Thankfully, the good thing about dynastic succession is that the successors, not having the experience of having run a struggling company, end up piloting it either into a hole, lining their own pockets, or at best, into a level, zero-growth situation, giving more room for competitors. We benefit from churn. Industries are like soup: they have to be stirred frequently or the scum rises to the top.
I don't think that is a GOOD THING. Because by extension, or government in the US is a dynastic succession from OLD fat cats and lobbyists running for multinational corporations run by 2nd Generation entitled executives. But they can push out the start-up companies by buying them or forcing them out with barriers to entry (I think the real reason that big corps probably pushed Oxley Sarbanes and the like).
Face it, we are run by a bunch of Economic Royalists, who can't stand entitlements, but don't notice they work for the Lucky Sperm Club entitlement program and consider everyone not on their pay scale a useless eater. Social Darwinists.
>> I don't think this is really hyperbole. We have every major economic/industrial branch, lobbying the government, while our economy/security/way of life circle the drain. Case in point:
Big Pharma can't help buying adds that say a public option will kill grandma. Big Banking can't help but create a thousand Bernie Maddoffs (who was only thrown to the wolves because he ate his own), and extort the government to create the TARP fund and then threaten economic melt down if the FED gets audited. Big Military, can't help but increase government money for the weapons industry, without realizing that our economic situation is more of a threat than any bombs pointing at us -- while we can STILL blow up the world many times over, but we have to sell our weapons manufacturing to Middle East princes to be able to afford it. Big Energy, gets in the way of alternatives, without addressing that we are on the other end of the curve of oil production -- and human impacts are threatening our life on this planet. Don't worry about global warming -- just look at the Ph level of the oceans. They spend money lying to everyone, that Solar cannot power our entire lives -- and then we have "concerned citizens" worried about the ecological impact of building too many solar panels -- as compared to too many coal fired power plants? We are all down stream of this garbage now. Big Security, it's the job of the future; go to prison or guard your neighbor, or frisk your grandma at the airport. With 2 million people in prison and corporate incarceration -- we can't afford NOT to make things illegal. When judges started getting kickbacks for harsher or fabricated juvenile penalties -- we should have known this experiment was over. How many more stories of "Pot is actually good for X and Y" do we need before we decriminalize this and start giving people with problems a much less expensive drug rehab program?
I think that this thread has really gotten to an important point -- but we need to see that THIS is how decadence and narcissism kill a culture. Our whole leadership system is a Country Club for Sociopaths and they have taken all the profits from underdeveloped countries and now they can only devour us. 15% year over year profits for the Financial Industry must take precedence over keeping people working or healthy after all.
>> I don't see much way out of this dilemma until things just start failing... sad to say.
If there really were trips, would 1/3rd be trips, 1/3d be dupes, and the rest, originals?
The ratios in this discussion have been simplified for the math challenged.
>> Really if EVERY article was a triplicate, it would be a self-reproducing fractal that went back in time recursively, and would have to destroy duplicates of it self in the present. Likely, this process would destroy reality itself as each duplicate was forced to become a triplicate, and each original a duplicate.
We might want to say; "all of them CANNOT be duplicates" -- but let's just take a pass and keep to the proper Engrish that we use on Slashdot.
Lost in this whole discussion with Homeland Security -- is how do we make sure the people watching us, aren't the problem?
It's been almost a decade now, that I've felt that there was NO OVERSIGHT on people with power, and of course, we only put on trial the few bad apples that are disposable. But if we cannot have anyone at the Fed accountable for destroying the economy, if we can't have anyone at the Pentagon accountable for absolute failure on 9/11 and then LOSING $2 Trillion dollars that seemed to miss the headlines on 9/12, what the heck is the point of sniffing up every business man's trousers --- if they are REAL bad guys, they might just be working for Homeland Security.
Did anyone investigate why Homeland Security was funding the CIA's "Prostitutes and Poker" scandal at the Watergate Hotel? Did someone just declare "bygones" and we all forgot about it?
There is no transparency and accountability in regards to abuse. For all we know, HS could copy the hard drive of someone from GM and give the data to someone at GE for a great price. The risk/reward for corporate espionage when NOBODY IS WATCHING THE WATCHERS -- well, corruption is inevitable.
I might have some trust in Homeland Security, if they spent less time looking for dirty pictures and downloaded music files and a LOT MORE TIME, looking into things like the Sibel Edmonds testimony: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7374
I suggest that we add to the Lexicon; "The Fallacy of Phallus" wherein someone is being a Dick about a point of view, because it wasn't something they believed.
I'm telling you I saw a ball of glowing energy hit the power lines and ride along it. I also so a glowing ball with no power lines. Twice in my life. I've seen dozens of car crashes -- they happen all the time and seem to be located on streets.
I work with electronics as a hobby off and on, and I tend to be absent-minded and clumsy, so I've seen a lot of glowing electrical things ejected from equipment. It's often quite impressive, and it sometimes does match some descriptions of ball lightning, but it's not going to (for example) coast smoothly along a wire, or hang motionless in midair, or boil an entire tub of water.
Then you didn't see it. And therefore it must not be possible -- quite an amazing scientific mind you have.
Ball lighting is extremely rare. That's why it's not on camera yet.
>> Just last week, they now have proof that mega waves can occur in calm oceans. 100ft + tall waves -- probably caused by a phenomena called a "soliton wave" happen at many times during the year. There were no photos or videos of these events -- but they scanned the oceans with Satellites to look for small changes in elevation. Now, a few thousand sea captains, don't have to be called drunken fools for having an large boat, or oil tanker capsize without a storm.
We take this model for granted. It's one thing for a handy, convenient model to hold Balls in place with sticks and the you connect your large blue Oxygen balls to the tiny Red hydrogen balls and call it a model.
It's quite another that it's the actual, physical representation of it.
We look at atoms and imagine electron shells -- that's really a domain that electrons spend their time in.
However, physicists currently have this model of particles being particles. Now if a solid, frozen substance under the head of a pin, however, is detecting the structures of "most common region of covalent bonding" as actual "stick like" structures -- when in all rights, the interference of the probe should be pushing the electron around it -- then maybe we need to rethink this concept of particles.
>> My own belief, and I'm likely to get slammed for this on Slashdot by folks who think about physics and chemistry all day -- is that EVERYTHING is a field. Particles are fields with pinpoint connections to other dimensions and that exhibit mass. But what you would expect, from a field, touching a field, is that the "domains" of the electron bonding, would appear solid.
If you really think about it, the electron and proton in these pictures are so small, that the distance from the electron is as far from the proton vs. its size, that it would be like a period on this sentence on a football field.
THAT any of these molecules is solid, means that the potential fields where the electron COULD BE, have some disruption on space, and that the patterns of force of the probe, interfere with the patterns of force on the studied atom.
If Atoms were really very tiny particles, we would SOMETIMES see a structure and sometimes not -- because the probe's electron and the sampled atom's electron would not be occupying the same location most of the time.
>> It's a bit like asking the basic question: Why are things opaque and why are they solid? Fields themselves are the only things that could be stopping the probe. And if physics recognizes the "strong and weak force" -- are those really propagated by particles, or is it a disturbance in space itself. I'm one of the anachronisms who still believes in the aether, I suppose -- think of Dark Matter, as the New Aether.
I've witnessed "ball lightning" on about three occasions now. The likely reason we have people pursuing the concept but no documentation is probably the same as the reason I never documented it; by the time you yell "Holy crap -- that's ball lightning" it is gone.
Now I've heard some theory that it's supposed to be related to plasma created by tectonic stresses. But my wife and I witnessed it when just passing under a bridge in Florida, and the ball kind of floated along a power line until it hit a transformer and blew it up -- right over the heads of rush hour traffic.
The first time I saw it, my house had been hit by lightning, and the power went out. About a minute later, my video tape ejected from a smoking VCR, with a kind of, deep, sick-cat "meow" and instead of a tape ejecting, a 1.5" sphere of glowing plasma bounced out, and kind of slid/skipped across the rug. Needless to say, that VCR never worked again.
>> The lack of evidence for something, doesn't mean that witnesses are all hallucinating.
... that they could be monitoring TV News for unpaid advertising, product bias or factual incorrectness?
I mean, have they noticed all the PR infotainment that gets put on local newscasts as if it didn't come from some company promoting the health benefits of Orange Juice?
If Fox News can win in the supreme court for the right to not tell us the truth -- then maybe Joe Blow blogger should have the right to make stuff up too.
I would be very happy, if we got rid of all paid bloggers -- but who the heck is going to decide? And there are so many, that enforcement would be totally arbitrary. Kind of like the $2.4 Million judgement against some poor lady who downloaded 24 songs. She is paying the cost for 2.3 million people who they didn't catch.
Probably a lot less impact than the drag created by buildings already.
Replacing coal power plants with the equivalent turbines would also have less impact on the weather because there would be less carbon in the air.
We are already experimenting far more with our ecosystem with the status quo than the worst of the Green alternatives. You would also harvest wind energy, from places with more wind energy; http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html Tethered devices can get them off the ground.
There are better and less dangerous designs than the wind turbine. Up in the trade winds, you can have a spiral structure that gets spun by the wind, rather than blades.
Here is an obvious improvement, that gets rid of gears; http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell.aspx The turbine becomes the generator itself. I was thinking of this years ago, but considered it too obvious and thought if it would work, someone would already be building it -- well, now they are.
The statements about costs and resources bases these estimates on current technology and not the cost savings of creating a million, nor the cost savings of actual investment, that gets more people designing and building turbines. It's expensive now because it's little more than a hobby.
Our carbon-based energy system, is heavily subsidized, has an infrastructure that is massive and taxpayer assisted, and requires we send troops around the world to procure resources -- factors that don't make the cost estimates.
No, you are referring to one type of Homeopathic treatment.
"Homeopathic" just means; "Like heals like."
The Zicam has plenty of Zinc in it -- which I think is the issue here. I just saw a program talking about people using too much denture cream, and having temporary nervous disorders from getting too much Zinc in their system.
If it were so diluted that it didn't work -- where would be the issue of losing a sense of smell?
Maybe if we let IBM patent it then everyone else will stop doing it? That was my first thought.
This should be under the topic of "Examples of Capitalism Eating Its Own."
If they can patent it, it will do what all IP law seems to do for innovation -- discourage it and bottle it up in court.
"Sorry, Hewlett Packard, You are going to have to license with IBM to ship that job overseas."
As usual, there are people defending this practice. But finally, we have such people supporting a practice that will actually hurt multinational corporations raping of wages. So Kudos to IBM for stopping greed and evil with more greed and evil.
Have total point-to-point travel service. You get on, and you go to where you want to go -- you don't even have to pay for service. 1 Gallon of gas will move one ton a thousand miles -- now THAT is efficiency of service.
Of course, you might want to sex this up a bit with the naming -- because I think it used to be called "light rail" with computer control.
Really, why are we even focusing on loading even more cars, no matter how smart they are on the roads. We could get rid of a lot of lost time and hours and energy by just putting more trains and rails into our country. There shouldn't be one 8-lane highway in America without a commuter rail on it.
Most likely, they are told by Homeland Security policies to "respond to all complaints" no matter how ridiculous.
AirTran would have called the authorities to report the incident. If they don't get an "all clear" back, then normal CYA procedure would dictate that they don't let the people fly. It sucks, it makes no sense, but that is probably the policy, that has been thrust upon ALL of our Airline agencies.
Blame the thought challenged leadership for our crap-tastic security that only seems to do anything where we can see them, and does nothing where we can't.
I have to agree with your comments. You cannot take the worst case scenario and use it to make case law.
Laws should help to protect people from invasions and unreasonable treatment. The problem here, is Myspace is something you go to voluntarily -- it isn't like school. The world cannot be responsible, for the acts of the most fragile people.
If I teased someone, in a light hearted manner, and they take their own lives. A jury will have to then conclude what my intent was, and if I had a history of teasing. On the other hand, cannot we say that there is a certain mental fortitude that a person should be required to have.
On the other hand, a group of people could hound someone, no matter where they went. And cast aspersions on their character. Making threats and harsh comments that affects their business. The target, might never cry or be driven into depression. But, has harm been done?
We need to look at the severity of actions committed -- not based upon the reactions of people. I'm sure most of us know how hard it can be to work in a place, where there is a person so sensitive, that any curse, wicked thought, or slightly amusing joke can send them into a tizzy. Should we all be held hostage to the highest bar and offend anyone? I can tell you, that the one thing that offends me is when there aren't dirty jokes, a little teasing, and people worried about not saying anything interesting.
What about kids who are shunned and never have anyone talking to them -- is there a measure of "harmful neglect?"
>> This was a bad thing that happened, and the people were jerks. But they should not be responsible for another human being's actions -- but I can only say that up to a point. The real test would be "could the victim have avoided the teasing, and would the teasing, harm the average person." In neither instance of this case, is that true.
...And there isn't a Quantum Computer that can do this computing.
Both the existence and non-existence on the state of the application can be pre-supposed, but the recognition of the answer is going to take a larger computer -- which cannot reveal its solution, otherwise the existing, non-existing Quantum Computer will collapse.
The Quantum Computer will be really great, at recognizing a face and returning an answer immediately, from a database of 50 million. The answer will be; "Yes." Then a traditional computer will search through the database, to find which one got the right answer. If the answer is "No" -- well, you don't have to search the database. So a Quantum Computer will save you 50% of the time (on average) by NOT doing things for which you don't have an answer.
OK, all you people spouting off about secret clearances, are of course either dis-info agents or are not aware of the Super Secret categories of Top Secret. You would be dead by now if you posted these classifications -- what would happen, or why I know this is above my pay grade.
ULTRA, is of course NOT used, because the person who blabbed that is now dead. And if you use it, other agents are trained to laugh at you. Bush himself has created new classifications for Homeland Security, but "Super-Duper Secret" was turned down by the actual, secret shadow government.
Now, mod me down so that this information does not make the attention of the PTB.
Does everyone have to be the super techno geek to get respect? There are all types of people in this world, some can sing, some can dance, some can sing AND dance. Some people can program...
Perhaps the issue is that money is drying up. And we can circle the drain by reducing expenses (read; People), or we can address the bad trade policies that force us to go to the bottom. We aren't going to win that race.
America needs to push to do great things again, and to do that we need to raise all boats -- not just the one yacht.
Not respecting different skills is going to make everyone miserable. Imagine your irascible super geek, calling your customer an idiot because they want an LCD screen that supports JAVA.
I'm not "yet" involved with seeing lots of outsourcing, but your description of how business decisions are made, are to my mind, very well put. Underlying this, is a sort of elitist detachment. A sense that "everyone brought it on themselves."
I think that ethical behavior, and sticking by employees as valuable assets, is actually the best thing to do and makes financial sense. And if it doesn't -- life is short, do you really need to sacrifice people to make a little more money?
But there is no downside to being short-sighted and greedy.
Does anyone know of any software, that they actually want and admire, that is being done by some outsourced company? Anecdotally, most of us can name a few of our least favorite companies, who we only use because we have no choice, and a large contingent of their business is outsourced with no regard to accountability.
I personally think its harder to find a smart engineer, than it is a greedy businessman to replace an executive. If it weren't a club - they'd be outsourcing the board of directors at most companies.
Well, that would be against the status quo really; It's really an appearance of Lazy sponge vs. budget for smart folks -- so that the two can fight over the scraps. What is really going on, is the shoveling of money towards lazy elites who are basically socialists at the top, who can never fail, and they are capitalists when there is a profit around and they think they should be rewarded... "hey, what S&L bailout? We don't owe anyone money."
If we could spend that money on NASA, trying to genetically modify a CEO who poops gold -- then that would be a great way to justify the value of this expensive herd of parasites.
But hey, let's go back to making the poor fight with scientists while we get our pockets picked. It has been working rather well to turn all the would-be intelligent folks into Libertarians.
Or maybe we should instead talk about NASA fighting over a budget with the $75 Billion Nuclear Subs. Or subsidies to corporations who we pay for the privilege of them taking our resources without compensation.
A lawyer, working for Diebold, broke the law and revealed documents of theirs than refers to rigging the elections. In the Ohio case, he was saying that they uploaded software AFTER the machines were certified in violation of that process.
It's likely that the overall crappiness of the equipment, and the uploading of new applications, was what caused many machines to lock up. Anyone putting virus software on a kiosk that is SUPPOSED to be isolated except for one upload to a presumably secure IP address, would be a techno idiot.
So are you saying that this is happening to you or Edgar Mitchell.
If you are denying that you are smart, and are not engaged in some wild ass idea right now -- I can merely go back and look at your brilliant postings on slashdot.
6 billion will almost always innovate and progress better than 300 million
Therefore, we see that the majority of the world is prospering. While a few people, are living in misery and poverty because they were out-innovated. Yes, I see that your rebuttal was trivial. People who organize themselves and wealth at country clubs, apparently must be digging all the ditches.
Sure we can afford it, we're in a mild recession at worst and are generally doing quite well.
We can afford it, as long as it does nothing to help the middle class or infrastructure. I'd also like to ask you not to bogart that joint you are smoking.
What about the poor Indian who'd be ecstatic if they could eat as much as a homeless person in the US? Are their lives worth less than that american family you mention?
Oh, wait. Now he is evil, because he wants to deprive the Indians from an American job? Why are American executives depriving Indians of Executive jobs? Or is this only a one-way thing wherein anything that does not equal profit, has to somehow save the world and whiten teeth? It's really hard discussing these issues when people are tree-huggers for caring, and when they look out for themselves, they are selfish -- which we know is enlightened self-interest if you are a globalist.
You're not locked into anything, you CHOSE to get yoruself locked into it because you're greedy.
Yeah, that was enlightened self-interest that turned into greed because he was a consumer -- not an executive. I'm sure that locking himself into a plan to save money on a phone probably hurt someone in India as well. See, in this FREE MARKET point of view, all problems are the result of YOU being dumber than a Libertarian. As soon as you organize to pass laws to change the rules -- that is undemocratic. You cannot win -- because you are making bad choices. Get those home testing kits for lead ready folks.
Why do you assume that they'd be as stupid as you and buy products from their own obviously stingy and inferior company? He can safely assume they are dumber, because they don't make as much money. Try to be consistent with this idea of wealthy = smart and self-reliant. There is no such thing as the luck of the draw.
I doubt anyone would want a call center job unless they were masochistic or desperate beyond measure. Yeah, because that would mean we were in a recession. Pay no attention to the call centers that close down -- nobody wanted to be there anyway.
Interesting, yet you continue to buy services from companies that engage in these behaviors. It seems you're want lots of things as long as you don't have to spend a penny more as a result. Typical.
Yeah, there are no monopolies or cartels in America, because Government has completely ignored this issue for 30 years. You can buy Gas for $4 here -- or $4.02 over there. You can get DSL from AT&T $37, or buy Cable for $37, or you can get DSL from a redistributor of AT&T networks for $39 per month. THAT is choice. You should pay the $200 fee to get out of your two-year commitment. And pay the same amount with another company doing the exact same thing -- that's called principles (and futility).
And if you dare to lobby congress with other citizens or form a union -- you are a damn commie. Just move from Sprint to Verizon in protest, as someone else moves from Verizon to Sprint in protest. This churning will really show them who is boss.
Set up a proprietary company to create the encryption software.
The P2P network then licenses this, and sets an End User Agreement that all information and passed links are a trade secret. All it will do is pass pointers to networks.
A second network, that assists users in transferring data uses a new network technology, based on the need for secure network traffic, will randomize the types and size of packets sent, the reference to get these transmitted packets will be on a third network, that will only exist to secure data traffic from prying eyes.
You can only be sure about what you are seeing -- and not be sure about what everyone else is seeing. Trying to decrypt or intercept the data, will be a violation of the DMCA.
Just convert P2P traffic into Spam, and hijack the same IP addresses where it is being sent from. Every upload would be a reply-to an advertisement to "grow this" and "shrink that."
Because, apparently, this SPAM doesn't seem to have any priority for the Internet police because it hurts consumers, so if P2P networks could look like trojans, viruses, advertisements and late fee notices, it would be completely legitimate.
Just change that video name to "You will be amazed in just 15 days" and there is no possibility that anyone will be staying awake to view it.
Of course, then you would have another server that explained what all the spam headers were pointing to, but you could always claim; "Hey, I was just responding to get a free Vacation -- it's my right to spend $3000 on a FREE vacation with an undisclosed third-party isn't it?"
Slashdot Mirror
Thankfully, the good thing about dynastic succession is that the successors, not having the experience of having run a struggling company, end up piloting it either into a hole, lining their own pockets, or at best, into a level, zero-growth situation, giving more room for competitors. We benefit from churn. Industries are like soup: they have to be stirred frequently or the scum rises to the top.
I don't think that is a GOOD THING. Because by extension, or government in the US is a dynastic succession from OLD fat cats and lobbyists running for multinational corporations run by 2nd Generation entitled executives. But they can push out the start-up companies by buying them or forcing them out with barriers to entry (I think the real reason that big corps probably pushed Oxley Sarbanes and the like).
Face it, we are run by a bunch of Economic Royalists, who can't stand entitlements, but don't notice they work for the Lucky Sperm Club entitlement program and consider everyone not on their pay scale a useless eater. Social Darwinists.
>> I don't think this is really hyperbole. We have every major economic/industrial branch, lobbying the government, while our economy/security/way of life circle the drain.
Case in point:
Big Pharma can't help buying adds that say a public option will kill grandma.
Big Banking can't help but create a thousand Bernie Maddoffs (who was only thrown to the wolves because he ate his own), and extort the government to create the TARP fund and then threaten economic melt down if the FED gets audited.
Big Military, can't help but increase government money for the weapons industry, without realizing that our economic situation is more of a threat than any bombs pointing at us -- while we can STILL blow up the world many times over, but we have to sell our weapons manufacturing to Middle East princes to be able to afford it.
Big Energy, gets in the way of alternatives, without addressing that we are on the other end of the curve of oil production -- and human impacts are threatening our life on this planet. Don't worry about global warming -- just look at the Ph level of the oceans. They spend money lying to everyone, that Solar cannot power our entire lives -- and then we have "concerned citizens" worried about the ecological impact of building too many solar panels -- as compared to too many coal fired power plants? We are all down stream of this garbage now.
Big Security, it's the job of the future; go to prison or guard your neighbor, or frisk your grandma at the airport. With 2 million people in prison and corporate incarceration -- we can't afford NOT to make things illegal. When judges started getting kickbacks for harsher or fabricated juvenile penalties -- we should have known this experiment was over. How many more stories of "Pot is actually good for X and Y" do we need before we decriminalize this and start giving people with problems a much less expensive drug rehab program?
I think that this thread has really gotten to an important point -- but we need to see that THIS is how decadence and narcissism kill a culture. Our whole leadership system is a Country Club for Sociopaths and they have taken all the profits from underdeveloped countries and now they can only devour us. 15% year over year profits for the Financial Industry must take precedence over keeping people working or healthy after all.
>> I don't see much way out of this dilemma until things just start failing... sad to say.
If there really were trips, would 1/3rd be trips, 1/3d be dupes, and the rest, originals?
The ratios in this discussion have been simplified for the math challenged.
>> Really if EVERY article was a triplicate, it would be a self-reproducing fractal that went back in time recursively, and would have to destroy duplicates of it self in the present. Likely, this process would destroy reality itself as each duplicate was forced to become a triplicate, and each original a duplicate.
We might want to say; "all of them CANNOT be duplicates" -- but let's just take a pass and keep to the proper Engrish that we use on Slashdot.
Lost in this whole discussion with Homeland Security -- is how do we make sure the people watching us, aren't the problem?
It's been almost a decade now, that I've felt that there was NO OVERSIGHT on people with power, and of course, we only put on trial the few bad apples that are disposable. But if we cannot have anyone at the Fed accountable for destroying the economy, if we can't have anyone at the Pentagon accountable for absolute failure on 9/11 and then LOSING $2 Trillion dollars that seemed to miss the headlines on 9/12, what the heck is the point of sniffing up every business man's trousers --- if they are REAL bad guys, they might just be working for Homeland Security.
Did anyone investigate why Homeland Security was funding the CIA's "Prostitutes and Poker" scandal at the Watergate Hotel? Did someone just declare "bygones" and we all forgot about it?
There is no transparency and accountability in regards to abuse. For all we know, HS could copy the hard drive of someone from GM and give the data to someone at GE for a great price. The risk/reward for corporate espionage when NOBODY IS WATCHING THE WATCHERS -- well, corruption is inevitable.
I might have some trust in Homeland Security, if they spent less time looking for dirty pictures and downloaded music files and a LOT MORE TIME, looking into things like the Sibel Edmonds testimony: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7374
I suggest that we add to the Lexicon; "The Fallacy of Phallus" wherein someone is being a Dick about a point of view, because it wasn't something they believed.
I'm telling you I saw a ball of glowing energy hit the power lines and ride along it. I also so a glowing ball with no power lines. Twice in my life. I've seen dozens of car crashes -- they happen all the time and seem to be located on streets.
I work with electronics as a hobby off and on, and I tend to be absent-minded and clumsy, so I've seen a lot of glowing electrical things ejected from equipment. It's often quite impressive, and it sometimes does match some descriptions of ball lightning, but it's not going to (for example) coast smoothly along a wire, or hang motionless in midair, or boil an entire tub of water.
Then you didn't see it. And therefore it must not be possible -- quite an amazing scientific mind you have.
Ball lighting is extremely rare. That's why it's not on camera yet.
>> Just last week, they now have proof that mega waves can occur in calm oceans. 100ft + tall waves -- probably caused by a phenomena called a "soliton wave" happen at many times during the year. There were no photos or videos of these events -- but they scanned the oceans with Satellites to look for small changes in elevation. Now, a few thousand sea captains, don't have to be called drunken fools for having an large boat, or oil tanker capsize without a storm.
We take this model for granted. It's one thing for a handy, convenient model to hold Balls in place with sticks and the you connect your large blue Oxygen balls to the tiny Red hydrogen balls and call it a model.
It's quite another that it's the actual, physical representation of it.
We look at atoms and imagine electron shells -- that's really a domain that electrons spend their time in.
However, physicists currently have this model of particles being particles. Now if a solid, frozen substance under the head of a pin, however, is detecting the structures of "most common region of covalent bonding" as actual "stick like" structures -- when in all rights, the interference of the probe should be pushing the electron around it -- then maybe we need to rethink this concept of particles.
>> My own belief, and I'm likely to get slammed for this on Slashdot by folks who think about physics and chemistry all day -- is that EVERYTHING is a field. Particles are fields with pinpoint connections to other dimensions and that exhibit mass. But what you would expect, from a field, touching a field, is that the "domains" of the electron bonding, would appear solid.
If you really think about it, the electron and proton in these pictures are so small, that the distance from the electron is as far from the proton vs. its size, that it would be like a period on this sentence on a football field.
THAT any of these molecules is solid, means that the potential fields where the electron COULD BE, have some disruption on space, and that the patterns of force of the probe, interfere with the patterns of force on the studied atom.
If Atoms were really very tiny particles, we would SOMETIMES see a structure and sometimes not -- because the probe's electron and the sampled atom's electron would not be occupying the same location most of the time.
>> It's a bit like asking the basic question: Why are things opaque and why are they solid? Fields themselves are the only things that could be stopping the probe. And if physics recognizes the "strong and weak force" -- are those really propagated by particles, or is it a disturbance in space itself. I'm one of the anachronisms who still believes in the aether, I suppose -- think of Dark Matter, as the New Aether.
I've witnessed "ball lightning" on about three occasions now. The likely reason we have people pursuing the concept but no documentation is probably the same as the reason I never documented it; by the time you yell "Holy crap -- that's ball lightning" it is gone.
Now I've heard some theory that it's supposed to be related to plasma created by tectonic stresses. But my wife and I witnessed it when just passing under a bridge in Florida, and the ball kind of floated along a power line until it hit a transformer and blew it up -- right over the heads of rush hour traffic.
The first time I saw it, my house had been hit by lightning, and the power went out. About a minute later, my video tape ejected from a smoking VCR, with a kind of, deep, sick-cat "meow" and instead of a tape ejecting, a 1.5" sphere of glowing plasma bounced out, and kind of slid/skipped across the rug. Needless to say, that VCR never worked again.
>> The lack of evidence for something, doesn't mean that witnesses are all hallucinating.
... that they could be monitoring TV News for unpaid advertising, product bias or factual incorrectness?
I mean, have they noticed all the PR infotainment that gets put on local newscasts as if it didn't come from some company promoting the health benefits of Orange Juice?
If Fox News can win in the supreme court for the right to not tell us the truth -- then maybe Joe Blow blogger should have the right to make stuff up too.
I would be very happy, if we got rid of all paid bloggers -- but who the heck is going to decide? And there are so many, that enforcement would be totally arbitrary.
Kind of like the $2.4 Million judgement against some poor lady who downloaded 24 songs. She is paying the cost for 2.3 million people who they didn't catch.
Probably a lot less impact than the drag created by buildings already.
Replacing coal power plants with the equivalent turbines would also have less impact on the weather because there would be less carbon in the air.
We are already experimenting far more with our ecosystem with the status quo than the worst of the Green alternatives.
You would also harvest wind energy, from places with more wind energy; http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html
Tethered devices can get them off the ground.
There are better and less dangerous designs than the wind turbine. Up in the trade winds, you can have a spiral structure that gets spun by the wind, rather than blades.
Here is an obvious improvement, that gets rid of gears; http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell.aspx
The turbine becomes the generator itself. I was thinking of this years ago, but considered it too obvious and thought if it would work, someone would already be building it -- well, now they are.
The statements about costs and resources bases these estimates on current technology and not the cost savings of creating a million, nor the cost savings of actual investment, that gets more people designing and building turbines. It's expensive now because it's little more than a hobby.
Our carbon-based energy system, is heavily subsidized, has an infrastructure that is massive and taxpayer assisted, and requires we send troops around the world to procure resources -- factors that don't make the cost estimates.
No, you are referring to one type of Homeopathic treatment.
"Homeopathic" just means; "Like heals like."
The Zicam has plenty of Zinc in it -- which I think is the issue here. I just saw a program talking about people using too much denture cream, and having temporary nervous disorders from getting too much Zinc in their system.
If it were so diluted that it didn't work -- where would be the issue of losing a sense of smell?
Maybe if we let IBM patent it then everyone else will stop doing it?
That was my first thought.
This should be under the topic of "Examples of Capitalism Eating Its Own."
If they can patent it, it will do what all IP law seems to do for innovation -- discourage it and bottle it up in court.
"Sorry, Hewlett Packard, You are going to have to license with IBM to ship that job overseas."
As usual, there are people defending this practice. But finally, we have such people supporting a practice that will actually hurt multinational corporations raping of wages. So Kudos to IBM for stopping greed and evil with more greed and evil.
I'd like to take this one step further.
Have total point-to-point travel service. You get on, and you go to where you want to go -- you don't even have to pay for service. 1 Gallon of gas will move one ton a thousand miles -- now THAT is efficiency of service.
Of course, you might want to sex this up a bit with the naming -- because I think it used to be called "light rail" with computer control.
Really, why are we even focusing on loading even more cars, no matter how smart they are on the roads. We could get rid of a lot of lost time and hours and energy by just putting more trains and rails into our country. There shouldn't be one 8-lane highway in America without a commuter rail on it.
Most likely, they are told by Homeland Security policies to "respond to all complaints" no matter how ridiculous.
AirTran would have called the authorities to report the incident. If they don't get an "all clear" back, then normal CYA procedure would dictate that they don't let the people fly. It sucks, it makes no sense, but that is probably the policy, that has been thrust upon ALL of our Airline agencies.
Blame the thought challenged leadership for our crap-tastic security that only seems to do anything where we can see them, and does nothing where we can't.
I have to agree with your comments. You cannot take the worst case scenario and use it to make case law.
Laws should help to protect people from invasions and unreasonable treatment.
The problem here, is Myspace is something you go to voluntarily -- it isn't like school.
The world cannot be responsible, for the acts of the most fragile people.
If I teased someone, in a light hearted manner, and they take their own lives. A jury will have to then conclude what my intent was, and if I had a history of teasing. On the other hand, cannot we say that there is a certain mental fortitude that a person should be required to have.
On the other hand, a group of people could hound someone, no matter where they went. And cast aspersions on their character. Making threats and harsh comments that affects their business. The target, might never cry or be driven into depression. But, has harm been done?
We need to look at the severity of actions committed -- not based upon the reactions of people. I'm sure most of us know how hard it can be to work in a place, where there is a person so sensitive, that any curse, wicked thought, or slightly amusing joke can send them into a tizzy. Should we all be held hostage to the highest bar and offend anyone? I can tell you, that the one thing that offends me is when there aren't dirty jokes, a little teasing, and people worried about not saying anything interesting.
What about kids who are shunned and never have anyone talking to them -- is there a measure of "harmful neglect?"
>> This was a bad thing that happened, and the people were jerks. But they should not be responsible for another human being's actions -- but I can only say that up to a point. The real test would be "could the victim have avoided the teasing, and would the teasing, harm the average person." In neither instance of this case, is that true.
We all wondered how satirist Stephen Colbert was invited to the 2006 White House correspondents dinner, now we know;
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4973617448770513925
...And there isn't a Quantum Computer that can do this computing.
Both the existence and non-existence on the state of the application can be pre-supposed, but the recognition of the answer is going to take a larger computer -- which cannot reveal its solution, otherwise the existing, non-existing Quantum Computer will collapse.
The Quantum Computer will be really great, at recognizing a face and returning an answer immediately, from a database of 50 million. The answer will be; "Yes." Then a traditional computer will search through the database, to find which one got the right answer. If the answer is "No" -- well, you don't have to search the database. So a Quantum Computer will save you 50% of the time (on average) by NOT doing things for which you don't have an answer.
OK, all you people spouting off about secret clearances, are of course either dis-info agents or are not aware of the Super Secret categories of Top Secret. You would be dead by now if you posted these classifications -- what would happen, or why I know this is above my pay grade.
ULTRA, is of course NOT used, because the person who blabbed that is now dead. And if you use it, other agents are trained to laugh at you. Bush himself has created new classifications for Homeland Security, but "Super-Duper Secret" was turned down by the actual, secret shadow government.
Now, mod me down so that this information does not make the attention of the PTB.
Does everyone have to be the super techno geek to get respect? There are all types of people in this world, some can sing, some can dance, some can sing AND dance. Some people can program...
Perhaps the issue is that money is drying up. And we can circle the drain by reducing expenses (read; People), or we can address the bad trade policies that force us to go to the bottom. We aren't going to win that race.
America needs to push to do great things again, and to do that we need to raise all boats -- not just the one yacht.
Not respecting different skills is going to make everyone miserable. Imagine your irascible super geek, calling your customer an idiot because they want an LCD screen that supports JAVA.
I have to really thank you for this post.
I'm not "yet" involved with seeing lots of outsourcing, but your description of how business decisions are made, are to my mind, very well put. Underlying this, is a sort of elitist detachment. A sense that "everyone brought it on themselves."
I think that ethical behavior, and sticking by employees as valuable assets, is actually the best thing to do and makes financial sense. And if it doesn't -- life is short, do you really need to sacrifice people to make a little more money?
But there is no downside to being short-sighted and greedy.
Does anyone know of any software, that they actually want and admire, that is being done by some outsourced company? Anecdotally, most of us can name a few of our least favorite companies, who we only use because we have no choice, and a large contingent of their business is outsourced with no regard to accountability.
I personally think its harder to find a smart engineer, than it is a greedy businessman to replace an executive. If it weren't a club - they'd be outsourcing the board of directors at most companies.
Well, that would be against the status quo really;
It's really an appearance of Lazy sponge vs. budget for smart folks -- so that the two can fight over the scraps. What is really going on, is the shoveling of money towards lazy elites who are basically socialists at the top, who can never fail, and they are capitalists when there is a profit around and they think they should be rewarded... "hey, what S&L bailout? We don't owe anyone money."
If we could spend that money on NASA, trying to genetically modify a CEO who poops gold -- then that would be a great way to justify the value of this expensive herd of parasites.
But hey, let's go back to making the poor fight with scientists while we get our pockets picked. It has been working rather well to turn all the would-be intelligent folks into Libertarians.
Or maybe we should instead talk about NASA fighting over a budget with the $75 Billion Nuclear Subs. Or subsidies to corporations who we pay for the privilege of them taking our resources without compensation.
This may just be the cover story.
A lawyer, working for Diebold, broke the law and revealed documents of theirs than refers to rigging the elections. In the Ohio case, he was saying that they uploaded software AFTER the machines were certified in violation of that process.
It's likely that the overall crappiness of the equipment, and the uploading of new applications, was what caused many machines to lock up. Anyone putting virus software on a kiosk that is SUPPOSED to be isolated except for one upload to a presumably secure IP address, would be a techno idiot.
OK. sure, I can buy that.
So are you saying that this is happening to you or Edgar Mitchell.
If you are denying that you are smart, and are not engaged in some wild ass idea right now -- I can merely go back and look at your brilliant postings on slashdot.
6 billion will almost always innovate and progress better than 300 million
Therefore, we see that the majority of the world is prospering. While a few people, are living in misery and poverty because they were out-innovated. Yes, I see that your rebuttal was trivial. People who organize themselves and wealth at country clubs, apparently must be digging all the ditches.
Sure we can afford it, we're in a mild recession at worst and are generally doing quite well.
We can afford it, as long as it does nothing to help the middle class or infrastructure. I'd also like to ask you not to bogart that joint you are smoking.
What about the poor Indian who'd be ecstatic if they could eat as much as a homeless person in the US? Are their lives worth less than that american family you mention?
Oh, wait. Now he is evil, because he wants to deprive the Indians from an American job? Why are American executives depriving Indians of Executive jobs? Or is this only a one-way thing wherein anything that does not equal profit, has to somehow save the world and whiten teeth? It's really hard discussing these issues when people are tree-huggers for caring, and when they look out for themselves, they are selfish -- which we know is enlightened self-interest if you are a globalist.
You're not locked into anything, you CHOSE to get yoruself locked into it because you're greedy.
Yeah, that was enlightened self-interest that turned into greed because he was a consumer -- not an executive. I'm sure that locking himself into a plan to save money on a phone probably hurt someone in India as well. See, in this FREE MARKET point of view, all problems are the result of YOU being dumber than a Libertarian. As soon as you organize to pass laws to change the rules -- that is undemocratic. You cannot win -- because you are making bad choices. Get those home testing kits for lead ready folks.
Why do you assume that they'd be as stupid as you and buy products from their own obviously stingy and inferior company?
He can safely assume they are dumber, because they don't make as much money. Try to be consistent with this idea of wealthy = smart and self-reliant. There is no such thing as the luck of the draw.
I doubt anyone would want a call center job unless they were masochistic or desperate beyond measure.
Yeah, because that would mean we were in a recession. Pay no attention to the call centers that close down -- nobody wanted to be there anyway.
Interesting, yet you continue to buy services from companies that engage in these behaviors. It seems you're want lots of things as long as you don't have to spend a penny more as a result. Typical.
Yeah, there are no monopolies or cartels in America, because Government has completely ignored this issue for 30 years. You can buy Gas for $4 here -- or $4.02 over there. You can get DSL from AT&T $37, or buy Cable for $37, or you can get DSL from a redistributor of AT&T networks for $39 per month. THAT is choice. You should pay the $200 fee to get out of your two-year commitment. And pay the same amount with another company doing the exact same thing -- that's called principles (and futility).
And if you dare to lobby congress with other citizens or form a union -- you are a damn commie. Just move from Sprint to Verizon in protest, as someone else moves from Verizon to Sprint in protest. This churning will really show them who is boss.
"Imagine a tiny arsenic atom embedded in a tiny strip of silicon atoms...."
>> Where do we get these "tiny" atoms -- all of mine are the regular size?
I thought this would be easy until they mentioned the size problem.
Set up a proprietary company to create the encryption software.
The P2P network then licenses this, and sets an End User Agreement that all information and passed links are a trade secret. All it will do is pass pointers to networks.
A second network, that assists users in transferring data uses a new network technology, based on the need for secure network traffic, will randomize the types and size of packets sent, the reference to get these transmitted packets will be on a third network, that will only exist to secure data traffic from prying eyes.
You can only be sure about what you are seeing -- and not be sure about what everyone else is seeing. Trying to decrypt or intercept the data, will be a violation of the DMCA.
Just convert P2P traffic into Spam, and hijack the same IP addresses where it is being sent from. Every upload would be a reply-to an advertisement to "grow this" and "shrink that."
Because, apparently, this SPAM doesn't seem to have any priority for the Internet police because it hurts consumers, so if P2P networks could look like trojans, viruses, advertisements and late fee notices, it would be completely legitimate.
Just change that video name to "You will be amazed in just 15 days" and there is no possibility that anyone will be staying awake to view it.
Of course, then you would have another server that explained what all the spam headers were pointing to, but you could always claim; "Hey, I was just responding to get a free Vacation -- it's my right to spend $3000 on a FREE vacation with an undisclosed third-party isn't it?"