I'm a physicist. The mm-wave scanner is EM radiation. It is not ionizing radiation, but it's in a band whose health effects haven't been studied well. A lot of evidence is starting to emerge that mm-waves can cause skin cancer.
It is not as safe as a sonogram. It may be comparable to a cell phone, but is probably a little worse. The people who are most in danger from the machine are the operators, who stand next to it all day long.
I refuse to go into the mm-wave scanner, but since they've come onto the scene I've flown several times and only seen one of them...and that one was optional. I've flown in and out of San Fran, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and DC without anyone pushing me into a scanner. As long as they remain an optional screening method I don't have a problem with them. I have no problem requesting a patdown -- hell, I'll strip naked and walk through the magnetometer if they like. But I do understand that parents may be concerned about their children. If the scanner possibly damages their body and the patdown potentially damages their mind, what option does the overprotective parent have?
How buggy is it? I intend to use Google+ eventually, and I wouldn't mind jumping in now. But I don't want to deal with buggy software, and I do not like beta testing. I want a finished and polished service. If it isn't to that point yet then I'm willing to wait for it; I'm a patient guy.
I work with remote sensing satellites, and I was lucky enough to have been invited to the launch of Landsat 7 in 1999. While its launch vehicle was not as big as the space shuttle's, we were allowed to be closer to it.
It is an amazing thing to realize that we humans can throw something up so hard and so fast that it cannot come back down.
Thank you, that list of quick reviews is *very* useful.
I tried Champions last night. I've been wary of the title because of the bad blood between it and my beloved City of Heroes, but I thought that if I didn't need to give Cryptic any money it couldn't hurt to get a taste of the game. My first impression is that it's not bad but it breaks immersion in all the wrong ways. There's too much complication in game mechanics that should be simple (the dizzying variety of equipment that doesn't seem to have any real effect, for example), and too much simplification where there should be depth (such as in combat, which is more button-mashing than strategy, at least so far in the low level game).
As far as it being free to play, they give you a lot of stuff for free. You get maybe half of the costume options available, and with a character creator as rich as theirs that's a lot. The big drawback is that you only get two character slots, and only one costume slot on each of them. In a game that encourages alt characters that's something you'd want to pay to improve.
Thanks to your review I think I'll try Global Agenda tonight.
Steam timed this rollout of free games just right. I was expecting to play Duke Nukem for most of the summer...but yeah, that's not gonna happen. Glad to have other options.
Astute point, Seth. The doctor isn't shutting up his patients, he's just making a copyright grab for whatever reviews they write.
If I were a patient who had a bad experience with such a doctor, I'd write plenty of bad reviews. I'd write a couple thousand words of bad review every day, and post them to multiple sites all over the internet. I'd write a robot to re-post them every few days. Sure, the doctor owns them all and he can spend as much time as he wants chasing them down and having them removed. I guarantee that I can write enough libel to choke his secretary's efforts to purge the net of any bad reviews.
Sure, I'd lose whatever yelp and other social media accounts I used, but I can register for more of those. It also would bring up an interesting legal question -- could they try to sue me for copyright infringement, even though the work that is copyrighted doesn't exist until I create it? Can a copyright lawsuit prevent the creation of new original work? That's a situation I'd call the EFF about, if it came to pass.
Whatever lawyer advised the doctor to use this contract gave him bad advice. Push it just a little and it makes life very difficult for the doctor.
Statistically speaking, Gliese 581d is giving us tons of new information. Before, the known statistics on habitable planets could have been as low as one in the entire observable universe -- we suspected the chances might have been better, but we didn't *know*.
With Gliese 581d we can now estimate that the chance of finding a habitable planet is somewhere around one in every 20 cubic lightyears of volume. That's huge. We can extrapolate that into all sort of statistical estimates for number of habitable planets in the galaxy, and work our way up the Drake equation to an estimate of our our species' longevity.
Terrorists could just go to the next mall in kill 1000 people with a bomb. Or they could go to a train station and kill 500 people. They could just go to the next restaurant and kill 50 people.
But if a terrorist attacked a mall or a restaurant, only that mall or that restaurant elicits fear from the public. If the terrorist attack airplanes, all airplane travel becomes suspect. In this way the terrorist impacts the entire US economy, instead of just ruining one local mall or restaurant.
They could have the same effect by attacking the train system, but it's not used as much as the air travel system and isn't as tied in with the economy. They'd have a bigger economical impact by attacking freight trains, but then nobody would die and they wouldn't get the fear response they want.
Remember, the point of terrorism is to frighten the public into both altering electoral outcomes and damaging the economy of their country. If the target's government or economy fails, the terrorists win. It doesn't matter how many of their restaurants you take out.
You were misinformed. A source I read said that Obama gave the 'go' order to the special ops guys during the Royal wedding.
That brings up an interesting image. Bin Laden, lounging in his chair watching TV with tears of joys in his eyes as William puts the ring on Kate's finger...and then gunfire erupts around him.
It is puzzling. The best explanation I've heard is that burial at sea within 24 hours of death fulfills Islamic tradition, but does not leave a shrine for terrorists to flock to.
The only way this works politically, however, is if they took lots of pictures and video of the corpse as proof of identity. I expect those to come out before long.
It took an outrageous fortune, and celebrating death is never a good thing, but this man was hated so much by so many that you can't begrudge them their celebration. No one mourns the wicked.
I agree with you. However, I suspect that the ops involved had orders along the lines of "Top priority: Capture Bin Laden alive. Second priority: Kill him and capture the body. The mission will be considered a failure if Bin Laden is killed and we do not get custody of the body."
I'm certain we went in there with the goal to capture him for trial -- if nothing else, the political gains would have been so much greater that way. But he fought back, and it's very hard to capture someone alive if they'd rather die. On the whole it's still a win for the good guys.
I had an idea for the perfect Kickstarter project, one that would be sure to reach its funding. Sadly, I cannot do it myself.
Think -- what, above all else, does the internet desire? The answer is porn. And what has been the unreachable goal, as far as porn is concerned? Zero-gee porn. People want to have sex in zero-gee, they want to know what it's like to have sex in space, and they will pay to watch the first ever porn made in outer space.
The new commercial spaceflight company Virgin Galactic is selling tickets to the edge of space for $200,000 a pop.
I'd need three tickets -- one for myself, one for my partner, and one for a cameraman. We'd have 5-10 minutes of zero-gee to make our film. Virgin Galactic's permission might be a problem, but I get the feeling they'd do almost anything for money.
I'm certain that a Kickstarter project for amateur porn filmed in space could bring in $600,000 worth of pledges. For incentives we could give still shots at low contributions, a copy of the film at higher levels...maybe give away articles of clothing that were discarded during the flight to the big sponsors.
I think it's a terrific idea. I think the concept could go viral. I think the pledges might actually appear.
I also think my girlfriend would kill me for even suggesting it, so I can't do it myself. But someone should. Preferably someone with a hot, porn-star girlfriend.
I see a huge difference in the criticisms given to both China and the US.
Clinton criticized China for detaining its own artists and dissidents. China is criticizing the US for civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, for mistreating prisoners of war, and for targeting Wikileaks.
It's pretty plain that China is being accused of mistreating its own people, while the US is being accused of mistreating everybody else. Yes, there were some comments about poverty and the US prison system, but the bulk of criticisms of the US concerned how we treat non-US-citizens. The US government allows its own citizens to have expansive human rights. We just don't afford those rights to foreigners.
Now, there is a lot of hypocrisy there -- we should treat non-citizens with as much respect as our citizenry. But there's no real comparison to China. A country who treats its own citizens better than everyone else is much, much better than a country who mistreats everyone equally. Given the choice between a hypocrite and someone who's outright evil, I'll choose the hypocrite every time.
This is fun and all, but there's an error in the dropbox code. If you select anything but the first option, it becomes a permanent change to the article. But if you try to select the first option it remains a dropbox -- the selection doesn't take.
I noticed on this story because as a Shepherd, meeting potential romantic sheep is pertinent to my interests.:)
What looks 'better' varies by person, but in general anything goes when making an image beautiful to the eye. The Russians are using more infrared bands than most NASA images do, and their images have a lower sun angle. Both of these bring out details in the imagery.
If you want to see more images taken in infrared bands, take a look at the Earth as Art exhibit hosted by the USGS. (NASA is credited on some of them because it was involved with the satellites. And for full disclosure, I should mention that I personally created many of the images in the EaA exhibits.) We chose and created these pictures for aesthetic quality -- we wanted them to look good rather than be useful for science. But there are no photoshop tricks. Some of them are just using wavelengths of light that you cannot see with human eyes.
I think the point of this entire press release by the Russians is that they are savvy about public relations, and had enough foresight to distribute images that looked good instead of images with immediate scientific value. Not every government agency adopts that strategy -- we often try to wow the scientists first and the public later.
Oh, sure, all those radioactive isotopes sound frightening, but they're nothing compared to the real threat that's been found. Those reactor buildings are full of dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO). This nasty chemical kills more people every year than all radiation sources combined. Just in the past few weeks in the area around the Fukushima power plant, a massive spill of DHMO killed thousands of people.
The news media is hyping up some minor radioactivity but they're ignoring the true threat. I hope they start talking about DHMO soon.
You've got it the wrong way around. When the universe was hotter, it was unfolded. It *might* unfold again if we heat it up enough...but that won't help us space jump, it'll just destroy everything. It would be like slicing an apple into thin strips and scattering the slices over a field.
Now, if we could somehow cool the universe to the 5D transition point, then the universe will fold and we might be able to create a hyperspace jump. But there is a slight danger that we'd destroy time in the process. I am quite relieved that experiments of this type will not be done until long after I'm dead and gone.
therefore, the only real emergency solutions i see, correct me if i am wrong, is either: 1. get some new backup generators there asap, or 2. run some emergency electrical lines to the power plant asap
Boron has two uses; one, it melts and then evaporates quickly, which sucks a lot of energy out of any fire it hits, and two, it's a neutron absorber, which kills any runaway criticality in the core. It's the right tool for the job. I just wonder why a country so dependent on nuclear power doesn't keep an emergency supply of boron on hand. Maybe it was hubris; maybe they thought things would never get this bad.
You're all missing the point. If you read other interviews by the Rovio execs, you'll see that the gameplay is almost secondary for them. What they consider innovative about their game is that there are birds, and they are angry, and their enemies are pigs and there's a good reason for them to hate each other.
Rovio is all about the business of innovative Intellectual Property -- the story, the backstory, and the emotional appeal of their game. And they have a point. If Angry Birds had been a game about launching brightly colored balls into abstract towers for no apparent reason it would not have done so well. But the gameplay isn't the innovative part; their innovation is the compelling storyline and the IP that Angry Birds represent. Console games are not as innovative about creating new IP, with almost every console game being a sequel of previous games or a movie tie-in.
Of course, now that Rovio has a winning IP, they are going to ride it into the ground. Which kind of makes their arguments about 'innovative IP' pretty hypocritical. If they come up with another hit using a new storyline and cast of characters, then I might give them some chops in the innovation department.
The planet is a different problem. If we consider just this country (the United States), birth rates are very low. Most of our population growth is via immigration. So that's not the problem here.
Attempting to fix the entire planet's problems through social engineering will require a world government. That might be an answer, although it brings up additional problems.
So you can no longer comment anonymously. Start up a secret identity. I've been using one since 1994.
Oh, did you think 'Remus Shepherd' was my real name? It's a pseudonym, and hopefully one that no one can connect to my real name, even if a judge orders them to do so. I'm sure it's not bulletproof, but every layer is another court precedent that has to happen before your anonymity can be taken away.
YES competition is always more innovative than a government monopoly. That is a self-evident truth, because the many produce more ideas than the one.
I don't buy that. Competition is very, very good at incremental improvements that retain the power structure of their markets, but very bad at revolutionary innovation that creates new markets.
The internet is a prime example; corporations have added on to it, but we are still using the same TCP/IP and HTTP protocols that were developed by government research grants 15 or 25 years ago. The landline phone companies still give twisted pair copper lines to a majority of customers in the US, because they can't be arsed to make expensive innovations for a tiny improvement in their profit.
Automobiles are another example. Auto manufacturers have been scared to break out of the gasoline model. Electric cars were economically viable in 1910, and were tried again in 1990, but only today are the manufacturers desperate enough to put them out in quantity.
You can see this in every industry. Power generation. Pharmaceuticals. Toys. Hollywood movies. All of them make small, incremental improvements to their product in an attempt to perfect their formula, but god help anyone who tries to revolutionize their industry with something truly innovative and new.
Competitive improvement is masturbation for capitalists. It makes them feel good, but it doesn't really make the world better. We need real innovation from a non-profit entity that's willing to throw aside traditional power structures and create a better future.
It should also be noted that owning a hunk of silver doesn't cost you an additional $30/month data plan.
Yes, tablets are too expensive. But it's early days for them yet. Blame Apple's marketing department for making a bleeding-edge gadget into a mainstream must-have item. They'll stabilize in price eventually.
The comic book used his nudity to show Dr. Manhattan's slow disconnect with humanity. In the earliest flashbacks he's wearing boxers. Sometime later in Vietnam he wears speedo-like briefs. In the modern day, unless forced to wear clothing for a funeral or TV show he goes completely nude. It took him decades to forget his humanity, and the comic book showed that well. The movie had those elements in there but there wasn't enough time to highlight them.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a physicist. The mm-wave scanner is EM radiation. It is not ionizing radiation, but it's in a band whose health effects haven't been studied well. A lot of evidence is starting to emerge that mm-waves can cause skin cancer.
It is not as safe as a sonogram. It may be comparable to a cell phone, but is probably a little worse. The people who are most in danger from the machine are the operators, who stand next to it all day long.
I refuse to go into the mm-wave scanner, but since they've come onto the scene I've flown several times and only seen one of them...and that one was optional. I've flown in and out of San Fran, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and DC without anyone pushing me into a scanner. As long as they remain an optional screening method I don't have a problem with them. I have no problem requesting a patdown -- hell, I'll strip naked and walk through the magnetometer if they like. But I do understand that parents may be concerned about their children. If the scanner possibly damages their body and the patdown potentially damages their mind, what option does the overprotective parent have?
How buggy is it?
I intend to use Google+ eventually, and I wouldn't mind jumping in now. But I don't want to deal with buggy software, and I do not like beta testing. I want a finished and polished service. If it isn't to that point yet then I'm willing to wait for it; I'm a patient guy.
I work with remote sensing satellites, and I was lucky enough to have been invited to the launch of Landsat 7 in 1999. While its launch vehicle was not as big as the space shuttle's, we were allowed to be closer to it.
It is an amazing thing to realize that we humans can throw something up so hard and so fast that it cannot come back down.
Glad you got the experience, Taco.
You may laugh, but this will be a Republican talking point a year from now.
Thank you, that list of quick reviews is *very* useful.
I tried Champions last night. I've been wary of the title because of the bad blood between it and my beloved City of Heroes, but I thought that if I didn't need to give Cryptic any money it couldn't hurt to get a taste of the game. My first impression is that it's not bad but it breaks immersion in all the wrong ways. There's too much complication in game mechanics that should be simple (the dizzying variety of equipment that doesn't seem to have any real effect, for example), and too much simplification where there should be depth (such as in combat, which is more button-mashing than strategy, at least so far in the low level game).
As far as it being free to play, they give you a lot of stuff for free. You get maybe half of the costume options available, and with a character creator as rich as theirs that's a lot. The big drawback is that you only get two character slots, and only one costume slot on each of them. In a game that encourages alt characters that's something you'd want to pay to improve.
Thanks to your review I think I'll try Global Agenda tonight.
Steam timed this rollout of free games just right. I was expecting to play Duke Nukem for most of the summer...but yeah, that's not gonna happen. Glad to have other options.
Astute point, Seth. The doctor isn't shutting up his patients, he's just making a copyright grab for whatever reviews they write.
If I were a patient who had a bad experience with such a doctor, I'd write plenty of bad reviews. I'd write a couple thousand words of bad review every day, and post them to multiple sites all over the internet. I'd write a robot to re-post them every few days. Sure, the doctor owns them all and he can spend as much time as he wants chasing them down and having them removed. I guarantee that I can write enough libel to choke his secretary's efforts to purge the net of any bad reviews.
Sure, I'd lose whatever yelp and other social media accounts I used, but I can register for more of those. It also would bring up an interesting legal question -- could they try to sue me for copyright infringement, even though the work that is copyrighted doesn't exist until I create it? Can a copyright lawsuit prevent the creation of new original work? That's a situation I'd call the EFF about, if it came to pass.
Whatever lawyer advised the doctor to use this contract gave him bad advice. Push it just a little and it makes life very difficult for the doctor.
Mod parent '+1 Godmode', please.
Statistically speaking, Gliese 581d is giving us tons of new information. Before, the known statistics on habitable planets could have been as low as one in the entire observable universe -- we suspected the chances might have been better, but we didn't *know*.
With Gliese 581d we can now estimate that the chance of finding a habitable planet is somewhere around one in every 20 cubic lightyears of volume. That's huge. We can extrapolate that into all sort of statistical estimates for number of habitable planets in the galaxy, and work our way up the Drake equation to an estimate of our our species' longevity.
Terrorists could just go to the next mall in kill 1000 people with a bomb. Or they could go to a train station and kill 500 people. They could just go to the next restaurant and kill 50 people.
But if a terrorist attacked a mall or a restaurant, only that mall or that restaurant elicits fear from the public. If the terrorist attack airplanes, all airplane travel becomes suspect. In this way the terrorist impacts the entire US economy, instead of just ruining one local mall or restaurant.
They could have the same effect by attacking the train system, but it's not used as much as the air travel system and isn't as tied in with the economy. They'd have a bigger economical impact by attacking freight trains, but then nobody would die and they wouldn't get the fear response they want.
Remember, the point of terrorism is to frighten the public into both altering electoral outcomes and damaging the economy of their country. If the target's government or economy fails, the terrorists win. It doesn't matter how many of their restaurants you take out.
You were misinformed. A source I read said that Obama gave the 'go' order to the special ops guys during the Royal wedding.
That brings up an interesting image. Bin Laden, lounging in his chair watching TV with tears of joys in his eyes as William puts the ring on Kate's finger...and then gunfire erupts around him.
It is puzzling. The best explanation I've heard is that burial at sea within 24 hours of death fulfills Islamic tradition, but does not leave a shrine for terrorists to flock to.
The only way this works politically, however, is if they took lots of pictures and video of the corpse as proof of identity. I expect those to come out before long.
It took an outrageous fortune, and celebrating death is never a good thing, but this man was hated so much by so many that you can't begrudge them their celebration. No one mourns the wicked.
I agree with you. However, I suspect that the ops involved had orders along the lines of "Top priority: Capture Bin Laden alive. Second priority: Kill him and capture the body. The mission will be considered a failure if Bin Laden is killed and we do not get custody of the body."
I'm certain we went in there with the goal to capture him for trial -- if nothing else, the political gains would have been so much greater that way. But he fought back, and it's very hard to capture someone alive if they'd rather die. On the whole it's still a win for the good guys.
I had an idea for the perfect Kickstarter project, one that would be sure to reach its funding. Sadly, I cannot do it myself.
Think -- what, above all else, does the internet desire? The answer is porn. And what has been the unreachable goal, as far as porn is concerned? Zero-gee porn. People want to have sex in zero-gee, they want to know what it's like to have sex in space, and they will pay to watch the first ever porn made in outer space.
The new commercial spaceflight company Virgin Galactic is selling tickets to the edge of space for $200,000 a pop.
I'd need three tickets -- one for myself, one for my partner, and one for a cameraman. We'd have 5-10 minutes of zero-gee to make our film. Virgin Galactic's permission might be a problem, but I get the feeling they'd do almost anything for money.
I'm certain that a Kickstarter project for amateur porn filmed in space could bring in $600,000 worth of pledges. For incentives we could give still shots at low contributions, a copy of the film at higher levels...maybe give away articles of clothing that were discarded during the flight to the big sponsors.
I think it's a terrific idea. I think the concept could go viral. I think the pledges might actually appear.
I also think my girlfriend would kill me for even suggesting it, so I can't do it myself. But someone should. Preferably someone with a hot, porn-star girlfriend.
I see a huge difference in the criticisms given to both China and the US.
Clinton criticized China for detaining its own artists and dissidents.
China is criticizing the US for civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, for mistreating prisoners of war, and for targeting Wikileaks.
It's pretty plain that China is being accused of mistreating its own people, while the US is being accused of mistreating everybody else. Yes, there were some comments about poverty and the US prison system, but the bulk of criticisms of the US concerned how we treat non-US-citizens. The US government allows its own citizens to have expansive human rights. We just don't afford those rights to foreigners.
Now, there is a lot of hypocrisy there -- we should treat non-citizens with as much respect as our citizenry. But there's no real comparison to China. A country who treats its own citizens better than everyone else is much, much better than a country who mistreats everyone equally. Given the choice between a hypocrite and someone who's outright evil, I'll choose the hypocrite every time.
This is fun and all, but there's an error in the dropbox code. If you select anything but the first option, it becomes a permanent change to the article. But if you try to select the first option it remains a dropbox -- the selection doesn't take.
I noticed on this story because as a Shepherd, meeting potential romantic sheep is pertinent to my interests. :)
What looks 'better' varies by person, but in general anything goes when making an image beautiful to the eye. The Russians are using more infrared bands than most NASA images do, and their images have a lower sun angle. Both of these bring out details in the imagery.
If you want to see more images taken in infrared bands, take a look at the Earth as Art exhibit hosted by the USGS. (NASA is credited on some of them because it was involved with the satellites. And for full disclosure, I should mention that I personally created many of the images in the EaA exhibits.) We chose and created these pictures for aesthetic quality -- we wanted them to look good rather than be useful for science. But there are no photoshop tricks. Some of them are just using wavelengths of light that you cannot see with human eyes.
I think the point of this entire press release by the Russians is that they are savvy about public relations, and had enough foresight to distribute images that looked good instead of images with immediate scientific value. Not every government agency adopts that strategy -- we often try to wow the scientists first and the public later.
Oh, sure, all those radioactive isotopes sound frightening, but they're nothing compared to the real threat that's been found. Those reactor buildings are full of dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO). This nasty chemical kills more people every year than all radiation sources combined. Just in the past few weeks in the area around the Fukushima power plant, a massive spill of DHMO killed thousands of people.
The news media is hyping up some minor radioactivity but they're ignoring the true threat. I hope they start talking about DHMO soon.
You've got it the wrong way around. When the universe was hotter, it was unfolded. It *might* unfold again if we heat it up enough...but that won't help us space jump, it'll just destroy everything. It would be like slicing an apple into thin strips and scattering the slices over a field.
Now, if we could somehow cool the universe to the 5D transition point, then the universe will fold and we might be able to create a hyperspace jump. But there is a slight danger that we'd destroy time in the process. I am quite relieved that experiments of this type will not be done until long after I'm dead and gone.
therefore, the only real emergency solutions i see, correct me if i am wrong, is either: 1. get some new backup generators there asap, or 2. run some emergency electrical lines to the power plant asap
3. Drown it in powdered boron, which is how they ultimately killed the Chernobyl fire. That seems to be the solution Japan is going for, but they have to get the boron from Korea.
Boron has two uses; one, it melts and then evaporates quickly, which sucks a lot of energy out of any fire it hits, and two, it's a neutron absorber, which kills any runaway criticality in the core. It's the right tool for the job. I just wonder why a country so dependent on nuclear power doesn't keep an emergency supply of boron on hand. Maybe it was hubris; maybe they thought things would never get this bad.
You're all missing the point. If you read other interviews by the Rovio execs, you'll see that the gameplay is almost secondary for them. What they consider innovative about their game is that there are birds, and they are angry, and their enemies are pigs and there's a good reason for them to hate each other.
Rovio is all about the business of innovative Intellectual Property -- the story, the backstory, and the emotional appeal of their game. And they have a point. If Angry Birds had been a game about launching brightly colored balls into abstract towers for no apparent reason it would not have done so well. But the gameplay isn't the innovative part; their innovation is the compelling storyline and the IP that Angry Birds represent. Console games are not as innovative about creating new IP, with almost every console game being a sequel of previous games or a movie tie-in.
Of course, now that Rovio has a winning IP, they are going to ride it into the ground. Which kind of makes their arguments about 'innovative IP' pretty hypocritical. If they come up with another hit using a new storyline and cast of characters, then I might give them some chops in the innovation department.
The planet is a different problem. If we consider just this country (the United States), birth rates are very low. Most of our population growth is via immigration. So that's not the problem here.
Attempting to fix the entire planet's problems through social engineering will require a world government. That might be an answer, although it brings up additional problems.
So you can no longer comment anonymously. Start up a secret identity. I've been using one since 1994.
Oh, did you think 'Remus Shepherd' was my real name? It's a pseudonym, and hopefully one that no one can connect to my real name, even if a judge orders them to do so. I'm sure it's not bulletproof, but every layer is another court precedent that has to happen before your anonymity can be taken away.
YES competition is always more innovative than a government monopoly. That is a self-evident truth, because the many produce more ideas than the one.
I don't buy that. Competition is very, very good at incremental improvements that retain the power structure of their markets, but very bad at revolutionary innovation that creates new markets.
The internet is a prime example; corporations have added on to it, but we are still using the same TCP/IP and HTTP protocols that were developed by government research grants 15 or 25 years ago. The landline phone companies still give twisted pair copper lines to a majority of customers in the US, because they can't be arsed to make expensive innovations for a tiny improvement in their profit.
Automobiles are another example. Auto manufacturers have been scared to break out of the gasoline model. Electric cars were economically viable in 1910, and were tried again in 1990, but only today are the manufacturers desperate enough to put them out in quantity.
You can see this in every industry. Power generation. Pharmaceuticals. Toys. Hollywood movies. All of them make small, incremental improvements to their product in an attempt to perfect their formula, but god help anyone who tries to revolutionize their industry with something truly innovative and new.
Competitive improvement is masturbation for capitalists. It makes them feel good, but it doesn't really make the world better. We need real innovation from a non-profit entity that's willing to throw aside traditional power structures and create a better future.
It should also be noted that owning a hunk of silver doesn't cost you an additional $30/month data plan.
Yes, tablets are too expensive. But it's early days for them yet. Blame Apple's marketing department for making a bleeding-edge gadget into a mainstream must-have item. They'll stabilize in price eventually.
The comic book used his nudity to show Dr. Manhattan's slow disconnect with humanity. In the earliest flashbacks he's wearing boxers. Sometime later in Vietnam he wears speedo-like briefs. In the modern day, unless forced to wear clothing for a funeral or TV show he goes completely nude. It took him decades to forget his humanity, and the comic book showed that well. The movie had those elements in there but there wasn't enough time to highlight them.