So, everyone expects to be perfectly anonymous at a Customs Checkpoint, eh?
Really? Going to a place where the guards on both sides of the border check your identity routinely, and people expect anonymity as a matter of course?
Could we perhaps find something more important to be outraged about? Like LSU's baseball team embarrassing themselves last night? Or the morning coffee being cold? Or the birds waking my wife up early (therefore grumpy)?
The average working-poor person I mentioned in my other comment spends 16 hours a day at work, commute-time included. Most of them have two jobs. In welfare-to-work states they often can't get foodstamps if they have less than two jobs. And the work is in the rich neighbourhoods where they can't afford to live so 4 hour commutes are not unusual.
I'm curious...just where is this "average working-poor person" living that this is true? I've never lived anywhere where a four hour commute is normal for anyone...
I'm thinking back in the days when I first got a car so I can go cruising and also for going on dates. With drivers obsolete how would it impact this kind of social behavior?
More time to make out in the backseat while the car drives itself?
I have a stack of long florescent bulbs in an unused corner of my garage, old bulbs from the fixture over my worktable, collecting there since I moved to this house in the early '90s. I never did figure out where to take them or how to safely dispose of them. I guess it'll be my descendants' problem.
You are doing the same disposal strategy I am.
Ditto. I've got that same stack of long fluorescents in my garage. And there they'll stay, I expect....
Hmm, wonder if they'll have to block French History sites that mention the Reign of Terror? After all, modern France wouldn't exist without that bit of, dare I say it, terrorism....
Jaysus, can you imagine how high the Louis number would be with a couple more centuries of them???
(Though a block of ALL of Facebook and Twitter would be popular with everyone tired of the "chatter")?
Never had much (for which, read 'any') use for Facebook or Twitter. But likewise, I've never understood what the problem with either or both existing is. If you don't want to Facebook, then don't. Likewise, if tweeting (or whatever it's called these days _twitting, perhaps?) isn't your thing, then don't.
Do try to remember that even if everyone else does it, that's not actually a requirement that you do it too....
Given that the USA managed it with 40ies technology, I would say that Iran should have no problem with 2003 technology. Maybe they can't build a bomb that powerful, but even the weakest nuke is powerful enough IMHO (as long as it's not a "dirty bomb").
A couple of things:
1) Little Boy would probably qualify as a "dirty bomb" by today's standards, since it fissioned just a small fraction of its uranium (~1.5%).
2) Little Boy was so dirt-simple that even North Korea should be able to manage one if they wanted to. The fact that the NK's haven't managed to set a nuke off with Little Boy's yield suggests that they're either trying to hard to be clever or dumb as posts.
I don't think Iran will have a problem duplicating Little Boy if they want to, and expect that they could duplicate Fat Man as soon as they can come up with the Pu. Note that the hard part of Fat Man is something that can be done without even having fissionables to test with - getting the compression charges to work properly is technically much more challenging....
Revenue from illegal activity should NEVER be used to fund policing. It simply is too big of a conflict of interest. Fines from stuff like parking tickets should be used to fund other things (education, roads, etc) but it should not be available to police.
Have you ever heard the expression "money is fungible"?
If your speeding tickets go to funding the schools, the local government will just lower the school budget (since they're going to get the speeding ticket money), and raise the police budget (since that will let them write more speeding tickets to pay for the schools).
I agree with the general notion that max range on an electric needs to be further than you'll ever drive in a day.
But 1000 miles is a bit beyond even my idea of acceptable range. If an electric could get 600-700 miles on a charge, I'd be happy.
Or alternately, if I can fully recharge an electric in ten minutes, that would also work. You might even be able to sweet talk me into a thirty minute recharge if the range were such as to allow for ONE recharge requirement per day of driving (which means a range of 500 miles or thereabouts).
In neither case would the "but...but...people have to stop for lunch/bathroom/etc" matter. When I'm driving to visit family, I'm not going to stretch a 10-hour drive into a 15-hour drive by taking long breaks on the road....
You seem to have made a mistake about solar energy payback times, which are about a year.
In sunny southern Europe.
So, what's the payback time in Sweden? Or Canada? Or even New York State?
Note that I've been considering solar for my own house. Even with the 80% subsidy my governments offer, it won't break even in less than five years unless I cut down every tree in my backyard first.
And if I do that, the cost of cutting the trees would stretch the payback out into the ten year range.
And that's not even counting the extra electricity I'd need to make up for the reduced shade that loss of the trees would give....
The gov't could at least lose less money if it issued its own currency (beyond just coins) instead of borrowing its money supply from privately owned banks.
Hmm, just printing more money as needed...
Seems to me that's been tried a few times in history. Worked pretty well for Germany in the 1920's and -30's, as I recall....
Note, we have always had a solution to overpopulation, it is called WAR - kill enough people and the problem is solved.
It should, perhaps, be noted that population was higher after every war than it was before the war (world population grew about 100 million during WW2, in spite of the millions killed during that war). No, war is not a solution to overpopulation.
The root causes of our energy shortage, climate change, starvation, hunger, crime, and disease, are all one in the same: OVERPOPULATION.
Overpopulation is sooo last generation-but-one's issue.
We're 7 times as numerous as the Earth can sustain. Unless and until we fix that problem, our habitable climate WILL be destroyed.
Evidence for this (and by "this", I mean that sustainable population is ~1 billion)? From the looks of things, we're managing to support seven billion-plus with fewer people starving than was common when I was growing up half a century ago. And higher standards of living.
I think seeing a police officer walking down the street would work as well.
Seems to me that 20 years or so ago, that was the idea of choice for solving crime - cops walking (note that walking and driving are NOT the same) a beat.
Worked where it was tried, but I think it was dropped when the Next Great Idea came along. Shame, really, since it actually would have gotten away from "the police is the enemy" notion that permeates entirely too much of our culture (with good reason, at time, but still a problem).
So much for the ZOMG 300-ODD PAGES fucktards. Bet they don't come back and admit they were wrong either.
The actual text of the rules that now apply to ISP's is 400-odd pages. Note that the 300-odd words are only the part that they had to add to existing rules (which existing rules did NOT apply to ISPs) to make the other 400-odd pages apply to ISPs.
The FCC chairman has said repeatedly the agency does not intend to set rates or add new taxes to broadband bills.
While that's the current "truth", last time I read his comment on the subject (which would have been during the last net neutrality post on/.), he said that the agency did not intend to set rates or add new surcharges (as has been noted, he can't do taxes) to broadband bills THIS YEAR.
Crime rates in the U.S. have fallen dramatically with gun ownership.
And in Germany they fell without gun ownership.
Which is irrelevant. The point is that crime rates are falling even though we have large numbers of firearms. Which means that firearms are NOT causing crime, as many of the gun-banners would like to make you believe.
And if my firearms aren't harming you, why should it matter to you that I have them?
But the stuff we want to put in Earth orbit is typically very high tech. How do you get from raw ore to microchips, solar panels, and high grade optics, without bringing it down to Earth surface first ?
Well, no...
Yes, it's true that microchips aren't really feasible for building on the moon. On the other hand, microchips don't really weigh all that much, compared to, say, the box you put the microchips in. Or the ISS modules. Satellites are mostly aluminium and steel, not microchips.
If we only had to loft the computers and similar small items from Earth, while larger structures like whole ISS modules were built on the moon, expanding the ISS would be much cheaper.
Likewise, a Mars-bound spacecraft (manned or unmanned) would be cheaper to build if the structural elements were built from Lunar material (either on the moon or at the ISS) and only the high-tech parts were built on Earth.
Note that it's even possible to get reaction mass from the moon, if we can either find H2O or are willing to burn aluminium and oxygen (yah, Al2O3 is going to be some seriously abrasive reaction mass when it's pushed out a rocket nozzle, but we're only going to use it the once, right?
Hell, even if we can't find water, 80%+ of H2/O2 rocket fuel is the O2 part. And there's plenty of that to be had on the moon. Just lifting the H2 to LEO is a potential big savings.
Note, of course, that none of this is relevant unless we decide to get seriously into space again. If all we're ever going to do is send an occasional probe out, and build commsats/spysats/positioning-sats, the moon is completely irrelevant.
but wasn't the original Foundation trilogy meant to be written together, Mule and all?
No. The first book, specifically, was a collection of short stories. Reread it, paying attention to the structure: a series of events years/decades apart dealing with the problems of the Foundation as it grew to replace the Empire....
Seems like the only resource worth bringing down from the Moon would be one that just don't hardly exist down here.
Disregarding He3, the only point of lunar resources is for orbital/space construction. It is easier to reach LEO from the moon than from Earth. Reaction mass requirements for Lunar surface to LEO are much lower than from Earth surface.
This sort of thing isn't unprecedented, the Bush White House had a policy of issuing important staffers two Blackberries [wikipedia.org], one that had a whitehouse.gov email and one that had a gop.org email, and using both systems indifferently for communication.
So, the Bush White House had its staffers use government email for government stuff, who'da thunk it?
Note that if Hillary had done that, noone would be getting excited now. Who cares if she has a private email server, as long as ALL of her government correspondence is done with the official account?
Note, by the by, that the argument that all her official correspondence with State Dept. staff is a matter of public record because the worker bees were using government accounts is specious. SecState also communicates with representatives of OTHER governments. The communications with those other governments would not be available on the State Dept servers if done through a private email server....
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So, everyone expects to be perfectly anonymous at a Customs Checkpoint, eh?
Really? Going to a place where the guards on both sides of the border check your identity routinely, and people expect anonymity as a matter of course?
Could we perhaps find something more important to be outraged about? Like LSU's baseball team embarrassing themselves last night? Or the morning coffee being cold? Or the birds waking my wife up early (therefore grumpy)?
I'm curious...just where is this "average working-poor person" living that this is true? I've never lived anywhere where a four hour commute is normal for anyone...
More time to make out in the backseat while the car drives itself?
Ditto. I've got that same stack of long fluorescents in my garage. And there they'll stay, I expect....
Actually, yes, Free Speech DOES mean you're allowed to insult and provoke at your leisure.
And then you're allowed to bear the consequences, free of GOVERNMENT sanction.
Jaysus, can you imagine how high the Louis number would be with a couple more centuries of them???
Never had much (for which, read 'any') use for Facebook or Twitter. But likewise, I've never understood what the problem with either or both existing is. If you don't want to Facebook, then don't. Likewise, if tweeting (or whatever it's called these days _twitting, perhaps?) isn't your thing, then don't.
Do try to remember that even if everyone else does it, that's not actually a requirement that you do it too....
They'd be smarter to pay SpaceX to do it. SpaceX launches are a lot cheaper than NASA's....
1/5 of 8% of 423000. The 8% part is important....
A couple of things:
1) Little Boy would probably qualify as a "dirty bomb" by today's standards, since it fissioned just a small fraction of its uranium (~1.5%).
2) Little Boy was so dirt-simple that even North Korea should be able to manage one if they wanted to. The fact that the NK's haven't managed to set a nuke off with Little Boy's yield suggests that they're either trying to hard to be clever or dumb as posts.
I don't think Iran will have a problem duplicating Little Boy if they want to, and expect that they could duplicate Fat Man as soon as they can come up with the Pu. Note that the hard part of Fat Man is something that can be done without even having fissionables to test with - getting the compression charges to work properly is technically much more challenging....
Have you ever heard the expression "money is fungible"?
If your speeding tickets go to funding the schools, the local government will just lower the school budget (since they're going to get the speeding ticket money), and raise the police budget (since that will let them write more speeding tickets to pay for the schools).
I agree with the general notion that max range on an electric needs to be further than you'll ever drive in a day.
But 1000 miles is a bit beyond even my idea of acceptable range. If an electric could get 600-700 miles on a charge, I'd be happy.
Or alternately, if I can fully recharge an electric in ten minutes, that would also work. You might even be able to sweet talk me into a thirty minute recharge if the range were such as to allow for ONE recharge requirement per day of driving (which means a range of 500 miles or thereabouts).
In neither case would the "but...but...people have to stop for lunch/bathroom/etc" matter. When I'm driving to visit family, I'm not going to stretch a 10-hour drive into a 15-hour drive by taking long breaks on the road....
In sunny southern Europe.
So, what's the payback time in Sweden? Or Canada? Or even New York State?
Note that I've been considering solar for my own house. Even with the 80% subsidy my governments offer, it won't break even in less than five years unless I cut down every tree in my backyard first.
And if I do that, the cost of cutting the trees would stretch the payback out into the ten year range.
And that's not even counting the extra electricity I'd need to make up for the reduced shade that loss of the trees would give....
Hmm, just printing more money as needed...
Seems to me that's been tried a few times in history. Worked pretty well for Germany in the 1920's and -30's, as I recall....
It should, perhaps, be noted that population was higher after every war than it was before the war (world population grew about 100 million during WW2, in spite of the millions killed during that war). No, war is not a solution to overpopulation.
Overpopulation is sooo last generation-but-one's issue.
Evidence for this (and by "this", I mean that sustainable population is ~1 billion)? From the looks of things, we're managing to support seven billion-plus with fewer people starving than was common when I was growing up half a century ago. And higher standards of living.
Seems to me that 20 years or so ago, that was the idea of choice for solving crime - cops walking (note that walking and driving are NOT the same) a beat.
Worked where it was tried, but I think it was dropped when the Next Great Idea came along. Shame, really, since it actually would have gotten away from "the police is the enemy" notion that permeates entirely too much of our culture (with good reason, at time, but still a problem).
Or perhaps the reverse - Americans are stupid about alcohol because America has stupid alcohol laws....
The actual text of the rules that now apply to ISP's is 400-odd pages. Note that the 300-odd words are only the part that they had to add to existing rules (which existing rules did NOT apply to ISPs) to make the other 400-odd pages apply to ISPs.
While that's the current "truth", last time I read his comment on the subject (which would have been during the last net neutrality post on /.), he said that the agency did not intend to set rates or add new surcharges (as has been noted, he can't do taxes) to broadband bills THIS YEAR.
Note the "this year" part. It's important.
Which is irrelevant. The point is that crime rates are falling even though we have large numbers of firearms. Which means that firearms are NOT causing crime, as many of the gun-banners would like to make you believe.
And if my firearms aren't harming you, why should it matter to you that I have them?
Well, no...
Yes, it's true that microchips aren't really feasible for building on the moon. On the other hand, microchips don't really weigh all that much, compared to, say, the box you put the microchips in. Or the ISS modules. Satellites are mostly aluminium and steel, not microchips.
If we only had to loft the computers and similar small items from Earth, while larger structures like whole ISS modules were built on the moon, expanding the ISS would be much cheaper.
Likewise, a Mars-bound spacecraft (manned or unmanned) would be cheaper to build if the structural elements were built from Lunar material (either on the moon or at the ISS) and only the high-tech parts were built on Earth.
Note that it's even possible to get reaction mass from the moon, if we can either find H2O or are willing to burn aluminium and oxygen (yah, Al2O3 is going to be some seriously abrasive reaction mass when it's pushed out a rocket nozzle, but we're only going to use it the once, right?
Hell, even if we can't find water, 80%+ of H2/O2 rocket fuel is the O2 part. And there's plenty of that to be had on the moon. Just lifting the H2 to LEO is a potential big savings.
Note, of course, that none of this is relevant unless we decide to get seriously into space again. If all we're ever going to do is send an occasional probe out, and build commsats/spysats/positioning-sats, the moon is completely irrelevant.
No. The first book, specifically, was a collection of short stories. Reread it, paying attention to the structure: a series of events years/decades apart dealing with the problems of the Foundation as it grew to replace the Empire....
Disregarding He3, the only point of lunar resources is for orbital/space construction. It is easier to reach LEO from the moon than from Earth. Reaction mass requirements for Lunar surface to LEO are much lower than from Earth surface.
So, the Bush White House had its staffers use government email for government stuff, who'da thunk it?
Note that if Hillary had done that, noone would be getting excited now. Who cares if she has a private email server, as long as ALL of her government correspondence is done with the official account?
Note, by the by, that the argument that all her official correspondence with State Dept. staff is a matter of public record because the worker bees were using government accounts is specious. SecState also communicates with representatives of OTHER governments. The communications with those other governments would not be available on the State Dept servers if done through a private email server....