> It would be possible to cut the federal government by 33% without anyone but the bureaucratic parasites noticing.
You obviously have done no research at all,
The fact is 66% of government spending is entitlement payments and debt service. The payment of these items is highly automated with very little overhead. A 33% cut in government spending would mean severe cuts in these payments or completely stopping the rest of the government - defense, law enforcement, etc.
The US does very well with big ticket items or things that can be scaled by automation. The world's largest manufacturing facility is Boeing's main assembly building in Everett WA.
Where it gets dicey is when it can't be automated and a lot of manual labor is needed. Like assembling stuff like iPhones. Then the wage difference really bites.
The MIT story didn't give much detail but I bet a lot of these startups were making little gizmos like the iPhone.
It varies a lot depending on your carrier situation. I am paying $30/mo for 60 mbps down 8 up here in NJ thanks to competition between Cablevision and FIOS.
The vast majority of people cannot hear above 18kHz, and the fact of the matter is that there is very little sound energy above 15k. If somebody tell you they can hear the Nyquist filter first ask them to post a hearing test that shows sensitivity at 22kHz. Then take them to the Hydrogen Audio forum and have them do an ABX test to prove discrimination.
Then of course there is the fact that most mastering is done at 96K these days. So if you are picky you are good well beyond the rest of the repro chain. Up to 48kHz which is better than all but lab grade microphones.
Also the fact of the matter is that dithering and noise shaping has pushed the effective signal to noise significantly above 100 dB for CDs.
If you get away from mainstream pop recorded music you can avoid the loudness wars.
So really there is a lot of well recorded pristine sounding music on CDs. If you take the time you can find it.
Modern digitization (24 bits @ 96kHz) doesn't lose anything that the human ear can perceive.
If you want to worry about loss worry about the rest of the repro chain. The microphone, compressors, limiters and the speakers. All of these do bad things to the sound and are far less effective at preserving information than the A/D step.
Taking energy out of what system? You aren't taking energy out of the atmosphere in any meaningful quantity. There might be local effects but that's it.
Reminder: Sun = 174,000 terawatts. All we need is about 15 of that.
This summary has almost nothing to do with the underlying article, and the headline draws a completely erroneous conclusion. It isn't about Americans being bad study subjects at all, but rather the idea that extrapolating between two cultural groups that have vastly different environments is much harder than previously thought.
I'm glad he said it, but very few if any people are listening. Gov Christie has about a 75% approval rating and will win re-election in a landslide barring some sort of major screwup.
> And yet we live in a world where every artist / writer / collective CAN have their own publishing company and it is trivial to set up.
Sure, they can do that, which is a really cool thing. However back in 1787 the problems of being a publisher were much more severe. Ben Franklin had all kinds of issues publishing his periodicals, including such basic things like there being an extremely limited supply of paper in the US. The history of RittenhouseTown is pretty interesting if you are interested.
And can is NOT the same as SHOULD. Authors aren't necessarily interested in being publishers. It is said that the really good writers write because they MUST write. Is it reasonable public policy to force them to be publishers as well?
> No ownership required. The copyright holder would simply hire a publisher to print his works and pay them their fee, he would then be free to sell his works for whatever he could get for them. If he is popular enough he gets rich, if his works suck he goes out of business. That's the American way.
That still forces the author to put down his typewriter and run a distributions and sales enterprise. Sorry, but it's not acceptable to force this sort of structure.
When the Constitution was put into force the Statute of Anne had been in place for something like 80 years, and authors selling copyright along with their manuscript was well established. The idea that the Founders anticipated a system where these rights could not be sold is preposterous.
It would be perverse indeed to assume that the founders intended a system where every copyright holder would have to own a publishing company. Because that is exactly what you are proposing.
It was certainly NOT true under English law that this was the case, and there is no evidence that such was the intent of the founders to require this.
The existing process in English law included the sale of the copyright to publishers, and in fact this process was encouraged by people like John Locke when the reform of Licensing led to the Statute of Anne.
Exactly right. Scratch a bloated unneeded program and you will find a Congressional mandate. It isn't the military - they don't want this junk. IT'S CONGRESS.
These days Congress is about one thing - getting re-elected and they will do anything yes anything toward that goal. And that means wasteful government programs by the $trillion are not a problem so long as they can be shown to benefit a constituent base which can be parleyed into a vote.
Nature just doesn't leave large sources of energy lying around un-tapped. If low energy fusion was possible we would have seen lots of it in nature by now.
Slashdot Mirror
> It would be possible to cut the federal government by 33% without anyone but the bureaucratic parasites noticing.
You obviously have done no research at all,
The fact is 66% of government spending is entitlement payments and debt service. The payment of these items is highly automated with very little overhead. A 33% cut in government spending would mean severe cuts in these payments or completely stopping the rest of the government - defense, law enforcement, etc.
The US does very well with big ticket items or things that can be scaled by automation. The world's largest manufacturing facility is Boeing's main assembly building in Everett WA.
Where it gets dicey is when it can't be automated and a lot of manual labor is needed. Like assembling stuff like iPhones. Then the wage difference really bites.
The MIT story didn't give much detail but I bet a lot of these startups were making little gizmos like the iPhone.
It varies a lot depending on your carrier situation. I am paying $30/mo for 60 mbps down 8 up here in NJ thanks to competition between Cablevision and FIOS.
The vast majority of people cannot hear above 18kHz, and the fact of the matter is that there is very little sound energy above 15k. If somebody tell you they can hear the Nyquist filter first ask them to post a hearing test that shows sensitivity at 22kHz. Then take them to the Hydrogen Audio forum and have them do an ABX test to prove discrimination.
Then of course there is the fact that most mastering is done at 96K these days. So if you are picky you are good well beyond the rest of the repro chain. Up to 48kHz which is better than all but lab grade microphones.
Also the fact of the matter is that dithering and noise shaping has pushed the effective signal to noise significantly above 100 dB for CDs.
If you get away from mainstream pop recorded music you can avoid the loudness wars.
So really there is a lot of well recorded pristine sounding music on CDs. If you take the time you can find it.
Modern digitization (24 bits @ 96kHz) doesn't lose anything that the human ear can perceive.
If you want to worry about loss worry about the rest of the repro chain. The microphone, compressors, limiters and the speakers. All of these do bad things to the sound and are far less effective at preserving information than the A/D step.
The two most likely to retire are generally considered liberal.
Hopefully the plaintiff had to pay court costs as well.
Taking energy out of what system? You aren't taking energy out of the atmosphere in any meaningful quantity. There might be local effects but that's it.
Reminder:
Sun = 174,000 terawatts. All we need is about 15 of that.
Yes, but that doesn't include the cost of obtaining fuel.
This summary has almost nothing to do with the underlying article, and the headline draws a completely erroneous conclusion. It isn't about Americans being bad study subjects at all, but rather the idea that extrapolating between two cultural groups that have vastly different environments is much harder than previously thought.
> I'm predicting an extremely close election.
This sounds like the same cognitive dissonance that led Republicans to predict that Romney would win.
It turned out that the polls were right and they were wrong.
It's amazing how people who use math can be right so often.
I'm glad he said it, but very few if any people are listening. Gov Christie has about a 75% approval rating and will win re-election in a landslide barring some sort of major screwup.
> Go China! At this point, they're our best hope of saving the world from the Americans.
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
> And yet we live in a world where every artist / writer / collective CAN have their own publishing company and it is trivial to set up.
Sure, they can do that, which is a really cool thing. However back in 1787 the problems of being a publisher were much more severe. Ben Franklin had all kinds of issues publishing his periodicals, including such basic things like there being an extremely limited supply of paper in the US. The history of RittenhouseTown is pretty interesting if you are interested.
And can is NOT the same as SHOULD. Authors aren't necessarily interested in being publishers. It is said that the really good writers write because they MUST write. Is it reasonable public policy to force them to be publishers as well?
It think the idea is ridiculous.
> No ownership required. The copyright holder would simply hire a publisher to print his works and pay them their fee, he would then be free to sell his works for whatever he could get for them. If he is popular enough he gets rich, if his works suck he goes out of business. That's the American way.
That still forces the author to put down his typewriter and run a distributions and sales enterprise. Sorry, but it's not acceptable to force this sort of structure.
When the Constitution was put into force the Statute of Anne had been in place for something like 80 years, and authors selling copyright along with their manuscript was well established. The idea that the Founders anticipated a system where these rights could not be sold is preposterous.
Ugh.
If some surfer dude from Oz can do this imagine what the Chinese Army and the TLAs have gotten into.
I don't know is this is good or bad, Mutually Assured Destruction can be a good thing, as well as can be the dissemination of information.
However it sure should give people pause when they put a server online. Or make their bank accounts available on the web.
It might be a case of not if but when.
You think this was the first time an American was killed unconstitutionally by his own government?
Very, very unlikely.
Huey Long had it right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvZb8y7Cp7w
It would be perverse indeed to assume that the founders intended a system where every copyright holder would have to own a publishing company. Because that is exactly what you are proposing.
It was certainly NOT true under English law that this was the case, and there is no evidence that such was the intent of the founders to require this.
The existing process in English law included the sale of the copyright to publishers, and in fact this process was encouraged by people like John Locke when the reform of Licensing led to the Statute of Anne.
I have seen companies much gone than Yahoo come back.
Apple would be one of those.
That article claimed that super-rich people world wide have 21 trillion in assets. Suppose that's true AND we confiscate all of it.
Guess what. It's not enough. The public debt of the US, Japan and Europe combined is more than twice that, some 44 trillion.
We are broke.
Exactly right. Scratch a bloated unneeded program and you will find a Congressional mandate. It isn't the military - they don't want this junk. IT'S CONGRESS.
These days Congress is about one thing - getting re-elected and they will do anything yes anything toward that goal. And that means wasteful government programs by the $trillion are not a problem so long as they can be shown to benefit a constituent base which can be parleyed into a vote.
It is the NUMBER ONE argument for term limits.
I was thinking of buying some Yahoo stock based on the idea the Mayer might turn that company around.
Now it is apparent she is not that type of leader.
Low energy fusion has no potential of being real.
Nature just doesn't leave large sources of energy lying around un-tapped. If low energy fusion was possible we would have seen lots of it in nature by now.
There wasn't any credibility here anyway so nothing was lost by posting this link.