You seem to think that our society runs "on automatic" and that government interference is "bad"
Yes, societies largely run on automatic, and less government interference generally leads to better outcomes for societies.
The NEWS for you is that the entire reason we have a petroleum infrastructure and gas stations and roads and cars is because the GOVERNMENT "persuaded" people to adopt them.
We have a petroleum "infrastructure" because petroleum is useful and can be sold at a profit.
Road building is, of course, a proper government function, but mostly for local and state governments, to address specific transportation needs. There is a proper role for the federal government in building roads, but it is much more limited than the role it currently takes.
Why don't you TRY to speculate on what the price of gasoline would be if the government were not interfering. Trust me you won't like the answer.
Gasoline is sold in democracies, dictatorships, centrally planned economies, free market economies, etc. When you take away taxes and government subsidies, the price of gasoline is pretty similar across the world in non-oil producing countries at least.
I'm disappointed that someone who feels that the free market will provide is using roads that are provided by the tax payers. We should cut this budget cost and move it to the road users.
I can't tell whether you're trying to be sarcastic or simply didn't express yourself well. But to be clear: I disapprove of many of the things the federal government spends my tax dollars on. But given that I am forced to pay for them, of course, I'm going to use them. It is in no way inconsistent to argue against them. In fact, as a supposed beneficiary of a tax-payer provided service, one is in the best position to argue against it, because if even the supposed beneficiaries of a service consider it better left to the market, there is probably something wrong.
Personally, I think the federal government should shift much more of the responsibility for roads and other transportation issues more to state and local governments.
Like many things, it's a matter of degree. Occasional instances of social coercion or secrecy by church officials don't make an organization a cult, but frequent and widespread instances do. Catholicism is more cultish than other forms of Christianity, LDS is far more cultish than Catholicism, and Scientology is even more cultish that LDS. Somewhere we need to draw a line. I've listened to some of the hair raising stories of ex-LDS members, and I think LDS clearly crosses the line.
I don't see how the two are related. You can use "metric screws" in a non-metric system and vice versa. It's not like every dimension of every part in metric-system countries has dimensions that are integral multiples of metric units.
The details are somewhat complicated, but in most cases the Berne convention is better than current US law. For example, under the Berne convention, copyrights for movies only last 50 years (Article 7 (2)), but under US law is 95 years. Copyrights for a new book last 70 years after the author's death under US law, but only 50 years after the author's death under the Berne convention (Article 7 (1)). For photographs, the term is 25 years under Berne (Article 7 (4)), and 70 years after the photographer's death in US law.
No, the Berne convention isn't "better", it merely sets minimum requirements. All European members have stronger requirements than the minimum set by Berne. The reason the Berne convention isn't more severe than it is is probably that the US opposed it.
I think it would be very useful to pass a law in the US that the copyright term should be the minimum of current law or the Berne convention.
I think that would be good. But I think the most disastrous part of the Berne convention is the fact that it makes registration requirements impossible; registration requirements would eliminate a lot of the legal problems with copyrights: orphan works, takedown notices by people who don't own the rights, verification of ownership, etc.
The Berne convention isn't just obsolete, it should never have been adopted in the first place. Its most odious aspect is the prohibition of registration requirements, creating the large orphan works problem we have now.
The irony about the Berne convention is that Europeans pushed for it thinking that they would be the largest beneficiaries under it because Europe had traditionally been so culturally productive. But it turned out that it was instead a boon to the US movie and music industries, and they have learned to play the copyright game very well. Now, Europeans are crying foul even though they are responsible for the mess in the first place.
"Integrated GPS navigation with built-in maps" - several third party apps already available
"A full sized USB port. Two of them, even better, but I'd settle for one." - there are some tablets that have one; but the small connectors are quite standard and adapters are very cheap; just leave the adapter on the USB stick
"A better "swiping" keyboard" - Swiftkey 3 beta and Jellybean keyboard are already available
"Daylight readable screen of some kind" - you'll need two devices for that; some companies may offer e-ink cases linked via bluetooth
"Hardware toggles for cameras and all wireless capabilities" - not gonna happen; switches are expensive; for camera, use tape or a case that closes, for wireless, just use a widget
"HDMI out: This is common enough on recent tablets" - the smaller HDMI connectors are pretty standard; you can get a tiny adapter for less than a dollar
a) reducing energy need. If you can craft a car today while producing 20 tons of CO2 no one prevents you to craft the same car tomorrow by producing only 10 tonns of CO2
You're back to claiming that energy savings are going to do it. You cannot reduce the energy used by devices year after year; they can only be 100% efficient. Energy savings buy you a few years even if you could do it across the board.
(Your statements about energy savings are so out of touch with basic math and physics that one has to wonder whether you paid any attention in high school at all.)
by switching to CO2 neutral energy production... In the long run, but forseeable time frame, lets say 40 years, we have to phase out all CO2 producing energy production.
Of course "we have to". But to get there, we need tons of innovation, production of solar cells, production of nuclear power plants, etc. All of that takes tons of energy, R&D. If you mess with the energy supply now through forced carbon emission reductions, that is going to take longer, making the problem worse. Worse yet, developing nations are not going to develop as fast, leading to faster growth in population.
Kyoto was harmful, and it's good that it failed. Instead, efforts against global warming should be based on education and R&D. Countries should also eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and start charging more for licenses for resource extraction.
Then by that reasoning, the Patent Office shouldn't be able to invalidate a previously granted patent, and yet they can.
No, not at all. Reversing an administrative decision and making a decision in a dispute between two parties are two entirely different things.
However, the argument that the ITC shouldn't be allowed to rule on the validity of patents just because they are part of the Executive branch makes no sense at all.
It may not make sense to you. But we have a dispute between two parties, and a decision is worth billions of dollars. That is not the kind of thing that should be decided administratively, it is something that should be decided in the courts, using proper legal processes.
1) What branch do you think the Patent Office is part of?
Do you have trouble understanding the difference between granting a patent and challenging a patent?
The ITC can't actually invalidate a patent, they can only "find a patent invalid"
My, you are fond of stating the obvious. You are also splitting hairs.
The ITC makes decisions on the validity of patents and imposes what effectively amounts to remedies and penalties. The fact that they can be challenged in federal court does not change the fact that they are acting like a court themselves. But unlike a court, they aren't bound by the rules by which normal legal proceedings have to be conducted.
Apart from the problems with the patent system, the ITC is out of control. The ITC is part of the executive branch and has no business adjudicating the validity of patents. There needs to be a serious house cleaning at the federal level; unfortunately, the guy to do it didn't even get invited to the debates.
And draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions would make that situation worse.
Your response:
WTF I'm tired to hear this myth all over again that saving energy lowers your standard ov living...
That's a total non-sequitur. Did I say that "saving energy" lowers anybody's standard of living? No. I said that draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions impede economic development. And you know it too:
I did not say that by being more efficient we can stabilize the CO2 level. To do that CO2 output must be stopped completely.
But over 80% of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels right now. To "stop CO2 output", we have to eliminate all that (plus some other sources of CO2). You tell me how we are going to do that in the foreseeable future without harming the economy seriously.
And I'm tired of people like you waving their hands and parroting the absurd notion that through increased energy efficiency, we can stabilize CO2 emissions. That is obviously mathematically impossible.
I started writing a lengthy explanation, as well as the relationship between economic growth, carbon emissions, and hunger:m but I realized it's pointless: holding such bizarre beliefs, you either lack even a high school level understanding of chemistry and mathematics, or you simply suspend all rational thought when it comes to politics and ideology.
Climate change is still critically important because it affects the global food supply.
World hunger isn't due to our inability to produce food or lack of arable land, it's due to lack of economic development. And draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions would make that situation worse.
If we are dumping shit everywhere and burning carbon because it's "cheap" we can do something about it.
And how are "we" going to do that? Do you think China or India or Africa or Russia give a damn about what "we" decide? European and American voters get irate if their economies aren't growing fast enough; do you think they're going to reelect any government that's going to spend tons of money on reducing carbon emissions?
"We" can't even bring ourselves to helping refugees, or living up to our international aid commitments, or making many our drug patents available for generic use overseas, actions that are trivial compared to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. Look at the lack of results of Doha or all the other previous conferences. "We" have been importing cheap "shit" from South America and Asia, knowing full well that the way it is produced is destructive of the environment and rain forest, and nobody gives a damn.
It's hard to say if you are trolling or just an idiot
The idiot is you, because you believe that global warming is somehow different than all the other issues that we have failed to act on. With the current political situation in the world, everybody looks out for their own interests first. Given the current political situation, there is nothing any government can do to reduce global carbon emissions meaningfully.
Carbon emissions will fall on their own when technology makes burning coal and oil obsolete. I think that's going to happen within a few decades. But it will happen with or without government intervention.
A shift will need to take place in the priorities of those in the "First World" regarding water usage, diet, food and crop priorities, etc;. The overly consumptive lifestyle we have been used to will need to become a thing of the past.
That's been the prediction since Malthus and it has never come true. Agricultural productivity has been growing so fast that arable land will increasingly become disused over the next few decades.
Even if the prediction were true, it wouldn't make much of a difference. As meat and other food products become more difficult to produce, their prices rise, and people would switch to something cheaper.
A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.
You are absolutely right.
We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.
And you're absolutely right there as well. The only place where you err is that you ignore all the other statistical drifts that are going on all around you, some for the better some for the worse. Global warming is just one, and a fairly minor one at that.
You're a serious part of the problem when others are trying to discuss rational ways to curb this disturbing trend.
It's getting hotter, there's nothing we can do about it, and there is no way of "curbing" it, rational or otherwise. You need to "pull your head out of your ass" and start facing reality.
Do you have any idea how hard it is for people to get serious and effective mental health treatment? Half the medical insurance companies don't pay it or charge rediculous copays. For the government to do anything he would have to have been arrested and that usually leads to prison, not quality mental health care.
Lanza's father is a corporate executive. The kid grew up in a $1.6m home. His parents were well educated. Median household income in Newtown is $90000. These are well-off people in an affluent community.
If your comments show one thing, it is how people like you just fabricate facts to support their ideology. I find it sickening that you misuse a tragedy like this to push a political agenda.
This country spends more per capita on mental health than almost any other nation, and it has been at the forefront of modern mental health care and legal frameworks for mental health care.
And, yes, you get better health care if you're willing to pay for the higher insurance premiums. What's the problem with that?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, societies largely run on automatic, and less government interference generally leads to better outcomes for societies.
We have a petroleum "infrastructure" because petroleum is useful and can be sold at a profit.
Road building is, of course, a proper government function, but mostly for local and state governments, to address specific transportation needs. There is a proper role for the federal government in building roads, but it is much more limited than the role it currently takes.
Gasoline is sold in democracies, dictatorships, centrally planned economies, free market economies, etc. When you take away taxes and government subsidies, the price of gasoline is pretty similar across the world in non-oil producing countries at least.
I can't tell whether you're trying to be sarcastic or simply didn't express yourself well. But to be clear: I disapprove of many of the things the federal government spends my tax dollars on. But given that I am forced to pay for them, of course, I'm going to use them. It is in no way inconsistent to argue against them. In fact, as a supposed beneficiary of a tax-payer provided service, one is in the best position to argue against it, because if even the supposed beneficiaries of a service consider it better left to the market, there is probably something wrong.
Personally, I think the federal government should shift much more of the responsibility for roads and other transportation issues more to state and local governments.
Like many things, it's a matter of degree. Occasional instances of social coercion or secrecy by church officials don't make an organization a cult, but frequent and widespread instances do. Catholicism is more cultish than other forms of Christianity, LDS is far more cultish than Catholicism, and Scientology is even more cultish that LDS. Somewhere we need to draw a line. I've listened to some of the hair raising stories of ex-LDS members, and I think LDS clearly crosses the line.
Do you just like being rude ("RTFM") or do you have an actual point?
I don't see how the two are related. You can use "metric screws" in a non-metric system and vice versa. It's not like every dimension of every part in metric-system countries has dimensions that are integral multiples of metric units.
Lots of cults and criminal organizations use charity to try to improve their image, so that's meaningless.
What distinguishes a cult from a religion is the use of social pressure and secrecy, and LDS has both.
No, the Berne convention isn't "better", it merely sets minimum requirements. All European members have stronger requirements than the minimum set by Berne. The reason the Berne convention isn't more severe than it is is probably that the US opposed it.
I think that would be good. But I think the most disastrous part of the Berne convention is the fact that it makes registration requirements impossible; registration requirements would eliminate a lot of the legal problems with copyrights: orphan works, takedown notices by people who don't own the rights, verification of ownership, etc.
The Berne convention isn't just obsolete, it should never have been adopted in the first place. Its most odious aspect is the prohibition of registration requirements, creating the large orphan works problem we have now.
The irony about the Berne convention is that Europeans pushed for it thinking that they would be the largest beneficiaries under it because Europe had traditionally been so culturally productive. But it turned out that it was instead a boon to the US movie and music industries, and they have learned to play the copyright game very well. Now, Europeans are crying foul even though they are responsible for the mess in the first place.
"Integrated GPS navigation with built-in maps" - several third party apps already available
"A full sized USB port. Two of them, even better, but I'd settle for one." - there are some tablets that have one; but the small connectors are quite standard and adapters are very cheap; just leave the adapter on the USB stick
"A better "swiping" keyboard" - Swiftkey 3 beta and Jellybean keyboard are already available
"Daylight readable screen of some kind" - you'll need two devices for that; some companies may offer e-ink cases linked via bluetooth
"Hardware toggles for cameras and all wireless capabilities" - not gonna happen; switches are expensive; for camera, use tape or a case that closes, for wireless, just use a widget
"HDMI out: This is common enough on recent tablets" - the smaller HDMI connectors are pretty standard; you can get a tiny adapter for less than a dollar
You're back to claiming that energy savings are going to do it. You cannot reduce the energy used by devices year after year; they can only be 100% efficient. Energy savings buy you a few years even if you could do it across the board.
(Your statements about energy savings are so out of touch with basic math and physics that one has to wonder whether you paid any attention in high school at all.)
Of course "we have to". But to get there, we need tons of innovation, production of solar cells, production of nuclear power plants, etc. All of that takes tons of energy, R&D. If you mess with the energy supply now through forced carbon emission reductions, that is going to take longer, making the problem worse. Worse yet, developing nations are not going to develop as fast, leading to faster growth in population.
Kyoto was harmful, and it's good that it failed. Instead, efforts against global warming should be based on education and R&D. Countries should also eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and start charging more for licenses for resource extraction.
No, not at all. Reversing an administrative decision and making a decision in a dispute between two parties are two entirely different things.
It may not make sense to you. But we have a dispute between two parties, and a decision is worth billions of dollars. That is not the kind of thing that should be decided administratively, it is something that should be decided in the courts, using proper legal processes.
Do you have trouble understanding the difference between granting a patent and challenging a patent?
My, you are fond of stating the obvious. You are also splitting hairs.
The ITC makes decisions on the validity of patents and imposes what effectively amounts to remedies and penalties. The fact that they can be challenged in federal court does not change the fact that they are acting like a court themselves. But unlike a court, they aren't bound by the rules by which normal legal proceedings have to be conducted.
No, this smacks of protectionism, something both conservatives and liberals are fond of; remember, this ruling comes from the ITC.
Apart from the problems with the patent system, the ITC is out of control. The ITC is part of the executive branch and has no business adjudicating the validity of patents. There needs to be a serious house cleaning at the federal level; unfortunately, the guy to do it didn't even get invited to the debates.
My statement:
Your response:
That's a total non-sequitur. Did I say that "saving energy" lowers anybody's standard of living? No. I said that draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions impede economic development. And you know it too:
But over 80% of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels right now. To "stop CO2 output", we have to eliminate all that (plus some other sources of CO2). You tell me how we are going to do that in the foreseeable future without harming the economy seriously.
And I'm tired of people like you waving their hands and parroting the absurd notion that through increased energy efficiency, we can stabilize CO2 emissions. That is obviously mathematically impossible.
I started writing a lengthy explanation, as well as the relationship between economic growth, carbon emissions, and hunger:m but I realized it's pointless: holding such bizarre beliefs, you either lack even a high school level understanding of chemistry and mathematics, or you simply suspend all rational thought when it comes to politics and ideology.
No, what I am saying is that enough nations fortunately are still sane enough not to agree to such limits.
Good, and I hope it stays that way.
World hunger isn't due to our inability to produce food or lack of arable land, it's due to lack of economic development. And draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions would make that situation worse.
And how are "we" going to do that? Do you think China or India or Africa or Russia give a damn about what "we" decide? European and American voters get irate if their economies aren't growing fast enough; do you think they're going to reelect any government that's going to spend tons of money on reducing carbon emissions?
"We" can't even bring ourselves to helping refugees, or living up to our international aid commitments, or making many our drug patents available for generic use overseas, actions that are trivial compared to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. Look at the lack of results of Doha or all the other previous conferences. "We" have been importing cheap "shit" from South America and Asia, knowing full well that the way it is produced is destructive of the environment and rain forest, and nobody gives a damn.
The idiot is you, because you believe that global warming is somehow different than all the other issues that we have failed to act on. With the current political situation in the world, everybody looks out for their own interests first. Given the current political situation, there is nothing any government can do to reduce global carbon emissions meaningfully.
Carbon emissions will fall on their own when technology makes burning coal and oil obsolete. I think that's going to happen within a few decades. But it will happen with or without government intervention.
That's been the prediction since Malthus and it has never come true. Agricultural productivity has been growing so fast that arable land will increasingly become disused over the next few decades.
Even if the prediction were true, it wouldn't make much of a difference. As meat and other food products become more difficult to produce, their prices rise, and people would switch to something cheaper.
You are absolutely right.
And you're absolutely right there as well. The only place where you err is that you ignore all the other statistical drifts that are going on all around you, some for the better some for the worse. Global warming is just one, and a fairly minor one at that.
It's getting hotter, there's nothing we can do about it, and there is no way of "curbing" it, rational or otherwise. You need to "pull your head out of your ass" and start facing reality.
Lanza's father is a corporate executive. The kid grew up in a $1.6m home. His parents were well educated. Median household income in Newtown is $90000. These are well-off people in an affluent community.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248782/Adam-Lanza-How-classmates-remember-genius-turned-heartless-killer.html
If your comments show one thing, it is how people like you just fabricate facts to support their ideology. I find it sickening that you misuse a tragedy like this to push a political agenda.
This country spends more per capita on mental health than almost any other nation, and it has been at the forefront of modern mental health care and legal frameworks for mental health care.
And, yes, you get better health care if you're willing to pay for the higher insurance premiums. What's the problem with that?
OK, sounds like nothing has changed.