taking 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas for one barrel.
That's still only, what, $15 per barrel? Added to the price of oil currently, it's a tough pill to swallow but not a huge increase.
if someone can figure out an alternative mechanical or chemical solution
NH4 is used because it is rich in Hydrogen. To find a substitute means finding an economical way to produce Hydrogen. If anyone did that we could give up on oil shale completely as we'd have better, distributed, renewable sources of energy.
What you seem to be missing is that, to even care about copper at all, you have to presuppose the end of oil. The markets already do so, and will continue to do so as more evidence of future scarcity comes to light.
While oil must be literally consumed as it is used, copper doesn't have to be. Unfortunately however, copper is currently treated as a consumable. Electronics are scrapped and put into dumps without thought.
In reality, copper is a precious metal. We just don't know it yet. In one way or another, a decrease in the amount of oil will cause an increase in the use of copper. Couple that with ongoing industrialization of a huge percentage of the world's population, and you get scarcity and the opportunity to profit by hoarding it.
AFAIK there's no widespread, critical job that can only be done by copper...
Ha. How about almost every electrical wire on the planet is made of copper. It is by far the best material available. Currently there are motors, generators, transformers and small electronics. But we'll be adding windmills, car motors, and all sorts of useful chemical catalysts.
However a constitutional republic (with a strictly limited government power) and democratically representatives - isn't as oppressive and warlike.
Do you honestly think we live in that republic? The vast majority of political scientists, politicians, lawmakers, judges and lawyers will tell you that the US government is the de facto ruler of this country. Many of the recent Supreme Court nominees, though ostensably independent-thinkers and strict constructionists, believe that the will of the US Congress is the paramount authority bar none, and is not restricted to the limited powers granted in the Constitution.
Those are the facts. If you ask anyone, they will tell you the same. These are educated, intelligent people we're talking about. My question is "How do you believe they justify that view, if not by either direct democracy or outright oppression?"
Deploying Linux in business environments, I haven't seen a site that absolutely required IE in a long time. Even the banks I deal with have long supported Mozilla and Firefox.
But, just for fun, last week I did a little experiment. I made a list of as many sites with embedded videos that I could, mostly news sites, and tested them against Konqueror and Firefox. I came up with 18 sites in total. The results were that eleven sites worked with both Konqueror and Firefox, three more worked in Firefox only, and only four had absolute requirements that precluded any Linux browser. These ranged from Flash 8.0, which doesn't yet exist for Linux, to ActiveX detection routines.
So, from a small, completely unstatistical sample of the most popular sites I could find, 77% were compatible with Firefox on Linux. 61% were compatible enough to work even in Konqueror. And of the sites that required IE, one was msnbc.com, and two were Viacom companies, mtv.com and vh1.com, that excluded Linux intentionally, citing "Windows DRM" as the reason.
For the tests, I used KMplayer and Xine as the video player, with both Real and Windows Media codecs. I needed the KMplayer plugin for Konqueror and the MediaPlayerconnectivity and User Agent Switcher extensions for Firefox.
The real surprise is just how long it's taking to get past this point.
Why is that surprising? On the one hand, you have commercial software that is the equivalent of a car with the hood welded shut and a dealership that wants to sell you a new car every time there is a problem. And on the other hand, you have users who are convinced that computers are beyond their comprehension and they are entitled to unlimited hand-holding for their $500 that they spent on a new Dell. Not surprisingly, what we get is computers that are disposable, just like everything else that might take lazy stupid Americans more than ten minutes to repair.
There often is a difference between what's legal and what's right in a moral sense - in other words, the "right" in "a right" is not the same as in "morally right".
Rights have little to do with either laws or morality. But in the US, our government was formed on the provisio that respecting rights is a moral requirement.
Maybe I shouldn't be one to argue about Sigs, but nonetheless...
Most of the "Rights" that site says aren't "in" the Constitution are embodied in the 9th Amendment.
"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is not technically in the Constitution, but "life, liberty, and property" is in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
"Of the people, by the people, for the people" is technically from the Gettysburg Address, but the Constitution begins "We the People..."
I'm sure there are others. Those were just the most obviously misleading.
That's it right there. When you go to the doctor, you tell them what hurts. When you go to the mechanic, you tell them what noise your car is making. When you need computer help, you make up something vague to tell the computer guy, like "the internet doesn't work", and usually the computer guy gives you a vague answer back, like "you need a completely new computer".
And the sad thing is, there's no way to bridge this divide. Every person who works on computers has tried to explain computers to average people in ways they can understand. And every one has tried to get average people to explain their problems with computers in ways *we* can understand. Their eyes glaze over, they say "I'm stupid, just fix it", and I end up billing two hours to determe that a USB cable is unplugged.
Some vagueness here, based on "applicable copyright law":
To "propagate" a work means doing anything with it that requires permission under applicable copyright law, other than executing it on a computer or making private modifications. This includes copying, distribution (with or without modification), sublicensing, and in some countries other activities as well.
And there's other disclaimers about "private" this and that:
This License gives unlimited permission to privately modify and run the Program, provided you do not bring suit for patent infringement against anyone for making, using or distributing their own works based on the Program.
But, finally, does this give specific permission for web services?
Propagation of covered works is permitted without limitation provided it does not enable parties other than you to make or receive copies. Propagation which does enable them to do so is permitted, as "distribution", under the conditions of sections 4-6 below.
If they didn't have employees, or if the capital they held shares in did not have employees, they would have nothing.
Hardly. While they might have less, they wouldn't have "nothing".
In fact, people make a pretty crappy form of capital. They're unreliable. They only work 8 hours a day. They break down. For most tasks, they do sub-quality work. They are energy-intensive. And if you invest in improving them, you risk losing your investment. I sure as hell wouldn't invest in any human capital unless I were forced to.
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote),
Obviously the two statements are contradictory enough to warrant an explanation. There is no such thing as a "capitalist anarchy." Anarcho-Capitalism is a fabricated ideology that is self-contradictory. All it means as far as I can tell is massive deregulation and civil libertarianism. That looks to me like a recipe for drug warlords, arms dealers, and crooked businessmen running roughshod over everyone. If you applied it to the current system without redistributing wealth, it would be catastrophic and unfair.
Anarchy means the abolition of hierarchy. Capitalism is by definition a hierarchical system. Never the twain shall meet: they are mutually exclusive. You could call yourself a Libertarian (with a capital 'L'), in the sense of the Libertarian party, and perhaps in the sense of personal freedom. But with the former you would be pushing a Social Darwinist ideal, which seems at odds with your Christianity.
You quote the grandparent as being simultaneously against working as an employee and for capitalism, and then launch into a tirade against the notion of "Anarcho-Capitalism". While I agree with many of your points and believe "Anarcho-Capitalism" to be merely thinly-veiled social darwinism with an unexplained respect of property rights, with as little in common with "anarchy" as Libertarianism has, I think the base point of your criticism is invalid. It is perfectly possible to be at once respectful of property and capitalism and against employment. The most successful capitalists are usually against employment, at least in regards to themselves.
You misunderstand the realities of weapons...
on
Forecasting Doomsday
·
· Score: 1
I don't believe we'll see a Mad Max style world. There is so much land available in the entire globe that I don't see how warlords can use the strength of weapons to take over. The reason we see "chaos" in Somalia is because there is an existing infrastructure that people want to utilize.
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote), weapons wouldn't last without an infrastructure to maintain them. Once all the bullets are expelled or all the maintenance fluids are used up, most weapons are useless. You can't fight a global war with knives, and you can defend yourself much easier in communities against warlords if you take the machine guns and flamethrowers out of the equation.
Weapons sufficient for an organized group of dedicated individuals to occupy and defend a relatively large land mass (the size of an average Nation-State) are not that difficult to maintain. With organization, even at current world population densities, the most basic agricultural societies can support a warrior caste. The ability to refine metals, produce electricity, and feed distant armies is all that is necessary to wage global warfare. There is no infrastructure in Somalia that couldn't be reproduced in a few years by a small group of educated individuals.
War is one of the most inefficient ways to gain wealth -- it requires millions of people deciding to give up their wealth in exchange for no profitable gain. In fact, I believe war requires democracy.
In the world you describe, this part may be true. And it may be becoming more and more true.
Exactly. And if you happen to live on top of a mountain of coal that you'd rather not see turned into a strip mine, don't think the US government won't use any means necessary to extract it.
You know, I can empathize for country people who don't want to have to live with the effects of a huge cities' demand for energy.
So, instead of seeing city-folk forcing the countryside to be littered with windmills, I'd like to see a group of people use the ridiculous eminent domain laws we now live under to put a windmill in the middle of Central Park, or, better yet, demolish a few buildings downtown to build one. They could argue that "just compensation" means giving the owner $3000 a year.
or they just don't like the government looking at their land as something to exploit.
Okay, unless I'm missing something, we aren't really talking about "their land". We're talking about "their scenic view", aka "somebody else's land". And that's precisely what's wrong with this 5% minority of pansy-ass whiny idiots.
So, they bought a couple of acres in the country. Great. Now they think that gives them the right to dictate to their neighbors. Sorry, but that's not how country folk operate. Just because you paid a million dollars for a few acres with a scenic view doesn't mean you bought the whole fucking country. So, get over yourselves. Learn the difference between what's yours and what's mine. And have fun looking at my fucking windmills.
Considering I know actual millionaires who don't manage 10.2% return, I'd say he's pretty close to a millionaire. And, with a 20 year lease, any payment purchaser would probably agree.
Disclaimer: Don't deal with annuity purchasers without consulting an attorney. Those people are scam artists of the highest order.
Call me a pessimist, but I don't expect any system that takes control away from (if it cannot be presented as "giving power to") the driver will be accepted by the public unless there is a seperate set of lanes that those vehicles will drive on.
I don't either. But a system that tells them how to drive optimally would be a great improvement. If people see that following the instructions generally gets them around faster, they'll do it. If it's pointless blithering bullshit, however, like most traffic regulations today, they'll ignore it.
I'm not sure I see what your argument is exactly. You say we can build (unreliable) files on top of (reliable) databases, and (reliable) databases on top of (unreliable) files, and you think the former method is better for some reason. But you neglect that reliability has a cost. When performance is an issue and reliability is not, building files on top of a database is counterproductive. And that's the strength of Unix, flexibility, not files. Unix can be pared down to the bare essentials, while a (ironically) more complicated system can't be.
Now I suppose you could argue that, with hardware advances, performance is becoming less and less important compared with the time spent optimizing. But there will always be instances in which an extra 2% performance increase is worth whatever man-hours are required to obtain it. And if you can build a reliable system on top of a fast, unreliable one, but not a fast one on top of a slow, reliable system, then the only truly universal operating system will always be the former.
Slashdot Mirror
If the price of copper goes up, you might see fiber optics come down in price.
Wrong. If two productss are interchangeable, and one goes up in price, the other will also go up in price.
taking 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas for one barrel.
That's still only, what, $15 per barrel? Added to the price of oil currently, it's a tough pill to swallow but not a huge increase.
if someone can figure out an alternative mechanical or chemical solution
NH4 is used because it is rich in Hydrogen. To find a substitute means finding an economical way to produce Hydrogen. If anyone did that we could give up on oil shale completely as we'd have better, distributed, renewable sources of energy.
What you seem to be missing is that, to even care about copper at all, you have to presuppose the end of oil. The markets already do so, and will continue to do so as more evidence of future scarcity comes to light.
While oil must be literally consumed as it is used, copper doesn't have to be. Unfortunately however, copper is currently treated as a consumable. Electronics are scrapped and put into dumps without thought.
In reality, copper is a precious metal. We just don't know it yet. In one way or another, a decrease in the amount of oil will cause an increase in the use of copper. Couple that with ongoing industrialization of a huge percentage of the world's population, and you get scarcity and the opportunity to profit by hoarding it.
AFAIK there's no widespread, critical job that can only be done by copper...
Ha. How about almost every electrical wire on the planet is made of copper. It is by far the best material available. Currently there are motors, generators, transformers and small electronics. But we'll be adding windmills, car motors, and all sorts of useful chemical catalysts.
Hardly. With 200 pounds of copper I can run all the electrical devices in my house indefinitely.
However a constitutional republic (with a strictly limited government power) and democratically representatives - isn't as oppressive and warlike.
Do you honestly think we live in that republic? The vast majority of political scientists, politicians, lawmakers, judges and lawyers will tell you that the US government is the de facto ruler of this country. Many of the recent Supreme Court nominees, though ostensably independent-thinkers and strict constructionists, believe that the will of the US Congress is the paramount authority bar none, and is not restricted to the limited powers granted in the Constitution.
Those are the facts. If you ask anyone, they will tell you the same. These are educated, intelligent people we're talking about. My question is "How do you believe they justify that view, if not by either direct democracy or outright oppression?"
Deploying Linux in business environments, I haven't seen a site that absolutely required IE in a long time. Even the banks I deal with have long supported Mozilla and Firefox.
But, just for fun, last week I did a little experiment. I made a list of as many sites with embedded videos that I could, mostly news sites, and tested them against Konqueror and Firefox. I came up with 18 sites in total. The results were that eleven sites worked with both Konqueror and Firefox, three more worked in Firefox only, and only four had absolute requirements that precluded any Linux browser. These ranged from Flash 8.0, which doesn't yet exist for Linux, to ActiveX detection routines.
So, from a small, completely unstatistical sample of the most popular sites I could find, 77% were compatible with Firefox on Linux. 61% were compatible enough to work even in Konqueror. And of the sites that required IE, one was msnbc.com, and two were Viacom companies, mtv.com and vh1.com, that excluded Linux intentionally, citing "Windows DRM" as the reason.
For the tests, I used KMplayer and Xine as the video player, with both Real and Windows Media codecs. I needed the KMplayer plugin for Konqueror and the MediaPlayerconnectivity and User Agent Switcher extensions for Firefox.
The real surprise is just how long it's taking to get past this point.
Why is that surprising? On the one hand, you have commercial software that is the equivalent of a car with the hood welded shut and a dealership that wants to sell you a new car every time there is a problem. And on the other hand, you have users who are convinced that computers are beyond their comprehension and they are entitled to unlimited hand-holding for their $500 that they spent on a new Dell. Not surprisingly, what we get is computers that are disposable, just like everything else that might take lazy stupid Americans more than ten minutes to repair.
There often is a difference between what's legal and what's right in a moral sense - in other words, the "right" in "a right" is not the same as in "morally right".
Rights have little to do with either laws or morality. But in the US, our government was formed on the provisio that respecting rights is a moral requirement.
Maybe I shouldn't be one to argue about Sigs, but nonetheless...
Most of the "Rights" that site says aren't "in" the Constitution are embodied in the 9th Amendment.
"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is not technically in the Constitution, but "life, liberty, and property" is in the 5th and 14th Amendments.
"Of the people, by the people, for the people" is technically from the Gettysburg Address, but the Constitution begins "We the People..."
I'm sure there are others. Those were just the most obviously misleading.
how to at least say where the problem is.
That's it right there. When you go to the doctor, you tell them what hurts. When you go to the mechanic, you tell them what noise your car is making. When you need computer help, you make up something vague to tell the computer guy, like "the internet doesn't work", and usually the computer guy gives you a vague answer back, like "you need a completely new computer".
And the sad thing is, there's no way to bridge this divide. Every person who works on computers has tried to explain computers to average people in ways they can understand. And every one has tried to get average people to explain their problems with computers in ways *we* can understand. Their eyes glaze over, they say "I'm stupid, just fix it", and I end up billing two hours to determe that a USB cable is unplugged.
Some vagueness here, based on "applicable copyright law":
To "propagate" a work means doing anything with it that requires
permission under applicable copyright law, other than executing it on
a computer or making private modifications. This includes copying,
distribution (with or without modification), sublicensing, and in some
countries other activities as well.
And there's other disclaimers about "private" this and that:
This License gives unlimited permission to privately modify and run the
Program, provided you do not bring suit for patent infringement against
anyone for making, using or distributing their own works based on the Program.
But, finally, does this give specific permission for web services?
Propagation of covered works is permitted without limitation provided it
does not enable parties other than you to make or receive copies.
Propagation which does enable them to do so is permitted, as
"distribution", under the conditions of sections 4-6 below.
If they didn't have employees, or if the capital they held shares in did not have employees, they would have nothing.
Hardly. While they might have less, they wouldn't have "nothing".
In fact, people make a pretty crappy form of capital. They're unreliable. They only work 8 hours a day. They break down. For most tasks, they do sub-quality work. They are energy-intensive. And if you invest in improving them, you risk losing your investment. I sure as hell wouldn't invest in any human capital unless I were forced to.
I hate the idea of working as a salaried employee
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote),
Obviously the two statements are contradictory enough to warrant an explanation. There is no such thing as a "capitalist anarchy." Anarcho-Capitalism is a fabricated ideology that is self-contradictory. All it means as far as I can tell is massive deregulation and civil libertarianism. That looks to me like a recipe for drug warlords, arms dealers, and crooked businessmen running roughshod over everyone. If you applied it to the current system without redistributing wealth, it would be catastrophic and unfair.
Anarchy means the abolition of hierarchy. Capitalism is by definition a hierarchical system. Never the twain shall meet: they are mutually exclusive. You could call yourself a Libertarian (with a capital 'L'), in the sense of the Libertarian party, and perhaps in the sense of personal freedom. But with the former you would be pushing a Social Darwinist ideal, which seems at odds with your Christianity.
You quote the grandparent as being simultaneously against working as an employee and for capitalism, and then launch into a tirade against the notion of "Anarcho-Capitalism". While I agree with many of your points and believe "Anarcho-Capitalism" to be merely thinly-veiled social darwinism with an unexplained respect of property rights, with as little in common with "anarchy" as Libertarianism has, I think the base point of your criticism is invalid. It is perfectly possible to be at once respectful of property and capitalism and against employment. The most successful capitalists are usually against employment, at least in regards to themselves.
I don't believe we'll see a Mad Max style world. There is so much land available in the entire globe that I don't see how warlords can use the strength of weapons to take over. The reason we see "chaos" in Somalia is because there is an existing infrastructure that people want to utilize.
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote), weapons wouldn't last without an infrastructure to maintain them. Once all the bullets are expelled or all the maintenance fluids are used up, most weapons are useless. You can't fight a global war with knives, and you can defend yourself much easier in communities against warlords if you take the machine guns and flamethrowers out of the equation.
Weapons sufficient for an organized group of dedicated individuals to occupy and defend a relatively large land mass (the size of an average Nation-State) are not that difficult to maintain. With organization, even at current world population densities, the most basic agricultural societies can support a warrior caste. The ability to refine metals, produce electricity, and feed distant armies is all that is necessary to wage global warfare. There is no infrastructure in Somalia that couldn't be reproduced in a few years by a small group of educated individuals.
War is one of the most inefficient ways to gain wealth -- it requires millions of people deciding to give up their wealth in exchange for no profitable gain. In fact, I believe war requires democracy.
In the world you describe, this part may be true. And it may be becoming more and more true.
Exactly. And if you happen to live on top of a mountain of coal that you'd rather not see turned into a strip mine, don't think the US government won't use any means necessary to extract it.
You know, I can empathize for country people who don't want to have to live with the effects of a huge cities' demand for energy.
So, instead of seeing city-folk forcing the countryside to be littered with windmills, I'd like to see a group of people use the ridiculous eminent domain laws we now live under to put a windmill in the middle of Central Park, or, better yet, demolish a few buildings downtown to build one. They could argue that "just compensation" means giving the owner $3000 a year.
Quoth your article: 100 watts per hour
Chicago hasn't yet had their tallest building flattened due to the effects of our national energy policies.
or they just don't like the government looking at their land as something to exploit.
Okay, unless I'm missing something, we aren't really talking about "their land". We're talking about "their scenic view", aka "somebody else's land". And that's precisely what's wrong with this 5% minority of pansy-ass whiny idiots.
So, they bought a couple of acres in the country. Great. Now they think that gives them the right to dictate to their neighbors. Sorry, but that's not how country folk operate. Just because you paid a million dollars for a few acres with a scenic view doesn't mean you bought the whole fucking country. So, get over yourselves. Learn the difference between what's yours and what's mine. And have fun looking at my fucking windmills.
we should be using nuclear power anyway
Yeah, we should be using it to build windmills.
$3,000 x 34 = $102,000 = $1,000,000 @ 10.2% APY
Considering I know actual millionaires who don't manage 10.2% return, I'd say he's pretty close to a millionaire. And, with a 20 year lease, any payment purchaser would probably agree.
Disclaimer: Don't deal with annuity purchasers without consulting an attorney. Those people are scam artists of the highest order.
Call me a pessimist, but I don't expect any system that takes control away from (if it cannot be presented as "giving power to") the driver will be accepted by the public unless there is a seperate set of lanes that those vehicles will drive on.
I don't either. But a system that tells them how to drive optimally would be a great improvement. If people see that following the instructions generally gets them around faster, they'll do it. If it's pointless blithering bullshit, however, like most traffic regulations today, they'll ignore it.
a system like this would only work if everyone was a part of it.
Funny, most crappy ideas are that way...
There will always be the few who won't play along.
So make it work without us, then maybe we'll play.
Bread and circuses and hopes of energy independence?
I'm not sure I see what your argument is exactly. You say we can build (unreliable) files on top of (reliable) databases, and (reliable) databases on top of (unreliable) files, and you think the former method is better for some reason. But you neglect that reliability has a cost. When performance is an issue and reliability is not, building files on top of a database is counterproductive. And that's the strength of Unix, flexibility, not files. Unix can be pared down to the bare essentials, while a (ironically) more complicated system can't be.
Now I suppose you could argue that, with hardware advances, performance is becoming less and less important compared with the time spent optimizing. But there will always be instances in which an extra 2% performance increase is worth whatever man-hours are required to obtain it. And if you can build a reliable system on top of a fast, unreliable one, but not a fast one on top of a slow, reliable system, then the only truly universal operating system will always be the former.