Correct: the systems shown in the cutaway diagram are not that complex. In fact, over the decades, more engineering has gone into the subsystems inside the tractor-trailer truck that's included in the picture; its engine, and electronic engine control system, and diesel exhaust scrubber, and even the design of its tire tread, to name a few examples.
We built a perfectly good, and safe, and vast long-term waste sequestration facility inside Yucca Mountain. It was never put into use thanks to brain-dead Nevada politicians. Never mind that it's not even in anyone's back yard.
Thanks. I still fail to see how more CO2 would cause there to be less of the "other nitrogen compounds," which in turn would cause the protein density of crops to drop. Especially because humans have been optimizing the supply of nitrogen, by adding fertilizer, for generations. I'm afraid my B.S. meter is starting to go off on this lower-protein-density claim.
the protein density of crops will drop, because the synthesis of proteins is nitrogen limited
The atmosphere is 78.09% N2. Suppose CO2 increases to 0.06% and N2 drops to 78.07%. Are you claiming that would cause a noticeable decrease in nitrogen-limited processes?
That's not a good way, because the progressive structure of the income tax means that 45.3% of all households pay no federal income tax whatsoever. Those voters would be able to vote themselves additional entitlement programs at no cost to themselves.
the thought of a free market is more important than wanting to improve cabled charger technology.
This idea of "no vendor lock-in" = "free market" seems to be fairly new.
If you wanted to replace your driveshaft in 1930, the Ford part and the Chevrolet part were not interchangeable. Yet nobody complained that this constituted an un-free market.
Yes, imposing a standard type of charger will remove vendor lock-in, but it's quite un-free in terms of consumer choice and the vendor's freedom to manufacture the best-performing design.
I find Lightning cables much more convenient than micro-USB cables, and I'm happy to pay a premium for them. Looks like the freedom to use a Lightning cable will be going away in Switzerland.
The current system, which limits the number of entitlement programs voters can vote for themselves, has created an $18.8 trillion national debt and what's far scarier, over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities: http://usdebtclock.org/
If those limitations were removed, I'd expect such an orgy of debt that the U.S. would have no choice but to default or careen into hyperinflation.
As they say, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
there's loads of precedent for denying some rights to foreigners.
Do you believe that being permitted to board an aircraft you don't own is a constitutional right? In Sept. 2001, permitting the wrong people to board an aircraft led to far more death and destruction than any case of allowing the wrong person to bear arms ever has. (And as you of course know, the latter does happen to be an explicit constitutional right.)
It is possible to construct criteria for getting onto the no-fly list that can be applied equally to all persons. Therefore, the existence of a no-fly list is not necessarily a violation of the "all men are created equal" principle in the Declaration.
estimates for the amortized cost has been as high as $5 billion/launch. When you compare that to SpaceX's fixed $60-130 million per launch that also covers their R&D expenses it's a bargain.
Given facts like this, how does anyone claim with a straight face that government can do things about as efficiently as private-sector efforts can?
This goes completely away if wages are required to be livable.
If you can simply dictate that wages shall be livable, why stop there? Why not require wages to be extraordinary? If a $15 minimum wage is good, isn't a $40 minimum wage better? Isn't a $200-per-hour minimum wage far better?
Now back to reality. People who earn more than the minimum wage do so, by definition, not because a law requires their employer to pay them that much, but because there is significant demand for the kind of labor they provide. That significant level of demand arose organically, because the economy grew. A minimum wage can be dictated by fiat, but demand for labor at that wage can never be dictated by fiat. So additional economic growth is the only thing that will organically create additional across-the-board increases in wages.
Why is it important to have "organic," across-the-board increases in wages?
Working-age people fall into four groups: (1) The tens of millions who have no job at all, because to employ them at the current minimum wage would be to the net detriment of any employer. (2) Those currently earning minimum wage, who would lose their job and fall into group (1) if the minimum wage were increased. (3) Those currently earning minimum wage, who would retain their job if the minimum wage were increased. This is the only group that would benefit from increasing the minimum wage. (4) Those currently earning more than minimum wage. These folks tend to receive a marginal after-tax wage cut when the minimum wage is increased, because the funds expended on increasing wages for group (3) -- and on increasing public assistance for group (2) -- have to come from somewhere!
All things being equal, raising the minimum wage causes economic contraction, which in turn reduces the overall demand for labor. Certainly a move in the wrong direction.
By its effects on groups (3) and (4), raising the minimum wage also reduces income inequality (for those who still have a job). But that matters only to sheep who believe that "income inequality," the buzzphrase-of-the-left du jour, is a problem. I can prove that income inequality is not a problem.
Consider World A, where everyone has exactly the same tiny income. Everyone is malnourished, living in tiny dilapidated shacks, and wearing tattered rags. But hey, this world has zero income inequality!
And also World B, where the poorest person -- who, being disabled, live solely on the charitable contributions of others -- can afford to own two new cars, dine on excellent food, and live in a 5000 sq. ft. house. At the same time, the richest person has an income five orders of magnitude higher than the poorest person; thus, this world "suffers" from enormous income inequality.
Any sane person would choose to live in World B over World A -- proving that income inequality is not the problem. Poverty is the problem.
A New York Times reporter recently published observations about how the nature of poverty in Mississippi has changed. 50 years ago, the poor had no shoes and hunger was rampant. Today, they wear Nikes, and their #1 heath problem is obesity. Thus, we have already made enormous strides toward eliminating poverty, and the credit goes to organic economic growth, not minimum wage hikes. If we had the patience to pursue a few more decades of organic economic growth, we would arrive in World B. Instead, it looks like the voters will eat our seed corn, party hearty, and opt for short-term illusions like minimum wage hikes and more exponential growth of the national debt, which can only move us closer to World A.
when you have practical monopolies created when a small group of people own everything.
Now you're changing the topic, which was how consumers should be able to vote with their dollars if a retailer doesn't provide good value, and citizens are better off if they're free to move to a different jurisdiction that has a better tax-to-benefits ratio than their current jurisdiction. And a business should be free to do the same. (If a business is gouged by any entity, including its government, it's bad for the little guy, because businesses always pass those costs on to their customers.)
But a consumer can't vote with their dollars if the retailer has a monopoly. And a business can't relocate if its current jurisdiction effectively has a monopoly on where that business is permitted to operate (perhaps because someone is threatening to slap a 50% tariff on its products, and/or steal its patents, if said business relocates).
So you see, when discussing the relocation of Pfizer, it's particularly incorrect to talk of monopoly. There were 193 countries, competing with various levels of effort, to get Pfizer to operate there -- the furthest thing imaginable from a monopoly. Ireland won this round, and the U.S. lost. There is a valuable lesson to be learned there, for those willing to learn it.
made by one of the Koch Brothers
Sorry, I don't buy into the fearmongering of making the Koch brothers into bogeymen. I saw an interview of Charles Koch; quite a pleasant gentleman. But apparently lots of slashdotters do buy into that fearmongering, because you got another +5 post. That's scary.
You're comparing the decision making processes of buying a twinkie to the process of buying a heart transplant.
No, I really didn't do that. The scope of my post was strictly limited to how monopolies that gouge consumers are bad, and monopolies that gouge businesses -- to include a government that doesn't allow businesses to relocate -- are also bad.
If consumers are free to make choices, retailers must keep their prices reasonably low in order to keep customers from fleeing to the competition.
That's a good thing.
You may not like to hear it, but this is also a good thing:
If businesses are free to make choices about where they will operate, governments must also keep their tax rates reasonably low in order to keep businesses from fleeing to other jurisdictions.
What do you do when tax rates become negative, you ask? That would be analogous to a retailer that permanently operates on negative profit margins. Funny, when my local gas stations compete with each other on price -- which is to say, always -- they never engage in such a "race to the bottom."
we're not talking about a resource. There is not finite supply of water pouring into your house. We're talking about bandwidth.
Yes, bandwidth is a finite resource.
Telcos started running fiber when the bandwidth of copper became inadequate. They started running more fiber when the first strand was used to capacity. Look how many undersea cables run between New York and the UK: http://www.marinebuzz.com/mari...
Why so many? Because just one won't handle the traffic. Bandwidth is a finite resource.
Then factor in if your usage isn't predictable and can swing by 50% or more each month you then start talking about wasted money (paying for a big enough plan to cover your "bad months") or are getting screwed by the overages on the months you run high.
Right. That's why I'd like a reasonable per-gigabyte rate. In a month where I use 14 GB, I don't mind paying twice as much as in a month where I use 7 GB, as long as the per-GB rate is reasonable.
Basically, that's the same "plan" I have for paying for gasoline, strawberries, etc.
Just because something is unprofitable does not mean that it should not be built.
Yes, in most cases, that's exactly what it means. If it's unprofitable, it will have to be subsidized. The perfect example for the subject at hand is Amtrak. The "overall economic benefits" are miniscule compared to the billions in subsidies Amtrak has blown through. Here's just one of many examples of how it's mismanaged: http://www.the-american-intere...
Why was Amtrak created in the first place? Purely as a pander to two very special interest groups: 1) Politically-connected railworker unions, and 2) Those who wrung their hands about "it's a crying shame what's happened to our railroads... do something to bring back the good old days!" (Not comprehending that there are reasons travelers voted with their dollars and actions such that passenger rail service became unprofitable.)
Please don't double down on the huge mistake that was Amtrak.
a government is required to divert funds towards projects that the private sector would not have built.
Just one problem with your argument. There are hundreds of historical examples of the private sector building railroads. In fact, the private sector was so eager to build railroads that the network was overbuilt; it exceeded demand and a significant fraction of the privately-built railroads entered bankruptcy.
We need to achieve the proper balance between a 19th-century free-for-all, and the current regulatory environment that kills any private initiatives into more modern forms of transportation. When that's accomplished, any route capable of profitable operation would be built. And any route not capable of profitable operation, of course, should not be built.
I wish it were appropriate to use past tense here. Unfortunately, the risk of a launch that is accidental or based on misinterpreted data, and sparks a major nuclear exchange, is about as high today as it ever was.
Sure, they need nothing from us; but being much more highly evolved than humans, perhaps they find us revolting and/or hideous. Some humans, who are much more technologically advanced than spiders, will cheerfully spray a can of Raid to exterminate a nest of harmless spiders.
messages transmitted across an SQ gap of 10 points or more cannot be very meaningful.
Let's not sell ourselves short. We're capable of transmitting, say, the entire contents of Wikipedia, and that's a much bigger accomplishment than the bleating of a sheep. While a Superbeing may not be interested in receiving that transmission, it's still pretty impressive.
we usually perform experiments to learn something where we don't know the outcome. But God is omniscient
From the available evidence, I've concluded that God is likely not omniscient about future events.
It doesn't make sense that you ascribe the property of omniscience, with such certainty, to an entity that you don't even believe exists. Therefore, your lengthy post is fundamentally flawed nearly from the beginning.
then he could sit there blaming the lifeforms that emerge for being precisely what the dice he used plus the ruleset he used produced
So you believe we don't have free will; that we're merely biological billiard balls, inevitably careening down whatever path was determined by the Initial Conditions? That's depressing and demotivating.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct: the systems shown in the cutaway diagram are not that complex. In fact, over the decades, more engineering has gone into the subsystems inside the tractor-trailer truck that's included in the picture; its engine, and electronic engine control system, and diesel exhaust scrubber, and even the design of its tire tread, to name a few examples.
waste, which has never been handled well
We built a perfectly good, and safe, and vast long-term waste sequestration facility inside Yucca Mountain. It was never put into use thanks to brain-dead Nevada politicians. Never mind that it's not even in anyone's back yard.
Thanks. I still fail to see how more CO2 would cause there to be less of the "other nitrogen compounds," which in turn would cause the protein density of crops to drop. Especially because humans have been optimizing the supply of nitrogen, by adding fertilizer, for generations. I'm afraid my B.S. meter is starting to go off on this lower-protein-density claim.
the protein density of crops will drop, because the synthesis of proteins is nitrogen limited
The atmosphere is 78.09% N2. Suppose CO2 increases to 0.06% and N2 drops to 78.07%. Are you claiming that would cause a noticeable decrease in nitrogen-limited processes?
That's not a good way, because the progressive structure of the income tax means that 45.3% of all households pay no federal income tax whatsoever. Those voters would be able to vote themselves additional entitlement programs at no cost to themselves.
the thought of a free market is more important than wanting to improve cabled charger technology.
This idea of "no vendor lock-in" = "free market" seems to be fairly new.
If you wanted to replace your driveshaft in 1930, the Ford part and the Chevrolet part were not interchangeable. Yet nobody complained that this constituted an un-free market.
Yes, imposing a standard type of charger will remove vendor lock-in, but it's quite un-free in terms of consumer choice and the vendor's freedom to manufacture the best-performing design.
I find Lightning cables much more convenient than micro-USB cables, and I'm happy to pay a premium for them. Looks like the freedom to use a Lightning cable will be going away in Switzerland.
The current system, which limits the number of entitlement programs voters can vote for themselves, has created an $18.8 trillion national debt and what's far scarier, over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities: http://usdebtclock.org/
If those limitations were removed, I'd expect such an orgy of debt that the U.S. would have no choice but to default or careen into hyperinflation.
As they say, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
The early images of Ceres' "bright spots," which generated a lot of excitement, had extremely high contrast.
The latest images, as expected, have much higher resolution. What's unexpected is, the contrast is not as striking.
What do Slashdotters think... was the contrast of the early images exaggerated just to generate buzz for the Dawn mission?
Bart: [Looks at tape] Hootie and the Blowfish?
Chief Wiggum: Yeah, it's cheaper than blank tape.
there's loads of precedent for denying some rights to foreigners.
Do you believe that being permitted to board an aircraft you don't own is a constitutional right? In Sept. 2001, permitting the wrong people to board an aircraft led to far more death and destruction than any case of allowing the wrong person to bear arms ever has. (And as you of course know, the latter does happen to be an explicit constitutional right.)
It is possible to construct criteria for getting onto the no-fly list that can be applied equally to all persons. Therefore, the existence of a no-fly list is not necessarily a violation of the "all men are created equal" principle in the Declaration.
estimates for the amortized cost has been as high as $5 billion/launch. When you compare that to SpaceX's fixed $60-130 million per launch that also covers their R&D expenses it's a bargain.
Given facts like this, how does anyone claim with a straight face that government can do things about as efficiently as private-sector efforts can?
"I’m nauseatingly pro-American. It is where great things are possible."
...if they were, there could be no boost-back burn.
(But I get your meaning; they are nearly empty.)
good guys with guns never, ever stop bad guys with guns.
I don't know about that. One thing I do know is that a good woman with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun: Guard saved untold lives, officials say
This goes completely away if wages are required to be livable.
If you can simply dictate that wages shall be livable, why stop there? Why not require wages to be extraordinary? If a $15 minimum wage is good, isn't a $40 minimum wage better? Isn't a $200-per-hour minimum wage far better?
Now back to reality. People who earn more than the minimum wage do so, by definition, not because a law requires their employer to pay them that much, but because there is significant demand for the kind of labor they provide. That significant level of demand arose organically, because the economy grew. A minimum wage can be dictated by fiat, but demand for labor at that wage can never be dictated by fiat. So additional economic growth is the only thing that will organically create additional across-the-board increases in wages.
Why is it important to have "organic," across-the-board increases in wages?
Working-age people fall into four groups:
(1) The tens of millions who have no job at all, because to employ them at the current minimum wage would be to the net detriment of any employer.
(2) Those currently earning minimum wage, who would lose their job and fall into group (1) if the minimum wage were increased.
(3) Those currently earning minimum wage, who would retain their job if the minimum wage were increased. This is the only group that would benefit from increasing the minimum wage.
(4) Those currently earning more than minimum wage. These folks tend to receive a marginal after-tax wage cut when the minimum wage is increased, because the funds expended on increasing wages for group (3) -- and on increasing public assistance for group (2) -- have to come from somewhere!
All things being equal, raising the minimum wage causes economic contraction, which in turn reduces the overall demand for labor. Certainly a move in the wrong direction.
By its effects on groups (3) and (4), raising the minimum wage also reduces income inequality (for those who still have a job). But that matters only to sheep who believe that "income inequality," the buzzphrase-of-the-left du jour, is a problem. I can prove that income inequality is not a problem.
Consider World A, where everyone has exactly the same tiny income. Everyone is malnourished, living in tiny dilapidated shacks, and wearing tattered rags. But hey, this world has zero income inequality!
And also World B, where the poorest person -- who, being disabled, live solely on the charitable contributions of others -- can afford to own two new cars, dine on excellent food, and live in a 5000 sq. ft. house. At the same time, the richest person has an income five orders of magnitude higher than the poorest person; thus, this world "suffers" from enormous income inequality.
Any sane person would choose to live in World B over World A -- proving that income inequality is not the problem. Poverty is the problem.
A New York Times reporter recently published observations about how the nature of poverty in Mississippi has changed. 50 years ago, the poor had no shoes and hunger was rampant. Today, they wear Nikes, and their #1 heath problem is obesity. Thus, we have already made enormous strides toward eliminating poverty, and the credit goes to organic economic growth, not minimum wage hikes. If we had the patience to pursue a few more decades of organic economic growth, we would arrive in World B. Instead, it looks like the voters will eat our seed corn, party hearty, and opt for short-term illusions like minimum wage hikes and more exponential growth of the national debt, which can only move us closer to World A.
when you have practical monopolies created when a small group of people own everything.
Now you're changing the topic, which was how consumers should be able to vote with their dollars if a retailer doesn't provide good value, and citizens are better off if they're free to move to a different jurisdiction that has a better tax-to-benefits ratio than their current jurisdiction. And a business should be free to do the same. (If a business is gouged by any entity, including its government, it's bad for the little guy, because businesses always pass those costs on to their customers.)
But a consumer can't vote with their dollars if the retailer has a monopoly. And a business can't relocate if its current jurisdiction effectively has a monopoly on where that business is permitted to operate (perhaps because someone is threatening to slap a 50% tariff on its products, and/or steal its patents, if said business relocates).
So you see, when discussing the relocation of Pfizer, it's particularly incorrect to talk of monopoly. There were 193 countries, competing with various levels of effort, to get Pfizer to operate there -- the furthest thing imaginable from a monopoly. Ireland won this round, and the U.S. lost. There is a valuable lesson to be learned there, for those willing to learn it.
made by one of the Koch Brothers
Sorry, I don't buy into the fearmongering of making the Koch brothers into bogeymen. I saw an interview of Charles Koch; quite a pleasant gentleman. But apparently lots of slashdotters do buy into that fearmongering, because you got another +5 post. That's scary.
You're comparing the decision making processes of buying a twinkie to the process of buying a heart transplant.
No, I really didn't do that. The scope of my post was strictly limited to how monopolies that gouge consumers are bad, and monopolies that gouge businesses -- to include a government that doesn't allow businesses to relocate -- are also bad.
If consumers are free to make choices, retailers must keep their prices reasonably low in order to keep customers from fleeing to the competition.
That's a good thing.
You may not like to hear it, but this is also a good thing:
If businesses are free to make choices about where they will operate, governments must also keep their tax rates reasonably low in order to keep businesses from fleeing to other jurisdictions.
What do you do when tax rates become negative, you ask? That would be analogous to a retailer that permanently operates on negative profit margins. Funny, when my local gas stations compete with each other on price -- which is to say, always -- they never engage in such a "race to the bottom."
we're not talking about a resource. There is not finite supply of water pouring into your house. We're talking about bandwidth.
Yes, bandwidth is a finite resource.
Telcos started running fiber when the bandwidth of copper became inadequate. They started running more fiber when the first strand was used to capacity. Look how many undersea cables run between New York and the UK: http://www.marinebuzz.com/mari...
Why so many? Because just one won't handle the traffic. Bandwidth is a finite resource.
Then factor in if your usage isn't predictable and can swing by 50% or more each month you then start talking about wasted money (paying for a big enough plan to cover your "bad months") or are getting screwed by the overages on the months you run high.
Right. That's why I'd like a reasonable per-gigabyte rate. In a month where I use 14 GB, I don't mind paying twice as much as in a month where I use 7 GB, as long as the per-GB rate is reasonable.
Basically, that's the same "plan" I have for paying for gasoline, strawberries, etc.
Just because something is unprofitable does not mean that it should not be built.
Yes, in most cases, that's exactly what it means. If it's unprofitable, it will have to be subsidized. The perfect example for the subject at hand is Amtrak. The "overall economic benefits" are miniscule compared to the billions in subsidies Amtrak has blown through. Here's just one of many examples of how it's mismanaged:
http://www.the-american-intere...
Why was Amtrak created in the first place? Purely as a pander to two very special interest groups:
1) Politically-connected railworker unions, and
2) Those who wrung their hands about "it's a crying shame what's happened to our railroads... do something to bring back the good old days!" (Not comprehending that there are reasons travelers voted with their dollars and actions such that passenger rail service became unprofitable.)
Please don't double down on the huge mistake that was Amtrak.
a government is required to divert funds towards projects that the private sector would not have built.
Just one problem with your argument. There are hundreds of historical examples of the private sector building railroads. In fact, the private sector was so eager to build railroads that the network was overbuilt; it exceeded demand and a significant fraction of the privately-built railroads entered bankruptcy.
We need to achieve the proper balance between a 19th-century free-for-all, and the current regulatory environment that kills any private initiatives into more modern forms of transportation. When that's accomplished, any route capable of profitable operation would be built. And any route not capable of profitable operation, of course, should not be built.
Amazing we didn't kill ourselves
I wish it were appropriate to use past tense here. Unfortunately, the risk of a launch that is accidental or based on misinterpreted data, and sparks a major nuclear exchange, is about as high today as it ever was.
The invasion scenario is ridiculous.
Sure, they need nothing from us; but being much more highly evolved than humans, perhaps they find us revolting and/or hideous. Some humans, who are much more technologically advanced than spiders, will cheerfully spray a can of Raid to exterminate a nest of harmless spiders.
Until that scenario can be ruled out, beware.
messages transmitted across an SQ gap of 10 points or more cannot be very meaningful.
Let's not sell ourselves short. We're capable of transmitting, say, the entire contents of Wikipedia, and that's a much bigger accomplishment than the bleating of a sheep. While a Superbeing may not be interested in receiving that transmission, it's still pretty impressive.
we usually perform experiments to learn something where we don't know the outcome. But God is omniscient
From the available evidence, I've concluded that God is likely not omniscient about future events.
It doesn't make sense that you ascribe the property of omniscience, with such certainty, to an entity that you don't even believe exists. Therefore, your lengthy post is fundamentally flawed nearly from the beginning.
then he could sit there blaming the lifeforms that emerge for being precisely what the dice he used plus the ruleset he used produced
So you believe we don't have free will; that we're merely biological billiard balls, inevitably careening down whatever path was determined by the Initial Conditions? That's depressing and demotivating.
More later, perhaps.