Let me start by saying I have strong libertarian tendencies, but find that the Libertarian Party doesn't really get us to libertarianism ever, partly because (in my mind) of a lot of impracticality.
So... if we can't be libertarian, what's the second best alternative? In that case, I tend to say the next best alternative is that one man should not be enslaving another through the law (The Law, an excellent work). But that, in turn, means "pay as you go", or "fee for service".
Let's face it -- the government cannot do all these things for free. Someone has to pay, and it usually comes out in the form of taxes. But just because there are some things that we cannot push over into "fee for service" (welfare, for example... all we can do is eliminate it or turn it into voluntary social insurance) or cannot convert easily (national defense; should that be a property tax or a head tax?) doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to allocate costs to the beneficiary.
In this case, we should consider that the production of software *can* pay for itself if it is licensed, at least until it has paid for itself.
Therefore, I would suggest that much better than advocating GPL, we should advocate an "approaching GPL" position. That is, the cost of producing the software is totted up. At that point, the government sets a licensing fee. When the total fees paid for that software reach the cost of production (inflation-adjusted and interest-rate-adjusted), then the software immediately becomes GPL'd.
That way, if a company wants rights to use the software, they can pay -- and for a while, have something that is semi-proprietary. But if the Linux crowd wants it, they can simply pay the difference, and immediately port it into Linux.
Anyhow, we do DTP, but if we ever do get into software, that is how I intend to run things (with a modest profit included, since we are a business).
The post above this is very clear and authoritative, and confirms something that I remember hearing, but can't remember the source (quite often for me).
It would seem to me that for this reason, you want thickness, among other things, and possibly some space between each layer of material (thin layer of lead, then space, then copper, and so on.) But also useful is such a thing as wood-ice pulp. Structurally strong, it also provides a good thickness against micrometeorites, easy repairability, a good source of both oxygen and water, good thermal insulation. But you can't get it up easily from the Earth's surface.
It may be one reason to look twice at the moon. Even if there isn't any water (and I seem to remember that there is some ice there in some of the craters), you can always extract water from the rock.
----- No.... not the post above mine, I mean mod *MY* post up.(just kidding).
Actually, I seem to remember that of the "easy" news sources -- TV and Radio, only 5 companies have locked up 80% of the media. How can they do that? Well, the easy news sources require radio wave bandwidth, and that's controlled by the FTC, which is in turn controlled by laws written by Congress, which is selected through a voting mechanism heavily weighted towards two specific parties [which work together as one], which also takes marching orders from the same media that they depend on for reelection.
So yeah, unless you want to make a false distinction between media and the government, I'd say that freedom of the press is a problem in America, and that it is governmentally restricted.
Just because the restriction goes through two layers doesn't mean it isn't there.
Okay, I'm going to give the standard reply, and then my own reply.
The surface area of a sphere is 4pi *r-squared. Except, in a gravitational field, it is less than that. That is, there is more volume for the surface area than you would think. Or, alternatively, if you calculated the surface area, and then calculated how far you could fall to the center, you would be surprised: in a black hole, you could fall forever.
So you shouldn't be surprised that there is more space (less mass) than you would think. Black holes are nothing but space.
That's the simple answer, anyhow.
For a more complex reply, consider this:
Heisenberg's Energy Uncertainty principle: DEDT=hbar in essence means that a particle can only disappear from the rest of the universe for a short time. Disappearance, though, is defined by a failure to interact. Therefore, particles are forced into interaction in the interests of conservation of energy. [Actually not inherently true, but effectively true.]
Quarks in our neutrons therefore must interact with something. That something is space. By the nature of the possible modes of interaction for quarks, though, we can deduce that the substance of space is an unassociated color-charged and electrically-charged medium.
By the nature of the wavelengths of interaction, and the behavior that we see in light, spatial coordinate systems tend to be defined by higher-energy, more localized particles. So we could infer (not deduce) that the substance of space would be small-radius highly energetic particles.
By the nature of the granularity of time, and by the fact that we cannot detect a spatial ether, we should be able to infer that the particles that comprise the substance of space, when detectable, have extremely short lifetimes.
Now, consider a neutron falling into that star at the center of our galaxy. Well, not star. That black hole. As it falls, the quark nearest it is pulled away from the others, until the energy reaches the energy of creation of a Quark/antiquark pair. That quark/antiquark pair in turn is accelerated away yet farther, and creates another, and another. By the Heisenburg momentum equation, the quark's waveform spreads out flat (perpendicular to acceleration) and thin (in the direction of acceleration), like a pancake. Eventually, these pancake quarks do intersect each other, allowing the quarks to satisfy the zero-color principle.
But these pancakes intersect in an area that is of very high energy, small cross-section, and short lifetime. More than that, by its nature (3 color charges) it is stable in only two modes: tunnel 2-D mode (in black holes) and 3-D mode (in space). That is, you can have particles all going in the same direction, and intersect on a flat plane, or you can have them going in 3 different directions, and intersect in a 3-D space. These particles, in the 3-D mode, would interact with quarks that were not relativistic, and provide cross-communication with the entire universe.
Anyhow, given this line of reasoning, I tend to suspect that black holes are nothing more than the pulling of matter into space. If so, the tunnelling mechanism is inherent -- that is, the black holes are all the time decaying into normal space, which slowly decays via particle-antiparticle creation into matter.
I noticed very quickly that the same bugs that were in M$ Word 97+-- document corruption bugs, and such, also appear in Corel WordPerfect. Now, I also seem to remember reading somewhere -- and my memory is faulty so I could be wrong -- that when they went to Word 97, they hired a top WordPerfect programmer who was the visionary for M$ Word.
But I am not so sure that this is a case of competition. This could be simply a case of screwed-up-code-reuse (read piracy). So in a wierd twist of fate, it could be that Microsoft Word's real costs--the cost of having to rewrite and rerewrite your documents -- could be caused by piracy, while the initial, apparent cost, is only caused by Microsoft's desire for money.
Speech, as defined by the courts, consists of a large publisher being able to tell his reporters what to write. (I think I remember this from an issue regarding Drudge).
Therefore, this -- and any unfortunate statements about Bush, Clinton, Teddy Roosevelt, Kennedy, or any of our other illustrious fathers -- isn't speech.
Don't worry, it's still the land of the free and the home of the brave. At least, I FEEL FREE AND I FEEL I AM DEFINITELY BRAVE FOR SAYING SO, SO LEAVE ME ALONE AND DON'T AUDIT ME.
I generally support Goodlatte because he is responsive. I do not consider him to be perfect, I do not consider him to be truly libertarian. He is a libertarian-leaning conservative, with all that that implies.
My advice would be this:
(1) go first to his office in Roanoke and then to one of his town meetings, and let him know, first privately (2-3 wks ahead of time) then publicly, why you disapprove of his postion here.
(2) If he does not eventually come around (and chances are that he won't, but you should give him the opportunity) then support a Libertarian running against him.
The thing is, Libertarians really will run when there is little or no chance of election, because they run as much to get the message across as to be elected. For them, it isn't an investment in power. Democrats will not run in such a situation. Goodlatte is responsive to his district, so Democrats typically have no chance against him. Thus every year he runs unopposed.
P.S. There is a Libertarian running for US Senate. I think his name is Hohnberger or something. I vastly prefer him to the Warner [there was the Robber in the Upper House, and the Warner. Allen ousted the Robber, maybe we can get rid of the Warner too, who may be the more dangerous of the two.] Again, I don't consider Allen to be a libertarian, just a libertarian-leaning conservative. But (1) unlike Robb and Warner, he isn't corrupt yet, anyhow (2) libertarian-leaning conservative is far better than outright socialist, which both Robb and Warner are, Robb one kind, and John Warner the other.
Sounds like you want to go nuclear. To go nuclear, you can have your uranium or Americium in the center of a vat of water (to stop the neutrons, and gather heat). But you then need to export the heat to produced electricity. Most people would use a heat engine for that, but a heat engine is hard to miniaturize.
Here's a better way: use electrons as your heat engine gas, since electrons are both good at transporting heat and electricity, both, and have fewer accessible states than molecular gases.
Design: set a nanoscale series of pin grid arrays on top of each other, as shown below, and then run one wire from the bottom, and one wire from a flat collector plate at the top:
Heat applied to the -N Volt plate causes electrons to boil away from the heat source, to the tips of the pins, where electric field lines concentrate, and cause the electrons to jump off the pin tips to the next plate. Essentially, the important thing is the radius of the pin tip divided by the area of the flat plate in front (same thing that sticks a balloon to the wall with static electricity). So you can run a wire out through the center of your power plate, and electricity will still flow as indicated.
So make two sets of curved plates, one in a hexagonal shape and one kind if a smaller pentagon shape, and assemble them around your spherical water vat, like a soccer ball.
Production: I suggest using acid etching, much the same as we do for PCBs. Actually, it might be possible to do this with standard chip making technology.
Disclaimer: Since this is now published, it is not available for patenting. If you want to do this, you will have to do it without any IP or monopolistic advantages.
Just a point here: You must notice that anything a copyright can do, an enforceable contract can do (for example, shrink-wrap licensing).
So if you think that patents or copyrights are the source of the problem and must be eliminated, then you also have to eliminate the enforceable contract.
Sound radical? Well, yes. But consider: the enforceable contract is a way to extend a current situation indefinitely into the future as individually legislated law. Not just definitely -- for contracts do yield a way to apply the same pressures later that are applied now. So if you provide the contract as a form of power, one man over another, some men will use that power to enslave others.
What's the alternative? I can think of a couple:
(1) the unenforceable contract. Contracts are simply not enforced against anyone who publicly revokes his contractual obligations. The key word here is "publicly". By doing this, he also indicates to others that he is not 100% reliable on his contracts. The wording of his public revokation can go on record, so that others can see where he has historically failed in his contracts.
(2) the moment-only contract: Contracts do not extend forward in time. They are good only for the moment at which they are made. That is enough to transfer property and deeds, but is not enough to force a person into the future.
Whether this is a good idea or not, I do not know. I do think that copyrights and patents go directly against natural law. However, I also think that the powerful will always seek to enslave the weak, and short of an Orwellian state, we can't stop that. Come to think of it, in an Orwellian state the powerful have simply succeeded in enslaving the weak. But there is a limit to how much we are called to *do* to stop injustice; all that we really *must* do is witness to the truth.
The rest is up to individual men's free will, and the Lord of History (God).
Couple more points in response to your pretty good points:
(1) I wasn't comparing clinical research to the Tuskegee experiment. On the contrary, I was just saying that "legitimate care", going the standard route with official governmentally approved doctors, does not guarantee care in America. Although the Tuskegee experiment was not all that common, our government does have a history spotted with nazi-like behavior, and part of that is "medical experiments". Another such experiment was the "downwind experiments" on the Mormons at Nevada -- that, of course, did not involve doctors.
(2) From my experience, the problem is not uninsured patients. If anything, the problem is related to the insurance companies themselves. As I understand it, the insurance companies typically demand reductions in cost that drive the expenses over to the uninsured people -- and the hospitals accept that. But since most people are insured, that drives the cost for uninsured people sky high. Technically, such a practice is in violation of antitrust laws -- but usually such laws don't get enforced against truely monopolistic partners. Essentially, the costs of insurance are being borne by the uninsured.
Part of the nature of the problem is also that (1) when you need hospital care, you aren't in a position to argue -- they have your life as hostage, (2) the hospitals are structured to hide the expenses and make it difficult or impossible to compare values. Ask for a price list, and they will typically tell you to get lost.
In my current country, the cost of medical care ends up being about $5-$10 for a hospital outpatient visit and tests. Probably we *don't* have such a lawsuit problem -- but when there is such a huge difference, $10 vs $1200, I think the problem is more economically structural.
Funny thing, though: again the insurance companies are profiting from me without giving a benefit in return. The thing is, there is a law that requires us to have medical insurance at international rates, which means US+ prices. But at $5 or $10 a visit, it just isn't worth it to file paperwork of $30 of visits, especially when there is a $2000 deductible (annual insurance costs, $3500 for our family, no pregnancy coverage, foot coverage, or back coverage.) So essentially, based on laws that the insurance companies managed to get passed, we have to pay Lloyd's $3500/yr for the right to be here. They, in turn, give us the grace of living in a much cheaper country... you get the idea.
Actually, too, I would rather not do business with Lloyds, but Lloyds seems to be what is required by law. Lloyds has a history of being involved in fraud for financial gain , and when necessary, murdering oppsing litigants and burglarizing the litigants' lawyers to cover their tracks.
One article closely related to all this: http://www.truthaboutlloyds.com/news/news_d p_01129 8.html (the Daily Press of Newport News has had several articles about this).
So again, I tend to think the problem is systemic, and probably more tied to the insurance rackets than mitigated by them. Essentially, the medical industry has a crime ring draining it, rather than an insurance benefit helping it.
The solution isn't to scrap the legal/judicial system, it's to improve it. How to do that is an interesting and complex question. It's not clear how to easily discourage this sort of legal skirmishing without discouraging legitimate claims as well.
The American system is essentially trial by battle, with lawyers functioning as knights. Of course the wealthier people can afford a better knight; the lesser knight loses (used to be dies), the wealthier man wins, and the poor get oppressed.
Well then how about the French system?
There, both sides are supposed to work together for justice; the problem, as presented by the famous novel "Papillon", is that very quickly both sides are working together, but not for justice, just for the appearance of justice.
Essentially, your question comes down to the following: in a fallen world, how do we hold the powerful accountable to the weak whom they abuse?
Unfortunately, the answer is contained in the definition of what powerful and weak are: you don't.
What you are seeking is impossible in that sense of the word; those minor details are no more minor than the minor details involved in solving Fermat's last theorem [I know, I know, they say it's been solved. But it isn't simple and wonderful.]
That said, there are some other answers that can be drawn out:
(1) Try to make the world less fallen, starting and finishing with #1. The less petty evil there is, the less likely you are to see abuses grow.
(2) If you are on the tracks and a train is coming, don't think that your flag will stop it, unless you are Bill Gates, and your flag simply says "I have a bigger train than you."
(3) Even the powerful are still accountable for their actions. They just aren't accountable to you. They are accountable to God and natural law. There is plenty of history to testify to the point: people who are powerful and abusive eventually pick too big a battle, and take themselves out. Don't take comfort in that fact--take warning, and don't be abusive, yourself.
Don't be proud based upon America having the highest standard of living. A large part of that standard of living is held by such things as the IMF debt, the American military world dominance, the structure of American law as a haven for immoral and illegal investment...
I would say that shame should be a much greater component of your response to the American standard of living.
Now, if you wanted to talk about pride in any of the many ways that Americans are more honest, honorable, hard working (or whatever) than their counterparts in another country, then I'd say, go ahead and be proud.
As for me, I moved out of America to a 2nd world country, in order to build a business. I'm not sure that we'll be successful, but I'm working like heck to try to make it work. Some things about the locals here I find praiseworthy compared to Americans. Some things I find lacking. But in America I had zero chance to make something of myself. Here, I have a chance.
I think there's a pattern: that in each country, there are those who are bound by custom and law. Others, if they want to succeed in creating something new, often have to emmigrate to another place, where they are not bound by custom, and hopefully not too bound by law (if they are of good will) to succeed.
So if a person is failing in their own country, I'm all for migration. For various reasons, I was a complete failure in America. Here, overworked I am, failure I am not.
Re:In another surprising study...
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The Aging Gamer
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There are 50 people funning for Miss America, and only two running for US President, because it doesn't matter if we pick the wrong Miss America -- but gosh darn, everything could fall apart if we pick a president who wasn't qualified.
Better give em a choice from only two. That way we can be sure.
BTW... "fig"? Wouldn't be Class of 91 VA Tech Thomas Hall, would it?
Yes, that is one point -- and almost definitely why students would be assigned to a clinic.
However, in America, at least, there is a major problem started by the AMA of all things: there aren't enough doctors, and the AMA actively lobbies to keep things that way. That way, doctors can command higher prices for their labor, even though some people necessarily must go without treatment and die.
This was actually a big issue with my grandfather, who was among other things the first NY State pediatrician to immunize all of the students in his district, and later held some state office as a medical doctor (the way the surgeon general is, but this was much lower. I don't remember the title, and am not going to make something up).
Anyhow, he dropped out of the AMA specifically because they were using his dues to lobby for the medical schools to train fewer doctors. In order to avoid embarrassment, they in turn made him an honorary member of life. But one way or another, eventually, they got their wish: fewer doctors.
So given that choice, I think that the availability of internet trained doctors is much better than nothing. There have been times when I was poor, and would have been happy to diagnose and treat myself, *without more training than a Merck index and my eyes*, because it was better than nothing (which I actually got).
Nor are doctors spotless. The typical intern kills about 15 people by his misdiagnoses and maltreatment, and the typical doctor kills 1-2 patients a year the same way (one reason among many for the M&M sessions.) That doesn't count the quacks with a real degree -- doctors who try to schedule their patients for as many visits as possible before treating the illness, in order to maximize their take -- and sometimes inadvertantly kill their patients. Nor does it count the official medical experiments (like the Tuskegee Experiment) that deliberately harm or kill the patients without their knowledge.
I am not saying that I don't prefer a real doctor; I do. But by all means, a better selection for people of all income ranges, and better availability, is better. Again, something is better than nothing, and because a $125 doctor's bill for a visit, or a $1200 hospital bill for 5 stitches is too much for many Americans, too many people have nothing.
If I remember correctly [IANAL, IAAG], patents are invalidated by publication.
That is, you cannot get a patent if the idea has already been published somewhere, *even if you were the one to publish*. Therefore, if you are going to go the patent route, you need to let your patent application be the first publication.
Don't forget to take into account conservation of momentum and conservation of angular momentum. Those space elevators aren't going to be all that rigid, so you typically will find that the energy won't transfer -- your space elevator will either bend or (most likely) simply break. The worst possibility would be if your space elevator *doesn't* break, because in that case all that energy also gets applied to the ground end. Next thing you know, you'll have the ground end tear free, and then you've got a problem with it progressing out of orbit, ripping its cables through the air, trees, ground, and whatnot. A major problem.
Indeed, I seem to remember that Carl Sagan's book (involving a space elevator) had an event like that.
I noticed that comment about those who do this being drunk at the time, and couldn't help but remember this.
Of course, if you want to prepare it in the more traditional manner, the way I have heard it is:
burn wood --> ashes ashes+water---heat--->dilute NaOH (boil down to desired concentration, I have no idea what.) NaOH+lard --> good yellow soap.
Needless to say, you want to be careful that the lard you use is not your own. I know some people say you can't be too clean in the lab, but I think that in this case we could agree that one would be overdoing the cleanliness.
Actually, thinking about all that dark fiber around Africa's cost, one needs to wonder just how much of that dark fiber really exists. Once this current recession is over, we may find that the dark fiber just isn't there.
**really, really dark**
However, I'm not going to guess when this current recession will be over. When the tax load is low, war mobilizes the workforce, temporarily redistributes a lot of money (at a cost of war bonds: having to unredistribute it later, with a bite), and thus spurs the economy.
When the tax load is already high, war drives the tax rate up past the breaking point, and simply results in permanentizing the recession by pushing it all into unsupportable debt. That in turn means that the government will have to nationalize resources through taxes, confiscation, military raids on other countries, and whatnot. In CATO Institute's terminology, I rather suspect that this is equivalent to the government not being held by the rule of law (economically).
Nor will America's recent history hold them back from that.
Since the world economy is, by force (pun intended), tied to the IMF which is in turn tied to America's economy, the CATO Institute's rule for the Argentinan crash applies: A free currency that is not governed by the rule of law results in a destroyed economy. Worldwide. The exceptions will be those few countries *not* tied into the IMF economy.
Nope, I'm not expecting us to pull out of this one.
One could as easily point out that humanity will surely die unless we learn to live lives of grace.
Anything we can do here on Earth to destroy ourselves, we can also do to Mars, Venus, the moon, and the asteroid belt. What difference does it make, then, if we wipe out ourselves over an area the order of magnitude of the Solar System, or the order of magnitude of the Earth?
For that reason alone, I advocate an "ecologically sound" space race. Don't do things in this space race "to save humanity later" that destroy humanity now.
My big problem with Paypal is the terms of insurance. But the fact that Ebay bought them gives me some level of reassurance.
I got burned with a seller who claimed to be from one place, but turned out to be 1/8 of the way around the globe (from Georgian Republic, of all places, Russian mafia hotbed).
He sold a licensed copy of Quark, but delivered only a CD, plus a Win98 user's manual. There were several levels of fraud, including the return address (Constitution Street??? In Tbilisi?), the name, the product, and so on.
Ebay counted it as fraud (and said I'd get payment... I don't think I've recieved it yet).
But Paypal said that since *something* was shipped, regardless of all the levels of fraud, then their insurance would not cover it. Plus, they wouldn't even take a fraud insurance request, initially. That's right, their system locked me out, and refused. I had to find a phone number through the paypallawsuit website, and call to get to step zero.
That being the case, their claims of fraud insurance actually created a haven for thieves, and I dropped them.
However, when Ebay asked if I would buy again through ebay, my response was that I didn't have a way to pay anymore, so probably not. In line with that, we *might* be interested in continuing.
What has my rep done for me lately? Well, my current representative is just to the north of Boucher: Goodlatte.
Back in 93/4, I found a bunch of newspaper articles about how our ATF, FBI, and National Park Service was gunning down innocent Americans, essentially Nazi SS style. It was only in local newspapers, but not in the national news (one reason I abandoned the national news, and don't believe they give us squat). I took these to Goodlatte, and asked him to "wrist slap" the ATF and the FBI, to let them know that this kind of thing was not acceptable.
Well, first of all, he actually listened to me. Second of all, after a town meeting just *after* the Waco McVeigh bombing, I went in and repeated my request.
While all the rest of the country was enmired in an attitude "we gotta show those terrorist American gunloving.........", Goodlatte actually did sponsor, then cosponsor, then get passed a bill that gave the ATF and the FBI substantial wrist slaps for their own part in terrorism.
The raids and murders stopped, for about 5-6 years.
That wasn't too bad, in my opinion.
I've been in Boucher's district too, and I can't say that I have anything substantially good to say about him. If you think you can use him here, all well and good. But I can't say a lot positive about him.
Don't. I'm from the SW Virginia area (college years).
Boucher's district remains mired in poverty, as much because of the government programs he supports, as anything. And the poorer his district gets, the wealthier he gets.
Before you vote for him, go down to his district, and talk to the poor people there.
I did. I wouldn't.
He'd be as bad as Clinton (from another war zone, I have heard).
And yes, Clinton was bad. That isn't to say that George Bush is worth mentioning, but Clinton prepared the country for Bush. Don't do it again.
Vote Libertarian. Or Green, if you must. Just don't vote for yet another Dem Publican.
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Let me start by saying I have strong libertarian tendencies, but find that the Libertarian Party doesn't really get us to libertarianism ever, partly because (in my mind) of a lot of impracticality.
So... if we can't be libertarian, what's the second best alternative? In that case, I tend to say the next best alternative is that one man should not be enslaving another through the law (The Law, an excellent work). But that, in turn, means "pay as you go", or "fee for service".
Let's face it -- the government cannot do all these things for free. Someone has to pay, and it usually comes out in the form of taxes. But just because there are some things that we cannot push over into "fee for service" (welfare, for example... all we can do is eliminate it or turn it into voluntary social insurance) or cannot convert easily (national defense; should that be a property tax or a head tax?) doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to allocate costs to the beneficiary.
In this case, we should consider that the production of software *can* pay for itself if it is licensed, at least until it has paid for itself.
Therefore, I would suggest that much better than advocating GPL, we should advocate an "approaching GPL" position. That is, the cost of producing the software is totted up. At that point, the government sets a licensing fee. When the total fees paid for that software reach the cost of production (inflation-adjusted and interest-rate-adjusted), then the software immediately becomes GPL'd.
That way, if a company wants rights to use the software, they can pay -- and for a while, have something that is semi-proprietary. But if the Linux crowd wants it, they can simply pay the difference, and immediately port it into Linux.
Anyhow, we do DTP, but if we ever do get into software, that is how I intend to run things (with a modest profit included, since we are a business).
... so you don't count.
[Actually, back when I was an AOE student, I used the phrase to excuse myself when I miscounted things.]
The post above this is very clear and authoritative, and confirms something that I remember hearing, but can't remember the source (quite often for me).
It would seem to me that for this reason, you want thickness, among other things, and possibly some space between each layer of material (thin layer of lead, then space, then copper, and so on.) But also useful is such a thing as wood-ice pulp. Structurally strong, it also provides a good thickness against micrometeorites, easy repairability, a good source of both oxygen and water, good thermal insulation. But you can't get it up easily from the Earth's surface.
It may be one reason to look twice at the moon. Even if there isn't any water (and I seem to remember that there is some ice there in some of the craters), you can always extract water from the rock.
-----
No.... not the post above mine, I mean mod *MY* post up.(just kidding).
Actually, I seem to remember that of the "easy" news sources -- TV and Radio, only 5 companies have locked up 80% of the media. How can they do that? Well, the easy news sources require radio wave bandwidth, and that's controlled by the FTC, which is in turn controlled by laws written by Congress, which is selected through a voting mechanism heavily weighted towards two specific parties [which work together as one], which also takes marching orders from the same media that they depend on for reelection.
So yeah, unless you want to make a false distinction between media and the government, I'd say that freedom of the press is a problem in America, and that it is governmentally restricted.
Just because the restriction goes through two layers doesn't mean it isn't there.
Well, now you know that it isn't just you who's talking out your tail... *I* am too...
Okay, I'm going to give the standard reply, and then my own reply.
The surface area of a sphere is 4pi *r-squared. Except, in a gravitational field, it is less than that.
That is, there is more volume for the surface area than you would think. Or, alternatively, if you calculated the surface area, and then calculated how far you could fall to the center, you would be surprised: in a black hole, you could fall forever.
So you shouldn't be surprised that there is more space (less mass) than you would think. Black holes are nothing but space.
That's the simple answer, anyhow.
For a more complex reply, consider this:
Heisenberg's Energy Uncertainty principle: DEDT=hbar in essence means that a particle can only disappear from the rest of the universe for a short time. Disappearance, though, is defined by a failure to interact. Therefore, particles are forced into interaction in the interests of conservation of energy. [Actually not inherently true, but effectively true.]
Quarks in our neutrons therefore must interact with something. That something is space. By the nature of the possible modes of interaction for quarks, though, we can deduce that the substance of space is an unassociated color-charged and electrically-charged medium.
By the nature of the wavelengths of interaction, and the behavior that we see in light, spatial coordinate systems tend to be defined by higher-energy, more localized particles. So we could infer (not deduce) that the substance of space would be small-radius highly energetic particles.
By the nature of the granularity of time, and by the fact that we cannot detect a spatial ether, we should be able to infer that the particles that comprise the substance of space, when detectable, have extremely short lifetimes.
Now, consider a neutron falling into that star at the center of our galaxy. Well, not star. That black hole. As it falls, the quark nearest it is pulled away from the others, until the energy reaches the energy of creation of a Quark/antiquark pair. That quark/antiquark pair in turn is accelerated away yet farther, and creates another, and another. By the Heisenburg momentum equation, the quark's waveform spreads out flat (perpendicular to acceleration) and thin (in the direction of acceleration), like a pancake. Eventually, these pancake quarks do intersect each other, allowing the quarks to satisfy the zero-color principle.
But these pancakes intersect in an area that is of very high energy, small cross-section, and short lifetime. More than that, by its nature (3 color charges) it is stable in only two modes: tunnel 2-D mode (in black holes) and 3-D mode (in space). That is, you can have particles all going in the same direction, and intersect on a flat plane, or you can have them going in 3 different directions, and intersect in a 3-D space. These particles, in the 3-D mode, would interact with quarks that were not relativistic, and provide cross-communication with the entire universe.
Anyhow, given this line of reasoning, I tend to suspect that black holes are nothing more than the pulling of matter into space. If so, the tunnelling mechanism is inherent -- that is, the black holes are all the time decaying into normal space, which slowly decays via particle-antiparticle creation into matter.
I noticed very quickly that the same bugs that were in M$ Word 97+-- document corruption bugs, and such, also appear in Corel WordPerfect. Now, I also seem to remember reading somewhere -- and my memory is faulty so I could be wrong -- that when they went to Word 97, they hired a top WordPerfect programmer who was the visionary for M$ Word.
But I am not so sure that this is a case of competition. This could be simply a case of screwed-up-code-reuse (read piracy). So in a wierd twist of fate, it could be that Microsoft Word's real costs--the cost of having to rewrite and rerewrite your documents -- could be caused by piracy, while the initial, apparent cost, is only caused by Microsoft's desire for money.
Speech, as defined by the courts, consists of a large publisher being able to tell his reporters what to write. (I think I remember this from an issue regarding Drudge).
Therefore, this -- and any unfortunate statements about Bush, Clinton, Teddy Roosevelt, Kennedy, or any of our other illustrious fathers -- isn't speech.
Don't worry, it's still the land of the free and the home of the brave. At least, I FEEL FREE AND I FEEL I AM DEFINITELY BRAVE FOR SAYING SO, SO LEAVE ME ALONE AND DON'T AUDIT ME.
I generally support Goodlatte because he is responsive. I do not consider him to be perfect, I do not consider him to be truly libertarian. He is a libertarian-leaning conservative, with all that that implies.
My advice would be this:
(1) go first to his office in Roanoke and then to one of his town meetings, and let him know, first privately (2-3 wks ahead of time) then publicly, why you disapprove of his postion here.
(2) If he does not eventually come around (and chances are that he won't, but you should give him the opportunity) then support a Libertarian running against him.
The thing is, Libertarians really will run when there is little or no chance of election, because they run as much to get the message across as to be elected. For them, it isn't an investment in power. Democrats will not run in such a situation. Goodlatte is responsive to his district, so Democrats typically have no chance against him. Thus every year he runs unopposed.
P.S. There is a Libertarian running for US Senate. I think his name is Hohnberger or something. I vastly prefer him to the Warner [there was the Robber in the Upper House, and the Warner. Allen ousted the Robber, maybe we can get rid of the Warner too, who may be the more dangerous of the two.] Again, I don't consider Allen to be a libertarian, just a libertarian-leaning conservative. But (1) unlike Robb and Warner, he isn't corrupt yet, anyhow (2) libertarian-leaning conservative is far better than outright socialist, which both Robb and Warner are, Robb one kind, and John Warner the other.
Sounds like you want to go nuclear. To go nuclear, you can have your uranium or Americium in the center of a vat of water (to stop the neutrons, and gather heat). But you then need to export the heat to produced electricity. Most people would use a heat engine for that, but a heat engine is hard to miniaturize.
:
_ L__L__L__________ -N Volts
Here's a better way: use electrons as your heat engine gas, since electrons are both good at transporting heat and electricity, both, and have fewer accessible states than molecular gases.
Design: set a nanoscale series of pin grid arrays on top of each other, as shown below, and then run one wire from the bottom, and one wire from a flat collector plate at the top
__________________________+N Volts
_L__L__L__L__L__
_L__L__L__L__L__
_L__L_
Heat applied to the -N Volt plate causes electrons to boil away from the heat source, to the tips of the pins, where electric field lines concentrate, and cause the electrons to jump off the pin tips to the next plate. Essentially, the important thing is the radius of the pin tip divided by the area of the flat plate in front (same thing that sticks a balloon to the wall with static electricity). So you can run a wire out through the center of your power plate, and electricity will still flow as indicated.
So make two sets of curved plates, one in a hexagonal shape and one kind if a smaller pentagon shape, and assemble them around your spherical water vat, like a soccer ball.
Production: I suggest using acid etching, much the same as we do for PCBs. Actually, it might be possible to do this with standard chip making technology.
Disclaimer: Since this is now published, it is not available for patenting. If you want to do this, you will have to do it without any IP or monopolistic advantages.
Just a point here: You must notice that anything a copyright can do, an enforceable contract can do (for example, shrink-wrap licensing).
So if you think that patents or copyrights are the source of the problem and must be eliminated, then you also have to eliminate the enforceable contract.
Sound radical? Well, yes. But consider: the enforceable contract is a way to extend a current situation indefinitely into the future as individually legislated law. Not just definitely -- for contracts do yield a way to apply the same pressures later that are applied now. So if you provide the contract as a form of power, one man over another, some men will use that power to enslave others.
What's the alternative? I can think of a couple:
(1) the unenforceable contract. Contracts are simply not enforced against anyone who publicly revokes his contractual obligations. The key word here is "publicly". By doing this, he also indicates to others that he is not 100% reliable on his contracts. The wording of his public revokation can go on record, so that others can see where he has historically failed in his contracts.
(2) the moment-only contract: Contracts do not extend forward in time. They are good only for the moment at which they are made. That is enough to transfer property and deeds, but is not enough to force a person into the future.
Whether this is a good idea or not, I do not know. I do think that copyrights and patents go directly against natural law. However, I also think that the powerful will always seek to enslave the weak, and short of an Orwellian state, we can't stop that. Come to think of it, in an Orwellian state the powerful have simply succeeded in enslaving the weak. But there is a limit to how much we are called to *do* to stop injustice; all that we really *must* do is witness to the truth.
The rest is up to individual men's free will, and the Lord of History (God).
Sorry, no profound text here. If you want profound text, start modding my posts up, and I'll suddenly be wiser.
Couple more points in response to your pretty good points:
d p_01129 8.html
(1) I wasn't comparing clinical research to the Tuskegee experiment. On the contrary, I was just saying that "legitimate care", going the standard route with official governmentally approved doctors, does not guarantee care in America. Although the Tuskegee experiment was not all that common, our government does have a history spotted with nazi-like behavior, and part of that is "medical experiments". Another such experiment was the "downwind experiments" on the Mormons at Nevada -- that, of course, did not involve doctors.
(2) From my experience, the problem is not uninsured patients. If anything, the problem is related to the insurance companies themselves. As I understand it, the insurance companies typically demand reductions in cost that drive the expenses over to the uninsured people -- and the hospitals accept that. But since most people are insured, that drives the cost for uninsured people sky high. Technically, such a practice is in violation of antitrust laws -- but usually such laws don't get enforced against truely monopolistic partners. Essentially, the costs of insurance are being borne by the uninsured.
Part of the nature of the problem is also that (1) when you need hospital care, you aren't in a position to argue -- they have your life as hostage, (2) the hospitals are structured to hide the expenses and make it difficult or impossible to compare values. Ask for a price list, and they will typically tell you to get lost.
In my current country, the cost of medical care ends up being about $5-$10 for a hospital outpatient visit and tests. Probably we *don't* have such a lawsuit problem -- but when there is such a huge difference, $10 vs $1200, I think the problem is more economically structural.
Funny thing, though: again the insurance companies are profiting from me without giving a benefit in return. The thing is, there is a law that requires us to have medical insurance at international rates, which means US+ prices. But at $5 or $10 a visit, it just isn't worth it to file paperwork of $30 of visits, especially when there is a $2000 deductible (annual insurance costs, $3500 for our family, no pregnancy coverage, foot coverage, or back coverage.) So essentially, based on laws that the insurance companies managed to get passed, we have to pay Lloyd's $3500/yr for the right to be here. They, in turn, give us the grace of living in a much cheaper country... you get the idea.
Actually, too, I would rather not do business with Lloyds, but Lloyds seems to be what is required by law. Lloyds has a history of being involved in fraud for financial gain , and when necessary, murdering oppsing litigants and burglarizing the litigants' lawyers to cover their tracks.
One article closely related to all this:
http://www.truthaboutlloyds.com/news/news_
(the Daily Press of Newport News has had several articles about this).
So again, I tend to think the problem is systemic, and probably more tied to the insurance rackets than mitigated by them. Essentially, the medical industry has a crime ring draining it, rather than an insurance benefit helping it.
The American system is essentially trial by battle, with lawyers functioning as knights. Of course the wealthier people can afford a better knight; the lesser knight loses (used to be dies), the wealthier man wins, and the poor get oppressed.
Well then how about the French system?
There, both sides are supposed to work together for justice; the problem, as presented by the famous novel "Papillon", is that very quickly both sides are working together, but not for justice, just for the appearance of justice.
Essentially, your question comes down to the following: in a fallen world, how do we hold the powerful accountable to the weak whom they abuse?
Unfortunately, the answer is contained in the definition of what powerful and weak are: you don't.
What you are seeking is impossible in that sense of the word; those minor details are no more minor than the minor details involved in solving Fermat's last theorem [I know, I know, they say it's been solved. But it isn't simple and wonderful.]
That said, there are some other answers that can be drawn out:
(1) Try to make the world less fallen, starting and finishing with #1. The less petty evil there is, the less likely you are to see abuses grow.
(2) If you are on the tracks and a train is coming, don't think that your flag will stop it, unless you are Bill Gates, and your flag simply says "I have a bigger train than you."
(3) Even the powerful are still accountable for their actions. They just aren't accountable to you. They are accountable to God and natural law. There is plenty of history to testify to the point: people who are powerful and abusive eventually pick too big a battle, and take themselves out. Don't take comfort in that fact--take warning, and don't be abusive, yourself.
Don't be proud based upon America having the highest standard of living. A large part of that standard of living is held by such things as the IMF debt, the American military world dominance, the structure of American law as a haven for immoral and illegal investment...
I would say that shame should be a much greater component of your response to the American standard of living.
Now, if you wanted to talk about pride in any of the many ways that Americans are more honest, honorable, hard working (or whatever) than their counterparts in another country, then I'd say, go ahead and be proud.
As for me, I moved out of America to a 2nd world country, in order to build a business. I'm not sure that we'll be successful, but I'm working like heck to try to make it work. Some things about the locals here I find praiseworthy compared to Americans. Some things I find lacking. But in America I had zero chance to make something of myself. Here, I have a chance.
I think there's a pattern: that in each country, there are those who are bound by custom and law. Others, if they want to succeed in creating something new, often have to emmigrate to another place, where they are not bound by custom, and hopefully not too bound by law (if they are of good will) to succeed.
So if a person is failing in their own country, I'm all for migration. For various reasons, I was a complete failure in America. Here, overworked I am, failure I am not.
There are 50 people funning for Miss America, and only two running for US President, because it doesn't matter if we pick the wrong Miss America -- but gosh darn, everything could fall apart if we pick a president who wasn't qualified.
Better give em a choice from only two. That way we can be sure.
BTW... "fig"? Wouldn't be Class of 91 VA Tech Thomas Hall, would it?
Yes, that is one point -- and almost definitely why students would be assigned to a clinic.
However, in America, at least, there is a major problem started by the AMA of all things: there aren't enough doctors, and the AMA actively lobbies to keep things that way. That way, doctors can command higher prices for their labor, even though some people necessarily must go without treatment and die.
This was actually a big issue with my grandfather, who was among other things the first NY State pediatrician to immunize all of the students in his district, and later held some state office as a medical doctor (the way the surgeon general is, but this was much lower. I don't remember the title, and am not going to make something up).
Anyhow, he dropped out of the AMA specifically because they were using his dues to lobby for the medical schools to train fewer doctors. In order to avoid embarrassment, they in turn made him an honorary member of life. But one way or another, eventually, they got their wish: fewer doctors.
So given that choice, I think that the availability of internet trained doctors is much better than nothing. There have been times when I was poor, and would have been happy to diagnose and treat myself, *without more training than a Merck index and my eyes*, because it was better than nothing (which I actually got).
Nor are doctors spotless. The typical intern kills about 15 people by his misdiagnoses and maltreatment, and the typical doctor kills 1-2 patients a year the same way (one reason among many for the M&M sessions.) That doesn't count the quacks with a real degree -- doctors who try to schedule their patients for as many visits as possible before treating the illness, in order to maximize their take -- and sometimes inadvertantly kill their patients. Nor does it count the official medical experiments (like the Tuskegee Experiment) that deliberately harm or kill the patients without their knowledge.
I am not saying that I don't prefer a real doctor; I do. But by all means, a better selection for people of all income ranges, and better availability, is better. Again, something is better than nothing, and because a $125 doctor's bill for a visit, or a $1200 hospital bill for 5 stitches is too much for many Americans, too many people have nothing.
If I remember correctly [IANAL, IAAG], patents are invalidated by publication.
That is, you cannot get a patent if the idea has already been published somewhere, *even if you were the one to publish*. Therefore, if you are going to go the patent route, you need to let your patent application be the first publication.
Don't forget to take into account conservation of momentum and conservation of angular momentum. Those space elevators aren't going to be all that rigid, so you typically will find that the energy won't transfer -- your space elevator will either bend or (most likely) simply break. The worst possibility would be if your space elevator *doesn't* break, because in that case all that energy also gets applied to the ground end. Next thing you know, you'll have the ground end tear free, and then you've got a problem with it progressing out of orbit, ripping its cables through the air, trees, ground, and whatnot. A major problem.
Indeed, I seem to remember that Carl Sagan's book (involving a space elevator) had an event like that.
Not a good thought.
I noticed that comment about those who do this being drunk at the time, and couldn't help but remember this.
Of course, if you want to prepare it in the more traditional manner, the way I have heard it is:
burn wood --> ashes
ashes+water---heat--->dilute NaOH (boil down to desired concentration, I have no idea what.)
NaOH+lard --> good yellow soap.
Needless to say, you want to be careful that the lard you use is not your own. I know some people say you can't be too clean in the lab, but I think that in this case we could agree that one would be overdoing the cleanliness.
*really dark*
Actually, thinking about all that dark fiber around Africa's cost, one needs to wonder just how much of that dark fiber really exists. Once this current recession is over, we may find that the dark fiber just isn't there.
**really, really dark**
However, I'm not going to guess when this current recession will be over. When the tax load is low, war mobilizes the workforce, temporarily redistributes a lot of money (at a cost of war bonds: having to unredistribute it later, with a bite), and thus spurs the economy.
When the tax load is already high, war drives the tax rate up past the breaking point, and simply results in permanentizing the recession by pushing it all into unsupportable debt. That in turn means that the government will have to nationalize resources through taxes, confiscation, military raids on other countries, and whatnot. In CATO Institute's terminology, I rather suspect that this is equivalent to the government not being held by the rule of law (economically).
Nor will America's recent history hold them back from that.
Since the world economy is, by force (pun intended), tied to the IMF which is in turn tied to America's economy, the CATO Institute's rule for the Argentinan crash applies: A free currency that is not governed by the rule of law results in a destroyed economy. Worldwide. The exceptions will be those few countries *not* tied into the IMF economy.
Nope, I'm not expecting us to pull out of this one.
********
One could as easily point out that humanity will surely die unless we learn to live lives of grace.
Anything we can do here on Earth to destroy ourselves, we can also do to Mars, Venus, the moon, and the asteroid belt. What difference does it make, then, if we wipe out ourselves over an area the order of magnitude of the Solar System, or the order of magnitude of the Earth?
For that reason alone, I advocate an "ecologically sound" space race. Don't do things in this space race "to save humanity later" that destroy humanity now.
My big problem with Paypal is the terms of insurance. But the fact that Ebay bought them gives me some level of reassurance.
I got burned with a seller who claimed to be from one place, but turned out to be 1/8 of the way around the globe (from Georgian Republic, of all places, Russian mafia hotbed).
He sold a licensed copy of Quark, but delivered only a CD, plus a Win98 user's manual. There were several levels of fraud, including the return address (Constitution Street??? In Tbilisi?), the name, the product, and so on.
Ebay counted it as fraud (and said I'd get payment... I don't think I've recieved it yet).
But Paypal said that since *something* was shipped, regardless of all the levels of fraud, then their insurance would not cover it. Plus, they wouldn't even take a fraud insurance request, initially. That's right, their system locked me out, and refused. I had to find a phone number through the paypallawsuit website, and call to get to step zero.
That being the case, their claims of fraud insurance actually created a haven for thieves, and I dropped them.
However, when Ebay asked if I would buy again through ebay, my response was that I didn't have a way to pay anymore, so probably not. In line with that, we *might* be interested in continuing.
What has my rep done for me lately? Well, my current representative is just to the north of Boucher: Goodlatte.
... ... ...", Goodlatte actually did sponsor, then cosponsor, then get passed a bill that gave the ATF and the FBI substantial wrist slaps for their own part in terrorism.
Back in 93/4, I found a bunch of newspaper articles about how our ATF, FBI, and National Park Service was gunning down innocent Americans, essentially Nazi SS style. It was only in local newspapers, but not in the national news (one reason I abandoned the national news, and don't believe they give us squat). I took these to Goodlatte, and asked him to "wrist slap" the ATF and the FBI, to let them know that this kind of thing was not acceptable.
Well, first of all, he actually listened to me. Second of all, after a town meeting just *after* the Waco McVeigh bombing, I went in and repeated my request.
While all the rest of the country was enmired in an attitude "we gotta show those terrorist American gunloving
The raids and murders stopped, for about 5-6 years.
That wasn't too bad, in my opinion.
I've been in Boucher's district too, and I can't say that I have anything substantially good to say about him. If you think you can use him here, all well and good. But I can't say a lot positive about him.
Don't. I'm from the SW Virginia area (college years).
Boucher's district remains mired in poverty, as much because of the government programs he supports, as anything. And the poorer his district gets, the wealthier he gets.
Before you vote for him, go down to his district, and talk to the poor people there.
I did. I wouldn't.
He'd be as bad as Clinton (from another war zone, I have heard).
And yes, Clinton was bad. That isn't to say that George Bush is worth mentioning, but Clinton prepared the country for Bush. Don't do it again.
Vote Libertarian. Or Green, if you must. Just don't vote for yet another Dem Publican.