At Cape Canaveral, there is a complete Saturn V launcher on display at the Visitor's Centre. This is like the Great Pyramid of space missions -- a complete, working example of a device to put men on the moon.
Wrong on both counts - it's niether complete, nor working. It's missing (among other things) the entire IU (Instrument Unit), which contains the flight computers, most of the telemetry systems, the guidance unit...
Unfortunately, they chose to lay the rocket on its side, which it was never designed to do. So structurally, the device was completely destroyed and is now useless, having even lost much of its value as an engineering archive.
Who needs a full scale one when the entire plans and manuals are still available? Even if it was 'whole' - it's with the plans and manuals that they engineers would spend most (99.99%+) of their time with, not drooling over the hardware like fanboi's.
FWIW - the portions of your message that I didn't reply do are even less correct than those which I did.
I doubt this is viable for passenger aircraft. The risk of interference is simply too high; commercial airliners are expected to take lightning strikes as they fly in and near electrical storms. Military aircraft must tolerate hostile attacks on signaling systems, particularly radio systems.
On the other hand, there are a large and growing number of UAV applications for which this is probably well suited. UAV loiter time is a high priority; less weight translates directly to better performance. UAV maintenance and repair could be greatly simplified by eliminating signal cables throughout the vehicle.
On the gripping hand, this increases the vulnerability and detectability of the UAV - two things that real world UAV designers go to great lengths to minimize.
A standard compliant website more or less guarantees that your website will work atleast decently now, tomorrow and in the far future.
Sure - as long as those far future browsers can render any tags that you've used, that have been deprecated between the time you wrote the page and the browser was coded.
I agree with you very infrequently, but this is one of those infrequent times. Either someone who is good at coding is on a major "hoiler-than-thou", ethics spree or this is the result of a bigger source hiring this person.
Or the author is just being an asshole and attacking things that people feel are important - like 99.99% of such authors across the history of computing.
That's the questions. Not whether that rice has super-human powers. Is it fertile? Can the farmer put away some of his harvest for next year to plant a new crop or is the outcome of the rice sterile?
If it does, is he allowed to? May he actually plant that rice without a new license for next year? No kidding, some (very popular) sorts cannot be used anymore because the company holding the rights (yes, there is rights and patents on food. Go figure) doesn't allow using it anymore.
Try actually reading the TFA - this isn't a crop for human cultivation and consumption in the third world. The rice is merely the growth media for medical drugs. The rice is ground up and the proteins extracted and further processed.
"...which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries"(think of the children!)
You know what helps people hydrate? Water. Clean water and food can prevent diarrhea. All that money going into genetically engineered crops.
Oh yeah... no profit in that.
Actually, there's considerable profit in providing infrastructure (I.E. water, and power for food preservation). But, unsurprisingly - a bioengineering firm is promoting bioengineering methods rather than infrastructure.
Why not fix the socio-political problems of these regions so the infrastructures -> people can become healthy?
In many areas the West has tried to do exactly that - but then they are pilloried for meddling where they aren't wanted.
Actually, synchronization is less important than it used to be, because more stuff is buffered. All three US television networks used to be locked together in frame sync to a master clock in New York, so that video sources could be switched without all the TV receivers rolling for a few frames. Now everything goes through frame buffers, so that's not an issue.
Similarly, US telephony used to be locked to a master clock in New Jersey, so that all the T1 lines ran in sync and bit for bit transfer worked. That's not as important as it used to be, with so many different transmission media, some synchronous and some packetized.
OTOH, financial markets are now global and nearly 24/7 - their need for synchronization has *increased*. (Ditto for airline ticket scheduling.) Air traffic routing has to pack increasing numbers of aircraft into a finite amount of sky near major airports - guess what has happened to their need for syncronisation?
So, yes - synchronization is less important *for some applications*.
Seriously... about how many people out there actually need to know NTP to this degree? Anyone have a rough estimate? I can't imagine any one organization would have to dedicate an individual to this sort of thing or would they?
Anyone writing hard real time distributed applications will need to know NTP this deep, or deeper. So figure, at least a couple of dozen or more individuals in the brokerage sub section of the financial world *alone*.
Functionally, there are multiple difference between investments and savings
There are differences, yes.
But it's differences of *degree* more than it fundamental differences. Fundamentally they're the same, they differ in the details, along a continum. Some investments are more liquid than others, some have higher risk than others, some have higher expected return than others. Different investment-scenarios mean different strategies make sense. We all agree on this.
We just don't agree that there exists some magical barrier separating "savings" from "investments", rather those are points along a continous function.
I never claimed there was a magical barrier. What I claimed was that though they are fundementally identical from the academic point of view - they are not functionally identical from the real world point of view. From this first point of view, there is nothing wrong with the OP placing short term savings into risky equities - because they are *fundementally* the same. From the second point of view - there is something deeply wrong with that action, because of the *functional* differences between the two.
One confuses the academic with the real-world at the real world risk of real money.
You're rigth in principle, in practice though the difference between saved and invested is smaller the longer the perspective is. (and for a girl aged 22, saving for retirement is very long-term)
You'd have a point if the portion of the OP that I quoted and discussed dealt with retirement vice short term savings.
There's absolutely no way to make 100% certain that a certain value is "saved". Yes, there's more risky and there's less risky ways.
Certainly. But the OP boasted of how proud she was of her savings rate - and how it was supposed to protect them against having to dip into their retirement funds in the event of financial problems (job loss). Choosing risky investments in place of savings is exactly the wrong way to go about that.
But in general, putting say 25K in *diverse* funds investing in all the major world markets and simply letting them sit there the next 30 years is very very VERY likely to give a nice boost to your pension.
It's also dead-on certain to give you some *very* scary times along the way - but if you can ride it out, you will get a nice boost to your pension.
But the OP isn't talking about pensions - she's talking about (and I replied to the portion discussing) short term savings.
Only to one who massively clueless to start with. To those not clueless, I'm enjoying a fascinating discussion/debate.
As of now, you've done nothing to clarify the distinction between savings and investments, except to imply that any money you invest may as well be flushed down the toilet, from a financial planning perspective.
'Financial Planning for Dummies' and 'Investing for Dummies' are both excellent books for those seeking to understand the difference. I am however afraid they may be above your comprehension level.
Certainly - I've never debated that, nor engaged in the semantic games that others are doing.
What I am doing is refusing to call Red just a 'low frequency Blue'. We have different names for thing for good reasons - in this case, because the risk, liquidity, and tax implications are dramatically different between savings and equities or securities. Even though, in the abstract, they are the same thing - real world financial planning does not take place on the abstract plane, but in the real world.
Some countries in the middle east intend to no longer take the USD as the standard currency for oil . The intend to switch away from fiat currency, aka monopoly money for lack of a better analogy to gold.
A scaremongering claim that's been bandied about since the Oil Crisis - over thirty years ago. (Mostly because switching to a currency your customers don't use is generally a bad idea. OPEC is vain, self centered, etc... etc... - but they aren't stupid.)
OTOH - they is the very real possibility that they may switch from one fiat currency (U$D) to another (Euros).
If they switch to gold it will seriously impact the US.
It'll play king hell with economy of the whole world - decidely not in OPEC's interest.
Actually, there is a very good reason why investment and savings are considered to be the same thing: it's because they basically *are* the same.
No, no financial professional considers them to be the same. (The slicker elements of the of the financial profession like to blur the line - because they make commissions off of investment churn, and none off of savings.) The risk v. reward ratio is, to put it mildly, extraordinarily different. (Not to mention tax issues.)
In essence (and I'm glossing over a lot of my Monetary Policy class in college), the bank is making an investment on your behalf. They charge a higher interest rate to the loan recipient than they pay you to keep your money "saved" with them -- this is how banks make a profit.
In essence, there is no functional difference between a bottle rocket and a Minuteman III at that level of generalization. In reality, they make investments (on the behalf of the account owner) - and pay a fixed and predictable sum on a liquid balance. (The return on investments on the other hand is unpredictable, and may even be negative, and liquidity is a variable.) Functionally, there are multiple difference between investments and savings - and you cannot ignore those differences in your financial planning.
In truth, savings and investment are considered more-or-less the same thing by economists today, because in the end, they *are* the same thing.
From they ivory tower point of view - I imagine that's true. From here outside the walls of the tower, it simply isn't.
I'm in a two-income no-kids (DINK) situation. I'm still paying off student loans. We live very comfortably but I have a strict 20% to retirement rule. For the past two years (roughly) we've been putting 30% into general savings.
However, as such, that money is invested quite aggressively. I make stock purchases that tend to be risky. Of course, it has paid off even in the short run, with the 30% savings pushing near 45% annual gain (not including additional cash put in).
In other words, you are fooling yourself by mixing terms - because you have 30% of your income invested, not saved.
It is nice to know that just on the general 30% savings one of us can be without work for years and we'd never have to tap retirement.
Only if you continue to be lucky and have your investments turn out so well. Am unlucky streak could leave your investments valueless and find you without savings. If one of you loses your job at that point - whoops! Tapping into retirment becomes your first option rather than your last.
As an aside; I find this confusion between investments and savings common among youngsters lacking financial education.
Are you suggesting his only job option then is to do some kind of "blue collar" or "manual labor" job?
No.
Perhaps if I didn't have a mortgage, bills, or a wife, I could consider getting a part time job somewhere and go back to school.
Or go back to school part time. (My wife got here CPA certificate (which requires a bachelors degree) that way for example.)
Your pithy answer seems to indicate that you are either relatively young, or just damn secure in the job (and/or skills) you have.
Nope. Just someone who has sacrficed much to get ahead. I joined the Navy because that was the only way I could get college money - but when I got out, I had a wife and bills. So I worked two jobs to keep ahead of them (and so my wife could go to school), then bought one of the two businesses I worked at. (Only to lose it post-911.) Back to work I went at another menial job so my wife could finish school - now she has a good job, and I'm getting another business going. When it comes to sacrifice, been there, done that.
I don't think I nor the original poster wants "something for nothing" as you put it.
Every line of your reply, like the OP's summary, drips of exactly that. A desire for pity and something for nothing. ('Maybe', 'I could', 'someday', etc....) Much is available to you - but you'll never get it pissing and moaning and accepting that status quo.
It's just one of many steps towards increasing the efficiency of our society. Long-term, we're going to beat the oil shortage by decreasing our energy usage,
We could reduce our [petroleum based] energy usage to zero - and we still wouldn't have beaten the shortage. (Hint: Petroleum is used for much more than energy - much, much, much, much more.) The rising consumer prices aren't just about rising gas prices.
Rising oil prices means the feedstocks used to produce fertilizers get more expensive. (Which feedstocks comes from petroleum.)
Rising oil prices means the feedstocks used to produce clothes get more expensive. (Which feedstocks comes from petroleum.)
Rising oil prices means the feedstocks used to produce medicines get more expensive. (Which feedstocks comes from petroleum.)
Etc... Etc...
Much attention is given to preserving out automobiles - but damm little to the many other underpinnings of civilization which depend on petroleum.
But just how fancy are we talking here? I don't think this analogy is valid, ESPECIALLY in today's world. 'Fancy' usually amounts to an Olive Garden or some other such chain restaurant, whose prices are reasonable.
Fancy may amount to that to the uneducated, (understanding food, like understanding tech, takes experience and education) - but I can take you to at least four different restaurants in my town where you can get gourmet cooking at Denny's prices.
If we were talking about the 1600's, this would be a different story, of course. Fancy restaurants were all the rage, because it wasn't about being full, it was about impressing people.
It would be awful hard to impress someone with a fancy restaurant in the 1600's - they didn't exist. The modern restaurant is a child of the French Revolution.
"At this point in my life (with a family, kids, and bills), going back to school just isn't an option anymore."
The just give up now. Getting ahead requires sacrifices - and it appears you aren't willing to make any, you want something for nothing. Ain't happening.
Which I gotta put on you, Taco. When clients do that to me (I am a graphic designer by trade), I know what I am getting into, which is a client who has nonsensical, nostalgic attachment to elements that simply do not work. That stuff doesn't typically end up in my portfolio.
In other words, what ends up in your portfolio is what feeds your (very obviously) outsized ego - and not what actually satisfied the customers.
And the artistes wonder why everyone is so down on them.
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW - the portions of your message that I didn't reply do are even less correct than those which I did.
Try reading the TFA and learning something about rice cultivation.
So, yes - synchronization is less important *for some applications*.
One confuses the academic with the real-world at the real world risk of real money.
But the OP isn't talking about pensions - she's talking about (and I replied to the portion discussing) short term savings.
What I am doing is refusing to call Red just a 'low frequency Blue'. We have different names for thing for good reasons - in this case, because the risk, liquidity, and tax implications are dramatically different between savings and equities or securities. Even though, in the abstract, they are the same thing - real world financial planning does not take place on the abstract plane, but in the real world.
OTOH - they is the very real possibility that they may switch from one fiat currency (U$D) to another (Euros).
It'll play king hell with economy of the whole world - decidely not in OPEC's interest.As an aside; I find this confusion between investments and savings common among youngsters lacking financial education.
All sucesses, none having a plot.
Rising oil prices means the feedstocks used to produce fertilizers get more expensive. (Which feedstocks comes from petroleum.)
Rising oil prices means the feedstocks used to produce clothes get more expensive. (Which feedstocks comes from petroleum.)
Rising oil prices means the feedstocks used to produce medicines get more expensive. (Which feedstocks comes from petroleum.)
Etc... Etc...
Much attention is given to preserving out automobiles - but damm little to the many other underpinnings of civilization which depend on petroleum.
And the artistes wonder why everyone is so down on them.