To me, the problem is simple. Anything I can think of that would be predicted by something that has no physical basis cannot be studied scientifically. Even if the prediction is true, how can the prediction be repeated? Obviously, some sort of advanced scientific knowledge gleaned simply from religion would be wonderful, but the lack of such proof doesn't mean other predictions are false.
For a personal example, my wife recently passed away at the age of 24. Ever since she was young she hated being alone. She had a vivid dream when she was a child that she was going to die alone at a young age. She also very much believed this dream, going to such lengths as going to work with her mom or always living in homes with roommates. She was also extraordinarily careful, trying not to do anything risky or dangerous.
Yet, after spending over 3 weeks together on our honeymoon, she died the day after we returned home while I was at work. It was the first time she had been alone in over 25 days. She died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism, without showing any symptoms during the weeks prior to her death.
In addition, just two months before the trip she emphatically warned me to not leave her at home alone. On her last day, I simply forgot about it and thought she would want rest (she had even wanted to go with me to work that day).
This, of course, is a one-time event and not reproducible. It seems very unlikely that a young woman would be in such fear of dieing alone at that age and, despite her best efforts, dieing alone. It could be a case of bizarre coincidences, but of course to me that also seems unlikely.
Except that Hoover was very reluctant to pump money into the economy or try in anyway to save the banks. That's a pretty huge difference. There's also a pretty big difference between the depression that resulted from Hoover's actions (or inactions) and today's recession.
This is something you can test yourself without too much trouble.
Make two boxes sealed in plastic. Put some dry ice in one, nothing in the other. Put a thermometer in each one and place them under a heat lamp. The one with dry ice will definitely be warmer than the other box.
You could easily saturate one box with water vapor and leave the other one dry if you want to do another experiment.
ANA was the launch partner with Boeing for the 787. They ordered the first set of 787s years ago and played a large role in the initial requirements that the 787 is designed to meet (although other customers played important roles in the design requirements of the 787 too). Without ANA the 787 would likely be a somewhat different jet and the design process may not have started at that time.
However, they did not provide engineering help to Boeing. They were upset about the delays with the 787 like all of the other customers, but all Boeing could do was to be flexible with them and substitute 767s or other jets for some of the 787s ANA ordered. Boeing also paid penalties to ANA for being late and likely gave them additional discounts as well.
Customers only have so much flexibility with the 787. No passenger 787 can be bought that does not include the cool lights and darkening windows. They can add more seats, but nothing close to 500 of course. The 787 that could carry the most is the 787-9, at nearly 300.
The 787 is designed as a replacement to the old 767 and carries roughly the same number of passengers. It has a slightly longer range with the main improvements being passenger comfort (lights, windows, reduced cabin noise) and greater efficiency (uses about 20% less fuel than the 767).
I would not have the job I have today without subsidized student loans. My family couldn't afford to give me any money to go to college and I could not have been able to afford to do it at the time either since I was only 18.
I've had this job for 10 years (ever since I graduated) and am very grateful to have it. Even if I could have had private loans for college, the interest rate would have made it difficult for years afterward due to the higher payments needed.
I am good friends with several Libertarians. However, they seem to be more idealistic than practical and every one of them came from a family that could have put them through college without subsidized student loans. If I told them I could not have gone to college with them without federally subsidized student loans they probably wouldn't believe me. But it's absolutely true.
I know someone who majored in Japanese, then got a masters in biochemistry and was in charge of a project putting a microbiology experiment on a satellite. She's intelligent in many ways, but is also an anti-vaxxer. She grew up in an extremely conservative family though, which I think may have had something to do with it.
There's no comparison between the US and Chinese governments. Heck, I know a girl whose family is well connected politically in China and even she doesn't want to deal with the Chinese government. It's just far too corrupt and everyone only cares about themselves. The government is completely opaque and it's ridiculously easy to embezzle public money due to the lack of accountability and openness. And that's at the national level, at the local level it's even worse, especially in the countryside.
Just for one specific example, a drunk guy ran over and killed a couple of women late at night. When the police showed up, he said he was the mayor's son so what were they going to do about it. Fortunately, someone got it on video and it caused the people to protest and force him to go to jail (and for his father to apologize). But that guy's attitude is pervasive in the Chinese government's upper levels, with political power tending to pass from one generation to the next and having the ability to do almost anything and get away with it.
They don't overlook felonies, especially when there are 20 or more people applying for every job opening. This guy will be lucky finding a job at McDonalds once he gets out of prison.
I didn't read the entire thesis, rather just skipping to the section that seemed relevant (2.3.2). I didn't see anything ruling out optical storage there, rather readers should be stored along with the archived data or at least the specifications needed to build a reader.
Was I reading the wrong section?
Personally, I think if consumers generally agree upon an archival format then that format will stick around for a very long time. The CD standard is already 30 years old and doesn't show any signs of going away.
The MSRP of the Chevy Eco is $20k. Also, that 42 MPG is misleading. That's only its highway mpg and only if you get a manual transmission. The combined MPG is, at best, 33 MPG. I say "at best" because that's the EPA fuel rating if you're using a manual transmission. Fuel efficiencies you actually have tend to be lower, especially if you do mostly city driving.
I payed only $4k more for the Prius. It's impossible to compare its depreciation rate since the Eco is a brand new model.
Except that they tend to depreciate at a slower rate and gas prices keep going up. I own a Prius and have already saved nearly $2000 in gas since I bought it 3 years ago. According to its blue book value, it has dropped about 20% in value since then. A similar non-hybrid car, such as the Hyundai Accent, would have dropped 33% in value during the same period.
Most people simply look at the price difference between the cars when buying new. But you need to remember that you will likely sell it, so even if you pay more for it than another car you'll also almost certainly sell it for more later on, so the key is which car will depreciate slower.
So whether I sell my Prius today or trade it in at the end of its life, I will come out ahead.
Actually, no. It requires a 5% annual increase in fuel economy for passenger cars and a 3.5% annual increase for light trucks (for the first 9 years, they too would need to increase at 5% per year after that). See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/fuel_economy_report.pdf for all of the details.
It should be noted that in 1951 they responded to this by increasing tax rates. Also, that 35% rate only applies to income earned above $373k, so if you make $500k (after deductions), the 35% rate would only apple to $500-373k of your income ($127k). Your overall tax rate would be much lower than 35% in that case on your taxable income, and even lower when compared to your total income.
If they increased revenue compared to what would have otherwise occurred, then why did they add the sunset provision? The answer is they knew it would not, so had to add a sunset provision so that it wouldn't violate the senate rule designed to stop legislation like this from passing (legislation that would add to the deficit for 10 years or more).
FYI, this law is commonly referred to as the Bush tax cuts. This isn't some liberal/conservative or intelligentsia/ignorant issue. Heck, Fox News even has a section on its website called "Bush Tax Cuts": http://www.foxnews.com/topics/politics/taxes/bush-tax-cuts.htm
It's added 1.4 trillion dollars to the federal deficit, you know, the thing we're trying to get rid of? Happy now?
The Heritage Foundation is a very conservative think tank. Got a non-biased source? Almost any other source will be less biased (or at least not more biased)...
In addition, notice when that article was written, prior to 2008? Most of those arguments ring pretty hollow now.
I don't know what you're referring to. Tax rates are at the lowest rates they've ever been since I've been alive (late 70s).
My healthcare costs have gone up, but that's been going on ever since I started working back in the late 90s.
One of the most prosperous decades in the US was during the 50s, when tax rates on the rich were above 90% and tax rates for others were higher as well. We managed to grow the economy, pay off debt from WWII and carry out another war in Korea all at the same time. I think people tend to forget that fact since it doesn't compute with their current beliefs that higher taxes always causes a worst economy.
What tax cuts increased revenue? The Bush tax cuts cost about 1.4 trillion dollars over 10 years (the cost will keep increasing the longer they stay in place). Reagan's initial tax cut was so drastic that he had to raise taxes just a couple of years later (although we've had large budget deficits ever since, with the one exception of the last year of Clinton's presidency).
The fastest rising expenditure of government is costs resulting from entitlements, primarily Medicaid and Medicare. This is because medical costs nation-wide have been increasing much faster than inflation for decades. It's ironic how the tea party movement, which formed when the current administration attempted to address this issue, is now worried about the deficit, which in the future will largely be due to the growing costs of entitlements. When they started out they were worried about losing Medicare, now they seemed determined to get rid of it themselves.
What about college professors at public universities that receive much of their funding from the government? Would they also need official approval before saying anything to reporters about their research? What about to other scientists?
Imagine 10s of thousands of reporters calling thousands of government workers for their willy nilly ranting about their opinions and ideologies. Doesn't make much sense does it? Reporters were interested in reaching this particular government worker for a good reason, she had just had a major paper published in a very important journal that could mean a lot to the public's interest.
Similarly, reporters will call firemen to report on a fire or policemen when reporting on a crime or politicians when reporting on what they are doing. When they want to report on science, why for that one category would they suddenly need to first get government approval first just to conduct the interview? Sounds like something China would do, not a 1st class democracy.
Except, in this case, your analogy fails almost 100%. This isn't a case of someone trying to do some sexual assault on you or something. We're trying to balance the books. That's done in two ways, lower expenses and increase revenue. Revenue has not been keeping pace with expenses due to tax cuts, a large number of baby boomers retiring, and the rapid increase in medical costs. Tack on the enormous recession which caused a further drop in tax receipts and the enormous hole we were already in and you can get an idea of why we're not going to be able to do this with tax cuts alone.
If you look at every austerity measure enacted in Europe recently, they have all included raising taxes and lowering expenses. Why? Let's just take the US for example. We could cut all discretionary spending and still have a budget deficit (including all military spending).
This isn't some small problem that can be solved by simply cutting spending. You could get rid of Medicaid and Medicare, but where would that leave us? Just with a bunch of poor and elderly people not getting health care, much like how it was in the US before FDR.
However, whether it's a good idea to drastically cut expenses and raise taxes now is a good question. The UK did this over a year ago and their economy has struggled ever since, with marginal economic growth at best.
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To me, the problem is simple. Anything I can think of that would be predicted by something that has no physical basis cannot be studied scientifically. Even if the prediction is true, how can the prediction be repeated? Obviously, some sort of advanced scientific knowledge gleaned simply from religion would be wonderful, but the lack of such proof doesn't mean other predictions are false.
For a personal example, my wife recently passed away at the age of 24. Ever since she was young she hated being alone. She had a vivid dream when she was a child that she was going to die alone at a young age. She also very much believed this dream, going to such lengths as going to work with her mom or always living in homes with roommates. She was also extraordinarily careful, trying not to do anything risky or dangerous.
Yet, after spending over 3 weeks together on our honeymoon, she died the day after we returned home while I was at work. It was the first time she had been alone in over 25 days. She died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism, without showing any symptoms during the weeks prior to her death.
In addition, just two months before the trip she emphatically warned me to not leave her at home alone. On her last day, I simply forgot about it and thought she would want rest (she had even wanted to go with me to work that day).
This, of course, is a one-time event and not reproducible. It seems very unlikely that a young woman would be in such fear of dieing alone at that age and, despite her best efforts, dieing alone. It could be a case of bizarre coincidences, but of course to me that also seems unlikely.
Even a student's time is worth something. Nobody can write a program for truly 'free'. There is always an opportunity cost.
Except that Hoover was very reluctant to pump money into the economy or try in anyway to save the banks. That's a pretty huge difference. There's also a pretty big difference between the depression that resulted from Hoover's actions (or inactions) and today's recession.
This is something you can test yourself without too much trouble.
Make two boxes sealed in plastic. Put some dry ice in one, nothing in the other. Put a thermometer in each one and place them under a heat lamp. The one with dry ice will definitely be warmer than the other box.
You could easily saturate one box with water vapor and leave the other one dry if you want to do another experiment.
ANA was the launch partner with Boeing for the 787. They ordered the first set of 787s years ago and played a large role in the initial requirements that the 787 is designed to meet (although other customers played important roles in the design requirements of the 787 too). Without ANA the 787 would likely be a somewhat different jet and the design process may not have started at that time.
However, they did not provide engineering help to Boeing. They were upset about the delays with the 787 like all of the other customers, but all Boeing could do was to be flexible with them and substitute 767s or other jets for some of the 787s ANA ordered. Boeing also paid penalties to ANA for being late and likely gave them additional discounts as well.
Customers only have so much flexibility with the 787. No passenger 787 can be bought that does not include the cool lights and darkening windows. They can add more seats, but nothing close to 500 of course. The 787 that could carry the most is the 787-9, at nearly 300.
The 787 is designed as a replacement to the old 767 and carries roughly the same number of passengers. It has a slightly longer range with the main improvements being passenger comfort (lights, windows, reduced cabin noise) and greater efficiency (uses about 20% less fuel than the 767).
I would not have the job I have today without subsidized student loans. My family couldn't afford to give me any money to go to college and I could not have been able to afford to do it at the time either since I was only 18.
I've had this job for 10 years (ever since I graduated) and am very grateful to have it. Even if I could have had private loans for college, the interest rate would have made it difficult for years afterward due to the higher payments needed.
I am good friends with several Libertarians. However, they seem to be more idealistic than practical and every one of them came from a family that could have put them through college without subsidized student loans. If I told them I could not have gone to college with them without federally subsidized student loans they probably wouldn't believe me. But it's absolutely true.
I know someone who majored in Japanese, then got a masters in biochemistry and was in charge of a project putting a microbiology experiment on a satellite. She's intelligent in many ways, but is also an anti-vaxxer. She grew up in an extremely conservative family though, which I think may have had something to do with it.
I watched the original on cntv.cn yesterday before they took it down. I'm not exactly sure how Falun Gong was able to hack cntv.cn.
The Chinese people have an even crappier opinion of their government than we do.
There's no comparison between the US and Chinese governments. Heck, I know a girl whose family is well connected politically in China and even she doesn't want to deal with the Chinese government. It's just far too corrupt and everyone only cares about themselves. The government is completely opaque and it's ridiculously easy to embezzle public money due to the lack of accountability and openness. And that's at the national level, at the local level it's even worse, especially in the countryside.
Just for one specific example, a drunk guy ran over and killed a couple of women late at night. When the police showed up, he said he was the mayor's son so what were they going to do about it. Fortunately, someone got it on video and it caused the people to protest and force him to go to jail (and for his father to apologize). But that guy's attitude is pervasive in the Chinese government's upper levels, with political power tending to pass from one generation to the next and having the ability to do almost anything and get away with it.
A normal plug could work without magnetism so long as you have a rubber band.
They don't overlook felonies, especially when there are 20 or more people applying for every job opening. This guy will be lucky finding a job at McDonalds once he gets out of prison.
Two very informative posts. Wish I had some mod points to send your way.
I didn't read the entire thesis, rather just skipping to the section that seemed relevant (2.3.2). I didn't see anything ruling out optical storage there, rather readers should be stored along with the archived data or at least the specifications needed to build a reader.
Was I reading the wrong section?
Personally, I think if consumers generally agree upon an archival format then that format will stick around for a very long time. The CD standard is already 30 years old and doesn't show any signs of going away.
From http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/06/40-mpg-dollars-and-sense-chevrolet-cruze-eco-saves-fuel-as-long-as-you-shift-yourself.html
The MSRP of the Chevy Eco is $20k. Also, that 42 MPG is misleading. That's only its highway mpg and only if you get a manual transmission. The combined MPG is, at best, 33 MPG. I say "at best" because that's the EPA fuel rating if you're using a manual transmission. Fuel efficiencies you actually have tend to be lower, especially if you do mostly city driving.
I payed only $4k more for the Prius. It's impossible to compare its depreciation rate since the Eco is a brand new model.
Except that they tend to depreciate at a slower rate and gas prices keep going up. I own a Prius and have already saved nearly $2000 in gas since I bought it 3 years ago. According to its blue book value, it has dropped about 20% in value since then. A similar non-hybrid car, such as the Hyundai Accent, would have dropped 33% in value during the same period.
Most people simply look at the price difference between the cars when buying new. But you need to remember that you will likely sell it, so even if you pay more for it than another car you'll also almost certainly sell it for more later on, so the key is which car will depreciate slower.
So whether I sell my Prius today or trade it in at the end of its life, I will come out ahead.
Actually, no. It requires a 5% annual increase in fuel economy for passenger cars and a 3.5% annual increase for light trucks (for the first 9 years, they too would need to increase at 5% per year after that). See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/fuel_economy_report.pdf for all of the details.
Federal tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is about the same now as it was in 1950: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/U.S._Federal_Tax_Receipts_as_a_Percentage_of_GDP_1945%E2%80%932015.jpg
It should be noted that in 1951 they responded to this by increasing tax rates. Also, that 35% rate only applies to income earned above $373k, so if you make $500k (after deductions), the 35% rate would only apple to $500-373k of your income ($127k). Your overall tax rate would be much lower than 35% in that case on your taxable income, and even lower when compared to your total income.
If they increased revenue compared to what would have otherwise occurred, then why did they add the sunset provision? The answer is they knew it would not, so had to add a sunset provision so that it wouldn't violate the senate rule designed to stop legislation like this from passing (legislation that would add to the deficit for 10 years or more).
FYI, this law is commonly referred to as the Bush tax cuts. This isn't some liberal/conservative or intelligentsia/ignorant issue. Heck, Fox News even has a section on its website called "Bush Tax Cuts": http://www.foxnews.com/topics/politics/taxes/bush-tax-cuts.htm
It's added 1.4 trillion dollars to the federal deficit, you know, the thing we're trying to get rid of? Happy now?
The Heritage Foundation is a very conservative think tank. Got a non-biased source? Almost any other source will be less biased (or at least not more biased)...
In addition, notice when that article was written, prior to 2008? Most of those arguments ring pretty hollow now.
I don't know what you're referring to. Tax rates are at the lowest rates they've ever been since I've been alive (late 70s).
My healthcare costs have gone up, but that's been going on ever since I started working back in the late 90s.
One of the most prosperous decades in the US was during the 50s, when tax rates on the rich were above 90% and tax rates for others were higher as well. We managed to grow the economy, pay off debt from WWII and carry out another war in Korea all at the same time. I think people tend to forget that fact since it doesn't compute with their current beliefs that higher taxes always causes a worst economy.
What tax cuts increased revenue? The Bush tax cuts cost about 1.4 trillion dollars over 10 years (the cost will keep increasing the longer they stay in place). Reagan's initial tax cut was so drastic that he had to raise taxes just a couple of years later (although we've had large budget deficits ever since, with the one exception of the last year of Clinton's presidency).
The fastest rising expenditure of government is costs resulting from entitlements, primarily Medicaid and Medicare. This is because medical costs nation-wide have been increasing much faster than inflation for decades. It's ironic how the tea party movement, which formed when the current administration attempted to address this issue, is now worried about the deficit, which in the future will largely be due to the growing costs of entitlements. When they started out they were worried about losing Medicare, now they seemed determined to get rid of it themselves.
What about college professors at public universities that receive much of their funding from the government? Would they also need official approval before saying anything to reporters about their research? What about to other scientists?
Imagine 10s of thousands of reporters calling thousands of government workers for their willy nilly ranting about their opinions and ideologies. Doesn't make much sense does it? Reporters were interested in reaching this particular government worker for a good reason, she had just had a major paper published in a very important journal that could mean a lot to the public's interest.
Similarly, reporters will call firemen to report on a fire or policemen when reporting on a crime or politicians when reporting on what they are doing. When they want to report on science, why for that one category would they suddenly need to first get government approval first just to conduct the interview? Sounds like something China would do, not a 1st class democracy.
Except, in this case, your analogy fails almost 100%. This isn't a case of someone trying to do some sexual assault on you or something. We're trying to balance the books. That's done in two ways, lower expenses and increase revenue. Revenue has not been keeping pace with expenses due to tax cuts, a large number of baby boomers retiring, and the rapid increase in medical costs. Tack on the enormous recession which caused a further drop in tax receipts and the enormous hole we were already in and you can get an idea of why we're not going to be able to do this with tax cuts alone.
If you look at every austerity measure enacted in Europe recently, they have all included raising taxes and lowering expenses. Why? Let's just take the US for example. We could cut all discretionary spending and still have a budget deficit (including all military spending).
This isn't some small problem that can be solved by simply cutting spending. You could get rid of Medicaid and Medicare, but where would that leave us? Just with a bunch of poor and elderly people not getting health care, much like how it was in the US before FDR.
However, whether it's a good idea to drastically cut expenses and raise taxes now is a good question. The UK did this over a year ago and their economy has struggled ever since, with marginal economic growth at best.