of costs to individual households that's the expensive part, regardless of whether you do it on the tax form or via another billing system.
Note that I don't object to municipal fiber, but this argument about water via taxes rather than monthly billing is silly.