I've had an overwhelming response to my statement on this, and most of them I have not commented on because the subject matter tends to be argued from the perspective of opinion. They are also pretty articulate responses representing many facets of the debate. Your statements sound like a political commercial for science aimed at the plebs.
1. Free will doesn't exist
Please explain how evolution negates free will. There is nothing deterministic about evolution, the diection it takes is dynamic and directly related to the environment at hand - which is inversly affected by its inhabitants. The two symbiotically influence each other, the choices made my inhabitants detirmines if they live or die and influences change upon the environment. The environment influences the number and type of viable choices the inhabitants can make.
2. God does not interfear with our daily lives
Please explain how you made this jump in logic. If God does not interfer in our daily lives, then I guess your first point is incorrect as it would require direct involvement at every step for everything. The fact that you anthropomorphize god shows that you force things into your world view instead of adapting it. God may or may not interfere with our daily lives, but the point is moot as it is something that cannot be tested. You cannot give examples of divine intervention without requiring faith. This is a ridiculous claim to make as is it's inverse, neither can be supported using the opposing arguments criteria.
3. Science is God, religion is fudd.
Wow, there is a leap in logic so large it must require a huge amount of faith in science. Why would a divine entity not have an observable method? Why can't an observable method be attributed to an inception requiring divine influence? This is just a pathetic case of trying to prove a side is right instead of getting to the truth of the matter. And before you respond that I'm some religous zealot that refuses to listen to science read this post by me. I don't play for either team, so I have opposition from both. Your whole post is based around trying to prove someone wrong with your "science". Sorry, but that's not what it's for. Same goes for anyone who tries to use their faith as "proof" for anything.
If you are going to apply the scientific method against religion and faith, you cannot skip testing your hypothesis and then move straight to making it a theory. That sounds remarkably like faith to me.
Basically it comes down to egocentrism - the desire to believe that humans are somehow special and separate from other living entities. To believe that you really need to believe that there was some active intervention to set humans apart. This really has little to do with religion necessarily (though most religions tend to grant humans such special status and hence have some explaining to do), but rather a general unwillingness to accept ourselves as simply a part of nature.
I could not agree more. I really hate the term unnatural. What the does that mean. The definition of the word instantly gives man godlike abilities. The ego to think that we could create something that was never to be created. Do we weild such awesome power over the laws of the universe and existence? I doubt it.
I think the greater underlying problem isn't that science refutes religion and faith, because it doesn't. What it does do is dismantle the tools that people employ so they may control others with religion.
Few people understand that a combination of religion and science has the potential for uncovering the truth. I frankly don't give a fuck about anything less than that. Is it true, thats all I want to know.
Science cannot prove something is true. Science can explain that something is probable. Religion cannot explain the truth. Religion can give you a reasonable explanation.
Too many people have this "one or the other is right" stance. Bullshit. By their very nature these two things cannot give truth on their own. Combining them is also not guaranteed to reveal the truth. The intitial intent of science was never so that people could tell other people they were wrong, it was to explain why or how or what. The initial intent of religion was never to give people a reasoning that they should never waiver from, it was to explain things that were unable to be explained. Both of these core aspects have been perverted by zealots on both sides to cater to their ego or to influence the populace. I say Fuck You to anyone who does that. Science has often been used to test principles and teachings of religions, so what? If anyone actually cared about the truth, they would be happy with the results.
There are scientist who are out there who aren't out to "prove" something, they want to understand. There are religious leaders out there who don't want to manipulate, they want to help explain. Too bad these few folks have to be rolled up with the disparate number of charlatans that their professions claim as their own.
When everyone is finished arguing over who the hell is right and decides they want to discover the truth, wake me up.
people who can't possibly conceive that evolution doesn't in any way rule out there still being a creator.
Evolution in no way rules out a creator. In the sense of Intelligent Design I would agree that it does. Why does no one ever attempt to explain that God created man using evolution as a tool? Whatever happened to the divine clockwinder theory? Why does no one view god as the collected set of mechanics that the universe runs under? That certainly fits the bill for omnicient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
The argument "because you say that god created man, and I have proof supporting evolution, that proof also supports the lack of a god" is not really a strong one.
I was under the impression we were debating the pros & cons of glas vs. PET and iron vs. aluminium, rather than flaming on another USA vs. rest of the world issue.
I was too until you began making jabs at America in the closing statements of your last post.
And I assumed you were from a scandanavian country because you referenced scandanavia in your last post.
And I didn't even know there was a connection between the (world-wide) popularity of aluminium and the US having a finger in it.
I only presume to speak of matters on US soil. When your country is bigger than all of Europe, it's alot to keep a handle on. I do read newspapers, and fact check my news against multiple sources, some are from Europe and Japan because I need to remove my country's inherent spin on everything.
That said, on the glass/PET issue: I've seen some pretty convincing statistics that argue 1. In favour of recycling bottles, rather than the material they are made of 2. (Contrary to what I thought) the complete cycle (production, transportation, cleaning, reuse of materials, loss) favours plastic over glass (close to a factor of two).
Once again, I have recognized this. What you have failed to recognize is the existence and inability to recycle the other 5 types of plastic. You can harp on about type 1 all day, but you have yet to account for the others. Your argument is weak as it can only defend one facet of itself. In America, the water bottles are all type 3 and 5. Can't recycle that.
Similar statistics for aluminium & iron cans.
References please. I don't take "your word for it" as an acceptable resource.
For the last ten years I haven't heard any trustworthy argument pro aluminium on this side of the ocean, while the plastic/glass thing is something I personally discovered not too long ago - but I double-checked those numbers and found them pretty solid as well. I guess news travels slow or just doesn't travel everywhere;-)
This is the second time you have taken an unjustified stance of superiority without bringing your facts. News travels slow when you keep it to yourself. Bring facts, not rhetoric. You have NO facts here. Both of my posts have listed my resources, you have yet to do so in any case other than the PET - which has already been acknowledged, yet is incomplete as it doesn't address the other plastics. Quit with your empty statements of the "I'm right, your just ignorant" flavor and show me numbers. Also, quit with your snide little passive agressive jabs at me - it discredits you.
Due to one of your statements I am going to make the assumption you are from a scandanavian country. If this is untrue, I apologize.
The main virtue of PET is that it is fully recyclable. Unlike other plastics, its polymer chains can be recovered for additional use. PET has a resin identification code of 1.
I have already aknowledged this, why you want to reiterate this is beyond me. There are plastics 1 through 7. The only ones you can recycle are 1 and 2. The process to do so is horrible for the environment, and the quality of the material is crap. The other 5 just start filling up landfills or are used in China for God knows what. Please explain how the complete inefficiency of plastic makes recycling less than half of the used types beneficial for either the environment or financially. I advocate just not using it.
Glass is heavier, breaks easily and has higher melting point. The first two are responsible for higher transportation costs (both monetary and environmental). The last points to higher production costs. The negative is that glass (or sand) is a "cheaper" and less poluting resource, since it's not a CH itself.
A ton of plastic bottles weighs the same as a ton of glass. The difference being that the volume of a ton of plastic is much larger than the ton of glass. That is where multiple trips to carry the same weight equalize the "higher" transportation costs of glass. True, glass does have a higher melting point than plastic, but plastic lets off horrible gasses and fumes when melted. Also, melting down glass for recycling can be done at a lower temprature than making glass from raw materials, in turn saving resurces. Also, when recycled glass cannot be used in consumer products due to quality, it is used in other industrial products - this is not the case for plastic which goes straight to the landfill.
Worst, however, is that it's very hard to gather aluminium from household garbage, whereas iron is easy. Most recycled aluminium is produced either from larger parts of scrap (planes, cars) or in the production process itself (which is a lame statistic) or from cans collected trough a separate recycling channel (with unnecessary logistic overhead) in some scandinavian countries.
I first off take this statement as biased as iron is an export of Sweden. In fact, Sweden is the number one exporter of Iron and Steel in Europe. This could only help the economy by advocating its use over aluminium. To address a tangible issue, in America the separation of aluminium is done at the point of contact. Most households around here do it themselves. It's also profitable enough to where there are companies that separate it efficiently enough to make good money. I am speaking from an American perspective, so I am not informed on the overhead costs of Scandanavian aluminium recycling. It may be inefficient there, but that is not the case here.
As for aluminium, please point me to details on aluminium recycling as an environmental success. - Heating and cooling it destroys most of its crystaline structure. - Melting or welding is likely to trigger oxydizing due to it highly reactive properties. - It's a "heavy metal" (not in weight, but in its (mildly) poluting properties). - It's less strong (per mass) than most Fe based alloys.
We use aluminium cans because the recycled resource is so abundant and easy to get. Recycled scrap metal and cars are great sources for these cans. And the cans get recycled into themselves. There is no need to keep mining the bauxite, which is the really crappy part of aluminium. Bauxite minning is a surface mining endeavor, a really dirty process. Understanding that industry is not going to stop using aluminium, I cannot advocate mining over recycling in this case. True, the recycling process does cause some environmental damage, but nothing along the lines of mining for it's raw materials added o
I would have to disagree with some of your points. Recycling plastic is near impossible because of the PVC content (I believe numbers 3-7). So I would say that glass would be better for recycling throw aways as you can recycle them into additives to concrete when entrophy sets in enough for them to be unusable for other glass products.
As far as recycling aluminium, how is it near impossible? It's probably one of the easiest to recycle, hence its profitablity.
Read it again moron. The chart was for 1 year. You still haven't addressed how one game defines the Japanese development market or how the HD-DVD comparison was with an extra layer. Face it, you're flat out wrong and need to review your perspective on this issue.
Forgot to add that the only reason the HD-DVD is of that capacity is because they added a layer, so now they are at 3. The Blu-Ray disk is still the same amount of layers (2). So the overall capacity of the disks is unchanged. Blu-Ray smokes HD-DVD.
Comparing 2 layers to 3 layers and saying it's the same is flat out misinformation. Source
Nothing but FUD here. HD-DVD is 45GB, Blue Ray is 50GB. One Blue Ray disc in no way equations to 4-5 HD-DVDs
Whatever. by the time you max out the layers (8 or 9 I believe) there is a significant difference in capacity. Almost 40G I believe. Plus, that 45G HD-DVD is only a prototype, how cost effective is it?
Metal Gear series? You got one game from one developer and that proves that Japanese developers as a whole don't prefer prerendering? Come on, you can't buy that.
On top of that, they don't do 100% realtime, as I stated before. They render most of the background and then add realtime objects on top. The fact that they don't realtime every aspect allows the limited number of realtime elements to be of a higher detail level. When done correctly the prerendered elements blend perfectly with the realtime creating a higher level of detail than with prerendering alone.
I don't think this will affect Xbox games anyhow. Think about it, can you import XBOX 360 to PS3? No, so what does it matter. Companies will still make a game for XBOX, but this will help ensure that no hacks come out to let someone who owns a PS3 play XBOX 360 games - since the media is of a different type.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Companies will still make games for the XBOX, but the limitations of the HD-DVD storage are a turnoff for Japanese third party developers, which is the force that REALLY detirmines who wins in a console war.
Japanese developers love to use prerendered backgrounds and prerendered cutscenes. I understand that both systems can generate some pretty awesome realtime graphics, but if you prerender aspects of these cutscenes and backgrounds and then add a realtime generated layer on top - the stuff looks awesome. Resulting in more realistic graphics than if you had to render everything in realtime.
What does that have to do with this? Storage space. The HD-DVD format has crap for storage compared to the Blu-Ray format. Japanese developers have the room on Blu-Ray to store huge prerendered files, and copius amounts of them to boot. The HD-DVD drive just can't do it. There are art direction leads going ape shit already over this.
Second, Japanese developers are more likely to support a spec from Sony than Microsoft (I know its a Toshiba spec, but MS is pushing it). The economics of the sitution prevent Japanese developers from completely ignoring MS, but the backroom talk isn't kind. When you have an unspoken general consensus that a company doesn't respect the way the game designers develop their material, you're going to have a problem.
Third, back to storage in the long run. After the first generation games come out and developers really start to tap the power of the systems instead of cashing in on "the new hotness" wave, what do you think will hapen in design meetings? What do you think the response would be upon learning that your PS3 game that ships on one disk will take 4 - 5 HD-DVDs to hold? I don't know the particulars of manufaturing costs, but anything over 3 seems to me to be an unreasonable factor to multiply it by.
Plus, when Forrester Research makes a call, big companies tend to get in line.
OK, dude, just because you watched some episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit doesn't make you an expert on this stuff. There are people, like me, who have a legitimate problem with recycling SOME materials becuase it's more wasteful to do it. Your little "I want to destroy the world" argument is really childish and just damages the reputation of those trying to make a legitimate point against misinformation.
Economically speaking, it is viable to recycle metals and things containing harvestable metal. Aluminum cans, computer equipment, old wiring, and scrap metal can all be resused for products that are equal in quality and at a lower cost. I recycle all my cans and old computer equipment because of this.
Paper is a friggin waste to recycle. It's biodegradable for one. The tree's used to make it in America all come from tree farms. These trees are grown specifically for this purpose, so no one is running into virgin forests cutting down all the trees for paper. There does exist opposing research for both sides on the topic of set asides and the increased cost to consumers for packaging. I think the cost difference is negligible and definitely worth the process of forest conservation. On the topic of pollution, no one really talks about it. It's kinda like a dirty secret. To recycle paper you need to put it through basically the same process as making it - which is horrible for the environment. So, instead of making an inferior product that causes the same amount of environmental damage to produce and doesn't save the forests - I have to say no. Tree farms save the US forests in conjunction with set asides.
Plastic. This ones a toughie. Not the most biodegradable stuff on the planet and it uses up oil to make it. There is also the issue of what can and cannot be recycled. Number 1 and 2 can. Numbers 3 through 7 cannot because of the PVC content. So what to do? Alot of centers ship it to China. That doesn't really sound like recycling, that's more like putting the problem somewhere else. Economically, the cost of recycled plastic is on par with that of plastic made with virgin petroleum, so there is no real incentive to use recycled. Notice on your plastic bottle labels that they say "contains recycled plastic" not made from recycled plastic. If they throw one small batch of recycled plastic into the mix, that statement is true. The corporations ARE NOT recycling shit, thats all marketing baby. And almost everyone buys it. The best thing to do here, don't buy stuff in plastic, or at least cut down on what it is you buy. Look for things contained in glass. Buy your soda in cans. Quit buying water in bottles, which is another scam altogether, and purchase a water purifier. Wash plastic to-go boxes and use them like tupperware.
Glass. Not economically the best, but it is easier on the consuption of resources. The process to sort glass into a usable, high quality material is expensive - so it's not necessarily saving anyone any money to do so. The technology used is getting better though, and I firmly believe that it will one day result in a profitable manner in which to make recycled glass the prefered resource. On a consuption of resources perspective, it requires much less energy to process recycled glass than it does to create it from raw materials. I haven't been able to find any numbers that allow me to detirmine if the costs to sort are offset by the costs to reshape, so the jury is still out on that one. On this matter I err on the side of caution. I recycle my glass.
SO yeah kid, recycling in all cases may not be the best - but please make up your own mind and do some research, not adopt a stance fed to you by two guys with a good argument that you were too lazy to research and adopted as your own.
That is a very real and interesting social point against unionizing developers. I think in this case though, the author of the article was only speaking about video game developers - who get treated like shit at EA.
Now, to reinforce your point, there are probably plenty of kids with programming skils who will cross the line just to say they program video games. This social group is very fanatical, to the point that it is their only goal to work in games regardless of the environment.
My origininal post is not in favor nor against unionizing labor. I think it is a case by case basis. On the side of bad we have the pilots unions at Delta that are about to fuck the tax payers out of a whole bunch of cash that they forced their employer to offer in their benefits - they went too far and now we have to foot the bill. On the other side of the coin, there are the labor unions for places like Kroger and WalMart making sure the quite often young and undereducated workers don't get treated like slaves.
The major difference being the labor pool to draw from. Pilots are not a dime a dozen, so a union for them seems kind of like overkill. But the foot soldiers at most large scale retailors can be replaced in a day, so their leverage is not so strong - plus they wield considerably less economic power when compared to pilots.
At the end of the day though, it is still about money, and I do not subscribe to any argument that says unions are anti-capitalistic. Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of capital, in the case of unions that capital is the labor. Instead of calling it a union call it a labor conglomerate. This is no different than companies forming their own conglomerates to exert leverage on the free market. SOme of these conglomerates force too much leverage and break the system and some find just the right amount to increase gains yet keep the system viable.
Construction workers! Taxi drivers! Infrastructure maintainers!
What do they all have in common? None of them can be done by a guy 1000 miles away. New York cab drivers have to work in New York. This is the labor equivalent of a captive audience. So congratulations, unions can make companies that have no other choice pay through the nose.
Leveraging your position to make more money is a mainstay of ANY business, deal with it. why should we feel sorry for the business when it gets put into a compromising position in relation to who it has to employ, but we can't call them on it for doing the very same thing by being the sole licensee of a franchise? (EA and NFL).
Come on man, if an incorporated entity can unify with other incorporated identities to form a conglomerate for the purpose of exerting leverage, then the damn workers who support that whole pyramid on the bottom can do it too.
The argument that corporations and companies being forced to pay certain wages and fulfill workplace standards by their workers as unfair is crap. These same entities have no problem leveraging licenses, outlet placements, marketing space, and LOBBYISTS to do the same thing - get more money for themselves. Is it because the leverage is being exerted ultimately by the government on the business, is that the where the OK/NOT OK line is drawn?
Don't respond with some crazy "you're just a pro-union lefty who's ignorant about business" response, because I'm not. The bottom line is that this is about money. The entity being forced to pony up is always going to bitch, and that is expected. Just don't expect me to buy into this "we're victims" mentality.
If anyone wants to play in the business arena, be prepared to cope with others forcing your hand to increase thier profit.
You really don't understand how unions work do you?
You first get a whole group of similar laborers together to stand together against employers.
Then, when the employers threaten to not hire them, the union goes to the politicians and tells them that their union has enough votes to make or break their election. At this point the union muscles the politician into creating laws prohibiting the outsourcing of this type of labor, or the hiring of non-union labor.
If the union does not have enough votes to change the election itself, it generally does have enough resources to campaign against said politican and create a real problem. How would you like to be labeled as a politician that did nothing to prevent the outsourcing of jobs, and could be argued was pro-outsourcing? Thats all it would take.
For the employer, non-union labor is almost always more attractive, but they can't use them. Check out construction workers and Taxi drivers in New York. Or perhaps you should take a look at Bell South.
OK, I'm not saying this is right, but here is the stance.
Monsanto created a seed (let's say corn) with special characteristics in it, therefore the seed is theirs to use. This would be parallel to the isolated gene and a derived use for it.
There is natural cross pollenation that occured. This is parallel to two people having sex. One person may have the gene that has been isolated and used in a patented process. If one of the two people had the parallel gene+derived use and they could have passed it on during reproduction. Monsanto didn't patent the seed for plain corn, they patented corn seed that was created using their process, a process that gave it a special characteristic. This special characteristic was passed during cross pollenation.
Now, the newly cross polinated corn produces seed. Just as the reproducing couple created a child. This child may have inherited some characteristics of the parent who used the patented gene. This is also true of the newly created corn seed. It may have characteristics of the Monsanto seed that cross pollenated it.
Here's where it gets tricky. No one would sue the the parents because the child had these special characteristics in it, but they would sue the parent if:
The parent tried to sell their DNA in an attempt to profit from having this specialized trait.
Or the parents tried to sell the childs DNA to profit from it having this special trait.
The farmer whose crops were cross pollenated harvested the seed and replanted it. The farmer may or may not have known the new seed he harvested contained special propertes, but if it did - Monsanto felt he should have to pay for the seed or purchase new seed without the engineered trait in it. This parallels the parents selling the their trait laden DNA for profit, which probably never would have gained that trait without the processes influence.
The parellel breaks down at the point where sex can be controlled and cross pollenation, for the most part, cannot, but who needs to bicker about specifics when you're a big multinational corporation? Who's sueing a friggin farmer.
The REAL reason Monsanto would sue that farmer would be so that the Monsanto sponsored farmer could by his land, with Monsanto's help. In exchange the farmer who aquired the new land would have to sign a contract stating they would purchase Monsanto seed exclusively for all their crops - but didn't set a price. Then Monsanto jacks the cost to that farmer just enough to fleece him indefinitely, but not enough to put him out of business.
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I've had an overwhelming response to my statement on this, and most of them I have not commented on because the subject matter tends to be argued from the perspective of opinion. They are also pretty articulate responses representing many facets of the debate. Your statements sound like a political commercial for science aimed at the plebs.
1. Free will doesn't exist
Please explain how evolution negates free will. There is nothing deterministic about evolution, the diection it takes is dynamic and directly related to the environment at hand - which is inversly affected by its inhabitants. The two symbiotically influence each other, the choices made my inhabitants detirmines if they live or die and influences change upon the environment. The environment influences the number and type of viable choices the inhabitants can make.
2. God does not interfear with our daily lives
Please explain how you made this jump in logic. If God does not interfer in our daily lives, then I guess your first point is incorrect as it would require direct involvement at every step for everything. The fact that you anthropomorphize god shows that you force things into your world view instead of adapting it. God may or may not interfere with our daily lives, but the point is moot as it is something that cannot be tested. You cannot give examples of divine intervention without requiring faith. This is a ridiculous claim to make as is it's inverse, neither can be supported using the opposing arguments criteria.
3. Science is God, religion is fudd.
Wow, there is a leap in logic so large it must require a huge amount of faith in science. Why would a divine entity not have an observable method? Why can't an observable method be attributed to an inception requiring divine influence? This is just a pathetic case of trying to prove a side is right instead of getting to the truth of the matter. And before you respond that I'm some religous zealot that refuses to listen to science read this post by me. I don't play for either team, so I have opposition from both. Your whole post is based around trying to prove someone wrong with your "science". Sorry, but that's not what it's for. Same goes for anyone who tries to use their faith as "proof" for anything.
If you are going to apply the scientific method against religion and faith, you cannot skip testing your hypothesis and then move straight to making it a theory. That sounds remarkably like faith to me.
In theory, perhaps. I would argue that it renders god probabilistic.
Basically it comes down to egocentrism - the desire to believe that humans are somehow special and separate from other living entities. To believe that you really need to believe that there was some active intervention to set humans apart. This really has little to do with religion necessarily (though most religions tend to grant humans such special status and hence have some explaining to do), but rather a general unwillingness to accept ourselves as simply a part of nature.
I could not agree more. I really hate the term unnatural. What the does that mean. The definition of the word instantly gives man godlike abilities. The ego to think that we could create something that was never to be created. Do we weild such awesome power over the laws of the universe and existence? I doubt it.
I think the greater underlying problem isn't that science refutes religion and faith, because it doesn't. What it does do is dismantle the tools that people employ so they may control others with religion.
Few people understand that a combination of religion and science has the potential for uncovering the truth. I frankly don't give a fuck about anything less than that. Is it true, thats all I want to know.
Science cannot prove something is true.
Science can explain that something is probable.
Religion cannot explain the truth.
Religion can give you a reasonable explanation.
Too many people have this "one or the other is right" stance. Bullshit. By their very nature these two things cannot give truth on their own. Combining them is also not guaranteed to reveal the truth. The intitial intent of science was never so that people could tell other people they were wrong, it was to explain why or how or what. The initial intent of religion was never to give people a reasoning that they should never waiver from, it was to explain things that were unable to be explained. Both of these core aspects have been perverted by zealots on both sides to cater to their ego or to influence the populace. I say Fuck You to anyone who does that. Science has often been used to test principles and teachings of religions, so what? If anyone actually cared about the truth, they would be happy with the results.
There are scientist who are out there who aren't out to "prove" something, they want to understand. There are religious leaders out there who don't want to manipulate, they want to help explain. Too bad these few folks have to be rolled up with the disparate number of charlatans that their professions claim as their own.
When everyone is finished arguing over who the hell is right and decides they want to discover the truth, wake me up.
people who can't possibly conceive that evolution doesn't in any way rule out there still being a creator.
Evolution in no way rules out a creator. In the sense of Intelligent Design I would agree that it does. Why does no one ever attempt to explain that God created man using evolution as a tool? Whatever happened to the divine clockwinder theory? Why does no one view god as the collected set of mechanics that the universe runs under? That certainly fits the bill for omnicient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
The argument "because you say that god created man, and I have proof supporting evolution, that proof also supports the lack of a god" is not really a strong one.
This is the second time I have seen you make this claim. Now here is the reality of the matter. Enforce it.
The theory may be sound, but if it cannot be practiced, its rhetoric.
I was under the impression we were debating the pros & cons of glas vs. PET and iron vs. aluminium, rather than flaming on another USA vs. rest of the world issue.
;-)
I was too until you began making jabs at America in the closing statements of your last post.
And I assumed you were from a scandanavian country because you referenced scandanavia in your last post.
And I didn't even know there was a connection between the (world-wide) popularity of aluminium and the US having a finger in it.
I only presume to speak of matters on US soil. When your country is bigger than all of Europe, it's alot to keep a handle on. I do read newspapers, and fact check my news against multiple sources, some are from Europe and Japan because I need to remove my country's inherent spin on everything.
That said, on the glass/PET issue: I've seen some pretty convincing statistics that argue
1. In favour of recycling bottles, rather than the material they are made of
2. (Contrary to what I thought) the complete cycle (production, transportation, cleaning, reuse of materials, loss) favours plastic over glass (close to a factor of two).
Once again, I have recognized this. What you have failed to recognize is the existence and inability to recycle the other 5 types of plastic. You can harp on about type 1 all day, but you have yet to account for the others. Your argument is weak as it can only defend one facet of itself. In America, the water bottles are all type 3 and 5. Can't recycle that.
Similar statistics for aluminium & iron cans.
References please. I don't take "your word for it" as an acceptable resource.
For the last ten years I haven't heard any trustworthy argument pro aluminium on this side of the ocean, while the plastic/glass thing is something I personally discovered not too long ago - but I double-checked those numbers and found them pretty solid as well. I guess news travels slow or just doesn't travel everywhere
This is the second time you have taken an unjustified stance of superiority without bringing your facts. News travels slow when you keep it to yourself. Bring facts, not rhetoric. You have NO facts here. Both of my posts have listed my resources, you have yet to do so in any case other than the PET - which has already been acknowledged, yet is incomplete as it doesn't address the other plastics. Quit with your empty statements of the "I'm right, your just ignorant" flavor and show me numbers. Also, quit with your snide little passive agressive jabs at me - it discredits you.
Due to one of your statements I am going to make the assumption you are from a scandanavian country. If this is untrue, I apologize.
The main virtue of PET is that it is fully recyclable. Unlike other plastics, its polymer chains can be recovered for additional use. PET has a resin identification code of 1.
I have already aknowledged this, why you want to reiterate this is beyond me. There are plastics 1 through 7. The only ones you can recycle are 1 and 2. The process to do so is horrible for the environment, and the quality of the material is crap. The other 5 just start filling up landfills or are used in China for God knows what. Please explain how the complete inefficiency of plastic makes recycling less than half of the used types beneficial for either the environment or financially. I advocate just not using it.
Glass is heavier, breaks easily and has higher melting point. The first two are responsible for higher transportation costs (both monetary and environmental). The last points to higher production costs. The negative is that glass (or sand) is a "cheaper" and less poluting resource, since it's not a CH itself.
A ton of plastic bottles weighs the same as a ton of glass. The difference being that the volume of a ton of plastic is much larger than the ton of glass. That is where multiple trips to carry the same weight equalize the "higher" transportation costs of glass. True, glass does have a higher melting point than plastic, but plastic lets off horrible gasses and fumes when melted. Also, melting down glass for recycling can be done at a lower temprature than making glass from raw materials, in turn saving resurces. Also, when recycled glass cannot be used in consumer products due to quality, it is used in other industrial products - this is not the case for plastic which goes straight to the landfill.
Worst, however, is that it's very hard to gather aluminium from household garbage, whereas iron is easy. Most recycled aluminium is produced either from larger parts of scrap (planes, cars) or in the production process itself (which is a lame statistic) or from cans collected trough a separate recycling channel (with unnecessary logistic overhead) in some scandinavian countries.
I first off take this statement as biased as iron is an export of Sweden. In fact, Sweden is the number one exporter of Iron and Steel in Europe. This could only help the economy by advocating its use over aluminium. To address a tangible issue, in America the separation of aluminium is done at the point of contact. Most households around here do it themselves. It's also profitable enough to where there are companies that separate it efficiently enough to make good money. I am speaking from an American perspective, so I am not informed on the overhead costs of Scandanavian aluminium recycling. It may be inefficient there, but that is not the case here.
As for aluminium, please point me to details on aluminium recycling as an environmental success.
- Heating and cooling it destroys most of its crystaline structure.
- Melting or welding is likely to trigger oxydizing due to it highly reactive properties.
- It's a "heavy metal" (not in weight, but in its (mildly) poluting properties).
- It's less strong (per mass) than most Fe based alloys.
We use aluminium cans because the recycled resource is so abundant and easy to get. Recycled scrap metal and cars are great sources for these cans. And the cans get recycled into themselves. There is no need to keep mining the bauxite, which is the really crappy part of aluminium. Bauxite minning is a surface mining endeavor, a really dirty process. Understanding that industry is not going to stop using aluminium, I cannot advocate mining over recycling in this case. True, the recycling process does cause some environmental damage, but nothing along the lines of mining for it's raw materials added o
I would have to disagree with some of your points. Recycling plastic is near impossible because of the PVC content (I believe numbers 3-7). So I would say that glass would be better for recycling throw aways as you can recycle them into additives to concrete when entrophy sets in enough for them to be unusable for other glass products.
As far as recycling aluminium, how is it near impossible? It's probably one of the easiest to recycle, hence its profitablity.
Read it again moron. The chart was for 1 year. You still haven't addressed how one game defines the Japanese development market or how the HD-DVD comparison was with an extra layer. Face it, you're flat out wrong and need to review your perspective on this issue.
Forgot to add that the only reason the HD-DVD is of that capacity is because they added a layer, so now they are at 3. The Blu-Ray disk is still the same amount of layers (2). So the overall capacity of the disks is unchanged. Blu-Ray smokes HD-DVD.
Comparing 2 layers to 3 layers and saying it's the same is flat out misinformation. Source
Nothing but FUD here. HD-DVD is 45GB, Blue Ray is 50GB. One Blue Ray disc in no way equations to 4-5 HD-DVDs
Whatever. by the time you max out the layers (8 or 9 I believe) there is a significant difference in capacity. Almost 40G I believe. Plus, that 45G HD-DVD is only a prototype, how cost effective is it?
Metal Gear series? You got one game from one developer and that proves that Japanese developers as a whole don't prefer prerendering? Come on, you can't buy that.
Konami sold more than twice as many copies of Winning 11 and Pro Evolution soccer than they did of Metal Gear, and I believe those stadiums are prerendered.
On top of that, they don't do 100% realtime, as I stated before. They render most of the background and then add realtime objects on top. The fact that they don't realtime every aspect allows the limited number of realtime elements to be of a higher detail level. When done correctly the prerendered elements blend perfectly with the realtime creating a higher level of detail than with prerendering alone.
I don't think this will affect Xbox games anyhow. Think about it, can you import XBOX 360 to PS3? No, so what does it matter. Companies will still make a game for XBOX, but this will help ensure that no hacks come out to let someone who owns a PS3 play XBOX 360 games - since the media is of a different type.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Companies will still make games for the XBOX, but the limitations of the HD-DVD storage are a turnoff for Japanese third party developers, which is the force that REALLY detirmines who wins in a console war.
Japanese developers love to use prerendered backgrounds and prerendered cutscenes. I understand that both systems can generate some pretty awesome realtime graphics, but if you prerender aspects of these cutscenes and backgrounds and then add a realtime generated layer on top - the stuff looks awesome. Resulting in more realistic graphics than if you had to render everything in realtime.
What does that have to do with this? Storage space. The HD-DVD format has crap for storage compared to the Blu-Ray format. Japanese developers have the room on Blu-Ray to store huge prerendered files, and copius amounts of them to boot. The HD-DVD drive just can't do it. There are art direction leads going ape shit already over this.
Second, Japanese developers are more likely to support a spec from Sony than Microsoft (I know its a Toshiba spec, but MS is pushing it). The economics of the sitution prevent Japanese developers from completely ignoring MS, but the backroom talk isn't kind. When you have an unspoken general consensus that a company doesn't respect the way the game designers develop their material, you're going to have a problem.
Third, back to storage in the long run. After the first generation games come out and developers really start to tap the power of the systems instead of cashing in on "the new hotness" wave, what do you think will hapen in design meetings? What do you think the response would be upon learning that your PS3 game that ships on one disk will take 4 - 5 HD-DVDs to hold? I don't know the particulars of manufaturing costs, but anything over 3 seems to me to be an unreasonable factor to multiply it by.
Plus, when Forrester Research makes a call, big companies tend to get in line.
OK, dude, just because you watched some episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit doesn't make you an expert on this stuff. There are people, like me, who have a legitimate problem with recycling SOME materials becuase it's more wasteful to do it. Your little "I want to destroy the world" argument is really childish and just damages the reputation of those trying to make a legitimate point against misinformation.
Economically speaking, it is viable to recycle metals and things containing harvestable metal. Aluminum cans, computer equipment, old wiring, and scrap metal can all be resused for products that are equal in quality and at a lower cost. I recycle all my cans and old computer equipment because of this.
Paper is a friggin waste to recycle. It's biodegradable for one. The tree's used to make it in America all come from tree farms. These trees are grown specifically for this purpose, so no one is running into virgin forests cutting down all the trees for paper. There does exist opposing research for both sides on the topic of set asides and the increased cost to consumers for packaging. I think the cost difference is negligible and definitely worth the process of forest conservation. On the topic of pollution, no one really talks about it. It's kinda like a dirty secret. To recycle paper you need to put it through basically the same process as making it - which is horrible for the environment. So, instead of making an inferior product that causes the same amount of environmental damage to produce and doesn't save the forests - I have to say no. Tree farms save the US forests in conjunction with set asides.
Plastic. This ones a toughie. Not the most biodegradable stuff on the planet and it uses up oil to make it. There is also the issue of what can and cannot be recycled. Number 1 and 2 can. Numbers 3 through 7 cannot because of the PVC content. So what to do? Alot of centers ship it to China. That doesn't really sound like recycling, that's more like putting the problem somewhere else. Economically, the cost of recycled plastic is on par with that of plastic made with virgin petroleum, so there is no real incentive to use recycled. Notice on your plastic bottle labels that they say "contains recycled plastic" not made from recycled plastic. If they throw one small batch of recycled plastic into the mix, that statement is true. The corporations ARE NOT recycling shit, thats all marketing baby. And almost everyone buys it. The best thing to do here, don't buy stuff in plastic, or at least cut down on what it is you buy. Look for things contained in glass. Buy your soda in cans. Quit buying water in bottles, which is another scam altogether, and purchase a water purifier. Wash plastic to-go boxes and use them like tupperware.
Glass. Not economically the best, but it is easier on the consuption of resources. The process to sort glass into a usable, high quality material is expensive - so it's not necessarily saving anyone any money to do so. The technology used is getting better though, and I firmly believe that it will one day result in a profitable manner in which to make recycled glass the prefered resource. On a consuption of resources perspective, it requires much less energy to process recycled glass than it does to create it from raw materials. I haven't been able to find any numbers that allow me to detirmine if the costs to sort are offset by the costs to reshape, so the jury is still out on that one. On this matter I err on the side of caution. I recycle my glass.
SO yeah kid, recycling in all cases may not be the best - but please make up your own mind and do some research, not adopt a stance fed to you by two guys with a good argument that you were too lazy to research and adopted as your own.
I'd tell you what I think would be awesome, but I'm busy patenting it and preparing for the ensuing lawsuits I'm going to file.
That is a very real and interesting social point against unionizing developers. I think in this case though, the author of the article was only speaking about video game developers - who get treated like shit at EA.
Now, to reinforce your point, there are probably plenty of kids with programming skils who will cross the line just to say they program video games. This social group is very fanatical, to the point that it is their only goal to work in games regardless of the environment.
My origininal post is not in favor nor against unionizing labor. I think it is a case by case basis. On the side of bad we have the pilots unions at Delta that are about to fuck the tax payers out of a whole bunch of cash that they forced their employer to offer in their benefits - they went too far and now we have to foot the bill. On the other side of the coin, there are the labor unions for places like Kroger and WalMart making sure the quite often young and undereducated workers don't get treated like slaves.
The major difference being the labor pool to draw from. Pilots are not a dime a dozen, so a union for them seems kind of like overkill. But the foot soldiers at most large scale retailors can be replaced in a day, so their leverage is not so strong - plus they wield considerably less economic power when compared to pilots.
At the end of the day though, it is still about money, and I do not subscribe to any argument that says unions are anti-capitalistic. Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of capital, in the case of unions that capital is the labor. Instead of calling it a union call it a labor conglomerate. This is no different than companies forming their own conglomerates to exert leverage on the free market. SOme of these conglomerates force too much leverage and break the system and some find just the right amount to increase gains yet keep the system viable.
I mistook you referencing the actual case, which in the context of the post I was refering to assumed was real, as a correction of my verb tense.
Sorry for the mistake.
I also assumed that he lost too, but that's me just being cynical.
I was refering to the farmer in my explanation, who does not exist and therefore has not been sued.
It was a parallel.
Next time you decide to criticize someone's grammer, spell your name right, Faclon.
Construction workers! Taxi drivers! Infrastructure maintainers!
What do they all have in common? None of them can be done by a guy 1000 miles away. New York cab drivers have to work in New York. This is the labor equivalent of a captive audience. So congratulations, unions can make companies that have no other choice pay through the nose.
Leveraging your position to make more money is a mainstay of ANY business, deal with it. why should we feel sorry for the business when it gets put into a compromising position in relation to who it has to employ, but we can't call them on it for doing the very same thing by being the sole licensee of a franchise? (EA and NFL).
Come on man, if an incorporated entity can unify with other incorporated identities to form a conglomerate for the purpose of exerting leverage, then the damn workers who support that whole pyramid on the bottom can do it too.
The argument that corporations and companies being forced to pay certain wages and fulfill workplace standards by their workers as unfair is crap. These same entities have no problem leveraging licenses, outlet placements, marketing space, and LOBBYISTS to do the same thing - get more money for themselves. Is it because the leverage is being exerted ultimately by the government on the business, is that the where the OK/NOT OK line is drawn?
Don't respond with some crazy "you're just a pro-union lefty who's ignorant about business" response, because I'm not. The bottom line is that this is about money. The entity being forced to pony up is always going to bitch, and that is expected. Just don't expect me to buy into this "we're victims" mentality.
If anyone wants to play in the business arena, be prepared to cope with others forcing your hand to increase thier profit.
Wow.
That's probably the best geek moment I have had to date.
I went and checked your profile, is this seriously the only post you have ever commented on?
You really don't understand how unions work do you?
You first get a whole group of similar laborers together to stand together against employers.
Then, when the employers threaten to not hire them, the union goes to the politicians and tells them that their union has enough votes to make or break their election. At this point the union muscles the politician into creating laws prohibiting the outsourcing of this type of labor, or the hiring of non-union labor.
If the union does not have enough votes to change the election itself, it generally does have enough resources to campaign against said politican and create a real problem. How would you like to be labeled as a politician that did nothing to prevent the outsourcing of jobs, and could be argued was pro-outsourcing? Thats all it would take.
For the employer, non-union labor is almost always more attractive, but they can't use them. Check out construction workers and Taxi drivers in New York. Or perhaps you should take a look at Bell South.
Monsanto created a seed (let's say corn) with special characteristics in it, therefore the seed is theirs to use. This would be parallel to the isolated gene and a derived use for it.
There is natural cross pollenation that occured. This is parallel to two people having sex. One person may have the gene that has been isolated and used in a patented process. If one of the two people had the parallel gene+derived use and they could have passed it on during reproduction. Monsanto didn't patent the seed for plain corn, they patented corn seed that was created using their process, a process that gave it a special characteristic. This special characteristic was passed during cross pollenation.
Now, the newly cross polinated corn produces seed. Just as the reproducing couple created a child. This child may have inherited some characteristics of the parent who used the patented gene. This is also true of the newly created corn seed. It may have characteristics of the Monsanto seed that cross pollenated it.
Here's where it gets tricky. No one would sue the the parents because the child had these special characteristics in it, but they would sue the parent if:
The farmer whose crops were cross pollenated harvested the seed and replanted it. The farmer may or may not have known the new seed he harvested contained special propertes, but if it did - Monsanto felt he should have to pay for the seed or purchase new seed without the engineered trait in it. This parallels the parents selling the their trait laden DNA for profit, which probably never would have gained that trait without the processes influence.
The parellel breaks down at the point where sex can be controlled and cross pollenation, for the most part, cannot, but who needs to bicker about specifics when you're a big multinational corporation? Who's sueing a friggin farmer.
The REAL reason Monsanto would sue that farmer would be so that the Monsanto sponsored farmer could by his land, with Monsanto's help. In exchange the farmer who aquired the new land would have to sign a contract stating they would purchase Monsanto seed exclusively for all their crops - but didn't set a price. Then Monsanto jacks the cost to that farmer just enough to fleece him indefinitely, but not enough to put him out of business.
PROFIT!
BTW, don't drink milk - Monsanto went and fucked that up too.
I'm probably way off, but I thought according to Schrodinger that the key would be both down and up.
You get your news from somewhere other than TV?
Exactly! All or None, that's what I'm saying.