500 years is not evolutionarily significant. Biologically, humans have remained almost unchanged from the early days of civilization 10,000 years ago--just ask any anthropologist.
I find it unsurprising that this sort of comment seems limited to posters with a 2,000,000 + user ID. Scary to think that today's kids will be ruling our world a couple of decades from now.
Near-ultraviolet is non-ionizing. Guess it must be safe, according to you. Seems stupid then that we were worried about that hole in the ozone layer, what were we thinking?
Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation. Please, by all means, operate your microwave with the door open and interlock disabled, so you can see better when the food is cooked.
Micropower regarding processing, yes, but that's not the issue. The issue here is the analog sound output. While miniature class-D amplifiers in the last few years have surpassed 90% efficiency and can be fit in hearing aids, the physical sound driver still limits conversion efficiency to audio. Come on, I shouldn't have to spell everything out on a supposedly geek site.
What a bunch of bull. Bottled water is several orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water, has in some studies been frequently detected to contain MORE contaminants than tap water (including bacteria), and causes an enormous increase of pollution not just because of the plastic bottles, but because most of it has to be transported significant distance.
1. You failed to address the second point: the power lost due to the forward voltage drop. This is a fundamental limit.
2. 3D printing is more expensive than this; it's the reason Invisalign braces cost at least twice what regular braces cost. 3. Measurement may be automated, but the optimization of the digital filters in the hearing aid is nontrivial. Due to processing power constraints, you can't simply use standard parametric equalizers. 4. Custom parts, such as the germanium semis mentioned by GP. Assembly lines don't have unlimited felxibility, and building new ones specifically for hearing aids probably doesn't make sense given the numbers of any given model of hearing aids, whereas models differ in construction enormously so there's not much in common to factor out. Little worth to your post.
Child porn's continued existence proves usefulness (Score:2) by Danathar's parallel universe doppleganger
The fact of the matter is, it continues to exist and continues to be used DESPITE people saying that it's useless and will collapse and never be used again.
Despite all the naysayers (and I DON'T own any child porn) the supply continues to expand. One has to acknowledge the reality of what is actually happening with the medium vs what one thinks or would like to happen. (well, you don't have to but that's another argument)
PS, regarding point 3), the biggest flaw one sees in a lot of economic thinking is the fallacy of composition, where microeconomic concepts are extrapolated to macroeconomic ones, and that is invalid. One great example is the issue of debt, and the resulting myth of the money multiplier (that fractional reserve banking creates more money--this is false in a complete macroeconomic model because money loaned out are deposited at other banks, and the loans, considered assets for banks (liabilities for the consumer) essentially match the liabilities that are deposits in other banks (assets for the consumer)--they cancel out, the net is zero; only government creates net currency by spending, or removes it through taxation).
Inflation and interest rates is really a red herring. Monetarism has proven itself time and again as an ineffective policy tool. Please read the MMT links I posted elsewhere in this thread.
The economy can expand without inflation, as long as the money supply is expanded by government in such a manner as to account for the economic expansion. This is best done by appropriately controlled deficit spending any time there is unemployment. If done correctly, the result would be decreasing the slack in aggregate demand, and inflation would only be the case when going past that point. Fiscalism is a more effective policy tool than monetarism.
> Governments never make the "right" choices, or at least, a high-enough percentage of "right" choices.
I'll only address this as it's the kernel of our disagreement, and is something that we can only agree to disagree on (or duel to the death over, I suppose...).
It is the nature of humanity, due to our evolutionary psychology, that in a highly integrated, large scale society where tribal instincts do not suit us well, any power vacuum will be filled. If it's not by the government, it will be by the rise in power of other institutions--a libertarian society cannot be stable because of this. The potential for abuse, inefficiencies, and irrationality apply no less to any other power base alternatives than to a (pseudo)democratic government. Money is just one aspect, and I can predict we will disagree just the same on most others, as my core assumption is that government is the least evil option, although I would prefer a very significantly altered form of government.
At the same time, I'm certainly not against a level of capitalism, not least of all because I have leveraged it, through entrepreneurship, to transition from my lower-middle-class origins firmly into the much-maligned 1%. I had to add this here lest I'm accused of being a commie bastard:)
Your characterization of my position is mistaken. I am against federalism because, having lived many years both in the US and in Europe, I am convinced that federalism works in the US but cannot work in Europe because the US is far more homogeneous than Europe. You're writing off Europe's diversity; there will never be an agreement on fiscal priorities in Europe, nor on what the appropriate sectoral balance is.
I don't think you get it. Government is not revenue constrained. There's no law that says that any spending by the government has to be based on public or foreign debt. In the case of the US, for example, a very significant portion of the US government debt is simply registered between treasury and the Fed. It is an electronic entry, an accounting fiction, meaningless like the debt between husband and wife. It doesn't have to be paid back. The money is created ex nihilo, and that is one of the main powers of a sovereign government. You really need to read the 2nd link I posted in my previous post.
I wasn't arguing for more fiscal integration. That's like trying to hold a locomotive together with duct tape. I'm arguing against monetary integration. The Euro should be abandoned in favor of individual currencies with floating exchange rates.
The "issuing bank" is the central bank and that for all practical purposes acts in unison with the treasury. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11218 The restraint in question is then that of government, and indeed, government is the power base that backs its currency. This means that with a fiat currency, the government has two policy tools with which to intervene in an economic crisis: one fiscal and one monetary. The relative effectiveness of each is debatable and depends on whether you're an orthodox economist or an MMTer, but it certainly beats what happens when there is no such tool available at all. Two examples: the worsening of the Great Depression due to a gold-backed currency, and the dismal failure of the Euro experiment in which individual nations lack control of their own currencies and use a unified one instead without also having fiscal and economic unification (which, in a heterogeneous collection of states such as Europe, is impossible).
The EU example actually works directly against your argument. It is exactly because Eurozone members have no control of their currencies that this is happening. You cannot have a monetary union without a fiscal and economic union as well. The disaster in Europe was predicted by MMT from the moment the Euro was even considered as a concept. As for the US, there are multiple problems that have nothing to do with the control of currency. Problems include things such as bank capital ratios not being consistently applied across the board, due to lobbying and conflicts of interest between the financial industry and regulators and favoritism. Then the wrong fixes were applied, such as QE which does nothing to boost aggregate demand, instead of targeted deficit spending which does boost it. The point is, a tool is not wrong; misuse of a tool is wrong, but the misuse is never an argument to remove the tool itself.
Actually, the natural rate is zero. And I'd take professor Mitchell's word (not to mention the MMT-based rationale) over yours any day. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=4656
You're talking about the traditional purpose of taxation. This has not been the case since Nixon nixed the last vestiges of gold-backing of the US dollar. You seem to have no idea how the modern monetary system actually works. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 As well as here http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11218 note esp. "Given the national government can issue paper currency units or accounting information at the central bank at will, tax payments do not provide the state with any additional capacity (reflux) to spend." This is because governments which issue their own currency are not revenue constrained. There's no operational connection between deficit spending and tax collection.
Slashdot Mirror
RGB is not even close to most visible colors. The overall graph here shows the full visible color gamut, and RGB is the small triangle inside it: http://www.antigrain.com/doc/introduction/cie_1931.jpg
RGB is a small subset of the visible color gamut. It's the triangle in this graph: http://www.antigrain.com/doc/introduction/cie_1931.jpg
>Now when we see cipro resistant plague, then you can panic.
No doubt it's on it's way. Tuberculosis has been steadily growing in resistance, and there have been cases of TB now resistant to all antibiotics that were tried. And just recently, gonorrhea is also becoming multi-drug resistant: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/06/06/drug-resistant-gonorrhea-spreading-says-world-health-organization/
You are wrong. Black Death DNA was extracted from teeth of victims in the Tower of London and it's the same Y. pestis as we have today: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/science/13plague.html?_r=1
500 years is not evolutionarily significant. Biologically, humans have remained almost unchanged from the early days of civilization 10,000 years ago--just ask any anthropologist.
>(no more electric chair damn it)...yet. LOL
I find it unsurprising that this sort of comment seems limited to posters with a 2,000,000 + user ID. Scary to think that today's kids will be ruling our world a couple of decades from now.
Near-ultraviolet is non-ionizing. Guess it must be safe, according to you. Seems stupid then that we were worried about that hole in the ozone layer, what were we thinking?
Near-ultraviolet rays are non-ionizing radiation. Must be safe. Hmm, I guess we were wrong to worry about the hole in the ozone layer!
Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation. Please, by all means, operate your microwave with the door open and interlock disabled, so you can see better when the food is cooked.
As far as I'm aware, most municipalities have switched away from chlorine to chloramine, which imparts no detectable flavor on water.
Micropower regarding processing, yes, but that's not the issue. The issue here is the analog sound output. While miniature class-D amplifiers in the last few years have surpassed 90% efficiency and can be fit in hearing aids, the physical sound driver still limits conversion efficiency to audio. Come on, I shouldn't have to spell everything out on a supposedly geek site.
What a bunch of bull. Bottled water is several orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water, has in some studies been frequently detected to contain MORE contaminants than tap water (including bacteria), and causes an enormous increase of pollution not just because of the plastic bottles, but because most of it has to be transported significant distance.
1. You failed to address the second point: the power lost due to the forward voltage drop. This is a fundamental limit.
2. 3D printing is more expensive than this; it's the reason Invisalign braces cost at least twice what regular braces cost.
3. Measurement may be automated, but the optimization of the digital filters in the hearing aid is nontrivial. Due to processing power constraints, you can't simply use standard parametric equalizers.
4. Custom parts, such as the germanium semis mentioned by GP. Assembly lines don't have unlimited felxibility, and building new ones specifically for hearing aids probably doesn't make sense given the numbers of any given model of hearing aids, whereas models differ in construction enormously so there's not much in common to factor out.
Little worth to your post.
Child porn's continued existence proves usefulness (Score:2) by Danathar's parallel universe doppleganger The fact of the matter is, it continues to exist and continues to be used DESPITE people saying that it's useless and will collapse and never be used again. Despite all the naysayers (and I DON'T own any child porn) the supply continues to expand. One has to acknowledge the reality of what is actually happening with the medium vs what one thinks or would like to happen. (well, you don't have to but that's another argument)
PS, regarding point 3), the biggest flaw one sees in a lot of economic thinking is the fallacy of composition, where microeconomic concepts are extrapolated to macroeconomic ones, and that is invalid. One great example is the issue of debt, and the resulting myth of the money multiplier (that fractional reserve banking creates more money--this is false in a complete macroeconomic model because money loaned out are deposited at other banks, and the loans, considered assets for banks (liabilities for the consumer) essentially match the liabilities that are deposits in other banks (assets for the consumer)--they cancel out, the net is zero; only government creates net currency by spending, or removes it through taxation).
Inflation and interest rates is really a red herring. Monetarism has proven itself time and again as an ineffective policy tool. Please read the MMT links I posted elsewhere in this thread.
The economy can expand without inflation, as long as the money supply is expanded by government in such a manner as to account for the economic expansion. This is best done by appropriately controlled deficit spending any time there is unemployment. If done correctly, the result would be decreasing the slack in aggregate demand, and inflation would only be the case when going past that point. Fiscalism is a more effective policy tool than monetarism.
> Governments never make the "right" choices, or at least, a high-enough percentage of "right" choices.
:)
I'll only address this as it's the kernel of our disagreement, and is something that we can only agree to disagree on (or duel to the death over, I suppose...).
It is the nature of humanity, due to our evolutionary psychology, that in a highly integrated, large scale society where tribal instincts do not suit us well, any power vacuum will be filled. If it's not by the government, it will be by the rise in power of other institutions--a libertarian society cannot be stable because of this. The potential for abuse, inefficiencies, and irrationality apply no less to any other power base alternatives than to a (pseudo)democratic government. Money is just one aspect, and I can predict we will disagree just the same on most others, as my core assumption is that government is the least evil option, although I would prefer a very significantly altered form of government.
At the same time, I'm certainly not against a level of capitalism, not least of all because I have leveraged it, through entrepreneurship, to transition from my lower-middle-class origins firmly into the much-maligned 1%. I had to add this here lest I'm accused of being a commie bastard
Your characterization of my position is mistaken. I am against federalism because, having lived many years both in the US and in Europe, I am convinced that federalism works in the US but cannot work in Europe because the US is far more homogeneous than Europe. You're writing off Europe's diversity; there will never be an agreement on fiscal priorities in Europe, nor on what the appropriate sectoral balance is.
I don't think you get it. Government is not revenue constrained. There's no law that says that any spending by the government has to be based on public or foreign debt. In the case of the US, for example, a very significant portion of the US government debt is simply registered between treasury and the Fed. It is an electronic entry, an accounting fiction, meaningless like the debt between husband and wife. It doesn't have to be paid back. The money is created ex nihilo, and that is one of the main powers of a sovereign government. You really need to read the 2nd link I posted in my previous post.
I wasn't arguing for more fiscal integration. That's like trying to hold a locomotive together with duct tape. I'm arguing against monetary integration. The Euro should be abandoned in favor of individual currencies with floating exchange rates.
The "issuing bank" is the central bank and that for all practical purposes acts in unison with the treasury. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11218 The restraint in question is then that of government, and indeed, government is the power base that backs its currency. This means that with a fiat currency, the government has two policy tools with which to intervene in an economic crisis: one fiscal and one monetary. The relative effectiveness of each is debatable and depends on whether you're an orthodox economist or an MMTer, but it certainly beats what happens when there is no such tool available at all. Two examples: the worsening of the Great Depression due to a gold-backed currency, and the dismal failure of the Euro experiment in which individual nations lack control of their own currencies and use a unified one instead without also having fiscal and economic unification (which, in a heterogeneous collection of states such as Europe, is impossible).
The EU example actually works directly against your argument. It is exactly because Eurozone members have no control of their currencies that this is happening. You cannot have a monetary union without a fiscal and economic union as well. The disaster in Europe was predicted by MMT from the moment the Euro was even considered as a concept. As for the US, there are multiple problems that have nothing to do with the control of currency. Problems include things such as bank capital ratios not being consistently applied across the board, due to lobbying and conflicts of interest between the financial industry and regulators and favoritism. Then the wrong fixes were applied, such as QE which does nothing to boost aggregate demand, instead of targeted deficit spending which does boost it. The point is, a tool is not wrong; misuse of a tool is wrong, but the misuse is never an argument to remove the tool itself.
Actually, the natural rate is zero. And I'd take professor Mitchell's word (not to mention the MMT-based rationale) over yours any day. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=4656
You're talking about the traditional purpose of taxation. This has not been the case since Nixon nixed the last vestiges of gold-backing of the US dollar. You seem to have no idea how the modern monetary system actually works. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625 As well as here http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11218 note esp. "Given the national government can issue paper currency units or accounting information at the central bank at will, tax payments do not provide the state with any additional capacity (reflux) to spend." This is because governments which issue their own currency are not revenue constrained. There's no operational connection between deficit spending and tax collection.