"Personally, I hope at some point they get nationalized by China or somehow otherwise abused as most totalitarian governments who do not respect the rule of law do to their citizens and business people."
Sure. And when that happens, some Google exec in the US will send the command that will blow away all the data and programming on any servers in China. And since Google runs on commodity hardware - that originally came from China - they will be left with hundreds of beige boxes that boot to the c: prompt - if at all.
"I think it was in Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan that I was first exposed to this idea that poverty and illiteracy could be linked to high birth rates. "
Ah, yes - the noted biologist. Wait...Sagan wasn't a biologist? Or sociologist? historian? statistician?
Oh, he was an astronomer. Whew - for a minute there I though he might have been unqualified to talk about the population on Earth.
(ps - it's not your fault. I first realized Sagan was a blowhard when I saw him listed as a coauthor on a book about Agent Orange)
"According to "Tech Review" because of new silicon production fabs prices could drop by 50% by 2010."
"Could." "Were." How about "is" and "are"? The ggggp post (enough g's?) was talking about how towns were running on renewables NOW, and I responded that NOW, there is an unsubsidized 100 year payback. My only responses so far have been "Well, they weren't that expansive 3 years ago" and "they may not be that expensive in the future". That's fine - my buddy is kicking himself for not buying earlier and I hope fab technology does come down. But right here, right now, solar does not have a payback that makes any kind of economic sense on anything less than a global scale, because the externalities referenced by another poster only manifest on that scale.
Don't get me wrong - I WANT solar to come down in fab cost and be feasible. But that doesn't mean I'm going to look at the economic picture and squint just to lie to myself and declare that it's feasible now.
"The eBay lawsuit against Craigslist isn't shaky at all; from everything I've seen, including their own admissions, Craigslist illegally diluted eBay's share in the company. I like Craigslist better than eBay, but I think they'll lose this one."
Got any links? Not being a wiseass - I'm interested in the case but haven't seen a whole lot of substantial information.
"Why is eBay asleep at the switch while some rogue laywer at Skype pulls this? They have nothing to lose from releasing the kernel, and both reputation and money to lose while they balk."
For the same reason they are suing Craigslist for stock dilution. I'm not saying I know what it is, but they are both lawsuits with shaky legal ground and huge damages to reputation, so I figured the same genius is behind both.
I would agree with most of your post, except you left out what I believe to be THE major concern. You alluded to it:
"As for the population, China really is two distinct countries when it comes to its people. Now I know you can divide up the population into various ethnic groups but it comes down to you are either part of the Communist system or your not. So you have a couple hundred million in the one camp, with all the benefits of modern life, and then the rest who are still essentially not much more progressed since the the beginning of the last century."
This situation is untenable in the long term. They are recreating the same conditions that led to previous revolutions. My prediction is that China will have a revolution, maybe peaceful but probably violent, within 20 years. Of course, I predicted that the EU would collapse within 20 years as well, but the clock is still ticking on that.
As it happens, my coworker is a degreed engineer (as am I). We both work in building design and construction. He can live pretty well on the 1.5kW installation he has, which cost him $10/watt in materials alone. I can probably get the receipts from him, if you want.
Those numbers were validated by another electrical PE working on a green building my organization is planning. Want his analysis, too?
Don't let your 5 digit ID go to your head - you are not substantially smarter than everyone else in the world.
"I don't know where your friend gets his data from. According a study published by Wiley, "Photovoltaics energy payback times, greenhouse gas emissions and external costs: 2004-early 2005 status" [$30 to buy] payback period is less than 25 years. Some of those who have built their home off the grid, had payback periods of under 15 years, before the warranty of some components expires."
That was then, this is now. PV panel prices have gone up significantly since that study.
I just spoke with my friend and I was incorrect - he actually DID purchase and install a 2kW PV system, with batteries. His installed cost for materials alone was just over $10/watt. That doesn't include his labor, and it was a LOT of labor. He can buy from the grid at $.06 a kWH, so unsubsidized payback is well over 100 yrs.
It DOES pay for itself when compared to generator power - about 5 years. As for his reasons, lets just say that he attaches a substantially higher probability that grid power will go down permanently than others might. When you look at the cost of living w/o power at all, vs. solar panels, it makes very good sense.
Bullshit. They are NOT self sufficient in any way shape or form. The electrical generation of the plant located within the town's borders produces more electricity IN AGGREGATE than the town uses IN AGGREGATE.
Does the town own the wind towers? No Does the town own a local utility that the towers feed? No. Are there any direct connections between the towers and any energy users in the town? No. If the wind isn't blowing, does the town go dark? No.
The towers are connected to the grid, and fed into the general pool. The individuals in the town draws off that pool. How on Earth is that "self sufficiency". Sure, they COULD be - with a lot more investment in infrastructure, which they haven't made yet.
"Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free."
Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind. Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc.
I have a coworker that is very interested in living off grid, and is also an engineer, and cheap to boot. As much as he wanted solar, he couldn't afford it. Why? The payback period (without subsidies) is 100 years! Even with a 50% subsidy, it is 50 years, which still exceeds the life of the panels (which are NOT "emissions free" to manufacture).
"difficult to get a balanced discourse -- and this is something the Post is committed to, for better or/and worse."
Sure about that? The Post pretends that it is politically neutral and balanced, but tends to lean toward the left. It also still has the hangover from Watergate - it views itself as the 4th branch of government, holding the other 3 branches, but especially the executive, accountable. That is a bias in itself.
I actually don't have a problem with bias, as long as it's up front - the Washington Times may be right-wing Moonies, but they are so obvious about it that no one has any doubt of their viewpoint. Same with Fox. One of the things I find interesting is the/. hair pulling over Fox using the term "fair and balanced" when they are obviously not, then no one questions that the Post is trying to be fair and balanced.
The problem with measures of balance is that someone, eventually, holds the scales.
"As Keith Olbermann reminds viewers of "Countdown" regularly, the technical definition of "insanity" is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results."
IIRC, the original source for that is the Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book". You'd be surprised how many sayings from that tome have made it into the vernacular: easy does it, one day at a time, etc.
Oh, and it's definitely NOT the "technical definition". At least, I'm pretty sure that's not what's in the DSM.
"You would deny me the right to sell my copyright why?
You would open me up to theft of my material until I personally could publish why?"
No. You could not "sell" what is a statutory right. You could, however, LICENSE it. Authors do this all the time.
I don't necessarily agree with the GP about individual ownership - it totally blows the concept of "work for hire" out of the water. But the time limits for corporations are definitely out of hand - if anything, they should be LESS than those for an individual.
Add to this the synchronization capability. I'm not sure about inverters, but if generators are ties in out of phase you can kiss your generator goodbye in a spectacular way. I can't imagine inverters like it any more.
Actually, If you have a heart attack you will be given a bill. If you have insurance, they pay; if you don't, it typically gets written off. As for airlines and cruise ships, I believe they do get charged for accident cleanup, etc.
There is also order of magnitude here. Picking you up in an ambulance is a 4 digit expense. Searching for you with helicopters and rescue parties for days and days is WAYYY more expensive.
You are reacting to the flame-y headline. It should have read that Fosset's ESTATE would be billed. The guy had a metric fuckton of money - it's not like she's some woebegone character handling her husbands affairs alone.
What is your nationality? Actually, it's pretty irrelevant - NO ONE lives in a place where the laws are written in plain language, because there is no such country.
The reason is that human languages, unlike computer "languages", are imprecise. Computer languages are artificial contructs, where the meaning of any given command is wholly consistent within that language. No such thing in ANY human language.
Let's take the simple word "or". In English, it can mean an exclusive choice - either A or B - or inclusive - a or b or both. The meaning is determined in context. Computer languages get around that, by simply creating XOR to signify the first case, and delaring that OR means the second. But the law doesn't have that ability, so things get verbose - you must expand on meanings, or else you can have a conflict where both parties believe they are correct, and justifiably so.
Slashdot Mirror
"Personally, I hope at some point they get nationalized by China or somehow otherwise abused as most totalitarian governments who do not respect the rule of law do to their citizens and business people."
Sure. And when that happens, some Google exec in the US will send the command that will blow away all the data and programming on any servers in China. And since Google runs on commodity hardware - that originally came from China - they will be left with hundreds of beige boxes that boot to the c: prompt - if at all.
"I think it was in Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan that I was first exposed to this idea that poverty and illiteracy could be linked to high birth rates. "
Ah, yes - the noted biologist. Wait...Sagan wasn't a biologist? Or sociologist? historian? statistician?
Oh, he was an astronomer. Whew - for a minute there I though he might have been unqualified to talk about the population on Earth.
(ps - it's not your fault. I first realized Sagan was a blowhard when I saw him listed as a coauthor on a book about Agent Orange)
Skype is owned by Ebay; prickdom is pretty much a given.
Wife was a big fan of the books, so we saw the movie. Bleh. Best line: "Do yuou know how hard it is to get blood out of cashmere!"
I just closed my eyes and though about "Body Heat".
There are 4 commonwealths: PA, VA, KY, and MA.
"According to "Tech Review" because of new silicon production fabs prices could drop by 50% by 2010."
"Could." "Were." How about "is" and "are"? The ggggp post (enough g's?) was talking about how towns were running on renewables NOW, and I responded that NOW, there is an unsubsidized 100 year payback. My only responses so far have been "Well, they weren't that expansive 3 years ago" and "they may not be that expensive in the future". That's fine - my buddy is kicking himself for not buying earlier and I hope fab technology does come down. But right here, right now, solar does not have a payback that makes any kind of economic sense on anything less than a global scale, because the externalities referenced by another poster only manifest on that scale.
Don't get me wrong - I WANT solar to come down in fab cost and be feasible. But that doesn't mean I'm going to look at the economic picture and squint just to lie to myself and declare that it's feasible now.
"The eBay lawsuit against Craigslist isn't shaky at all; from everything I've seen, including their own admissions, Craigslist illegally diluted eBay's share in the company. I like Craigslist better than eBay, but I think they'll lose this one."
Got any links? Not being a wiseass - I'm interested in the case but haven't seen a whole lot of substantial information.
"Why is eBay asleep at the switch while some rogue laywer at Skype pulls this? They have nothing to lose from releasing the kernel, and both reputation and money to lose while they balk."
For the same reason they are suing Craigslist for stock dilution. I'm not saying I know what it is, but they are both lawsuits with shaky legal ground and huge damages to reputation, so I figured the same genius is behind both.
I would agree with most of your post, except you left out what I believe to be THE major concern. You alluded to it:
"As for the population, China really is two distinct countries when it comes to its people. Now I know you can divide up the population into various ethnic groups but it comes down to you are either part of the Communist system or your not. So you have a couple hundred million in the one camp, with all the benefits of modern life, and then the rest who are still essentially not much more progressed since the the beginning of the last century."
This situation is untenable in the long term. They are recreating the same conditions that led to previous revolutions. My prediction is that China will have a revolution, maybe peaceful but probably violent, within 20 years. Of course, I predicted that the EU would collapse within 20 years as well, but the clock is still ticking on that.
As it happens, my coworker is a degreed engineer (as am I). We both work in building design and construction. He can live pretty well on the 1.5kW installation he has, which cost him $10/watt in materials alone. I can probably get the receipts from him, if you want.
Those numbers were validated by another electrical PE working on a green building my organization is planning. Want his analysis, too?
Don't let your 5 digit ID go to your head - you are not substantially smarter than everyone else in the world.
"I don't know where your friend gets his data from. According a study published by Wiley, "Photovoltaics energy payback times, greenhouse gas emissions and external costs: 2004-early 2005 status" [$30 to buy] payback period is less than 25 years. Some of those who have built their home off the grid, had payback periods of under 15 years, before the warranty of some components expires."
That was then, this is now. PV panel prices have gone up significantly since that study.
I just spoke with my friend and I was incorrect - he actually DID purchase and install a 2kW PV system, with batteries. His installed cost for materials alone was just over $10/watt. That doesn't include his labor, and it was a LOT of labor. He can buy from the grid at $.06 a kWH, so unsubsidized payback is well over 100 yrs.
It DOES pay for itself when compared to generator power - about 5 years. As for his reasons, lets just say that he attaches a substantially higher probability that grid power will go down permanently than others might. When you look at the cost of living w/o power at all, vs. solar panels, it makes very good sense.
Bullshit. They are NOT self sufficient in any way shape or form. The electrical generation of the plant located within the town's borders produces more electricity IN AGGREGATE than the town uses IN AGGREGATE.
Does the town own the wind towers? No
Does the town own a local utility that the towers feed? No.
Are there any direct connections between the towers and any energy users in the town? No.
If the wind isn't blowing, does the town go dark? No.
The towers are connected to the grid, and fed into the general pool. The individuals in the town draws off that pool. How on Earth is that "self sufficiency". Sure, they COULD be - with a lot more investment in infrastructure, which they haven't made yet.
"Wind and solar have been proven to work now. Entire cities and even states in some countries are being run on renewable technologies. It's proven, it works, it's emission free."
Where on earth are you getting this data? Please provide at least some reference to any accumulation of people that is self sufficient on solar and wind. Unless of course you are playing loose with definitions and "renewable technologies" includes geothermal, trash-to-steam, etc.
I have a coworker that is very interested in living off grid, and is also an engineer, and cheap to boot. As much as he wanted solar, he couldn't afford it. Why? The payback period (without subsidies) is 100 years! Even with a 50% subsidy, it is 50 years, which still exceeds the life of the panels (which are NOT "emissions free" to manufacture).
"difficult to get a balanced discourse -- and this is something the Post is committed to, for better or/and worse."
/. hair pulling over Fox using the term "fair and balanced" when they are obviously not, then no one questions that the Post is trying to be fair and balanced.
Sure about that? The Post pretends that it is politically neutral and balanced, but tends to lean toward the left. It also still has the hangover from Watergate - it views itself as the 4th branch of government, holding the other 3 branches, but especially the executive, accountable. That is a bias in itself.
I actually don't have a problem with bias, as long as it's up front - the Washington Times may be right-wing Moonies, but they are so obvious about it that no one has any doubt of their viewpoint. Same with Fox. One of the things I find interesting is the
The problem with measures of balance is that someone, eventually, holds the scales.
"As Keith Olbermann reminds viewers of "Countdown" regularly, the technical definition of "insanity" is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results."
IIRC, the original source for that is the Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book". You'd be surprised how many sayings from that tome have made it into the vernacular: easy does it, one day at a time, etc.
Oh, and it's definitely NOT the "technical definition". At least, I'm pretty sure that's not what's in the DSM.
"You would deny me the right to sell my copyright why?
You would open me up to theft of my material until I personally could publish why?"
No. You could not "sell" what is a statutory right. You could, however, LICENSE it. Authors do this all the time.
I don't necessarily agree with the GP about individual ownership - it totally blows the concept of "work for hire" out of the water. But the time limits for corporations are definitely out of hand - if anything, they should be LESS than those for an individual.
Berne Convention.
Add to this the synchronization capability. I'm not sure about inverters, but if generators are ties in out of phase you can kiss your generator goodbye in a spectacular way. I can't imagine inverters like it any more.
Now that there will be a working Babbage engine around, can the Amish use it?
Actually, If you have a heart attack you will be given a bill. If you have insurance, they pay; if you don't, it typically gets written off. As for airlines and cruise ships, I believe they do get charged for accident cleanup, etc.
There is also order of magnitude here. Picking you up in an ambulance is a 4 digit expense. Searching for you with helicopters and rescue parties for days and days is WAYYY more expensive.
You are reacting to the flame-y headline. It should have read that Fosset's ESTATE would be billed. The guy had a metric fuckton of money - it's not like she's some woebegone character handling her husbands affairs alone.
"When exactly did it become the responsibility of the state to come look for me when I am lost?"
At the same time it became the responsibility of teh state to protect you from crime.
Oh, wait, they DON'T have to do that? Well then WTF?
Rowlings books are actually entertaining.
PS: They repealed the 18th Amendment. Really - go look it up.
What is your nationality? Actually, it's pretty irrelevant - NO ONE lives in a place where the laws are written in plain language, because there is no such country.
The reason is that human languages, unlike computer "languages", are imprecise. Computer languages are artificial contructs, where the meaning of any given command is wholly consistent within that language. No such thing in ANY human language.
Let's take the simple word "or". In English, it can mean an exclusive choice - either A or B - or inclusive - a or b or both. The meaning is determined in context. Computer languages get around that, by simply creating XOR to signify the first case, and delaring that OR means the second. But the law doesn't have that ability, so things get verbose - you must expand on meanings, or else you can have a conflict where both parties believe they are correct, and justifiably so.