some of the larger hangers are 50 cents each. 50 cents for a metal coat hanger. he needs several hundred of these in a given week, nevermind the price of all the other supplies going up. it hurts, bad, and he has had to raise prices because of it (though not enough to actually cover the added cost)
Damn, the price has gone up. I was going to joke and ask why he didn't switch to plastic hangers. Well, the price of plastic hangers through walmart's website was about $1 each. Damn. Last time we bought plastic hangers from walmart we could get a 24 pack for $1.
Who cares about the environment, it can recover in 20-40 years.
Where do you get this crap? Take a look at the island of Crete. This island used to be almost completely covered in forest. Then the Minoans began clear-cutting it for lumber to build ships. This continued for several generations. When the forest was clear cut, there was no longer any mechanism for the top soil to be held in place. It washed into the sea. The isle of Crete is now a wasteland in terms of the ability to grow forest -- solid forest has not grown there in thousands years.
You are naive, ignorant, short sighted, and have an offensive disregard for the natural world.
O.k. maybe he needed 20K-40K years, but he is still generally right. It's funny when you take a single island that has been terraformed into what those natives thought that they wanted and well then complain that the only environment that they have is grass. In that single case, sure, I'd expect there to be grass and such much longer. To me nature has recovered. What are you complaining about is you don't like the nature that has recovered there.
I don't like that oceans don't have trees growing out of them so let's bio engineer trees that float/grow on oceans. There are you happy we could have trees and things with trees. What is this focus on trees? Nature is everything. We aren't separate, but a part of it. And nature did survive everything that man has done to it.
Oh, you don't like it because it didn't come back in the same exact form. Well, on shit. Nature ain't stupid, if it put a forest back there the humans would just cut it down again; it's much better to have what well survive humanity living there and that humanity can't make too much use of harvesting it. Natural selection is all about surviving on this planet with humanity. Forests weren't fit for that environment any longer, but grass, dirt, and mud were.
I'm not too keen on the ANWR drilling idea. We've already despoiled just about every pristine and beautiful place on earth... something needs to be preserved.
Why? We've got the oceans, ice caps, some jungles and some deserts that we can really call untouched. Why must we preserve that place? Oh yes, I forgot it's a point of view. It's sort of like saying there should only be one city on the planet and everyone needs to move into it because it'd be cheaper and then spending 100 years before building it choosing the prettiest place on Earth to put it. And then 100 years latter deciding that we can't put it in the prettiest place on Earth so we'll stick it on the ugliest place on Earth or the Moon so we can let Earth be all natural.
If they could come up with cheap energy for running cars, etc...I think many people in the US would now be comfortable strip mining the Rocky Mountains and The Applachians down to nothing without a 2nd thought. This has hit the general public in a way they never really ever imagined before, and they are shocked. I'd say they'd be prepared to do about anything if the price keeps increasing at this rate.
I'd agree with this. I've long wanted nuclear powered cars. Today, its more likely we'd say screw electric, hybrid, or hydrogen powered cars, we'd be going dirty coal powered cars.
Does that mean that we may already have a few of these things in the Earth or Sun, but don't have to really worry about that for the next 100 million years?
Can't we get EPA to do something about those guys about polluting Earth and releasing long lasting emissions/pollution? I mean come on if those folks that complain about long lasting nuclear waste get wind of that I can see endless protesting.
It's one thing if you tell me that this stuff will likely disappear less than a second of being created. It really worries me that you are telling me that you might create something that may last millions of years. I mean come on would they be able to even find/move the thing if they created one? I think we need to develop space travel so we can send all these potentially dangerous tests out to Pluto.
1 year old with 100GB of DVD quality footage all ready? Do you really want to no the answer? No matter what format you've stored their life in, they'll not really want to ever look at it. It's one thing if they chose to record it, store it, and share it, but by the time they turn 10 years old they'll never really view any of the content of their life. When they move out at 20 years old, they'll feel odd not having so much active in your face recording of their life. (Though at that time passive recording of their life will be everywhere.)
The easy solution is buy one of those TB external HD and just keep buying what ever the current largest HD size is whenever you need more.
Heck, people remember what they want to remember. He most likely thinks that's how it was... Not really it just sort of a happened, they lucked out and when they did they kept running with it. Most people won't admit that their success was luck based, or due to family money, or family/friend connections. They want to think its all because of their own hard work that they've got that nice house and car or richie rich fortune, and they also want others to think that as well.
Nothing to see here. Rich guy got richer, and it now rewriting his history to fit his view point. It's a plot type that's happened lots in the past and will happen lots in the future.
Well, in the northern US, it would/could make a big difference. For some reason up there...they use heating OIL to heat their homes during the long, hard winters.
Perhaps if we had more nukes providing cheaper electricity...we could get the heating done up north without so much oil usage.
I mean, if you think gas prices are bad now...wait till you have to buy oil to heat your house...something you REALLY can't go without....and be prepared for sticker shock...
I don't remember where I read it, but there was something comparing air conditioners run through the summer in Arizona with homes heated using oil through the winter in New York, and those air conditioners came out being much better for the environment overall esp when you consider where the energy for running each was coming from.
But it really begs the question. How the hell do you measure the success of teachers? They hold all the cards and there's no obvious objective measure that I can see....
So to combat this you get standardized testing. If too many people fail the standard tests, then the teacher is bad. But what does that do? It means that the smart teacher will teach only what's on the test. And they will ensure that each student can score well on the test, ability be damned. It's all about the test.
Um, the obvious thing is to hide the damn test form from the school admin and teachers. The next thought is to have a massive teacher generated database of all questions/answers that if a teacher wants on a test or home work and that all public schools everywhere are required to use. Instead of just year end tests, you'd have weekly standardized tests across the nation and have a website that lists where each student, class, school, state sets in relation to all the others. You expand the tests to include everything that most teachers want to test on in the standardized weekly tests/quizes. You always have students/teachers/schools that will game the system that is just part of life. It doesn't matter what the system is once known what the system is you'll have people trying to cheat at it.
You shouldn't get an award because of your genes, but because of the work you put in. According to who? And why? Actually, I shouldn't be arguing; if you're correct then I should be able to get a Nobel Prize just by trying really hard.
I agree with you. Effort is meaningless. It's results that matter. "Effort" is rewarded by teachers that feel at least that stupid kid is trying to learn. I breezed through most of junior high, high school, and college. College was only difficult because you generally only had 3-5 grades in any given class and that wasn't nearly enough of a sample size to read the teacher's mind and make up for an early blunder latter. The more tests, home work, and quizs that are taken into that grade the easier most classes are to pass. I'll tell you I'd rather spend my 10 minutes of studying with those that know the subject and can do it rather than those that are clueless in the subject yet seem to find time to "study" 20-30 hours a week. Those that think effort should be rewarded really are just looking for hard working factory drones.
Local corruption is blatant but you negotiate with the corrupt party directly openly discussing the quids for the pro quos. Higher you go, complex it gets. Often you deal with intermediaries, and you are not sure if they really represent the official they claim to represent, what is given and what is expected gets lost in translation.
Many fringe energy sources have become cost competitive with geological oil since it more than quadrupled in price. What will be interesting is how the oil giants respond to this competition.
Come on they'll pull a TimeWarner-AOL merger that actually makes sense for their industry. The Oil/Energy companies aren't going anywhere. Those that have only oil from a single source or subset of politically liable sources as their main energy source of product may die off. Those "energy" companies that were oil, but have invested in other forms of energy production will make the natural shift to what is more profitable, less political liable, and better for their company's long term bottom line.
It's sort of like how none of the major car companies went all out for either electric or hybrid cars until some one else figured out how to profitable sell them. Then all the sudden all sorts of car makers have or are looking into hybrids. The same mindset is behind those in the "energy" companies. The really funny part is as far as the big boys in that field are concerned about, it may not affect them too much. Look it up, there is tons of companies competing in that field and as long as these types of companies can say we need X input to produce Y grade of oil, they'll likely fit right into the entire over all oil/energy industry. (Expect the big boys to buy ten percent of any given handful of these companies right before that really hit it big.)
...Larry Niven's Fallen Angels. Basic back story was that global warming was corrected, but it was the only thing holding back the next ice age. Not a bad supposition for a 17-year old novel. Pretty fun read with some decent science, as well.
Wow, sounds like a sure fire way to keep people from flying. Already flying is becoming too much of a hassle for many people flying for both business and pleasure and the competition will be trains, automobiles and the Internet.
Um, don't you think that's one of the side benefits? Travel of the peasants is always bad in the government's view. You want those peasants to be birthed, grow up, work, and die in about the same place. Letting them travel expands their horizons and gives them a more global view point always a bad idea...
I don't see trains competing with air craft because they just don't go the same places at the same speeds as aircraft do. It's better to rent a vehicle. The internet is good in that it keeps you at home with the illusion that you are actually traveling else where. Automobiles actually allow individuals to travel else where and back home in reasonable amount of time so they must have as many limits on ownership and driving as possible to keep them away from the peasants.
Are we suppose to be proud or excited by this? Arguably the military is one of the few things left in the US that works well. Get back to me when the government puts a decent size fraction of what they spend on the military into energy research, healthcare, education and career retraining. I'll be thrilled when Wii research ends up in a surgeon's hands than an Air Force cadet.
Um, humans like to blow stuff up/kill things far more often than healing/saving them. That side, the civil war surgeon's game where you get to cut limbs off wounded soldiers would out sell the realistic surgeon in training game. Actually, count the raw number of FPS or fantasy/scifi military games that are already on the market that the military could adapt to their use. Now count how many games that simulate various forms of health care are on the market. That's why you haven't seen doctors use a game adaption to learn, because doctoring/nursing games don't really exist. (O.k. I'm sure that they do for actual health care professionals going through a university program; I'm sure some one's made a game for them.) What I really mean is a game where elementary and junior high kids spend hours learning somewhat useful health care knowledge through medical gaming. Sure, I think its a great idea, but has anyone actually made a really successful one yet?
"Just think, one day, the R&D that Nintendo put into Wii bowling could end up influencing basic training [which includes how to kill people]"
Although I highly doubt a business would pass up the chance to get funding from the military, I would hope that a company that for the most part builds games for kids (or at least promotes "fun"), would decline working for the military in any regard, except to deviate away from phsyical combat. Maybe one day the wars could be settled with a good game of Guitar Hero...
Um, I find your post funny. What skill did you think duck hunt trained the most? Now a days with internet-multi player console games, its only a matter of time before the perfect military training game gets released. Actually, I don't think that we'll have a perfect game, but lots of similar games. We'd have military game based around sword & shield, or archery combat and also all types of gun combat up to modern warfare. How about a military game that teaches the player how to use axes to cut down trees and use rope to build siege equipment? Or better yet an artillery game that's real goal is to teach artillery officers all math and thinking skills it would take to hit a target will most of the successful artillery that we've invented over history. We've got FPS, Tank games, navy games, and air plane games. Sooner or later some one will build a game that combines it all that teaches the player exactly what the view from a real tank, ship, airplane, or ground combat would be. Oh it'll be fun and profitable, or it won't last.
Current FPS don't go for true physics on what those fantasy weapons would do. In some sense we are training our kinds in how to use weapons that don't exist yet. Ideally, you'd tune the game so the effects of the game weapons would mirror RL weapons as closely as possible so that if you ever had to use gamers for soldiers that they'd have had years of simulated experience in what the effects of various weapon firing look like.;)
The success of the X-Prize seems to have made everyone crazy about prizes to stir development. But it seems to me that the X-Prize only worked great because there were some very special characteristics about the commercial manned suborbital launch vehicle problem. I think there were two primary reasons the X-Prize was successful.
Um, your two reasons for the X prize don't ring true to me. Why? Because it seems like most of the groups competing were doing/going to do the project any way. The X-Prize was just a small public prize for actually winning the race first. As I understand it, the individual teams a spending far more in development than the prize would ever help with even if a group did win it. I kinda view it as sort of like NASCAR or Formula 1 racing where the car makers spend millions and millions on a handful of cars. The prizes for winning the races don't cover those costs to design/build/support the teams. Those car makers have other reasons mainly ego and ads to really drive them.
The same ego and ads will be what will really bring large money into the development for the space race. Its sorta like saying that we are going to give out a $1 million dollar prize if you find the cure to all diseases or immortality. It'd likely cost billions upon billions to develop that tech and its worthy to develop in its own right. The so called prize is there just for a small ego boost.
And UK is "special" (like in "special olympics") when it comes to related issues. There's very few actual cases of this kind of abuse, but the local media paint a picture of a country with violent pedophile at every corner, in every bush and three of them in every dark alley. With this level of hysteria they may very well ban photos of children whatsoever or require permits and observation by govt inspector.
Um, I thought it was true though. With all those CC cameras all it takes is some 13-15 year old girls in skimpy out fits to turn your average male video reviewer into a pedophile. In that case should the government arrest itself, the contractor running the camera, the person reviewing the camera that got aroused, or the subjects being videoed that happened to turn some one over the age of 18 on?
Hmm the fact that you can post this on the internet kind of proves your wrong doesn't it?
No, it only proves that my government isn't currently as harsh as the Bush Haters claim it is.
I think we've been rather silly with the entire War on Terror, but still we've been doing far better than that entire Red Scare bit. Of course the Red Scare hit far more domestic targets than this current War on Terror has. The War on Terror could quite easily turn into the War on Politics other than the current top two US political parties. Would you like it if the FBI raided you for not being a Republican or Democrat?
Eugenics will be worth billions upon billions of dollars, with a well-funded lobby, like reproductive medicine is and like abortion is. Children with birth defects, and children with "birth defects" like being left-handed or not predisposed to being athletic or possibly being gay, do not typically have much campaign cash to spend. Which group do you think is going to win in the US political system?
I still think we are 10 generations too immature to do any playing around with eugenics or human natural selection. Just look at what happened to the first human government that thought it knew and was ready for eugenics... the Nazis. I think they were as miss guided as many other human governments in just declare that "we are the best" and "everyone else is bad or under us." That's 90% of their problem right there. If we really seriously were to study and use these fields, then we should start with studying overall human natural selection in how all humanity, tech, and culture has evolved over the last 6K years. Eugenics might one day be useful. The main problem we have with it is that it is too commonly used as a political weapon justifying the abuse/oppression of others. One very difficult concept that we have accepting is that eugenics requires some sort of "test" to judge if the person should be allowed to breed over that person. Using if a person has become a criminal sounds like a very valid test for excluding a person from future breeding. You then have to pick what "crimes" are used for this "additional punishment." Murder, assault, rape sound good to start off with. In 20 years though, will the RIAA push for file sharing to be included in that as well? And there is the problem we all see with the entire eugenics concept.
On the flip side of it though, another reason that everyone doesn't like eugenics is that how we all see and think about it involves a government forcing it on its citizens. We don't see "natural" human mating/pairing as having anything to do with eugenics or natural selection though that's really the key. Think of all the thousand and one things any female looks at in a male and also the opposite. That's where all our past, current, and hopefully future eugenics takes place. (And its also the only place it should take place at the individual family level.)
True, there are "perfectly legal" ways to get into a country, just like there are "perfectly legal" was to buy a Ferrari, or run for President. That doesn't mean those options are open to everybody. Plus, the mere fact that this guy is pursuing an advanced degree at university should be proof enough that the "stealing our jobs" excuse doesn't apply in this case. Your kneejerk obeisance to immigration policy on the mere basis that "it's policy, ergo we follow it" is just another way of distracting attention from your own need to protect your position of privilege.
How the heck did you get modded informative? You basically said that its difficult to go through immigration so any means that your family finds to get you in the country goes. You then say that the guy going for an advanced degree isn't going to steal a US job. Rolls eyes. If the person had any intention of getting a US job, then by definition they'd steal a US citizen's job.
My theories on immigration are far looser than most I talk with. I'd like to dump income tax and make a federal sales tax for the simple reason that then any and all persons buying US goods would be paying into our tax system. It wouldn't matter if you were illegal or not, you'd still be paying taxes. (That's the important part to me.) At that point, you could just declare anyone living and/or working in the US a US citizen.
I grew up in the US. I have nothing against everyone speaking English and think that's a fair thing to want immigrants to learn. What's always really gotten me was the pledge of allegiance in school to the US flag and country. That's always felt utterly wrong to me. You know the real reason for it though? To make force all immigrates, their children, and anyone going to public schools to become loyal US citizens and follow what counts as US culture.
His thesis brought him to the interest of some of the old-line type of "terrorist" organizations like the PFLP. *THAT* brought him to the attention of the FBI and he was arrested and interrogated.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Um, that's actually how its supposed to work. O.k. the guy may not have been a terrorist, but he had information/abilities terrorists want so they attempt to recruit the person. Government people watching terrorists notice that they are trying to recruit a guy that may know how to do X that could be deadly to lots of people. Of course most of us would want the government to pick the guy up and grill all terrorist related information out of him. Most of us wouldn't want the guy going to work for any potentially hostile country that might aim X at our country either.
But people that are willing to use violence to replace liberal democracy with a far harsher system are 'cultural enemies'. Back in World War II British citizens who even made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis were executed for treason. Certainly I think people who are willing to use or even threaten to use force to overthrow democracy are traitors.
Damn, sounds like the UK already has it's Nazish state. If you publish thoughts that their government don't like, they deport people. It sounds like the UK was perfectly willing to use violence on peaceful people attempting to use "free speech" to spread their politics to preserve their governing system. The US wasn't any better in the past. All you have to do is look up the entire Red Scare crap. As I read it, if your political party was leaning socialist or communist at all the FBI went all Nazi/KGB and did everything short of out right killing our own citizens to prevent them from spreading their political beliefs.
So called capitalist liberal democracy can be just as harsh as fascist, socialist, communist, or theocratic states. They just need a few things to pop up and push their danger buttons and some segments of society will try their hardest to preserve what they see as "traditional culture" and thought. (In that process, they'll attempt to utterly crush any new or differing cultures in the attempt to preserve their own.) It's just how human politics/cultural work.
And before Americans sneer that this is adhoc, you're right. But this system has led to a stable society where individual freedoms have either increased or stayed constant for hundreds of years, far longer than the US system has existed.
Hey, I always thought it was a good thing for the British that North America, Australia, and other places where around for you to dump the people that didn't fit into your little utopia. If Britain was really such a great place that protected individual freedoms then Canada, the US, Australia, and India would be united as part of a British common wealth. Didn't all those places what and get independence ASAP?
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some of the larger hangers are 50 cents each. 50 cents for a metal coat hanger. he needs several hundred of these in a given week, nevermind the price of all the other supplies going up. it hurts, bad, and he has had to raise prices because of it (though not enough to actually cover the added cost)
Damn, the price has gone up. I was going to joke and ask why he didn't switch to plastic hangers. Well, the price of plastic hangers through walmart's website was about $1 each. Damn. Last time we bought plastic hangers from walmart we could get a 24 pack for $1.
Who cares about the environment, it can recover in 20-40 years.
Where do you get this crap? Take a look at the island of Crete. This island used to be almost completely covered in forest. Then the Minoans began clear-cutting it for lumber to build ships. This continued for several generations. When the forest was clear cut, there was no longer any mechanism for the top soil to be held in place. It washed into the sea. The isle of Crete is now a wasteland in terms of the ability to grow forest -- solid forest has not grown there in thousands years.
You are naive, ignorant, short sighted, and have an offensive disregard for the natural world.
O.k. maybe he needed 20K-40K years, but he is still generally right. It's funny when you take a single island that has been terraformed into what those natives thought that they wanted and well then complain that the only environment that they have is grass. In that single case, sure, I'd expect there to be grass and such much longer. To me nature has recovered. What are you complaining about is you don't like the nature that has recovered there.
I don't like that oceans don't have trees growing out of them so let's bio engineer trees that float/grow on oceans. There are you happy we could have trees and things with trees. What is this focus on trees? Nature is everything. We aren't separate, but a part of it. And nature did survive everything that man has done to it.
Oh, you don't like it because it didn't come back in the same exact form. Well, on shit. Nature ain't stupid, if it put a forest back there the humans would just cut it down again; it's much better to have what well survive humanity living there and that humanity can't make too much use of harvesting it. Natural selection is all about surviving on this planet with humanity. Forests weren't fit for that environment any longer, but grass, dirt, and mud were.
I'm not too keen on the ANWR drilling idea. We've already despoiled just about every pristine and beautiful place on earth... something needs to be preserved.
Why? We've got the oceans, ice caps, some jungles and some deserts that we can really call untouched. Why must we preserve that place? Oh yes, I forgot it's a point of view. It's sort of like saying there should only be one city on the planet and everyone needs to move into it because it'd be cheaper and then spending 100 years before building it choosing the prettiest place on Earth to put it. And then 100 years latter deciding that we can't put it in the prettiest place on Earth so we'll stick it on the ugliest place on Earth or the Moon so we can let Earth be all natural.
If they could come up with cheap energy for running cars, etc...I think many people in the US would now be comfortable strip mining the Rocky Mountains and The Applachians down to nothing without a 2nd thought. This has hit the general public in a way they never really ever imagined before, and they are shocked. I'd say they'd be prepared to do about anything if the price keeps increasing at this rate.
I'd agree with this. I've long wanted nuclear powered cars. Today, its more likely we'd say screw electric, hybrid, or hydrogen powered cars, we'd be going dirty coal powered cars.
Does that mean that we may already have a few of these things in the Earth or Sun, but don't have to really worry about that for the next 100 million years?
Can't we get EPA to do something about those guys about polluting Earth and releasing long lasting emissions/pollution? I mean come on if those folks that complain about long lasting nuclear waste get wind of that I can see endless protesting.
It's one thing if you tell me that this stuff will likely disappear less than a second of being created. It really worries me that you are telling me that you might create something that may last millions of years. I mean come on would they be able to even find/move the thing if they created one? I think we need to develop space travel so we can send all these potentially dangerous tests out to Pluto.
1 year old with 100GB of DVD quality footage all ready? Do you really want to no the answer? No matter what format you've stored their life in, they'll not really want to ever look at it. It's one thing if they chose to record it, store it, and share it, but by the time they turn 10 years old they'll never really view any of the content of their life. When they move out at 20 years old, they'll feel odd not having so much active in your face recording of their life. (Though at that time passive recording of their life will be everywhere.)
The easy solution is buy one of those TB external HD and just keep buying what ever the current largest HD size is whenever you need more.
Heck, people remember what they want to remember. He most likely thinks that's how it was... Not really it just sort of a happened, they lucked out and when they did they kept running with it. Most people won't admit that their success was luck based, or due to family money, or family/friend connections. They want to think its all because of their own hard work that they've got that nice house and car or richie rich fortune, and they also want others to think that as well.
Nothing to see here. Rich guy got richer, and it now rewriting his history to fit his view point. It's a plot type that's happened lots in the past and will happen lots in the future.
Well, in the northern US, it would/could make a big difference. For some reason up there...they use heating OIL to heat their homes during the long, hard winters.
Perhaps if we had more nukes providing cheaper electricity...we could get the heating done up north without so much oil usage.
I mean, if you think gas prices are bad now...wait till you have to buy oil to heat your house...something you REALLY can't go without....and be prepared for sticker shock...
I don't remember where I read it, but there was something comparing air conditioners run through the summer in Arizona with homes heated using oil through the winter in New York, and those air conditioners came out being much better for the environment overall esp when you consider where the energy for running each was coming from.
But it really begs the question. How the hell do you measure the success of teachers? They hold all the cards and there's no obvious objective measure that I can see....
So to combat this you get standardized testing. If too many people fail the standard tests, then the teacher is bad. But what does that do? It means that the smart teacher will teach only what's on the test. And they will ensure that each student can score well on the test, ability be damned. It's all about the test.
Um, the obvious thing is to hide the damn test form from the school admin and teachers. The next thought is to have a massive teacher generated database of all questions/answers that if a teacher wants on a test or home work and that all public schools everywhere are required to use. Instead of just year end tests, you'd have weekly standardized tests across the nation and have a website that lists where each student, class, school, state sets in relation to all the others. You expand the tests to include everything that most teachers want to test on in the standardized weekly tests/quizes. You always have students/teachers/schools that will game the system that is just part of life. It doesn't matter what the system is once known what the system is you'll have people trying to cheat at it.
You shouldn't get an award because of your genes, but because of the work you put in. According to who? And why?
Actually, I shouldn't be arguing; if you're correct then I should be able to get a Nobel Prize just by trying really hard.
I agree with you. Effort is meaningless. It's results that matter. "Effort" is rewarded by teachers that feel at least that stupid kid is trying to learn. I breezed through most of junior high, high school, and college. College was only difficult because you generally only had 3-5 grades in any given class and that wasn't nearly enough of a sample size to read the teacher's mind and make up for an early blunder latter. The more tests, home work, and quizs that are taken into that grade the easier most classes are to pass. I'll tell you I'd rather spend my 10 minutes of studying with those that know the subject and can do it rather than those that are clueless in the subject yet seem to find time to "study" 20-30 hours a week. Those that think effort should be rewarded really are just looking for hard working factory drones.
Most != ALL
Local corruption is blatant but you negotiate with the corrupt party directly openly discussing the quids for the pro quos. Higher you go, complex it gets. Often you deal with intermediaries, and you are not sure if they really represent the official they claim to represent, what is given and what is expected gets lost in translation.
Isn't that how all government every where works?
Many fringe energy sources have become cost competitive with geological oil since it more than quadrupled in price. What will be interesting is how the oil giants respond to this competition.
Come on they'll pull a TimeWarner-AOL merger that actually makes sense for their industry. The Oil/Energy companies aren't going anywhere. Those that have only oil from a single source or subset of politically liable sources as their main energy source of product may die off. Those "energy" companies that were oil, but have invested in other forms of energy production will make the natural shift to what is more profitable, less political liable, and better for their company's long term bottom line.
It's sort of like how none of the major car companies went all out for either electric or hybrid cars until some one else figured out how to profitable sell them. Then all the sudden all sorts of car makers have or are looking into hybrids. The same mindset is behind those in the "energy" companies. The really funny part is as far as the big boys in that field are concerned about, it may not affect them too much. Look it up, there is tons of companies competing in that field and as long as these types of companies can say we need X input to produce Y grade of oil, they'll likely fit right into the entire over all oil/energy industry. (Expect the big boys to buy ten percent of any given handful of these companies right before that really hit it big.)
...Larry Niven's Fallen Angels. Basic back story was that global warming was corrected, but it was the only thing holding back the next ice age. Not a bad supposition for a 17-year old novel. Pretty fun read with some decent science, as well.
http://www.webscription.net/pc-137-1-fallen-angels.aspx
Use the free library link Fallen Angels is awesome. It shows really what the Greens would really do to country if they took charge.
Install a giant frickin' laser on it.
I thought the plan was to install a giant rock throwing device on it.
Wow, sounds like a sure fire way to keep people from flying. Already flying is becoming too much of a hassle for many people flying for both business and pleasure and the competition will be trains, automobiles and the Internet.
Um, don't you think that's one of the side benefits? Travel of the peasants is always bad in the government's view. You want those peasants to be birthed, grow up, work, and die in about the same place. Letting them travel expands their horizons and gives them a more global view point always a bad idea...
I don't see trains competing with air craft because they just don't go the same places at the same speeds as aircraft do. It's better to rent a vehicle. The internet is good in that it keeps you at home with the illusion that you are actually traveling else where. Automobiles actually allow individuals to travel else where and back home in reasonable amount of time so they must have as many limits on ownership and driving as possible to keep them away from the peasants.
Are we suppose to be proud or excited by this? Arguably the military is one of the few things left in the US that works well. Get back to me when the government puts a decent size fraction of what they spend on the military into energy research, healthcare, education and career retraining. I'll be thrilled when Wii research ends up in a surgeon's hands than an Air Force cadet.
Um, humans like to blow stuff up/kill things far more often than healing/saving them. That side, the civil war surgeon's game where you get to cut limbs off wounded soldiers would out sell the realistic surgeon in training game. Actually, count the raw number of FPS or fantasy/scifi military games that are already on the market that the military could adapt to their use. Now count how many games that simulate various forms of health care are on the market. That's why you haven't seen doctors use a game adaption to learn, because doctoring/nursing games don't really exist. (O.k. I'm sure that they do for actual health care professionals going through a university program; I'm sure some one's made a game for them.) What I really mean is a game where elementary and junior high kids spend hours learning somewhat useful health care knowledge through medical gaming. Sure, I think its a great idea, but has anyone actually made a really successful one yet?
"Just think, one day, the R&D that Nintendo put into Wii bowling could end up influencing basic training [which includes how to kill people]"
;)
Although I highly doubt a business would pass up the chance to get funding from the military, I would hope that a company that for the most part builds games for kids (or at least promotes "fun"), would decline working for the military in any regard, except to deviate away from phsyical combat. Maybe one day the wars could be settled with a good game of Guitar Hero...
Um, I find your post funny. What skill did you think duck hunt trained the most? Now a days with internet-multi player console games, its only a matter of time before the perfect military training game gets released. Actually, I don't think that we'll have a perfect game, but lots of similar games. We'd have military game based around sword & shield, or archery combat and also all types of gun combat up to modern warfare. How about a military game that teaches the player how to use axes to cut down trees and use rope to build siege equipment? Or better yet an artillery game that's real goal is to teach artillery officers all math and thinking skills it would take to hit a target will most of the successful artillery that we've invented over history. We've got FPS, Tank games, navy games, and air plane games. Sooner or later some one will build a game that combines it all that teaches the player exactly what the view from a real tank, ship, airplane, or ground combat would be. Oh it'll be fun and profitable, or it won't last.
Current FPS don't go for true physics on what those fantasy weapons would do. In some sense we are training our kinds in how to use weapons that don't exist yet. Ideally, you'd tune the game so the effects of the game weapons would mirror RL weapons as closely as possible so that if you ever had to use gamers for soldiers that they'd have had years of simulated experience in what the effects of various weapon firing look like.
The success of the X-Prize seems to have made everyone crazy about prizes to stir development. But it seems to me that the X-Prize only worked great because there were some very special characteristics about the commercial manned suborbital launch vehicle problem. I think there were two primary reasons the X-Prize was successful.
Um, your two reasons for the X prize don't ring true to me. Why? Because it seems like most of the groups competing were doing/going to do the project any way. The X-Prize was just a small public prize for actually winning the race first. As I understand it, the individual teams a spending far more in development than the prize would ever help with even if a group did win it. I kinda view it as sort of like NASCAR or Formula 1 racing where the car makers spend millions and millions on a handful of cars. The prizes for winning the races don't cover those costs to design/build/support the teams. Those car makers have other reasons mainly ego and ads to really drive them.
The same ego and ads will be what will really bring large money into the development for the space race. Its sorta like saying that we are going to give out a $1 million dollar prize if you find the cure to all diseases or immortality. It'd likely cost billions upon billions to develop that tech and its worthy to develop in its own right. The so called prize is there just for a small ego boost.
And UK is "special" (like in "special olympics") when it comes to related issues. There's very few actual cases of this kind of abuse, but the local media paint a picture of a country with violent pedophile at every corner, in every bush and three of them in every dark alley. With this level of hysteria they may very well ban photos of children whatsoever or require permits and observation by govt inspector.
Um, I thought it was true though. With all those CC cameras all it takes is some 13-15 year old girls in skimpy out fits to turn your average male video reviewer into a pedophile. In that case should the government arrest itself, the contractor running the camera, the person reviewing the camera that got aroused, or the subjects being videoed that happened to turn some one over the age of 18 on?
Hmm the fact that you can post this on the internet kind of proves your wrong doesn't it?
No, it only proves that my government isn't currently as harsh as the Bush Haters claim it is.
I think we've been rather silly with the entire War on Terror, but still we've been doing far better than that entire Red Scare bit. Of course the Red Scare hit far more domestic targets than this current War on Terror has. The War on Terror could quite easily turn into the War on Politics other than the current top two US political parties. Would you like it if the FBI raided you for not being a Republican or Democrat?
Eugenics will be worth billions upon billions of dollars, with a well-funded lobby, like reproductive medicine is and like abortion is. Children with birth defects, and children with "birth defects" like being left-handed or not predisposed to being athletic or possibly being gay, do not typically have much campaign cash to spend. Which group do you think is going to win in the US political system?
I still think we are 10 generations too immature to do any playing around with eugenics or human natural selection. Just look at what happened to the first human government that thought it knew and was ready for eugenics... the Nazis. I think they were as miss guided as many other human governments in just declare that "we are the best" and "everyone else is bad or under us." That's 90% of their problem right there. If we really seriously were to study and use these fields, then we should start with studying overall human natural selection in how all humanity, tech, and culture has evolved over the last 6K years. Eugenics might one day be useful. The main problem we have with it is that it is too commonly used as a political weapon justifying the abuse/oppression of others. One very difficult concept that we have accepting is that eugenics requires some sort of "test" to judge if the person should be allowed to breed over that person. Using if a person has become a criminal sounds like a very valid test for excluding a person from future breeding. You then have to pick what "crimes" are used for this "additional punishment." Murder, assault, rape sound good to start off with. In 20 years though, will the RIAA push for file sharing to be included in that as well? And there is the problem we all see with the entire eugenics concept.
On the flip side of it though, another reason that everyone doesn't like eugenics is that how we all see and think about it involves a government forcing it on its citizens. We don't see "natural" human mating/pairing as having anything to do with eugenics or natural selection though that's really the key. Think of all the thousand and one things any female looks at in a male and also the opposite. That's where all our past, current, and hopefully future eugenics takes place. (And its also the only place it should take place at the individual family level.)
True, there are "perfectly legal" ways to get into a country, just like there are "perfectly legal" was to buy a Ferrari, or run for President. That doesn't mean those options are open to everybody. Plus, the mere fact that this guy is pursuing an advanced degree at university should be proof enough that the "stealing our jobs" excuse doesn't apply in this case. Your kneejerk obeisance to immigration policy on the mere basis that "it's policy, ergo we follow it" is just another way of distracting attention from your own need to protect your position of privilege.
How the heck did you get modded informative? You basically said that its difficult to go through immigration so any means that your family finds to get you in the country goes. You then say that the guy going for an advanced degree isn't going to steal a US job. Rolls eyes. If the person had any intention of getting a US job, then by definition they'd steal a US citizen's job.
My theories on immigration are far looser than most I talk with. I'd like to dump income tax and make a federal sales tax for the simple reason that then any and all persons buying US goods would be paying into our tax system. It wouldn't matter if you were illegal or not, you'd still be paying taxes. (That's the important part to me.) At that point, you could just declare anyone living and/or working in the US a US citizen.
I grew up in the US. I have nothing against everyone speaking English and think that's a fair thing to want immigrants to learn. What's always really gotten me was the pledge of allegiance in school to the US flag and country. That's always felt utterly wrong to me. You know the real reason for it though? To make force all immigrates, their children, and anyone going to public schools to become loyal US citizens and follow what counts as US culture.
His thesis brought him to the interest of some of the old-line type of "terrorist" organizations like the PFLP. *THAT* brought him to the attention of the FBI and he was arrested and interrogated.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Um, that's actually how its supposed to work. O.k. the guy may not have been a terrorist, but he had information/abilities terrorists want so they attempt to recruit the person. Government people watching terrorists notice that they are trying to recruit a guy that may know how to do X that could be deadly to lots of people. Of course most of us would want the government to pick the guy up and grill all terrorist related information out of him. Most of us wouldn't want the guy going to work for any potentially hostile country that might aim X at our country either.
But people that are willing to use violence to replace liberal democracy with a far harsher system are 'cultural enemies'. Back in World War II British citizens who even made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis were executed for treason. Certainly I think people who are willing to use or even threaten to use force to overthrow democracy are traitors.
Damn, sounds like the UK already has it's Nazish state. If you publish thoughts that their government don't like, they deport people. It sounds like the UK was perfectly willing to use violence on peaceful people attempting to use "free speech" to spread their politics to preserve their governing system. The US wasn't any better in the past. All you have to do is look up the entire Red Scare crap. As I read it, if your political party was leaning socialist or communist at all the FBI went all Nazi/KGB and did everything short of out right killing our own citizens to prevent them from spreading their political beliefs.
So called capitalist liberal democracy can be just as harsh as fascist, socialist, communist, or theocratic states. They just need a few things to pop up and push their danger buttons and some segments of society will try their hardest to preserve what they see as "traditional culture" and thought. (In that process, they'll attempt to utterly crush any new or differing cultures in the attempt to preserve their own.) It's just how human politics/cultural work.
And before Americans sneer that this is adhoc, you're right. But this system has led to a stable society where individual freedoms have either increased or stayed constant for hundreds of years, far longer than the US system has existed.
Hey, I always thought it was a good thing for the British that North America, Australia, and other places where around for you to dump the people that didn't fit into your little utopia. If Britain was really such a great place that protected individual freedoms then Canada, the US, Australia, and India would be united as part of a British common wealth. Didn't all those places what and get independence ASAP?