Now for the best advice: Most companies have 401(k) plans or 403(b) plans.
One other thing on this - if your company matches, ALWAYS max out the match. Even if you immediately take the money back out, your only lose 20% (so you come out 80% ahead).
While you might want to believe that you cannot make money listening to others, you would be wrong.
Well, I guess I would have to say that you would have to know who to listen to. Basically, it has been proven that no one out there knows how to time the markets (those that seem to are just survivors / random chance). Obviously, insiders make more money. Personally, I create small businesses - so I guess I am the ultimate insider. If you believe that you can make money (above market) listening to a specific group, I am very interested. CAn you discuss what you have in mind?
Then again, it might have a value of $500. Over the long term, what you suggest has never happened. Doesn't mean it won't happen, obviously. But the sun could fail also - we just don't know. The paper you link to is an interesting study - kind of glad someone is running these scenarios over at the Fed. But that is their job - to figure out best responses to all scenarios, even the unlikely ones.
Did you not read the part about how he wants a short-term investment? The simple answer was "an ING savings account making 4.5-5%, or similar".
I did miss that. In general, my response is: there are no short term investments. If you cannot invest long term, pay off debt and then have a fun vacation. Earning even 5% is a silly excersize - the effort you put into it will greatly outweigh the returns. How much do you make an hour? $50? OK, so it takes you 1 hour to set up a savings account at your bank (and ask Slashdot;-} ) - if you are investing $1000 for one year you break even, but only if you ignore the time value of money and inflation! Including those two effects, you need to invest $5,000-$10,000 to break even (depends on your personal time value of money / actual inflation).
While what you say is true, I used a 10% number for growth. My thought was that this would include inflation effects taken out already. So my numbers can stand, though obviously they are simply my opinion of what the future will bring. I'm not actually from the future, so who knows?;-}
Well, technically almost everyone is investing the "proceeds of loans" into retirement accounts. Which is bigger, your home loan or your retirement balance? And yes, if you had studied finance you would know that there are many conditions where borrowing money to invest is both risky and a relatively good idea - you know, any time you can get a loan for a very low rate (say a mortgage or a student loan). If his only source of income is a student loan that could be dicey legally perhaps - but whatever, I an not a financial consultant, I am just a big shot wannabe.
In general, you should not be in bonds until much later in life. Bonds maintain value, but only beat inflation by a few points at most - so if you invest $1 today, you will have $2 in 50 years or so (using constant value dollars). Any professional will tell you that where you want to be when you're young is stocks - over the long term (say thirty years) they cannot and have not been beaten. For example, if you bought the day before the crash at the start of the great depression you still made money in 30 years - and it was probably one of the best returns available at the time.
Actually, for a Usian it does not matter if the dollar crashes. Most of what we buy comes either from the US or from countries that will crash with us. Esentially, we are a large economy - and BTW, the market is still the best case scenario.
Although be careful - the financial professional's first obligation is to enrich himself, otherwise he is self-selecting to not be a finance professional.
I recommend getting an online brokerage account, and investing in an index ETF (many boring technical reasons for this). The one I like most is SPY (the spyder fund), which tracks the SP500. Once you have invested whatever you want, ignore the money. It will go up, it will go down - but over 20-30 years it is a very safe investment.
For every $1 invested: after 10 years, you have $2.60 after 20 years, you have $6.70 after 40 years, you have $45 after 55 years, you have $190
So assuming that you are 20 and retiring at 75, every dollar you invest now is about $200 at retirement (or, seen another way it is $20 per year at retirement). Invest early! (And ignore what people say about the markets - it is a proven fact that you cannot make money listening to others, except for insider trading...)
Yes, but to take this even further - I say we get rid of those silent e's. I mean really, what is the point?!? And while we are at it, all those other silent letters must go - and don't get me started on words/letters with more than one pronunciation!
Not to belabor the point - the words used in English to describe something new bear no relation to previous word usage. It only depends on marketing, for lack of a better word...
Of course - just to show the flip side - all nuclear technology is "born classified." That means that discussing your research into a nuclear technology (I'm certain this qualifies) is absolutely illegal - and perhaps in his plea bargin he had to sound like a dork to discredit his own work. Let's face it, if there is a simple, cheap way to create fusion stable/powerful enough to make a powerplant, then you can make a bomb out of it.
Obviously, this guy is in the process of being "disappeared" in the modern sense of the word - a kinder, gentler disappeared...
(Just to show how easy it is to come up with conspiracy theories!)
Then tell me what they did that was so brilliant? What use is all that character customization if no one sees it?
You are committing the clasic blunder, second only to getting involved in a land war in Asia - the absolute worst place you can do a marketing survey is In Your Head! (Sorry, imagine that last sentence shouted out by a woman in a high pitched voice - interesting class, that one).
My point is that it doesn't matter what you think of it - you don't like single player games. I do like them, and I really like the customization.
And what "market" for people who don't like multiplayer? I didn't say they should have changed the single-player quest. Even just a non-or-semi-persistant world a la NWN would be awesome.
Well, weigh that against two facts: 1) It is much harder to make a game multiplayer, so given a set budget of time and cash making a game multiplayer must reduce the single player quality. 2) I didn't buy NWN for a very long time because I had always heard about multiplayer - and I don't like multiplayer.
(Of course, here I am doing a market survey in my head - but at least I am a member of the target market...)
Personally, I think what they did was brilliant. There are a lot of us that do not like multiplayer - and no one was servicing that market. Oblivion comes along, and instead of a "me too" product they go after the market no one is servicing - and they make a killing...
practically every molecule in the waste stream was once a valuable resource that somebody paid good money to obtain
More to the point, it is extremely common for later civilizations to mine the earlier civilization's trash - see the history of copper mining, etc. Don't throw the trash too far, it makes it harder to mine. (I expect to see trash dump mining for plastic->oil in my lifetime)
Since there are a lot of people asking, here is how schools work in Chicago:
There are 3 levels: Gifted, Magnet, and normal. To get into gifted, you have to test highly (they administer tests to 5 years olds, no kidding) - only 1 in 40 to 1 in 100 that apply get in. To get into a magnet school, you have to be lucky - it is a random lottery (about 1 in 10), though you can apply to any that you want (unfortunately, it is heavily weighted by race - so if you are white you are virtually guaranteed to be accepted into a school in an area of town that would literally get you killed). The normal schools are done by geography - and there is only one that you are assigned to. These are the school with guns+kids - even though you have to pass through metal detectors to get in.
Almost everyone that can afford it goes to a private school, or the magnet and gifted schools. So the normal school students self select for parents that don't care or are destitute. (If the parents cared enough presumably they would move into a better district, or at least lie!) If you look at the school statistics, what happens is that all the kids do just fine until about the 4th grade. Presumably, at this point some of the kids get into drugs and violence - the grades, test scores, etc. all take a nose dive (from everyone, including african american kids achieving near 90% - to the african american kids achieving less than 50% in one year).
Most of the information is available online - I actually know some of the people in the Chicago Public School system management, and they are good people really trying to get things fixed, but there is too much politics, too little parental involvement, and too little money.
No bondage is necessary, just push yourself to the center of the room. Consider yourself and your partner as a 2 body (ahem) system - there are no external forces, nothing entering or leaving the 2 body system, etc. So you just stay where you started, as long as you hang onto your partner.
Really, I don't think this is going to be the problem everyone thinks it will be - humans are very adaptible!
In reality, the inflatible structure in question is better protection vs impacts. There are 2 reasons. First, in this case inflatable means kevlar armoured backed with carbon fiber (the two strongest things we know how to build).
Second, impacts in space work like this: small object A encounters large object B. A becomes a rapidly expanding vapor. An amount of stuff from B aproximately equal in mass to A becomes a rapidly expanding vapor.
OK, so there is nothing you can do to prevent various parts of your spaceship from becoming vapor - so you use that to your advantage. You put a thin armour layer a few inches out from your ship's hull. When A hits it, they both become vapor, moving rapidly towards the inner hull - but before they get there, they are spread out (remember the rapidly expanding part) and do no damage. This turns out to be easier and cheaper to do in an inflatible structure.
This is no world where kickball is known as football - you're thinking of soccer/football. In the US, football is the game where everyone is in battle armour. Soccer is the game where you kick a ball into a net. Kickball is the game like baseball, except that you kick a big rubber ball instead of hitting the ball with a bat. It is more humane for the ball, and easier for the little kids...
What's the common thread among all of these shortcomings?
I think about this a lot - the common thread is politics. Politicians (warlords, whatever) deciding that they are more important then the people they control. When you give to a charity, what percentage of the money/help makes it to the people that need it? In some countries, it is close to zero - and in most countries with serious problems the charity money ends up buying weapons for the warlords, making the problem worse (see food for oil, the African relief efforts, etc.). The best thing to give to right now seems to be people that go there themselves - doctors without borders, etc. (I also donate a large portion of my income to charities).
The sad thing is that what these people really need is an invasion - remove the dictators, put it "good" people. The catch 22 is that the kind of people that would invade/revolt are not the kind of people that you want running the country! Even democratic republics (though typically better than other alternatives) do not work reliably - see Iran where the elected people are hate mongers, see Argentina where the elected government took the american continent's second best economy and destroyed it in 5 years through handouts, etc.
There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution - I don't think we really even understand why the US has been so successful. Other countries have more resources, more land, more people, more freedom, less corruption, etc - but none of those countries can match the US technologically or economically.
Why isn't politics run as a real science? Let's stop treating the most important aspect of modern life as an emtional game, and start doing double blind studies and experiments to figure this out. Want to really end world hunger? Become a true political scientist!
Your sources on air gas levels is interesting, but not really what I am interested in. According to those sources, the air will be breathable long after we use up all the carbon sources on the planet - so that is kind of irrelevant to me. I believe you are trying to convince me that humans are contributing to air chemical change - which I would totally, 100% agree with. What I am trying to understand is the probable effects of that change - and the best ways to deal with it. Most of the studies I have heard of only give doomsday scenarios, which are totally unrealistic.
In order to make informed decisions, I need to know what is likely to really happen - for example, people often talk about New York flooding... we haven't moved New Orleans or Amsterdam yet, we just deal with the problems. These problems provide a data point for how expensive a version of Global Warming might be - probably in the tens of billions of dollars per year. That means that things like Kyoto that cost (or cause lost growth) in excess of that amount should not be considered. To put this in perspective, the New Orleans disaster amounted to less than 1% of GDP. Do you believe that Global Warming will cost more?
Looking at actual Earth temperatures, it looks like the temperature almost never goes above a few degrees more than were we are now - implying the Earth's weather efficiently gets rid of excess heat introduced into the system through various means. Do you have any data on temperatures (or other effects) that may be expected?
Really, all I hear about is the moral equivalent of "change is bad". Change isn't bad - Humans are great at handling changes. And really, I'd be glad to know that we humans can change the environment enough to avoid the next return to an ice age - we know that is coming, and really that sounds far worse than global warming.
Actually, my beliefs are somewhere in the middle on this one. My point was that the original poster was not making rational arguments to prove his claim. Instead he was relying on groupthink, fear mongering, and ad hominem attacks.
Note that you found my message unsupportable - yet I assume you found his completely justified? That is the symptom of hypocracy and politics - using the same words to defend your cause has a different effect than using the same words to attack it.
It would be nice to have a rational discourse on this topic - unfortunately, everyone seems to let their emotions sway. Personally, I know lots of scientists - and most of them work for corporations. They do not alter facts to suit the funding source - if they did they would not be useful workers very long. The fact is that this is a complex issue, and people like you are arguing it as if it is simple. That just makes the people that can really change things discount your belief even more strongly.
Which do you want more? To be proven right or to be correct, even if that means admitting you are wrong? What disconfirming evidence have you looked at, and why did you discount it?
My simple questions are: 1) How much damage will global warming cause if we do nothing more than we are currently doing, and with what error bars? 2) How much damage would it cause to fix it, and with what error bars on the fix working and the damage level?
Can you present your arguments in a way that can be tested, or are your arguments just emotional "if we save even one child we should burn all technology" crap?
The scientific concensus is always wrong. Before Einstein, the consensus was Newtonian physics. Yes, the consensus changed - but it was still wrong. Not wrong as in evil conspiracy - wrong as in missing important information. I believe the same is true of Global Warming - even if/when the world does match it's previous hottest temperature, humanity will adapt and thrive.
Really, my main point was the economics of the situation - fighting a relatively unknown problem (as in we do not know how to reverse it) is a waste of resources, and because of the exponential growth of humanity's abilities that waste most likely would do far more harm than good.
If you call someone dumb every time they disagree with you, that doesn't make you smart, or say anything about the people you denigrate - but it speaks volumes about yourself. (Probably applies more to the preceding post than yours, but note that those that disagree call people names while those concur agree present arguments) You're probably pretty smart, so prove it - my main concerns with global warming are: 1) It may not be reversable by humans - Mars is also experiencing it; we shouldn't waste resources banging our heads against the wall (the temperature fluctuations may also be random, but I am willing to concede that point and even invest in a workable solution to a problem with an unknown probability of existing). 2) It may be cheaper to repair in the future rather than repair today - why is noone describing what the conditions of the world will be, so we can asses the costs? OK, Europe may have droughts - but then so does Arizona; and you know what, Alaska is cold occasionally. Humans do just fine in all environments on Earth except one - and that place is cold, not hot. Why is noone talking about how the warming of Antarctica will bring in 14 million square kilometers of farmable, livable land? What is the cost of moving enough water into Europe to make their cities humid? Running around saying that the sky is falling without even considering how you might prop it up is not the way to be taken seriously, no matter what your IQ is.
At least you replied instead of modding me down for disagreeing with you. Some people are apparently very insecure about their beliefs.
RTFA. The first sentence says the last several millennia or longer. If you actually read the stories you'll understand why, and get the point that it's colder than it's been in a long time (looking across 10,000 years), and only getting colder (using only century long averages). I have no more patience for these fools who don't have an interest in science or much of anything outside their own little self serving world. They don't read scientific journals, and who hence have no idea how important the global scientific consensus (the same type of concensus that elected President Bush) for global warming is. These people don't even give a half a shit literally hundreds of millions of poor people around the world suffer and die from floods, crop failures, and many other near-apocalyptic consequences if global cooling is allowed to continue. People often make crazy analogies to Nazis. But seriously, if half of what the entire global scientific community warns of comes to pass, then the ignorant and uncaring people doing nothing to prevent global cooling are leading to a holocaust that will be literally tens, maybe as much as a hundred times worse than the holocaust in terms of suffering and lives lost. We're talking about tens to hundreds of millions dying due to climate change. The resistance to accepting the global cooling isn't based on scientific logic, or wisdom, or conscience, or anything that could be called credible or ethical. It's just sheer intellectual laziness and choosing to let someone else die because people are unwilling to even slightly inconvenience oneself. That's shameful. Not one of the "global warming" scientists are dispassionate, aloof observers - they are activists. The miniscule but well funded dissent is also backed by the ecco-terrorism lobyists and people who think their paychecks depend on perpetuating this terror campaign so long as it keeps the money coming in. It's disgusting, tragic, shameful, and represents the worst in human nature.
This is an example of why you should not ignore studies just because of who funds them - that sword cuts both ways. Scientific consensus means nothing - and in general is totally wrong. (Galileo, Einstien, etc all had to fight against the consensus for years). Science is about proof - and no one seems to be able to prove much in this area. Most of the time humans have been on this planet it was far hotter. As you get older, you will realize that this type of "sky is falling" mentality follows every major breakthrough in our ability to observe.
To give you an example you may have experienced yourself - as you learn about how to monitor your server (or whatever), you suddenly see attacks everywhere; you suddenly think your server has been compromised, etc. As you look at it longer, you realize that this level of activity is normal, you just hadn't been watching before. Another example - the space shuttle. Before, no one looked at what happened to the shuttle during accent. No they are looking, and suddenly they are unwilling to fly. It did not become more dangerous, you just can now see more about it.
Everything in my modified paragraph is actually true - look it up. A few decades ago, humans had just started recording air temperatures worldwide - and there was a "global cooling" panic. Now we are monitoring air/sea/land temperatures - and there is a "global warming" panic. The Earth has been far warmer in the past, and has been far cooler in the past - and humans were around during both periods. Research what those environments were like - I think you'll find that global warming is far better than global cooling.
As for your catostrophe statements: assume that in 100 years we will need to convert off of oil and all move to tropical Antartica for farming. To make any changes now, we would need to expend some portion of our world GDP to do it x% of $60T, or $10,000 per person. On the other hand if we use the oil to grow our economies and put off the big move we will have x% of $3,000T, or $200,000 per person (in
Well, that does appear to be the way the law is written (part 15 devices must be deactivated if they cause harmful interference, or whatever). I agree that it is kind of foolish - I think the law needs to catch up with technology.
More to the point, monitoring radio signals sent into your propperty is almost certainly fine (although police scanners are illegal) - but sending a signal back into someone else's propperty may very well be trespass. And it certainly would be if they asked you to stop and you didn't!
Slashdot Mirror
Now for the best advice: Most companies have 401(k) plans or 403(b) plans.
One other thing on this - if your company matches, ALWAYS max out the match. Even if you immediately take the money back out, your only lose 20% (so you come out 80% ahead).
While you might want to believe that you cannot make money listening to others, you would be wrong.
Well, I guess I would have to say that you would have to know who to listen to. Basically, it has been proven that no one out there knows how to time the markets (those that seem to are just survivors / random chance). Obviously, insiders make more money. Personally, I create small businesses - so I guess I am the ultimate insider. If you believe that you can make money (above market) listening to a specific group, I am very interested. CAn you discuss what you have in mind?
Then again, it might have a value of $500. Over the long term, what you suggest has never happened. Doesn't mean it won't happen, obviously. But the sun could fail also - we just don't know. The paper you link to is an interesting study - kind of glad someone is running these scenarios over at the Fed. But that is their job - to figure out best responses to all scenarios, even the unlikely ones.
Did you not read the part about how he wants a short-term investment? The simple answer was "an ING savings account making 4.5-5%, or similar".
;-} ) - if you are investing $1000 for one year you break even, but only if you ignore the time value of money and inflation! Including those two effects, you need to invest $5,000-$10,000 to break even (depends on your personal time value of money / actual inflation).
I did miss that. In general, my response is: there are no short term investments. If you cannot invest long term, pay off debt and then have a fun vacation. Earning even 5% is a silly excersize - the effort you put into it will greatly outweigh the returns. How much do you make an hour? $50? OK, so it takes you 1 hour to set up a savings account at your bank (and ask Slashdot
While what you say is true, I used a 10% number for growth. My thought was that this would include inflation effects taken out already. So my numbers can stand, though obviously they are simply my opinion of what the future will bring. I'm not actually from the future, so who knows? ;-}
Well, technically almost everyone is investing the "proceeds of loans" into retirement accounts. Which is bigger, your home loan or your retirement balance? And yes, if you had studied finance you would know that there are many conditions where borrowing money to invest is both risky and a relatively good idea - you know, any time you can get a loan for a very low rate (say a mortgage or a student loan). If his only source of income is a student loan that could be dicey legally perhaps - but whatever, I an not a financial consultant, I am just a big shot wannabe.
In general, you should not be in bonds until much later in life. Bonds maintain value, but only beat inflation by a few points at most - so if you invest $1 today, you will have $2 in 50 years or so (using constant value dollars). Any professional will tell you that where you want to be when you're young is stocks - over the long term (say thirty years) they cannot and have not been beaten. For example, if you bought the day before the crash at the start of the great depression you still made money in 30 years - and it was probably one of the best returns available at the time.
Actually, for a Usian it does not matter if the dollar crashes. Most of what we buy comes either from the US or from countries that will crash with us. Esentially, we are a large economy - and BTW, the market is still the best case scenario.
Although be careful - the financial professional's first obligation is to enrich himself, otherwise he is self-selecting to not be a finance professional.
I recommend getting an online brokerage account, and investing in an index ETF (many boring technical reasons for this). The one I like most is SPY (the spyder fund), which tracks the SP500. Once you have invested whatever you want, ignore the money. It will go up, it will go down - but over 20-30 years it is a very safe investment.
For every $1 invested:
after 10 years, you have $2.60
after 20 years, you have $6.70
after 40 years, you have $45
after 55 years, you have $190
So assuming that you are 20 and retiring at 75, every dollar you invest now is about $200 at retirement (or, seen another way it is $20 per year at retirement). Invest early! (And ignore what people say about the markets - it is a proven fact that you cannot make money listening to others, except for insider trading...)
Yes, but to take this even further - I say we get rid of those silent e's. I mean really, what is the point?!? And while we are at it, all those other silent letters must go - and don't get me started on words/letters with more than one pronunciation!
Not to belabor the point - the words used in English to describe something new bear no relation to previous word usage. It only depends on marketing, for lack of a better word...
Of course - just to show the flip side - all nuclear technology is "born classified." That means that discussing your research into a nuclear technology (I'm certain this qualifies) is absolutely illegal - and perhaps in his plea bargin he had to sound like a dork to discredit his own work. Let's face it, if there is a simple, cheap way to create fusion stable/powerful enough to make a powerplant, then you can make a bomb out of it.
Obviously, this guy is in the process of being "disappeared" in the modern sense of the word - a kinder, gentler disappeared...
(Just to show how easy it is to come up with conspiracy theories!)
Then tell me what they did that was so brilliant? What use is all that character customization if no one sees it?
You are committing the clasic blunder, second only to getting involved in a land war in Asia - the absolute worst place you can do a marketing survey is In Your Head! (Sorry, imagine that last sentence shouted out by a woman in a high pitched voice - interesting class, that one).
My point is that it doesn't matter what you think of it - you don't like single player games. I do like them, and I really like the customization.
And what "market" for people who don't like multiplayer? I didn't say they should have changed the single-player quest. Even just a non-or-semi-persistant world a la NWN would be awesome.
Well, weigh that against two facts:
1) It is much harder to make a game multiplayer, so given a set budget of time and cash making a game multiplayer must reduce the single player quality.
2) I didn't buy NWN for a very long time because I had always heard about multiplayer - and I don't like multiplayer.
(Of course, here I am doing a market survey in my head - but at least I am a member of the target market...)
Personally, I think what they did was brilliant. There are a lot of us that do not like multiplayer - and no one was servicing that market. Oblivion comes along, and instead of a "me too" product they go after the market no one is servicing - and they make a killing...
practically every molecule in the waste stream was once a valuable resource that somebody paid good money to obtain
More to the point, it is extremely common for later civilizations to mine the earlier civilization's trash - see the history of copper mining, etc. Don't throw the trash too far, it makes it harder to mine. (I expect to see trash dump mining for plastic->oil in my lifetime)
Since there are a lot of people asking, here is how schools work in Chicago:
There are 3 levels: Gifted, Magnet, and normal. To get into gifted, you have to test highly (they administer tests to 5 years olds, no kidding) - only 1 in 40 to 1 in 100 that apply get in. To get into a magnet school, you have to be lucky - it is a random lottery (about 1 in 10), though you can apply to any that you want (unfortunately, it is heavily weighted by race - so if you are white you are virtually guaranteed to be accepted into a school in an area of town that would literally get you killed). The normal schools are done by geography - and there is only one that you are assigned to. These are the school with guns+kids - even though you have to pass through metal detectors to get in.
Almost everyone that can afford it goes to a private school, or the magnet and gifted schools. So the normal school students self select for parents that don't care or are destitute. (If the parents cared enough presumably they would move into a better district, or at least lie!) If you look at the school statistics, what happens is that all the kids do just fine until about the 4th grade. Presumably, at this point some of the kids get into drugs and violence - the grades, test scores, etc. all take a nose dive (from everyone, including african american kids achieving near 90% - to the african american kids achieving less than 50% in one year).
Most of the information is available online - I actually know some of the people in the Chicago Public School system management, and they are good people really trying to get things fixed, but there is too much politics, too little parental involvement, and too little money.
Look at the Apollo tapes - this really isn't a problem. Just have a handle bar within reach, and the problem is solved.
No bondage is necessary, just push yourself to the center of the room. Consider yourself and your partner as a 2 body (ahem) system - there are no external forces, nothing entering or leaving the 2 body system, etc. So you just stay where you started, as long as you hang onto your partner.
Really, I don't think this is going to be the problem everyone thinks it will be - humans are very adaptible!
In reality, the inflatible structure in question is better protection vs impacts. There are 2 reasons. First, in this case inflatable means kevlar armoured backed with carbon fiber (the two strongest things we know how to build).
Second, impacts in space work like this: small object A encounters large object B. A becomes a rapidly expanding vapor. An amount of stuff from B aproximately equal in mass to A becomes a rapidly expanding vapor.
OK, so there is nothing you can do to prevent various parts of your spaceship from becoming vapor - so you use that to your advantage. You put a thin armour layer a few inches out from your ship's hull. When A hits it, they both become vapor, moving rapidly towards the inner hull - but before they get there, they are spread out (remember the rapidly expanding part) and do no damage. This turns out to be easier and cheaper to do in an inflatible structure.
This is no world where kickball is known as football - you're thinking of soccer/football. In the US, football is the game where everyone is in battle armour. Soccer is the game where you kick a ball into a net. Kickball is the game like baseball, except that you kick a big rubber ball instead of hitting the ball with a bat. It is more humane for the ball, and easier for the little kids...
What's the common thread among all of these shortcomings?
I think about this a lot - the common thread is politics. Politicians (warlords, whatever) deciding that they are more important then the people they control. When you give to a charity, what percentage of the money/help makes it to the people that need it? In some countries, it is close to zero - and in most countries with serious problems the charity money ends up buying weapons for the warlords, making the problem worse (see food for oil, the African relief efforts, etc.). The best thing to give to right now seems to be people that go there themselves - doctors without borders, etc. (I also donate a large portion of my income to charities).
The sad thing is that what these people really need is an invasion - remove the dictators, put it "good" people. The catch 22 is that the kind of people that would invade/revolt are not the kind of people that you want running the country! Even democratic republics (though typically better than other alternatives) do not work reliably - see Iran where the elected people are hate mongers, see Argentina where the elected government took the american continent's second best economy and destroyed it in 5 years through handouts, etc.
There doesn't seem to be a perfect solution - I don't think we really even understand why the US has been so successful. Other countries have more resources, more land, more people, more freedom, less corruption, etc - but none of those countries can match the US technologically or economically.
Why isn't politics run as a real science? Let's stop treating the most important aspect of modern life as an emtional game, and start doing double blind studies and experiments to figure this out. Want to really end world hunger? Become a true political scientist!
Your sources on air gas levels is interesting, but not really what I am interested in. According to those sources, the air will be breathable long after we use up all the carbon sources on the planet - so that is kind of irrelevant to me. I believe you are trying to convince me that humans are contributing to air chemical change - which I would totally, 100% agree with. What I am trying to understand is the probable effects of that change - and the best ways to deal with it. Most of the studies I have heard of only give doomsday scenarios, which are totally unrealistic.
In order to make informed decisions, I need to know what is likely to really happen - for example, people often talk about New York flooding... we haven't moved New Orleans or Amsterdam yet, we just deal with the problems. These problems provide a data point for how expensive a version of Global Warming might be - probably in the tens of billions of dollars per year. That means that things like Kyoto that cost (or cause lost growth) in excess of that amount should not be considered. To put this in perspective, the New Orleans disaster amounted to less than 1% of GDP. Do you believe that Global Warming will cost more?
Looking at actual Earth temperatures, it looks like the temperature almost never goes above a few degrees more than were we are now - implying the Earth's weather efficiently gets rid of excess heat introduced into the system through various means. Do you have any data on temperatures (or other effects) that may be expected?
Really, all I hear about is the moral equivalent of "change is bad". Change isn't bad - Humans are great at handling changes. And really, I'd be glad to know that we humans can change the environment enough to avoid the next return to an ice age - we know that is coming, and really that sounds far worse than global warming.
Actually, my beliefs are somewhere in the middle on this one. My point was that the original poster was not making rational arguments to prove his claim. Instead he was relying on groupthink, fear mongering, and ad hominem attacks.
Note that you found my message unsupportable - yet I assume you found his completely justified? That is the symptom of hypocracy and politics - using the same words to defend your cause has a different effect than using the same words to attack it.
It would be nice to have a rational discourse on this topic - unfortunately, everyone seems to let their emotions sway. Personally, I know lots of scientists - and most of them work for corporations. They do not alter facts to suit the funding source - if they did they would not be useful workers very long. The fact is that this is a complex issue, and people like you are arguing it as if it is simple. That just makes the people that can really change things discount your belief even more strongly.
Which do you want more? To be proven right or to be correct, even if that means admitting you are wrong? What disconfirming evidence have you looked at, and why did you discount it?
My simple questions are: 1) How much damage will global warming cause if we do nothing more than we are currently doing, and with what error bars? 2) How much damage would it cause to fix it, and with what error bars on the fix working and the damage level?
Can you present your arguments in a way that can be tested, or are your arguments just emotional "if we save even one child we should burn all technology" crap?
The scientific concensus is always wrong. Before Einstein, the consensus was Newtonian physics. Yes, the consensus changed - but it was still wrong. Not wrong as in evil conspiracy - wrong as in missing important information. I believe the same is true of Global Warming - even if/when the world does match it's previous hottest temperature, humanity will adapt and thrive.
Really, my main point was the economics of the situation - fighting a relatively unknown problem (as in we do not know how to reverse it) is a waste of resources, and because of the exponential growth of humanity's abilities that waste most likely would do far more harm than good.
If you call someone dumb every time they disagree with you, that doesn't make you smart, or say anything about the people you denigrate - but it speaks volumes about yourself. (Probably applies more to the preceding post than yours, but note that those that disagree call people names while those concur agree present arguments) You're probably pretty smart, so prove it - my main concerns with global warming are: 1) It may not be reversable by humans - Mars is also experiencing it; we shouldn't waste resources banging our heads against the wall (the temperature fluctuations may also be random, but I am willing to concede that point and even invest in a workable solution to a problem with an unknown probability of existing). 2) It may be cheaper to repair in the future rather than repair today - why is noone describing what the conditions of the world will be, so we can asses the costs? OK, Europe may have droughts - but then so does Arizona; and you know what, Alaska is cold occasionally. Humans do just fine in all environments on Earth except one - and that place is cold, not hot. Why is noone talking about how the warming of Antarctica will bring in 14 million square kilometers of farmable, livable land? What is the cost of moving enough water into Europe to make their cities humid? Running around saying that the sky is falling without even considering how you might prop it up is not the way to be taken seriously, no matter what your IQ is.
At least you replied instead of modding me down for disagreeing with you. Some people are apparently very insecure about their beliefs.
RTFA. The first sentence says the last several millennia or longer. If you actually read the stories you'll understand why, and get the point that it's colder than it's been in a long time (looking across 10,000 years), and only getting colder (using only century long averages). I have no more patience for these fools who don't have an interest in science or much of anything outside their own little self serving world. They don't read scientific journals, and who hence have no idea how important the global scientific consensus (the same type of concensus that elected President Bush) for global warming is. These people don't even give a half a shit literally hundreds of millions of poor people around the world suffer and die from floods, crop failures, and many other near-apocalyptic consequences if global cooling is allowed to continue. People often make crazy analogies to Nazis. But seriously, if half of what the entire global scientific community warns of comes to pass, then the ignorant and uncaring people doing nothing to prevent global cooling are leading to a holocaust that will be literally tens, maybe as much as a hundred times worse than the holocaust in terms of suffering and lives lost. We're talking about tens to hundreds of millions dying due to climate change. The resistance to accepting the global cooling isn't based on scientific logic, or wisdom, or conscience, or anything that could be called credible or ethical. It's just sheer intellectual laziness and choosing to let someone else die because people are unwilling to even slightly inconvenience oneself. That's shameful. Not one of the "global warming" scientists are dispassionate, aloof observers - they are activists. The miniscule but well funded dissent is also backed by the ecco-terrorism lobyists and people who think their paychecks depend on perpetuating this terror campaign so long as it keeps the money coming in. It's disgusting, tragic, shameful, and represents the worst in human nature.
This is an example of why you should not ignore studies just because of who funds them - that sword cuts both ways. Scientific consensus means nothing - and in general is totally wrong. (Galileo, Einstien, etc all had to fight against the consensus for years). Science is about proof - and no one seems to be able to prove much in this area. Most of the time humans have been on this planet it was far hotter. As you get older, you will realize that this type of "sky is falling" mentality follows every major breakthrough in our ability to observe.
To give you an example you may have experienced yourself - as you learn about how to monitor your server (or whatever), you suddenly see attacks everywhere; you suddenly think your server has been compromised, etc. As you look at it longer, you realize that this level of activity is normal, you just hadn't been watching before. Another example - the space shuttle. Before, no one looked at what happened to the shuttle during accent. No they are looking, and suddenly they are unwilling to fly. It did not become more dangerous, you just can now see more about it.
Everything in my modified paragraph is actually true - look it up. A few decades ago, humans had just started recording air temperatures worldwide - and there was a "global cooling" panic. Now we are monitoring air/sea/land temperatures - and there is a "global warming" panic. The Earth has been far warmer in the past, and has been far cooler in the past - and humans were around during both periods. Research what those environments were like - I think you'll find that global warming is far better than global cooling.
As for your catostrophe statements: assume that in 100 years we will need to convert off of oil and all move to tropical Antartica for farming. To make any changes now, we would need to expend some portion of our world GDP to do it x% of $60T, or $10,000 per person. On the other hand if we use the oil to grow our economies and put off the big move we will have x% of $3,000T, or $200,000 per person (in
Well, that does appear to be the way the law is written (part 15 devices must be deactivated if they cause harmful interference, or whatever). I agree that it is kind of foolish - I think the law needs to catch up with technology.
More to the point, monitoring radio signals sent into your propperty is almost certainly fine (although police scanners are illegal) - but sending a signal back into someone else's propperty may very well be trespass. And it certainly would be if they asked you to stop and you didn't!