The report compares running costs of a solar plant against the running costs of nuclear PLUS construction costs. Not only that but also chooses the most expensive plant designs, and takes the extremely high end estimates.
Fuel costs. Thorium fuel is plentiful and inexpensive; one ton worth $300,000 can power a 1,000 megawatt LFTR for a year – enough power for a city. Just 500 tons would supply all US electric energy for a year. The US government has 3,752 tons stored in the desert. US Geological Survey estimates reserves of 300,000 tons, and Thorium Energy claims 1.8 million tons of ore on 1,400 acres of Lemhi Pass, Idaho. Fuel costs for thorium would be $0.00004/kWh, compared to coal at $0.03/kWh.
Capital costs. The 2009 update of MIT’s Future of Nuclear Power shows new coal plants cost $2.30/watt and PWR nuclear plants cost of $4.00/watt. The median of five cost studies of molten salt reactors from 1962 to 2002 is $1.98/watt, in 2009 dollars. The following are fundamental reasons that LFTR plants will be less costly than coal or PWR plants.
The 4 largest political parties in Israel (there are 43 this election season) support the creation of a 2 state solution, the dividing of Jerusalem, and peace negotiations. Together they represent more than 80% of the voters.
Religious people in Israel are discriminated against, because it's the secular 70% that dominate the country.
20% of the population is Russians, who are secular thanks to a century of communism.
20% of the population is Muslim, who is religious or not is to complicated to get into.
5% is Christian or other.
60% is ethnically Jewish. Of that, 70% keep any kind of affiliation or cultural identity (ie 30% eat piggy). 1/2 have family meals on the holidays. And 1/3 (of the 60%) choose to keep "all" of the laws and customs.
The proportion of people who claim regular "church" visits, is less than the USA. In fact, Israel is the only place in the world where rabbinic financial arbitration has no force of law. There are religious aspects of the gov't that definitely exceed American standards for separation of church and state, but would be comparatively mild compared to British standards (the Israeli gov't structure is inherited from the Brits).
Calling Israel a religious state is pushing it.
In any case, the study has been peer reviewed (positively) in top Journals. The data was collected and analyzed according to scientifically accepted standards.
Actual research tells a different story. Communism, as evil as it is, is based on the idea of selflessness or at least the idea that humans are capable of acting selflessly.
A study last year, reviewed the success rate of Kibutzim in Israel (semi-autonomous communist enclaves). Love it or hate it, Israel is the only place in the world where Communism kinda sorta worked. The study broke down the Kibutzim (that's plural) into 2 groups, secular in religious. You can do that in Israel, because the divide between them is so huge, for ideological creations like Kibutizim, there is little grey area.
What they found was staggering. First, religious Kibutizim had 3 times the success rate(with 80% all Kibutzim failing after 60 years). Male members of kibutzim that met 3 times daily for communal prayer, were more likely to take care of children in the family, then those who didn't.
I live in Modi'in (in Israel), city of the future. Apparently in the future most people refuse to pick up the poop of their horse sized dogs. This isn't a problem only in my city, this is nation wide. It's a weird cultural thing.
In any case, we are electing a new mayor, and at a public debate we heard from all of the candidates. It was running neck and neck until one stood up and said he'd sick the gestapo on anyone who doesn't pick up after their pets. Judging by the reaction he got, dude is gonna win by a landslide!
This method would let any city clean up it's streets without hiring more cops, which sounds great to me.
First, I think what a lot of people have missed here is something basic: The market. Microsoft is not selling their product to the same people that Apple is selling to.
Your right, Apple buyers are not common folk. They are the elite of society. Buy a mac now and join them.
Microsoft has to please a lot more middle-aged corporate types,
But not 20 something start up companies, that they have nothing to do with.
and a lot of common types.
vote Obama.
Even the place this ad premiered reflects that - NFL football game. Not the Oscars, MTV Music awards, American Idol - NFL football game. Domain of white guys.
NFL... common people. Thank the stars they didn't air in during NASCAR their stock would be through the roof! Seriously are you for real? NFL, American Idol, and MTV=White guys to you? White guys are common folk?
Second, the point of the ad is not to advertise the product. Microsoft and their ad agency have probably done quite a bit of research and realized that the brand perception of Microsoft is mostly large, faceless, corporate machine.
Like Coke. Or... MTV... or the NFL... @#$@#$ I'm so white!
Insert 'evil' in there,
Exactly NFL, American Idol, MTV, and Microsoft, the Axis of EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!... Where the hell are my sharks with LASERS?
if you'd like.
I like.. I like...
The point of the ad is to put a human face on the company. "Oh look, Microsoft's founder has to buy shoes just like me!"
Or it's irony.. as in he no one really believes Bill $$$$ Gates actually shops at a discount store for shoes. It's funny get it? No? Well it wasn't that funny.
Jerry's contribution is to be annoyingly quirky, which allows Bill to be tolerant and 'humor' Jerry. The whole ad is Bill playing along even though you suspect he thinks Jerry is quite odd (also making Bill look not-so-odd by comparison.)
Jerry Seinfeld is not humored, he humors you, you don't humor Jerry Seinfeld.
Or it could just be that Bill Gates is tragically unfunny, and needs someone funny in a corporately provable way. The most financially successful sitcom in history fits the Bill.. get it... fit's the Bill... never mind.
The ad is effective for what Microsoft is trying to accomplish with it.
Which is what exactly? To win an election by putting a human side to Bill Gates?
I'm not sure what the goal of this commercial was, other than the setup for what they hope will be a series of commercials as memorable as Apples "I'm a PC" series. But their not off to a roaring start.
Except with us white guys... we just loved it!
Keep up the stereo types dude! Not sure where we'd be without those pearls of wisdom to carry us through the ages. Excuse me now, I'm going to go drink beer until I'm in a stupor, beat my wife, and get some sleep for my soulless corporate job tomorrow.
Copper gets expensive, so telecoms turns to fiber optic.
Steel becomes expensive, manufacturing turns to Aluminum.
This has been the pattern for the entirety of human history.
Actually when accounting for inflation, the value of these raw materials always DROPS in real terms. So unlike the parent, it doesn't go up then settle in the middle. The price goes way up, drives invention of alternatives, then when it's primary uses are replaced drops below it's original point. This pattern has held for as long as humans have kept records for us to analyze, all that changes is the scale of time needed to wait for a replacement technology.
It's not "anti-capitalist"(tm) to charge rent for common property. Granted there'd be a pretty hot debate about how much clean air is worth, but it could be generally assumed that it's worth allot. Let them pump mercury into the air, as long as they pay enough to the common fund (gov't) to compensate us. Again, that's ALLOT, especially with hysterical people.
It also solves the nuclear problem. What are you going to charge rent on? There are very few outputs into the local environment, and the operators are already paying for waste storage.
You still have the issue of government regulatory capture, where it eventually ends with the coal bosses bribing senators to lower the fees for polluting (sound familiar?). Smarter minds than mine would need to conceive a check on the power of regulators.
See I can't dissagree with most of what you said (other than Nukes being easier to uses than Thermal solar)
But you still didn't show any commercial reason for going to the Moon, Mars, and the great beyond.
The moon can at least be used for "low" value items, since shipping costs to earth are low. But until a large chunk of humanity is off the earth, most economic activity will be judged by it's value to earth.
For that, shipping costs are going to have to be analogous to 15th century maritime, at worst. Dropping stuff down "the well" is pretty cheap, shooting it half way around the solar system isn't.
Uranium and Thorium are in abundant supply here. And it's a world of cheaper to crack open old containers of un-recycled "spent" fuel, than to fly to the moon.
While were there though, why bother with nuclear reactors? Energy is hugely abundant, during daylight it's about 8-10kw per square meter, store in a thermal reservoir and your looking at round the orbit power. (Heat engines work REALLY well in space)
Sunlight and a shallow gravity well, might in and of themselves be huge resources. I'm not the first one to reference The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. But if water issues can be solved, then as a 3D farming colony it makes allot of sense. Food isn't going to get much cheaper in the foreseeable future, and were only making more babies.
""hot" for at least another hundred thousand years"
Something may be highly radio active or long lived, not both. In "HOT" terms, that's really hot for a little while, or kinda warm for a long time.
And once reprocessed there is very little waste. The amount of waste we produce now, is because Carter made recycling waste illegal, due to treaties with the Russians.
Last job I had they wanted me to sign an agreement to own what I did on my spare time. (like I had any) This is nothing compared to what they are asking for you.
I told them, it's a non-negotiable point: take it out. They did and later in the negotiation tried to get me to give a little saying "Well we removed the intellectual property clause". I had to remind them that that wasn't a negotiable point. That it should never have been in a contract with a work for hire employee to begin with.
Walk away, and tell your fellow employees to do the same.
The IT job market is hot, go find a job where they don't think that they own you.
I'm not a rabbi. Just a badly informed orthodox jew, and there are some common mistakes.
Nonsense. Ever hear of "menstrual shacks"? The idea is that when a woman is menstruating she is "ritually unclean" and has to be sepreated from the rest of the family and religious services as she might make them "impure".
It's a bad translation. The Hebrew words Tame & Tahor only relate to issues of ritual. IE. Someone who comes into contact with the dead is Tame (impure). That doesn't mean we don't revere our dead. Laws of purity are a spiritual issue, not relating to valuations of greater than or less than. Though some forms of impurity are more "difficult" or prohibit more activities. Earlier pre-diasporah forms of Judiasm dealt largely with it. Taharat Hamishpacha, is one of the few forms of this idea left. And it largely favors the woman. As it is often used by women to avoid abuse or to throw their weight around in the marriage.
Jewish law expressly regards women as being less valuable, a female slave is worth less, punishments for killing women are lower, etc.
Older male slaves are worth less than younger male slaves because they can do less work. It has nothing to do with feminism. It's just a fact that in an agrarian society someone who can pull a plow and build fences is worth more.
They are obviously much more important. Since men are only allowed to have religious education, and "traditional" Jewish live is based on theocracy, in traditional Judaism women are absolutely prohibited from engaging in political life. They have no vote, they have no say, except whatever influence they can have on their husbands. An unmarried woman in traditional Judaism is essentially powerless.
Limitations on a womans education are (more or less) recent. And in mainstream circles has been moving back to equality again. True women didn't have a vote. No one did. The first two Hebrew Dynasties had no democracy. Law was largely managed by a monarchy and a hierarchical judiciary. Women & children were forbidden from giving testimony or judging because they were easily physically intimidated. Again, life then is not as it is now; and how these customs project themselves into the modern era is a very long discussion. Men were required to learn, because they had to participate in court, and lead their families. Women were encouraged to learn more spiritual aspects (rather than legal) since they were the families primary educator and emotional (for lack of a better word) center.
For most of human history our actions have been defined by *need* not *should be*.
You're contradicting yourself. It was the Jews, for example, that started the practice of women covering their hair out of modesty.
I fail to see how women covering there hair is opressive. Do or don't, or leave. And it was only married women. Usually as a sign of marriage. Men take on similar customs. It's no different than wearing a wedding ring, or letting yourself grow a pot belly.
Jews expressly forbid homosexuality.
Guilty as charged. It's all written down. We were the first. I could hazard a few good reasons why, but it doesn't really matter.
Incidentally the Greeks and Romans didn't care much for homosexuality either, they just defined it differently. Every culture has taboos. Cay sara sara...
Look into the practices of the Essenes and other 1st century Jewish movements. Asceticism and anti-sex views were widespread long before the time of Jesus, though they certainly weren't EXCLUSIVELY Jewish.
The Essenes were (predictably) a small sect, and were not considered a main stream group. While Traditional Jews were never known for their free wheeling sex lives, there is a strong (STRONG) current against rabinic stringency that may interfere with a relations between married folks. Again, long discussion, but generally sex is not viewed as dirty, sinful, or evil when in a "proper" context.
The entire point of interdependence is to prevent conflict. If we know we can't fight a war without them, we sure won't fight it with them.
The goal is to have fewer wars, and spend more time getting everyone's standard of living up to scratch.
Self reliance is the road to poverty.
I have no trouble with European tax payers financing doomed, and redundant projects that don't service any existing need. I would just hope that European's would have a problem with it.
Canada has an active capalist economy, free trade with the USA, and demonstrates no existential threat. Why would the US attack? Occupation costs would wildly exceed the cost of just purchasing the raw materials. Not to mention the political upheval, of all the families that live on both sides of the border.
It is arguable that every war since the revolution (including the civil war) was faught over one or more of these things. (Spanish American war was faught over a percieved existential threat, Monroe Doctrine etc..)
side note: It would have been MUCH cheaper to buy the oil from Iraq, rather than fight either Gulf War 1 or 2. Oil is fungable so trade bariers are irrelevent. Either I'm wrong in my (hasty) cost analysis or some existential threat must have been percieved.
It's not a pill. It's a genetic modification. The rats aren't modified with a seritonin uptake inhibitor, they produce less seritonin. The only application is to filter out depression in the next generation.
People lobby congress to stop circumcision because it takes away a bit of skin from a child without asking first. But you think it's justifiable to remove a persons ability to feel sad?
One of the dangerous lines were comming to is Designer Babies/Hummans. What parrent wouldn't want to protect their child from every being sad? It IS a brave new world, and exactly those issues are the ones we will have to deal with.
In the 3rd world (there's and outmoded phrase), it is already common to abort female babies. In the west it is acceptable to take meds even for non-critical depressions.
Just like ultrasound is a great boon to medicine, it raises ethical issues based on cultures. While I take no issue with meds for those who NEED it, it is an American norm now to take it because "why should you have to suffer?"
We (hummans) are traditionaly not very good at drawing the fine line between good-fire and bad-fire.
Mice DON'T change the world. Mice invent new tools to save back breaking labor.
Mice don't feel taunted by the universe, to figure out it's secrets.
Mice don't get depressed because a loved one is dying of cancer, and work tirelessly seeking, supporting, and funding medical research. (then again I think Mice get the raw end of this particular desire of Man)
I am not a rat in cage.
I am not a tool to be made happy so I can work longer at a job I should hate.
Keep your chemical paradise, I'll take life for all it's worth.
"the books are translated, supposedly by experts, and translations have been around for a long time."
Translation is not adequate, by somone who claims to be a critic. It may suffice to compare competing views in translation, since the resulting debate may illuminate the missing gaps in translation. But translation in general, especialy between disparate language groups (ie Sanscrit, Romantic, Germanic) that don't match up well, you'll find a multitude of translations, often in blatant dissagreement with eachother.
Also, I know from personal experience much of the "Old Testament" text has dual/triple/quadrupal/etc.. meanings that are only relevent when you consider that the original language has now vowels, and is VERY context depedent. Often times standard interpretation is simultaniously divergent, and relys on the "pun" to carry it's meaning. Also the fact that english lacks gender congigation which introduces errors in to every sentence of translation. Also ancient Hebrew has very different ideas on past and future tenses... in fact it has no exculsively present tense. Future and Present are the same congegation, so a translator has to infer which applys most to a given phrase when translating it into ANY modern language; the problem is that the ambiguity between the two is often the point. That's just to get started, there are thousands of words that have no good translation to english, hundreds that were not 100% sure what they mean, and many that have no possible translation in any other language ("et").
As a rule of thumb languages of any variety don't translate 1 for 1, so MUCH is left up to the interpretation of the translator. Always check multiple independent sources, to infer the most correct meaning.
"The Rambam..." "fallacy of 'call to authority'. "
Call To Authority: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority Refers to refrence to authority in an unrelated field. Rambam was an authority in Abrahamic faiths an biblical criticisms. He is a refrence, and perfect example of a VALID authoratative refrence because he is well versed, lived in multiple cultures anti-thetical to his own (so was not the result of exclusive bias) and has published works of phylosiphy and biblical criticism that are read outside of his cultural sphere. In fact his ideas were so radical to even members of his own faith that he was, for a considerable amount of time, considered a heretic (he was eventualy vindicated, and the founder of much of modern jewish thought). This is not a biased, limited, thinker of a field forign to our discussion.
"'interested' human being, at that human being's level."
While this is the same as your narrow deffinition above, I wanted to address this seperately.
Yes, every humman being CAN be of 'faith' at their level. But lesser minds, require less proof. You can not expect somone of an IQ of 90 to understand even simplified biblical criticisms, by the same token you would expect somone with an IQ of 199 to do some due diligence before accepting them at face value. No different for religion. People who are less capable, may choose to believe on habit/faith, or in a greater individual they have grown to trust. People who are capable, can if they choose act as those less capable, or investigate the claims and philosphy of a system of though for themselves.
In a time like ours, where google can return thousands of divergant opinions and source materials, there is little excuse for somone of even moderatly higher intelegence to not find contradictory opinions, or at least verify the bias/authority of a source.
This is a back up system, not a single file compression (although for framed data like video, email, etc.. the compression scheme is still clever).
Basically it's a CVS, if your backing up multiple computers, or user directories your going to see tons of repeate files, heck they'll even be the same name. Saving the diffs is a good idea. And not at all dificult to duplicate.
For instance what if you were doing back up for a team of animators. Their files are HUGE, but 90% of the frames will be identical between the individual systems. (indeed the frames between one another will likely be very similar) You could get far more than 25x compression that way. The big downside of this idea is the memmory & CPU vs Speed trade off. You can't use this kind of system to back up to a tape or DVD system, it needs to be random access media.
You could probably get nearly the same results by hacking rsync and diffing identical file names in different directories. Possible bonus for diffing files of similar file type.
"all you need to be 'qualified' is to have a working mind."
I'm working at my computer when my wife, who works in fashion design, comes up to me and sees me struggling over Service ACL permissions. She offers her advice "Why don't you just try rebooting it?"... at which point I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything I might regret.
What makes you think that Religion is so simple that anyone of a cursory knowledge is 'qualified'? I'm not talking about being able to think, I'm talking about having a breadth of knowledge, and pattern of relations to use. Religions, most all of them over 500 years of age, are really complicated philosophical systems. The primary difference between Philosophy and Religion is the basis for common argument. Philosophy begins with observable details, a Religion often begins with a common set of rules or stories everyone agrees on.
As in Philosophy, most major religions have vast amounts of text and, more often than not, an oral tradition of how those texts are normativly interpreted. A perfect example is in the "Old Testament": Eye for an Eye. To Jews this has NEVER NEVER NEVER meant that if someone looses an eye, you pluck out the eye of the perpetrator. It has always meant equal value for equal damage, usually implying money as reparation. But you would never know that from the text alone. Translations make things far worse. (I say this as someone who's done some translating)
"show me the 'mystic' who can..."
Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from Magic. I'll pass on mystics. I'd rather have a Rabbi of knowledge and honesty. I hate hypocrites and they exist in every demographic. If G_d managed to create an optimal way of life, that seems like miracle enough for me.
"in terms of errancy,... you only need a 6th grade reading level"
If you know any 6th graders who are fluent in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Arabic, German, Yiddish, Russian, Parsi, and Ladino let me know their names. I want to meet these kid! FYI: To be considered knowledgeable in Judaism, those are the basic languages you need to know; translation will not suffice. Thank G_d Rashi never wrote commentary in French. (and yes, there are many people who know these languages and more; some of them are my neighbors)
If you aren't cabable of digesting the information yourself (in original text), then you are relying on the word of others who likely have a bone to pick.
Liturgy for Islam covers 1,600 years, Catholics span 2000 years, Jews have liturgy going back 3,500 years, Hinduism reaches a staggering 10,000 years; and these faiths have to their names philosophers who built the modern world, minds the likes of which we rarely if ever see. Maimonides, aka Rambam, was a famous bible critic and a devout Jew, most of his writings are in Arabic. If a super-rationalist like The Rambam had faith, where does that put us?
None of you, including me, are qualified for this debate... In fact I'd venture no one is.
Do you have ANY clue how much is written on G_d, gods, atheism, ant-theism, etc? By the time you've absorbed enough to be qualified you've probably spent the better part of your life doing it. And I've yet to meet the person who didn't have to take a side to support themselves (financially, or scholarly), by which point your obligated to stay to that side to avoid collapsing your entire house of cards. (Yeah, I'm aware this is a "slippery slope" argument, but if you can find a way, or better still an example off the slide I'd love to hear it)
Atheism, may or may not be a religion; but the way some people treat it, it might as well be. I believe this, you believe that; can't we all just get along? Granted, there will come a time when a religious issue goes to a vote. And if me and mine, choose to vote based on our personal moral values, that's not coercion: it's democracy. You do have the right to vote based on yours, the fact that there are more religious than non/anti-religious is irrelevant.
I understand why Christians/Muslims spend much time seeking to convince others of their faith, it's an (IMHO) unfortunate aspect of their belief. But why atheists get so hot under the collar every time G_d's name comes up, is a bit of a mystery to me. I spent the majority of my life as an atheist, and never once had the inclination to convince someone else to agree with me.
"religious apologists always turn the argument around saying 'god is beyond proof, you can't prove him'"
It's called un-falsifiable, and it's a two way street. If you could give proof to G_ds' existence or non-existence, G_d would instantly become an admissible component of scientific theory; the scientific community would either have to accept it or their own hypocrisy if they didn't. On the other hand I don't think it would have much affect on the worlds religions. Careful what you wish for.
"I'll refer you to 'bible errancy'"
Who's bible? And why does it matter? If ones life is happier for having "known G_d", then kay sara sara.
FYI: most 'bible errancy' is hog wash. Largely using peoples lack of knowledge on a subject against them, nit picking details that are resolved in other sources. I've rarely seen a 'bible errancy' that held up against a professional minister of faith (who ostensibly has a broad enough base of information to avoid, "not in this text" type errors).
1) George Carlin is not a quotable authority (especially after he sold out to Sprint)
2) It's either gods or God, the G is always capitalized in the singular. Just like Bob. It's not a religious thing, it's just good grammar.
3) Not every religion has a Master Plan. In fact many of the biggies don't (Judaism, Hinduism, etc..), or at least allow the players to change the game.
4) You are not that big a deal that your little life is going to mess up any Plan(tm). It's OK to pray for a new bike, the Plan(tm) will role on.
5) This is on a more personal note: My understanding of prayer is it's about the asking. The asking helps you realize how small you are, and that you do need help. My belief (as it was taught to me) is that G_d answers all prayers... just some times the answerer is "No".
6) Assuming that you are not hurting other people, and that the religion you observe makes your life HERE & NOW better, how can you choose a wrong religion?
One of my favorite stories: The Lubavitcher Rebbe (z'tzl) was giving out dollars (for the takers to latter give to charity) when a man approached who was obviously not religious. He was however courteous, polite, and curious. He said to The Rebbe : "Thank you, but I feel I have to confess; I don't believe in G_d". The Rebbe looked back at him and smiled "The same god you don't believe in, I don't believe in either."
If we assume that G_d angers when you pray to 'Him' with a different name, we must assume a Saddist G_d. If that were true, were pretty hosed no matter what.
It's my personal choice not to believe in that. Maybe it's a personal failing of mine, to intentionaly disregard half the equation. I'm happier for it.
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The report compares running costs of a solar plant against the running costs of nuclear PLUS construction costs. Not only that but also chooses the most expensive plant designs, and takes the extremely high end estimates.
Taken from http://energyfromthorium.com/:
Fuel costs. Thorium fuel is plentiful and inexpensive; one ton worth $300,000 can power a 1,000 megawatt LFTR for a year – enough power for a city. Just 500 tons would supply all US electric energy for a year. The US government has 3,752 tons stored in the desert. US Geological Survey estimates reserves of 300,000 tons, and Thorium Energy claims 1.8 million tons of ore on 1,400 acres of Lemhi Pass, Idaho. Fuel costs for thorium would be $0.00004/kWh, compared to coal at $0.03/kWh.
Capital costs. The 2009 update of MIT’s Future of Nuclear Power shows new coal plants cost $2.30/watt and PWR nuclear plants cost of $4.00/watt. The median of five cost studies of molten salt reactors from 1962 to 2002 is $1.98/watt, in 2009 dollars. The following are fundamental reasons that LFTR plants will be less costly than coal or PWR plants.
The 4 largest political parties in Israel (there are 43 this election season) support the creation of a 2 state solution, the dividing of Jerusalem, and peace negotiations. Together they represent more than 80% of the voters.
Religious people in Israel are discriminated against, because it's the secular 70% that dominate the country.
20% of the population is Russians, who are secular thanks to a century of communism.
20% of the population is Muslim, who is religious or not is to complicated to get into.
5% is Christian or other.
60% is ethnically Jewish. Of that, 70% keep any kind of affiliation or cultural identity (ie 30% eat piggy). 1/2 have family meals on the holidays. And 1/3 (of the 60%) choose to keep "all" of the laws and customs.
The proportion of people who claim regular "church" visits, is less than the USA. In fact, Israel is the only place in the world where rabbinic financial arbitration has no force of law. There are religious aspects of the gov't that definitely exceed American standards for separation of church and state, but would be comparatively mild compared to British standards (the Israeli gov't structure is inherited from the Brits).
Calling Israel a religious state is pushing it.
In any case, the study has been peer reviewed (positively) in top Journals. The data was collected and analyzed according to scientifically accepted standards.
Actual research tells a different story. Communism, as evil as it is, is based on the idea of selflessness or at least the idea that humans are capable of acting selflessly.
A study last year, reviewed the success rate of Kibutzim in Israel (semi-autonomous communist enclaves). Love it or hate it, Israel is the only place in the world where Communism kinda sorta worked. The study broke down the Kibutzim (that's plural) into 2 groups, secular in religious. You can do that in Israel, because the divide between them is so huge, for ideological creations like Kibutizim, there is little grey area.
What they found was staggering. First, religious Kibutizim had 3 times the success rate(with 80% all Kibutzim failing after 60 years). Male members of kibutzim that met 3 times daily for communal prayer, were more likely to take care of children in the family, then those who didn't.
Oh, and no I'm not pulling this out of my arse:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/322/5898/58
I live in Modi'in (in Israel), city of the future. Apparently in the future most people refuse to pick up the poop of their horse sized dogs. This isn't a problem only in my city, this is nation wide. It's a weird cultural thing.
In any case, we are electing a new mayor, and at a public debate we heard from all of the candidates. It was running neck and neck until one stood up and said he'd sick the gestapo on anyone who doesn't pick up after their pets. Judging by the reaction he got, dude is gonna win by a landslide!
This method would let any city clean up it's streets without hiring more cops, which sounds great to me.
First, I think what a lot of people have missed here is something basic: The market. Microsoft is not selling their product to the same people that Apple is selling to.
Your right, Apple buyers are not common folk. They are the elite of society. Buy a mac now and join them.
Microsoft has to please a lot more middle-aged corporate types,
But not 20 something start up companies, that they have nothing to do with.
and a lot of common types.
vote Obama.
Even the place this ad premiered reflects that - NFL football game. Not the Oscars, MTV Music awards, American Idol - NFL football game. Domain of white guys.
NFL... common people. Thank the stars they didn't air in during NASCAR their stock would be through the roof! Seriously are you for real? NFL, American Idol, and MTV=White guys to you? White guys are common folk?
Second, the point of the ad is not to advertise the product. Microsoft and their ad agency have probably done quite a bit of research and realized that the brand perception of Microsoft is mostly large, faceless, corporate machine.
Like Coke. Or... MTV... or the NFL... @#$@#$ I'm so white!
Insert 'evil' in there,
Exactly NFL, American Idol, MTV, and Microsoft, the Axis of EVIL! EVIL! EVIL!... Where the hell are my sharks with LASERS?
if you'd like.
I like.. I like...
The point of the ad is to put a human face on the company. "Oh look, Microsoft's founder has to buy shoes just like me!"
Or it's irony.. as in he no one really believes Bill $$$$ Gates actually shops at a discount store for shoes. It's funny get it? No? Well it wasn't that funny.
Jerry's contribution is to be annoyingly quirky, which allows Bill to be tolerant and 'humor' Jerry. The whole ad is Bill playing along even though you suspect he thinks Jerry is quite odd (also making Bill look not-so-odd by comparison.)
Jerry Seinfeld is not humored, he humors you, you don't humor Jerry Seinfeld.
Or it could just be that Bill Gates is tragically unfunny, and needs someone funny in a corporately provable way. The most financially successful sitcom in history fits the Bill.. get it... fit's the Bill... never mind.
The ad is effective for what Microsoft is trying to accomplish with it.
Which is what exactly? To win an election by putting a human side to Bill Gates?
I'm not sure what the goal of this commercial was, other than the setup for what they hope will be a series of commercials as memorable as Apples "I'm a PC" series. But their not off to a roaring start.
Except with us white guys... we just loved it!
Keep up the stereo types dude! Not sure where we'd be without those pearls of wisdom to carry us through the ages. Excuse me now, I'm going to go drink beer until I'm in a stupor, beat my wife, and get some sleep for my soulless corporate job tomorrow.
no, but the human mind does.
Copper gets expensive, so telecoms turns to fiber optic.
Steel becomes expensive, manufacturing turns to Aluminum.
This has been the pattern for the entirety of human history.
Actually when accounting for inflation, the value of these raw materials always DROPS in real terms. So unlike the parent, it doesn't go up then settle in the middle. The price goes way up, drives invention of alternatives, then when it's primary uses are replaced drops below it's original point. This pattern has held for as long as humans have kept records for us to analyze, all that changes is the scale of time needed to wait for a replacement technology.
Best comment on slashdot in years.
That's not capitalism, that's anarchy.
It's not "anti-capitalist"(tm) to charge rent for common property. Granted there'd be a pretty hot debate about how much clean air is worth, but it could be generally assumed that it's worth allot. Let them pump mercury into the air, as long as they pay enough to the common fund (gov't) to compensate us. Again, that's ALLOT, especially with hysterical people.
It also solves the nuclear problem. What are you going to charge rent on? There are very few outputs into the local environment, and the operators are already paying for waste storage.
You still have the issue of government regulatory capture, where it eventually ends with the coal bosses bribing senators to lower the fees for polluting (sound familiar?). Smarter minds than mine would need to conceive a check on the power of regulators.
See I can't dissagree with most of what you said (other than Nukes being easier to uses than Thermal solar)
But you still didn't show any commercial reason for going to the Moon, Mars, and the great beyond.
The moon can at least be used for "low" value items, since shipping costs to earth are low. But until a large chunk of humanity is off the earth, most economic activity will be judged by it's value to earth.
For that, shipping costs are going to have to be analogous to 15th century maritime, at worst. Dropping stuff down "the well" is pretty cheap, shooting it half way around the solar system isn't.
Uranium and Thorium are in abundant supply here. And it's a world of cheaper to crack open old containers of un-recycled "spent" fuel, than to fly to the moon.
While were there though, why bother with nuclear reactors? Energy is hugely abundant, during daylight it's about 8-10kw per square meter, store in a thermal reservoir and your looking at round the orbit power. (Heat engines work REALLY well in space)
Sunlight and a shallow gravity well, might in and of themselves be huge resources. I'm not the first one to reference The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. But if water issues can be solved, then as a 3D farming colony it makes allot of sense. Food isn't going to get much cheaper in the foreseeable future, and were only making more babies.
""hot" for at least another hundred thousand years"
Something may be highly radio active or long lived, not both. In "HOT" terms, that's really hot for a little while, or kinda warm for a long time.
And once reprocessed there is very little waste. The amount of waste we produce now, is because Carter made recycling waste illegal, due to treaties with the Russians.
Last job I had they wanted me to sign an agreement to own what I did on my spare time. (like I had any) This is nothing compared to what they are asking for you.
I told them, it's a non-negotiable point: take it out. They did and later in the negotiation tried to get me to give a little saying "Well we removed the intellectual property clause". I had to remind them that that wasn't a negotiable point. That it should never have been in a contract with a work for hire employee to begin with.
Walk away, and tell your fellow employees to do the same.
The IT job market is hot, go find a job where they don't think that they own you.
Nonsense. Ever hear of "menstrual shacks"? The idea is that when a woman is menstruating she is "ritually unclean" and has to be sepreated from the rest of the family and religious services as she might make them "impure".
It's a bad translation. The Hebrew words Tame & Tahor only relate to issues of ritual. IE. Someone who comes into contact with the dead is Tame (impure). That doesn't mean we don't revere our dead. Laws of purity are a spiritual issue, not relating to valuations of greater than or less than. Though some forms of impurity are more "difficult" or prohibit more activities. Earlier pre-diasporah forms of Judiasm dealt largely with it. Taharat Hamishpacha, is one of the few forms of this idea left. And it largely favors the woman. As it is often used by women to avoid abuse or to throw their weight around in the marriage.
Jewish law expressly regards women as being less valuable, a female slave is worth less, punishments for killing women are lower, etc.
Older male slaves are worth less than younger male slaves because they can do less work. It has nothing to do with feminism. It's just a fact that in an agrarian society someone who can pull a plow and build fences is worth more.
They are obviously much more important. Since men are only allowed to have religious education, and "traditional" Jewish live is based on theocracy, in traditional Judaism women are absolutely prohibited from engaging in political life. They have no vote, they have no say, except whatever influence they can have on their husbands. An unmarried woman in traditional Judaism is essentially powerless.
Limitations on a womans education are (more or less) recent. And in mainstream circles has been moving back to equality again. True women didn't have a vote. No one did. The first two Hebrew Dynasties had no democracy. Law was largely managed by a monarchy and a hierarchical judiciary. Women & children were forbidden from giving testimony or judging because they were easily physically intimidated. Again, life then is not as it is now; and how these customs project themselves into the modern era is a very long discussion. Men were required to learn, because they had to participate in court, and lead their families. Women were encouraged to learn more spiritual aspects (rather than legal) since they were the families primary educator and emotional (for lack of a better word) center.
For most of human history our actions have been defined by *need* not *should be*.
You're contradicting yourself. It was the Jews, for example, that started the practice of women covering their hair out of modesty.
I fail to see how women covering there hair is opressive. Do or don't, or leave. And it was only married women. Usually as a sign of marriage. Men take on similar customs. It's no different than wearing a wedding ring, or letting yourself grow a pot belly.
Jews expressly forbid homosexuality.
Guilty as charged. It's all written down. We were the first. I could hazard a few good reasons why, but it doesn't really matter.
Incidentally the Greeks and Romans didn't care much for homosexuality either, they just defined it differently. Every culture has taboos. Cay sara sara...
Look into the practices of the Essenes and other 1st century Jewish movements. Asceticism and anti-sex views were widespread long before the time of Jesus, though they certainly weren't EXCLUSIVELY Jewish.
The Essenes were (predictably) a small sect, and were not considered a main stream group. While Traditional Jews were never known for their free wheeling sex lives, there is a strong (STRONG) current against rabinic stringency that may interfere with a relations between married folks. Again, long discussion, but generally sex is not viewed as dirty, sinful, or evil when in a "proper" context.
I should let this lie but I can't.
The entire point of interdependence is to prevent conflict. If we know we can't fight a war without them, we sure won't fight it with them.
The goal is to have fewer wars, and spend more time getting everyone's standard of living up to scratch.
Self reliance is the road to poverty.
I have no trouble with European tax payers financing doomed, and redundant projects that don't service any existing need. I would just hope that European's would have a problem with it.
Canada has an active capalist economy, free trade with the USA, and demonstrates no existential threat. Why would the US attack? Occupation costs would wildly exceed the cost of just purchasing the raw materials. Not to mention the political upheval, of all the families that live on both sides of the border.
It is arguable that every war since the revolution (including the civil war) was faught over one or more of these things. (Spanish American war was faught over a percieved existential threat, Monroe Doctrine etc..)
side note: It would have been MUCH cheaper to buy the oil from Iraq, rather than fight either Gulf War 1 or 2. Oil is fungable so trade bariers are irrelevent. Either I'm wrong in my (hasty) cost analysis or some existential threat must have been percieved.
It's not a pill. It's a genetic modification. The rats aren't modified with a seritonin uptake inhibitor, they produce less seritonin. The only application is to filter out depression in the next generation.
People lobby congress to stop circumcision because it takes away a bit of skin from a child without asking first. But you think it's justifiable to remove a persons ability to feel sad?
One of the dangerous lines were comming to is Designer Babies/Hummans. What parrent wouldn't want to protect their child from every being sad? It IS a brave new world, and exactly those issues are the ones we will have to deal with.
In the 3rd world (there's and outmoded phrase), it is already common to abort female babies. In the west it is acceptable to take meds even for non-critical depressions.
Just like ultrasound is a great boon to medicine, it raises ethical issues based on cultures. While I take no issue with meds for those who NEED it, it is an American norm now to take it because "why should you have to suffer?"
We (hummans) are traditionaly not very good at drawing the fine line between good-fire and bad-fire.
Mice wake up, eat, sh!t and run on their wheel.
Mice DON'T change the world. Mice invent new tools to save back breaking labor.
Mice don't feel taunted by the universe, to figure out it's secrets.
Mice don't get depressed because a loved one is dying of cancer, and work tirelessly seeking, supporting, and funding medical research. (then again I think Mice get the raw end of this particular desire of Man)
I am not a rat in cage.
I am not a tool to be made happy so I can work longer at a job I should hate.
Keep your chemical paradise, I'll take life for all it's worth.
"'experiencing' god is of the same substance as being able to see or hear or experience emotions."
i on#Over-narrow_definitions
..."
This is an exclusively Christian idea. It also a clear logical fallacy of narrow deffinition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_definit
"the books are translated, supposedly by experts, and translations have been around for a long time."
Translation is not adequate, by somone who claims to be a critic. It may suffice to compare competing views in translation, since the resulting debate may illuminate the missing gaps in translation. But translation in general, especialy between disparate language groups (ie Sanscrit, Romantic, Germanic) that don't match up well, you'll find a multitude of translations, often in blatant dissagreement with eachother.
Also, I know from personal experience much of the "Old Testament" text has dual/triple/quadrupal/etc.. meanings that are only relevent when you consider that the original language has now vowels, and is VERY context depedent. Often times standard interpretation is simultaniously divergent, and relys on the "pun" to carry it's meaning. Also the fact that english lacks gender congigation which introduces errors in to every sentence of translation. Also ancient Hebrew has very different ideas on past and future tenses... in fact it has no exculsively present tense. Future and Present are the same congegation, so a translator has to infer which applys most to a given phrase when translating it into ANY modern language; the problem is that the ambiguity between the two is often the point. That's just to get started, there are thousands of words that have no good translation to english, hundreds that were not 100% sure what they mean, and many that have no possible translation in any other language ("et").
As a rule of thumb languages of any variety don't translate 1 for 1, so MUCH is left up to the interpretation of the translator. Always check multiple independent sources, to infer the most correct meaning.
"The Rambam
"fallacy of 'call to authority'. "
Call To Authority: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority
Refers to refrence to authority in an unrelated field. Rambam was an authority in Abrahamic faiths an biblical criticisms. He is a refrence, and perfect example of a VALID authoratative refrence because he is well versed, lived in multiple cultures anti-thetical to his own (so was not the result of exclusive bias) and has published works of phylosiphy and biblical criticism that are read outside of his cultural sphere. In fact his ideas were so radical to even members of his own faith that he was, for a considerable amount of time, considered a heretic (he was eventualy vindicated, and the founder of much of modern jewish thought). This is not a biased, limited, thinker of a field forign to our discussion.
"'interested' human being, at that human being's level."
While this is the same as your narrow deffinition above, I wanted to address this seperately.
Yes, every humman being CAN be of 'faith' at their level. But lesser minds, require less proof. You can not expect somone of an IQ of 90 to understand even simplified biblical criticisms, by the same token you would expect somone with an IQ of 199 to do some due diligence before accepting them at face value. No different for religion. People who are less capable, may choose to believe on habit/faith, or in a greater individual they have grown to trust. People who are capable, can if they choose act as those less capable, or investigate the claims and philosphy of a system of though for themselves.
In a time like ours, where google can return thousands of divergant opinions and source materials, there is little excuse for somone of even moderatly higher intelegence to not find contradictory opinions, or at least verify the bias/authority of a source.
This is a back up system, not a single file compression (although for framed data like video, email, etc.. the compression scheme is still clever).
Basically it's a CVS, if your backing up multiple computers, or user directories your going to see tons of repeate files, heck they'll even be the same name. Saving the diffs is a good idea. And not at all dificult to duplicate.
For instance what if you were doing back up for a team of animators. Their files are HUGE, but 90% of the frames will be identical between the individual systems. (indeed the frames between one another will likely be very similar) You could get far more than 25x compression that way. The big downside of this idea is the memmory & CPU vs Speed trade off. You can't use this kind of system to back up to a tape or DVD system, it needs to be random access media.
You could probably get nearly the same results by hacking rsync and diffing identical file names in different directories. Possible bonus for diffing files of similar file type.
It's a clever idea, not a radical new technology.
"all you need to be 'qualified' is to have a working mind."
... you only need a 6th grade reading level"
I'm working at my computer when my wife, who works in fashion design, comes up to me and sees me struggling over Service ACL permissions. She offers her advice "Why don't you just try rebooting it?"... at which point I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything I might regret.
What makes you think that Religion is so simple that anyone of a cursory knowledge is 'qualified'? I'm not talking about being able to think, I'm talking about having a breadth of knowledge, and pattern of relations to use. Religions, most all of them over 500 years of age, are really complicated philosophical systems. The primary difference between Philosophy and Religion is the basis for common argument. Philosophy begins with observable details, a Religion often begins with a common set of rules or stories everyone agrees on.
As in Philosophy, most major religions have vast amounts of text and, more often than not, an oral tradition of how those texts are normativly interpreted. A perfect example is in the "Old Testament": Eye for an Eye. To Jews this has NEVER NEVER NEVER meant that if someone looses an eye, you pluck out the eye of the perpetrator. It has always meant equal value for equal damage, usually implying money as reparation. But you would never know that from the text alone. Translations make things far worse. (I say this as someone who's done some translating)
"show me the 'mystic' who can..."
Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from Magic. I'll pass on mystics. I'd rather have a Rabbi of knowledge and honesty. I hate hypocrites and they exist in every demographic. If G_d managed to create an optimal way of life, that seems like miracle enough for me.
"in terms of errancy,
If you know any 6th graders who are fluent in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Arabic, German, Yiddish, Russian, Parsi, and Ladino let me know their names. I want to meet these kid! FYI: To be considered knowledgeable in Judaism, those are the basic languages you need to know; translation will not suffice. Thank G_d Rashi never wrote commentary in French. (and yes, there are many people who know these languages and more; some of them are my neighbors)
If you aren't cabable of digesting the information yourself (in original text), then you are relying on the word of others who likely have a bone to pick.
Liturgy for Islam covers 1,600 years, Catholics span 2000 years, Jews have liturgy going back 3,500 years, Hinduism reaches a staggering 10,000 years; and these faiths have to their names philosophers who built the modern world, minds the likes of which we rarely if ever see. Maimonides, aka Rambam, was a famous bible critic and a devout Jew, most of his writings are in Arabic. If a super-rationalist like The Rambam had faith, where does that put us?
good grief...
None of you, including me, are qualified for this debate... In fact I'd venture no one is.
Do you have ANY clue how much is written on G_d, gods, atheism, ant-theism, etc? By the time you've absorbed enough to be qualified you've probably spent the better part of your life doing it. And I've yet to meet the person who didn't have to take a side to support themselves (financially, or scholarly), by which point your obligated to stay to that side to avoid collapsing your entire house of cards. (Yeah, I'm aware this is a "slippery slope" argument, but if you can find a way, or better still an example off the slide I'd love to hear it)
Atheism, may or may not be a religion; but the way some people treat it, it might as well be. I believe this, you believe that; can't we all just get along? Granted, there will come a time when a religious issue goes to a vote. And if me and mine, choose to vote based on our personal moral values, that's not coercion: it's democracy. You do have the right to vote based on yours, the fact that there are more religious than non/anti-religious is irrelevant.
I understand why Christians/Muslims spend much time seeking to convince others of their faith, it's an (IMHO) unfortunate aspect of their belief. But why atheists get so hot under the collar every time G_d's name comes up, is a bit of a mystery to me. I spent the majority of my life as an atheist, and never once had the inclination to convince someone else to agree with me.
"religious apologists always turn the argument around saying 'god is beyond proof, you can't prove him'"
It's called un-falsifiable, and it's a two way street. If you could give proof to G_ds' existence or non-existence, G_d would instantly become an admissible component of scientific theory; the scientific community would either have to accept it or their own hypocrisy if they didn't. On the other hand I don't think it would have much affect on the worlds religions. Careful what you wish for.
"I'll refer you to 'bible errancy'"
Who's bible? And why does it matter? If ones life is happier for having "known G_d", then kay sara sara.
FYI: most 'bible errancy' is hog wash. Largely using peoples lack of knowledge on a subject against them, nit picking details that are resolved in other sources. I've rarely seen a 'bible errancy' that held up against a professional minister of faith (who ostensibly has a broad enough base of information to avoid, "not in this text" type errors).
"If the delusional belief in an imaginary man who lives in the sky comforts you them I feel sorry for you."
Then you have no reason to feel sorry for me. I have no anthropormorphic fantasies, or psykic trauma in need of "comfort".
I was mearly pointing out efficacy of prayer regardless of "supernatural" effects.
There are many benefits to belief that have nothing to do with G_d.
PS: If there is a G_d (and the jurry is forever out on that), bonus.
1) George Carlin is not a quotable authority (especially after he sold out to Sprint)
2) It's either gods or God, the G is always capitalized in the singular. Just like Bob. It's not a religious thing, it's just good grammar.
3) Not every religion has a Master Plan. In fact many of the biggies don't (Judaism, Hinduism, etc..), or at least allow the players to change the game.
4) You are not that big a deal that your little life is going to mess up any Plan(tm). It's OK to pray for a new bike, the Plan(tm) will role on.
5) This is on a more personal note: My understanding of prayer is it's about the asking. The asking helps you realize how small you are, and that you do need help. My belief (as it was taught to me) is that G_d answers all prayers... just some times the answerer is "No".
6) Assuming that you are not hurting other people, and that the religion you observe makes your life HERE & NOW better, how can you choose a wrong religion?
One of my favorite stories: The Lubavitcher Rebbe (z'tzl) was giving out dollars (for the takers to latter give to charity) when a man approached who was obviously not religious. He was however courteous, polite, and curious. He said to The Rebbe : "Thank you, but I feel I have to confess; I don't believe in G_d". The Rebbe looked back at him and smiled "The same god you don't believe in, I don't believe in either."
If we assume that G_d angers when you pray to 'Him' with a different name, we must assume a Saddist G_d. If that were true, were pretty hosed no matter what.
It's my personal choice not to believe in that. Maybe it's a personal failing of mine, to intentionaly disregard half the equation. I'm happier for it.