Given the above facts, I think it's entirely plausible that the changes related to diagnosis and definition coupled with the heightened media presence could very easily play a significant role in the rising rate.
You won't see me disagreeing here.
From where I sit, it looks more like the fad disorder of the decade than anything significant.
People do realize the number of increased cases of autism has proportionally risen to the acceleration of our population growth...right?
A quick check shows a doubling of autism cases in the USA over the last couple of decades.
Another quick check shows about a 25% increase in population in the USA over the last couple of decades.
Hmm, doesn't look like autism numbers are tracking population growth...
Another quick check shows the population growth rate as declining with time, while the autism rate rises with time.
Doesn't look like that's tracking either...
Note that this post is deliberately ignoring the possibility that autism incidence is being overreported (no data either way) or including a wider definition of autism as time progresses (likely).
Note further that the last time a childhood affliction got to be "popular" (ADHD), the number of cases reported increased dramtaically. This could also be happening here, though ADHD was much more subject to interpretation than (classic) autism is.
Not especially. Wrong shape to the wings and vertical stabilizers. Also, it looks like it has canards, which would tend to complicate the process of making it stealthy...
So those Russians in Berlin at the end of the war were purely imaginary?
Never forget that Eisenhower ordered his men to leave Berlin to the Russians. Note that this decision came after asking General Bradley to estimate the casualties required to take Berlin. Bradley's answer was quit close, by the by, to the actual Soviet losses.
It can be taken furthur. As I see it, without Russian involvement the USA would have seen an attack on Germany as entering an unwinnable war and Japan wouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbour if they had to worry about the entire Russian military.
You should try reading more history. The Japanese were Soviet allies in WW2. Yes, we were at war with an ally of one of our allies, and the Soviets were at war with an ally of one of their allies.
Note, by the way, that the American involvement in WW2 began long before Pearl Harbor (we were selling weapons to our various European allies even before the invasion of Poland (on a cash and carry basis, legal under international laws governing neutrals), and our Navy was escorting convoys (and fighting U-Boats) before we were officially at war. Note also that Lend-Lease violated the same international laws on neutrality that allowed us to sell weapons to combatants on a "cash and carry" basis.
Hell, he even told us about how he shot a buck in some guy's front yard when he was a teenager.
And thanks to him this is why we have to have licenses.
Well, no...
For the most part, hunting licenses are done for two reasons:
1) Once upon a time, deer were rather more limited in number and range than they are now, so the government needed to limit the harvesting of same to prevent their extinction.
2) It takes money to run fish & wildlife departments.
So, working with the hunters (for the most part), the various states instituted licensing of hunters. The license fees paid for the fish & wildlife departments that determined the number of animals that could be killed in any given year with an eye to maintaining/increasing the population available to be hunted.
Net result: we have more deer (and waterfowl, mustn't forget them) than we can deal with. Some states have removed all caps on hunting deer (used to be two per year in some places I've lived, now it's "please shoot at least one a day, so we won't have to pay professionals to kill them in job lots to keep them from starving in winter"), and caps have been increased significantly in every state I've hunted in.
Governments are the most corrupt organizations on the planet? Yes because everyone knows that big corporations are actually run by angels and bunnies, who would never do anything wrong...
Here's a useful item to scale things with:
Apple just passed a Market cap of $300 billion, joining Exxon/Mobil as the one of the only two corporations that large.
That's not true. The Russians did a hell of a lot, and were it not for their sacrifices it's not likely that the US would've been able to take down Germany.
Unlikely. No matter what else happened, along about August of 1945, Berlin would've found itself on the short list for one of the three A-bombs available.
It must be noted that while the Soviets killed a lot of German soldiers, very little of what went on on the Eastern Front had much strategic significance - it didn't prevent the Germans from making more tanks, planes, subs, etc. Which means that sans the Soviet Union, we'd still have bombed the crap out of Germany, sunk its submarine fleet, etc.
Which means Germany could have, at best, delayed our invasion of the European mainland.
It must also be noted that without the moderately enormous amount of stuff we sent to the Soviets (specifically, trucks and locomotives), it is unlikely that the Soviet offensives could have been maintained.
If you intentionally choose to stay uninformed, then you shouldn't pretend that you know whether anything important was leaked or not.
Also, welcome to the Land of the Formerly Free, where you need to make sure you don't read any subversive literature.
His issue has very little to do with "intentionally choosing to stay uninformed", or "subversive literature". It's more a matter of the way the law handles security clearances.
If you've got a security clearance, and no "need to know", you can get into trouble for looking at classified material. The fact that the classified material has been published in a newspaper doesn't affect that at all.
Note that this is one of the sillier requirements built into the laws & regulations governing security clearances. But silliness doesn't make it less a law.
So people with security clearances aren't allowed to look at this stuff, even though it's broadcast around the world. And choosing to ignore the law and look anyway just means that you lose your security clearance, and therefore the job you have that required that security clearance in the first place.
Check the US Census Bureau. They're a goldmine of (mostly useless) information.
Oh, and it helps to have a halfway decent inflation calculator on hand to convert to a standard year. Google inflation calculator, and you'll probably find one. I use the Bureau of Labor Statistics' one myself.
This may be true. However, due to wage stagnation since Reagan took office, the buying power of that family has steadily declined (greater than the 23% discrepancy you describe). In short, since we have transferred all of that wealth to the upper classes, and we have consistently eroded the buying power of the lower classes, they need more help.
Median personal income in the USA in 1970 (in 2000 dollars) was about $25600. In 2000, it was $28300. Doesn't look like buying power has changed all that much in that 30 year period. It certainly hasn't declined, steadily or otherwise.
DURRRR NUMBERS ARE RELATIVE DURRR.
Which is why we look at the real numbers, rather than using vague phrases like "steadily declined".
Or Medicaid, which last year cost over $700 billion more than the Medicaid tax brought in.
First off, there is no "medicaid tax". Perhaps you meant Medicare?
Secondly, even if it existed, it didn't cost $700 billion more last year than it brought in in taxes. Last year (2010), Medicaid cost only $290 billion , which is a bit less than $700 billion more than any possible positive number of dollars taken in (non-existent) Medicaid taxes...
The key part being "solid". Solid rocket fuels are notoriously inefficient compared to liquid fuels.
From the sounds of this stuff, assuming that 20-30% is closer to 30% than to 20%, we're talking roughly 75% as efficient as Hydrogen, and somewhat less efficient still than kerosene...
Not true. Using iodised salt prevents iodine deficiency, as anyone who's read Alas, Babylon, knows.
By a curious coincidence, I just reread "Alas, Babylon" a couple of weeks ago.
Alas, while I remember a sequence involving a salt shortage, I don't remember anything at all about iodized salt or an iodine deficiency. What chapter was it in?
Overwhelming majority of the early non-religious scientists were burned at the stake or at least didn't get the credit they deserved in their lifetime; I guess that's a theistic selection of sorts.
Citation?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single non-religious scientist who was burned at the stake. Or are you counting Bruno, who was a Dominican monk, as I recall. And wasn't burned for being a scientist, but for being a heretic (no, not heretical about scientific beliefs, heretical in that he rejected a lot of Catholic religious beliefs).
Plus the whole reincarnation thing, of course. Very bad thing to believe around Catholics, and no more scientific than Creationism....
I know EVERY company is trying to make stuff so that skilled labor is no longer needed. (The newest bulldozers and motor graders use joysticks, no more long training on hydraulic levers).
There is nothing intrinsically "skilled" about a control system designed in the early 1900's, as opposed to the early 2000's. You do not eliminate the need for skilled labour by changing the user interface...
If the government can declare something "illegal" and pressure private companies to not do business with a particular entity... does it really matter if they can "make no law" abridging freedom of speech? Isn't the first amendment completely worthless?
If the government can use the Interstate Commerce clause to justify pretty much anything they do (including forbidding a farmer to feed his own livestock with grain he has grown himself), then the government has pretty much NO limits on its power. So a little thing like the First Amendment isn't going to be a barrier.
Killing enough humans that we were back to the stone age, and might or might not survive as a species? Sure, if all those nukes devoted to destroying other nukes were all used to hit population centers.
There'd be no danger of falling back to the stone age, or of dying out as a species, even if every City of more than 100,000 population in the world were hit. There are more people living outside cities today than there were alive in all the world 500 years ago...
They probably just don't want to worry about getting sued.
I would expect most of these patents, and especially the ones that matter, will expire in the next couple years. Has Novell done anything worth a patent in the last 10 years? Patents only last 20 years.
Since when do you have to do anything (apart from file a patent, I mean) to have a patent?
I think he's trying to say that the patents must all be more than ten years old, since Novell hasn't done anything recently that was patent-worthy.
Which implies that the patents aren't going to be a problem for much longer....
Moving a small asteroid is within our technical capabilities now, albeit on the outer edge of the envelope due merely to the masses involved (and the finances). But I think that unless governments make it illegal
Pretty sure the Outer Space Treaty already makes it illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
Citation?
The fact that they communicate with each other is, I think, beyond doubt. The subjects of that communication are rather less clear.
You won't see me disagreeing here.
From where I sit, it looks more like the fad disorder of the decade than anything significant.
A quick check shows a doubling of autism cases in the USA over the last couple of decades.
Another quick check shows about a 25% increase in population in the USA over the last couple of decades.
Hmm, doesn't look like autism numbers are tracking population growth...
Another quick check shows the population growth rate as declining with time, while the autism rate rises with time.
Doesn't look like that's tracking either...
Note that this post is deliberately ignoring the possibility that autism incidence is being overreported (no data either way) or including a wider definition of autism as time progresses (likely).
Note further that the last time a childhood affliction got to be "popular" (ADHD), the number of cases reported increased dramtaically. This could also be happening here, though ADHD was much more subject to interpretation than (classic) autism is.
I agree. Being your own mother and father is definitely closer to this.
Not especially. Wrong shape to the wings and vertical stabilizers. Also, it looks like it has canards, which would tend to complicate the process of making it stealthy...
Never forget that Eisenhower ordered his men to leave Berlin to the Russians. Note that this decision came after asking General Bradley to estimate the casualties required to take Berlin. Bradley's answer was quit close, by the by, to the actual Soviet losses.
You should try reading more history. The Japanese were Soviet allies in WW2. Yes, we were at war with an ally of one of our allies, and the Soviets were at war with an ally of one of their allies.
Note, by the way, that the American involvement in WW2 began long before Pearl Harbor (we were selling weapons to our various European allies even before the invasion of Poland (on a cash and carry basis, legal under international laws governing neutrals), and our Navy was escorting convoys (and fighting U-Boats) before we were officially at war. Note also that Lend-Lease violated the same international laws on neutrality that allowed us to sell weapons to combatants on a "cash and carry" basis.
And thanks to him this is why we have to have licenses.
Well, no...
For the most part, hunting licenses are done for two reasons:
1) Once upon a time, deer were rather more limited in number and range than they are now, so the government needed to limit the harvesting of same to prevent their extinction.
2) It takes money to run fish & wildlife departments.
So, working with the hunters (for the most part), the various states instituted licensing of hunters. The license fees paid for the fish & wildlife departments that determined the number of animals that could be killed in any given year with an eye to maintaining/increasing the population available to be hunted.
Net result: we have more deer (and waterfowl, mustn't forget them) than we can deal with. Some states have removed all caps on hunting deer (used to be two per year in some places I've lived, now it's "please shoot at least one a day, so we won't have to pay professionals to kill them in job lots to keep them from starving in winter"), and caps have been increased significantly in every state I've hunted in.
Here's a useful item to scale things with:
Apple just passed a Market cap of $300 billion, joining Exxon/Mobil as the one of the only two corporations that large.
The US budget for 2010 was $3550 billion.
Unlikely. No matter what else happened, along about August of 1945, Berlin would've found itself on the short list for one of the three A-bombs available.
It must be noted that while the Soviets killed a lot of German soldiers, very little of what went on on the Eastern Front had much strategic significance - it didn't prevent the Germans from making more tanks, planes, subs, etc. Which means that sans the Soviet Union, we'd still have bombed the crap out of Germany, sunk its submarine fleet, etc.
Which means Germany could have, at best, delayed our invasion of the European mainland.
It must also be noted that without the moderately enormous amount of stuff we sent to the Soviets (specifically, trucks and locomotives), it is unlikely that the Soviet offensives could have been maintained.
The Chinese, historically, have been far more puritanical than the West.
Mind you, some of the things they freak about are things we go "Huh?" to, and vice verse, but as a rule, China is very straightlaced.
Then I'm sure you won't mind posting your credit card numbers and banking details...
His issue has very little to do with "intentionally choosing to stay uninformed", or "subversive literature". It's more a matter of the way the law handles security clearances.
If you've got a security clearance, and no "need to know", you can get into trouble for looking at classified material. The fact that the classified material has been published in a newspaper doesn't affect that at all.
Note that this is one of the sillier requirements built into the laws & regulations governing security clearances. But silliness doesn't make it less a law.
So people with security clearances aren't allowed to look at this stuff, even though it's broadcast around the world. And choosing to ignore the law and look anyway just means that you lose your security clearance, and therefore the job you have that required that security clearance in the first place.
Check the US Census Bureau. They're a goldmine of (mostly useless) information.
Oh, and it helps to have a halfway decent inflation calculator on hand to convert to a standard year. Google inflation calculator, and you'll probably find one. I use the Bureau of Labor Statistics' one myself.
Median personal income in the USA in 1970 (in 2000 dollars) was about $25600. In 2000, it was $28300. Doesn't look like buying power has changed all that much in that 30 year period. It certainly hasn't declined, steadily or otherwise.
Which is why we look at the real numbers, rather than using vague phrases like "steadily declined".
First off, there is no "medicaid tax". Perhaps you meant Medicare?
Secondly, even if it existed, it didn't cost $700 billion more last year than it brought in in taxes. Last year (2010), Medicaid cost only $290 billion , which is a bit less than $700 billion more than any possible positive number of dollars taken in (non-existent) Medicaid taxes...
One per ten thousand cameras.
0.01% at best. Per day. Annually, the success rate is up to a whopping 3.58%....
The key part being "solid". Solid rocket fuels are notoriously inefficient compared to liquid fuels.
From the sounds of this stuff, assuming that 20-30% is closer to 30% than to 20%, we're talking roughly 75% as efficient as Hydrogen, and somewhat less efficient still than kerosene...
By a curious coincidence, I just reread "Alas, Babylon" a couple of weeks ago.
Alas, while I remember a sequence involving a salt shortage, I don't remember anything at all about iodized salt or an iodine deficiency. What chapter was it in?
Citation?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single non-religious scientist who was burned at the stake. Or are you counting Bruno, who was a Dominican monk, as I recall. And wasn't burned for being a scientist, but for being a heretic (no, not heretical about scientific beliefs, heretical in that he rejected a lot of Catholic religious beliefs).
Plus the whole reincarnation thing, of course. Very bad thing to believe around Catholics, and no more scientific than Creationism....
There is nothing intrinsically "skilled" about a control system designed in the early 1900's, as opposed to the early 2000's. You do not eliminate the need for skilled labour by changing the user interface...
If the government can use the Interstate Commerce clause to justify pretty much anything they do (including forbidding a farmer to feed his own livestock with grain he has grown himself), then the government has pretty much NO limits on its power. So a little thing like the First Amendment isn't going to be a barrier.
There'd be no danger of falling back to the stone age, or of dying out as a species, even if every City of more than 100,000 population in the world were hit. There are more people living outside cities today than there were alive in all the world 500 years ago...
Since when do you have to do anything (apart from file a patent, I mean) to have a patent?
I think he's trying to say that the patents must all be more than ten years old, since Novell hasn't done anything recently that was patent-worthy.
Which implies that the patents aren't going to be a problem for much longer....
Actually, "Terra" would be the name of this planet, "Tera" would be 10e12....
Pretty sure the Outer Space Treaty already makes it illegal.