It makes sense if you think about it. Slashdot is a US centric site. So be it praise or criticism, it focuses on the US
No. If you were to really think about it, then it wouldn't make sense - as I noted earlier.
Slashdot is also a site for nerds. Nerds are usually concerned with efficiency and productivity. One nasty habit of efficient and productive people is being self critical, and look at what other people are doing well/better. Identifying those things helps you improve your own efficiency and productivity
Which is what I was doing. You can thank me later.
We have about equally good materials for fusion. I.e. they are good enough for exotic uses, but not good enough for sustainable production.
That's not even remotely the problem with solar and wind.
That is one of the main reasons why wind power requires subsidies to work even decades after massive research drive.
No, it is just not economical except for fairly windy (and consistently windy) locations - or when you toss in those subsidies. In fact, it's evidence for my side that wind and solar are viable as long as someone provides the subsidy, while fusion is not.
But by all means, let's still rag on the Chinese space program for polluting our orbits.
Once again, the moral equivalence excuse gets trotted out. Let's note the obvious differences. First, our knowledge of the danger of space debris has advanced considerably in the last 50 years. The Chinese anti-satellite weapon test in question was done only six years ago and, unlike a later US anti-satellite test the next year, was done at an altitude guaranteed to generate a lot of long term orbital debris. They have no excuse for why they endangered everyone else's property in orbit.
Second, it was a test of a military weapon while the NASA experiment wasn't.
Only we should be able to do that.
Who is "we" here? It's funny how criticism of the US is ok, but criticism of a country that is worse is not.
I'm getting pretty fed up with people excusing fucked up behavior by claiming, 'waaah, but morals are hard!'
Being hard is not even remotely the same as being universal. The earlier poster was correct.
The classic example is the person who knows best. Because then there's no issue with them imposing their moral views on you. They are treating you exactly like they would want to be treated, if they were as much a bitter clinger or whatever as you. And it's infamous how little the people who know best agree with each other.
All those assertions are wrong. For example, we already have capable grid materials for solar, called "aluminum (or aluminium) wire", and we already have sufficiently "strong" (in whatever sense you're trying to claim) materials for all of the above power sources.
The only reason that solar and wind power aren't more widely used is because they are somewhat more expensive than the alternatives (particularly, the combination of coal, hydro, and natural gas power). It's not a materials engineering issue, it's an economics issue.
Yes, and most of these 50 years are about inventing materials necessary.
I don't buy that. While there is some genuine research needed for fusion and basic plasma research, I think most of that time will be spent dicking around on the public dime.
Same problem with wind and solar.
No way. It's an economics problem not a materials science problem. We already have pretty efficient solar cells. We just need to figure out how to make them and the other parts of solar power infrastructure more cheaply and efficiently. I don't see a lot of decades needed for that bit of work.
Nothing good can come from this level of spying and information gathering. Nothing!
I quite agree, s.petry! Even if you did for some reason trust the current people in power for the rest of time, they won't stay in power. Even if the current people have good intentions for such abuses of power, that doesn't mean a future more ruthless regime won't take their place. In fact, such a regime might be more likely to happen as a result of this spying and data collecting!
Just so we're clear here, you're claiming that the federal government has no business protecting individual constitutional rights, but has a vested interest in the radio spectrum?
No, can't say that I'm claiming that. Why are you asking?
In the US Supreme Court case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, it was determined that "was not a valid exercise of Congress's spending power, as it would coerce states to either accept the expansion or risk losing existing Medicaid funding" as Wikipedia put it.
The point here is that states will pick and choose what they want to implement if given the option.
And why do you think that is an issue with respect to regulation of radio spectrum? We don't get worked up over how states implement rules on jay walking or murder, for example.
The developed world is not obligated to help the undeveloped world.
Does the developed world have an obligation to help China and India? Because the funding restriction combined with voluntary mitigation on the part of the developed world is very advantageous to those two countries.
I suppose there is no obligation for the developed world to act in a suicidal and widely destructive way. It's just what they do.
Because states *love* implementing federal standards, as the Obamacare rollout clearly shows.
And if that aspect of Obamacare hadn't been found unconstitutional, those states would be implementing that particular "standard" at considerable expense.
But OTOH implementing standards for radio frequency use is a valid exercise of the Commerce clause and thus it doesn't matter if those states like it or not.
And you think regulating radio interference could be done at a state level without massive consequences?
I can't speak for the earlier poster, but standards could be set at the federal level and regulated at state level. So yes, I do think that could be done.
I don't see a lot of issues from the current approach aside from regulation of rather pointless things like naughty words and the aforementioned regulatory capture.
Start with Reagan. We would have an additional 20 years of scientific gains of that asshat hadn't actively tried to shut down solar.
That and $5 gets you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. In addition to the completely overrated "loss" you claim, we have some other observations that indicate it's complete bullshit. First, Reagan didn't actually stop US funded solar research, but merely reduced spending somewhat. Nor did he stop such research in either the private world or other governments' projects.
Third, parallel work in related fields, such as development of scanning tunneling microscopes, still continued meaning that resumed research starts at a faster rate than could be achieved even a few years earlier. Fourth, Reagan only served for eight years and I don't see anything remotely resembling a lost generation of solar research.
As for wind and solar being cheaper than coal, there are two options. You are either ignorant or stupid. We need massive breakthroughs in:
1. Material sciences and technologies.
2. Electrical grid and transformer station technology.
Those have happened and continue to happen.
What we have left is extremely complex stuff that takes decades to just progress in a significant fashion.
With fusion we're at least 50 years away (unless private industry solves the problem earlier), so there are plenty of decades with which to solve this particular set of problems.
Anything bigger than your fist doesn't burn up on reentry.
Doesn't completely burn up. Just because the residue didn't have time to heat up doesn't mean that the rest didn't burn up.
The problem isn't the head sized meteorite, but its zillion compatriots doing the same thing and dumping all that kinetic energy into the atmosphere and surface at the same time. It would be interesting to see what the effects of a shattered asteroid would be. And it might be a good idea even in the absence of asteroid shattering strategies since some asteroids may well be piles of loose rubble.
Here, we see once again that anthropogenic climate change is a developed problem and the mitigation efforts for it become a developing world problem. While AGW is claimed to affect the poorest of the world the most, it turns so do the mitigation solutions.
My view is that while the World Bank and IMF loans are dubious due to their blindness and even support for local corruption, that the denial of loans on the basis of ideological reasons is just going to make it even less effective than those organizations already were.
It was a great question to ignore. It's worth remembering that US health insurance did work at one time which happened to be the mid 20th century, then they screwed it up in a variety of ways that encouraged more consumption of health care (often by disguising it as an insurance mandated coverage) and a disconnect of the costs of health care from the ones doing the consuming.
Now, you're asking for examples of working health insurance systems, but we have to exclude examples that actually worked? That's not the way I roll.
We need to keep in mind the two huge differences between NYC and New Orleans. Even if Sandy had hit in 2005, NYC would still have fared much better because a) it's above sea level, and b) because the local and state governments are much more competent and less corrupt than the Louisiana equivalents.
For example, two key contributing factors (I'll consider them the biggest factors) to the Katrina deaths were waiting a day before declaring an evacuation of New Orleans. And second, failing to evacuate about 100,000 people who didn't have transportation while simultaneously leaving a lot of public transportation (mostly school buses) parked (where much of it was destroyed by flooding waters). Those were local and to a limited extent state government faults.
In comparison, New York City showed far greater competence when responding to the 9/11 attacks four years earlier and to Hurricane Sandy, for that matter.
So no, I don't think New Orleans should get a pass just because bad things happened during a breakup of FEMA. It would and will be a mess next time this happens. And you know that the local government is eventually going to undermine the defenses against hurricanes and flooding for profit. That's what they do.
My view is that if New Orleans wants to fund its own flood defenses like New York City does, then I'm willing to let it be. But otherwise, it doesn't deserve to exist.
Owning one of them gave to the owner the feeling of how precious and unique is the time of our life, a sensation that seems to have been forgotten by the i-something generation.
Can't say that I ever felt that when I owned one. Guess that's why I switched to battery power.
Slashdot Mirror
It makes sense if you think about it. Slashdot is a US centric site. So be it praise or criticism, it focuses on the US
No. If you were to really think about it, then it wouldn't make sense - as I noted earlier.
Slashdot is also a site for nerds. Nerds are usually concerned with efficiency and productivity. One nasty habit of efficient and productive people is being self critical, and look at what other people are doing well/better. Identifying those things helps you improve your own efficiency and productivity
Which is what I was doing. You can thank me later.
We have about equally good materials for fusion. I.e. they are good enough for exotic uses, but not good enough for sustainable production.
That's not even remotely the problem with solar and wind.
That is one of the main reasons why wind power requires subsidies to work even decades after massive research drive.
No, it is just not economical except for fairly windy (and consistently windy) locations - or when you toss in those subsidies. In fact, it's evidence for my side that wind and solar are viable as long as someone provides the subsidy, while fusion is not.
But by all means, let's still rag on the Chinese space program for polluting our orbits.
Once again, the moral equivalence excuse gets trotted out. Let's note the obvious differences. First, our knowledge of the danger of space debris has advanced considerably in the last 50 years. The Chinese anti-satellite weapon test in question was done only six years ago and, unlike a later US anti-satellite test the next year, was done at an altitude guaranteed to generate a lot of long term orbital debris. They have no excuse for why they endangered everyone else's property in orbit.
Second, it was a test of a military weapon while the NASA experiment wasn't.
Only we should be able to do that.
Who is "we" here? It's funny how criticism of the US is ok, but criticism of a country that is worse is not.
Beats having it take an automatic cut of your paycheck, doesn't it?
Morals are not universal.
Oh, the fuck they aren't.
I'm getting pretty fed up with people excusing fucked up behavior by claiming, 'waaah, but morals are hard!'
Being hard is not even remotely the same as being universal. The earlier poster was correct.
The classic example is the person who knows best. Because then there's no issue with them imposing their moral views on you. They are treating you exactly like they would want to be treated, if they were as much a bitter clinger or whatever as you. And it's infamous how little the people who know best agree with each other.
All those assertions are wrong. For example, we already have capable grid materials for solar, called "aluminum (or aluminium) wire", and we already have sufficiently "strong" (in whatever sense you're trying to claim) materials for all of the above power sources.
The only reason that solar and wind power aren't more widely used is because they are somewhat more expensive than the alternatives (particularly, the combination of coal, hydro, and natural gas power). It's not a materials engineering issue, it's an economics issue.
Yes, and most of these 50 years are about inventing materials necessary.
I don't buy that. While there is some genuine research needed for fusion and basic plasma research, I think most of that time will be spent dicking around on the public dime.
Same problem with wind and solar.
No way. It's an economics problem not a materials science problem. We already have pretty efficient solar cells. We just need to figure out how to make them and the other parts of solar power infrastructure more cheaply and efficiently. I don't see a lot of decades needed for that bit of work.
Nothing good can come from this level of spying and information gathering. Nothing!
I quite agree, s.petry! Even if you did for some reason trust the current people in power for the rest of time, they won't stay in power. Even if the current people have good intentions for such abuses of power, that doesn't mean a future more ruthless regime won't take their place. In fact, such a regime might be more likely to happen as a result of this spying and data collecting!
I see, so you want to replicate Federal regulatory enforcement in 50 states. Yep, that's going to be cost effective.
Compared to what? There's not exactly economies of scale here when the federal government does something.
No. That wasn't my response to that particular assertion. I saw and still see no relevant to spectrum allocation.
Just so we're clear here, you're claiming that the federal government has no business protecting individual constitutional rights, but has a vested interest in the radio spectrum?
No, can't say that I'm claiming that. Why are you asking?
A weak insult from an anonymous coward? Why are you unwilling to put a name to this post?
What "aspect" are you talking about?
In the US Supreme Court case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, it was determined that "was not a valid exercise of Congress's spending power, as it would coerce states to either accept the expansion or risk losing existing Medicaid funding" as Wikipedia put it.
The point here is that states will pick and choose what they want to implement if given the option.
And why do you think that is an issue with respect to regulation of radio spectrum? We don't get worked up over how states implement rules on jay walking or murder, for example.
The developed world is not obligated to help the undeveloped world.
Does the developed world have an obligation to help China and India? Because the funding restriction combined with voluntary mitigation on the part of the developed world is very advantageous to those two countries.
I suppose there is no obligation for the developed world to act in a suicidal and widely destructive way. It's just what they do.
Because states *love* implementing federal standards, as the Obamacare rollout clearly shows.
And if that aspect of Obamacare hadn't been found unconstitutional, those states would be implementing that particular "standard" at considerable expense.
But OTOH implementing standards for radio frequency use is a valid exercise of the Commerce clause and thus it doesn't matter if those states like it or not.
And you think regulating radio interference could be done at a state level without massive consequences?
I can't speak for the earlier poster, but standards could be set at the federal level and regulated at state level. So yes, I do think that could be done.
I don't see a lot of issues from the current approach aside from regulation of rather pointless things like naughty words and the aforementioned regulatory capture.
Start with Reagan. We would have an additional 20 years of scientific gains of that asshat hadn't actively tried to shut down solar.
That and $5 gets you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. In addition to the completely overrated "loss" you claim, we have some other observations that indicate it's complete bullshit. First, Reagan didn't actually stop US funded solar research, but merely reduced spending somewhat. Nor did he stop such research in either the private world or other governments' projects.
Third, parallel work in related fields, such as development of scanning tunneling microscopes, still continued meaning that resumed research starts at a faster rate than could be achieved even a few years earlier. Fourth, Reagan only served for eight years and I don't see anything remotely resembling a lost generation of solar research.
As for wind and solar being cheaper than coal, there are two options. You are either ignorant or stupid. We need massive breakthroughs in:
1. Material sciences and technologies.
2. Electrical grid and transformer station technology.
Those have happened and continue to happen.
What we have left is extremely complex stuff that takes decades to just progress in a significant fashion.
With fusion we're at least 50 years away (unless private industry solves the problem earlier), so there are plenty of decades with which to solve this particular set of problems.
It also takes hearing the "thunk" in a high noise environment. And if another car is acquired, the process can be repeated.
The Predator drone already does this.
Anything bigger than your fist doesn't burn up on reentry.
Doesn't completely burn up. Just because the residue didn't have time to heat up doesn't mean that the rest didn't burn up.
The problem isn't the head sized meteorite, but its zillion compatriots doing the same thing and dumping all that kinetic energy into the atmosphere and surface at the same time. It would be interesting to see what the effects of a shattered asteroid would be. And it might be a good idea even in the absence of asteroid shattering strategies since some asteroids may well be piles of loose rubble.
Here, we see once again that anthropogenic climate change is a developed problem and the mitigation efforts for it become a developing world problem. While AGW is claimed to affect the poorest of the world the most, it turns so do the mitigation solutions.
My view is that while the World Bank and IMF loans are dubious due to their blindness and even support for local corruption, that the denial of loans on the basis of ideological reasons is just going to make it even less effective than those organizations already were.
And I see you chose to ignore my question.
It was a great question to ignore. It's worth remembering that US health insurance did work at one time which happened to be the mid 20th century, then they screwed it up in a variety of ways that encouraged more consumption of health care (often by disguising it as an insurance mandated coverage) and a disconnect of the costs of health care from the ones doing the consuming.
Now, you're asking for examples of working health insurance systems, but we have to exclude examples that actually worked? That's not the way I roll.
We need to keep in mind the two huge differences between NYC and New Orleans. Even if Sandy had hit in 2005, NYC would still have fared much better because a) it's above sea level, and b) because the local and state governments are much more competent and less corrupt than the Louisiana equivalents.
For example, two key contributing factors (I'll consider them the biggest factors) to the Katrina deaths were waiting a day before declaring an evacuation of New Orleans. And second, failing to evacuate about 100,000 people who didn't have transportation while simultaneously leaving a lot of public transportation (mostly school buses) parked (where much of it was destroyed by flooding waters). Those were local and to a limited extent state government faults.
In comparison, New York City showed far greater competence when responding to the 9/11 attacks four years earlier and to Hurricane Sandy, for that matter.
So no, I don't think New Orleans should get a pass just because bad things happened during a breakup of FEMA. It would and will be a mess next time this happens. And you know that the local government is eventually going to undermine the defenses against hurricanes and flooding for profit. That's what they do.
My view is that if New Orleans wants to fund its own flood defenses like New York City does, then I'm willing to let it be. But otherwise, it doesn't deserve to exist.
Owning one of them gave to the owner the feeling of how precious and unique is the time of our life, a sensation that seems to have been forgotten by the i-something generation.
Can't say that I ever felt that when I owned one. Guess that's why I switched to battery power.