But the more we understand free will, the less it seems to exist. How far will it go? What fun is a gambling without the perception of chance? What fun is life without the perception of choice? I'm not faulting the research, but I'm considering getting annoyed at the universe.
California has destroyed my faith in direct democracy. See Proposition 13: "I want the windfall from housing inflation to go straight into my pocket!" Congratulations to the folks who voted themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in unearned income, but now the state is broke, people living right next door to each other pay VASTLY different burdens in supporting schools and other social services, and the housing pyramid scheme eventually collapsed anyways. Instead, they should simply have deferred some portion the property taxes until the next transfer of ownership.
Until they can build a line that makes a profit AND gives me a reason to want to ride it in preference to other transportation alternatives, we shouldn't be building them at all.
Don't conflate rail in China with rail in the US. With the population density they have, our system (cars, cars, and more cars) is simply NOT an option. The only place in the US where most households do NOT own a car is New York City, and that is no coincidence.
But since railway technology is more suitable for them than us, I say, let them make the investment in getting the cost down. It won't hurt us to be followers rather than leaders in rail.
if you read the press release, it's pretty clear this is a helluva lot less about producing clean energy than producing jobs in California
Just because a press release is phrased a certain way doesn't mean a project is actually "about" that. The press release is just a gauge of today's political winds.
Look at Secretary Chu's statement:
"These projects represent an important step in the development of solar as an affordable, clean energy resource in this country," said Secretary Chu. "By investing in the commercial-scale deployment of solar technologies, we can create greater efficiencies that will lower the cost of solar power while creating jobs and increasing our global competitiveness in this key industry."
What part of that is incorrect, or admits the possibility that this is "basically just a jobs program?" I don't see why Concentrated Solar can't be scaled up affordably.
It was generating millions of unnecessary objects per second, and the runtime was swamped by GC overhead.
I have a beef with Java's inefficiency with repetitive memory allocations for temporary objects. Sure, you could just allocate some data structures up front and re-use them for everything. That amounts to a reversion back to FORTRAN-style programming, where dynamic memory allocation of any sort is a novelty and the structure of the code is dictated by what will run efficiently. What's the point of even calling this Java, when you're just coding around the features it offers because they're too slow?
With C++, you can allocate those objects on the stack very efficiently, with no more scope than necessary.
The example of an international user does seem to make sense.
If nothing else, maybe Apple's entry into prepaid phones for such a popular model will create market forces for the carriers to offer more attractive "bring your own phone" plans. I really hate this forced "rent-to-own" model. I wouldn't buy a TV or couch that way, and I don't want to buy a phone that way.
I wonder why Apple is offering this if no carrier has an appropriate pricing plan to support it? This is like paying cash for a car and STILL making a payment on it every month. Why?
This is typical government "make work" bureaucracy that makes no more sense than going-round and busting windows to boost construction jobs.
So your example of the typical government "make work" program is something that never happened?
It's absurd how medicine is practiced in the US today - two trillion dollars per year and most decisions made by the seat of the pants, with little or no cost/benefit analysis. We need to adopt Evidence-Based Medicine, and that requires information to determine the most cost-effective methods of care.
I think we need a law to compel full disclosure on what is transmitted, and what is collected/stored in the car. The free market can't work without information.
I agree that some degree of "hack first, refactor later" is good, AFTER you have a reasonably solid foundation to build on. The problem is if you hack first and then lose the motivation or the funding to do the refactoring. Then you are stuck living with your first draft forever, and even trying to build on top of it.
But natural gas is metered, just like electricity. "They" can still tell if you're using more than your neighbors, if that worries you.
I think/hope the Smart Grid will simply allow your appliances to receive the current energy price and implement the policy YOU have specified, e.g. "turn up the thermostat two degrees when the electricity price exceeds X"
If you don't want anybody to know how much power you're using, you'd better get some solar cells on your roof. I don't know any other way to generate energy on the premises.
If they were plentiful they would be affordable. It has only been a couple hundred years in the US since the time that if somebody wanted to build a barn, they would just go out and cut down old growth hardwood to build it. But obviously 300 million people cannot all do that.
see, we've yielded no real improvements from technology, including computerizing everything, jacking productivity through the roof, etc. except to transfer the wealth away from the middle class.
Don't forget, resource exhaustion drains off some of the technology/productivity increase that would otherwise go to improving the standard of living, too. Instead of a half acre in Southern California 60 years ago, you get a half acre in Texas now (and a huge energy bill for air conditioning). Instead of just farming the best land, you support the growing population by developing technology to farm some marginal land, too. To keep the air breathable with 5x as many cars, you invent smog-reducing mechanisms that cost money and decrease performance. Instead of solid wood and leather furniture you get particle board held together with staples. Instead of just pumping all the energy you want out of the ground almost for free, you... well... we haven't quite invented our way out of that one yet.
We have reached a point where we must greatly improve how we do things simply to avoid a *decreasing* standard of life.
So which is it? Is groupon any good (for customers, as opposed to business owners)? I haven't used it yet and would like to hear what people in here think.
Slashdot Mirror
But the more we understand free will, the less it seems to exist. How far will it go? What fun is a gambling without the perception of chance? What fun is life without the perception of choice? I'm not faulting the research, but I'm considering getting annoyed at the universe.
California has destroyed my faith in direct democracy. See Proposition 13: "I want the windfall from housing inflation to go straight into my pocket!" Congratulations to the folks who voted themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in unearned income, but now the state is broke, people living right next door to each other pay VASTLY different burdens in supporting schools and other social services, and the housing pyramid scheme eventually collapsed anyways. Instead, they should simply have deferred some portion the property taxes until the next transfer of ownership.
Don't conflate rail in China with rail in the US. With the population density they have, our system (cars, cars, and more cars) is simply NOT an option. The only place in the US where most households do NOT own a car is New York City, and that is no coincidence.
But since railway technology is more suitable for them than us, I say, let them make the investment in getting the cost down. It won't hurt us to be followers rather than leaders in rail.
Just because a press release is phrased a certain way doesn't mean a project is actually "about" that. The press release is just a gauge of today's political winds.
Look at Secretary Chu's statement:
What part of that is incorrect, or admits the possibility that this is "basically just a jobs program?" I don't see why Concentrated Solar can't be scaled up affordably.
It didn't take this long, it's normal. But you didn't see videos glorifying it when it was Shiite militias fighting us in Iraq.
I have never heard of 300K+ for an engineer (who still does engineering work).
I have a beef with Java's inefficiency with repetitive memory allocations for temporary objects. Sure, you could just allocate some data structures up front and re-use them for everything. That amounts to a reversion back to FORTRAN-style programming, where dynamic memory allocation of any sort is a novelty and the structure of the code is dictated by what will run efficiently. What's the point of even calling this Java, when you're just coding around the features it offers because they're too slow?
With C++, you can allocate those objects on the stack very efficiently, with no more scope than necessary.
I'm impressed. At 15 I was mowing the neighbors' grass and haven't been truly self-employed since.
If nothing else, maybe Apple's entry into prepaid phones for such a popular model will create market forces for the carriers to offer more attractive "bring your own phone" plans. I really hate this forced "rent-to-own" model. I wouldn't buy a TV or couch that way, and I don't want to buy a phone that way.
So in your case there was a perfectly good reason. Likewise, could I use my unlocked iPhone with, say, tracfone?
I wonder why Apple is offering this if no carrier has an appropriate pricing plan to support it? This is like paying cash for a car and STILL making a payment on it every month. Why?
So your example of the typical government "make work" program is something that never happened?
It's absurd how medicine is practiced in the US today - two trillion dollars per year and most decisions made by the seat of the pants, with little or no cost/benefit analysis. We need to adopt Evidence-Based Medicine, and that requires information to determine the most cost-effective methods of care.
I think we need a law to compel full disclosure on what is transmitted, and what is collected/stored in the car. The free market can't work without information.
I agree that some degree of "hack first, refactor later" is good, AFTER you have a reasonably solid foundation to build on. The problem is if you hack first and then lose the motivation or the funding to do the refactoring. Then you are stuck living with your first draft forever, and even trying to build on top of it.
I think/hope the Smart Grid will simply allow your appliances to receive the current energy price and implement the policy YOU have specified, e.g. "turn up the thermostat two degrees when the electricity price exceeds X"
If you don't want anybody to know how much power you're using, you'd better get some solar cells on your roof. I don't know any other way to generate energy on the premises.
If they were plentiful they would be affordable. It has only been a couple hundred years in the US since the time that if somebody wanted to build a barn, they would just go out and cut down old growth hardwood to build it. But obviously 300 million people cannot all do that.
Are farmers plowing under corn husks and wheat chaff now? If not, where does this all go? (Pig feed maybe?)
I doubt this will work but there's a chance it will, and it would be cool if it did. So, kudos to them for taking a risk and being innovative.
Don't forget, resource exhaustion drains off some of the technology/productivity increase that would otherwise go to improving the standard of living, too. Instead of a half acre in Southern California 60 years ago, you get a half acre in Texas now (and a huge energy bill for air conditioning). Instead of just farming the best land, you support the growing population by developing technology to farm some marginal land, too. To keep the air breathable with 5x as many cars, you invent smog-reducing mechanisms that cost money and decrease performance. Instead of solid wood and leather furniture you get particle board held together with staples. Instead of just pumping all the energy you want out of the ground almost for free, you... well... we haven't quite invented our way out of that one yet.
We have reached a point where we must greatly improve how we do things simply to avoid a *decreasing* standard of life.
Then why not just invest in a foreign currency fund? (Hey, look, it even includes 8.5% gold).
Suddenly losing value all at once is senseless; it should follow a decay function. We'll call it "inflation."
I think the point is there aren't that many people who actually care what the value is so it isn't very strongly tied to anything real.
So which is it? Is groupon any good (for customers, as opposed to business owners)? I haven't used it yet and would like to hear what people in here think.
What 2011 tech bubble? The Nasdaq is down overall this year.