According to some wildlife biologists, the leading cause of death in caribou is anemia from mosquito bites. That they're so thick they'll drain you dry is just barely a joke.
This isn't something I'd considered before, but I think you are right about Siberia's future. How is today's defanged Russia going to defend those thousands of miles of open nothing-much? Nukes aimed at Beijing are probably their only real option (not exactly a quality outcome). The only realtime defense is that tundra becomes largely-impassable bog in summer, except by air, so on the ground it would be a winter war (and we all know how well THAT goes for invaders in Russia). As I understand it, the resources in Siberia are staggering, the problem is extracting them economically. China has enough warm bodies and the will to make anything their gov't wants economical, if only they can get their hands on it.
As to the nominal topic, it occurs to me that (ecological considerations aside) using combustible ice solves two problems: energy-hungry areas are usually also water-hungry.
This is no different, other than scale, than entering my home without permission, taking my property and resources, squatting permanently in my living room, and expecting to be allowed to do so without fear of consequences.
Of course, a lot of states have done the same thing there as we've done with the border -- made it the homeowner's duty to retreat.
So, no, I'm not trolling... after living in SoCal for 25 years and watching the situation go from iffy to bad to irrecoverable, I've gone from my original position of sympathy for the poor immigrants, to being all for gun turrets at the border.
Note that it also only applies when the police officer has reason to believe you are involved in a crime (or are 'about to commit a crime' but that skates dangerously close to thoughtcrime -- if I peer through a window, am I about to burglarize the place??)
It does NOT give them the right to demand identification from average citizens under random or ordinary circumstances.
That's the best argument I've seen. And as I recall, there is some SCOTUS decision that basically says you aren't required to prove or even admit who you are, unless you're a principle in a crime.
Exactly. In fact, I would expect this to *increase* the "undocumented worker" problem, once the underground economy caught up.
Nope, the problem isn't that we provide them jobs. The problem is that we let them stay at all, let them come back repeatedly if we do bother to kick them out, and give their kids entitlement citizenship. No other country in the world does that; everywhere else, your birthplace means nothing, you're simply a citizen of wherever your parents are.
Second, our deportation process has no teeth. They turn right around and run back over the border again with no real fear of consequences. So... how about this: first time, we strip you buck-naked (and I mean this literally, take everything they own), tattoo your ass so we'll know you next time, and throw you back. Second time, you get a year at hard labor without pay, doing the really dirty and dangerous jobs no one else wants. Third time, we shoot you.
The problem is the civil asset forfeiture process, which confiscates property, or prosecutes property and then confiscates it, all without any proof of wrongdoing. It becomes YOUR job to prove that you didn't commit a crime (rather than the government's job to prove that you DID commit one), and meanwhile the storage costs on your property are mounting up, the damage to your business and propery is being done, the property is being sold to third parties (yes, this does happen, and without ANY due process).
So.. if you're merely ACCUSED of hiring an undocumented worker, your business may be taken over by the enforcement corps until you can prove your innocence, and that means you are OUT of business (probably for good since most businesses cannot survive even a short shutdown period anymore), *whether you were guilty or not*.
How long before the disenfranchised underground economy becomes more important than the "legal" economy??
Okay, so that's a stretch, but I can see it becoming far more significant than it is today, and unless there's an enforcer under every bush, this may even *increase* the undocumented-worker problem.
Your post gives me an idea. How about sites pay US to view the ads? After all, they're using up our time, our bandwidth, our CPU and RAM to display them. We should get something in return for helping prop up their business model.
Or maybe this: Any time advertising uses more bandwidth than the site's actual content, we get paid to view the page!
Oh, bandwidth costs money, so we should pay? Okay, but.... what percentage of that bandwidth is used BY those ads you're serving us?? MOST of it?? Thought so.
Intrusive ads and slow-loading 3rd party sites are the real killers for me.
Hitting me in the face with an ad doesn't make me more likely to buy; quite the reverse. Oh, I might remember it... but I'll make a point of NOT buying that product.
And forcing me to wait for someone else's slow ad-server (I'm lookin' at YOU, google)... well, at this point I either abort the page-load or give up and go elsewhere. Expecting me to wait 30 seconds for someone else's irrelevant-to-me junk is just BS. Oh, it's only 30 seconds out of my day? Multiply that times 50 or 100 pages a day. NOW how much of my time have you wasted??
I didn't mind the old-fashioned SILENT banners, even if they had some minor animation -- that only looped ONCE. I didn't mind the original google ads that loaded instantly and sometimes actually were interesting. Go back to that, and maybe I'll look at your ads and your site again.
Another thing about touch-typing (no matter how many fingers are involved), you can generally "feel" your typoes as you make them, so you tend to correct as you go without having to think about it. I suspect that for creative writing, it also contributes toward being able to edit as you go without getting hung up in it.
I was taught "correct" typing (back in 1972, it was a required class in my high school), and if I think about it, or really need to touch-type, I can still do it, with no special effort. But most of the time now I type with two fingers per hand and a thumb, and achieve about the same top speed (in the 100wpm range) -- PROVIDED the keyboard cooperates.
I've found that for myself, the most important factor isn't where my hands are or which fingers I use, but rather, having a keyboard with a very light, silent touch that takes no physical effort. The more effort it takes, the slower I go and the more mistakes I make -- and the more my hands tend to bounce away from the keys and wind up all over the place.
Conversely, I find that a keyboard with a very light touch encourages "proper" technique, because it's not nearly as much work for the weaker fingers.
In fact, I strongly suspect that keyboards with stiffer keys are what caused me to wind up doing the two-finger thing in the first place.
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I'd be price-shopping if I decide to buy it... once in a while this sort of thing comes into Sam's Club or Costco too, at about half retail. I'll keep an eye out.:)
Interesting... did you buy it? Am wondering about the format used, if it's searchable or indexed by issue/year, and whether it insists on installing DRM or some such nonsense. Doesn't seem like a bad deal otherwise, and certainly more space-effective than all that paper... tho not as handy for portable reading, obviously.
Not only that, but it's possible the next-up-chain distributor was not at fault, but themselves got shafted, either by their own supply chain (such as a substitution that was done in transit), or by an inside job that substituted fake goods in the warehouse, and shipped them as usual.
In which case, it wouldn't do at all to be making accusations. Better to be diplomatic. You can always make accusations later, but it's impossible to unsay those hasty words.
Furthermore, if you plan to start a criminal investigation, it wouldn't do at all to tip off the fraudsters that you're on to their operation (tho if they read/. I imagine they already know!)
While I agree that building developments in wilderness or worse, prime farmland, is utterly stupid and destructive, it is not really a factor here.
Firstoff, this wasn't in California; it was somewhere in the midwest or back east. But the same applies to deer populations in several states. New Jersey has had such a deer overload in recent years that starving deer are invading towns looking for food, even in summer. Overall in North America, deer are now 2 to 3 times as populous as they were before civilization. This is less due to predator loss (wolves are actually overpopulated right now, with about 4x as many on the "restored" ranges as those regions can support; this is causing a large-game die-back in some areas) than to reduced hunting by man -- remember that Native Americans were almost exclusively hunting cultures, and imposed enough hunting pressure over the previous several thousand years that some researchers believe they extincted a number of large game species. Modern humans simply don't hunt that much. Also, deer tend to increase into cultivated areas, because they are browsers and this suits them better than forests.
Second, contrary to popular opinion, both mountain lions and notably BEARS (a major predator of fawns) have become 3 TIMES as numerous in human-plagued California as they were in primitive times. Bears are reported in Los Angeles foothill communities 300 to 400 times a year at present. (Sometimes miles from the nearest wilderness of any sort.)
Third, research on rattlesnakes (which are extremely plentiful throughout their range and have not been impacted by man at all) indicates that they are pretty much worthless as vermin control, because they only eat a couple times a year, and that they don't really have a significant role in controlling anything. (Conversely, gopher snakes eat once or twice a week. And the major control on small vermin is actually coyotes, which are much more populous now than they were 2000 years ago. Per DNA studies, it turns out they are only native to the southwest, and had FOLLOWED MAN across the continent. 28% also had domestic dog DNA from about 2000 years ago.)
As to what ranchers do, ever heard of livestock guardian dogs, or hired shepherds? both do a pretty good job so long as the big predators aren't overloaded. The problem is not the occasional kill made to eat; it's that (contrary again to city perceptions) ALL predators kill for entertainment, and a herd of sheep is just SO much fun to make run madly in all directions and rip to shreds. But I guess vandalism is okay if it's done by a wild animal to livestock instead of a gang-banger to a storefront, right?
The problem is, the excess deer are already here. You can give them birth control and cut future increases, but most of the ones that are already here are still going to live another 10 years or so -- well, unless starvation and consequent disease kills them first (as it will, once they've finished denuding their environment). Wildlife overpopulation usually leads to a massive die-off, and a lingering death from starvation or disease is a lot more cruel than a quick death from a bullet.
The other problem with birth control is that it's nonselective -- so it negates reproduction of the fittest (which includes those savvy enough to evade hunters, including both humans and other predators), likewise not in the herd's best long-term interests.
I predict that it will not stop until we are ALL wearing *some* sort of scarlet letter.:(
BTW under other legislation being pushed by this same HSUS-backed crowd, owning more than N-many animals is "abuse" (how well they're cared for is absolutely irrelevant), and breeding pets AT ALL is also "abuse". Best-practices for some types of livestock have already been classed as "abuse". The fact is, such a registry will expand right along with these irrational laws, until everyone who owns a purebred dog is included, everyone who hunts is included, and everyone who farms is included.
Consider that under some interpretations, failing to license your pet is "abuse"... there have already been confiscations citing a few fleas as "abuse"... In San Francisco, failing to provide "quality food" (which is not defined by their new law) is "abuse"... the ways an ordinary pet owner could find themselves on this list is endless, everyone can play!
When did jury nullification become actively illegal? Last time I was handed info about it (probably 2-3 years ago) that literature specifically stated that it was NOT illegal, even tho some courts would instruct otherwise.
Combine the loss of this last ditch defense with crap like civil asset forfeiture, and we're in seriously deep shit, even tho we still live well enough to disguise that fact.:(
What is the judge going to do? Say "Sorry, that's the wrong answer."
I don't recall the circumstances, nor whether it was a criminal or civil trial, but I do recall something on that order happening some years ago, where the judge sent the jury back to reconsider its verdict. Wish I could remember more, would be useful in context today.
Had nothing to do with false pride. Not even with exposure or teaching (tho we still had structured music classes as part of the required curiculum back then). But I do have a tested-perfect ear, and that may be part of it... bluntly, until electronics made it possible for anyone to play in tune, a lot of pop/rock was pretty marginal or even outright badly played.
But mostly, I just think it's amusing that my musical tastes timeline is bassackwards from most people.
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According to some wildlife biologists, the leading cause of death in caribou is anemia from mosquito bites. That they're so thick they'll drain you dry is just barely a joke.
This isn't something I'd considered before, but I think you are right about Siberia's future. How is today's defanged Russia going to defend those thousands of miles of open nothing-much? Nukes aimed at Beijing are probably their only real option (not exactly a quality outcome). The only realtime defense is that tundra becomes largely-impassable bog in summer, except by air, so on the ground it would be a winter war (and we all know how well THAT goes for invaders in Russia). As I understand it, the resources in Siberia are staggering, the problem is extracting them economically. China has enough warm bodies and the will to make anything their gov't wants economical, if only they can get their hands on it.
As to the nominal topic, it occurs to me that (ecological considerations aside) using combustible ice solves two problems: energy-hungry areas are usually also water-hungry.
This is no different, other than scale, than entering my home without permission, taking my property and resources, squatting permanently in my living room, and expecting to be allowed to do so without fear of consequences.
Of course, a lot of states have done the same thing there as we've done with the border -- made it the homeowner's duty to retreat.
So, no, I'm not trolling... after living in SoCal for 25 years and watching the situation go from iffy to bad to irrecoverable, I've gone from my original position of sympathy for the poor immigrants, to being all for gun turrets at the border.
This becomes an excuse to require biometric logins for any computer capable of remote access.
Note that it also only applies when the police officer has reason to believe you are involved in a crime (or are 'about to commit a crime' but that skates dangerously close to thoughtcrime -- if I peer through a window, am I about to burglarize the place??)
It does NOT give them the right to demand identification from average citizens under random or ordinary circumstances.
Hear fucking hear!! WE have to look out for our own country and our own people -- BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL.
Or did these "no borders" types really expect Mexico et al. to extend welfare benefits to Americans who are put out of work by illegal immigrants??
That's the best argument I've seen. And as I recall, there is some SCOTUS decision that basically says you aren't required to prove or even admit who you are, unless you're a principle in a crime.
Exactly. In fact, I would expect this to *increase* the "undocumented worker" problem, once the underground economy caught up.
Nope, the problem isn't that we provide them jobs. The problem is that we let them stay at all, let them come back repeatedly if we do bother to kick them out, and give their kids entitlement citizenship. No other country in the world does that; everywhere else, your birthplace means nothing, you're simply a citizen of wherever your parents are.
Second, our deportation process has no teeth. They turn right around and run back over the border again with no real fear of consequences. So... how about this: first time, we strip you buck-naked (and I mean this literally, take everything they own), tattoo your ass so we'll know you next time, and throw you back. Second time, you get a year at hard labor without pay, doing the really dirty and dangerous jobs no one else wants. Third time, we shoot you.
The problem would vanish overnight.
The problem is the civil asset forfeiture process, which confiscates property, or prosecutes property and then confiscates it, all without any proof of wrongdoing. It becomes YOUR job to prove that you didn't commit a crime (rather than the government's job to prove that you DID commit one), and meanwhile the storage costs on your property are mounting up, the damage to your business and propery is being done, the property is being sold to third parties (yes, this does happen, and without ANY due process).
So.. if you're merely ACCUSED of hiring an undocumented worker, your business may be taken over by the enforcement corps until you can prove your innocence, and that means you are OUT of business (probably for good since most businesses cannot survive even a short shutdown period anymore), *whether you were guilty or not*.
http://www.fear.org/
How long before the disenfranchised underground economy becomes more important than the "legal" economy??
Okay, so that's a stretch, but I can see it becoming far more significant than it is today, and unless there's an enforcer under every bush, this may even *increase* the undocumented-worker problem.
Your post gives me an idea. How about sites pay US to view the ads? After all, they're using up our time, our bandwidth, our CPU and RAM to display them. We should get something in return for helping prop up their business model.
Or maybe this: Any time advertising uses more bandwidth than the site's actual content, we get paid to view the page!
Oh, bandwidth costs money, so we should pay? Okay, but.... what percentage of that bandwidth is used BY those ads you're serving us?? MOST of it?? Thought so.
Intrusive ads and slow-loading 3rd party sites are the real killers for me.
Hitting me in the face with an ad doesn't make me more likely to buy; quite the reverse. Oh, I might remember it... but I'll make a point of NOT buying that product.
And forcing me to wait for someone else's slow ad-server (I'm lookin' at YOU, google) ... well, at this point I either abort the page-load or give up and go elsewhere. Expecting me to wait 30 seconds for someone else's irrelevant-to-me junk is just BS. Oh, it's only 30 seconds out of my day? Multiply that times 50 or 100 pages a day. NOW how much of my time have you wasted??
I didn't mind the old-fashioned SILENT banners, even if they had some minor animation -- that only looped ONCE. I didn't mind the original google ads that loaded instantly and sometimes actually were interesting. Go back to that, and maybe I'll look at your ads and your site again.
Another thing about touch-typing (no matter how many fingers are involved), you can generally "feel" your typoes as you make them, so you tend to correct as you go without having to think about it. I suspect that for creative writing, it also contributes toward being able to edit as you go without getting hung up in it.
I was taught "correct" typing (back in 1972, it was a required class in my high school), and if I think about it, or really need to touch-type, I can still do it, with no special effort. But most of the time now I type with two fingers per hand and a thumb, and achieve about the same top speed (in the 100wpm range) -- PROVIDED the keyboard cooperates.
I've found that for myself, the most important factor isn't where my hands are or which fingers I use, but rather, having a keyboard with a very light, silent touch that takes no physical effort. The more effort it takes, the slower I go and the more mistakes I make -- and the more my hands tend to bounce away from the keys and wind up all over the place.
Conversely, I find that a keyboard with a very light touch encourages "proper" technique, because it's not nearly as much work for the weaker fingers.
In fact, I strongly suspect that keyboards with stiffer keys are what caused me to wind up doing the two-finger thing in the first place.
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I'd be price-shopping if I decide to buy it... once in a while this sort of thing comes into Sam's Club or Costco too, at about half retail. I'll keep an eye out. :)
Coolness, thanks... now how do I get it to display from oldest to newest??
Interesting... did you buy it? Am wondering about the format used, if it's searchable or indexed by issue/year, and whether it insists on installing DRM or some such nonsense. Doesn't seem like a bad deal otherwise, and certainly more space-effective than all that paper... tho not as handy for portable reading, obviously.
Not only that, but it's possible the next-up-chain distributor was not at fault, but themselves got shafted, either by their own supply chain (such as a substitution that was done in transit), or by an inside job that substituted fake goods in the warehouse, and shipped them as usual.
In which case, it wouldn't do at all to be making accusations. Better to be diplomatic. You can always make accusations later, but it's impossible to unsay those hasty words.
Furthermore, if you plan to start a criminal investigation, it wouldn't do at all to tip off the fraudsters that you're on to their operation (tho if they read /. I imagine they already know!)
While I agree that building developments in wilderness or worse, prime farmland, is utterly stupid and destructive, it is not really a factor here.
Firstoff, this wasn't in California; it was somewhere in the midwest or back east. But the same applies to deer populations in several states. New Jersey has had such a deer overload in recent years that starving deer are invading towns looking for food, even in summer. Overall in North America, deer are now 2 to 3 times as populous as they were before civilization. This is less due to predator loss (wolves are actually overpopulated right now, with about 4x as many on the "restored" ranges as those regions can support; this is causing a large-game die-back in some areas) than to reduced hunting by man -- remember that Native Americans were almost exclusively hunting cultures, and imposed enough hunting pressure over the previous several thousand years that some researchers believe they extincted a number of large game species. Modern humans simply don't hunt that much. Also, deer tend to increase into cultivated areas, because they are browsers and this suits them better than forests.
Second, contrary to popular opinion, both mountain lions and notably BEARS (a major predator of fawns) have become 3 TIMES as numerous in human-plagued California as they were in primitive times. Bears are reported in Los Angeles foothill communities 300 to 400 times a year at present. (Sometimes miles from the nearest wilderness of any sort.)
Third, research on rattlesnakes (which are extremely plentiful throughout their range and have not been impacted by man at all) indicates that they are pretty much worthless as vermin control, because they only eat a couple times a year, and that they don't really have a significant role in controlling anything. (Conversely, gopher snakes eat once or twice a week. And the major control on small vermin is actually coyotes, which are much more populous now than they were 2000 years ago. Per DNA studies, it turns out they are only native to the southwest, and had FOLLOWED MAN across the continent. 28% also had domestic dog DNA from about 2000 years ago.)
As to what ranchers do, ever heard of livestock guardian dogs, or hired shepherds? both do a pretty good job so long as the big predators aren't overloaded. The problem is not the occasional kill made to eat; it's that (contrary again to city perceptions) ALL predators kill for entertainment, and a herd of sheep is just SO much fun to make run madly in all directions and rip to shreds. But I guess vandalism is okay if it's done by a wild animal to livestock instead of a gang-banger to a storefront, right?
The problem is, the excess deer are already here. You can give them birth control and cut future increases, but most of the ones that are already here are still going to live another 10 years or so -- well, unless starvation and consequent disease kills them first (as it will, once they've finished denuding their environment). Wildlife overpopulation usually leads to a massive die-off, and a lingering death from starvation or disease is a lot more cruel than a quick death from a bullet.
The other problem with birth control is that it's nonselective -- so it negates reproduction of the fittest (which includes those savvy enough to evade hunters, including both humans and other predators), likewise not in the herd's best long-term interests.
I predict that it will not stop until we are ALL wearing *some* sort of scarlet letter. :(
BTW under other legislation being pushed by this same HSUS-backed crowd, owning more than N-many animals is "abuse" (how well they're cared for is absolutely irrelevant), and breeding pets AT ALL is also "abuse". Best-practices for some types of livestock have already been classed as "abuse". The fact is, such a registry will expand right along with these irrational laws, until everyone who owns a purebred dog is included, everyone who hunts is included, and everyone who farms is included.
And it's all about the money:
Recommended reading:
http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/comments/the_humanewatch_interview_frank_losey/
Consider that under some interpretations, failing to license your pet is "abuse"... there have already been confiscations citing a few fleas as "abuse"... In San Francisco, failing to provide "quality food" (which is not defined by their new law) is "abuse"... the ways an ordinary pet owner could find themselves on this list is endless, everyone can play!
When did jury nullification become actively illegal? Last time I was handed info about it (probably 2-3 years ago) that literature specifically stated that it was NOT illegal, even tho some courts would instruct otherwise.
Combine the loss of this last ditch defense with crap like civil asset forfeiture, and we're in seriously deep shit, even tho we still live well enough to disguise that fact. :(
http://www.fear.org/
What is the judge going to do? Say "Sorry, that's the wrong answer."
I don't recall the circumstances, nor whether it was a criminal or civil trial, but I do recall something on that order happening some years ago, where the judge sent the jury back to reconsider its verdict. Wish I could remember more, would be useful in context today.
Had nothing to do with false pride. Not even with exposure or teaching (tho we still had structured music classes as part of the required curiculum back then). But I do have a tested-perfect ear, and that may be part of it... bluntly, until electronics made it possible for anyone to play in tune, a lot of pop/rock was pretty marginal or even outright badly played.
But mostly, I just think it's amusing that my musical tastes timeline is bassackwards from most people.