So you think the government should be engaged in overt manipulation of the people?
There is something to be said for operating in as direct and honest a manner as possible.
(Personally I've had a mediocre experience with CFLs, a couple of them have died in months, and the $2-3 they cost is a lot more than an incandescent would cost, but worth a lot less than the dicking around it would take to actually get warranty service).
And if you are worried about people's emotions, offer tax incentives. Those generally make the people getting them happy (I realize that such incentives exist; part of my reasoning is that the funding for the awareness programs would have been better spent expanding them).
My point is largely that unplugging chargers does not save an appreciable amount of money.
And insulation does have upfront costs, but in the cases it makes sense, it, by definition, pays for itself.
I'm not going to argue about whether 1/2 degree on the thermostat really has much impact on comfort (if it has a large impact, it is a good sign the building needs more insulation!).
I'm also not going to have an assertion battle over whether the awareness programs make any sense, but I will mention that I find the paternalistic attitude about gradual education of the nearly blind sheeple to be quite tiresome.
For a handheld device with a huge battery, these things are maybe going to waste 3 or 4 kilowatt-hours per year. A modest central air system consumes that it a few hours (assuming it is cycling properly). A Prius is going to consume the equivalent in about 6 miles of driving.
The electricity most people use for small electronics pales in comparison to the energy they use for heating and cooling.
The public awareness programs trying to get people to unplug chargers are ridiculous, that money should be spent trying to convince them to move their thermostat 1/2 degree or add insulation.
And please note that I'm not saying that it won't have any impact, I'm saying that the impact it has is so much smaller than other things that it is currently a wasted effort.
It plays media streamed over a network. You need one for each TV you want to use one on. It won't do anything with your dish. You can probably use any PC on the network to serve media. Wireless is a for-pay option on each of the devices they sell.
The value of a given deposit is entirely relative to the accessibility of that deposit.
And my entire point was that if you are dumping hundreds of billions of current day dollars of material into the tiny little rare-earth and precious metals markets, you are most certainly going to have an enormous impact on prices. If you aren't dumping hundreds of billions of dollars (or perhaps dozens of billions) of materials into the market, then it is a little tenuous to claim that your deposit is worth trillions.
For the most part, people buying SUVs aren't comparing them to a Prius.
I suppose some people are, but I don't see how it could possibly be the majority, just the ones trying to decide which one projects a better image, and I don't think they really give a shit about how much fuel each one uses.
That's not really what I was getting at. If individual asteroids contain significant percentages of the total mined gold supply (a couple trillion), any successful asteroid mining is going to have a huge impact on the percieved value of all those metals (and just imagine a couple of capitalists in a friendly competition to bring back 50 times the amount of gold that is currently mined in a year, that would just barely show up over the decades it took to do it...).
You are misapprehending what money and debt are (one is a mechanism that largely makes transactions more convenient and the other is a mechanism that allows a buyer to pay using cash flow rather than reserves).
The real problems only start when we run out of productive capacity and resources (according to internet bile, the U.S. is out of the former already and doesn't know how to do anything interesting with the latter).
I can't even focus about where glasses would rest. I understand this to be true for most people.
So once you start using a beam to draw on the retina, you can probably manage to measure the current focal distance and simply have the projection go along for the ride. Or perhaps have it pop into view when you look at a certain spot relative to your body and drop out of existence when you look away from that spot.
It's actually a lot better than that, there isn't a 50% chance that each article on the internet will end up on Digg (well, at least not the front page).
Slashdot Mirror
What are the relative rates of starting new businesses?
So you think the government should be engaged in overt manipulation of the people?
There is something to be said for operating in as direct and honest a manner as possible.
(Personally I've had a mediocre experience with CFLs, a couple of them have died in months, and the $2-3 they cost is a lot more than an incandescent would cost, but worth a lot less than the dicking around it would take to actually get warranty service).
And if you are worried about people's emotions, offer tax incentives. Those generally make the people getting them happy (I realize that such incentives exist; part of my reasoning is that the funding for the awareness programs would have been better spent expanding them).
My point is largely that unplugging chargers does not save an appreciable amount of money.
And insulation does have upfront costs, but in the cases it makes sense, it, by definition, pays for itself.
I'm not going to argue about whether 1/2 degree on the thermostat really has much impact on comfort (if it has a large impact, it is a good sign the building needs more insulation!).
I'm also not going to have an assertion battle over whether the awareness programs make any sense, but I will mention that I find the paternalistic attitude about gradual education of the nearly blind sheeple to be quite tiresome.
For a handheld device with a huge battery, these things are maybe going to waste 3 or 4 kilowatt-hours per year. A modest central air system consumes that it a few hours (assuming it is cycling properly). A Prius is going to consume the equivalent in about 6 miles of driving.
The electricity most people use for small electronics pales in comparison to the energy they use for heating and cooling.
The public awareness programs trying to get people to unplug chargers are ridiculous, that money should be spent trying to convince them to move their thermostat 1/2 degree or add insulation.
And please note that I'm not saying that it won't have any impact, I'm saying that the impact it has is so much smaller than other things that it is currently a wasted effort.
It plays media streamed over a network. You need one for each TV you want to use one on. It won't do anything with your dish. You can probably use any PC on the network to serve media. Wireless is a for-pay option on each of the devices they sell.
I don't think they are going to agree to do it for Edzill2000, but Apple might end up providing sufficient motivation.
No, I damn well want to know when whiskey has piss in it.
The internet, that isn't how it works.
What's the earliest date you are willing to pay out?
Yes really. That's why I didn't say "No one who buys a Prius considers an SUV".
I bet, based on your tone, that you did not consider an SUV in a particularly serious manner.
The value of a given deposit is entirely relative to the accessibility of that deposit.
And my entire point was that if you are dumping hundreds of billions of current day dollars of material into the tiny little rare-earth and precious metals markets, you are most certainly going to have an enormous impact on prices. If you aren't dumping hundreds of billions of dollars (or perhaps dozens of billions) of materials into the market, then it is a little tenuous to claim that your deposit is worth trillions.
You can say there's unicorns, it doesn't mean very much.
For the most part, people buying SUVs aren't comparing them to a Prius.
I suppose some people are, but I don't see how it could possibly be the majority, just the ones trying to decide which one projects a better image, and I don't think they really give a shit about how much fuel each one uses.
That's $0.
Or do you know of some viable technology for delivering such metals to the surface of the Earth?
Or perhaps some market for them in space?
That's not really what I was getting at. If individual asteroids contain significant percentages of the total mined gold supply (a couple trillion), any successful asteroid mining is going to have a huge impact on the percieved value of all those metals (and just imagine a couple of capitalists in a friendly competition to bring back 50 times the amount of gold that is currently mined in a year, that would just barely show up over the decades it took to do it...).
You are misapprehending what money and debt are (one is a mechanism that largely makes transactions more convenient and the other is a mechanism that allows a buyer to pay using cash flow rather than reserves).
The real problems only start when we run out of productive capacity and resources (according to internet bile, the U.S. is out of the former already and doesn't know how to do anything interesting with the latter).
If it was, it wouldn't be.
Authoritative fiction!
I can't even focus about where glasses would rest. I understand this to be true for most people.
So once you start using a beam to draw on the retina, you can probably manage to measure the current focal distance and simply have the projection go along for the ride. Or perhaps have it pop into view when you look at a certain spot relative to your body and drop out of existence when you look away from that spot.
All you have to do is have mandatory licensing of the technology. Fair pricing is a little bit of a pickle but should be solvable.
Have you really missed all the people that do just let people take their code and use it?
Indeed:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x115u4_triumph-the-insult-comic-dog-star-w_fun
(Wait for it. The good news is that the wait is entertaining in and of itself.)
It's actually a lot better than that, there isn't a 50% chance that each article on the internet will end up on Digg (well, at least not the front page).
Cash, or club?
(Not disco stupid, bludgeon)