What is says is that the drug companies were: Step 1: Gaming the clinical trials to get the results they wanted. Step 2: Profit! It didn't really matter to them that the results were invalid or in some cases may have caused harm. It typically takes years to sort out bad results and in the meantime, the profits are real.
I once checked in for an overseas flight and they said it would leave either on time or two hours later. They said that if not many people checked in, they could eliminate a stop for fuel on the way so they could leave later. Ended up leaving on time and stopping for fuel in Hawaii. I was personally happy about that.
The grid will evolve over time to take advantage of wind, solar and storage. I don't think anyone is predicting the immediate demise of coal and nuclear although many would like to see it shrink to a much smaller part of our supply. You have to understand that coal and nuclear plants have problems in that you can't easily adjust their power output during the day. They are designed to operate at 100% on or off and it takes days to turn them on or off. This makes them unsuitable to meet the needs of the grid where demand will increase two to three times base load during each day. They are really only good for base load and there has always been a surplus of base load to the point where utilities essentially give away power at night. Battery storage is uniquely suited to meeting the hour to hour changes in demand from the grid. Coal and nuclear are useless for this. (Thanks for the reference to www.withouthotair.com Looks like a lot of good information there.)
Actually, if you had read the article, you would know that Paul Mason admits that he has serious reservations about whether or not what he is seeing will take place. I also have the same reservations. The oligarchs are powerful and will fight back with their control of government and all of their money (and they do have all of the money). He offers this as a possible future... not a prediction.
Interesting book by Paul Mason is saying something similar but in a broader context. Things are changing due to technology and better access to information. It's hard to control information. Technology is eroding the price of information. Non-market social organizations are replacing capitalist organizations. "The neoliberalist capitalist model has resulted in civil wars and economic disaster, and it’s only going to get worse. Unless, Paul Mason argues, we take advantage of the technological revolution we are living through and create a postcapitalist sharing society. If we let prices fall and delink work from wages, we can save the world from disaster"
"There is, alongside the world of monopolised information and surveillance created by corporations and governments, a different dynamic growing up around information: information as a social good, free at the point of use, incapable of being owned or exploited or priced. I’ve surveyed the attempts by economists and business gurus to build a framework to understand the dynamics of an economy based on abundant, socially-held information. But it was actually imagined by one 19th-century economist in the era of the telegraph and the steam engine. His name? Karl Marx."
"The main contradiction today is between the possibility of free, abundant goods and information; and a system of monopolies, banks and governments trying to keep things private, scarce and commercial. Everything comes down to the struggle between the network and the hierarchy: between old forms of society moulded around capitalism and new forms of society that prefigure what comes next." It is the elites – cut off in their dark-limo world – whose project looks as forlorn as that of the millennial sects of the 19th century. The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phoney and fragile as East Germany did 30 years ago."
When the oligarchs have bought nearly all of our government, it is not "easy" to restrict them. There are minor divisions between Republicans and Democrats primarily over social issues (civil rights) but all of the politicians support "the free market" to the detriment of everyone except the oligarchs. Only Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren seem to be immune to the power of the oligarchs. Several interesting studies have been done surveying voters on their public policy preferences regarding health care, civil rights, gun rights, minimum wage, etc. and the public policy preferences on these same issues among the rich 1%. As might be expected, there were striking differences between the population in general and the rich. They then looked at what public policy laws were actually enacted and guess what?... the public policy preferences of the 1% were enacted, not the preferences of the rest of us. The voters are united in their beliefs (in spite of some social divisions) but they can't overcome the power of the rich to buy legislation favoring their "needs".
There is plenty of baseload supply now. In fact, we have too much baseload supply and utilities basically give it away at night. If you wanted to start a nighttime factory, you could have an unlimited supply of cheap electricity. Corporations move jobs to Asia for cheap labor, not lack of baseload power.
We have found the one person in the world who doesn't respond to financial pressure. The rest of us do what we are paid to do. Politicians get paid to pass legislation which favors the oligarchs. Our government is bought and paid for by corporations and rich people. The rest of us don't matter. We do what we are told or we get cut off. We think what we are told by the media (which is controlled by the oligarchs). Fox news sets the agenda for the Republicans. MSNBC, CNN and the others are controlled by the oligarchs and tell us what is "important". It is important that we have continuous war in the middle east to keep the oil flowing, etc. It is important that we have the "freedom" to choose our doctor (as long as he/she is one of the approved private doctors who will ensure that we buy their expensive services and buy only approved high price drugs).
Ah yes... the mythical baseload. I know there is a surplus of electric supply overnight since you can buy electricity for next to nothing during the night. I'm not sure there is much demand for baseload. Perhaps street lights?... but they could each have a solar panel and battery to run just fine. There may be some factory somewhere which operates overnight and runs some machinery. We don't know how the grid will evolve but there doesn't seem to be much baseload demand and what there is could easily be met with wind, natural gas and battery storage. No need to keep a coal or nuclear plant running 24/7 just to satisfy a mythical baseload. Utilities can't give away enough electricity at night to keep their plants running.
Or... we could spend the money on solar and wind (and battery storage) which we could implement in just a few years using proven technology. Why wait 20 or 30 years for something that might (or might not) work when we have a solution now that we know works. Nuclear has gone from "too cheap to meter" to "too expensive to matter".
You are right. With 300 million people there are just too many opinions. We've simplified the process. The USA is run as an oligarchy where rich people and corporations tell congress and the president what to do. There only a few thousand people who really "matter" (Oligarch lives matter!) in the system so it's much easier. You can just ignore the rest (and send in the goons if they get too rowdy).
I have seen the i8 and it is seriously sexy (unlike the i3 which is seriously ugly). I am not a professional driver so don't have your experience. I don't think the i8 is available for test drives yet so don't know how it handles. However, I'm not really interested in cars with fossil fuel engines even if they have a limited range battery. The Tesla does have a very low center of gravity due to the battery pack location under the center of the car. This also gives it a perfect 50-50 front rear weight distribution (at least in the 4WD "D" versions). This gives it incredible handling. It really sticks to the road (even on snow and ice). It's a big, heavy car but the electric motors give it "insane" (or "ludicrous") acceleration.
I highly recommend you take a test drive in a Tesla. The performance and handling are better than any car I have ever driven. You have to drive it to experience it. Lust is the best way to describe it.
I can't believe the stupidity of the financial press. Tesla actually makes 23% profit on every car. The company is investing heavily in new production capacity (batteries,production lines,new models) so they loose money but they have a lot of investors willing to finance their expansion.
Appropriate question. The AC charger is high efficiency and very smart. It will tolerate a wide variety of voltages from 120 to 240 and isn't upset by dirty power. If it is drawing too much current and the voltage drops (due to undersized wire, etc) it will cut back on the current it is drawing until the voltage comes back up.
My electric car doesn't care about the rating of the electrons. It will take anything from crappy 120v AC electrons all the way up to highly refined 400v DC electrons. It doesn't care about the quality of the wire, either. I can plug in any old extension cord and as long as the electrons can find their way to the car, it's good.
Most modern cars have knock sensors and retard the timing when knocking is detected so you won't notice knocking. You will get fewer miles to the gallon since this is less efficient.
About time... Google Voice has been doing this for at least five years... Skype has been doing it for a year or two. Hopefully it will work better than their initial maps implementation.
Slashdot Mirror
That is called digestion and elimination and it is assumed that this will take place.
Docusign (and others) work great.
Have your refrigerator call my shoe to set up an appointment... we can talk about it.
What is says is that the drug companies were:
Step 1: Gaming the clinical trials to get the results they wanted.
Step 2: Profit!
It didn't really matter to them that the results were invalid or in some cases may have caused harm. It typically takes years to sort out bad results and in the meantime, the profits are real.
I was once denied boarding on a (small) jet because too many people ahead of me in line had checked in with too many bananas.
I once checked in for an overseas flight and they said it would leave either on time or two hours later. They said that if not many people checked in, they could eliminate a stop for fuel on the way so they could leave later. Ended up leaving on time and stopping for fuel in Hawaii. I was personally happy about that.
The grid will evolve over time to take advantage of wind, solar and storage. I don't think anyone is predicting the immediate demise of coal and nuclear although many would like to see it shrink to a much smaller part of our supply. You have to understand that coal and nuclear plants have problems in that you can't easily adjust their power output during the day. They are designed to operate at 100% on or off and it takes days to turn them on or off. This makes them unsuitable to meet the needs of the grid where demand will increase two to three times base load during each day. They are really only good for base load and there has always been a surplus of base load to the point where utilities essentially give away power at night.
Battery storage is uniquely suited to meeting the hour to hour changes in demand from the grid. Coal and nuclear are useless for this.
(Thanks for the reference to www.withouthotair.com Looks like a lot of good information there.)
Actually, if you had read the article, you would know that Paul Mason admits that he has serious reservations about whether or not what he is seeing will take place. I also have the same reservations. The oligarchs are powerful and will fight back with their control of government and all of their money (and they do have all of the money).
He offers this as a possible future... not a prediction.
Interesting book by Paul Mason is saying something similar but in a broader context. Things are changing due to technology and better access to information. It's hard to control information. Technology is eroding the price of information. Non-market social organizations are replacing capitalist organizations.
"The neoliberalist capitalist model has resulted in civil wars and economic disaster, and it’s only going to get worse. Unless, Paul Mason argues, we take advantage of the technological revolution we are living through and create a postcapitalist sharing society. If we let prices fall and delink work from wages, we can save the world from disaster"
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
"There is, alongside the world of monopolised information and surveillance created by corporations and governments, a different dynamic growing up around information: information as a social good, free at the point of use, incapable of being owned or exploited or priced. I’ve surveyed the attempts by economists and business gurus to build a framework to understand the dynamics of an economy based on abundant, socially-held information. But it was actually imagined by one 19th-century economist in the era of the telegraph and the steam engine. His name? Karl Marx."
http://www.theguardian.com/boo...
"The main contradiction today is between the possibility of free, abundant goods and information; and a system of monopolies, banks and governments trying to keep things private, scarce and commercial. Everything comes down to the struggle between the network and the hierarchy: between old forms of society moulded around capitalism and new forms of society that prefigure what comes next."
It is the elites – cut off in their dark-limo world – whose project looks as forlorn as that of the millennial sects of the 19th century. The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phoney and fragile as East Germany did 30 years ago."
When the oligarchs have bought nearly all of our government, it is not "easy" to restrict them. There are minor divisions between Republicans and Democrats primarily over social issues (civil rights) but all of the politicians support "the free market" to the detriment of everyone except the oligarchs. Only Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren seem to be immune to the power of the oligarchs.
Several interesting studies have been done surveying voters on their public policy preferences regarding health care, civil rights, gun rights, minimum wage, etc. and the public policy preferences on these same issues among the rich 1%. As might be expected, there were striking differences between the population in general and the rich. They then looked at what public policy laws were actually enacted and guess what?... the public policy preferences of the 1% were enacted, not the preferences of the rest of us.
The voters are united in their beliefs (in spite of some social divisions) but they can't overcome the power of the rich to buy legislation favoring their "needs".
Coal consumption in Germany declined in 2014.
There is plenty of baseload supply now. In fact, we have too much baseload supply and utilities basically give it away at night. If you wanted to start a nighttime factory, you could have an unlimited supply of cheap electricity. Corporations move jobs to Asia for cheap labor, not lack of baseload power.
We have found the one person in the world who doesn't respond to financial pressure. The rest of us do what we are paid to do. Politicians get paid to pass legislation which favors the oligarchs. Our government is bought and paid for by corporations and rich people. The rest of us don't matter. We do what we are told or we get cut off. We think what we are told by the media (which is controlled by the oligarchs). Fox news sets the agenda for the Republicans. MSNBC, CNN and the others are controlled by the oligarchs and tell us what is "important". It is important that we have continuous war in the middle east to keep the oil flowing, etc. It is important that we have the "freedom" to choose our doctor (as long as he/she is one of the approved private doctors who will ensure that we buy their expensive services and buy only approved high price drugs).
Ah yes... the mythical baseload. I know there is a surplus of electric supply overnight since you can buy electricity for next to nothing during the night. I'm not sure there is much demand for baseload. Perhaps street lights? ... but they could each have a solar panel and battery to run just fine. There may be some factory somewhere which operates overnight and runs some machinery.
We don't know how the grid will evolve but there doesn't seem to be much baseload demand and what there is could easily be met with wind, natural gas and battery storage. No need to keep a coal or nuclear plant running 24/7 just to satisfy a mythical baseload. Utilities can't give away enough electricity at night to keep their plants running.
Or... we could spend the money on solar and wind (and battery storage) which we could implement in just a few years using proven technology.
Why wait 20 or 30 years for something that might (or might not) work when we have a solution now that we know works.
Nuclear has gone from "too cheap to meter" to "too expensive to matter".
You are right. With 300 million people there are just too many opinions. We've simplified the process. The USA is run as an oligarchy where rich people and corporations tell congress and the president what to do. There only a few thousand people who really "matter" (Oligarch lives matter!) in the system so it's much easier. You can just ignore the rest (and send in the goons if they get too rowdy).
I have seen the i8 and it is seriously sexy (unlike the i3 which is seriously ugly). I am not a professional driver so don't have your experience. I don't think the i8 is available for test drives yet so don't know how it handles. However, I'm not really interested in cars with fossil fuel engines even if they have a limited range battery.
The Tesla does have a very low center of gravity due to the battery pack location under the center of the car. This also gives it a perfect 50-50 front rear weight distribution (at least in the 4WD "D" versions). This gives it incredible handling. It really sticks to the road (even on snow and ice). It's a big, heavy car but the electric motors give it "insane" (or "ludicrous") acceleration.
I highly recommend you take a test drive in a Tesla. The performance and handling are better than any car I have ever driven. You have to drive it to experience it. Lust is the best way to describe it.
I can't believe the stupidity of the financial press. Tesla actually makes 23% profit on every car. The company is investing heavily in new production capacity (batteries,production lines,new models) so they loose money but they have a lot of investors willing to finance their expansion.
Appropriate question. The AC charger is high efficiency and very smart. It will tolerate a wide variety of voltages from 120 to 240 and isn't upset by dirty power. If it is drawing too much current and the voltage drops (due to undersized wire, etc) it will cut back on the current it is drawing until the voltage comes back up.
My electric car doesn't care about the rating of the electrons. It will take anything from crappy 120v AC electrons all the way up to highly refined 400v DC electrons. It doesn't care about the quality of the wire, either. I can plug in any old extension cord and as long as the electrons can find their way to the car, it's good.
Most modern cars have knock sensors and retard the timing when knocking is detected so you won't notice knocking. You will get fewer miles to the gallon since this is less efficient.
The Robot cars will fight back. It will get ugly.
Getting an abortion isn't life changing... having an unwanted child is...
Having an abortion is often a good decision.
About time...
Google Voice has been doing this for at least five years... Skype has been doing it for a year or two.
Hopefully it will work better than their initial maps implementation.