If police can't use Tazers, does that mean you want the police to shoot people with normal guns? Obviously a tazer isn't 100% safe, but its a lot safer than a normal gunshot.
Personally, I would rather have my government spend more on medical services than its armed forces. The USA should join the first world and get a real national, socialized, medical system. Put off your next invasion for a bit and you can afford it. You socialized the road system. You socialized the primary education system.
The rich have access to medical care in countries outside their own. Only the middle class and poor have to wait. And you only wait for non-life threatening procedures. Still, the wait times are too long sometimes.
You do understand that you have to pay back credit plus interest? Whatever you can afford using a credit card, you can afford by saving for the item. Only very expensive items, say a house or car, really require credit to be bought by the average person. Most people should never spend more on a credit card than they can pay off at the end of the month.
I can see a medical problem causing problems with credit in the USA as the USA lacks a national medical care program, but pretty much any other credit problem can be solved easily if the payments are on a physical thing. Sell the damn thing. This doesn't help much with student loans.
Lost your job, and car payments are suddenly too high? Sell the car. Too much on the old credit card? Stop spending. Sell some of the toys. You'll take a loss, but you'll have more money for important payments like your mortage or rent. If renting think about moving into a smaller place if a new job takes a while to find.
Anyone with any sort of equitiy in a home or a good job should NEVER keep a balance on their credit card. Get a line of credit and transfer the credit card balance to it if you can't pay it off. This should be a last resort, not a normal thing. Only spend what you can pay at the end of the month. If you really want something - SAVE up for it!
Simple rules for credit:
Keep enough money in the bank to live on for three months.
Only have one credit card.
Always pay off the whole credit card when the bill is due.
Save up enough to pay for luxuries before buying them.
Put 10% of what you earn into long term saving and investments.
Live within your means.
At least once a year do a budget
Total income after taxes, per month
Bills you must pay (rent, food, clothes, transportaion, medical)
What is left after the bills:
Savings (amount you save every month)
Fun money
Saving for new luxury, trip, etc..
Retirement and other long term investments
Don't spend more than the "fun money" per month on fun!
Running a household is simple. It only takes small amount of planning and self control.
"The string doesn't need to support it's own weight, it just has to be strong enough not to snap."
It's been a while since I read anything so stupid. Consider a chain being held up by a 5 km tower and hanging straight down. The link nearest the ground only has to hold its own weight. The link at the top of the tower has to hold the weight of every link below it. The top link will break under the weight of the whole chain. Yes it will break. This little exercise applies to strings, cables, and all other "stuff" used to build bridges.
Actually most plans do call for it to be moved to avoid storms, space debris, and other hazards. The bottom would be a large floating base that can be moved as required, located near the equator.
The question of "what if it breaks" comes up everytime. The answer is "not much".
Space Elevator Primer has all the basic questions answered. The worst that could happen is a few grams of ribbon will be spread over every few square kilometers!
The top half always escapes. The lower half flutters down reaching a top speed of 0.5 m/s. If a long piece happened to drape itself over a very tall building it might put a small load on it.
This is a (OMG) PowerPoint on the risks that is very good.
http://www.mit.edu/people/gassend/spaceelevator/SE C2005/BrokenElevator.ppt
Her house was taken legally. The character screwed up, over and over, before she lost the house. The story was more compelling because she was at fault as this gave the reader/audience a legitement reason to sympathize with the new owner.
I'm sure the crooks came in to his office with a perfectly good fake drivers license. Still, you'd think there would be a better system in place for title transfers.
That is weird. Here in British Columbia, not only do the pawnshops have to turn over stolen stuff, but they will be fined or shutdown if they are in possesion of stolen property too often.
Recently, a car dealership sold a stolen car. The real owner tracked down the car and it was returned to him. The guy who bought the car was out the money he paid to the dealer. The dealer was off the hook as all the paperwork was ok when they bought it from the crook.
The Clinton administration told the incoming Bush administration that their top security concern should be this group called "al qaeda". The Bush admin decided that Iraq was a bigger problem even though they KNEW Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had no ties to international terrorism, and that the USA had been bombing them daily since the first gulf war to enforce the "no fly zones". Then 9/11 happened.
"The rich lock up their income in real estate, art, jewelry and luxury items which do little to help grow the economy."
Not true. If you are rich and invest that way you do not stay rich. Most of rich peoples money is in stocks and real estate which both do help drive a healthy economy. Even the luxury items create employment as someone has to make them.
What you should be pised about is a tax code so convuluted that only the rich can afford the accouncts required to take advantage of all the breaks, and of course the tax breaks aimed at the rich. But even with these problems the corporate world enjoys even bigger tax breaks.
The "slap in the face" is ineffective in the long term, not appropriate for the crime of being noisy when Daddy is on the phone, and in some places gets you a visit from "social services".
A slap to the face is NEVER ok. For very young children a soft slap on the hand can be effective, but it should be used rarely. A tradional spanking (hand only, no weapons!) is sometime called for, but not for being a normal kid. If a kid keeps doing something dangerous to themselves they might get a hand slap. If they are trying to drown the baby they get a spanking. Once the master the basics of speaking it becomes even less neccessary to use corporal punishment.
Kids need rules and limits. But non-corporal punishment has been shown to be more effective over the long term.
So? I rode a bike to work for years, about 10 miles in city traffic. 20 to 25 minutes to get to work, a little longer on the way home as it was more uphill.
This guy is SO right. Parenting is one of those things you learn by doing. Getting married does NOT change your life much. Becoming a parent does. Learning to be a good parent cannot be learned from books. As a parent of three teenagers I could not agree more.
This doesn't mean you should not read parenting books. They do help. It is just that there is no way to be fully prepared to be a parent ahead of time.
The physical part of driving can be learned in a few hours. The hard part is the judgement part. When to slow down, how fast can you safely go on this road, in this traffic, in this weather. Can I safely change lanes? Can I expect the driver ahead to stop or turn suddenly. I am nearing a park full of kids - do I slow down? A car stops suddenly. Do I pass on the right, stop, or slow down? Why might they be stopping? Being a good driver is 99% judgement and 1% physical skill. A good driver never gets into a situation where super reflexes are required - just normal reflexes. Normal driving is not racing.
Most people should be ready to drive at 16. But if your child is not ready I hope you don't lend them your car.
You can get some basic knowledge of parenting from books and recalling how your own parents acted, but parenting is one of those things that you learn by doing. I have three kids and I was a much better parent with the two youngest because I learned so much with the first child. Bit hard on the oldest.
So true. Parenting cannot be learned from a book, or remembering your experience with your own parents as a child. As a new parent I did read many books, and considered myself a reasonable, patient, well prepared parent. HA HA HA HA!
I have three teenagers. I learned so much about parenting as my oldest went through his teenage years that I handled the next two kids much better. I almost feel sorry for my oldest as I could have done a better job dealing with a few stresful issues, but it was a learning experience for both of us. The key things I learned are to be more patient, not take offense too easily as they start to express themselves more strongly, keep your temper, and do not over punish. What I did right was to always listen to my kids, and to calmly explain why their behaviour was wrong. It just took a while for me to learn that the getting furious step should be replaced with the getting slightly angry for a for short time (minutes) step, or skipped altogether. A long lecture is punishment enough:)
Trust. All good parents trust their kids, but they also verify that things are going as well as the child claims. If lies are found out the trust level does drop. You explain that the trust level has dropped and that the child should work on regaining that trust. I let the child see that I am more closely verifing claims until the trust is back to where it should be. The main reason kids lie is to avoid getting in trouble, right now. They don't think ahead. They don't see that little problems being lied about now will become bigger problems in the future. They don't think "well this can't be hidden for more than a week so I better 'fess up and deal with it now". No, they think "if I say nothing maybe it will go away".
But when your child does reward the trust your have built up by admitting to a problem or mistake you have to very careful to not over react. You may have to punish the child, but don't over do it. For exampe, adults know that an education is important, but that is a very abstract concept to most young teenagers. It is counter productive to ground a kid for a month because they skipped a weeks school. And for myself, having a long fuse but a horrible temper when I finally do lose it, I really had to watch my temper. Kids can put up with a lecture and a short yelling, but if they know they will have to face a furious parent they will try very hard to avoid that, with lies if neccessary.
When there is trust between a parent and child the child may still lie about little things. Don't sweat the little things. It is much more important to have a good relationship so that if there is a big problem the child trusts YOU to help them deal with it and not just yell at them. My eldest did go through a very bad year and half, but during a calm father son talk he finally admitted to me a number of things in his life that were going wrong. Dearly bought experince had by this point taught me that I had to suppress my instinct to lecture (or yell), and just help my son. This was a turning point in his life. He had admitted that there was problems, and he was ready to accept my help. This point was reached because their was mutual trust. And I was able to help my son.
Make reasonable rules. Give the kids more lenient rules as they get older. Give them more freedom, and more responsabilities as they get older. As the kids get older they get more chores, relaxed curfews and more freedoms. Do not make rules about unimportant things. Try to compromise on the little things, and only insist on truly important rules being followed. What a teenager wears or how they cut or colour their hair is not that important. Doing your chores, getting to school, doing school work, keeping promises, and being honest are important. In our home lying is the worst thing you can do.
I wouldn't bother with one of the gps things. Driving is so dangerous that unless I was very confident that my child could drive safely without me looking over their shoulder I would not lend them my car. If they work, and buy and insure their own car I would not try to ban them from driving, but I would try to talk them into delaying driving until they were ready, and of course, they would get constant safety lectures.
CRT's are still very GOOD technology. You can get high resolution CRT's for computers and TV's.
Technology changes fast, and with LCD's price coming down and quality going up they will soon offer the same performance as CRT's for the same price. But as of last year this is what I found when I looked into buying a new moderate sized TV (32 to 36 inches):
All projection TV's suck, unless they are VERY expensive. Unless you have your eyes in the "sweet spot" the picture quality is quite bad.
DLP is very nice picture, but it very expenisve, and you may have to replace a $200 light bulb every few years.
Plasma is also very nice, especially in larger sizes, but still a bit pricy. Some models have burn in trouble, and they do fade slowly, normaly have at least a ten year life. My second choice.
LCD pretty good picture, very close to a good CRT. Contrast not quite as good and the larer sizes were still very expensive. May have to replace $100 light after 4 or 5 years.
CRT - under 36 inches still very good prices. Old, reliable technology. GREAT picture on a newer set, and long life with very little burn in and no fading. Downside is it is big and heavy.
I went with a 34" widescreen high-def CRT. At the time it was the best picture at that size and price with zero expected maintenance. As for High-def - it really only improves the picture for sets about 36" and bigger. I only wanted a modest size set as the room it is going in is not that big.
Small communities often do not have the resources to insure a safe water supply, or the local expertise to even correctly test the water supply.
In Canada guidelines regarding drinking water safety are set at the national level, but the provinces are responsible for making sure the rules are followed and can set whatever rules they want. But each city actually sets up, pays for, and runs their own water system. The federal government is directly responsible for water quality on native reserves, cruise ships, and other common carriers.
There was a famous case recently where an incompetent person handling a small communities water supply actually caused a few deaths. An in depth article about the Walkerton case.
A simpler change to the system to prevent submarine patents is in the works in the USA - first to file instead of first to invent.
The rest of the world uses first to file as it is much easier to prove when you get into a lawsuit. And you cannot file a patent under "first to file" for a publicly disclosed invention.
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If police can't use Tazers, does that mean you want the police to shoot people with normal guns? Obviously a tazer isn't 100% safe, but its a lot safer than a normal gunshot.
Personally, I would rather have my government spend more on medical services than its armed forces. The USA should join the first world and get a real national, socialized, medical system. Put off your next invasion for a bit and you can afford it. You socialized the road system. You socialized the primary education system.
The rich have access to medical care in countries outside their own. Only the middle class and poor have to wait. And you only wait for non-life threatening procedures. Still, the wait times are too long sometimes.
You do understand that you have to pay back credit plus interest? Whatever you can afford using a credit card, you can afford by saving for the item. Only very expensive items, say a house or car, really require credit to be bought by the average person. Most people should never spend more on a credit card than they can pay off at the end of the month.
Lost your job, and car payments are suddenly too high? Sell the car. Too much on the old credit card? Stop spending. Sell some of the toys. You'll take a loss, but you'll have more money for important payments like your mortage or rent. If renting think about moving into a smaller place if a new job takes a while to find.
Anyone with any sort of equitiy in a home or a good job should NEVER keep a balance on their credit card. Get a line of credit and transfer the credit card balance to it if you can't pay it off. This should be a last resort, not a normal thing. Only spend what you can pay at the end of the month. If you really want something - SAVE up for it!
Simple rules for credit:
Running a household is simple. It only takes small amount of planning and self control.
But the Inian system is simple, cheap, scaleable, and almost tamper proof. How can you make a profit with that?
It's been a while since I read anything so stupid. Consider a chain being held up by a 5 km tower and hanging straight down. The link nearest the ground only has to hold its own weight. The link at the top of the tower has to hold the weight of every link below it. The top link will break under the weight of the whole chain. Yes it will break. This little exercise applies to strings, cables, and all other "stuff" used to build bridges.
Actually most plans do call for it to be moved to avoid storms, space debris, and other hazards. The bottom would be a large floating base that can be moved as required, located near the equator.
Space Elevator Primer has all the basic questions answered. The worst that could happen is a few grams of ribbon will be spread over every few square kilometers!
The top half always escapes. The lower half flutters down reaching a top speed of 0.5 m/s. If a long piece happened to drape itself over a very tall building it might put a small load on it. This is a (OMG) PowerPoint on the risks that is very good. http://www.mit.edu/people/gassend/spaceelevator/SE C2005/BrokenElevator.ppt
Her house was taken legally. The character screwed up, over and over, before she lost the house. The story was more compelling because she was at fault as this gave the reader/audience a legitement reason to sympathize with the new owner.
I'm sure the crooks came in to his office with a perfectly good fake drivers license. Still, you'd think there would be a better system in place for title transfers.
Recently, a car dealership sold a stolen car. The real owner tracked down the car and it was returned to him. The guy who bought the car was out the money he paid to the dealer. The dealer was off the hook as all the paperwork was ok when they bought it from the crook.
The Clinton administration told the incoming Bush administration that their top security concern should be this group called "al qaeda". The Bush admin decided that Iraq was a bigger problem even though they KNEW Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had no ties to international terrorism, and that the USA had been bombing them daily since the first gulf war to enforce the "no fly zones". Then 9/11 happened.
Not true. If you are rich and invest that way you do not stay rich. Most of rich peoples money is in stocks and real estate which both do help drive a healthy economy. Even the luxury items create employment as someone has to make them.
What you should be pised about is a tax code so convuluted that only the rich can afford the accouncts required to take advantage of all the breaks, and of course the tax breaks aimed at the rich. But even with these problems the corporate world enjoys even bigger tax breaks.
You might be able to plant a little earlier, but the first day of Spring doesn't change.
A slap to the face is NEVER ok. For very young children a soft slap on the hand can be effective, but it should be used rarely. A tradional spanking (hand only, no weapons!) is sometime called for, but not for being a normal kid. If a kid keeps doing something dangerous to themselves they might get a hand slap. If they are trying to drown the baby they get a spanking. Once the master the basics of speaking it becomes even less neccessary to use corporal punishment.
Kids need rules and limits. But non-corporal punishment has been shown to be more effective over the long term.
On people? On crimminals? On the insane? Or just let people die from disease?
So? I rode a bike to work for years, about 10 miles in city traffic. 20 to 25 minutes to get to work, a little longer on the way home as it was more uphill.
This doesn't mean you should not read parenting books. They do help. It is just that there is no way to be fully prepared to be a parent ahead of time.
Most people should be ready to drive at 16. But if your child is not ready I hope you don't lend them your car.
You can get some basic knowledge of parenting from books and recalling how your own parents acted, but parenting is one of those things that you learn by doing. I have three kids and I was a much better parent with the two youngest because I learned so much with the first child. Bit hard on the oldest.
I have three teenagers. I learned so much about parenting as my oldest went through his teenage years that I handled the next two kids much better. I almost feel sorry for my oldest as I could have done a better job dealing with a few stresful issues, but it was a learning experience for both of us. The key things I learned are to be more patient, not take offense too easily as they start to express themselves more strongly, keep your temper, and do not over punish. What I did right was to always listen to my kids, and to calmly explain why their behaviour was wrong. It just took a while for me to learn that the getting furious step should be replaced with the getting slightly angry for a for short time (minutes) step, or skipped altogether. A long lecture is punishment enough :)
Trust. All good parents trust their kids, but they also verify that things are going as well as the child claims. If lies are found out the trust level does drop. You explain that the trust level has dropped and that the child should work on regaining that trust. I let the child see that I am more closely verifing claims until the trust is back to where it should be. The main reason kids lie is to avoid getting in trouble, right now. They don't think ahead. They don't see that little problems being lied about now will become bigger problems in the future. They don't think "well this can't be hidden for more than a week so I better 'fess up and deal with it now". No, they think "if I say nothing maybe it will go away".
But when your child does reward the trust your have built up by admitting to a problem or mistake you have to very careful to not over react. You may have to punish the child, but don't over do it. For exampe, adults know that an education is important, but that is a very abstract concept to most young teenagers. It is counter productive to ground a kid for a month because they skipped a weeks school. And for myself, having a long fuse but a horrible temper when I finally do lose it, I really had to watch my temper. Kids can put up with a lecture and a short yelling, but if they know they will have to face a furious parent they will try very hard to avoid that, with lies if neccessary.
When there is trust between a parent and child the child may still lie about little things. Don't sweat the little things. It is much more important to have a good relationship so that if there is a big problem the child trusts YOU to help them deal with it and not just yell at them. My eldest did go through a very bad year and half, but during a calm father son talk he finally admitted to me a number of things in his life that were going wrong. Dearly bought experince had by this point taught me that I had to suppress my instinct to lecture (or yell), and just help my son. This was a turning point in his life. He had admitted that there was problems, and he was ready to accept my help. This point was reached because their was mutual trust. And I was able to help my son.
Make reasonable rules. Give the kids more lenient rules as they get older. Give them more freedom, and more responsabilities as they get older. As the kids get older they get more chores, relaxed curfews and more freedoms. Do not make rules about unimportant things. Try to compromise on the little things, and only insist on truly important rules being followed. What a teenager wears or how they cut or colour their hair is not that important. Doing your chores, getting to school, doing school work, keeping promises, and being honest are important. In our home lying is the worst thing you can do.
I wouldn't bother with one of the gps things. Driving is so dangerous that unless I was very confident that my child could drive safely without me looking over their shoulder I would not lend them my car. If they work, and buy and insure their own car I would not try to ban them from driving, but I would try to talk them into delaying driving until they were ready, and of course, they would get constant safety lectures.
Technology changes fast, and with LCD's price coming down and quality going up they will soon offer the same performance as CRT's for the same price. But as of last year this is what I found when I looked into buying a new moderate sized TV (32 to 36 inches):
I went with a 34" widescreen high-def CRT. At the time it was the best picture at that size and price with zero expected maintenance. As for High-def - it really only improves the picture for sets about 36" and bigger. I only wanted a modest size set as the room it is going in is not that big.
Citizens need to know.
In Canada guidelines regarding drinking water safety are set at the national level, but the provinces are responsible for making sure the rules are followed and can set whatever rules they want. But each city actually sets up, pays for, and runs their own water system. The federal government is directly responsible for water quality on native reserves, cruise ships, and other common carriers.
There was a famous case recently where an incompetent person handling a small communities water supply actually caused a few deaths. An in depth article about the Walkerton case.
The rest of the world uses first to file as it is much easier to prove when you get into a lawsuit. And you cannot file a patent under "first to file" for a publicly disclosed invention.