USA drug companies do research to make money. They'll happily take Canadians money.
The question you should be asking is WHY the same drug can be so much cheaper in Canada vs the USA? Why are drugs so much more expensive in the that bastion of free enterprise? Why do USA drug companies spend more on marketing each year than on research? Most of this marketing is illegal in Canada so they don't waste as much money on marketing in Canada. Canada doesn't have huge private health insurance companies skimming huge profits, denying claims, and thwarting doctors from using what they feel is the best treatment. Why does virtually all health care cost more in the USA? Why does they USA spend MORE per person on healthcare yet still lag behind Canada in almost all indicators of health care like infant mortlity, and longevity?
Why do many USA citizens still want a good chunk of their health spending to be taken by private insurance companies?
It isn't a judges job, at that judges level, to decide if laws are just, but to simply apply the law blindly. The people you want to kick out of office are the politicians that passed the law allowing such ridiculous penalties.
I am generally very pro-free market, but the problem I see with paid edits is that most of the people hiring this service will be for edits to articles that directly concern themselves, for example a politician paying for their article to be "cleaned up", or a cult paying to have "facts corrected". If editing your own article is wrong, hiring someone to edit your own article is just as wrong. They only way I could see this being ok, and I also can't imagine it happening, is someone sees an article that is completely unrelated to themselves, their hobbies, their faith, their freinds, their boss, their sports team, and lacking basic grammer skills just HAS to hire someone to clean up the article.
These so called "quants" had almost nothing to do with the latest fiscal meltdown. Plain old greed was the root cause.
Greedy, lazy people wanted a tool to use a SINGLE number to summarize the risk of invesments so they could sell them easier to people too lazy to take the time to understand what they were investing in. Trust us! It's math! Complicated math! Sounds good, that is a good number. Please, invest my money. Still, this was a vERY small part of the over all problem.
The main problem was inventing "finacial instruments" that broke the connection between the risk of an investment and its return. Investment firms were making huge number of shaky loans, but they did not care because they knew they were just going to re-package and sell these investments and pretend they were not just based on shaky loans. These same types of people convinced large numbers of people who should not be taking out huge loans (mortages) that they could afford it as they could just sell their new home at a handsome profit before the payments get too much to handle. This ponzi scheme collapsed. Greed, not quants was the cause. A a compelete lack of meaningful regulation of the banks and investment firms. Really, 30 to 1 debt ratios! This was bound to burst.
Putting human genes in a pig doesn't make it any more human than it is now. You do realize that ANY mammal already shares a huge amount of genetic code with us? It isn't some kind of magic "humaness" in our flesh that makes us human. It is the fact that we are self-aware, thinking animals that makes us human. If ET's came down tomorrow from some far star I would consider them "human" even if they share zero genes with us.
Yes, if it can be done, and it doesn't hurt humans then yes, we should give it a try. Especially if we think there is a chance it will do some good, like cure disease. Trying to stop genetic engineering would be like our far off ancestors trying to stop research into fire starting because it isn't natural. Tending a fire you got from a lightning strike is the only natural way!
A mouse inteligent enough to "contemplate the meaning of life" would also be intelligent enough to commuicate to the researchers that fact it is intelligent. As mice are rather small, and have virtually no inteligence, no reasonable person would expect a mouse to be intelligent due to 1percent of its brain mass being "human". I wouldn't expect a mouse with 100 percent "human" brains to be no smater than any other mouse.
ALL rights are artificial. Rights are just "low level" laws we use as guides for creating other laws. Personally, I do not agree with giving rights to any animals. We should refrain from being cruel to animals because it makes us less human. Any animal worthy of having rights is no longer what we mean by "animal". And it isn't the magic of having "human" tissue that gives anyone rights - it is our intelligence and self-awarenes. That is why we have stricter rules for treating higher animals than the lower.
What drive train? Pure electric cars don't have transmissions. Electric motors are a big spool of wire and some magnets. They don't break down often, and never need tuneups. The IC engine needs many orders of magnitude more maintenance than an electric motor. If pure electric cars become the norm then car maintenance will be much simpler on the mechanical side.
Same thing they always did, finish their education and get a real job. That education may be in a trade, or a proffesion, but entry level, unskilled jobs should be for kids, and students, not an adults career.
Skilled trades are not paid peanuts, and are not easily replaced by unskilled immigrants.
Some kids just are not cut out for a life in an office. Some of these kids are very bright, but an office job just isn't going to work as there is no way they are going to make it through an acedemic highschool program, much less four years of university. Kids that have an apptitude for skilled trades should have the option of pursuing a trade starting in highschool. You'll have happier, more productive kids, and you'll have kids that grow up to have careers they enjoy that pay pretty well.
A sphere has more of its surface pointing directly at you near whatever point you see as the center. As your eye moves towards the edges more and more of the surface is pointing more and more away from your eye, and thus less light is emitted to your eye and it appears less bright. As the sun is SO bright that you cannot look at it, or notice the difference in brightness, without a huge amount of filtering you will only see this effect if you look at a photo, or through a telescope, with a huge filter made specifically for looking at the sun.
This same effect can be seen of any evenly lit spherical light, and even on an evenly lit sphere that is just reflecting light. This is an effect known to virtually any serious artist, much like artists study perspective and shadow casting, to make their art more realistic. You see the same effect on cylinders, they seem brighter in the middle than the edges.
I know a WW II vet and he HATES WWII games, or seeing young people play them. He isn't keen on any war games due the how hellish actual war is.
Time, and being the victor in a war where you see your side as the morally correct side certainly makes the game (or movie) more palatable to most people, but it will never be ok with everyone.
Why do some people think it isn't censorship if the government doesn't do it? Well, it is.
Government censorship may be worse as it is more pervasive and backed up by force, but corporate censorship (Walmart sprins to mind) can be just as bad. Or church censorship, or even self censorship. Being done be a private enity doesn't make censorship automatically OK.
The long term goal of all space exploration should be a permenant human presence on another planet, Mars most likely. All the science is great, but I want the human race to survive if the Earth takes a big hit.
This "loophole" has existed and been blatantly abused for many, many years. These paper mills are not even close to the worse abusers. The worst one I heard about, and this was years ago, was factories that sprayed a light mist of diesel on coal to claim this tax credit.
I don't sky dive or bungy jump, but I have noticed a trend to "make the world safe" that is sucking all the fun out of it. Kid's play grounds have nothing even remotely exicting in them any more. My kids were the last generation to get to slide down 20 meter slides, 4 meter fireman's poles, swings with wooden seats, any play ground exipment over 2 meters high.
The Apollo 1 deaths did not stop the Apollo mission. Space exploration is dangerous, deaths were expected. Now, the USA halts the whole space program for years when there is an accident. Yes, the cause of accidents that are preventable should be discovered, and fixed if possible, but I think society should allow a little more leeway for people to decide to take risks to do both the very important, and the simply fun.
Banning this robot because it might go out on a street would mean banning virtuully all childrens toys and sporting equipment as they often end up in streets. Lets ban biking while we are at it - cyclists go out on streets ON purpose!
They have large teams of people at the control stations 24/7. If bad weather is coming up which often causes outages extra staff come in.
All well run utilites do not have any connection to their P&C (Protection and Control) and the internet. None. Actually, lots of powerstation controls are centralized. Of course, each power station has staff for maintenance, etc...
And yes, FERC, has very stringent rules that even power companies outside the USA must follow if they want to trade electrity with the USA.
All well run utilities have the P&C (Protection and Control) networks completely seperate from the internet. Leased lines, private micro-wave, lines run specially for the utility, all are used. The internet is not. The only part of our IT infrastructure on the internet is the public facing web interface for bill paying, and information, and that has very effective firewalls isolating it fom the rest of the IT network. NONE of the IT and normal work/office networks even connect to the P&C network. You have to be in one the control stations which have limited access, and actual physical security since 9/11.
Any utility that allows any part of its P&C network on the internet is insane, and should fire the person responible.
Yes, there are real threats, like driving your car to work which kills more people every year in the USA than all terrorist attacks against USA citizens combined.
Of course you want your government to work to prevent terrorist criminals, but it isn't something the average person needs to fear for even one second.
The "gun" method will get you a low yield weapon. And everyone knows the hard part is enrichment of the uranium, and building the reactor etc... As long as existing stockpiles of weapons grade material are kept safe it takes a nation quite a while to go from zero to nuke and it's hard to hide. The whole world knows about N. Koreas secrect nuke program.
I don't think the USA will have any problem using conventional weapons to take out any tinpot dictators nuclear facilities - well before they have a nuke.
We wouldn't be here to discuss the "fine tuning" if it was tuned differently.
Ask the religious why thousands of innocent children starve to death every day, why good people are struck down by cancer, and this omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being does nothing, and I'm told you shouldn't ask questions like that, or it is a mystery beyond human understanding. Bah.
If complicated things need creators, who created God?
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While I do have serious concerns with the security of online voting why would online voting mean a loss of confidentiality?
It is ballot stuffing, adjusting results, and stealing of votes that I'm worried about.
And you can't stop vote buying until you stop campaign promises.
USA drug companies do research to make money. They'll happily take Canadians money.
The question you should be asking is WHY the same drug can be so much cheaper in Canada vs the USA? Why are drugs so much more expensive in the that bastion of free enterprise? Why do USA drug companies spend more on marketing each year than on research? Most of this marketing is illegal in Canada so they don't waste as much money on marketing in Canada. Canada doesn't have huge private health insurance companies skimming huge profits, denying claims, and thwarting doctors from using what they feel is the best treatment. Why does virtually all health care cost more in the USA? Why does they USA spend MORE per person on healthcare yet still lag behind Canada in almost all indicators of health care like infant mortlity, and longevity?
Why do many USA citizens still want a good chunk of their health spending to be taken by private insurance companies?
It isn't a judges job, at that judges level, to decide if laws are just, but to simply apply the law blindly. The people you want to kick out of office are the politicians that passed the law allowing such ridiculous penalties.
I am generally very pro-free market, but the problem I see with paid edits is that most of the people hiring this service will be for edits to articles that directly concern themselves, for example a politician paying for their article to be "cleaned up", or a cult paying to have "facts corrected". If editing your own article is wrong, hiring someone to edit your own article is just as wrong. They only way I could see this being ok, and I also can't imagine it happening, is someone sees an article that is completely unrelated to themselves, their hobbies, their faith, their freinds, their boss, their sports team, and lacking basic grammer skills just HAS to hire someone to clean up the article.
Sure, that'll happen.
These so called "quants" had almost nothing to do with the latest fiscal meltdown. Plain old greed was the root cause.
Greedy, lazy people wanted a tool to use a SINGLE number to summarize the risk of invesments so they could sell them easier to people too lazy to take the time to understand what they were investing in. Trust us! It's math! Complicated math! Sounds good, that is a good number. Please, invest my money. Still, this was a vERY small part of the over all problem.
The main problem was inventing "finacial instruments" that broke the connection between the risk of an investment and its return. Investment firms were making huge number of shaky loans, but they did not care because they knew they were just going to re-package and sell these investments and pretend they were not just based on shaky loans. These same types of people convinced large numbers of people who should not be taking out huge loans (mortages) that they could afford it as they could just sell their new home at a handsome profit before the payments get too much to handle. This ponzi scheme collapsed. Greed, not quants was the cause. A a compelete lack of meaningful regulation of the banks and investment firms. Really, 30 to 1 debt ratios! This was bound to burst.
Putting human genes in a pig doesn't make it any more human than it is now. You do realize that ANY mammal already shares a huge amount of genetic code with us? It isn't some kind of magic "humaness" in our flesh that makes us human. It is the fact that we are self-aware, thinking animals that makes us human. If ET's came down tomorrow from some far star I would consider them "human" even if they share zero genes with us.
Yes, if it can be done, and it doesn't hurt humans then yes, we should give it a try. Especially if we think there is a chance it will do some good, like cure disease. Trying to stop genetic engineering would be like our far off ancestors trying to stop research into fire starting because it isn't natural. Tending a fire you got from a lightning strike is the only natural way!
A mouse inteligent enough to "contemplate the meaning of life" would also be intelligent enough to commuicate to the researchers that fact it is intelligent. As mice are rather small, and have virtually no inteligence, no reasonable person would expect a mouse to be intelligent due to 1percent of its brain mass being "human". I wouldn't expect a mouse with 100 percent "human" brains to be no smater than any other mouse.
ALL rights are artificial. Rights are just "low level" laws we use as guides for creating other laws. Personally, I do not agree with giving rights to any animals. We should refrain from being cruel to animals because it makes us less human. Any animal worthy of having rights is no longer what we mean by "animal". And it isn't the magic of having "human" tissue that gives anyone rights - it is our intelligence and self-awarenes. That is why we have stricter rules for treating higher animals than the lower.
What drive train? Pure electric cars don't have transmissions. Electric motors are a big spool of wire and some magnets. They don't break down often, and never need tuneups. The IC engine needs many orders of magnitude more maintenance than an electric motor. If pure electric cars become the norm then car maintenance will be much simpler on the mechanical side.
Same thing they always did, finish their education and get a real job. That education may be in a trade, or a proffesion, but entry level, unskilled jobs should be for kids, and students, not an adults career.
Skilled trades are not paid peanuts, and are not easily replaced by unskilled immigrants.
Some kids just are not cut out for a life in an office. Some of these kids are very bright, but an office job just isn't going to work as there is no way they are going to make it through an acedemic highschool program, much less four years of university. Kids that have an apptitude for skilled trades should have the option of pursuing a trade starting in highschool. You'll have happier, more productive kids, and you'll have kids that grow up to have careers they enjoy that pay pretty well.
A sphere has more of its surface pointing directly at you near whatever point you see as the center. As your eye moves towards the edges more and more of the surface is pointing more and more away from your eye, and thus less light is emitted to your eye and it appears less bright. As the sun is SO bright that you cannot look at it, or notice the difference in brightness, without a huge amount of filtering you will only see this effect if you look at a photo, or through a telescope, with a huge filter made specifically for looking at the sun.
This same effect can be seen of any evenly lit spherical light, and even on an evenly lit sphere that is just reflecting light. This is an effect known to virtually any serious artist, much like artists study perspective and shadow casting, to make their art more realistic. You see the same effect on cylinders, they seem brighter in the middle than the edges.
I know a WW II vet and he HATES WWII games, or seeing young people play them. He isn't keen on any war games due the how hellish actual war is.
Time, and being the victor in a war where you see your side as the morally correct side certainly makes the game (or movie) more palatable to most people, but it will never be ok with everyone.
Why do some people think it isn't censorship if the government doesn't do it? Well, it is.
Government censorship may be worse as it is more pervasive and backed up by force, but corporate censorship (Walmart sprins to mind) can be just as bad. Or church censorship, or even self censorship. Being done be a private enity doesn't make censorship automatically OK.
The long term goal of all space exploration should be a permenant human presence on another planet, Mars most likely. All the science is great, but I want the human race to survive if the Earth takes a big hit.
This "loophole" has existed and been blatantly abused for many, many years. These paper mills are not even close to the worse abusers. The worst one I heard about, and this was years ago, was factories that sprayed a light mist of diesel on coal to claim this tax credit.
This tax credit should just be ended, not fixed.
A safe life is a boring life.
I don't sky dive or bungy jump, but I have noticed a trend to "make the world safe" that is sucking all the fun out of it. Kid's play grounds have nothing even remotely exicting in them any more. My kids were the last generation to get to slide down 20 meter slides, 4 meter fireman's poles, swings with wooden seats, any play ground exipment over 2 meters high.
The Apollo 1 deaths did not stop the Apollo mission. Space exploration is dangerous, deaths were expected. Now, the USA halts the whole space program for years when there is an accident. Yes, the cause of accidents that are preventable should be discovered, and fixed if possible, but I think society should allow a little more leeway for people to decide to take risks to do both the very important, and the simply fun.
Banning this robot because it might go out on a street would mean banning virtuully all childrens toys and sporting equipment as they often end up in streets. Lets ban biking while we are at it - cyclists go out on streets ON purpose!
They have large teams of people at the control stations 24/7. If bad weather is coming up which often causes outages extra staff come in.
All well run utilites do not have any connection to their P&C (Protection and Control) and the internet. None. Actually, lots of powerstation controls are centralized. Of course, each power station has staff for maintenance, etc...
And yes, FERC, has very stringent rules that even power companies outside the USA must follow if they want to trade electrity with the USA.
All well run utilities have the P&C (Protection and Control) networks completely seperate from the internet. Leased lines, private micro-wave, lines run specially for the utility, all are used. The internet is not. The only part of our IT infrastructure on the internet is the public facing web interface for bill paying, and information, and that has very effective firewalls isolating it fom the rest of the IT network. NONE of the IT and normal work/office networks even connect to the P&C network. You have to be in one the control stations which have limited access, and actual physical security since 9/11.
Any utility that allows any part of its P&C network on the internet is insane, and should fire the person responible.
Yes, there are real threats, like driving your car to work which kills more people every year in the USA than all terrorist attacks against USA citizens combined.
Of course you want your government to work to prevent terrorist criminals, but it isn't something the average person needs to fear for even one second.
Obama is sending in lots of troops to Afghanistan. He has no problem wielding military power. There is no "will" problem as the hawks see it.
The "gun" method will get you a low yield weapon. And everyone knows the hard part is enrichment of the uranium, and building the reactor etc... As long as existing stockpiles of weapons grade material are kept safe it takes a nation quite a while to go from zero to nuke and it's hard to hide. The whole world knows about N. Koreas secrect nuke program.
I don't think the USA will have any problem using conventional weapons to take out any tinpot dictators nuclear facilities - well before they have a nuke.
After all, the USA outspends the rest of the wolrd combined on their military.
Many more soldiers lose their faith after seeing the horrors of war.
I couldn't find any good information on this topic.
We wouldn't be here to discuss the "fine tuning" if it was tuned differently.
Ask the religious why thousands of innocent children starve to death every day, why good people are struck down by cancer, and this omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being does nothing, and I'm told you shouldn't ask questions like that, or it is a mystery beyond human understanding. Bah.
If complicated things need creators, who created God?
Actualy, in April 2007 the Pope decided that unbaptised babies do NOT go to purgatory. Good thing he's thinking of the children! There is no "Limbo", just purgatory according to Catholic dogma.