To be fair, I found even the warmest of CFLs to have a green tint to them, providing slightly more pink to their orange.
But I also dislike the flickering, which apparently most people can't see, but bothers me to the point that after 4-5 hours I have trouble focusing on my computer screen. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my eyes when, during a period of a few weeks, I kept having absurd headaches and trouble focusing after a few hours working, then I tried switching the lights around in my room and realized it only happened when it was a CFL that was on.
To be fair, one issue is that there is an artificially limited quantity of spectrum bandwidth. You simply can't write a cheque to increase it, so you find you're out of luck in that regard (increasing bandwidth of the system).
If usage increases and bandwidth does not, the cost will go up for a given service, or there will be rationing (caps). Sad fact.
Arguably, the creation of the iPhone took a tiny fraction of sales from many things including newspapers, televisions, movie theatres, computers, game consoles.
I agree it's not necessarily zero-sum in the strict sense, but consumers did not "create" the cash used on iPhones out of nothing. They had to come out of a family's budget in other areas, usually things that provide comparable enjoyment or functionality... perhaps a monthly trip to a bowling alley, a premium TV channel, several movie rentals, and buying a second computer for the den.
There is SOME concept that iPhones might make people more "efficient" and increase the "size of the pie" but some small fraction of a percent. But it still reduces expenditures in other areas, on the whole.
Mistaking the fact that it is NOT "zero-sum", with the concept that the actual "net increase in sum" is a tiny fraction of the amount of funds diverted... is VERY VERY important.
The exact same argument applies in economics.
When the mythical "wealthy" take a larger portion... perhaps they do increase the "size of the pie", but not by nearly as much as the fraction they take. In other words, it's not zero sum, but it's not "equal share increase" either.
Frankly, both arguments "redistributed the limited share of the whole pie" and "we can all wealthy with a bigger pie" are both silly polemic on the far opposite ends of the spectrum and the truth is somewhere in the middle, as it usually is.
I've actually just replaced all my lights with LEDs.
The CFLs are terrible. They flickr and have an awful colour for the most part, but incandescents waste a ton of electricity on creating heat and burn out like twice a year.
The LED bulbs I got are comparable in color to the incandescent, run cool to the touch and use half the energy of the CFL.... and they last 25 years.
Sure you pay $20 each, but you save almost half that per bulb each year in electricity and... like i said, they last 25 years.
But so do most people in the western world. Yours is a uniquely american viewpoint.
It's not entirely invalid, but I also feel that beyond public safety and commerce, the government's role is to be involved in industries and services that cannot easily be operated as a private enterprise (because it is a monopoly, for example). Things like transit, power, health and fire protection are all good things that are not effectively operated by private groups because they are often monopolies, and often provide the best overall benefit when they run at a net-loss (are somewhat funded by taxes).
I've lived in the US and been fracked several times by the health insurance industry. Before, I was ambivalent about the government health care systems in the world and left it an open question how to best handle them, but I am 100% absolutely convinced, after experiencing both systems, that a "single payer" system is a far far better way of running health services. No question.... UNLESS... you happen to be very wealthy, at which point, private health is far far better.
It is a crime to provide a kid with access to boobs... or to allow a kid to see boobs... or to knowingly facilitate a kid to see boobs, or to passively permit a kid to see boobs. Or so conspire to allow a kid to see boobs. Or to intend to allow a kid to see boobs. Or to intend to conspire to allow a kid to see boobs. (no, I'm not joking)
In the UK, it is illegal to "fail to provide" they key when asked. Therefore, it is, in fact, illegal to forget the password, illegal to lose the password and illegal to have never known the password in the first place, to an encrypted volume in your possession.
The issue is that the government CANNOT compel you to talk about evidence in the case. I thought that was the essence of the 5th. So if you sit quietly, you are now guilty for not cooperating? You have the right to remain silent. Unless you are compelled to speak the password, in which case you no longer have the right to remain silent. Better change the wording...:-)
A few of the issues I see that concern me are some of the absurd moralizing being exported from the US.
Canada has historically had a bit more of a European view on things like nudity, but also on things like violence.
Recently, the attitude has become much more american. The idea of "guns good, boobs bad" is inherently american. There are few places elsewhere in the world you will find that pressure.
That's fucked up, but it is an inevitable conclusion which will be drawn by kids growing up immersed in US cultural influences and strikes me as one of the more legit reasons to consider things like cultural protectionism as not ENTIRELY bad things.
Agreed, but I'm CERTAINLY not very eager to become the 51st state. I came back after living in the US for many years and I'm very glad I did.
I find the culture here to be far superior in many sense. There is much less of the corrosive attitudes of entitlement and arrogance that I see in the US (there still is some, just less). There is also much stronger sense of community in most places I've been in Canada, and a more trusting attitude.
Plus, the political ideas are different. In Toronto, the subway is free on New Years. Maybe they will lose some money but they will make millions of people happy and could save some lives from drunk driving. Isn't that what the government is for? To spend a little money at the right time to make people happy, help build community and protect individuals? Brilliant!
I have never seen a US city consider making public services free on a holiday. It seems almost like it is opposed to the core values of much of the US.
I also see here, almost nowhere do they just assume you want a paper or plastic bag in the grocery store and if you do, you have to pay for it. More than half of shoppers bring their own canvas/cloth bags and I live in a conservative suburb and many walk to the store, despite owning cars. The only places I ever see that in the US are very liberal spots like Southern California or Boston.
Unskilled workers are not in a position to exploit the business. They are imminently replaceable cogs, or bits of human machinery, and as they can be immiediately replaced, if they try to take anything of value from the company, they are held criminally liable.
The concept of a Union is to collectivize the workers so they are on similar footing as the business itself and it has its places, especially in situations where the workers are so easily replaceable.
However, unions are actually illegal in China. This is a big reason why so much manufacturing has moved there and there is also a very strong cultural stigma against complaining. Very few other populations (almost none) would stand for that kind of treatment as they simultaneously have too much pride in their individuality and also have the ability to unionize in the face of oppressive conditions.
Countries that make unionization illegal should be subject to trade tariffs, in my opinion, otherwise they grossly unbalance the state of world trade.
Well, actually, they go (primarily) to executives and upper management in Apple, as well as to research and development projects.
This isn't terrible, but the net social benefit of investing in 100 managers and 100 highly paid engineers, is rather lower than employing 8,000 factory workers.
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... well, it's not terrible, but I'm not sure it accomplishes a ton either. Going after kids on YouTube seems to be the greatest use of it and repeated studies have shown it doesn't help (and may hurt) their business model and revenues.
The only flaw with the DMCA is the ability for the content owners to use infringement notices with impunity. There needs to be a provision to allow content sites such as YouTube to start ignoring abusive notices.
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... yes, not bad, not great, but not bad.
Just because you have a customer (even a preferred customer) in a given country, doesn't mean you must be subject to that country's laws.
That's silly.
You can absolutely be prevented from doing business in that country, but you cannot be arrested for violating that country's laws if you do not commit crimes there
Fertile land doesn't just suddenly spring up under rainfall.
Farmland is the result of thousands of years of river flows, lake beds, animal and plant decay and sediment.
A location that is currently a pure desert like the Sahara will NOT be possible to farm. Certainly a few semi-arid or seasonally arid regions may be slightly less arid, but there are almost no global climate models that support an increase in farmland.
Many of the places that will thaw (Siberia, Northern Canada) have soils that are very alkali and not suitable for farming. Many of the other places are at high altitude and wouldn't be suitable anyway.
The places that are most likely to become farmland in a scenario of temperature increase are river deltas which may dry up to some extent, and those regions that are semi-arid or seasonally arid, but an equal (or greater) number of those will dry up. Places like Texas and Oklahoma are most likely predicted to become much drier, but much more subject to violent storms. Places like Iowa and Kansas will likely dry up to resemble central Texas or Oklahoma, where soil requires extensive irrigation to grow anything of value. Places like Wyoming and Montana may benefit from increased rainfall due to the low pressure that results from changing currents, but those places have very poor soil and probably won't suddenly be a replacement for Iowa. Maybe southern Alberta would have a huge increase in the output of farmland, but northern Alberta has terrible soil (tar sand?) and Saskatchewan is spotted with rocky places with poor soil (badlands) just like the Dakotas.
The point is.... I have never heard an actual climate scientist claim that every single spot on earth will become less hospitable. This is a political/simplistic polemic. In fact, the South Ocean stands to benefit hugely with really nice weather in the models I've seen, but there's no farmland there.
I almost feel guilty for responding to you before.
You are either really ignorant of how closed-loop systems respond to input, or you are just sort of doing a fingers in the ear "nah nah nah" shouting thing.... OR you're being ironic or sarcastic, none of which is worth replying to.:-)
It's not about humans. A number of climate models show the current rate of temperature increase causes airable land in the world to decrease by 50% within the next 100-150 years. Even the most conservative estimates of human population show a 30% increase by then. Even the most optimistic estimates of increase in yeild show that a much larger portion of humans will starve as a result of this issue. We're talking maybe 1 billion people.
Surely, we could institute radical population decreasing measures. Arrest people who have two children, close and condemn neighborhoods with sharply declining population, ration food and (especially) water, as well as energy and other consumables.
What if we could reduce that by some nominal margin by making small changes today?
Nobody rational is saying it is an "emergency" as in "people's skin will boil off". But more in the sense that AIDS in Africa was an "emergency" a few years back when 10 year projections indicated that most people would have contracted it in a decade if behaviors weren't changed dramatically.
We sunk a lot of money into it and as a result, have saved money.
In the city where I live, the officials have a bit of a European view of public assets and awhile back they announced that all public transit would be free on the night of New Years Eve. This sounds counterproductive and budget-hawks cried and cried when it was announced calling it a money-wasting public policy decision and a burden on the already money-losing transit system. But by most examinations afterwards, money was actually SAVED by the move. This was in reduced demand for police (and hence overtime claims), reduced crime, reduced traffic accidents and increased attendance at sanctioned events. That's not even mentioning the lives saved by less DUI issues and all the intangible benefits of increased community participation.
This whole debate feels very analogous.
Good thing we didn't listen to the short sighted ones who argued the "obvious" but completely missed the actual benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
To be fair, I found even the warmest of CFLs to have a green tint to them, providing slightly more pink to their orange.
But I also dislike the flickering, which apparently most people can't see, but bothers me to the point that after 4-5 hours I have trouble focusing on my computer screen. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my eyes when, during a period of a few weeks, I kept having absurd headaches and trouble focusing after a few hours working, then I tried switching the lights around in my room and realized it only happened when it was a CFL that was on.
Neat!
Actually, google maps in the iPhone or Android uses a TON of data.
300MB is about 4 minutes of scrolling around the city in maps. :-)
To be fair, one issue is that there is an artificially limited quantity of spectrum bandwidth. You simply can't write a cheque to increase it, so you find you're out of luck in that regard (increasing bandwidth of the system).
If usage increases and bandwidth does not, the cost will go up for a given service, or there will be rationing (caps). Sad fact.
Completely off topic... but....
$300k in damages is at least in the realm of head-not-exploding for 100,000 tracks.
The head-exploding happens when they get someone $675k in damages for 30 tracks.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/category/riaa-litigation/
Bleh..
Rogers sucks, eh?
Yeah, right! eh? :-)
Arguably, the creation of the iPhone took a tiny fraction of sales from many things including newspapers, televisions, movie theatres, computers, game consoles.
I agree it's not necessarily zero-sum in the strict sense, but consumers did not "create" the cash used on iPhones out of nothing. They had to come out of a family's budget in other areas, usually things that provide comparable enjoyment or functionality... perhaps a monthly trip to a bowling alley, a premium TV channel, several movie rentals, and buying a second computer for the den.
There is SOME concept that iPhones might make people more "efficient" and increase the "size of the pie" but some small fraction of a percent. But it still reduces expenditures in other areas, on the whole.
Mistaking the fact that it is NOT "zero-sum", with the concept that the actual "net increase in sum" is a tiny fraction of the amount of funds diverted... is VERY VERY important.
The exact same argument applies in economics.
When the mythical "wealthy" take a larger portion... perhaps they do increase the "size of the pie", but not by nearly as much as the fraction they take. In other words, it's not zero sum, but it's not "equal share increase" either.
Frankly, both arguments "redistributed the limited share of the whole pie" and "we can all wealthy with a bigger pie" are both silly polemic on the far opposite ends of the spectrum and the truth is somewhere in the middle, as it usually is.
I've actually just replaced all my lights with LEDs.
The CFLs are terrible. They flickr and have an awful colour for the most part, but incandescents waste a ton of electricity on creating heat and burn out like twice a year.
The LED bulbs I got are comparable in color to the incandescent, run cool to the touch and use half the energy of the CFL.... and they last 25 years.
Sure you pay $20 each, but you save almost half that per bulb each year in electricity and... like i said, they last 25 years.
Try it!
Disagree.
But so do most people in the western world. Yours is a uniquely american viewpoint.
It's not entirely invalid, but I also feel that beyond public safety and commerce, the government's role is to be involved in industries and services that cannot easily be operated as a private enterprise (because it is a monopoly, for example). Things like transit, power, health and fire protection are all good things that are not effectively operated by private groups because they are often monopolies, and often provide the best overall benefit when they run at a net-loss (are somewhat funded by taxes).
I've lived in the US and been fracked several times by the health insurance industry. Before, I was ambivalent about the government health care systems in the world and left it an open question how to best handle them, but I am 100% absolutely convinced, after experiencing both systems, that a "single payer" system is a far far better way of running health services. No question.... UNLESS... you happen to be very wealthy, at which point, private health is far far better.
Not in the US.
It is a crime to provide a kid with access to boobs... or to allow a kid to see boobs... or to knowingly facilitate a kid to see boobs, or to passively permit a kid to see boobs. Or so conspire to allow a kid to see boobs. Or to intend to allow a kid to see boobs. Or to intend to conspire to allow a kid to see boobs. (no, I'm not joking)
Crime rates of major cities in North America (lowest 10 in order)
Ottawa, ON
Montreal, PQ
Toronto, ON
Calgary, AB
Vancouver, BC
Edmonton, AB
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Winnipeg, MB
New York, NY
There's a pattern here.
In the UK, it is illegal to "fail to provide" they key when asked. Therefore, it is, in fact, illegal to forget the password, illegal to lose the password and illegal to have never known the password in the first place, to an encrypted volume in your possession.
Yes, seriously.
The issue is that the government CANNOT compel you to talk about evidence in the case. I thought that was the essence of the 5th. So if you sit quietly, you are now guilty for not cooperating? You have the right to remain silent. Unless you are compelled to speak the password, in which case you no longer have the right to remain silent. Better change the wording... :-)
A few of the issues I see that concern me are some of the absurd moralizing being exported from the US.
Canada has historically had a bit more of a European view on things like nudity, but also on things like violence.
Recently, the attitude has become much more american. The idea of "guns good, boobs bad" is inherently american. There are few places elsewhere in the world you will find that pressure.
That's fucked up, but it is an inevitable conclusion which will be drawn by kids growing up immersed in US cultural influences and strikes me as one of the more legit reasons to consider things like cultural protectionism as not ENTIRELY bad things.
just a few small things.. there are dozens or hundreds of other tiny things like this that add up to a very different life experience.
Agreed, but I'm CERTAINLY not very eager to become the 51st state. I came back after living in the US for many years and I'm very glad I did.
I find the culture here to be far superior in many sense. There is much less of the corrosive attitudes of entitlement and arrogance that I see in the US (there still is some, just less). There is also much stronger sense of community in most places I've been in Canada, and a more trusting attitude.
Plus, the political ideas are different. In Toronto, the subway is free on New Years. Maybe they will lose some money but they will make millions of people happy and could save some lives from drunk driving. Isn't that what the government is for? To spend a little money at the right time to make people happy, help build community and protect individuals? Brilliant!
I have never seen a US city consider making public services free on a holiday. It seems almost like it is opposed to the core values of much of the US.
I also see here, almost nowhere do they just assume you want a paper or plastic bag in the grocery store and if you do, you have to pay for it. More than half of shoppers bring their own canvas/cloth bags and I live in a conservative suburb and many walk to the store, despite owning cars. The only places I ever see that in the US are very liberal spots like Southern California or Boston.
Unskilled workers are not in a position to exploit the business. They are imminently replaceable cogs, or bits of human machinery, and as they can be immiediately replaced, if they try to take anything of value from the company, they are held criminally liable.
The concept of a Union is to collectivize the workers so they are on similar footing as the business itself and it has its places, especially in situations where the workers are so easily replaceable.
However, unions are actually illegal in China. This is a big reason why so much manufacturing has moved there and there is also a very strong cultural stigma against complaining. Very few other populations (almost none) would stand for that kind of treatment as they simultaneously have too much pride in their individuality and also have the ability to unionize in the face of oppressive conditions.
Countries that make unionization illegal should be subject to trade tariffs, in my opinion, otherwise they grossly unbalance the state of world trade.
Well, actually, they go (primarily) to executives and upper management in Apple, as well as to research and development projects.
This isn't terrible, but the net social benefit of investing in 100 managers and 100 highly paid engineers, is rather lower than employing 8,000 factory workers.
Just saying....
I'm sorry, the GP's numbers are actually quite close, but the GGP ($3000?), now THAT is a completely made up number.
This is not true. The DMCA has a few flaws.
As I posted previously..
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... well, it's not terrible, but I'm not sure it accomplishes a ton either. Going after kids on YouTube seems to be the greatest use of it and repeated studies have shown it doesn't help (and may hurt) their business model and revenues.
The only flaw with the DMCA is the ability for the content owners to use infringement notices with impunity. There needs to be a provision to allow content sites such as YouTube to start ignoring abusive notices.
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... yes, not bad, not great, but not bad.
Just because you have a customer (even a preferred customer) in a given country, doesn't mean you must be subject to that country's laws.
That's silly.
You can absolutely be prevented from doing business in that country, but you cannot be arrested for violating that country's laws if you do not commit crimes there
CO2: It's what plants crave.
Fertile land doesn't just suddenly spring up under rainfall.
Farmland is the result of thousands of years of river flows, lake beds, animal and plant decay and sediment.
A location that is currently a pure desert like the Sahara will NOT be possible to farm. Certainly a few semi-arid or seasonally arid regions may be slightly less arid, but there are almost no global climate models that support an increase in farmland.
Many of the places that will thaw (Siberia, Northern Canada) have soils that are very alkali and not suitable for farming. Many of the other places are at high altitude and wouldn't be suitable anyway.
The places that are most likely to become farmland in a scenario of temperature increase are river deltas which may dry up to some extent, and those regions that are semi-arid or seasonally arid, but an equal (or greater) number of those will dry up. Places like Texas and Oklahoma are most likely predicted to become much drier, but much more subject to violent storms. Places like Iowa and Kansas will likely dry up to resemble central Texas or Oklahoma, where soil requires extensive irrigation to grow anything of value. Places like Wyoming and Montana may benefit from increased rainfall due to the low pressure that results from changing currents, but those places have very poor soil and probably won't suddenly be a replacement for Iowa. Maybe southern Alberta would have a huge increase in the output of farmland, but northern Alberta has terrible soil (tar sand?) and Saskatchewan is spotted with rocky places with poor soil (badlands) just like the Dakotas.
The point is.... I have never heard an actual climate scientist claim that every single spot on earth will become less hospitable. This is a political/simplistic polemic. In fact, the South Ocean stands to benefit hugely with really nice weather in the models I've seen, but there's no farmland there.
I hope you're not being serious.
I almost feel guilty for responding to you before.
You are either really ignorant of how closed-loop systems respond to input, or you are just sort of doing a fingers in the ear "nah nah nah" shouting thing.... OR you're being ironic or sarcastic, none of which is worth replying to. :-)
It's not about humans. A number of climate models show the current rate of temperature increase causes airable land in the world to decrease by 50% within the next 100-150 years. Even the most conservative estimates of human population show a 30% increase by then. Even the most optimistic estimates of increase in yeild show that a much larger portion of humans will starve as a result of this issue. We're talking maybe 1 billion people.
Surely, we could institute radical population decreasing measures. Arrest people who have two children, close and condemn neighborhoods with sharply declining population, ration food and (especially) water, as well as energy and other consumables.
What if we could reduce that by some nominal margin by making small changes today?
Nobody rational is saying it is an "emergency" as in "people's skin will boil off". But more in the sense that AIDS in Africa was an "emergency" a few years back when 10 year projections indicated that most people would have contracted it in a decade if behaviors weren't changed dramatically.
We sunk a lot of money into it and as a result, have saved money.
In the city where I live, the officials have a bit of a European view of public assets and awhile back they announced that all public transit would be free on the night of New Years Eve. This sounds counterproductive and budget-hawks cried and cried when it was announced calling it a money-wasting public policy decision and a burden on the already money-losing transit system. But by most examinations afterwards, money was actually SAVED by the move. This was in reduced demand for police (and hence overtime claims), reduced crime, reduced traffic accidents and increased attendance at sanctioned events. That's not even mentioning the lives saved by less DUI issues and all the intangible benefits of increased community participation.
This whole debate feels very analogous.
Good thing we didn't listen to the short sighted ones who argued the "obvious" but completely missed the actual benefit.