This is all easily explained by one simple mistake: you are looking at the wrong crank. There is one, funny shaped crank in the video that seems to be strangely effective at extracting more work (in the form of money) than it should. Unfortunately it's also the one giving the sales pitch which may be where the confusion arises.
End the war on drugs, actually combat poverty, treat the sick and we'd be more like Switzerland - awash with guns, but very little crime, not just 'little gun crime'.
Having lived in both the US and Switzerland, while being a citizen of neither, the differences are far, far greater than having a social support structure. Switzerland has a love of law, order and putting the community before the individual which I can simply cannot see the US ever managing to cope with. There are many strict, and sometimes bizarre, rules you have to follow e.g. don't run a washing machine after 9pm otherwise the police may show up at your door (actually happened to a friend of mine!).
I would argue that it is this mentality which is what keeps the Swiss crime rate so low, not just because they have strong social policies - the rest of Europe has those too but still has a higher crime rate that Switzerland. If even trivial things can be against the law, one which is strictly enforced, then it disuades people from more serious things. Having said that I'd pick living in Switzerland over the US anytime - being part of a society which knows and follows its own rules, even the strange ones, is a lot nicer than the alternative.
As to SR and GR themselves, while some might describe them as paradigm shifts, modern physicists will continue to point out that while they revolutionized the way we look at the universe, they remain Classical theories, and that the real paradigm shift, if it can be called that, was... quantum mechanics.
In what way is quantum mechanics any more, or less, of a paradigm shift than relativity? QM is a correction to classical physics for small systems and relativity is a correction to classical physics for high energy systems. I know philosophers get all excited about QM because the concepts are harder to grasp than relativity but that does not make it any more, or less, important. As for "modern physicists" I am one and we use both QM and SR in one consistent theory - both are equally essential to particle physics.
There are at least two. They always result in the same value, but they are different definitions and as far as I know, no one has shown why the equivalence principle holds (but it does).
No, there is only one definition: the mass of a body is essentially its energy in its own frame of reference. Gravity couples to an object's 4-momentum which is a fancy, relativistic way of saying a combination of its energy and (newtonian) momentum. The latter is very important since it explains why photons feel a gravitational field despite being massless (thinking about gravitational vs. inertial mass really doesn't work in a relativistic model!). The mystery is how does this coupling work because while we can construct a quantum model of gravity with gravitons it has to have an artificial energy cut-off tacked onto it to make it work and there is no physical reason to add one (that we know of).
Time to get the Black Hole Machine ready for 1.21 Jigawatts
Not far off - but the LHC power consumption is only ~0.3 GW and won't change much with the higher energy since the magnets are superconducting and most of the power goes into keeping them cold. However with a 27km circumference don't expect to find it mounted in the back of a Delorean anytime soon.
The necessary data for determining whether there truly is a Higgs Boson or not is already there
Actually that is not quite correct. To really determine whether we have a Standard Model Higgs boson we need to see its decays into things called fermions (particles that make up matter) and so far we have only see it decay into bosons (particles that create forces). The problem is that the heaviest fermions the "Higgs" can create, b-quarks, are also created by different physics that is ~a billion times more likely than a Higgs decay so it's like try to find a piece of straw in a haystack (a needle is easy if you have a big enough magnet!). The next heaviest fermions, tau leptons - a very heavy cousin of the electron - decay in a way which makes them look very much like quarks and so, to a large degree, suffer the same problem (identifying taus in the trigger is something I actually work on).
So to be able to see these decays we need a lot of data and it is not entirely clear whether we will have enough in the current dataset to see these decays - my best guess is that we might hit 3 sigma "evidence" but without some very clever analysis I think a 5 sigma "discovery" is unlikely. In addition we also need to measure the spin of the Higgs to confirm that it is a scalar, spin-0, particle. This again requires large statistics and again I don't know that we have enough data yet - time will tell.
The big reason for the shutdown is for the energy upgrade. If this new particle really is the Higgs then we can expect new physics out there to explain why the Higgs is so much lighter than the planck scale - the energy where gravity becomes important (the reasons behind this are complex!). This new physics may also explain what Dark Matter is so there is a great deal of hope that getting the energy up to ~13TeV (which is what is expected after the upgrade) may give us access to this new physics.
True, but misses the point. The point is that the word "weight" refers to a type of force in physics and to mass in trade and law.
No, actually that is not the case see this. UK law clearly differentiates between mass and weight but gives incorrect usage legal protection:
"the weight of any thing may be expressed, by reference to the units of measurement set out in Part V of that Schedule, in the same terms as its mass."
otherwise you could end up with lots of stupid law suits simply because people were not careful about mass vs. weight. So sorry but, at least in the UK, you are completely wrong. The law does recognize and understand the difference between mass and weight but, very sensibly, also realizes that many people remain ignorant of this and so gives them legal protection when they get it wrong.
There are several definitions of mass even within the field of physics.
No there actually are not multiple definitions of mass in physics. Mass is a well defined physical concept and we even know where it comes from now. A fundamental particle's mass depends on it coupling to the Higgs field and multiple particle systems get their mass from a combination of the Higgs field couplings and the internal binding energy between the particles. You might be being confused by the fact that this can be stated in many different ways (particularly if you want to avoid relativity and particle physics) but ultimately it all boils down to this: the energy of the object in its own inertial frame of reference.
You are assuming I am speaking some form of English, far more precise and complete than the common language actually is...
No actually I am not: I am just assuming that you are writing in English. There is a physical quantity for which the English word is "mass" and another, different physical quantity for which the English word is "weight". It is common to see these words used incorrectly because it is usually in a context (g = 9.8m/s2) that allows us to understand what is actually meant. This is the same as using "your" meaning "you are" - it is usually understandable given the context but it is nevertheless incorrect English.
This is the definition if you're doing physics. It is not the definition if you're buying and selling stuff.
There is only one definition each for mass and weight and that is the physics one. This is the definition behind laws used to govern trade - or at least you had better hope it is because otherwise the first lunar colonists are going to be able to fleece earth-based merchants!
my point is that 'g' cancels and all that you're left with is mass
Actually your point clearly was that a balance measured mass as opposed to a spring scale which measured weight. I quote:
A balance scale is used with calibrated weights of known mass; it's measuring mass, not force.
Which is wrong - it measures force (weight) by comparison and uses it to calculate mass assuming a constant gravitational field and no other forces acting. This is a less stringent requirement than a spring scale - which assumes a particular value of a constant gravitational field - but the essential idea that you are using weights, not masses, is the same.
Don't believe everything they told you in primary school. It is true that the kilogram is a measure of mass. It is also a measure of weight...
It's great to hear that they taught you this at primary school. However had you continued in your physics education beyond this level you would have learnt that mass and weight are not the same thing: mass is a scalar and an intrinsic property of an object; weight is a vector and is the force acting on an object due to gravity.
It is true that people use both terms interchangeably in common usage but that does not make it correct to say weight when you mean mass any more than it is correct to say "your" when you mean "you are". The meaning is probably clear but not always: "Your ignorant friend" vs. "You're ignorant, friend". The same with weight and mass. So long as we all live in an environment with the same gravitational field you can get away with being wrong because a particular mass implies a particular weight when you assume a common gravitational field. However this is not always the case. For example the Voyager 1 spacecraft has a mass of roughly 720kg but a weight far below what a 720kg mass would have on Earth.
A balance scale is used with calibrated weights of known mass; it's measuring mass, not force.
Not a bad argument for primary school level physics but unfortunately not correct. A balance measures force not mass: the forces acting on each arm have to balance, not the masses. This is easy to illustrate: take a balance with 1kg of lead and 1 kg of aluminium on opposite arms. This balances in air but the moment you put it underwater the lead arm will drop because the higher density of lead means that it has a lower buoyancy force due to the smaller volume of water displaced compared to the aluminium. This actually also happens in air but with a density ~1,000 less than water the effect is 1,000 times smaller.
Torr is a metric unit: it's MILLIMETERS of mercury. Millimeters are metric.
Sorry but that is simply wrong. A Torr is defined as 1/760 of one atmosphere of pressure. This ratio is chosen to as to be approximately equal to 1mm of mercury. So the definition is non-metric (1 atmosphere is not a metric unit) and the result is not metric because it is not equal to 1 mm Hg. In fact even if it were defined as 1mm Hg (which it is NOT) I would argue that it is still not a metric unit any more than an inch is a metric unit because it is defined as 2.54 cm.
Furthermore, kilogram is most often used for weight
No, the kilogram is used for mass. It is often frequently incorrectly claimed to be a weight by people who don't know any better. This works only because at the moment all but a tiny handful of humans are currently limited to an environment where the gravitational field is the same magnitude. If that ever changes people will end up having to learn the difference.
Bad choice of target for your "hurr american cars use old tech" attack.
Especially when there is a better example of an even older technology that american cars use: the wheel. It predates the Romans by several millennia at least.
It's a simple physics argument. If they have results indicating that, as they add more identical radiating devices with random phases, there is no increase at all in EM field (they claim no increase whatsoever, not a non-linear increase) then this is inconsistent with simple wave superposition principles, let alone Maxwell's equations. So they need to explain how their results can be reconciled with well established physics.
While I think that devices probably are safe to allow on a plane the claims made in the article are factually wrong, For example:
EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200.
The only way that is possible is if the iPad has no radio output at all. It is true that adding out of phase signals means that noise will increase in quadrature not linearly, so 200 is not 100 times worse than 2 (probably more like 10), but it does still mean that noise increases with increasing numbers of devices: the increase in radiated energy has to go somewhere!
Also concerning is the mention of that "100 volts/metre" rule from the FAA. Electrical interference can be highly sensitive to frequency, not just field magnitude, because the right frequency can cause resonances (for a physical example see Tacoma Narrows bridge - the magnitude of the wind was not the issue!). This might be just the article not explaining things but unless they are also looking at frequency they are missing something. This, coupled with the claims above, are concerning and makes it seem like they are trying to win the argument regardless of facts - this is not the attitude you want to see in people arguing to relax safety rules (even if I think they are probably ultimately correct!).
If they believed to even 0.001% of a chance that the bottle of water I'm drinking from is a potentially explosive material
They don't think that - the concern is that if you bring the right mix of chemicals in as liquids you can combine them to make an explosive. Even then tossing them in a bin is not enough. Apparently they have to be combined very carefully in order to have the reaction actually make the explosive. So technically there is nothing illogical about the disposing of liquids in a bin next to the security checkpoint.
Yea. A glass cockpit for a private single engine plane would maybe cost as much as a high end PC with a really fancy touch display.
Initially, then some company would figure out that they can make it even cheaper by eliminating some minor redundant system. That doesn't cause an accident so they keep on economizing until, eventually, something they have skimped on in the name of reducing cost does cause a plane to crash and people to die. Government regulation might be a real pain at times but there is no way I would get on a plane which had its avionics made by the lowest bidder in the absence of government regulation.
Perhaps contract is the wrong word then may be "social understanding" is a better term. Certainly the terms are always open to negotiation. My point is simply that we can view company taxes as pay back for the legal restrictions that allows them to make money. The level of those taxes and the level of those restrictions is always open to negotiation. This requires some give and take. As it stands at the moment companies seem to have avoided paying almost any tax and are arguing for more restrictions so they can make even more money. So I would give companies a choice - either pay tax rate and have all the nice legal protections they enjoy or don't pay any tax but also don't have any legal protections and let them decide which is the most profitable route.
Some folks wish they got a lot less from government.
How about the IP laws that seem to let these companies make all this money and/or let them fiddle the books so they pay almost no tax? The only reason a lot of these companies have such large profits is because our freedoms are restricted to let them do so. This is part of the social contract. We collectively agree to have our freedoms restricted in order for companies to make money. This lets them generate employment and contribute to public services through their taxes.
It seems to me that these companies simply want to have it all: restricted freedoms for us and they make off like bandits without contributing some of those profits back to society. Not everyone agrees that the amount they are expected to pay is fair but likewise not everyone agrees with the freedoms we collectively give up. However what we seem to be getting is increasing demands to give up more and more freedom so companies can continue to make money while the same companies are using legal loop holes to dodge the social contribution part of the bargain. If we carry on in this direction it will not end well for either us or companies.
In the EU (and probably elsewhere too) there are VERY compelling reasons to do so.
So use encryption. While you lose the ability to perform server based searches your email content remains secure and you don't have the hassle of running your own SMTP server.
...which is why you need someone who is able to drive.
While I can understand the need for this in the early models why anyone would want a "driverless" car if it does not progress beyond this? If I have to sit there, undistracted watching the road "just in case" the computer flips out how is this any different from driving myself in any significant manner? I want to buy a driverless car so I can read a book, do work etc. while the car gets me to where I am going.
no one with half a brain cell cares whether or not the cause of warming over time is due to burning of fossil
fuels or some yet undiscovered natural process...the only important question is whether or not there is anything we as a people could conceivably do to mitigate the environmental changes
Fortunately those of us with more than half a brain cell realize that the two are very closely linked. If the current rise in temperature is driven by natural cycles then stopping the burning of fossil fuel will have little, if any impact. So how do you know what to do to mitigate the impact if we are not certain what is causing it? Reducing fossil fuel use is probably a good idea but when I talk to scientists active in the field of climate research they themselves say that the jury is still out on how much is human driven vs. natural but reducing fossil fuel consumption is probably a good idea while we figure it out.
so in summary shut the fuck up and deal with consensus reality for once
What an enlightened attitude. I suppose a few thousand years ago you would have been arguing that the Earth is flat because that was the consensus? I'm a scientist so actual reality, rather than a group consensus of reality, is what I'm interested in. If you want to convince be I am wrong provide evidence and reasoned argument. Swearing about a consensus will help be form an opinion about you but will do little to persuade me that I'm wrong especially when I've spoken with colleagues in climate research and they say the same: it is not yet clear how much of the recent climate change is due to humans.
What specific "natural influence" is causing the Earth to warm, and where is the evidence that supports this idea?
There are many natural influences: precession of the earth's axis, precession of the earth's orbit, ocean currents which change due to continental drift, massive volcanic eruptions, meteor impact etc. There is an established record of global temperature variations thousands, if not millions, of years before humans burnt fossil fuels from e.g. O16/O18 isotope ratios. The causes of some are believed to be known and understood but others are not but it is very clear that the climate has fluctuated by itself before humans were on the scene. That is not to say that we should not be very careful about our impact on the environment because we don't know exactly what the effect is but I have yet to see compelling evidence that humans are primarily responsible for the current change but that certainly remains a distinct possibility.
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This is all easily explained by one simple mistake: you are looking at the wrong crank. There is one, funny shaped crank in the video that seems to be strangely effective at extracting more work (in the form of money) than it should. Unfortunately it's also the one giving the sales pitch which may be where the confusion arises.
End the war on drugs, actually combat poverty, treat the sick and we'd be more like Switzerland - awash with guns, but very little crime, not just 'little gun crime'.
Having lived in both the US and Switzerland, while being a citizen of neither, the differences are far, far greater than having a social support structure. Switzerland has a love of law, order and putting the community before the individual which I can simply cannot see the US ever managing to cope with. There are many strict, and sometimes bizarre, rules you have to follow e.g. don't run a washing machine after 9pm otherwise the police may show up at your door (actually happened to a friend of mine!).
I would argue that it is this mentality which is what keeps the Swiss crime rate so low, not just because they have strong social policies - the rest of Europe has those too but still has a higher crime rate that Switzerland. If even trivial things can be against the law, one which is strictly enforced, then it disuades people from more serious things. Having said that I'd pick living in Switzerland over the US anytime - being part of a society which knows and follows its own rules, even the strange ones, is a lot nicer than the alternative.
As to SR and GR themselves, while some might describe them as paradigm shifts, modern physicists will continue to point out that while they revolutionized the way we look at the universe, they remain Classical theories, and that the real paradigm shift, if it can be called that, was ... quantum mechanics.
In what way is quantum mechanics any more, or less, of a paradigm shift than relativity? QM is a correction to classical physics for small systems and relativity is a correction to classical physics for high energy systems. I know philosophers get all excited about QM because the concepts are harder to grasp than relativity but that does not make it any more, or less, important. As for "modern physicists" I am one and we use both QM and SR in one consistent theory - both are equally essential to particle physics.
There are at least two. They always result in the same value, but they are different definitions and as far as I know, no one has shown why the equivalence principle holds (but it does).
No, there is only one definition: the mass of a body is essentially its energy in its own frame of reference. Gravity couples to an object's 4-momentum which is a fancy, relativistic way of saying a combination of its energy and (newtonian) momentum. The latter is very important since it explains why photons feel a gravitational field despite being massless (thinking about gravitational vs. inertial mass really doesn't work in a relativistic model!). The mystery is how does this coupling work because while we can construct a quantum model of gravity with gravitons it has to have an artificial energy cut-off tacked onto it to make it work and there is no physical reason to add one (that we know of).
Time to get the Black Hole Machine ready for 1.21 Jigawatts
Not far off - but the LHC power consumption is only ~0.3 GW and won't change much with the higher energy since the magnets are superconducting and most of the power goes into keeping them cold. However with a 27km circumference don't expect to find it mounted in the back of a Delorean anytime soon.
The necessary data for determining whether there truly is a Higgs Boson or not is already there
Actually that is not quite correct. To really determine whether we have a Standard Model Higgs boson we need to see its decays into things called fermions (particles that make up matter) and so far we have only see it decay into bosons (particles that create forces). The problem is that the heaviest fermions the "Higgs" can create, b-quarks, are also created by different physics that is ~a billion times more likely than a Higgs decay so it's like try to find a piece of straw in a haystack (a needle is easy if you have a big enough magnet!). The next heaviest fermions, tau leptons - a very heavy cousin of the electron - decay in a way which makes them look very much like quarks and so, to a large degree, suffer the same problem (identifying taus in the trigger is something I actually work on).
So to be able to see these decays we need a lot of data and it is not entirely clear whether we will have enough in the current dataset to see these decays - my best guess is that we might hit 3 sigma "evidence" but without some very clever analysis I think a 5 sigma "discovery" is unlikely. In addition we also need to measure the spin of the Higgs to confirm that it is a scalar, spin-0, particle. This again requires large statistics and again I don't know that we have enough data yet - time will tell.
The big reason for the shutdown is for the energy upgrade. If this new particle really is the Higgs then we can expect new physics out there to explain why the Higgs is so much lighter than the planck scale - the energy where gravity becomes important (the reasons behind this are complex!). This new physics may also explain what Dark Matter is so there is a great deal of hope that getting the energy up to ~13TeV (which is what is expected after the upgrade) may give us access to this new physics.
True, but misses the point. The point is that the word "weight" refers to a type of force in physics and to mass in trade and law.
No, actually that is not the case see this. UK law clearly differentiates between mass and weight but gives incorrect usage legal protection:
"the weight of any thing may be expressed, by reference to the units of measurement set out in Part V of that Schedule, in the same terms as its mass."
otherwise you could end up with lots of stupid law suits simply because people were not careful about mass vs. weight. So sorry but, at least in the UK, you are completely wrong. The law does recognize and understand the difference between mass and weight but, very sensibly, also realizes that many people remain ignorant of this and so gives them legal protection when they get it wrong.
There are several definitions of mass even within the field of physics.
No there actually are not multiple definitions of mass in physics. Mass is a well defined physical concept and we even know where it comes from now. A fundamental particle's mass depends on it coupling to the Higgs field and multiple particle systems get their mass from a combination of the Higgs field couplings and the internal binding energy between the particles. You might be being confused by the fact that this can be stated in many different ways (particularly if you want to avoid relativity and particle physics) but ultimately it all boils down to this: the energy of the object in its own inertial frame of reference.
You are assuming I am speaking some form of English, far more precise and complete than the common language actually is...
No actually I am not: I am just assuming that you are writing in English. There is a physical quantity for which the English word is "mass" and another, different physical quantity for which the English word is "weight". It is common to see these words used incorrectly because it is usually in a context (g = 9.8m/s2) that allows us to understand what is actually meant. This is the same as using "your" meaning "you are" - it is usually understandable given the context but it is nevertheless incorrect English.
This is the definition if you're doing physics. It is not the definition if you're buying and selling stuff.
There is only one definition each for mass and weight and that is the physics one. This is the definition behind laws used to govern trade - or at least you had better hope it is because otherwise the first lunar colonists are going to be able to fleece earth-based merchants!
my point is that 'g' cancels and all that you're left with is mass
Actually your point clearly was that a balance measured mass as opposed to a spring scale which measured weight. I quote:
A balance scale is used with calibrated weights of known mass; it's measuring mass, not force.
Which is wrong - it measures force (weight) by comparison and uses it to calculate mass assuming a constant gravitational field and no other forces acting. This is a less stringent requirement than a spring scale - which assumes a particular value of a constant gravitational field - but the essential idea that you are using weights, not masses, is the same.
Don't believe everything they told you in primary school. It is true that the kilogram is a measure of mass. It is also a measure of weight...
It's great to hear that they taught you this at primary school. However had you continued in your physics education beyond this level you would have learnt that mass and weight are not the same thing: mass is a scalar and an intrinsic property of an object; weight is a vector and is the force acting on an object due to gravity.
It is true that people use both terms interchangeably in common usage but that does not make it correct to say weight when you mean mass any more than it is correct to say "your" when you mean "you are". The meaning is probably clear but not always: "Your ignorant friend" vs. "You're ignorant, friend". The same with weight and mass. So long as we all live in an environment with the same gravitational field you can get away with being wrong because a particular mass implies a particular weight when you assume a common gravitational field. However this is not always the case. For example the Voyager 1 spacecraft has a mass of roughly 720kg but a weight far below what a 720kg mass would have on Earth.
A balance scale is used with calibrated weights of known mass; it's measuring mass, not force.
Not a bad argument for primary school level physics but unfortunately not correct. A balance measures force not mass: the forces acting on each arm have to balance, not the masses. This is easy to illustrate: take a balance with 1kg of lead and 1 kg of aluminium on opposite arms. This balances in air but the moment you put it underwater the lead arm will drop because the higher density of lead means that it has a lower buoyancy force due to the smaller volume of water displaced compared to the aluminium. This actually also happens in air but with a density ~1,000 less than water the effect is 1,000 times smaller.
Torr is a metric unit: it's MILLIMETERS of mercury. Millimeters are metric.
Sorry but that is simply wrong. A Torr is defined as 1/760 of one atmosphere of pressure. This ratio is chosen to as to be approximately equal to 1mm of mercury. So the definition is non-metric (1 atmosphere is not a metric unit) and the result is not metric because it is not equal to 1 mm Hg. In fact even if it were defined as 1mm Hg (which it is NOT) I would argue that it is still not a metric unit any more than an inch is a metric unit because it is defined as 2.54 cm.
Furthermore, kilogram is most often used for weight
No, the kilogram is used for mass. It is often frequently incorrectly claimed to be a weight by people who don't know any better. This works only because at the moment all but a tiny handful of humans are currently limited to an environment where the gravitational field is the same magnitude. If that ever changes people will end up having to learn the difference.
Bad choice of target for your "hurr american cars use old tech" attack.
Especially when there is a better example of an even older technology that american cars use: the wheel. It predates the Romans by several millennia at least.
It's a simple physics argument. If they have results indicating that, as they add more identical radiating devices with random phases, there is no increase at all in EM field (they claim no increase whatsoever, not a non-linear increase) then this is inconsistent with simple wave superposition principles, let alone Maxwell's equations. So they need to explain how their results can be reconciled with well established physics.
EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200.
The only way that is possible is if the iPad has no radio output at all. It is true that adding out of phase signals means that noise will increase in quadrature not linearly, so 200 is not 100 times worse than 2 (probably more like 10), but it does still mean that noise increases with increasing numbers of devices: the increase in radiated energy has to go somewhere!
Also concerning is the mention of that "100 volts/metre" rule from the FAA. Electrical interference can be highly sensitive to frequency, not just field magnitude, because the right frequency can cause resonances (for a physical example see Tacoma Narrows bridge - the magnitude of the wind was not the issue!). This might be just the article not explaining things but unless they are also looking at frequency they are missing something. This, coupled with the claims above, are concerning and makes it seem like they are trying to win the argument regardless of facts - this is not the attitude you want to see in people arguing to relax safety rules (even if I think they are probably ultimately correct!).
If they believed to even 0.001% of a chance that the bottle of water I'm drinking from is a potentially explosive material
They don't think that - the concern is that if you bring the right mix of chemicals in as liquids you can combine them to make an explosive. Even then tossing them in a bin is not enough. Apparently they have to be combined very carefully in order to have the reaction actually make the explosive. So technically there is nothing illogical about the disposing of liquids in a bin next to the security checkpoint.
Yea. A glass cockpit for a private single engine plane would maybe cost as much as a high end PC with a really fancy touch display.
Initially, then some company would figure out that they can make it even cheaper by eliminating some minor redundant system. That doesn't cause an accident so they keep on economizing until, eventually, something they have skimped on in the name of reducing cost does cause a plane to crash and people to die. Government regulation might be a real pain at times but there is no way I would get on a plane which had its avionics made by the lowest bidder in the absence of government regulation.
Perhaps contract is the wrong word then may be "social understanding" is a better term. Certainly the terms are always open to negotiation. My point is simply that we can view company taxes as pay back for the legal restrictions that allows them to make money. The level of those taxes and the level of those restrictions is always open to negotiation. This requires some give and take. As it stands at the moment companies seem to have avoided paying almost any tax and are arguing for more restrictions so they can make even more money. So I would give companies a choice - either pay tax rate and have all the nice legal protections they enjoy or don't pay any tax but also don't have any legal protections and let them decide which is the most profitable route.
Some folks wish they got a lot less from government.
How about the IP laws that seem to let these companies make all this money and/or let them fiddle the books so they pay almost no tax? The only reason a lot of these companies have such large profits is because our freedoms are restricted to let them do so. This is part of the social contract. We collectively agree to have our freedoms restricted in order for companies to make money. This lets them generate employment and contribute to public services through their taxes.
It seems to me that these companies simply want to have it all: restricted freedoms for us and they make off like bandits without contributing some of those profits back to society. Not everyone agrees that the amount they are expected to pay is fair but likewise not everyone agrees with the freedoms we collectively give up. However what we seem to be getting is increasing demands to give up more and more freedom so companies can continue to make money while the same companies are using legal loop holes to dodge the social contribution part of the bargain. If we carry on in this direction it will not end well for either us or companies.
How does that work if it requires a driver to be in the car "just in case" the computer cannot handle it? I'd be in the car and miss the event!
In the EU (and probably elsewhere too) there are VERY compelling reasons to do so.
So use encryption. While you lose the ability to perform server based searches your email content remains secure and you don't have the hassle of running your own SMTP server.
...which is why you need someone who is able to drive.
While I can understand the need for this in the early models why anyone would want a "driverless" car if it does not progress beyond this? If I have to sit there, undistracted watching the road "just in case" the computer flips out how is this any different from driving myself in any significant manner? I want to buy a driverless car so I can read a book, do work etc. while the car gets me to where I am going.
I think we've finally found the real reason why honey bees are disappearing.
no one with half a brain cell cares whether or not the cause of warming over time is due to burning of fossil fuels or some yet undiscovered natural process...the only important question is whether or not there is anything we as a people could conceivably do to mitigate the environmental changes
Fortunately those of us with more than half a brain cell realize that the two are very closely linked. If the current rise in temperature is driven by natural cycles then stopping the burning of fossil fuel will have little, if any impact. So how do you know what to do to mitigate the impact if we are not certain what is causing it? Reducing fossil fuel use is probably a good idea but when I talk to scientists active in the field of climate research they themselves say that the jury is still out on how much is human driven vs. natural but reducing fossil fuel consumption is probably a good idea while we figure it out.
so in summary shut the fuck up and deal with consensus reality for once
What an enlightened attitude. I suppose a few thousand years ago you would have been arguing that the Earth is flat because that was the consensus? I'm a scientist so actual reality, rather than a group consensus of reality, is what I'm interested in. If you want to convince be I am wrong provide evidence and reasoned argument. Swearing about a consensus will help be form an opinion about you but will do little to persuade me that I'm wrong especially when I've spoken with colleagues in climate research and they say the same: it is not yet clear how much of the recent climate change is due to humans.
What specific "natural influence" is causing the Earth to warm, and where is the evidence that supports this idea?
There are many natural influences: precession of the earth's axis, precession of the earth's orbit, ocean currents which change due to continental drift, massive volcanic eruptions, meteor impact etc. There is an established record of global temperature variations thousands, if not millions, of years before humans burnt fossil fuels from e.g. O16/O18 isotope ratios. The causes of some are believed to be known and understood but others are not but it is very clear that the climate has fluctuated by itself before humans were on the scene. That is not to say that we should not be very careful about our impact on the environment because we don't know exactly what the effect is but I have yet to see compelling evidence that humans are primarily responsible for the current change but that certainly remains a distinct possibility.