You forgot the part where they blew the bag to pieces with a water cannon just in case it had a bomb in it. And then detained the people for 8 hours questioning them.
Per Federal Law, the Gas Tax goes into a fund called the Highway Trust Fund. Per Congressional mandate this is then handed back to the states directly (under a few abuses of federal money such as mandatory 21 drinking age) with a small factor applied so that more populous states provide a small percentage of their revenue to smaller states to maintain the interstates in those states.
Typically these factors for larger states like California, Texas and New York are about 96%. States like Montana, and other heavily rural states receive about 120% of their citizens gas taxes. The exception is Alaska which typically gets almost 180% because the funds are used to fund not just highways but rural programs that are not highway based (plane and emergency services to remote villages, ferry service, etc). But though the percentage difference is high the actual dollar figure is very low in the case of Alaska due to it's extremely small population. The vast majority of states receive back 99.X% back of their revenue where the less than 1% is used to fund Federal DOT including primarily FHWA and their initiatives.
Either way, FHWA itself consumes ~1% of the money and in the process uses those funds to support the publication of nearly all the major highway design standards, best practices, research and testing that is done. It is because of these initiatives that highway deaths have essentially bottomed out, capacity of the highways has dramatically increased, operational efficiencies have gone up, signing has standardized and innovative interchange designs continue to be developed. There are very good reasons for the federal split, primarily because some states would have absolutely no incentive to maintain interstates in thier state because they are not used. A primary example is I-15 as it passes through Arizona for several miles as it transitions from Nevada to Utah. There are no exits within this length meaning that I-15 in Arizona serves no purpose to Arizona. There are many other instances where were there not federal allocations of money the states would have no incentive to maintain a section of interstate.
Though I would personally like to see the federal gas tax scaled back and the states raise their own so more money stays with the states without the federal requirements there are very good reasons not to. The only thing that must change is that up until 2008 the entire highway system was maintained solely with gas tax revenue. The continued insistence of not raising gas taxes has had the result that the government is borrowing money to maintain the system AND we are underfunding the maintenance as it is. We will have more major failures like I-35 as a result.
It's also been my experience that those people running around screaming all government bad have absolutely no experience with government efficiency other than standing in line at the DMV. For the most part government outside a few key departments is highly efficient, devoted and looking after the taxpayer. The notables exceptions start with the DOD who wastes more money in a year than the rest of government combined in a decade.
You realize that Issue 2 disables issue 1 right? The crops they are making sterile can't cross pollinate because they are sterile.
This is something I've always thought is ironic about anti-gmo. People will in the same breath condemn cross pollination and the spreading of the genes and at the same time condemn the sterilization gene because it prevents cross pollination and seed reuse.
As others have said there is two issues, the intellectual property issue and the GMO issue. They are separate and arguing them in the same breath is creating strawmen because you are attacking the GMO then using the IP argument to lambast the solution to the GMO issue.
Even 5 years ago those same SUV's got 15-20. It's a remarkable improvement in a very short timeframe.
Just for reference, my 2006 v8 4-Runner gets 16MPG under mixed driving and the best I can do in all freeway driving if I keep it under 60 is about 20MPG.
My wife's 2010 v6 Rav4 (which is only slightly smaller) gets nearly 24 in mixed city freeway and close to 28 on pure freeway miles.
In 4 years they added nearly 25% more fuel efficiency (accounting for the weight and power differences).
And yes I support higher gas taxes, Much higher. Federal gas taxes haven't been raised since 1992 and before that is was 1980. The taxes should be indexed against inflation AND average fleet efficiency. After all its the miles driven that damage the road. Personally I'd like to see the gas tax indexed to inflation and fuel efficiency is 2015 with a 1.25 cent increase in the tax (per gallon) per month till then. That would roughly double the federal gas tax, then index it so it never needs legislation to raise it again.
Fiona destroyed HP. She turned the company from an engineering and design heavyweight into a commodity hardware business.
Short term profits resulted and after a year or two and the death of the real engineering progress was complete they began the long slow slide into irrelevance. The fact is we live in a complex world economy where you innovate or die. HP stopped innovating because it was "too expensive". Yes they wiped out all those expensive engineering salaries and boosted short term profit. And several years down the line when HP hasn't innovated anything you see a huge dramatic loss of profit.
You don't want to be in the commodity business, there's no profit in it. You want to be in the innovative cutting edge area where you can charge premium profit margins (ask apple). Being in that space costs money and lots of engineering resources. HP surrendered that market under the leadership of Fiona. HP's board of directors has been a collection of has-been CEO's that are riding the company into oblivion since before Fiona was hired. The Hewlett and Packard families were railroaded a long time ago, the only ones left are trying to milk the cash out of HP before it deteriorates into nothingness.
HP could have owned the smartphone market and dozens of other highly profitable sectors had they spent the money on engineering and development instead of deciding that they only wanted to do printers and computers.
Decreased? Not even close. Total US alcohol consumption before prohibition was around 10% (of the population) after prohibition it was close to 30% and during prohibition it was close to 70%.
Prohibition, like all black markets, setup a situation where the product became sexy and people that never tried it, wanted to because it wasn't legal and "everyone" was doing it. Banning something increases it's demand, it increased alcohol consumption, it's increased marijuana consumption, cocaine consumption and just about any other product you can name that is illegal has seen increased consumption after being banned.
You can't ban any product effectively. As long as their is a demand the product will exist and be traded. All the ban does is increase the cost, not only of acquiring the illicit item but of owning the item. Prohibition, the war on drugs and any other ban you can think of only serve to create a blackmarket, organized crime and extensive illicit distribution and marketing channels.
In the end you still don't remove the products, and the crazy people still kill other innocent people. It's sickening how many of you are so willing to hand over the rights of others for a little perceived (but false) safety. I guess it shouldn't surprise me given how many quietly comply with the TSA nude scanners and other invasive and obtuse security measures that only trade freedom for a false sense of security while empowering others with control over you.
Banning weapons will do NOTHING to stop gun crime. The biggest lie of the anti-gun lobby is the simple fact that 50% of all gun deaths are suicides.
So his post is that a 2 year old desktop can easily be upgraded but a 5-6 year old one cannot and you jump in and say he's doing it all wrong that your 2 year old computer is easily upgradeable.
Either your idiot, you don't know the difference between 2 and 5 or can't read. You decide.
Short of contributions to emacs (and a little hurd) RMS doesn't do a lot of coding. He's the community idealouge. We don't all have to agree with him but he's the guy out there warning about stuff. Some of it comes true, some doesn't. RMS has a set of views, or a moral code regarding software and he sticks to it. Rain or shine he speaks for and abides the principles he advocates and that deserves at least some respect. Without him there wouldn't be a GPL or likely even the concept of copyleft.
He's an important cog in the free software community standing on the mountain with his commandments that most of us don't follow.
Thanks to GE and their CEO's like Jack Welch US CEO's have been led to believe that if you aren't making 20% on it you should shut it down. This is the reason many successful and profitable business have been shut down or sold to the Chinese, because it was not making "enough" money. In most cases we'll never get those jobs back.
So blame GE and their former and current management for this view that MBA's now hold.
No high rise structure ever built could survive the collapse of an entire floor (they might survive the roof collapsing into the structure but even that could cause a domino failure). Logic should get in the way of you even uttering that moronic statement. You put a building in motion like that and NOTHING in the world could stop it. The WTC were billions of pounds of steel and concrete and you are suggesting that it could survive a fall of about 12' and an instantaneous stop. The force transfer of that instantaneous stop of several billions pounds falling at the acceleration of gravity for 12' would be so large that no material on earth could stop it.
Don't believe me? The mass of the WTC is public, take half the building mass (impact was mid-building), assume a commercial loading (all the cubicles and office equipment) of about 100lb/sf) and add that in, run it through gravitational acceleration for 12' (a commercial structure is probably closer to 15). Then try to find a material that could withstand that force needed to stop that motion.
I swear to god people don't have an ounce of common sense or knowledge of physics when it comes to conspiracy theories.
Let me emphasize the bad grip as slightly off where it should be. I nearly tore my rotator cuff having the rifle butt accidentally sitting about a half inch off where it should have been because I wasn't paying attention. I've also had a.38 pistol kick up and smack me in the forehead because it was the first time I'd ever fired that monster.
As noted in the previous reply there have been 18 (that I'm aware of, there maybe more) recorded incidences of speciation using the most rigorous "no interbreeding" definition available within the last 50 years. Given that very few people are even looking for existing species let alone new ones the fact that we've hard documentation of 18 incidences in 50 years remarkable.
Maybe you should understand the science before you run around disclaiming it, but I've never met a creationist yet that actually wants to understand the science. Most run around talking about 2nd law of thermodynamics and the bullshit taught in public school (which for more than 50 years was a hodgepodge of often old and incomplete information probably setup by creationists to be unbelievable, much like the current trend to try to "teach the controversy" now that the textbooks are being fixed to teach the correct science).
When you include ONLY federal income tax your numbers are right. Tack in payroll taxes (which are ironically not included as federal taxes even though they are federal taxes), state, local and sales taxes and the poor are paying the majority of taxes and the rich aren't paying anything, as long as it's a percentage of income that's being discussed.
And realistically % of income is what matters, not the total dollar figure as that's just a way to confuse the issue .
Evolution is a Theory AND a Fact. It's a fact because it's an observed natural phenomenon. It exists and is therefore fact. There is absolutely no debate in the scientific community over the existence, only the method. The existence or "fact" portion of the debate was settled before Darwin died.
The mechanism of evolution is the theory portion. We know with absolute certainty that evolution exists, what we don't understand fully is the method or methods by which is operates. The operation and rules that guide that operation are the theory. Natural Selection was Darwins theory of operation, punctuated equilibrium is another.
The Ironic part is those that deny the fact and accept the theory. I've met plenty of creationists that accept natural selection implicitly yet deny evolution. Therefore they accept Darwin's theory of evolution but then deny the fact of it's existence. But that's the irony of denying scientific fact.
Define "they". The US had a role in the Shah, primarily as an attempt to combat what they saw as a communist friendly regime, but the primary instigators of the Shah were the British who were trying to protect British Petroleum (formerly the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) oil rights and revenues. Most of the worlds present conflicts tie back to historical meddling by European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. US meddling started with the attempt to control the spread of communism and has persisted in various forms since but the primary conflicts of the present day are due to the former European actions.
And how much is a life worth? FHWA instituted the red-light campaign because running red lights now generates more fatalities than freeway accidents. Right-angle crashes are about 90% more likely to cause injury and death because cars have almost no protection from side impacts and SUV bumpers are the same height as the head of someone riding in a passenger car. These head injuries are almost always fatal.
There won't be a PS4. Sony can't compete with MS who doesn't care about profitability and can finance nearly unlimited losses with their monopoly revenue. The PS3 cost several Sony management personal their jobs and the reputation of the development team (with Sony executive management). I do not personally believe that Sony board will ever greenlight another PS console unless they take the Nintendo policy of making money on the console sale.
There is also the consideration that consoles themselves will likely fade away in the very near future as persistent networked computing devices in your pocket replace their use case. Both MS and Nintendo recognize this trend and are trying to adapt by making the console more than a gaming device but ultimately I think it's going to be eroded entirely by multiple factors including the one already listed (unless they can get the broadcasters to let them use their consoles as DVRs which I find unlikely).
I fully suspect that the Xbox 720 or whatever they end up calling it will be the last console by MS, the PS3 the last for Sony and Nintendo will stop either with the WiiU or it's successor depending on how well the U sells.
NO it doesn't. Air Rights cover building restrictions such as power lines restricting building height but you have absolutely no authority to shoot down aircraft over your property. That's governed by FAA regulations. Arguing you do is the same as arguing you have the right to intercept satellite transmissions into your property or cell communications. What you'll find out damn quick is the FCC and FAA hold that authority not individual property owners.
Hell in half the states you don't even own the minerals your property sits on let alone the air.
As you said it's the Metro Apps. Just like a phone you can't run more than one, they go full screen including wiping out the task bar and there is no close button. The only way I've found to close one is to open task manager and kill them.
Slashdot Mirror
We are primates, the proper response is to throw poop at him.
Even if the cops beat the every loving shit out of you while you are having this break down?
A very accurate prediction of the future masquerading as a comedy (that did terrible in the theaters but I loved the first time I saw).
You forgot the part where they blew the bag to pieces with a water cannon just in case it had a bomb in it. And then detained the people for 8 hours questioning them.
Per Federal Law, the Gas Tax goes into a fund called the Highway Trust Fund. Per Congressional mandate this is then handed back to the states directly (under a few abuses of federal money such as mandatory 21 drinking age) with a small factor applied so that more populous states provide a small percentage of their revenue to smaller states to maintain the interstates in those states.
Typically these factors for larger states like California, Texas and New York are about 96%. States like Montana, and other heavily rural states receive about 120% of their citizens gas taxes. The exception is Alaska which typically gets almost 180% because the funds are used to fund not just highways but rural programs that are not highway based (plane and emergency services to remote villages, ferry service, etc). But though the percentage difference is high the actual dollar figure is very low in the case of Alaska due to it's extremely small population. The vast majority of states receive back 99.X% back of their revenue where the less than 1% is used to fund Federal DOT including primarily FHWA and their initiatives.
Either way, FHWA itself consumes ~1% of the money and in the process uses those funds to support the publication of nearly all the major highway design standards, best practices, research and testing that is done. It is because of these initiatives that highway deaths have essentially bottomed out, capacity of the highways has dramatically increased, operational efficiencies have gone up, signing has standardized and innovative interchange designs continue to be developed. There are very good reasons for the federal split, primarily because some states would have absolutely no incentive to maintain interstates in thier state because they are not used. A primary example is I-15 as it passes through Arizona for several miles as it transitions from Nevada to Utah. There are no exits within this length meaning that I-15 in Arizona serves no purpose to Arizona. There are many other instances where were there not federal allocations of money the states would have no incentive to maintain a section of interstate.
Though I would personally like to see the federal gas tax scaled back and the states raise their own so more money stays with the states without the federal requirements there are very good reasons not to. The only thing that must change is that up until 2008 the entire highway system was maintained solely with gas tax revenue. The continued insistence of not raising gas taxes has had the result that the government is borrowing money to maintain the system AND we are underfunding the maintenance as it is. We will have more major failures like I-35 as a result.
It's also been my experience that those people running around screaming all government bad have absolutely no experience with government efficiency other than standing in line at the DMV. For the most part government outside a few key departments is highly efficient, devoted and looking after the taxpayer. The notables exceptions start with the DOD who wastes more money in a year than the rest of government combined in a decade.
You realize that Issue 2 disables issue 1 right? The crops they are making sterile can't cross pollinate because they are sterile.
This is something I've always thought is ironic about anti-gmo. People will in the same breath condemn cross pollination and the spreading of the genes and at the same time condemn the sterilization gene because it prevents cross pollination and seed reuse.
As others have said there is two issues, the intellectual property issue and the GMO issue. They are separate and arguing them in the same breath is creating strawmen because you are attacking the GMO then using the IP argument to lambast the solution to the GMO issue.
Even 5 years ago those same SUV's got 15-20. It's a remarkable improvement in a very short timeframe.
Just for reference, my 2006 v8 4-Runner gets 16MPG under mixed driving and the best I can do in all freeway driving if I keep it under 60 is about 20MPG.
My wife's 2010 v6 Rav4 (which is only slightly smaller) gets nearly 24 in mixed city freeway and close to 28 on pure freeway miles.
In 4 years they added nearly 25% more fuel efficiency (accounting for the weight and power differences).
And yes I support higher gas taxes, Much higher. Federal gas taxes haven't been raised since 1992 and before that is was 1980. The taxes should be indexed against inflation AND average fleet efficiency. After all its the miles driven that damage the road. Personally I'd like to see the gas tax indexed to inflation and fuel efficiency is 2015 with a 1.25 cent increase in the tax (per gallon) per month till then. That would roughly double the federal gas tax, then index it so it never needs legislation to raise it again.
Fiona destroyed HP. She turned the company from an engineering and design heavyweight into a commodity hardware business.
Short term profits resulted and after a year or two and the death of the real engineering progress was complete they began the long slow slide into irrelevance. The fact is we live in a complex world economy where you innovate or die. HP stopped innovating because it was "too expensive". Yes they wiped out all those expensive engineering salaries and boosted short term profit. And several years down the line when HP hasn't innovated anything you see a huge dramatic loss of profit.
You don't want to be in the commodity business, there's no profit in it. You want to be in the innovative cutting edge area where you can charge premium profit margins (ask apple). Being in that space costs money and lots of engineering resources. HP surrendered that market under the leadership of Fiona. HP's board of directors has been a collection of has-been CEO's that are riding the company into oblivion since before Fiona was hired. The Hewlett and Packard families were railroaded a long time ago, the only ones left are trying to milk the cash out of HP before it deteriorates into nothingness.
HP could have owned the smartphone market and dozens of other highly profitable sectors had they spent the money on engineering and development instead of deciding that they only wanted to do printers and computers.
Decreased? Not even close. Total US alcohol consumption before prohibition was around 10% (of the population) after prohibition it was close to 30% and during prohibition it was close to 70%.
Prohibition, like all black markets, setup a situation where the product became sexy and people that never tried it, wanted to because it wasn't legal and "everyone" was doing it. Banning something increases it's demand, it increased alcohol consumption, it's increased marijuana consumption, cocaine consumption and just about any other product you can name that is illegal has seen increased consumption after being banned.
You can't ban any product effectively. As long as their is a demand the product will exist and be traded. All the ban does is increase the cost, not only of acquiring the illicit item but of owning the item. Prohibition, the war on drugs and any other ban you can think of only serve to create a blackmarket, organized crime and extensive illicit distribution and marketing channels.
In the end you still don't remove the products, and the crazy people still kill other innocent people. It's sickening how many of you are so willing to hand over the rights of others for a little perceived (but false) safety. I guess it shouldn't surprise me given how many quietly comply with the TSA nude scanners and other invasive and obtuse security measures that only trade freedom for a false sense of security while empowering others with control over you.
Banning weapons will do NOTHING to stop gun crime. The biggest lie of the anti-gun lobby is the simple fact that 50% of all gun deaths are suicides.
It's nice of you to offer to surrender my rights to attempt to protect yourself from random acts of violence by the mentally unstable.
Rather than your straw man argument that other people should surrender their rights maybe you should concentrate on getting help for the mentally ill.
So his post is that a 2 year old desktop can easily be upgraded but a 5-6 year old one cannot and you jump in and say he's doing it all wrong that your 2 year old computer is easily upgradeable.
Either your idiot, you don't know the difference between 2 and 5 or can't read. You decide.
Short of contributions to emacs (and a little hurd) RMS doesn't do a lot of coding. He's the community idealouge. We don't all have to agree with him but he's the guy out there warning about stuff. Some of it comes true, some doesn't. RMS has a set of views, or a moral code regarding software and he sticks to it. Rain or shine he speaks for and abides the principles he advocates and that deserves at least some respect. Without him there wouldn't be a GPL or likely even the concept of copyleft.
He's an important cog in the free software community standing on the mountain with his commandments that most of us don't follow.
Thanks to GE and their CEO's like Jack Welch US CEO's have been led to believe that if you aren't making 20% on it you should shut it down. This is the reason many successful and profitable business have been shut down or sold to the Chinese, because it was not making "enough" money. In most cases we'll never get those jobs back.
So blame GE and their former and current management for this view that MBA's now hold.
No high rise structure ever built could survive the collapse of an entire floor (they might survive the roof collapsing into the structure but even that could cause a domino failure). Logic should get in the way of you even uttering that moronic statement. You put a building in motion like that and NOTHING in the world could stop it. The WTC were billions of pounds of steel and concrete and you are suggesting that it could survive a fall of about 12' and an instantaneous stop. The force transfer of that instantaneous stop of several billions pounds falling at the acceleration of gravity for 12' would be so large that no material on earth could stop it.
Don't believe me? The mass of the WTC is public, take half the building mass (impact was mid-building), assume a commercial loading (all the cubicles and office equipment) of about 100lb/sf) and add that in, run it through gravitational acceleration for 12' (a commercial structure is probably closer to 15). Then try to find a material that could withstand that force needed to stop that motion.
I swear to god people don't have an ounce of common sense or knowledge of physics when it comes to conspiracy theories.
Not my Jello. Maybe I should cut down on the glass.
Let me emphasize the bad grip as slightly off where it should be. I nearly tore my rotator cuff having the rifle butt accidentally sitting about a half inch off where it should have been because I wasn't paying attention. I've also had a .38 pistol kick up and smack me in the forehead because it was the first time I'd ever fired that monster.
As noted in the previous reply there have been 18 (that I'm aware of, there maybe more) recorded incidences of speciation using the most rigorous "no interbreeding" definition available within the last 50 years. Given that very few people are even looking for existing species let alone new ones the fact that we've hard documentation of 18 incidences in 50 years remarkable.
Maybe you should understand the science before you run around disclaiming it, but I've never met a creationist yet that actually wants to understand the science. Most run around talking about 2nd law of thermodynamics and the bullshit taught in public school (which for more than 50 years was a hodgepodge of often old and incomplete information probably setup by creationists to be unbelievable, much like the current trend to try to "teach the controversy" now that the textbooks are being fixed to teach the correct science).
Statistics, liars and all that.
When you include ONLY federal income tax your numbers are right. Tack in payroll taxes (which are ironically not included as federal taxes even though they are federal taxes), state, local and sales taxes and the poor are paying the majority of taxes and the rich aren't paying anything, as long as it's a percentage of income that's being discussed.
And realistically % of income is what matters, not the total dollar figure as that's just a way to confuse the issue .
Wrong.
Evolution is a Theory AND a Fact. It's a fact because it's an observed natural phenomenon. It exists and is therefore fact. There is absolutely no debate in the scientific community over the existence, only the method. The existence or "fact" portion of the debate was settled before Darwin died.
The mechanism of evolution is the theory portion. We know with absolute certainty that evolution exists, what we don't understand fully is the method or methods by which is operates. The operation and rules that guide that operation are the theory. Natural Selection was Darwins theory of operation, punctuated equilibrium is another.
The Ironic part is those that deny the fact and accept the theory. I've met plenty of creationists that accept natural selection implicitly yet deny evolution. Therefore they accept Darwin's theory of evolution but then deny the fact of it's existence. But that's the irony of denying scientific fact.
Define "they". The US had a role in the Shah, primarily as an attempt to combat what they saw as a communist friendly regime, but the primary instigators of the Shah were the British who were trying to protect British Petroleum (formerly the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) oil rights and revenues. Most of the worlds present conflicts tie back to historical meddling by European powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. US meddling started with the attempt to control the spread of communism and has persisted in various forms since but the primary conflicts of the present day are due to the former European actions.
And how much is a life worth? FHWA instituted the red-light campaign because running red lights now generates more fatalities than freeway accidents. Right-angle crashes are about 90% more likely to cause injury and death because cars have almost no protection from side impacts and SUV bumpers are the same height as the head of someone riding in a passenger car. These head injuries are almost always fatal.
There won't be a PS4. Sony can't compete with MS who doesn't care about profitability and can finance nearly unlimited losses with their monopoly revenue. The PS3 cost several Sony management personal their jobs and the reputation of the development team (with Sony executive management). I do not personally believe that Sony board will ever greenlight another PS console unless they take the Nintendo policy of making money on the console sale.
There is also the consideration that consoles themselves will likely fade away in the very near future as persistent networked computing devices in your pocket replace their use case. Both MS and Nintendo recognize this trend and are trying to adapt by making the console more than a gaming device but ultimately I think it's going to be eroded entirely by multiple factors including the one already listed (unless they can get the broadcasters to let them use their consoles as DVRs which I find unlikely).
I fully suspect that the Xbox 720 or whatever they end up calling it will be the last console by MS, the PS3 the last for Sony and Nintendo will stop either with the WiiU or it's successor depending on how well the U sells.
NO it doesn't. Air Rights cover building restrictions such as power lines restricting building height but you have absolutely no authority to shoot down aircraft over your property. That's governed by FAA regulations. Arguing you do is the same as arguing you have the right to intercept satellite transmissions into your property or cell communications. What you'll find out damn quick is the FCC and FAA hold that authority not individual property owners.
Hell in half the states you don't even own the minerals your property sits on let alone the air.
As you said it's the Metro Apps. Just like a phone you can't run more than one, they go full screen including wiping out the task bar and there is no close button. The only way I've found to close one is to open task manager and kill them.