" lye and methanol (hazardous chemicals, but available at any hardware store)"
So, because you can still get them at Home Depot, there's no real worry that they're hazardous?
It can be reasonably assumed that fossil fuel extraction is a net positive energy cycle. Otherwise, there would be no energy available for other used (like commercial and residential power generation or transportation fuel). If it were net negative, we'd be putting up solar farms, nuclear plants, and dams just to get a little bit of non-extraction fuel. I suspect (but have no backup) that fossil fuels release at least 3-4 times the energy it takes to extract and refine them. Otherwise, the fuel industry would be a much larger portion of global capitalization that it currently is.
There are two questions for ethanol and biodiesel:
1) Can you produce it without fossil fuels at a competitive rate (within, say 50% of today's gasoline, as seen at the pump)
2) Can they scale to meet the current need, and the immensely growing need of the emergent markets (China, India).
It is worth noting that these alternative fuels have become more competitive since the price of crude oil has tripled in the last 6 years. Can they weather the storm if the price of crude drops by half? (If you think it can't happen in the US, I suggest you re-visit the 1970s)
I got my wife a TiVo for her birthday several years ago. My boss, a 50-something professional with a 1950s-style wife was incredulous that I would get a consumer electronic item for my wife's birthday. He was certain it would be a flop.
Well, my wife likes TV. When properly motivated, she can do computers. Not fix them when I'm around, mind you - that would be too much work on her part. And yet she managed to get 6 NT stations up and running as well as order and help intall a T-1 line which synced her new CA office with servers in MD, with no local tech support. Lazy bitch...but I digress.
Anyway, I set up the box, did the startup call, and put a bow in the remote and the manual. I didn't figure out how to use it, because If I didn't know, then she'd have to learn on her own. By the next day, the TiVo was filled with suggestions she liked and a wishlist that took 20 minutes to prioritize. The current one is filled with her stuff. I'd say the demographics are correct.
I'm still not sure my boss believed me when I told him that it was the best gift ever.
Which is why I choose lithium AAs, clocking in a 1.7V. And last for freakin' ever. No sense taking a chance that the remote goes dead while I'm surfing and the channel gets stuck on Lifetime until I can find a new set.
(BTW - Of the 40 hours on my stock DirecTiVo, currently, I have a 30 minute Alton Brown Good Eats, my 3 year old daughter has 4 hours of Dora the Explorer, plus 2-3 hours of other kids fare, and the remaining space is taken up by my wife's stuff. Before my 120hr died, the mix was even more lopsided, as the kid and I had about the same number of hours as we do now.)
Yes, you're correct. I was referring to impulse delta-V transfers in two-body mechanics.
I was being impatient, the good, card carring American citizen that I am. (If I had all the time in the world, I'd walk to work instead of driving a big SUV and accelerating from stop sign to stop sign at full throttle;-)
I agree. Everybody knows that Prodigy died because the insulted their users with advertising pop-ups. All the marketers realized that intrusive ads were just not what the consumer wanted, and they;ve responded accordingly.
I know that the content providers have learned their lessons from Divx and DAT. DRM just in paletable to the modern consumer, and the first time you try, you will fail.
Unfortunatly, as we have seen, if the packaging is slicker, and you try it eoungh times, the public will cave. If not, a new Macrovision provision can always be added to the next omnibus bill and your DRM will be legal and necessary. Case closed.
Minimum energy for an orbital transfer is via a Hohmann (sp?) transfer, and takes less time than one orbit of the outer body. Basically a deltaV at periapse of the lower orbit, then another at the apoapse of the transfer ellipse, which is the radius of the new (circular) orbit.
The two year scenerio is probably a Mars mission, as the proper transfer will send you out to intersect the mars orbit, but a failure to complete the final burn at Mars will return you to earth orbit, at earth, in 2 years.
They're not making enough to justify their stock price, though, so perhaps they need to think a little more about income and a little less about pasta.
In the end, purchasing a stock for investemnt means anticipating a return on that investment. Right now, if you bought stock, it would take Google 110 years to earn enough money to equal the value of the stock you just purchased. It's simply not sustainable without some insane growth in revenue while the stock price stagnates. This is the kind of mindless investing that let to the dot-com bubble, and fallout.
Hmmm, I think that would be just about up for grabs in Canada, any day now
Nobody is saying the energy cost fo this stuff
on
New Way to Make Hydrogen
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
So, what is it? Is the process of mining, refining, fabricating, combining, dissociating, and transporting all off this stuff net-energy-positive, or are we just shifting the burden. The latter, of course, as this is just a storage mechanism.
It seems like we're doing an awful lot of work, in terms of energy in, to get hydrogen in a form that can be stored, transported, and used. I'm sure batteries produce lots of crap too, but what are the relative effects, and does this particular process scale to global proportions? Seems like a pretty low yield (9%) with a lot of unsavory byproducts produced.
(Of course, this doesn't even meniton my normal "hydrogen is a bad thisg to give to consumers" rant. Example: 2 rednecks, a trashcan liner, a full tank of hydrogen, and a lighter.)
I always thought you had to demonstrate that it could be done/built before you patented something. I'm guessing the patent application is filled out and ready to go, but htat heaven't been able to implement it in the field successfully yet.
carful with that wave-power thing. Try to extract enough to power civilization and you'll find youself in a tight position regarding marine life and ocean currents.
I'm willing to bet that the only real way to "solve" the energy problem is going to involve direct conversion of solar to electricity. This will , of course, have its drawbacks as well, but there are pretty large area of the world which are not particularly hospitable which are good places for solar conversion.
Even with the perfect source* (solar), what will not change is that we are pumping (heat) energy from one place to another on the planet, creating artificial thermal gradients.
Do I think it will happen? Not in my lifetime. Too much research needed, too many dollars, too much money invested in fossil fuel useage.
*I say ideal, because solar is where practically all of the energy on earth comes from. Whether stored in plants, dead animals, ocean currents, core heat from formation, wind, you name it. Solar is the core of the energy food chain. 1200-1400W/m^2, IIRC falls on the earth's disc 24/7/365, and has for millions of years. Should we begin to worry about the viability of the sun as a long term energy source, we'll have bigger problems than keeping the toasters working.
I thought the intent was that the ATSC would be broadcast over VHF once the switchover occured in order to get the best coverage for the trnasmitters. All the UHF would be relinquished for "sale".
(I have no idea if this is correct - it's what I hear somewhere a long time ago. No fact checking for me this afternoon!)
You're nuts right? Or you've never used an overhead projector. There's a reason they usually have a dedicated place for a replacement lamp - the lamps don't last long. I quote:
In a test done by GTE/Sylvania on 10 ENX lamps, the range of life was 34.3 hours to 76 hours. The average lamp life for this batch was 68.7 hours, higher than the published average of 65 hours. However, the lamp that lasted only 34.3 hours is not considered to be defective.
Okay, so those lamps will run you $6/ea in quantity. I'll give you $6/70 hours. That's $0.08/hr. More like $0.16/hr if you get a short one, that is still within spec. Modern projectors will get you 2000-4000 hours *to half brigtness*, not necessarily failure, for $300. At the worst case, that's $.15/hr, and the best case $0.075/hr. And the number of movies interrupted by a lamp change is 1/50th of that with an overhead.
Next, that 1500 lumen projector is going to put out about 300-400 from the last optic, if you're lucky, once you put an LCD panel on it.
Finally, even the OP admitted that the thing was LOUD due to fan noise. Many HT projectors - even the cheap ones, as so quiet that you can't hear them except in silent passages of the film (sub-35dB).
If you're watching mostly DVDs, or don't "need" HD resolution, the following NEW, 16:9 DLP with SCREEN could be had for $900 after rebate this month. From FatWallet, on the InFocus 4805 dedicated HT projector:
The deal is available at Circuit City until Monday July 4th.
The projector is $1099.99+ tax...
Use the new 10% off CC coupon code DJA3QLGADC
Total should be 989.99 +Tax
Circuit City qualify's for the $100 rebate as well as the 76" Wall Mount Screen from Infocus.
(Quick Edit: It looks like the screen mail in rebate is only valid until 7/2 - so if you want it you have to pull the trigger fast hehe)
Total with the rebate, screen and 10% off would be $889.99 + tax
These deals happen all the time.
I'd say your $600 is a waste of money, when you can just turn a couple extra tricks and get the real thing.
...and you'll see test scores go through the roof.
Seriously, as long as there are 1) teachers who are there because its a paying job and 2) children who either can't learn or don't want to learn, you will be disappointed with the education system.
Here's how you can really make the education system not suck: GET INVOLVED. Kids whose parents are involved with their educations have a much better shot. It's hard, but you signed up for it when you shot your load (or received one). Work with your kids instead of watching TV, volunteer at the school, go on field trips, take you kids to the zoo or a national park or the science museum or a (fun) concert. Work on the "patience" thing...kids take a lot of it - certainly more than you're born with.
I've found that most whiney parents are whiney because their children aren't turning out to be geniuses after being sent to school for 6 hours a day and then plopped in front of the TV for the next 6. If you don't motivate your children, how can you expect a stranger to do it?
Finally, everyone has to admit that there are stupid kids out there. They just won't or can't learn. Yes, they can be taught basic skills, and yes, some will perform better when placed with smart kids. But, really, not everyone has given birth to a genius - despite how precocious they think little Johnny is. To leave "no child behind" is akin to "ridding the world of terrorism". It sounds like a Really Good Idea (R), but quite frankly it isn't practical.
Lest I be targeted as an intellectual snob, I must point out that some kids aren't stupid, they're just not academically inclined. There's lots of talent that isn't measured by the number of correctly filled in bubbles on a piece of paper. Get them the basics and let them find their path - even it may not be what you would chose. There's always welfare while you write your multi-part childrens book blockbuster saga.
Or, just kill all the kids in the stupid or apparently stupid groups. At least it will improve the test scores.
Not voted, tried. Tried for getting a hummer in the Oval Office - probably not the death penalty. Tried for the Loss of 1500 lives over a false security claim of WMD, while a known combatant successfully developed WMD(nuclear) without intervention - getting warmer.
There are folks who get by on 3 to 5 hours of sleep a night, with no ill effects. I am not one of those . 7.5 seem to be the "sweet spot" for me in terms of productivity, its closer to 9 for my wife. I seem to remember Martha Stewart going on something like 4 or 5.
Still, 18 hours is a lot of time stuck in a chair looking at a terminal, even if you're not activeoly typing. I think my butt would fall asleep (hmmmm, I wonder what the conversion is from butt-sleep to real sleep?)
Actually, the quote is, "The report estimates that the average cost of building and maintaining a municipal wireless network is $150,000 per square mile over five years. According to the report, roughly 50% of current initiatives will fail to breakeven even if the benefit of the initiative is assumed to be $25 per user per month."
So, they've determined that it will cost about $150,000 per square mile. No calcs or estimates needed for base station cost or setup. The 50% number ("most") is for muni's trying to do it - probably including some sparse populations which are severely underserved by landline commercial services. They don't say, so its just speculation.
The key is they've determined $150k/mi^2 to be the number. In my case, I took the town limits for my 22 mi^2, which include an already-wired university, an airport, a golf course, and a couple thousand acres of undeveloped farmland. For a bit more (okay, like 60%) than we spent on 400 parking spaces downtown, we could be WiFi ready, even on the links or while midnight cow-tipping.
Depends on how you parse the sentence. I interpret it as:
prolonged scenes of (intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity)
So an all-sex game (like a porn flick) would garner an AO, whereas a Violent game with a brief scene of sex/nudity (any modern R shoot-em-up) would be M.
Of course, to parse it as
(prolonged scenes of intense violence) and/or (graphic sexual content and nudity)
Would certainly qualify this as AO. Still, even in the HotCoffee version, there was no penis and no footage of penetration, unless you count the shading artifacts. Sounds like the good parts of R rated movies from the 80s.
This is similar to the "keys" syndrome. Your responsibility (importance) is directly proprtional to the number of keys on your keyring. While this tends to be accurate on a statistical scale (not at a quantum level) it fails at high levels of the measure. There is a point at which your responsibility will continute to increase, but your keys will diminish. This is because you are _so_ important that other people hold your keys for you.
Your real power brokers will probably have few of their own calls, preferring to delegate those tasks to others. And, of course, teenage girls and chatty-cathy types will float to the top. Along with Real Estate Salespeople. And why would you want to talk to any of those people voluntarily?
This sounds like transmission rights, rather than traditional media-based copyrights. The way I read it, they may be effectively making internet music a transmitted form (penny per song) versus a media-style licensing (dollar per song) market. Look slike AllOfMP3 had it right to begin with.;-)
"JupiterResearch provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging technologies on their business."
Thhat don't exactly strike me as comapatible when you're determining whether the governement can or cannot do something cost effectively. This is being sold to companies who, one would presume, would like to convince municipalities to NOT put in a competing (wireless) ISP.
To take my town as an example, we have 40,000 residents spread over 22 square miles. A lot of these are college students (I've excluded on-campus residents from that number) so I'll say 3 people per "household". That's 13,000 potential "subscribers", or 591 per square mile. I'd say more than half here have internet access of some type. If we GAVE away the wifi cards, we might double the infrastructure cost for the first 5 years (20,000x$40/5=160k).
I come up with $16.95 per month per internet-using household. Verizon (who was laying fiber down mainstreet last week) and Adelphia wouldn't be too happy, of course.
Before you think this might be too much money for a small town, we have a PPP for a new parking garage here (and retail shopping building). A developer convinced the town to float at $2M bond to help him build the building, and he gets to charge for parking during the day and for events. Even though we had to borrow the money to do it, the mayor claimed that the town would get (x) free evening and weekend parking spaces for only $20 a month. He forgot that we were borrowing the money, and the number was closer to $50 after interest expenses. That's more than the town pays to lease surface lot space 24/7/365. But, the mayor's been known to go out to lunch - on the developers tab - fairly frequently. Now that its built, of course, nobody wants the park there, because its too far to walk (2-3 blocks) to the "downtown shops", and is used only occasionally when the on-street parking is completely full.
No, it's illegal to rent music. Special provision in the law in the US. If you want to do that, you need to go to Japan (it's still legal there, right?)
Yes, it's called columbia house/bmg, and requires that you sign up, get your freebies, complete the membership, quit, rip, sell on amazon/ebay, rinse, repeat. I did this with DVDs for a while, but without the "rip" part. The ones I liked I kept, the ones I didn't, I could generally sell for more than I paid. Net price for the discs was down in the $2-3/ea range, and I got to keep the originals (oh, and be legal, of course)
Of course its not torture. Torture must result in death or organ failure. Just ask the most likely nominee to the US Supreme Court* - he's reviewd and greead with that fact.
Pulling off nails is just data retreival. Nothing to get all concerned about, especially if its done in the name of national security.
*Alberto Gonzales: According to Newsweek, the memo "was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and [Cheney counsel] David Addington." The memo included the opinion that laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants." Further, the memo puts forth the opinion that the pain caused by an interrogation must include "injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions--in order to constitute torture."
- come over and dump my garbage into your bin (hey, you probably didn't use all that space in it anyway), or
Happens quite frequently to me. On the night I set out my garbage pail, some dog-walkers will deposit doo-bags. Quite honestly, as long as the bags don't break, it's no big deal. I pay a fixed rate for trash, and all my neighbors pay the same rate. It's not keeping my trash out of the bin.
- build a billboard on your front lawn (why do you care about a few dollars less property value if you aren't selling it right now?), or
More like coming along and sitting down to have lunch on the sidewak, and part of my ass ends up on your grass. Once I leave, which would happen in a short period of time, there would be no trace that I was there. Heck, I could stop there each day for lunch and generally cause no harm. Now, if I decided to hang out 24hours a day, that would probably cross the line (and be pretty creepy).
- bring a cow to graze on your front lawn (you didn't really need that grass, right?), or
Actually, this is still legal in parts of the US, I believe. You dont want cows, you need to fence them out.
- come into your house and use your fridge to cool down a can of Pepsi (you weren't using all the space in it anyway)
Okay, in this case the service (electricity) isn't fixed price, all-you-can-eat style. Bad comparison.
Note necessarily defending either side, but the site is a bit sensational. They note that any liquid above 140degF can burn on contact. They do NOT note that food must be held at or above 140 to be considered safe. 40 to 140 (f) is the "danger zone" for food bourne illness, and any food in this zone for any length of time should be discarded. I believe (though I'm not sure) that all food service items must be kept below 40 or ABOVE 140F AT ALL TIMES, by law, in most US jurisdictions.
Slashdot Mirror
" lye and methanol (hazardous chemicals, but available at any hardware store)"
So, because you can still get them at Home Depot, there's no real worry that they're hazardous?
It can be reasonably assumed that fossil fuel extraction is a net positive energy cycle. Otherwise, there would be no energy available for other used (like commercial and residential power generation or transportation fuel). If it were net negative, we'd be putting up solar farms, nuclear plants, and dams just to get a little bit of non-extraction fuel. I suspect (but have no backup) that fossil fuels release at least 3-4 times the energy it takes to extract and refine them. Otherwise, the fuel industry would be a much larger portion of global capitalization that it currently is.
There are two questions for ethanol and biodiesel:
1) Can you produce it without fossil fuels at a competitive rate (within, say 50% of today's gasoline, as seen at the pump)
2) Can they scale to meet the current need, and the immensely growing need of the emergent markets (China, India).
It is worth noting that these alternative fuels have become more competitive since the price of crude oil has tripled in the last 6 years. Can they weather the storm if the price of crude drops by half? (If you think it can't happen in the US, I suggest you re-visit the 1970s)
I got my wife a TiVo for her birthday several years ago. My boss, a 50-something professional with a 1950s-style wife was incredulous that I would get a consumer electronic item for my wife's birthday. He was certain it would be a flop.
Well, my wife likes TV. When properly motivated, she can do computers. Not fix them when I'm around, mind you - that would be too much work on her part. And yet she managed to get 6 NT stations up and running as well as order and help intall a T-1 line which synced her new CA office with servers in MD, with no local tech support. Lazy bitch...but I digress.
Anyway, I set up the box, did the startup call, and put a bow in the remote and the manual. I didn't figure out how to use it, because If I didn't know, then she'd have to learn on her own. By the next day, the TiVo was filled with suggestions she liked and a wishlist that took 20 minutes to prioritize. The current one is filled with her stuff. I'd say the demographics are correct.
I'm still not sure my boss believed me when I told him that it was the best gift ever.
Which is why I choose lithium AAs, clocking in a 1.7V. And last for freakin' ever. No sense taking a chance that the remote goes dead while I'm surfing and the channel gets stuck on Lifetime until I can find a new set.
(BTW - Of the 40 hours on my stock DirecTiVo, currently, I have a 30 minute Alton Brown Good Eats, my 3 year old daughter has 4 hours of Dora the Explorer, plus 2-3 hours of other kids fare, and the remaining space is taken up by my wife's stuff. Before my 120hr died, the mix was even more lopsided, as the kid and I had about the same number of hours as we do now.)
Yes, you're correct. I was referring to impulse delta-V transfers in two-body mechanics.
;-)
I was being impatient, the good, card carring American citizen that I am. (If I had all the time in the world, I'd walk to work instead of driving a big SUV and accelerating from stop sign to stop sign at full throttle
I agree. Everybody knows that Prodigy died because the insulted their users with advertising pop-ups. All the marketers realized that intrusive ads were just not what the consumer wanted, and they;ve responded accordingly.
I know that the content providers have learned their lessons from Divx and DAT. DRM just in paletable to the modern consumer, and the first time you try, you will fail.
Unfortunatly, as we have seen, if the packaging is slicker, and you try it eoungh times, the public will cave. If not, a new Macrovision provision can always be added to the next omnibus bill and your DRM will be legal and necessary. Case closed.
Minimum energy for an orbital transfer is via a Hohmann (sp?) transfer, and takes less time than one orbit of the outer body. Basically a deltaV at periapse of the lower orbit, then another at the apoapse of the transfer ellipse, which is the radius of the new (circular) orbit.
The two year scenerio is probably a Mars mission, as the proper transfer will send you out to intersect the mars orbit, but a failure to complete the final burn at Mars will return you to earth orbit, at earth, in 2 years.
They're not making enough to justify their stock price, though, so perhaps they need to think a little more about income and a little less about pasta.
In the end, purchasing a stock for investemnt means anticipating a return on that investment. Right now, if you bought stock, it would take Google 110 years to earn enough money to equal the value of the stock you just purchased. It's simply not sustainable without some insane growth in revenue while the stock price stagnates. This is the kind of mindless investing that let to the dot-com bubble, and fallout.
Hmmm, I think that would be just about up for grabs in Canada, any day now
So, what is it? Is the process of mining, refining, fabricating, combining, dissociating, and transporting all off this stuff net-energy-positive, or are we just shifting the burden. The latter, of course, as this is just a storage mechanism.
It seems like we're doing an awful lot of work, in terms of energy in, to get hydrogen in a form that can be stored, transported, and used. I'm sure batteries produce lots of crap too, but what are the relative effects, and does this particular process scale to global proportions? Seems like a pretty low yield (9%) with a lot of unsavory byproducts produced.
(Of course, this doesn't even meniton my normal "hydrogen is a bad thisg to give to consumers" rant. Example: 2 rednecks, a trashcan liner, a full tank of hydrogen, and a lighter.)
I always thought you had to demonstrate that it could be done/built before you patented something. I'm guessing the patent application is filled out and ready to go, but htat heaven't been able to implement it in the field successfully yet.
carful with that wave-power thing. Try to extract enough to power civilization and you'll find youself in a tight position regarding marine life and ocean currents.
I'm willing to bet that the only real way to "solve" the energy problem is going to involve direct conversion of solar to electricity. This will , of course, have its drawbacks as well, but there are pretty large area of the world which are not particularly hospitable which are good places for solar conversion.
Even with the perfect source* (solar), what will not change is that we are pumping (heat) energy from one place to another on the planet, creating artificial thermal gradients.
Do I think it will happen? Not in my lifetime. Too much research needed, too many dollars, too much money invested in fossil fuel useage.
*I say ideal, because solar is where practically all of the energy on earth comes from. Whether stored in plants, dead animals, ocean currents, core heat from formation, wind, you name it. Solar is the core of the energy food chain. 1200-1400W/m^2, IIRC falls on the earth's disc 24/7/365, and has for millions of years. Should we begin to worry about the viability of the sun as a long term energy source, we'll have bigger problems than keeping the toasters working.
I thought the intent was that the ATSC would be broadcast over VHF once the switchover occured in order to get the best coverage for the trnasmitters. All the UHF would be relinquished for "sale".
(I have no idea if this is correct - it's what I hear somewhere a long time ago. No fact checking for me this afternoon!)
You're nuts right? Or you've never used an overhead projector. There's a reason they usually have a dedicated place for a replacement lamp - the lamps don't last long. I quote:
In a test done by GTE/Sylvania on 10 ENX lamps, the range of life was 34.3 hours to 76 hours. The average lamp life for this batch was 68.7 hours, higher than the published average of 65 hours. However, the lamp that lasted only 34.3 hours is not considered to be defective.
Okay, so those lamps will run you $6/ea in quantity. I'll give you $6/70 hours. That's $0.08/hr. More like $0.16/hr if you get a short one, that is still within spec. Modern projectors will get you 2000-4000 hours *to half brigtness*, not necessarily failure, for $300. At the worst case, that's $.15/hr, and the best case $0.075/hr. And the number of movies interrupted by a lamp change is 1/50th of that with an overhead.
Next, that 1500 lumen projector is going to put out about 300-400 from the last optic, if you're lucky, once you put an LCD panel on it.
Finally, even the OP admitted that the thing was LOUD due to fan noise. Many HT projectors - even the cheap ones, as so quiet that you can't hear them except in silent passages of the film (sub-35dB).
If you're watching mostly DVDs, or don't "need" HD resolution, the following NEW, 16:9 DLP with SCREEN could be had for $900 after rebate this month. From FatWallet, on the InFocus 4805 dedicated HT projector:
The deal is available at Circuit City until Monday July 4th.
The projector is $1099.99+ tax...
Use the new 10% off CC coupon code DJA3QLGADC
Total should be 989.99 +Tax
Circuit City qualify's for the $100 rebate as well as the 76" Wall Mount Screen from Infocus.
(Quick Edit: It looks like the screen mail in rebate is only valid until 7/2 - so if you want it you have to pull the trigger fast hehe)
Total with the rebate, screen and 10% off would be $889.99 + tax
These deals happen all the time.
I'd say your $600 is a waste of money, when you can just turn a couple extra tricks and get the real thing.
...and you'll see test scores go through the roof.
Seriously, as long as there are 1) teachers who are there because its a paying job and 2) children who either can't learn or don't want to learn, you will be disappointed with the education system.
Here's how you can really make the education system not suck: GET INVOLVED. Kids whose parents are involved with their educations have a much better shot. It's hard, but you signed up for it when you shot your load (or received one). Work with your kids instead of watching TV, volunteer at the school, go on field trips, take you kids to the zoo or a national park or the science museum or a (fun) concert. Work on the "patience" thing...kids take a lot of it - certainly more than you're born with.
I've found that most whiney parents are whiney because their children aren't turning out to be geniuses after being sent to school for 6 hours a day and then plopped in front of the TV for the next 6. If you don't motivate your children, how can you expect a stranger to do it?
Finally, everyone has to admit that there are stupid kids out there. They just won't or can't learn. Yes, they can be taught basic skills, and yes, some will perform better when placed with smart kids. But, really, not everyone has given birth to a genius - despite how precocious they think little Johnny is. To leave "no child behind" is akin to "ridding the world of terrorism". It sounds like a Really Good Idea (R), but quite frankly it isn't practical.
Lest I be targeted as an intellectual snob, I must point out that some kids aren't stupid, they're just not academically inclined. There's lots of talent that isn't measured by the number of correctly filled in bubbles on a piece of paper. Get them the basics and let them find their path - even it may not be what you would chose. There's always welfare while you write your multi-part childrens book blockbuster saga.
Or, just kill all the kids in the stupid or apparently stupid groups. At least it will improve the test scores.
Not voted, tried. Tried for getting a hummer in the Oval Office - probably not the death penalty. Tried for the Loss of 1500 lives over a false security claim of WMD, while a known combatant successfully developed WMD(nuclear) without intervention - getting warmer.
There are folks who get by on 3 to 5 hours of sleep a night, with no ill effects. I am not one of those . 7.5 seem to be the "sweet spot" for me in terms of productivity, its closer to 9 for my wife. I seem to remember Martha Stewart going on something like 4 or 5.
Still, 18 hours is a lot of time stuck in a chair looking at a terminal, even if you're not activeoly typing. I think my butt would fall asleep (hmmmm, I wonder what the conversion is from butt-sleep to real sleep?)
Actually, the quote is, "The report estimates that the average cost of building and maintaining a municipal wireless network is $150,000 per square mile over five years. According to the report, roughly 50% of current initiatives will fail to breakeven even if the benefit of the initiative is assumed to be $25 per user per month."
So, they've determined that it will cost about $150,000 per square mile. No calcs or estimates needed for base station cost or setup. The 50% number ("most") is for muni's trying to do it - probably including some sparse populations which are severely underserved by landline commercial services. They don't say, so its just speculation.
The key is they've determined $150k/mi^2 to be the number. In my case, I took the town limits for my 22 mi^2, which include an already-wired university, an airport, a golf course, and a couple thousand acres of undeveloped farmland. For a bit more (okay, like 60%) than we spent on 400 parking spaces downtown, we could be WiFi ready, even on the links or while midnight cow-tipping.
Depends on how you parse the sentence. I interpret it as:
prolonged scenes of (intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity)
So an all-sex game (like a porn flick) would garner an AO, whereas a Violent game with a brief scene of sex/nudity (any modern R shoot-em-up) would be M.
Of course, to parse it as
(prolonged scenes of intense violence) and/or (graphic sexual content and nudity)
Would certainly qualify this as AO. Still, even in the HotCoffee version, there was no penis and no footage of penetration, unless you count the shading artifacts. Sounds like the good parts of R rated movies from the 80s.
This is similar to the "keys" syndrome. Your responsibility (importance) is directly proprtional to the number of keys on your keyring. While this tends to be accurate on a statistical scale (not at a quantum level) it fails at high levels of the measure. There is a point at which your responsibility will continute to increase, but your keys will diminish. This is because you are _so_ important that other people hold your keys for you.
Your real power brokers will probably have few of their own calls, preferring to delegate those tasks to others. And, of course, teenage girls and chatty-cathy types will float to the top. Along with Real Estate Salespeople. And why would you want to talk to any of those people voluntarily?
This sounds like transmission rights, rather than traditional media-based copyrights. The way I read it, they may be effectively making internet music a transmitted form (penny per song) versus a media-style licensing (dollar per song) market. Look slike AllOfMP3 had it right to begin with. ;-)
"JupiterResearch provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging technologies on their business."
Thhat don't exactly strike me as comapatible when you're determining whether the governement can or cannot do something cost effectively. This is being sold to companies who, one would presume, would like to convince municipalities to NOT put in a competing (wireless) ISP.
To take my town as an example, we have 40,000 residents spread over 22 square miles. A lot of these are college students (I've excluded on-campus residents from that number) so I'll say 3 people per "household". That's 13,000 potential "subscribers", or 591 per square mile. I'd say more than half here have internet access of some type. If we GAVE away the wifi cards, we might double the infrastructure cost for the first 5 years (20,000x$40/5=160k).
I come up with $16.95 per month per internet-using household. Verizon (who was laying fiber down mainstreet last week) and Adelphia wouldn't be too happy, of course.
Before you think this might be too much money for a small town, we have a PPP for a new parking garage here (and retail shopping building). A developer convinced the town to float at $2M bond to help him build the building, and he gets to charge for parking during the day and for events. Even though we had to borrow the money to do it, the mayor claimed that the town would get (x) free evening and weekend parking spaces for only $20 a month. He forgot that we were borrowing the money, and the number was closer to $50 after interest expenses. That's more than the town pays to lease surface lot space 24/7/365. But, the mayor's been known to go out to lunch - on the developers tab - fairly frequently. Now that its built, of course, nobody wants the park there, because its too far to walk (2-3 blocks) to the "downtown shops", and is used only occasionally when the on-street parking is completely full.
Is there a system like this for music?
No, it's illegal to rent music. Special provision in the law in the US. If you want to do that, you need to go to Japan (it's still legal there, right?)
Yes, it's called columbia house/bmg, and requires that you sign up, get your freebies, complete the membership, quit, rip, sell on amazon/ebay, rinse, repeat. I did this with DVDs for a while, but without the "rip" part. The ones I liked I kept, the ones I didn't, I could generally sell for more than I paid. Net price for the discs was down in the $2-3/ea range, and I got to keep the originals (oh, and be legal, of course)
Of course its not torture. Torture must result in death or organ failure. Just ask the most likely nominee to the US Supreme Court* - he's reviewd and greead with that fact.
Pulling off nails is just data retreival. Nothing to get all concerned about, especially if its done in the name of national security.
*Alberto Gonzales:
According to Newsweek, the memo "was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and [Cheney counsel] David Addington." The memo included the opinion that laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants." Further, the memo puts forth the opinion that the pain caused by an interrogation must include "injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions--in order to constitute torture."
- come over and dump my garbage into your bin (hey, you probably didn't use all that space in it anyway), or
Happens quite frequently to me. On the night I set out my garbage pail, some dog-walkers will deposit doo-bags. Quite honestly, as long as the bags don't break, it's no big deal. I pay a fixed rate for trash, and all my neighbors pay the same rate. It's not keeping my trash out of the bin.
- build a billboard on your front lawn (why do you care about a few dollars less property value if you aren't selling it right now?), or
More like coming along and sitting down to have lunch on the sidewak, and part of my ass ends up on your grass. Once I leave, which would happen in a short period of time, there would be no trace that I was there. Heck, I could stop there each day for lunch and generally cause no harm. Now, if I decided to hang out 24hours a day, that would probably cross the line (and be pretty creepy).
- bring a cow to graze on your front lawn (you didn't really need that grass, right?), or
Actually, this is still legal in parts of the US, I believe. You dont want cows, you need to fence them out.
- come into your house and use your fridge to cool down a can of Pepsi (you weren't using all the space in it anyway)
Okay, in this case the service (electricity) isn't fixed price, all-you-can-eat style. Bad comparison.
Note necessarily defending either side, but the site is a bit sensational. They note that any liquid above 140degF can burn on contact. They do NOT note that food must be held at or above 140 to be considered safe. 40 to 140 (f) is the "danger zone" for food bourne illness, and any food in this zone for any length of time should be discarded. I believe (though I'm not sure) that all food service items must be kept below 40 or ABOVE 140F AT ALL TIMES, by law, in most US jurisdictions.