The usual internet problems exist. Do not put up there what you do not want other to know.
I am sure there are dozens of ways to abuse the information that is up there. But guess what *YOU HAVE DECIDED* to put it up there...
The problem is that's not true. It is becoming increasingly easy to correlate all the information others have incidentally posted about you, and put together a pretty good picture of you, even if you personally have posted nothing at all.
I have no facebook account. Yet yesterday I got an email facebook invite from somebody I've never heard of, and it said "here are 9 other friends of this person you may know." I *do* know 7 of the 9, through different business dealings that have nothing to do with each other. They're sure not people who "friended" me, since we don't have that kind of relationship. It's creepy.
What do you think about Jane Fonda in Vietnam? Was she a traitor to our troops for allowing herself to be propped up for a photo-op on an enemy AA gun, or did she actually save many of their lives by bringing the war to a close, if just a few days or hours sooner?
Unfortunately there's no definite way to answer such a question.
Not only do they not want state hospitals to look inept, but they don't want to admit there's a problem they can't solve... they don't want AIDS to be a problem in China, so they are just denying it.
Quoting Wikipedia:
Early efforts to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic emphasized enforcement of laws against high-risk behavior, but later lessons from effective interventions in pilot programs and in other countries (e.g. needle exchange programs in Australia and condom campaigns for sex workers in Thailand) have led to a more evidence-based approach... Three major initiatives are being scaled up concurrently. First, the government has prioritized interventions to control the epidemic in injection drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and plasma donors. Second, routine HIV testing is being implemented in populations at high risk of infection. Third, the government is providing treatment for infected individuals."
Wikipedia cites this paper from the Lancet (as authoritative as you can get), and the abstract seems consistent with what Wikipedia says.
In a democracy, getting something passed into law is a good sign that there's at least a fair degree of public support for it.
Where I live, recycling is not mandated, but it's beneficial to me because it doesn't have to fit in my trash container, which has only a limited size. I like to mail order, so I could never fit all the cardboard in there, and would have to pay more for an additional trash can if they didn't recycle it for free.
To take something apart and separate the elements used in its construction may cost more than putting it together.
Well, isn't that exactly what they are doing? If no recycling were taking place, why would these businesses hold the recycling events and have the stuff shipped half way around the world, if not because they can pick out some valuable materials to sell at a profit? That is recycling.
I guess you are saying is they can't do the recycling for a profit while paying people decent wages, providing a safe workplace, and protecting the environment. I agree that's a bad situation. But all that applies to almost any manufactured consumer goods you buy these days, and is not particular to the recycling business.
Consider that nobody ever really knew what HDD reliability was, either. Google's 2007 study of HDD reliability was surprising on many counts. How is that possible with such a mature technology?
Me, I just go for a good warranty and keep backups.
Well, Ballmer did that act for a reason, which is exactly so this day would not come. Microsoft has always put a lot of resources into their developer tools, which are very polished and relatively cheap in most cases. (Relatively cheap compared to Microsoft's competition in the early 1990's when they were maturing as a company, that is.) So their falling out of favor is significant precisely because they did try. They developed the tools, but try as they might they couldn't stay "cool" and dominate the world of corporate computing at the same time. (It's hard. Just ask IBM).
I say, Prince could be right in a sense. Smarthphones, Facebook, and twitter have a faddish aspect; they are "hot" lately. After these blow over, it's possible most people will be done with them - and I don't just mean those particular websites, like the passing of the guard from myspace to facebook - but with the idea of checking in 100 times per day to make inane comments that nobody reads.
Like with cars. (Yup, a car analogy). I was talking to my dad about the classic cars of the 60s that sell for big bucks and said I couldn't see what cars from the 80s or 90s would reach that status. He said, probably none. When he was a kid, all the guys lusted after cars and wrenched on them all the time. Now that they have money, these same guys bid up those same cars at auction. Nowadays, we still have cars, but they're just "there" doing what the do, and the buzz isn't there. I think that's what Prince means, not that the Internet will stop existing or even stop being used.
If only they could nudge up the operating temperature of the chips from the stated 85C to something over 100C, they could be making steam (instead of just warming water) which consumes a huge amount of energy without a big temperature gradient; evaporative cooling seems like just a step in that direction. (Heat pipes do use phase change; do most of the use alcohol or something with a lower boiling point than water so the chip doesn't have to operate over 100C?)
Unfortunately the advent of HDTV has also stagnated computer monitor resolutions.
Maybe it has, or maybe both are just hitting the same point of diminishing returns (although I use a 2560 x 1600 monitor at work and really like it).
The other major bummer (which somewhat diminishes my earlier point) is the current gen of consoles fall short of really tapping 1080p. I don't think any of my XBox 360 games do better than 720.
It used to be that the Console was inferior mostly due to not having much in networking capabilities. I can play Counterstrike with friends over the net, but in order to play Golden-eye, we needed to be in the same room.
Networking, yes. And another huge boost for consoles has been the advent of high-def TV. 10 years ago the hardware to run 3d games at 1024x768 was getting affordable but consoles were stuck firmly at 640x480. Nowadays TVs are 1920x1080, and most PCs are too. And the TV screen is in almost all cases larger.
It's folksy economic "wisdom" like that may yet lead us back into recession. Until jobs come back, we can either pay people to build things with long-term value, or we can pay them to sit at home.
"Dollar per job" figures such as yours are pure absurdity. All you are doing is dividing the total cost of the project by the number of salaries paid by the project. By that measure, the most efficient "job creation" program is... wait for it... welfare, because there are almost no costs other than paychecks. Back in the world of real projects, you can't get stuff done for just the cost of labor. You can't remodel your kitchen for just the price of a handyman, and you can't build a road for just the cost of road workers. Of course, all the money for materials, supplies, insurance, etc. does go to pay somebody.
That's right, energy costs money! For example, a single automobile that lasts 150,000 miles and gets 20 mpg of $3 gas will cost $22,500 over its lifetime.
"Government stimulus" programs destroy more jobs than they create. So they fed a million people - by starving 3.5 million others? Thanks a lot.
The very programs claimed to combat it turned the latest of a series of short economic downturns into "The Great Depression" soup lines, regional migrations, blockades, and all.
What caused the Great Depression was an orgy of speculation, just like this one.
The New Deal is what preserved (a moderated form of) capitalism in the US. People don't just stand by and watch their kids starve. When an economic system fails to allow people to provide for themselves and their family, something has to give. You can either A) let people starve and waste resources fending off rioters and looters until there is a violent upheaval; B) pay people to do nothing; or C) pay them to do something useful. When the private sector comes back with jobs for people, then you must transition them away from government employment so market forces can efficiently allocate their efforts.
You can always tell the n00bs at the local rock wall or rock gym because they try to pull themselves up the route with brute upper-body strength.
But then, rock climbing isn't just about climbing rocks; it's about climbing them in the most difficult yet still possible way. Otherwise you'd just use fixed ropes and ascenders, or walk up the gentle slope to the side, or take an elevator.
Like social security? Yeah.. we all know THAT's going well!
It is working about as well as anything could. Poverty among the elderly has plummeted compared to before it was instituted.
People are living longer and having fewer children. No amount of accounting can change that ultimate fact. Not even a high savings rate among workers for later retirement could magically overcome a lower producer/consumer ratio; that would just result in wage inflation as elderly people with big bank accounts compete for the services of a relatively small workforce.
If social security deserves any blame, it is for reducing the financial incentive to have children (because they're you're personal retirement plan) but do we really want to go back to that? Sooner or later the population has to level off, and people have to accept they're not going to have decades of able-bodied late-life idleness like the WWII generation did. That was a fluke of the exploding postwar population and US economic world dominance caused the decimation of our economic competitors in world wars.
Yeah right. The tens of thousands of people who would otherwise have starved beg to differ. And we're still living off much of the infrastructure they built.
Granted, they are probably abusing the term. But I really like it, since I sometimes have to book fairly soon before a trip, yet I still get a shot at a decent seat so long as I book at least 24 hours in advance. (On the other hand, they'll never give you a free 1st class upgrade like other airlines - since they don't have any such thing!)
I personally _love_ to stand 40 minutes to an hour prior to my flights just so I can get a decent seat.
You're referring to a system they stopped using a few years ago. Now, they give you a number based on when you check in online (you can also get a low number by flying alot, or paying extra), and you board in that order. You can remain seated right until they board the block of numbers that includes yours. You don't really *need* to be at your computer exactly 24 hours before your flight to check in either; I don't think I've ever failed to get either an aisle or window seat so long as I checked in online before going to the airport.
No, Global Warming is still very real. With the interplay of so many different processes there have been and will be periods of a few to several years in which the temperature doesn't rise (look at the graph) but the longer-term trend is clear. I don't mind the term "climate change" either; I suppose it gained currency because there are parts of the world that may actually become cooler. But that doesn't change the global average, which is "warming."
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The problem is that's not true. It is becoming increasingly easy to correlate all the information others have incidentally posted about you, and put together a pretty good picture of you, even if you personally have posted nothing at all.
I have no facebook account. Yet yesterday I got an email facebook invite from somebody I've never heard of, and it said "here are 9 other friends of this person you may know." I *do* know 7 of the 9, through different business dealings that have nothing to do with each other. They're sure not people who "friended" me, since we don't have that kind of relationship. It's creepy.
Unfortunately there's no definite way to answer such a question.
Quoting Wikipedia: Early efforts to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic emphasized enforcement of laws against high-risk behavior, but later lessons from effective interventions in pilot programs and in other countries (e.g. needle exchange programs in Australia and condom campaigns for sex workers in Thailand) have led to a more evidence-based approach... Three major initiatives are being scaled up concurrently. First, the government has prioritized interventions to control the epidemic in injection drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and plasma donors. Second, routine HIV testing is being implemented in populations at high risk of infection. Third, the government is providing treatment for infected individuals."
Wikipedia cites this paper from the Lancet (as authoritative as you can get), and the abstract seems consistent with what Wikipedia says.
Surprisingly, it didn't turn out to have any impact on anything, that I can tell.
Where I live, recycling is not mandated, but it's beneficial to me because it doesn't have to fit in my trash container, which has only a limited size. I like to mail order, so I could never fit all the cardboard in there, and would have to pay more for an additional trash can if they didn't recycle it for free.
Well, isn't that exactly what they are doing? If no recycling were taking place, why would these businesses hold the recycling events and have the stuff shipped half way around the world, if not because they can pick out some valuable materials to sell at a profit? That is recycling.
I guess you are saying is they can't do the recycling for a profit while paying people decent wages, providing a safe workplace, and protecting the environment. I agree that's a bad situation. But all that applies to almost any manufactured consumer goods you buy these days, and is not particular to the recycling business.
Me, I just go for a good warranty and keep backups.
Well, Ballmer did that act for a reason, which is exactly so this day would not come. Microsoft has always put a lot of resources into their developer tools, which are very polished and relatively cheap in most cases. (Relatively cheap compared to Microsoft's competition in the early 1990's when they were maturing as a company, that is.) So their falling out of favor is significant precisely because they did try. They developed the tools, but try as they might they couldn't stay "cool" and dominate the world of corporate computing at the same time. (It's hard. Just ask IBM).
Like with cars. (Yup, a car analogy). I was talking to my dad about the classic cars of the 60s that sell for big bucks and said I couldn't see what cars from the 80s or 90s would reach that status. He said, probably none. When he was a kid, all the guys lusted after cars and wrenched on them all the time. Now that they have money, these same guys bid up those same cars at auction. Nowadays, we still have cars, but they're just "there" doing what the do, and the buzz isn't there. I think that's what Prince means, not that the Internet will stop existing or even stop being used.
If only they could nudge up the operating temperature of the chips from the stated 85C to something over 100C, they could be making steam (instead of just warming water) which consumes a huge amount of energy without a big temperature gradient; evaporative cooling seems like just a step in that direction. (Heat pipes do use phase change; do most of the use alcohol or something with a lower boiling point than water so the chip doesn't have to operate over 100C?)
Maybe it has, or maybe both are just hitting the same point of diminishing returns (although I use a 2560 x 1600 monitor at work and really like it).
The other major bummer (which somewhat diminishes my earlier point) is the current gen of consoles fall short of really tapping 1080p. I don't think any of my XBox 360 games do better than 720.
Networking, yes. And another huge boost for consoles has been the advent of high-def TV. 10 years ago the hardware to run 3d games at 1024x768 was getting affordable but consoles were stuck firmly at 640x480. Nowadays TVs are 1920x1080, and most PCs are too. And the TV screen is in almost all cases larger.
But real shoes don't look right with my sweatpants.
Then how will those people get food and shelter?
Seriously, how can you suggest abolishing something essential to the survival of so many people without bothering to propose your own alternative?
It's folksy economic "wisdom" like that may yet lead us back into recession. Until jobs come back, we can either pay people to build things with long-term value, or we can pay them to sit at home.
"Dollar per job" figures such as yours are pure absurdity. All you are doing is dividing the total cost of the project by the number of salaries paid by the project. By that measure, the most efficient "job creation" program is... wait for it... welfare, because there are almost no costs other than paychecks. Back in the world of real projects, you can't get stuff done for just the cost of labor. You can't remodel your kitchen for just the price of a handyman, and you can't build a road for just the cost of road workers. Of course, all the money for materials, supplies, insurance, etc. does go to pay somebody.
That's right, energy costs money! For example, a single automobile that lasts 150,000 miles and gets 20 mpg of $3 gas will cost $22,500 over its lifetime.
What caused the Great Depression was an orgy of speculation, just like this one.
The New Deal is what preserved (a moderated form of) capitalism in the US. People don't just stand by and watch their kids starve. When an economic system fails to allow people to provide for themselves and their family, something has to give. You can either A) let people starve and waste resources fending off rioters and looters until there is a violent upheaval; B) pay people to do nothing; or C) pay them to do something useful. When the private sector comes back with jobs for people, then you must transition them away from government employment so market forces can efficiently allocate their efforts.
But then, rock climbing isn't just about climbing rocks; it's about climbing them in the most difficult yet still possible way. Otherwise you'd just use fixed ropes and ascenders, or walk up the gentle slope to the side, or take an elevator.
It is working about as well as anything could. Poverty among the elderly has plummeted compared to before it was instituted.
People are living longer and having fewer children. No amount of accounting can change that ultimate fact. Not even a high savings rate among workers for later retirement could magically overcome a lower producer/consumer ratio; that would just result in wage inflation as elderly people with big bank accounts compete for the services of a relatively small workforce.
If social security deserves any blame, it is for reducing the financial incentive to have children (because they're you're personal retirement plan) but do we really want to go back to that? Sooner or later the population has to level off, and people have to accept they're not going to have decades of able-bodied late-life idleness like the WWII generation did. That was a fluke of the exploding postwar population and US economic world dominance caused the decimation of our economic competitors in world wars.
Yeah, the blurb says he has too much time on his hands; I say he's sharpening his craft and getting lots of free press, and job well done.
Yeah right. The tens of thousands of people who would otherwise have starved beg to differ. And we're still living off much of the infrastructure they built.
Granted, they are probably abusing the term. But I really like it, since I sometimes have to book fairly soon before a trip, yet I still get a shot at a decent seat so long as I book at least 24 hours in advance. (On the other hand, they'll never give you a free 1st class upgrade like other airlines - since they don't have any such thing!)
You're referring to a system they stopped using a few years ago. Now, they give you a number based on when you check in online (you can also get a low number by flying alot, or paying extra), and you board in that order. You can remain seated right until they board the block of numbers that includes yours. You don't really *need* to be at your computer exactly 24 hours before your flight to check in either; I don't think I've ever failed to get either an aisle or window seat so long as I checked in online before going to the airport.
No, Global Warming is still very real. With the interplay of so many different processes there have been and will be periods of a few to several years in which the temperature doesn't rise (look at the graph) but the longer-term trend is clear. I don't mind the term "climate change" either; I suppose it gained currency because there are parts of the world that may actually become cooler. But that doesn't change the global average, which is "warming."