thus do I refute your entire post: the IQ metric has been upward adjsuted several times. IE, the baseline 100 point of today is higher compared to the baseline 100 they started with. this is because the collective average point has increased. --- Has intelligence peaked? No. The hypothetical Athens man being transported to today is no more or less intelligent than everyone around him.
Has education peaked? Ahh. Here is the true reason the hypothetical Athens man would seem more intelligent.
His quality of education is better, broader, more rounded and more in depth than the average education of today. But that is true of education frm 100 yrs ago too. By the 8th grade students used to have begun learning 2nd and 3rd languages, physics (not just concepts but math), algebra, chemistry....Now you dont learn physics til Senoir year if not college, chemistry survey (easy, no math no thinking) in junior year, and we're lucky if they even took one semester of language or learned algebra before leaving high school.
THAT is why he would seem smarter. The capacity of intelligence isnt higher, merely the amount of training and the capability of thought. It's like anything: the more time you spend studying, thinking, learning, ie, the more time you spend exercising your brain, the better you are at using and applying it. Just like any other muscle.
To what purpose? Doing it just to do it serves none. Like saying frm now all Ducks shall be called Nozzes! New label, same concept, no net change.
Not when the entire populace already knows how to think in one and not the other. Ever had to retrain an enitire corporation after a fundamental software package switchover? That would be a walk in teh park compared to this. Being able to think in a system of measurements is such a low level function of the brain its nearly impossible to completely retrain it to fluency levels in the new one. And the use of language related words is intentional because it's nearly at that level of brain function.
And most people who want this arbitrary change over fail to consider that. Just like they fail to consider that metric (or more accurately SI) has its own idiosyncracies. they ignore situations where its not as useful and that its not all easy conversions of 10. And ignore that our system of units has its own situations where its naturally superior or advantageous to use it over metric. (hydrology is a good example; several conversions reduce to 1.0x)
and with the massive amount of computing power located in your pocket right now, you really shouldnt fear any system of units. It's just math, and conversion is not particularly hard anyway...unless youre a disabled black kid in Virginia of course.
Not that clear cut. You forget that Bush didnt run on a militaristic ticket. The 2000 election wasnt about being tough on foreign policy at all. It, much like the most recent one, was all about the economy, and both tickets had similar (vague) stances on foreign issues. If Gore's advisors and intel weenies gave him teh same stuff they gave Bush, if public sentiment was the same, just cut to the chase and say everything was the same except swap Gore for Bush, then...Yes absolutely Gore would have. And that's ignoring that it would be political suicide not to in such a climate.
Ah but you also committ the sin of being too generalistic.
There is more than just just one tax. And they interact in many fascinating ways in hundreds of feedback loops that can cause the economy to eitehr speed up and grow or slow down and shrink. You can cause a short term gain while causing a long term loss in total revenue, and vice versa. Shall we raise all of them, or just personal income? What exemptions? What rate at what tiers? What incentives for desired outcomes (like green car tax breaks)?
Obama spent* as much (or slightly more) in 1 term than Bush did in 2.
*I disagree with the entire notion of saying "X spent" anything, as it really was Congress that did the spending, but for some reason everyone wants to blame just 1 very politically divisive guy instead of the 535 bickering schoolchildren we call Congress.
Most of which would have occured with or without Obama as the economy recovered from the recession in its normal course of evolution; no one (politically) has really done much of anything since the recession other than let the economy do what it does. That's all anyone really can do other than huge macro-scale adjustments that are teh equivalent of launching the nukes in warfare (everyone pays 50% more taxes! everyone pays no taxes! we just defunded teh entire military/welfare state!).
The recession technically ended in Aug/Sept 2009, soon after Obama took office. I suppose he gets credit for that too, instead of Bush and the congress of the time? Lets not forget that they didnt exactly sit their playing their violins while Wall Street burned.
And speaking of warfare, any president that went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan would have left with a larger debt and a budget deficit. Wars tend to do those things, they are expensive. A social equivalent would be expanding all social programs to cover twice as many people, without changing the incoming revenue stream that comes mostly from income taxes.
And both you and the guy below ("if bush started with a surplus....") fail to make the distinction between the Deficit and the Debt, and what "the Surplus" even was and how it applies to both.
So while you say "Instead of just parroting Fox News lies, why don't you present some facts to back up your fucking insane opinions" you aren't doing so hot yourself, and would do well to take your own advice, suitably modified for your biases, and likewise learn about that which you speak.
the scale of economy is far different in buying a phone vs buying a car.
a phone costs ~600$, subsidized by a contract. its easy to buy sell replace and trade phones, its not a tremendous chunk of personal income, and can even be lived without. and the level of competition is huge (phone mfr, phone type, service type, service provider).
a car costs ~15000-35000$. that is a sizeable chunk of income. it has to be financed through a loan for most people. most people cannot live without a car, its essential for getting to/from work, supplies for continued existence (re: food), etc. the level of competition is much lower, and different: handful of different brands (all owned/made by the same 2 or 3 different MFR conglomerates) all sold by the same 2 or 3 guys (Bob Moore's Toyota, Bob Moores Chevy/GMC/Jeep, bob Moore's Ford...Bob Howard's Chrysler/JHeep/GMC/Dodge, Bob Howard's Subaru).
In the case of cars, MFR dealers would quickly push the main source of competition, the local dealer, out of business, leaving the only source of competition the differeing brands, half of which isnt actually competition because they're owned by the same conglomerate. This isnt the case in phones because the local dealer isnt the primary source of diversity in competition. and unlike phones, a car purchase is a monumentally bigger decision, larger affect on your income and ability to live your life. most people cant just trade in their car after a few months if they dont like it; they have to stick by that car for several years. lowering the level of competition in car sales would only serve to increase the financial burder associated with car ownership
Also consider that franchising actually helps keep costs down. It's the same as the concept of "delegation of authority" to promote efficiency in command rather than one general try to micromanage an entire army. it also helps keeps money local; if the MFR owned the dealer, the local economy would shrink as a portion of the profits have to be sent home to mama, rather than staying in the local market.
If the local dealer is so bad, go into competition with him. By what you say you should easily be able to take all is customers.
And that's the point: you can compete against hte guy down the street, usually. You can't compete against a MFR owned dealer. They can subsidize losses made in your market driving you out of business with gains made two thousand miles away.
Honestly dont really care. Valve has been so lackluster with committment to completion since HL2 that I've ceased caring about their releases. If it releases, it releases, but I dont pay attention or anticipate it. Better things to do.'
It's like the opposite problem that 3DRealms had with Duke Nukem 4. Whereas the guy leading 3DRealms was overly committed to just this one game, and killed it by constantly insisting it had to include every new feature under the sun....Valve has a guy who cant committ to finishing or delivering that one game he promised. They bought TF and then took 8 years to release TF2. They made HL2, but didnt finish the story and promised this awesom enew episodic format to keep telling the story as it evolved....it took what, 3 years to give us Episode 2, 3 years for 4 hours of cliched story and gameplay? And now 6+ years later still no Episode 3 on the horizon. 4 years for Portal 2.
The company needs better direction, focus. All this lofty talk is fine, but that's all the company produces anymore: talk.
I will make no apologies. I like it cold. Grew up further north, higher elevation, mountain desert; ie, cold and dry.
Living the past 10 years in atlanta ga (and being stationed in several hot humid places before that by teh military) before moving recently was pure hell. And teh crappy apartments I could afford in ATL never had good AC. Barely got the moisture out of the air and temp below 84; I sweat like a stuck pig at anything over 72 or humidity higher than 40%, or some relationship in between. 100deg and 0 humid feels fine, better than 80+ deg and 80% humidity...and ATL was typically 100deg and 100% humid in summer. Pure hell.
Now I got nice place out in OK, with a GOOD A/C, and i'm loving it. And damn right I set that sucker at 68 in the summer and 72 in the winter.
Pretty sure my electric company isnt required to do any such thing. For one they dont purchase any energy. They produce and supply all the juice around here, and only just recently completed a massive windfarm in west OK.
now there's another difference. am I correct in reading that as a portion of everyones bill goes to renewable costs? probably in a weighted contribution/costs manner (ie, logical manner)
cause that's way different than most of the US (in fact not heard of anywhere in us doing it that way, though could be wrong). what they tend to do here (least the places i've lived) instead is you pay the normal rate for juice, however its made locally. and then if you want it from a "green source" cause youre "environmentally conscious", you can pay extra for electricy that comes from a green source...cause it's somehow different from normal electricity. and there was a big scandal recently cause someone found out they were paying the premium and it couldnt be determined just how much of their juice was from the regular old power plant down the road, cause the systems arent seperate.
Actually I wasnt making a point per se. Just the first thing my engineer brain latched onto cause thats how I analyze things: how to quantify the statements in relation to others. For all I knew they could be generating trillions of watts and using none cause everyone uses coal. I know thats not really the case, but just saying, having never been to Germany I have no idea, though I am told europe in general uses far less energy per household than we in the US do.
Two usage examples I know of off top my head: My grandparents use almost no electricy; enough to run the well pump and water heater on their farm, the AC/heater but only when needed (and for old people thats not often), and that's really about it. They pretty much sleep from dark to dawn so they dont use much light at night, and their house has plenty of natural light for the day, and they dont watch TV or use any other electronics really. And when their power does go out (often in way way rural california), grandpa just hits a switch inside the house and the generator sitting 200 feet away (for noise sake) kicks on.
On the other hand I use GOBS of it. My main computer draws a few kw/hrs of juice (nice gaming rig; the works), have an HTPC setup that constantly on and either downloading shows or reencoding my movie collection to NAS storage so can serve it up across the home network and watch it in any room. I keep the house around 68F, so that means loads of AC in the hot summers of OK. wife's computer. my "toy" workshop: power tools, arc welder, etc etc.
If you dont get credits or discounts for having seatbelts or running lights or other safety features...maybe you should do the capitalist thing....and get a better insurance company.
or you can do the typical/.'er thing and bitch about it while still handing over your money. oh and dont forget to blame the republicans for everything, even when its false.
Slashdot Mirror
thus do I refute your entire post:
the IQ metric has been upward adjsuted several times. IE, the baseline 100 point of today is higher compared to the baseline 100 they started with. this is because the collective average point has increased.
---
Has intelligence peaked? No. The hypothetical Athens man being transported to today is no more or less intelligent than everyone around him.
Has education peaked? Ahh. Here is the true reason the hypothetical Athens man would seem more intelligent.
His quality of education is better, broader, more rounded and more in depth than the average education of today. But that is true of education frm 100 yrs ago too. By the 8th grade students used to have begun learning 2nd and 3rd languages, physics (not just concepts but math), algebra, chemistry....Now you dont learn physics til Senoir year if not college, chemistry survey (easy, no math no thinking) in junior year, and we're lucky if they even took one semester of language or learned algebra before leaving high school.
THAT is why he would seem smarter. The capacity of intelligence isnt higher, merely the amount of training and the capability of thought. It's like anything: the more time you spend studying, thinking, learning, ie, the more time you spend exercising your brain, the better you are at using and applying it. Just like any other muscle.
that and your local BBB. Those sorts of organizations get their attention.
B.S.
Check your local sorority or grat house.
To what purpose? Doing it just to do it serves none. Like saying frm now all Ducks shall be called Nozzes! New label, same concept, no net change.
Not when the entire populace already knows how to think in one and not the other. Ever had to retrain an enitire corporation after a fundamental software package switchover? That would be a walk in teh park compared to this. Being able to think in a system of measurements is such a low level function of the brain its nearly impossible to completely retrain it to fluency levels in the new one. And the use of language related words is intentional because it's nearly at that level of brain function.
And most people who want this arbitrary change over fail to consider that. Just like they fail to consider that metric (or more accurately SI) has its own idiosyncracies. they ignore situations where its not as useful and that its not all easy conversions of 10. And ignore that our system of units has its own situations where its naturally superior or advantageous to use it over metric. (hydrology is a good example; several conversions reduce to 1.0x)
and with the massive amount of computing power located in your pocket right now, you really shouldnt fear any system of units. It's just math, and conversion is not particularly hard anyway...unless youre a disabled black kid in Virginia of course.
Don't leave behind incriminating evidence!
News at 11.
Not that clear cut. You forget that Bush didnt run on a militaristic ticket. The 2000 election wasnt about being tough on foreign policy at all. It, much like the most recent one, was all about the economy, and both tickets had similar (vague) stances on foreign issues. If Gore's advisors and intel weenies gave him teh same stuff they gave Bush, if public sentiment was the same, just cut to the chase and say everything was the same except swap Gore for Bush, then...Yes absolutely Gore would have. And that's ignoring that it would be political suicide not to in such a climate.
Ah but you also committ the sin of being too generalistic.
There is more than just just one tax. And they interact in many fascinating ways in hundreds of feedback loops that can cause the economy to eitehr speed up and grow or slow down and shrink. You can cause a short term gain while causing a long term loss in total revenue, and vice versa. Shall we raise all of them, or just personal income? What exemptions? What rate at what tiers? What incentives for desired outcomes (like green car tax breaks)?
Obama spent* as much (or slightly more) in 1 term than Bush did in 2.
*I disagree with the entire notion of saying "X spent" anything, as it really was Congress that did the spending, but for some reason everyone wants to blame just 1 very politically divisive guy instead of the 535 bickering schoolchildren we call Congress.
Most of which would have occured with or without Obama as the economy recovered from the recession in its normal course of evolution; no one (politically) has really done much of anything since the recession other than let the economy do what it does. That's all anyone really can do other than huge macro-scale adjustments that are teh equivalent of launching the nukes in warfare (everyone pays 50% more taxes! everyone pays no taxes! we just defunded teh entire military/welfare state!).
The recession technically ended in Aug/Sept 2009, soon after Obama took office. I suppose he gets credit for that too, instead of Bush and the congress of the time? Lets not forget that they didnt exactly sit their playing their violins while Wall Street burned.
And speaking of warfare, any president that went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan would have left with a larger debt and a budget deficit. Wars tend to do those things, they are expensive. A social equivalent would be expanding all social programs to cover twice as many people, without changing the incoming revenue stream that comes mostly from income taxes.
And both you and the guy below ("if bush started with a surplus....") fail to make the distinction between the Deficit and the Debt, and what "the Surplus" even was and how it applies to both.
So while you say "Instead of just parroting Fox News lies, why don't you present some facts to back up your fucking insane opinions" you aren't doing so hot yourself, and would do well to take your own advice, suitably modified for your biases, and likewise learn about that which you speak.
TLDR: Pot meet kettle.
the scale of economy is far different in buying a phone vs buying a car.
a phone costs ~600$, subsidized by a contract. its easy to buy sell replace and trade phones, its not a tremendous chunk of personal income, and can even be lived without. and the level of competition is huge (phone mfr, phone type, service type, service provider).
a car costs ~15000-35000$. that is a sizeable chunk of income. it has to be financed through a loan for most people. most people cannot live without a car, its essential for getting to/from work, supplies for continued existence (re: food), etc. the level of competition is much lower, and different: handful of different brands (all owned/made by the same 2 or 3 different MFR conglomerates) all sold by the same 2 or 3 guys (Bob Moore's Toyota, Bob Moores Chevy/GMC/Jeep, bob Moore's Ford...Bob Howard's Chrysler/JHeep/GMC/Dodge, Bob Howard's Subaru).
In the case of cars, MFR dealers would quickly push the main source of competition, the local dealer, out of business, leaving the only source of competition the differeing brands, half of which isnt actually competition because they're owned by the same conglomerate. This isnt the case in phones because the local dealer isnt the primary source of diversity in competition. and unlike phones, a car purchase is a monumentally bigger decision, larger affect on your income and ability to live your life. most people cant just trade in their car after a few months if they dont like it; they have to stick by that car for several years. lowering the level of competition in car sales would only serve to increase the financial burder associated with car ownership
Also consider that franchising actually helps keep costs down. It's the same as the concept of "delegation of authority" to promote efficiency in command rather than one general try to micromanage an entire army. it also helps keeps money local; if the MFR owned the dealer, the local economy would shrink as a portion of the profits have to be sent home to mama, rather than staying in the local market.
If the local dealer is so bad, go into competition with him. By what you say you should easily be able to take all is customers.
And that's the point: you can compete against hte guy down the street, usually. You can't compete against a MFR owned dealer. They can subsidize losses made in your market driving you out of business with gains made two thousand miles away.
Honestly dont really care. Valve has been so lackluster with committment to completion since HL2 that I've ceased caring about their releases. If it releases, it releases, but I dont pay attention or anticipate it. Better things to do.'
It's like the opposite problem that 3DRealms had with Duke Nukem 4. Whereas the guy leading 3DRealms was overly committed to just this one game, and killed it by constantly insisting it had to include every new feature under the sun....Valve has a guy who cant committ to finishing or delivering that one game he promised. They bought TF and then took 8 years to release TF2. They made HL2, but didnt finish the story and promised this awesom enew episodic format to keep telling the story as it evolved....it took what, 3 years to give us Episode 2, 3 years for 4 hours of cliched story and gameplay? And now 6+ years later still no Episode 3 on the horizon. 4 years for Portal 2.
The company needs better direction, focus. All this lofty talk is fine, but that's all the company produces anymore: talk.
Half-Life 2 Episode 3?
Left 4 Dead 3?
Portla 3?
Team Fortress 3?
doesn't matter. Still wont come out for another 10 years.
90 minutes that takes 4 hours to play and televise.
I will make no apologies. I like it cold. Grew up further north, higher elevation, mountain desert; ie, cold and dry.
Living the past 10 years in atlanta ga (and being stationed in several hot humid places before that by teh military) before moving recently was pure hell. And teh crappy apartments I could afford in ATL never had good AC. Barely got the moisture out of the air and temp below 84; I sweat like a stuck pig at anything over 72 or humidity higher than 40%, or some relationship in between. 100deg and 0 humid feels fine, better than 80+ deg and 80% humidity...and ATL was typically 100deg and 100% humid in summer. Pure hell.
Now I got nice place out in OK, with a GOOD A/C, and i'm loving it. And damn right I set that sucker at 68 in the summer and 72 in the winter.
Pretty sure my electric company isnt required to do any such thing. For one they dont purchase any energy.
They produce and supply all the juice around here, and only just recently completed a massive windfarm in west OK.
North Korea is a walking talking Orwell country
now there's another difference. am I correct in reading that as a portion of everyones bill goes to renewable costs? probably in a weighted contribution/costs manner (ie, logical manner)
cause that's way different than most of the US (in fact not heard of anywhere in us doing it that way, though could be wrong).
what they tend to do here (least the places i've lived) instead is you pay the normal rate for juice, however its made locally. and then if you want it from a "green source" cause youre "environmentally conscious", you can pay extra for electricy that comes from a green source...cause it's somehow different from normal electricity. and there was a big scandal recently cause someone found out they were paying the premium and it couldnt be determined just how much of their juice was from the regular old power plant down the road, cause the systems arent seperate.
Actually I wasnt making a point per se. Just the first thing my engineer brain latched onto cause thats how I analyze things: how to quantify the statements in relation to others. For all I knew they could be generating trillions of watts and using none cause everyone uses coal. I know thats not really the case, but just saying, having never been to Germany I have no idea, though I am told europe in general uses far less energy per household than we in the US do.
Two usage examples I know of off top my head:
My grandparents use almost no electricy; enough to run the well pump and water heater on their farm, the AC/heater but only when needed (and for old people thats not often), and that's really about it. They pretty much sleep from dark to dawn so they dont use much light at night, and their house has plenty of natural light for the day, and they dont watch TV or use any other electronics really. And when their power does go out (often in way way rural california), grandpa just hits a switch inside the house and the generator sitting 200 feet away (for noise sake) kicks on.
On the other hand I use GOBS of it. My main computer draws a few kw/hrs of juice (nice gaming rig; the works), have an HTPC setup that constantly on and either downloading shows or reencoding my movie collection to NAS storage so can serve it up across the home network and watch it in any room. I keep the house around 68F, so that means loads of AC in the hot summers of OK. wife's computer. my "toy" workshop: power tools, arc welder, etc etc.
Seems to me like patenting behaviour, and judgements based on it.
Either way. More proof the USPTO needs complete rebuilding.
...usage rates compare with other nations?
How much usage do they have compared to what's generated?
If you dont get credits or discounts for having seatbelts or running lights or other safety features...maybe you should do the capitalist thing....and get a better insurance company.
or you can do the typical /.'er thing and bitch about it while still handing over your money.
oh and dont forget to blame the republicans for everything, even when its false.
their mice are also uncomfortable as hell. presure points, ridges digging in....
no likey