Did the survey limit itself to those who actually read Trump's tweets? Or was the survey a general poll of all voters?
I ask because if most respondents don't read Trump's tweets, are they saying they dislike Trump's tweets? Or are they saying they dislike the current level of media coverage of Trump's tweets? After all, if the media wasn't obsessed with reporting Trump's tweets, we wouldn't be talking about them, would we?
Well, sure--and moreover, Trump is driving the conversation with his tweets. In a real way, as much as most journalists and media outlets oppose the current administration (just look at WaPo's "Democracy Dies In Darkness" added when Trump won), they are now indirectly working for Trump thanks to his tweets.
The Paris Agreement provided for more than voluntary reductions, but also for developed nations to send $100 billion in aid to developing nations for climate change mitigation--mitigation which is measured against self-established goals. Part of the agreement also provides for additional funds to be sent to address "loss and damage" suffered by various island states and developing nations for environmental damage caused by global warming.
Is it the intent of these mayors to spend city funds on helping foreign nations negatively impacted by global warming to help address the damage there?
Keep in mind that because of the safety culture in modern aviation, even if the pilot is to "blame", human factors are often considered to make sure future pilots do not make the same mistake. So, for example, if a pilot was inattentive and rolled onto the wrong runway, often investigators then try to figure out if there wasn't something more obvious that could have been done to draw the pilot's attention.
So, in the case where you screw up and plug a 120v toaster into a 220v socket, even though its your fault, aviation officials would then ask if there was anything which could be done to prevent someone else from making your mistake. Like properly labeling the toaster and the socket. Or, better yet, designing a different socket so you cannot physically plug in the 120v toaster into the 220v socket. And if you went out of your way to force the plug to fit, they may recommend additional training to other pilots to tell them why forcing plugs is a bad idea.
I don't know if this is the case in the Airbus A320, but in smaller aircraft (including GA airplanes) there often is a power port that looks like the cigarette lighter port in many cars. They easily fit USB car chargers such as this one. (For years I used an earlier generation of this very adapter in a Cessna 172 to power my iPad.)
The problem is, unlike in a car where the power port is always around 12-14 volts, the voltage in aircraft has (to the best of my knowledge) never been standardized. I've heard of airplanes which pump out up to 28 volts (instead of 12-14 volts), which is why if you are not certain of the airplane you're flying in, you need a specialized adapter such as this one.
Since so many aircraft have power ports at 12 volts, many pilots I know simply buy a car power adapter. But if you plug it into a 24 volt power port (and the ports are often unmarked: the only way to tell is to crack open the airplane's POH), you're going to have a bad time.
Conceptually it does bother me that I now have a computer on my desk that is 100 times more powerful and has 500 times more memory than a $15 million dollar Cray X-MP supercomputer--and with all that computational power Microsoft Word can feel a little sluggish when typing.
Sure, speed may be less of an issue, but O(N^2) is not good enough for large values of N, no matter how fast your computer is.
I note this because every time I hear someone saying "well, computers are getting faster all the time" I'm reminded of a developer I worked with who used a class with O(N^2) performance when a similar class with O(N) performance existed that was a better fit for the job. (The problem was the product I was working on at the time failed in production when there were tens of thousands of objects to track, when in testing (where we had dozens) it seemed to work just fine.)
So saying "speed is less of an issue" does not forgive developers from writing quality code.
My problem is I learned C++ about a year before exceptions were added to the language. When templates came along I had the same reaction as a number of other programmers: do we need a Turing-complete pre-processor for the language? (After all, Java and Objective C seem do to fine with template-style generics.) Then STL came along and I felt the designers were smoking crack when they used the left-shift and right-shift operators to mean "input" and "output". (I refuse to use them on principle, unless required to by work.)
I felt like at some point the folks driving the C++ requirements and the C++ STL requirements were doing things because they were "cool" rather than because they made sense, and I only use templates sparingly because it creates God-aweful syntax like we see in the STL, and in my experience can often distract from the readability of your code.
I'm with you on value semantics, unless memory is tight, or if we're dealing with a UI application (as I noted above) where it makes no sense to have multiple instances of an object referring to the same UI object. (For example, it makes little conceptual sense to have multiple C++ objects that represent the same logical X window handle.)
Footnote: the last code I wrote was loading the entire planet file from OpenStreetMaps for in-memory manipulation and generation of custom vector map tiles. In that case, "tight memory" can mean 64GB of RAM.:-P
And it's not hard to build your own reference counting scheme (or use a library such as Boost).
Personally, by the way, I believe those who do not have to deal with a programming language such as C or C++ or Pascal where you need to think about memory management concepts (even if they're handled for you, such as with Boost) can run into a serious conceptual problem when writing applications that have tight memory requirements. I don't know the number of times I've had to explain to an Android developer that the reason why I set a field to nil was because the object itself may persist beyond the lifespan of the UI element which uses it, but we want the GC to be able to reclaim the rest of the memory associated with the object. (This can come up when fixing bugs in an Android activity object, where the activity is held by a network callback. Ideally this should be handled with a broadcast/receive design pattern, but at the very least, if your activity goes out of scope, you can release all the crap that the activity has strong references to that is no longer needed.)
Somehow a number of Java programmers I've personally met think somehow garbage collection is this magic thing which does what the programmer intends, rather than what is written in code. They're generally the ones writing Android apps which crash and have no idea why.
My examples of memory management have to do with writing user-interface code, which often creates multiple references to the same object in memory for one reason or another.
The thing about the STL is that it tends to operate with copies of objects: if you declare a vector array of strings, the string is copied into the vector array rather than the array holding a reference to a common instance. Boost, on the other hand, solves the problem with smart pointers--essentially using reference counting, as I noted above.
The two problems with C++ are the fragile binary interface problem, and the lack of memory management beyond 'new' and 'delete'. The latter can be resolved by creating a base class which provides reference counting and automatic deallocation. The former, however, cannot be easily resolved since virtual methods in C++ are dispatched by going through a virtual method table with fixed offsets (meaning adding new virtual methods may alter the index where a method entry point is dispatched), and the size and offset of fields within a C++ class are accessed directly in memory rather than indirectly through a virtual dispatch process.
It's not to say the fragile binary interface problem cannot be solved in C++, but it would require rethinking the current virtual method table used by most C++ compilers, as well as rethinking how fields within a base class are accessed.
The problem here, however, is that this would slow down both field access within a C++ class, and it would slow down method dispatch. (To fix fields you'd either need to dynamically calculate the offset of variables within a C++ class or rewrite all field accesses as 'getter' and 'setter' methods, both of which take more time than simply pulling data out of a memory offset. And to fix the virtual method dispatch table you'd need a way to resolve a method name to the index in the dispatch table, making the first invocation of a method fairly expensive even if the offset in the dispatch table for subsequent dispatches are cached.)
From what I understand, the designers of C++ have opted not to do these things, rightly arguing it slows down method dispatch and field access.
Don't get me wrong. I love C++. I believe C++ (and to a lesser extent, C) both have their uses. I don't think we'll be rewriting operating system kernels or device drivers in Ruby or Java anytime soon, nor do I think we'll be building small footprint embedded applications in those languages.
But like all programming languages, C++ has its limitations, and denying those limitations seems very silly to me.
Frankly I'd be far more worried about global cooling than global warming.
The reason is that the colder the Earth gets, the shorter the growing season gets. The shorter the growing season, the less food we harvest.
And we are literally one harvest away from global starvation.
You don't think all that fresh food on the shelves of the grocery store will last a year, right?
I suspect one reason why the more alarmist activists who are pushing global warming as a political agenda (as opposed to the scientists researching the topic) have stopped using the phrase "greenhouse effect" is because we build greenhouses in order to increase crop yield. And the phrase would seem to imply that by adding CO2 and additional warmth and humidity to the world, we are making the world more favorable to longer growing seasons and larger crop yields.
Sure. mean(t) = sum(t) / N. (And thank you/. for stripping the sup, sub tags and summation signs.)
What puzzles me is the presumption that an increasing mean implies an increasing range.
For example, if you have a data set ( 1, 3, 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2 ) with a mean (average) of 2, and an external force increases the mean (average) by 1, giving us a new set ( 2, 4, 4, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 4, 2, 3 ) with a mean (average) of 3--then why the assumption somewhere in the range of data there should be a 9?
In fact, the fact that the mean (average) has incremented by 1, this does not imply that somehow the range (which in the old set was 1 through 3) somehow must then go from -5 through 9.
Yet, that seems to be what you are implying with your comment
Are you legitimately too fracking stupid to understand what a global *average* is?
See, this is why I really dislike politicized discussions, and inevitably any discussion about global warming becomes politicized: because often most people seem to check their brains at the door.
And if we accept the IPCC's own data on global warming, then we are now experiencing a world that is approximately 1 degree (celsius) warmer than the baseline average.
Which means the other 6 degrees celsius that caused melting at the seed vault was.... what, exactly?
Remember: if there is an unusually warm few days or weeks, it's because weather and climate are linked.
However, if it is unusually cold (as we saw a few winters ago in the Eastern United States with snow in Atlanta), weather is not climate. (Unless, of course, increased climatic energy is causing larger variations in weather--meaning global warming is making the Earth cold.)
You don't get to cherry pick the definitions to suit your agenda.
The seed vault was supposedly designed to last 1000 years without human intervention. If you believe in AGW, or even if you don't, it is inevitable that over 1000 years we would see a substantial change in climate. That means the possibility that the Nordic location of the seed vault may be considerably warmer than it currently is.
That is, if you're planning for the vault to last 1000 years without human intervention, then the 7C variation that flooded the entrance to the vault should be considered nearly inevitable during that 1000 year span. Hell, I'd plan for at least a 20C swing; we've seen similar swings in the past few thousand years, and it's not entirely implausible we would see more variation in the future.
Further, if I were the researchers who man the vault, I would make plans to periodically open various seed samples (perhaps by requiring any seed cultivars to be supplied in multiple packets, so one can be occasionally sacrificed for testing). This way you can evaluate if the seeds we are storing are still viable, or if something happened to them which may question the viability of the entire sample--and if that happens, hopefully we'll have time to store a new sample in its stead. (The FAQ suggests this is not happening: "The boxes with seeds will be sealed by the depositors and will not be distributed to or given access to by anyone other than the depositors.")
You know, whenever anyone tries to compare European left-wing and right-wing politics to American left-wing and right-wing politics, I always point out that while it is true "conservatives" are trying to "conserve" the status quo--if you wind the clock back far enough you find American colonial rebels shooting at British red-coats.
Meaning both sides may be trying to "conserve" or "progressively experiment" with the existing status quo--but the starting point of that status quo in the United States verses Europe are two entirely different things.
And comparing American and European politics is not just comparing apples to oranges. It's like comparing apples to shoes. The words we use may be similar, but we're literally speaking two different languages.
I had a gay friend (who has since passed) who would often use the word "faggot" to describe himself and other gay friends of his. As "faggot" is simply a word homosexuals use as a term of endearment, by your logic, it would have been okay (and not homophobic) if Colbert called Trump a "faggot."
The problem with using such terminology to describe someone should be self-evident. By stating that Trump's mouth is only good as Putin's c*** holster, Colbert was deliberately using homosexual imagery to insult Trump. (It's clear that was Colbert's intent from the context of his monologue--to insult Trump using degrading language.) When you use homosexual imagery in a degrading way--either by calling someone a faggot, or a c*** holster--you reinforce the notion that homosexuality itself is degrading. Otherwise why use the homosexual insult?
It is the context in which the term or phrase is used--as a degrading insult--which makes the homosexual reference degrading, not the homosexual reference itself.
That someone cannot see this fundamental truth--that using homosexual imagery as an insult is homophobic because it uses homosexual imagery in a degrading way--strikes me as terribly sad. But that's because we now live in a world where politics trumps the personal, and if your side calls someone a c*** holster, it's a funny remark--but if Trump had used the term c*** holster to describe, say, Senator Franken (D-MN), the Left would be all over Trump (appropriately) for being a homophobic jerk.
Dear God, don't invest in gold! If you look at the price of gold adjusted for inflation it's remained flat, flat, flat. Sure there have been spikes, but the two spikes we've seen so far have been based on speculative trading by people basically betting on the end of the world. And right now we're probably going to see a multi-decade long slide from gold's peak of nearly $1900/ounce down to perhaps a few hundred dollars an ounce.
Now if you really think we are coming to the end of the world and we're about to see economic armageddon, with Mad-Max style gas wars just around the corner, may I suggest investing in cigarettes and alcohol instead, stored in vast storage containers? Seriously, that'd be a better bet than gold...
The basic problem is this: we think that we can live half our adult lives (from 60 to 100) by saving 15% of our income (made from 20 to 60). We've been sold this as government policy--Social Security takes 15% of our income, and most government-run pension programs which replace Social Security takes the same. Most corporate pensions save a small fraction of that. And even folks like Dave Ramsay, who give advise on getting out of debt and saving for retirement uses 15% as his rule of thumb.
If you expect to live longer than 7 years past retirement (which was, when most retirement programs put into place, the actuarial lifespan for most retirees), then you may wish to consider saving more money--either directly or indirectly.
That's what my wife and I are doing--not because I expect to retire, but for the day when I am unable to work.
I'm able to estimate fairly well how long something will take for me, but with a bunch of proviso.
The code I'm asked to modify is written in more or less a sane way.
The specifications are relatively complete.
The interfaces are relatively "orthogonal"; meaning things are relatively consistent from page to page.
The specifications are not subject to random changes by project management, by product managers, by business people, by the CEO or his brother Bob, or at the whims of some QA person who can't read a specification.
Sadly most projects fail one or more of the points above--which make most estimates absolutely worthless.
What determines walkability or bikability is population density. The population density of most populated areas of the United States is very low compared to Europe. On the other hand, if given a choice most people in the United States want their single family detached homes, their modest yards and a little elbow room from their neighbors--which directly implies either a low population density, or desirable housing only being accessible to a very small percentage of the population.
As someone who used to bike to work, I understand how it is possible more people work at home instead. To be able to walk to work or to bike to work is a luxury driven by being able to live close enough to where you work--and for many jobs that means living in a highly populous urban core or being wealthy enough (or in my case, lucky enough) to live in a home near the downtown corridor where your job is located.
Working at home, on the other hand, is simply a function of having the right job. And I know quite a few people who work at home: I know a couple of people who work for Apple as customer support who work out of their homes, and I know of a bunch of account managers at YP.com who work out of their homes. If your job involves a lot of time talking to people on the phone or chatting over the Internet, it doesn't really matter where you are located so long as you have a phone line and an internet connection.
Depending on where the part is used and how the part is made, I'd be concerned with the integrity of the part over time. Remember: airplanes tend to fly for a half-century before they're scrapped--and if the part is used somewhere structural which is hard to access or hard to replace, chances are it won't be inspected or replaced as regularly as the FAA would like, simply because long-haul aircraft are turned around rather rapidly. (The financial incentive is for a fast turn-around, which can lead to things not being done quite right or inspected as closely as they should.)
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Did the survey limit itself to those who actually read Trump's tweets? Or was the survey a general poll of all voters?
I ask because if most respondents don't read Trump's tweets, are they saying they dislike Trump's tweets? Or are they saying they dislike the current level of media coverage of Trump's tweets? After all, if the media wasn't obsessed with reporting Trump's tweets, we wouldn't be talking about them, would we?
Well, sure--and moreover, Trump is driving the conversation with his tweets. In a real way, as much as most journalists and media outlets oppose the current administration (just look at WaPo's "Democracy Dies In Darkness" added when Trump won), they are now indirectly working for Trump thanks to his tweets.
The Paris Agreement provided for more than voluntary reductions, but also for developed nations to send $100 billion in aid to developing nations for climate change mitigation--mitigation which is measured against self-established goals. Part of the agreement also provides for additional funds to be sent to address "loss and damage" suffered by various island states and developing nations for environmental damage caused by global warming.
Is it the intent of these mayors to spend city funds on helping foreign nations negatively impacted by global warming to help address the damage there?
Keep in mind that because of the safety culture in modern aviation, even if the pilot is to "blame", human factors are often considered to make sure future pilots do not make the same mistake. So, for example, if a pilot was inattentive and rolled onto the wrong runway, often investigators then try to figure out if there wasn't something more obvious that could have been done to draw the pilot's attention.
So, in the case where you screw up and plug a 120v toaster into a 220v socket, even though its your fault, aviation officials would then ask if there was anything which could be done to prevent someone else from making your mistake. Like properly labeling the toaster and the socket. Or, better yet, designing a different socket so you cannot physically plug in the 120v toaster into the 220v socket. And if you went out of your way to force the plug to fit, they may recommend additional training to other pilots to tell them why forcing plugs is a bad idea.
I don't know if this is the case in the Airbus A320, but in smaller aircraft (including GA airplanes) there often is a power port that looks like the cigarette lighter port in many cars. They easily fit USB car chargers such as this one. (For years I used an earlier generation of this very adapter in a Cessna 172 to power my iPad.)
The problem is, unlike in a car where the power port is always around 12-14 volts, the voltage in aircraft has (to the best of my knowledge) never been standardized. I've heard of airplanes which pump out up to 28 volts (instead of 12-14 volts), which is why if you are not certain of the airplane you're flying in, you need a specialized adapter such as this one.
Since so many aircraft have power ports at 12 volts, many pilots I know simply buy a car power adapter. But if you plug it into a 24 volt power port (and the ports are often unmarked: the only way to tell is to crack open the airplane's POH), you're going to have a bad time.
Conceptually it does bother me that I now have a computer on my desk that is 100 times more powerful and has 500 times more memory than a $15 million dollar Cray X-MP supercomputer--and with all that computational power Microsoft Word can feel a little sluggish when typing.
Sure, speed may be less of an issue, but O(N^2) is not good enough for large values of N, no matter how fast your computer is.
I note this because every time I hear someone saying "well, computers are getting faster all the time" I'm reminded of a developer I worked with who used a class with O(N^2) performance when a similar class with O(N) performance existed that was a better fit for the job. (The problem was the product I was working on at the time failed in production when there were tens of thousands of objects to track, when in testing (where we had dozens) it seemed to work just fine.)
So saying "speed is less of an issue" does not forgive developers from writing quality code.
My problem is I learned C++ about a year before exceptions were added to the language. When templates came along I had the same reaction as a number of other programmers: do we need a Turing-complete pre-processor for the language? (After all, Java and Objective C seem do to fine with template-style generics.) Then STL came along and I felt the designers were smoking crack when they used the left-shift and right-shift operators to mean "input" and "output". (I refuse to use them on principle, unless required to by work.)
I felt like at some point the folks driving the C++ requirements and the C++ STL requirements were doing things because they were "cool" rather than because they made sense, and I only use templates sparingly because it creates God-aweful syntax like we see in the STL, and in my experience can often distract from the readability of your code.
I'm with you on value semantics, unless memory is tight, or if we're dealing with a UI application (as I noted above) where it makes no sense to have multiple instances of an object referring to the same UI object. (For example, it makes little conceptual sense to have multiple C++ objects that represent the same logical X window handle.)
Footnote: the last code I wrote was loading the entire planet file from OpenStreetMaps for in-memory manipulation and generation of custom vector map tiles. In that case, "tight memory" can mean 64GB of RAM. :-P
And it's not hard to build your own reference counting scheme (or use a library such as Boost).
Personally, by the way, I believe those who do not have to deal with a programming language such as C or C++ or Pascal where you need to think about memory management concepts (even if they're handled for you, such as with Boost) can run into a serious conceptual problem when writing applications that have tight memory requirements. I don't know the number of times I've had to explain to an Android developer that the reason why I set a field to nil was because the object itself may persist beyond the lifespan of the UI element which uses it, but we want the GC to be able to reclaim the rest of the memory associated with the object. (This can come up when fixing bugs in an Android activity object, where the activity is held by a network callback. Ideally this should be handled with a broadcast/receive design pattern, but at the very least, if your activity goes out of scope, you can release all the crap that the activity has strong references to that is no longer needed.)
Somehow a number of Java programmers I've personally met think somehow garbage collection is this magic thing which does what the programmer intends, rather than what is written in code. They're generally the ones writing Android apps which crash and have no idea why.
My examples of memory management have to do with writing user-interface code, which often creates multiple references to the same object in memory for one reason or another.
The thing about the STL is that it tends to operate with copies of objects: if you declare a vector array of strings, the string is copied into the vector array rather than the array holding a reference to a common instance. Boost, on the other hand, solves the problem with smart pointers--essentially using reference counting, as I noted above.
Can this be upvoted beyond +5, Insightful?
The two problems with C++ are the fragile binary interface problem, and the lack of memory management beyond 'new' and 'delete'. The latter can be resolved by creating a base class which provides reference counting and automatic deallocation. The former, however, cannot be easily resolved since virtual methods in C++ are dispatched by going through a virtual method table with fixed offsets (meaning adding new virtual methods may alter the index where a method entry point is dispatched), and the size and offset of fields within a C++ class are accessed directly in memory rather than indirectly through a virtual dispatch process.
It's not to say the fragile binary interface problem cannot be solved in C++, but it would require rethinking the current virtual method table used by most C++ compilers, as well as rethinking how fields within a base class are accessed.
The problem here, however, is that this would slow down both field access within a C++ class, and it would slow down method dispatch. (To fix fields you'd either need to dynamically calculate the offset of variables within a C++ class or rewrite all field accesses as 'getter' and 'setter' methods, both of which take more time than simply pulling data out of a memory offset. And to fix the virtual method dispatch table you'd need a way to resolve a method name to the index in the dispatch table, making the first invocation of a method fairly expensive even if the offset in the dispatch table for subsequent dispatches are cached.)
From what I understand, the designers of C++ have opted not to do these things, rightly arguing it slows down method dispatch and field access.
Don't get me wrong. I love C++. I believe C++ (and to a lesser extent, C) both have their uses. I don't think we'll be rewriting operating system kernels or device drivers in Ruby or Java anytime soon, nor do I think we'll be building small footprint embedded applications in those languages.
But like all programming languages, C++ has its limitations, and denying those limitations seems very silly to me.
Frankly I'd be far more worried about global cooling than global warming.
The reason is that the colder the Earth gets, the shorter the growing season gets. The shorter the growing season, the less food we harvest.
And we are literally one harvest away from global starvation.
You don't think all that fresh food on the shelves of the grocery store will last a year, right?
I suspect one reason why the more alarmist activists who are pushing global warming as a political agenda (as opposed to the scientists researching the topic) have stopped using the phrase "greenhouse effect" is because we build greenhouses in order to increase crop yield. And the phrase would seem to imply that by adding CO2 and additional warmth and humidity to the world, we are making the world more favorable to longer growing seasons and larger crop yields.
Sure. mean(t) = sum(t) / N. (And thank you /. for stripping the sup, sub tags and summation signs.)
What puzzles me is the presumption that an increasing mean implies an increasing range.
For example, if you have a data set ( 1, 3, 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2 ) with a mean (average) of 2, and an external force increases the mean (average) by 1, giving us a new set ( 2, 4, 4, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 4, 2, 3 ) with a mean (average) of 3--then why the assumption somewhere in the range of data there should be a 9?
In fact, the fact that the mean (average) has incremented by 1, this does not imply that somehow the range (which in the old set was 1 through 3) somehow must then go from -5 through 9.
Yet, that seems to be what you are implying with your comment
See, this is why I really dislike politicized discussions, and inevitably any discussion about global warming becomes politicized: because often most people seem to check their brains at the door.
Sure.
And if we accept the IPCC's own data on global warming, then we are now experiencing a world that is approximately 1 degree (celsius) warmer than the baseline average.
Which means the other 6 degrees celsius that caused melting at the seed vault was.... what, exactly?
Remember: if there is an unusually warm few days or weeks, it's because weather and climate are linked.
However, if it is unusually cold (as we saw a few winters ago in the Eastern United States with snow in Atlanta), weather is not climate. (Unless, of course, increased climatic energy is causing larger variations in weather--meaning global warming is making the Earth cold.)
Seems to me that's exactly what is happening.
The seed vault was supposedly designed to last 1000 years without human intervention. If you believe in AGW, or even if you don't, it is inevitable that over 1000 years we would see a substantial change in climate. That means the possibility that the Nordic location of the seed vault may be considerably warmer than it currently is.
That is, if you're planning for the vault to last 1000 years without human intervention, then the 7C variation that flooded the entrance to the vault should be considered nearly inevitable during that 1000 year span. Hell, I'd plan for at least a 20C swing; we've seen similar swings in the past few thousand years, and it's not entirely implausible we would see more variation in the future.
Further, if I were the researchers who man the vault, I would make plans to periodically open various seed samples (perhaps by requiring any seed cultivars to be supplied in multiple packets, so one can be occasionally sacrificed for testing). This way you can evaluate if the seeds we are storing are still viable, or if something happened to them which may question the viability of the entire sample--and if that happens, hopefully we'll have time to store a new sample in its stead. (The FAQ suggests this is not happening: "The boxes with seeds will be sealed by the depositors and will not be distributed to or given access to by anyone other than the depositors.")
You know, whenever anyone tries to compare European left-wing and right-wing politics to American left-wing and right-wing politics, I always point out that while it is true "conservatives" are trying to "conserve" the status quo--if you wind the clock back far enough you find American colonial rebels shooting at British red-coats.
Meaning both sides may be trying to "conserve" or "progressively experiment" with the existing status quo--but the starting point of that status quo in the United States verses Europe are two entirely different things.
And comparing American and European politics is not just comparing apples to oranges. It's like comparing apples to shoes. The words we use may be similar, but we're literally speaking two different languages.
I had a gay friend (who has since passed) who would often use the word "faggot" to describe himself and other gay friends of his. As "faggot" is simply a word homosexuals use as a term of endearment, by your logic, it would have been okay (and not homophobic) if Colbert called Trump a "faggot."
The problem with using such terminology to describe someone should be self-evident. By stating that Trump's mouth is only good as Putin's c*** holster, Colbert was deliberately using homosexual imagery to insult Trump. (It's clear that was Colbert's intent from the context of his monologue--to insult Trump using degrading language.) When you use homosexual imagery in a degrading way--either by calling someone a faggot, or a c*** holster--you reinforce the notion that homosexuality itself is degrading. Otherwise why use the homosexual insult?
It is the context in which the term or phrase is used--as a degrading insult--which makes the homosexual reference degrading, not the homosexual reference itself.
That someone cannot see this fundamental truth--that using homosexual imagery as an insult is homophobic because it uses homosexual imagery in a degrading way--strikes me as terribly sad. But that's because we now live in a world where politics trumps the personal, and if your side calls someone a c*** holster, it's a funny remark--but if Trump had used the term c*** holster to describe, say, Senator Franken (D-MN), the Left would be all over Trump (appropriately) for being a homophobic jerk.
Dear God, don't invest in gold! If you look at the price of gold adjusted for inflation it's remained flat, flat, flat. Sure there have been spikes, but the two spikes we've seen so far have been based on speculative trading by people basically betting on the end of the world. And right now we're probably going to see a multi-decade long slide from gold's peak of nearly $1900/ounce down to perhaps a few hundred dollars an ounce.
Now if you really think we are coming to the end of the world and we're about to see economic armageddon, with Mad-Max style gas wars just around the corner, may I suggest investing in cigarettes and alcohol instead, stored in vast storage containers? Seriously, that'd be a better bet than gold...
The basic problem is this: we think that we can live half our adult lives (from 60 to 100) by saving 15% of our income (made from 20 to 60). We've been sold this as government policy--Social Security takes 15% of our income, and most government-run pension programs which replace Social Security takes the same. Most corporate pensions save a small fraction of that. And even folks like Dave Ramsay, who give advise on getting out of debt and saving for retirement uses 15% as his rule of thumb.
If you expect to live longer than 7 years past retirement (which was, when most retirement programs put into place, the actuarial lifespan for most retirees), then you may wish to consider saving more money--either directly or indirectly.
That's what my wife and I are doing--not because I expect to retire, but for the day when I am unable to work.
I'm able to estimate fairly well how long something will take for me, but with a bunch of proviso.
Sadly most projects fail one or more of the points above--which make most estimates absolutely worthless.
What determines walkability or bikability is population density. The population density of most populated areas of the United States is very low compared to Europe. On the other hand, if given a choice most people in the United States want their single family detached homes, their modest yards and a little elbow room from their neighbors--which directly implies either a low population density, or desirable housing only being accessible to a very small percentage of the population.
True; most of my "work clothes" are cheap t-shirts and running shorts bought at the local Target.
As someone who used to bike to work, I understand how it is possible more people work at home instead. To be able to walk to work or to bike to work is a luxury driven by being able to live close enough to where you work--and for many jobs that means living in a highly populous urban core or being wealthy enough (or in my case, lucky enough) to live in a home near the downtown corridor where your job is located.
Working at home, on the other hand, is simply a function of having the right job. And I know quite a few people who work at home: I know a couple of people who work for Apple as customer support who work out of their homes, and I know of a bunch of account managers at YP.com who work out of their homes. If your job involves a lot of time talking to people on the phone or chatting over the Internet, it doesn't really matter where you are located so long as you have a phone line and an internet connection.
Came here to say more or less the same thing.
Depending on where the part is used and how the part is made, I'd be concerned with the integrity of the part over time. Remember: airplanes tend to fly for a half-century before they're scrapped--and if the part is used somewhere structural which is hard to access or hard to replace, chances are it won't be inspected or replaced as regularly as the FAA would like, simply because long-haul aircraft are turned around rather rapidly. (The financial incentive is for a fast turn-around, which can lead to things not being done quite right or inspected as closely as they should.)