I really don't give a fuck where you're from as long as you pay taxes, just like me.
Let's reason through what will happen in your scenario. Someone lives in a third-world country where the average annual wage is less than the typical American makes while taking a dump at work. He seeks a job in the U.S. via the H1-B program. Company X sees that he will work for half of what they pay U.S. programmers, so they say, sure, we'll sponsor him. That means an American is out of work and instead of collecting taxes from that American, they collect half that much from the H1-B worker while paying unemployment to the displaced American worker.
So, who made more money? Company X, of course. But they won't pay taxes on it, because they have an entire staff of accountants and lawyers to make sure that they don't pay any taxes. In fact, despite the fact that they are a defense contractor, they'll probably figure out how to get farm subsidies for not growing alfalfa in the field that is now their parking lot.
Why should you deny Indians (or whoever else they decide to outsource programming to) jobs? Are they somehow inferior to the citizens of your own country?
The important thing is that they are not citizens of my country. And the focus of the American government should be to promote the interests of U.S. citizens, not act as an employment agency for the third world.
A few thousand programmers would go on the job market-- highly qualified programmers, whatever you say about Microsoft.
"Go on the job market"? What bullshit-speak! Translation: A few thousand programmers would lose their jobs. Many would have trouble finding work. Some would lose their homes and cars after being unable to make the payments. Many would incur debts and financial troubles that would hound them for decades. Others would be forced to move far away from their families and friends to accept work elsewhere in the country. You don't dump a few thousand people out of work and then expect that they will be absorbed back into the job market within a few weeks.
The average programmer's wage would probably go down some, and, after a while, the numbers of new coders coming out of college would decrease to compensate.
So why should I be satisfied if my wages go down? Should it be okay by me if I can't live in as nice a home? Should I not mind having to save-up for things that I can easily buy now? Am I supposed to be happy to be forced to hold on to a car until it is no longer in good condition?
The programmers that lost their jobs would hardly be starving in the streets
I know qualified tech workers that have been out of work for many months. They are having trouble paying their mortgages, rent, car payments, and utility bills. One was reduced to cleaning people's houses so that she could pay her bills. Don't start your preachy shit about how it's okay for people to lose their jobs.
-- IT workers are generally adaptable people-- they could go back to school, become teachers, or something else that's needed.
How the hell am I supposed to give up a good income while I "go back to school"? Am I supposed to sell my house and tell my family to come live with me in a dorm? Become teachers? Have you even looked at how little pay the average teacher gets? Why not suggest that software engineers who lose their jobs apply at McDonalds, Walmart, and JC Penney?
However, for the 3rd world worker, an IT job seems far more important than to a (relatively) wealthy American. For them, a job programming could mean the difference between food on the table, and the gutter.
If you think that they need your job more than you do, then why don't you take a job at McDonalds so that some third world IT worker can have your job? Have you gone into your boss's office and tried to convince him to bring in a third-world worker to replace you? You seem to think it would be fine if it happened to "several thousand" people at Microsoft, but I don't see you volunteering to give up your job for the benefit of random strangers in third-world countries.
I would imagine if programmers unionized a lot of programming would be outsourced to places like India.
What you are envisioning is already happening -- and it's one of the best arguments in favor of a tech workers' union. Not only is work being outsourced to second and third world countries, but tens of thousands of H1-B visas are being issued to allow companies to bring in foreign nationals to keep tech wages down in the U.S. (It's not like there is a shortage of unemployed Americans in the tech sector).
A union would give tech workers a much greater ability to resist such outsourcing. Right now, if an employer decides to start outsourcing software development, there's not much the individual software engineer can do about it. Now imagine a picket line in front of the company with unionized tech workers (software engineers, hardware engineers, system administrators, etc.) refusing to cross the picket line. Imagine television reporters interviewing them. Is the light bulb coming on yet?
Personally, I don't think he can hold a candle to Verne, Wells, Asimov, Clarke, etc.
I do. In many ways, his writing is more sophisticated than many of the masters you cite. Gibson didn't simply create science fiction. He invented an entire genre -- and in doing so, captured the Triple Crown of science fiction, winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Phillip K. Dick awards for Neuromancer.
Asimov, Clark, etc. could do a wonderful job of telling a story, but Gibson has a way of immersing you in the story. He makes you a part of the culture in which his characters live, throwing out slang you've never heard spoken but that you eventually come to understand.
Whether a God exists or not is a valid human question. It is also a question that Science cannot answer.
Agreed. And it is not one that science should attempt to answer. It's like science trying to find the prettiest color or the nicest person. It's far too subjective a personal for science to provide an answer.
More importantly, religion withstood the "test of time" far longer. So?
But they are not equivalent. Science has not brought man spiritual comfort and moral guidance. And religion has not resulted in advances in medicine, astrophysics, or quantum computing (to give a few examples). It's an apples and oranges thing.
Secondly, the experimentation step has a serious and obvious flaw: there are things we cannot experiment on (think exploding stars), and there are events we cannot observe because of their duration and all the factors we cannot eliminate (think cancer studies).
An inability to create an experiment or control all factors does not mean that the scientific method is flawed. It's an unfortunate fact, but not a flaw. That's like claiming religion is flawed because people's prayers are not all answered.
Firstly, it's exactly what a catholic might have thought about his religion a few hundred years ago, so your certainty is somewhat scary.
Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. Religion is a set of faith-based beliefs. They cannot be tested, measured, or quantified. It's a complete mystery to me how it works. At one time, it was a sin to eat red meat on Friday. Then all of a sudden it was not. Why? Who knows?
Science, on the other hand, is quantifiable. Look at how far science has progressed since the adoption of the scientific method. Look at how much man has learned in so short a time. The very fact that is is only 1/10 of all of written human history testifies to its validity. Man has accomplished more in that time than in all previous time. Just consider how this discussion is being held for a very good example of the progress we've made.
Do you really believe that there cannot possibly ever be a better way to study the world around us?
I'm certain that our ability to study the world around us will grow by leaps and bounds, but I do not believe that the scientific method will undergo any radical changes. I could be wrong and only time will tell.
yeah, maybe a single drive, but what if you have 4 SATA HDDs, SATA DVD-burner? Then it would be a problem.
Still no problem. As I said in the parent to your message, a motherboard could be designed to easily handle a dozen hard drives. DVD burners take about the same peak current (about 25W). It would be easy to bus that much power through a motherboard (the PC board in the power supply obviously handles more current than that).
and I think some Voodoo cards did have extra powerconnector because mobos couldn't give enough juice..
Yes, you are right. But you are mistaking specs and technology limitations. The specification for AGP power was lower than what the card required. Motherboards were not required to supply that much current through AGP, so 3dfx had to assume that the power was not there. Had the AGP spec required greater power handling, the motherboards could have easily been designed to supply it.
They describe a single large connector, supplying both data and power to the drive. It is up to motherboard manufactures to use it.
The spec is unsatisfactory because they made the combined connector optional. It should have been mandatory so that power supplies would not have had to be designed with lots of drive leads because of having to assume that the motherboard would not have the connectors on it.
It astounds me that the Serial ATA spec did not integrate the power and data into the same connector. It could have done so much to reduce the rat's nest inside the typical loaded PC/Server. Now, instead of simply having one cable go from the motherboard to each drive, we are still stuck with power supplies that have a huge mass of wires and cables hanging off of them.
Power supply manufacturers will, undoubtedly, start including cables terminated with Serial ATA power connectors so that the adapters won't be needed. But since there are so many legacy hard drives, CD-ROM, DVD, CD-R/W, etc. drives out there, they will have to also include the crappy four-pin Molex connectors. And, let's not forget the 3.5" floppy power connectors that they will also be supplying. Invariably, your power supply won't have enough of the connectors you need, and will have too many of the ones that you don't. You'll be forced to go out and buy adapters and Y-cables to make it all work.
I'm sure that someone will say that it would be too taxing to route that much power through the motherboard, but modern CPUs consume about 60 watts for the CPU alone. The Seagate drive tested consumes a peak current of 26 watts (2.2amps at 12V). Motherboards could easily have been designed to handled the load from a dozen such hard drives.
As I point out in my earlier post, science as we know it today has obvious failings. The most obvious one is its complete inapplicability to the concept and knowledge of God.
I do not consider that a "failing." I believe that religion is one reason that so many people are incapable of the critical thought necessary for science. Religion teaches people to believe in fantastic things for which there is no real evidence. Religion is the antithesis of science.
You mention a "knowledge" of God. I understand that there are strongly held beliefs in God, but what knowledge is there? Beliefs, no matter how strongly held, do not constitute knowledge. Consider the Heaven's Gate cult. The members of that cult were were so absolutely convinced of their beliefs that they killed themselves, believing they were shedding their earthly "containers" to catch a ride on an unseen spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet.
The scientific method is not only not the pinnacle of learning, it might actually be near the end of its usefulness.
The scientific method has not changed since it was invented by William Harvey in the 16th century. It has stood the test of time. And it is so simple that I really do not believe that it has some yet-to-be-discovered flaw. The scientific theory is just these simple steps:
* Observe: Collect evidence and make measurements relating to the phenomenon you intend to study.
* Hypothesize: Invent a hypothesis explaining the phenomenon that you have observed.
* Predict: Use the hypothesis to predict the results of new observations or measurements.
* Verify: Perform experiments to test those predictions. "Testing", or attempting to experimentally falsify, is thought by many to be a better choice of term here.
* Evaluate: If the experiments contradict your hypothesis, reject it and form another. If they confirm it, make more predictions and test it further.
These steps are repeated continually, building a larger and larger set of well-tested hypotheses to explain more and more phenomena.
I do not believe that the method is flawed in some way and is, in fact, rock-solid. There are nuances having to do with the way one designs an experiment, statistical significance, control groups, etc., but the basics of the Scientific theory have stood the test of time.
You seem to conveniently ignore the cost of converting to a cleaner technology. It might be cheaper in the long run for PolluteCo to continue to buy pollution credits.
So you prefer the current system where there is no real economic incentive for them to reduce pollution? Sorry, but I'd rather see if the pollution credit system resulted in cleaner technologies rather than simply wait for the Earth to become uninhabitable.
The reason is that it would take 20-30 years from the start of drilling for the fields along the artic costal plain to reach their full output capacity. So Bush+Co. really are looking to the long-term, which is pretty unusual for a politician.
And, at that peak, it would produce about 2% of the oil that we use. Bush is not looking long-term. He's just paying off the oil companies that donated so much to his campaign.
Except there are no plans to change the date of mandatory switch to low-sulfur diesel across the USA (due some time in 2005).
Obviously, G.W. Bush keeps you better informed than he does me. I don't know from one day to the next what he's planning.
I think the US automakers would love to sell turbodiesel engines for pickup trucks, SUV's and minivans because these types of vehicles really do benefit from the strong low-end torque that is the characteristic of diesel engines.
It's not just trucks (which run quite well on the current high-sulphur diesel). In Europe, BMW, VW, Audi, and other auto manufacturers put high-performance diesels into performance, luxury, and economy vehicles. I love my VW Golf TDI and hope to continue purchasing diesels in the future.
You are assuming that the scientific approach is "right". In the past, scientific discoveries are often bent or suppressed for religious or political reasons. We now consider that "wrong".
You are confusing the scientific method and scientific conclusions. I do not believe that the scientific method will be changed in the foreseeable future. As measurement tools improve, we will doubtless see new discoveries and future studies may reveal flaws our now-current scientific beliefs.
But when a major, peer-reviewed scientific study shows that there is no link between abortions and later breast cancer, suppressing that information is outrageous.
To be "intolerant" is to risk not seeing, and is in fact contradictory to the skepticism required of scientists.
I completely disagree. All reputable scientists are intolerant of the suppression of scientific studies, or the alteration of the results, by those wishing to put forward some political agenda. I am skeptical of the Bush administration, not of the scientists whose work they are suppressing.
I disagree. If gas went up to $2/gal the next president of the United States would be the one promising to get us out of the Kyoto agreements and provide us with cheaper gas.
I hope that you are wrong (as I am sure that you do, too). But even if that happened, there would be enough people who would have converted to fuel-efficient cars in the interim that we would realize a real benefit.
Price increases wouldn't stop at just the pump. Industry would have to pass the cost along to the consumer which means produce goes up, UPS deliveries go up - basically most things that involve transportation. Maybe you don't, but I do notice five or ten cent increases when I go to the grocery store. And you know some special interest will spin all of that onto the increase in gas prices.
I'm sure that is true. Gas prices went up to support reformulated gasoline. Car and truck prices went up substantially to pay for pollution controls. They also went up to pay the cost of meeting CAFE requirements. Those things have not been rolled back. In fact, most of the regulations have gotten stiffer over the years.
There is always some activity that "justifies" the need for the SUV or monster truck.
I have a boat that my VW Golf is unsuitable to tow. That's why I also have a full-sized Dodge RAM pickup truck. But I don't commute in that every day.
any scientific theory that supports left wing ideology MUST be the truth! How convenient.
A scientific study and a scientific theory are not the same thing. What we are talking about here is scientific studies.
Information regarding reputable studies is being deleted or published conclusions regarding those studies are being changed in order to forward a political agenda.
There's one problem with your scenario: you can't have wide-scale adoption of diesel power for automobiles because Diesel #2 fuel sold in the USA contains too much sulfur compounds, which will quickly corrode the modern fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control systems found on European diesel-powered cars.
The VW TDIs work with it now, though there are many other European diesels which will not as you rightly point out.
This will change in a few years when the EPA will require diesel fuel with no more than 80 parts per million of sulfur compounds;
My bet is that Bush will push that date back in order to please his buddies in the oil industry who claim that it's so hard to produce low-sulfur diesel (even though they sell it overseas).
You just made my "friend" list with that rant. You are 100% correct and I applaud you for stating it so clearly and eloquently.
The best thing that could happen to this country is for gas to go over $2 per gallon. Then Americans would start buying the most fuel-efficient vechicles that met their needs rather than buying the largest, heaviest, most-polluting SUVs on which they can afford the downpayments. I've actually met people who think that the size of the SUV that they put their family members in is a measure of how much they love them.
As to the Bush administration's decision to wage war to stimulate the economy, I've been saying that for over a year now. It's the same thing that Reagan did and it's what Bush, Sr. did. Do massive deficit spending, funnelling money to the big defense contractors, to fund the war. Then leave the next administration to deal with the debt. If that administration does the responsible thing and raises taxes to pay down the debt, then call them "tax and spend" (vs. the Republican cut taxes, borrow, and spend philosophy).
That is simply untrue. In 2001, we imported 1.61 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia. That was about 18% of our oil. Saudi Arabia is the largest single foreign supplier of oil to the U.S.
quite frankly, we'd prefer our oil reserves to be left when everyone else's are gone
Then please explain to me why Bush wants to give his buddies in the oil industry permission to drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
All it would do is require U.S. businesses to buy pollution credits from other countries in order to maintain the status quo.
Or they could pollute less. That was the point. There would be an economic penalty for polluting (the fees to buy pollution credits). When a company found a way to reduce pollution, then they would not have to buy credits, giving them an economic advantage over their competitors.
Not that signing Kyoto would reduce the amount of oil exported, or even potentially used in the aggregate.
Never read a book on economics, have you? When the price goes up, the demand goes down. If oil prices rise, people will seek out more fuel-efficient cars. That will result in a long-term reduction in fuel usage and a reduction, or even elimination, of our reliance on imported oil.
"Bigotry" is defined as intolerance. Why the hell should I be tolerant of people who are distorting science, including medical science, in order to push their own political agenda?
All you're saying is that if I don't believe as I do, you're wrong.
I am saying that anyone who believes that scientific studies should be "revised" to fit a political agenda is wrong. And I am saying that anyone who would defend those actions is wrong.
According to revised estimates, implementing the Kyoto Treaty would increase gas prices in the USA upwards of 60 cents per gallon
That would be a good thing. I'm sick of kissing Saudi ass and funding terrorists so that commuters and soccer moms can drive around in 11mpg Lincoln Navigators. Bush and Cheney have made it clear that they have no intention of doing anything to encourage fuel conservation. So the only way it can be done is through consumer demand -- and that won't happen unless fuel prices go up significantly.
I have a VW Golf TDI. It gets 45MPG on average and I've broken 50mpg. It handles far better than the aforementioned SUVs and has plenty of power, with acceleration that bests most of them. The same engine and fuel economy is available in the two and four door hatchbacks (Golfs), four door sedans (Jettas), and four door station wagons (Jetta wagons). Honda and Toyota also make extremely fuel-efficient vehicles. So it's not like the vehicles aren't there. If fuel prices went up and many consumers converted to those vehicles, our reliance on foreign oil would go away and our air would be far cleaner (since SUVs are permitted to pollute far more than passenger cars).
As we are quickly digressing to the point of writing books, I will try to be more brief and touch on specific points of logic:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
Again, this does not state that the right to bear arms is an individual right. It simply puts forth the argument that the Second Amendment has no bearing on the Miller case because there is no purpose for such a weapon as part of a well-regulated militia.
Back to Dred Scott. I use it because I am *not* advocating the anti-black position; far from that, it shows the horrors of what blacks went through!
But the reference to the "right to bear arms" was an obiter dictum one which, be definition, has no bearing on the law. It was probably not as carefully thought out and debated among the Justices because it was simply a passing remark in the decision, not one deciding the scope of the Second Amendment. And, as I pointed out, even were one to disect the ruling, they court said "persons of the negro race", not "all persons of the negro race." This still does not show that the Supreme Court felt that each and every individual citizen had a right to keep and bear arms. Regardless, this obiter dictum is irrelevent and does not have the force of law.
You seem to insinuate that I am one of those BASTARDS who want to keep blacks down by asking Why do you feel that this decision denying "negroes" U.S. citizenship is not an example of a "bad ruling"? Now, at that I take some insult.
Sorry that you take insult, but many consider the Dred Scott ruling to be a low point in the history of our Supreme Court. It was one in which the Justices attempted to support their ruling by scaring white people about the threat that free blacks would pose to them. Dredging up dicta from that passage to support any position is in questionable taste at the very least.
Got free speech at an airport? Where next will you lose it?
That's a subject that I am very concerned about. And look at the unwarranted searches that one goes through now in modern life. Bags are searched at airports, students pass through metal detectors and their backpacks are searched, police randomly stop people with no probable cause just to see if they are drunk. It's frankly terrifying.
You cite UNITED STATES v. VERDUGO-URQUIDEZ, 494 U.S. 259 (1990) in which the Court wrote:
The Fourth Amendment phrase "the people" seems to be a term of art used in select parts of the Constitution and contrasts with the words "person" and "accused" used in Articles of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments regulating criminal procedures. This suggests that "the people" [494 U.S. 259, 260] refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community. Pp. 264-266.
You will note that the highlighted section refers to "a class of persons", rather than "all persons." I think that is an important distinction. Additional words were used to express the thought more precisely.
And if one were to interpret the Second Amendment as an individual right, then laws which deny guns to convicted felons would be unconstitutional. There are many able-bodied men with felony records that are perfectly capable of serving in a militia. But we have decided, as a society, that such persons pose an undue risk to society.
All in all, the subject can consume a great deal of time and generate a great deal of passion, no?
Yes it can and I hope that you can forgive me for not answering each of your points in depth.
As an aside, although I strongly disagree with you, I have not marked you as a "foe". That's something I reserve for those who are abusive, stupid, and illogical.
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I really don't give a fuck where you're from as long as you pay taxes, just like me.
Let's reason through what will happen in your scenario. Someone lives in a third-world country where the average annual wage is less than the typical American makes while taking a dump at work. He seeks a job in the U.S. via the H1-B program. Company X sees that he will work for half of what they pay U.S. programmers, so they say, sure, we'll sponsor him. That means an American is out of work and instead of collecting taxes from that American, they collect half that much from the H1-B worker while paying unemployment to the displaced American worker.
So, who made more money? Company X, of course. But they won't pay taxes on it, because they have an entire staff of accountants and lawyers to make sure that they don't pay any taxes. In fact, despite the fact that they are a defense contractor, they'll probably figure out how to get farm subsidies for not growing alfalfa in the field that is now their parking lot.
Why should you deny Indians (or whoever else they decide to outsource programming to) jobs? Are they somehow inferior to the citizens of your own country?
The important thing is that they are not citizens of my country. And the focus of the American government should be to promote the interests of U.S. citizens, not act as an employment agency for the third world.
A few thousand programmers would go on the job market-- highly qualified programmers, whatever you say about Microsoft.
"Go on the job market"? What bullshit-speak! Translation: A few thousand programmers would lose their jobs. Many would have trouble finding work. Some would lose their homes and cars after being unable to make the payments. Many would incur debts and financial troubles that would hound them for decades. Others would be forced to move far away from their families and friends to accept work elsewhere in the country. You don't dump a few thousand people out of work and then expect that they will be absorbed back into the job market within a few weeks.
The average programmer's wage would probably go down some, and, after a while, the numbers of new coders coming out of college would decrease to compensate.
So why should I be satisfied if my wages go down? Should it be okay by me if I can't live in as nice a home? Should I not mind having to save-up for things that I can easily buy now? Am I supposed to be happy to be forced to hold on to a car until it is no longer in good condition?
The programmers that lost their jobs would hardly be starving in the streets
I know qualified tech workers that have been out of work for many months. They are having trouble paying their mortgages, rent, car payments, and utility bills. One was reduced to cleaning people's houses so that she could pay her bills. Don't start your preachy shit about how it's okay for people to lose their jobs.
-- IT workers are generally adaptable people-- they could go back to school, become teachers, or something else that's needed.
How the hell am I supposed to give up a good income while I "go back to school"? Am I supposed to sell my house and tell my family to come live with me in a dorm? Become teachers? Have you even looked at how little pay the average teacher gets? Why not suggest that software engineers who lose their jobs apply at McDonalds, Walmart, and JC Penney?
However, for the 3rd world worker, an IT job seems far more important than to a (relatively) wealthy American. For them, a job programming could mean the difference between food on the table, and the gutter.
If you think that they need your job more than you do, then why don't you take a job at McDonalds so that some third world IT worker can have your job? Have you gone into your boss's office and tried to convince him to bring in a third-world worker to replace you? You seem to think it would be fine if it happened to "several thousand" people at Microsoft, but I don't see you volunteering to give up your job for the benefit of random strangers in third-world countries.
I would imagine if programmers unionized a lot of programming would be outsourced to places like India.
What you are envisioning is already happening -- and it's one of the best arguments in favor of a tech workers' union. Not only is work being outsourced to second and third world countries, but tens of thousands of H1-B visas are being issued to allow companies to bring in foreign nationals to keep tech wages down in the U.S. (It's not like there is a shortage of unemployed Americans in the tech sector).
A union would give tech workers a much greater ability to resist such outsourcing. Right now, if an employer decides to start outsourcing software development, there's not much the individual software engineer can do about it. Now imagine a picket line in front of the company with unionized tech workers (software engineers, hardware engineers, system administrators, etc.) refusing to cross the picket line. Imagine television reporters interviewing them. Is the light bulb coming on yet?
Personally, I don't think he can hold a candle to Verne, Wells, Asimov, Clarke, etc.
I do. In many ways, his writing is more sophisticated than many of the masters you cite. Gibson didn't simply create science fiction. He invented an entire genre -- and in doing so, captured the Triple Crown of science fiction, winning the Hugo, Nebula, and Phillip K. Dick awards for Neuromancer.
Asimov, Clark, etc. could do a wonderful job of telling a story, but Gibson has a way of immersing you in the story. He makes you a part of the culture in which his characters live, throwing out slang you've never heard spoken but that you eventually come to understand.
I definitely rank him among the greats.
Whether a God exists or not is a valid human question. It is also a question that Science cannot answer.
Agreed. And it is not one that science should attempt to answer. It's like science trying to find the prettiest color or the nicest person. It's far too subjective a personal for science to provide an answer.
More importantly, religion withstood the "test of time" far longer. So?
But they are not equivalent. Science has not brought man spiritual comfort and moral guidance. And religion has not resulted in advances in medicine, astrophysics, or quantum computing (to give a few examples). It's an apples and oranges thing.
Secondly, the experimentation step has a serious and obvious flaw: there are things we cannot experiment on (think exploding stars), and there are events we cannot observe because of their duration and all the factors we cannot eliminate (think cancer studies).
An inability to create an experiment or control all factors does not mean that the scientific method is flawed. It's an unfortunate fact, but not a flaw. That's like claiming religion is flawed because people's prayers are not all answered.
Firstly, it's exactly what a catholic might have thought about his religion a few hundred years ago, so your certainty is somewhat scary.
Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. Religion is a set of faith-based beliefs. They cannot be tested, measured, or quantified. It's a complete mystery to me how it works. At one time, it was a sin to eat red meat on Friday. Then all of a sudden it was not. Why? Who knows?
Science, on the other hand, is quantifiable. Look at how far science has progressed since the adoption of the scientific method. Look at how much man has learned in so short a time. The very fact that is is only 1/10 of all of written human history testifies to its validity. Man has accomplished more in that time than in all previous time. Just consider how this discussion is being held for a very good example of the progress we've made.
Do you really believe that there cannot possibly ever be a better way to study the world around us?
I'm certain that our ability to study the world around us will grow by leaps and bounds, but I do not believe that the scientific method will undergo any radical changes. I could be wrong and only time will tell.
yeah, maybe a single drive, but what if you have 4 SATA HDDs, SATA DVD-burner? Then it would be a problem.
Still no problem. As I said in the parent to your message, a motherboard could be designed to easily handle a dozen hard drives. DVD burners take about the same peak current (about 25W). It would be easy to bus that much power through a motherboard (the PC board in the power supply obviously handles more current than that).
and I think some Voodoo cards did have extra powerconnector because mobos couldn't give enough juice..
Yes, you are right. But you are mistaking specs and technology limitations. The specification for AGP power was lower than what the card required. Motherboards were not required to supply that much current through AGP, so 3dfx had to assume that the power was not there. Had the AGP spec required greater power handling, the motherboards could have easily been designed to supply it.
You had to look at SATA specs before complaining
No, I did not. Read on.
They describe a single large connector, supplying both data and power to the drive. It is up to motherboard manufactures to use it.
The spec is unsatisfactory because they made the combined connector optional. It should have been mandatory so that power supplies would not have had to be designed with lots of drive leads because of having to assume that the motherboard would not have the connectors on it.
It astounds me that the Serial ATA spec did not integrate the power and data into the same connector. It could have done so much to reduce the rat's nest inside the typical loaded PC/Server. Now, instead of simply having one cable go from the motherboard to each drive, we are still stuck with power supplies that have a huge mass of wires and cables hanging off of them.
Power supply manufacturers will, undoubtedly, start including cables terminated with Serial ATA power connectors so that the adapters won't be needed. But since there are so many legacy hard drives, CD-ROM, DVD, CD-R/W, etc. drives out there, they will have to also include the crappy four-pin Molex connectors. And, let's not forget the 3.5" floppy power connectors that they will also be supplying. Invariably, your power supply won't have enough of the connectors you need, and will have too many of the ones that you don't. You'll be forced to go out and buy adapters and Y-cables to make it all work.
I'm sure that someone will say that it would be too taxing to route that much power through the motherboard, but modern CPUs consume about 60 watts for the CPU alone. The Seagate drive tested consumes a peak current of 26 watts (2.2amps at 12V). Motherboards could easily have been designed to handled the load from a dozen such hard drives.
What a missed opportunity this was.
As I point out in my earlier post, science as we know it today has obvious failings. The most obvious one is its complete inapplicability to the concept and knowledge of God.
I do not consider that a "failing." I believe that religion is one reason that so many people are incapable of the critical thought necessary for science. Religion teaches people to believe in fantastic things for which there is no real evidence. Religion is the antithesis of science.
You mention a "knowledge" of God. I understand that there are strongly held beliefs in God, but what knowledge is there? Beliefs, no matter how strongly held, do not constitute knowledge. Consider the Heaven's Gate cult. The members of that cult were were so absolutely convinced of their beliefs that they killed themselves, believing they were shedding their earthly "containers" to catch a ride on an unseen spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet.
The scientific method is not only not the pinnacle of learning, it might actually be near the end of its usefulness.
The scientific method has not changed since it was invented by William Harvey in the 16th century. It has stood the test of time. And it is so simple that I really do not believe that it has some yet-to-be-discovered flaw. The scientific theory is just these simple steps:
* Observe: Collect evidence and make measurements relating to the phenomenon you intend to study.
* Hypothesize: Invent a hypothesis explaining the phenomenon that you have observed.
* Predict: Use the hypothesis to predict the results of new observations or measurements.
* Verify: Perform experiments to test those predictions. "Testing", or attempting to experimentally falsify, is thought by many to be a better choice of term here.
* Evaluate: If the experiments contradict your hypothesis, reject it and form another. If they confirm it, make more predictions and test it further.
These steps are repeated continually, building a larger and larger set of well-tested hypotheses to explain more and more phenomena.
I do not believe that the method is flawed in some way and is, in fact, rock-solid. There are nuances having to do with the way one designs an experiment, statistical significance, control groups, etc., but the basics of the Scientific theory have stood the test of time.
You seem to conveniently ignore the cost of converting to a cleaner technology. It might be cheaper in the long run for PolluteCo to continue to buy pollution credits.
So you prefer the current system where there is no real economic incentive for them to reduce pollution? Sorry, but I'd rather see if the pollution credit system resulted in cleaner technologies rather than simply wait for the Earth to become uninhabitable.
The reason is that it would take 20-30 years from the start of drilling for the fields along the artic costal plain to reach their full output capacity. So Bush+Co. really are looking to the long-term, which is pretty unusual for a politician.
And, at that peak, it would produce about 2% of the oil that we use. Bush is not looking long-term. He's just paying off the oil companies that donated so much to his campaign.
Because if you aren't tolerant of other people's opinion, then by your own definition you're a bigot.
Then I'm a bigot. I have no problem with that.
I don't see any global warming around here in the midwest.
Perhaps if they taught science, rather than creationism, in the midwest, you wouldn't make absurd statements like that.
Except there are no plans to change the date of mandatory switch to low-sulfur diesel across the USA (due some time in 2005).
Obviously, G.W. Bush keeps you better informed than he does me. I don't know from one day to the next what he's planning.
I think the US automakers would love to sell turbodiesel engines for pickup trucks, SUV's and minivans because these types of vehicles really do benefit from the strong low-end torque that is the characteristic of diesel engines.
It's not just trucks (which run quite well on the current high-sulphur diesel). In Europe, BMW, VW, Audi, and other auto manufacturers put high-performance diesels into performance, luxury, and economy vehicles. I love my VW Golf TDI and hope to continue purchasing diesels in the future.
You are assuming that the scientific approach is "right". In the past, scientific discoveries are often bent or suppressed for religious or political reasons. We now consider that "wrong".
You are confusing the scientific method and scientific conclusions. I do not believe that the scientific method will be changed in the foreseeable future. As measurement tools improve, we will doubtless see new discoveries and future studies may reveal flaws our now-current scientific beliefs.
But when a major, peer-reviewed scientific study shows that there is no link between abortions and later breast cancer, suppressing that information is outrageous.
To be "intolerant" is to risk not seeing, and is in fact contradictory to the skepticism required of scientists.
I completely disagree. All reputable scientists are intolerant of the suppression of scientific studies, or the alteration of the results, by those wishing to put forward some political agenda. I am skeptical of the Bush administration, not of the scientists whose work they are suppressing.
I disagree. If gas went up to $2/gal the next president of the United States would be the one promising to get us out of the Kyoto agreements and provide us with cheaper gas.
I hope that you are wrong (as I am sure that you do, too). But even if that happened, there would be enough people who would have converted to fuel-efficient cars in the interim that we would realize a real benefit.
Price increases wouldn't stop at just the pump. Industry would have to pass the cost along to the consumer which means produce goes up, UPS deliveries go up - basically most things that involve transportation. Maybe you don't, but I do notice five or ten cent increases when I go to the grocery store. And you know some special interest will spin all of that onto the increase in gas prices.
I'm sure that is true. Gas prices went up to support reformulated gasoline. Car and truck prices went up substantially to pay for pollution controls. They also went up to pay the cost of meeting CAFE requirements. Those things have not been rolled back. In fact, most of the regulations have gotten stiffer over the years.
There is always some activity that "justifies" the need for the SUV or monster truck.
I have a boat that my VW Golf is unsuitable to tow. That's why I also have a full-sized Dodge RAM pickup truck. But I don't commute in that every day.
any scientific theory that supports left wing ideology MUST be the truth! How convenient.
A scientific study and a scientific theory are not the same thing. What we are talking about here is scientific studies.
Information regarding reputable studies is being deleted or published conclusions regarding those studies are being changed in order to forward a political agenda.
There's one problem with your scenario: you can't have wide-scale adoption of diesel power for automobiles because Diesel #2 fuel sold in the USA contains too much sulfur compounds, which will quickly corrode the modern fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control systems found on European diesel-powered cars.
The VW TDIs work with it now, though there are many other European diesels which will not as you rightly point out.
This will change in a few years when the EPA will require diesel fuel with no more than 80 parts per million of sulfur compounds;
My bet is that Bush will push that date back in order to please his buddies in the oil industry who claim that it's so hard to produce low-sulfur diesel (even though they sell it overseas).
Because they're his buddies, duh. If his buddies were against drilling then he'd be against drilling.
I knew that. It was a rhetorical question intended to point out how Bush's policies are harmful to our country's long-term goals.
You just made my "friend" list with that rant. You are 100% correct and I applaud you for stating it so clearly and eloquently.
The best thing that could happen to this country is for gas to go over $2 per gallon. Then Americans would start buying the most fuel-efficient vechicles that met their needs rather than buying the largest, heaviest, most-polluting SUVs on which they can afford the downpayments. I've actually met people who think that the size of the SUV that they put their family members in is a measure of how much they love them.
As to the Bush administration's decision to wage war to stimulate the economy, I've been saying that for over a year now. It's the same thing that Reagan did and it's what Bush, Sr. did. Do massive deficit spending, funnelling money to the big defense contractors, to fund the war. Then leave the next administration to deal with the debt. If that administration does the responsible thing and raises taxes to pay down the debt, then call them "tax and spend" (vs. the Republican cut taxes, borrow, and spend philosophy).
We aren't even all that dependent on Arab oil
That is simply untrue. In 2001, we imported 1.61 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia. That was about 18% of our oil. Saudi Arabia is the largest single foreign supplier of oil to the U.S.
quite frankly, we'd prefer our oil reserves to be left when everyone else's are gone
Then please explain to me why Bush wants to give his buddies in the oil industry permission to drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
All it would do is require U.S. businesses to buy pollution credits from other countries in order to maintain the status quo.
Or they could pollute less. That was the point. There would be an economic penalty for polluting (the fees to buy pollution credits). When a company found a way to reduce pollution, then they would not have to buy credits, giving them an economic advantage over their competitors.
Not that signing Kyoto would reduce the amount of oil exported, or even potentially used in the aggregate.
Never read a book on economics, have you? When the price goes up, the demand goes down. If oil prices rise, people will seek out more fuel-efficient cars. That will result in a long-term reduction in fuel usage and a reduction, or even elimination, of our reliance on imported oil.
This isn't insightful, it's out and out bigotry.
"Bigotry" is defined as intolerance. Why the hell should I be tolerant of people who are distorting science, including medical science, in order to push their own political agenda?
All you're saying is that if I don't believe as I do, you're wrong.
I am saying that anyone who believes that scientific studies should be "revised" to fit a political agenda is wrong. And I am saying that anyone who would defend those actions is wrong.
I don't need to be tolerant of deceipt.
According to revised estimates, implementing the Kyoto Treaty would increase gas prices in the USA upwards of 60 cents per gallon
That would be a good thing. I'm sick of kissing Saudi ass and funding terrorists so that commuters and soccer moms can drive around in 11mpg Lincoln Navigators. Bush and Cheney have made it clear that they have no intention of doing anything to encourage fuel conservation. So the only way it can be done is through consumer demand -- and that won't happen unless fuel prices go up significantly.
I have a VW Golf TDI. It gets 45MPG on average and I've broken 50mpg. It handles far better than the aforementioned SUVs and has plenty of power, with acceleration that bests most of them. The same engine and fuel economy is available in the two and four door hatchbacks (Golfs), four door sedans (Jettas), and four door station wagons (Jetta wagons). Honda and Toyota also make extremely fuel-efficient vehicles. So it's not like the vehicles aren't there. If fuel prices went up and many consumers converted to those vehicles, our reliance on foreign oil would go away and our air would be far cleaner (since SUVs are permitted to pollute far more than passenger cars).
Thank you. I know that you will eventually be modded down by the right-wing zealots, but kudos to you for speaking the truth.
My earliest memory is breakfast this morning when I ate... Oh, damn it!
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
Again, this does not state that the right to bear arms is an individual right. It simply puts forth the argument that the Second Amendment has no bearing on the Miller case because there is no purpose for such a weapon as part of a well-regulated militia.
Back to Dred Scott. I use it because I am *not* advocating the anti-black position; far from that, it shows the horrors of what blacks went through!
But the reference to the "right to bear arms" was an obiter dictum one which, be definition, has no bearing on the law. It was probably not as carefully thought out and debated among the Justices because it was simply a passing remark in the decision, not one deciding the scope of the Second Amendment. And, as I pointed out, even were one to disect the ruling, they court said "persons of the negro race", not "all persons of the negro race." This still does not show that the Supreme Court felt that each and every individual citizen had a right to keep and bear arms. Regardless, this obiter dictum is irrelevent and does not have the force of law.
You seem to insinuate that I am one of those BASTARDS who want to keep blacks down by asking Why do you feel that this decision denying "negroes" U.S. citizenship is not an example of a "bad ruling"? Now, at that I take some insult.
Sorry that you take insult, but many consider the Dred Scott ruling to be a low point in the history of our Supreme Court. It was one in which the Justices attempted to support their ruling by scaring white people about the threat that free blacks would pose to them. Dredging up dicta from that passage to support any position is in questionable taste at the very least.
Got free speech at an airport? Where next will you lose it?
That's a subject that I am very concerned about. And look at the unwarranted searches that one goes through now in modern life. Bags are searched at airports, students pass through metal detectors and their backpacks are searched, police randomly stop people with no probable cause just to see if they are drunk. It's frankly terrifying.
You cite UNITED STATES v. VERDUGO-URQUIDEZ, 494 U.S. 259 (1990) in which the Court wrote:
You will note that the highlighted section refers to "a class of persons", rather than "all persons." I think that is an important distinction. Additional words were used to express the thought more precisely.
And if one were to interpret the Second Amendment as an individual right, then laws which deny guns to convicted felons would be unconstitutional. There are many able-bodied men with felony records that are perfectly capable of serving in a militia. But we have decided, as a society, that such persons pose an undue risk to society.
All in all, the subject can consume a great deal of time and generate a great deal of passion, no?
Yes it can and I hope that you can forgive me for not answering each of your points in depth.
As an aside, although I strongly disagree with you, I have not marked you as a "foe". That's something I reserve for those who are abusive, stupid, and illogical.