...and I remember indoor movie tickets costing *35 cents* and there were two movies, plus cartoons, plus a newsreel. And it was about the only place that had air conditioning. [lawn,off, and etc]. And cokes were a nickle and calls from a payphone were a nickle. No shyte.
But it's better now even if you only get one movie and it costs ten bucks. (mostly because you really don't have to go there and you can get the movie for less than ten bucks and watch it at home)
I wouldn't swap the internet and electronic miniaturization and so on for all that old tech. It was good enough, but it's better now in a lot of ways. Now I like older cars and trucks because they had some personality to them, but that tech is better now too. More complicated, but better.
*Some* old tech is still good and useful, but progress is progress. The tech then in the 35 cent movie days was a lot better than the 1800s. Stuff gets better because people want it better and we have a ton more smart guys working on stuff now. I have no flying car or hawt babe amazon warrior robot army...but all in all it's a lot better now. My major beef is a lot of stuff is really unfixable for most practical definitions of fixable. It works or chunk it, that part I don't like and I still hang onto way too much broken stuff now from inertia, because everything used to be somewhat fixable by joe average with a box of tools, or there was some dude on the corner with a shop and he could do it, cheap. That's pretty much gone now.
For diesel up here in north Georgia. Feeds my 81 Datsun diesel pickup. 40 MPG. About double what you get with a similar sized small truck with a gasoline engine, so even though diesel is a little higher, it's still a better deal and the power is pretty good for a small engine. These are industrial forklift engines from what I found out. Not fast, no turbo, but strong and designed to last for decades.
The best of the larger pickups are the 1990 to 1999 year Dodge Rams with the Cummins diesel. All sorts of farmers are getting 400 thou to half a million miles on them and still going strong. I read about them (favorably) all the time in this farm rag I read that has "best and worst buys". And you can tell on the used market they are good, they still get outrageous good prices for those trucks (main reason I haven't bought one yet).
Basically the same sort of problem we have with solar power here on Earth, just daily and not bi weekly like on the moon. Batteries are one possibility-over production during the sunshiny part, storage of power, etc. You'd need something better than a massive big heavy battery bank though, and what that could be on the moon I do not know. Perhaps refining out some gas like that helium and storing it under pressure. Besides that, if it was me, I'd still want two power sources, at least a second as an emergency limited use backup.
..you have a point on the different uses. I like dogs, we have six now here on the farm. They are mostly companions (all rescue dogs) and useful when the wild dogs and coyotes come around. I wish even one of them was a herding dog though..eventually I'll get one maybe.
...I'm not concerned much if any over random bombs all over. So rare it is almost a non issue. That might change, but now..meh. Where I live and my lifestyle I am way more concerned over disturbing a yellow jacket nest, hahahah!
I am concerned over false flag phony "terrorist" attacks and using something like the bird/swine/human flu scare to give the government an open ended "emergency powers" excuse. Or more middle class ripoffs to enrich casino bankers. Or more cost increasaes in everything to go to fatcat energy traders with "cap and trade" non scientific wealth skimming scams. Stuff like that. Way more important and way more impacts "we the people" than random bomb attacks.
Maybe they can train dogs to determine when an official authority figure or fatcat big economic "busy-ness" weasel is lying. THAT would be dang useful!
"Look! Rover got a "big fat steenking lie" hit! Legal grounds for lynching on the spot!"
Having two (or more) distinct and separate power sources makes more sense for security. Stuff built by humans sometimes has a tendency to malfunction. I know here on the farm having a few large redundant diesel generators has sure saved our bacon when the main grid supply goes down, which it tends to do on the very hottest days now, right when we really *need* the power the most to run the broiler houses air fans. We have roughly a five minute critical time window when we need to switch over, and that's here on Earth where it is quite pleasant compared to the extremes on the moon. I know I wouldn't want to be there with just one power supply, no matter how big it was.
And any handler can claim his dog "hit" on something as well, and use that as probable cause to confiscate the loot. And if someone was to loudly protest the confiscation of their money at some "random courtesy checkpoint", the cops can just shoot you and claim you made a "threatening furtive gesture" or were "interfering" or "resisting some lawful order" or anything else in cop CYA speak they dream up.
The point being made was, in some areas the cops use this "dog drug hit" BS as an excuse to outright rob people and get away with it or for intimidation to get people to confess to something else or whatever. They even go so far as to terrorize school kids with these dogs inside the schools. It's a con more than anything else. And it can be even worse than that for some people with phony dog-police type work
For legitimate rescue, I think dogs are great, useful, for most anything else as it intersects police work...starts to get wonky quickly.
Of course I am also in favor of ending the retarded prohibition laws, because they just cause more harm than good. If a 200 dollar day coke or smack or whatever habit was legal, it might cost all of two bucks, and I don't think there'd be much in the way of crime associated with it like it is today. It would still be technically "bad" IMO, the habit and what it does to people, but we as a society would get rid of a lot of the vast collateral damage associated with it being illegal.
40 is more like it. 2.3 as in the article summary wouldn't be enough for a human moon base, that wouldn't even cover the extremes of heating and cooling needed. 2.3 is a small home genny size.
If these big telco skunks were really interested in running something decent out here in rural land, instead of milking 100 year old repurposed telegraph wires or whatever that chintzy stuff hanging on the poles is, they could and would have done it years ago. They ain't interested, low hanging fruit only. And even the chintzy stuff they had to get ordered to provide, they sure were never going to do it on their own. And because they took all that loot in the 90s and burned everyone, they should have their big fat pipes seized immediately and nationalized.
I am not in favor of too much government or that sort of action as a general rule, but it is obvious as all get out we will as you say fall further and further behind the rest of the planet if we let things sit as they are with those companies, so a lesser of two evils approach is needed in their collective cases. The internet now is a utility, like roads, water, sewage, electricity delivery etc, and should be treated as such. I would prefer it to be run like a big public non profit co-op.
..we were doing all that "flying through strange landscapes of flying numbers and other weird futuristic landscapes" stuff in the 60s, and didn't even need the goggles!
I always turn it right around on them instantly whenever some merchant wants my number. I got nailed years ago with ID theft, which really sucks and takes a long time to fix, so I came up with something that has been working for me.
I mention getting nailed previously, etc.,, then ask to see their indemnification policy on security breaches, in writing, so everything is "legal and proper".
You get the *really* blank stare then, because about zero of these companies have anything like that..because they are jerks, but we all know that anyway.
Let them sit for a bit and stew on that. Again, you throw it right back at them when they claim they are secure and "your data is safe with us" and all the other BS..."well, sir, we are secure, and...". They ALL say that, every single stupid company out there claims to be "secure". They initiate that claim when you ask. That's a *vital point* there. As part of this proposed business transaction now, they, through their rep who is talking to you right then and is prepared to accept your money, will make a statement that they are 'secure". This is the bingo moment.
I go, along these lines, "swell, that sounds great! You are secure, wonderful, that makes me feel better because ID theft is such a hassle and expense! Err..uhh..just for my records then, please just show me and if you could provide me simple copy of your "data security" warranty provisions, the indemnification policy you must have then, thanks! And BTW, not that this will ever come up, but exactly how much cash do I get back from you when and if you get compromised? If you are "totally secure" as you claim, then you should have no problems with a guarantee that you are secure in writing".
Salt to taste there, and I am never outright rude or obnoxious about it,(I will speak in a loud and clear tone though so any other customers present can hear this exchange) just make them backup their contractual claims they just made to you. They just offered you a proviso in the terms of an oral contract to go along with whatever written crap they want you to fill out that they are, in fact, "secure", so you can ask for proof and so on.
The original clerk will be baffled as expected and will then pass the buck. Then just keep bumping it up the food chain until you hit some manager who doesn't want to be bothered and they give you the service without having to hork over your precious. Sometimes it's fast, other times it takes awhile, but usually it works.
If some manager starts to get redneck on you, you can go, again, along these lines, "Oh, you now are withdrawing your offer, because your company lied to me? You tried to extract my cash from me based on a lie? That's serious legal fraud in this state my friend" and etc.
Thanks for taking my razz in the good natured spirit it was offered (the smiley was the clue there)
As to the mob rule versus the enlightened aristocratic rule, I understand what you are saying. That's the original reason here for having direct elected Representatives, and then state appointed Senators. This was the best balance they could come up with. We screwed up royally going to direct elected Senators. The senators are supposed to really dig into the details and just go with what they think, our reps are supposed to do exactly what we tell them to do. Now..neither do that, the Reps have stopped listening to the people and the balance of power has swing so far to the command authority that it is right now a defacto dictatorship. There are worse dictatorships, but that doesn't mean this isn't one either, and all the trends and signs point to it going all the way, past [godwin or stalin level] reference. And soon..
I'll have to keep saying that it has swung way too far and the people, on some rather large issues, are not getting the government they want or are entitled to by our most basic and simple laws and tenets. A lot of examples, the ones I used previously, or how about just simple things medical marijuana and industrial hemp? Passes referendums in the states all over to legalize it, yet the Feds keep blocking that. Tons of stuff like that. Hell, our founders used the stuff, it's just a crop, how blatantly wrong can our current laws enforced by our "rulers" be then?
The US is unique, as in the only one among all nations past and present "unique", in that *we put the sovereignty of the individual first*, despite all the potential downsides there. We wanted more freedom, and less security or effectiveness, *if* the latter two conflicted with the previous and primary.
No other nation even comes remotely close to this structure and ideology. And a lot of us still like that idea. We accept the potential downside of failure for the freedom to excel.
The original design is to always err on the side of freedom and the wishes of the individual and the people at all times, as long as this or that does not remove freedom from others.
We fought the revolution precisely to avoid the dictates of the central power authority, because they inevitably become corrupt and then tyrannical. It has happened in every centralized command governmental structure in the past, the founders knew this, so they ran some serious skull sweat and came up with this "sovereign individual" idea. Which is rather cool. We (are supposed to) tell them what to do, they-government-are our employees, they are not supposed to tell us what to do.
Now, that concept is broken, hideously broken, and it it is and will continue to cause a lot of problems because of that. It could very well lead to a rather nasty big problem if you get my drift. You can just piss off and abuse and disenfranchise the people for so long before they "just say no".
The whole "getting voted out" part, the approval or disapproval by the voters. Say this current rep doesn't do what his constituents want, so he gets voted out, joe new guy gets in. Now is the cycle supposed to be self repairing now, or just self perpetuating? Joe new guy who gets voted in because he claims he will do what his constituents want reneges on those promises after election and does the same thing as the old guy, ie, doesn't represent the wishes of his constituents. What's the point of this little election soap opera then, why even bother?
How many iterations of this "elect people who do not represent your wishes" cycle need to occur before the obvious dumbness of even having the charade of a representative and a vote are apparent? Why even bother at all if they are never going to follow the wishes of those that elected them?
That's the system we have now, and I still contend is it way past broken, because we can see the proof that we are getting just too many bad results, precisely *because* a lot of these representatives do not follow the wishes of their constituents (and you can now go back to my original examples).
And I will also contend that if anyone "you", individually or collectively, keep doing this same thing over and over again and are expecting different results, at a gross gestalt level, that that is pure insanity, crazy.
If "we the people" simply can not get representation at the highest levels that really represent our viewpoints, then there is no further need to even have that particular organizational body or structure or practice. None whatsoever. IMO, we don't need a dictatorship, even if it tries to pass itself off as a benign one. but..let's explore that idea a little bit, shall we?
Now, if collectively the people really do want a dictatorship, then be open and honest about it and stop wasting time with the ludicrous vote. If it is going to be meaningless anyway, that no matter what all the little peeps want the few selected and anointed and appointed big peeps will just do whatever, just cut that fake out scam vote part out of the system entirely. Just have government declare one day that to save time and to stop wasting resources, they are just now going to be running everything,. and no further future votes will be needed. Just follow orders and diktats.
And to get more personal, because your contention is most annoying and..juvenile and overly simplistic to me, we'll go where you want to go.
Your quote "Government should never do what the people want"... as a hard declarative statement leaves me rather cold. This statement indicates to me two things: 1) you are in favor of pure fascism, because the "people are as dumb as dogshit", and 2) obviously you are one of these people by default (unless at this time you are a high level "elected representative" who is obviously just so much smarter that they just "know better").
I will go on the probably quite safe assumption that you are not, that you are just one of the vast herds of "we the dogshit stupid people". This is correct, yes?
So... someone who is admittedly as dumb as dogshit is in favor of fascism, so that is supposed to be a compelling argument in favor of that system.....
Here's a several trillion bucks and counting glaring example about how most reps and senators give not crap one what their constituents want: Public opposition including phone calls, faxes, emails, snail mails and buttonholing was running well over 90% against the casino bankers bailouts. Yet it passed, both under the shrub admin and continues today under the yomama admin. People just wanted normal bankruptcy to occur, let the real free markets sort out those ludicrous collateralized debt obligations and hedged derivatives bets and all those other pseudo financial "products" and other forms of mass leechery from the real working folks. People said in huge numbers "No, we don't need to offer millionaires and billionaires welfare when they bet wrong, they should eat their own megacapitalist dogfood..we'll deal with whatever happens, but don't subsidise those people". But nope, the US public got put on the hook to bail them out.
GM and Chrysler, again, decades of getting it wrong in the auto industry, all the chance in the world for management, unions and investors to get it right..nope, they kept screwing up. People really didn't want to bail them out, again in huge numbers, just let them go bankrupt like normal, but, the quasi bailout happened anyway, and now we have some precedent that the executive branch can just seize corporations and run them. Seems like we fought a big fat war over that economic and governmental "blend" two generations ago, we were against that back then, and actually hung some of the high level proponents after that war. Now, it is *policy*, despite most folks being against it.
Look at the dumb wars..I sincerely doubt there is even close to a majority opinion anymore to continue these wars....but they still go on.
The bottom line is "government" doesn't give a rat's ass what "the people" want, they just go ahead and do whatever they want to do, or what they have been bribed and blackmailed into doing.. I can't give you an exact date when it happened, but voting and "representative democracy" has been broken on many levels for a long, long time now.
Now I still vote, inertia mostly and all, but I think it stopped having much meaning at the larger scales. Local elections I think your vote can make a little difference, at state and above levels though, you have your choice of the globalist screw the middle class party that subsidizes a.b and c over there at your expense, or the globalist screw the middle class party, who subsidizes x,y and z over thataway, again at your expense.
I *wish* it was different, really, I sincerely do, but not seeing it. Until such a time as the two corrupt major parties are abandoned or outlawed for major racketeering, just not seeing things getting any better. Just way too corrupt, for way too long now, it is just "business as usual", and neither party has any incentive to eliminate themselves or the other party, because they are equally corrupt, so they just are never going to go there.
My big hope, really..I hope the USA does a USSR and just dissolves as a bad idea, past prime, with no bloody revolutions. I want some real honest choice. If a regional bloc or state wants joe government to run all aspects of their lives, cradle to grave, and stay taxed at 90% with a herd of commissars overseeing them all the time...swell, let them try that, see how it works. If another wants just about no government at all, private everything, no rules except ferengi "profit at all costs!", fine, let them try that and see what happens.
Somewhere, some state or group of previous states will go "gee..ya know..the original Constitution and bill of rights actually seems well thought out..wonder what will happen if we really, REALLY follow those guidelines and not just lie about it all the time??". THAT place I *will* move to, even if I have to fight every step of the way there.
Unless and until there's a cheap mr. fusion breakthrough, demand for energy in all its forms will just continue to go up. Peaks and valleys like everything else, but general trends are growth industry from here on out. There's a back log for "all of the above" in the energy biz, from more pipelines to more exploring to more drilling to more wind power to more solar PV and thermal to more geothermal and more nukes and they are just getting going on tidal power plus all the different directions for biofuels.
You can call it a bubble, but traditionally bubbles are in reference to demands that are artificially promoted and that get people to over speculate way beyond what the real market can bear and into mass dumbness or "irrational exuberance", such as tulip mania, dotbomb webpages with zero business models to actually make any money, the never ending "house flipping" stupidity bubble combined with the wall street repackaged bad mortgages serious parasitical leech dumbass bubble they just got bailed out on, etc. (and here's my prediction, the wall street derivatives bubble will be hitting hard, not the green energy bubble)
Energy demands on the other hand are *quite real* and are supposed to keep rising through this entire century.
There are only two things that could potentially drop energy demands, mr. fusion breakthrough, and if there was such a calamity or calamities that the bulk of the planets humans kicked off. If neither of those happen, people just want more power, and more people between now and 2100, by a huge multi billion person factor, and that means demands will be steady in general terms and always on a rising slope.
If you mean an overproduction of windchargers (or solar panels, or...)...they'll still get sold at a discount and put up someplace, they just work too well to ignore. Once you start talking about half a megawaatt to two point five megawatts worth of electricity for sale per windcharger, for example, someone will want it. Just not seeing a bubble there or any time in the near or even medium future.
Who knows though, stranger things have happened, but at this time I will have to disagree with your assessment. If you want to expound on your prediction, with the reasoning behind it, I would like to read it.
Meselfs, being of the low budget crowd, will have to wait until such a time as they have both electric pickup truck models, and also they are on the cheaper used market. But eventually I'll get one. Combined with my solar panels..having all or most of my transportation needs and costs covered for free eventually is quite an inducement.
The Nissan Leaf going on sale next year is coming in at 25 grand, all electric, 100 mile range. They get by cheaper by selling the car, but renting the battery pack (don't know what that will cost yet). But eventually the car will get paid off, and when you go to upgrade the battery pack, no doubt it will be cheaper/more power/last longer, etc. I think they will do more to get affordable electrics in the hands of joe working guy more than Tesla will. Tesla is still going to be higher end for quite some time, Nissan is coming in right at almost base entry level. They are also the ones who are partners with the Better Place project, who are developing the fast battery swap out stations and recharge stations all over, to address range issues. They have entire *nations* signed up for this so far, starting with Israel. They are designing the electric charging infrastructure stack, nissan/renault are building the cars.
Another good thing about renting a vehicle for long trips is peace of mind. You aren't adding excessive miles to your own car, plus the rental company is 100% there for any potential breakdowns, etc. In your own vehicle, you could get stuck a thousand miles from home and have to eat expensive repairs, parts and labor. Closer to home, like normal just get a cheap tow in and fix it yourself, save a lot, only pay for parts.
Morton Grove Illinois banned them, Kennesaw Georgia required them (no enforcement though, just symbolic) Crime went way up in Morton Grove and dropped in Kennesaw.
I've lived a buncha places, the area with by far the least amount of crime I have seen was Vermont, which is one of two states that have basically a pure no BS second amendment stance. It works once everyone gets used to it.
The junkies and crime deal is primarily brought about because of astronomical street prices because drugs are a high demand black market product(s). If all this stuff was legal, it would be cheap, so cheap, no crime/robberies necessary to "afford" it. A $200 daily "habit" might hit two bucks if it was legal, and that would be with fancy packaging. Think bags of sugar, how much do they cost? The real price of now illegal drugs would be closer to that than "street prices" are now. Crime related to that would be approaching zero.
Half the police departments, an entire federal agency, half the judges, could be "let go" to go try and find some productive work, and we could close half the prisons. And a lot of hospital emergency rooms wouldn't look like a warzone triage effort every evening. And the "news" people would have to actually go and find some important stuff to investigate and write about. And mexico could maybe have a chance of building a real nation..and so on, too many positive results would be garnered from dropping drug prohibition. Ya, it would be the lesser of two evils, but right now we are still stuck with all the negative aspects of abusive drug use, PLUS the artificially negative created aspects of keeping them "illegal".
Liquid drugs prohibition did not work, it was a *total failure* and just made things worse (organized crime gangs prospered, official corruption soared, joe average had to worry about being a "criminal" or who he might need to payoff to avoid getting busted, etc).
Dry and leafy drug prohibition today is exactly the same, just moreso. It is the height of stupidity, but it's great and hugely profitable for both the huge organized crime gangs, the corrupt officials who take bribes (thousands of them, plus all the corrupt banks and real estate people and restaurants, etc who launder money), and for the mercenary poseur "drug warriors", lawyers, judges, the private prisons system that has developed, and various politicians. Job security for all those people. Well paid, too. It also, and this is even worse, has conditioned society to accept no knock raids, shooting people because "they made a furtive gesture", random stops, etc. That part is really really sucky. People got state sponsored terrorized into accepting half way to total big brother, literally scared into it.
It's ludicrous, and it is harmful for society to keep those things illegal. Yes, a lot of people will still get really fucked up if it was legal..they are anyway, that's a zero sum game to argue that point. There are no credible stats available to show that "drug use" is any higher now than back when all of this was still legal. And violent crime is much higher since two things occurred in our "justice" system, making drugs illegal, and instituting the two or three strikes laws.
Now that folks who are facing life with no parole are up against a decision to make in a split second, they mostly go "fuggit" and resort to violence, either to avoid arrest or to "leave no witnesses", etc.
People like to talk about the US "wild wild west" as being somehow more dangerous and scary. On the contrary, there was much less crime back then. Almost everything was legal, and if you were a persistent REAL bad guy, a for-real "threat to society", your recidivism rate was quite low, because some local citizen would just cap you in mid crime and that would be that.
These "music industry" people want the equivalent of 250 thou for a 25 grand commuter car. nuts. They wonder why sales are off, whereas a billion music purchasers know exactly why sales are off, they just don't feel like getting price gouged anymore.
I suggest the "music industry" lay off all the coke and booze for a year or two then come back and rethink their stance on pricing, for digital bits down the tubes or the same digital bits on two cents worth of plastic. Their "per unit" pricing is from decades ago, it doesn't come close to anything rational anymore. When it was very expensive to make a copy for sale, sure, it was understandable, but now, today?? Who are they kidding besides themselves?
Tech advances and much cheaper bandwith should have allowed them to both drop prices dramatically, plus increase sales dramatically, instead, they have clung to those old price models like a wino to a jug of t-bird with ten drops left swirling around the bottom. It's pathetic really. I bought music pretty steady from the late 50s until the 90s, that's forty years of being a customer..then...just finally one day got annoyed with the price gouging, quit then, my one guy boycott. I don't pirate, but I won't pay those ludicrous prices either for some digital download copy (a buck for a few megs, who do they thing they are, telco ringtone sellers??), and certainly not a lot of folding dollars for a dime's worth of plastic with some cardboard "liner" nonsense.
OK, maybe the car analogy sucks, how about computers? A decade ago, what did a decent desktop system go for, and what were the specs? Now, today, you can get something much faster, with equivalent increases in installed RAM and larger HDD and better video card etc, and for much less cash. You gets lots more, for less money, because of tech advances. And that's tangible hardware, manufactured stuff.
A decade ago, an album cost how much? And what do they want for it today? Oh ya, the same. And to *download* it they want similar loot? HAHAHAHA
Like I said, "nuts", you lost a good customer for being price gougers. In fact, looks like you lost millions and millions of customers, and the younger folks are starting to not even *be* customers in the first place, because they know even better that those "copies" just aren't worth what you ask.
But the deal is, we humans are explorers, we want to GO places. Hard coded DNA. Sure send robots to wherever, but we are going to be sending humans as well, no sense living in denial. I know I can't be the only one who is annoyed as all get out that here it is 2009 and we don't have a full time Mars colony yet. WTH?? Trillions for those parasite casino bankers and lameass stoopid wars, chump change relatively speaking for space exploration. The priorities are rather skewed there.
I remember sputnik, can tell you what happened all over the dang planet. Anyone and everytone who was aware of it, even villagers over in whoknow'swhereistan from listening to far away shortwave news broadcasts, everyone who was physically able to walk or get carried outside just went outside and just stared at the sky. Just stared. Billions of people all went outside and contemplated the universe and their place in it and other sorts of things like that, all of the above, it was scary and alse awe inspiring at the same time.
Not to many years later, we all did it again, a HUMAN was up there now!
Not too many years later, we did it AGAIN, a human was on the moon! Outside staring looking up.
Now what, what happened, what happened to the drive, the wonder, the excitement the longing? Strangled by lame politicians and pork and the "necessity" of wasting huge sums on total crap and Cxx "profits", that's what happened. And they even want to deorbit the biggest space station ever built, and also the only one we have. More WTF??
Humans need adventure, robots are OK, but it ISN'T adventure or exploring, not the stuff that gets people to all go outside and stare at the sky, or what they did in the olden days, stare at the horizon down at the beach after some little wooden sailboats set sail. That's what humans NEED and you just can't slap a price on that "need for exploration" with some bean counters cost/benefit spreadsheet.
Human spirit is priceless, destroy that, you've destroyed what really makes us human.
Went to the library today and had my Gf order it, she has the card so I don't even bother, usually I just buy my books used. It doesn't exist in our local but someplace in the system it does, will be here shortly. I'm looking forward to it.
Oh hey, saw you wrote Dr. Seuss taught you to read..for me it was correlating what the president at the time, Eisenhower, said on television (we had the first one in the neighborhood) and then seeing it written in the newspaper. Bingo, it clicked. My first word I recognized was "Ike". It's like I skipped a whole step there, went right to "seeing" words and skipped the whole individual letters deal. Headlines at first, then the whole articles. Became a news junky then and could read good enough from then on. I can't hardly remember *not* reading I was so young then, just entering kindergarten. One of the things I am eternally grateful for. It must suck just bad being illiterate.
Of course, it never helped me with my slanglish...hahahahahah! I have *fun* with words and writing, I don't care if it is exactly proper or not.
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...and I remember indoor movie tickets costing *35 cents* and there were two movies, plus cartoons, plus a newsreel. And it was about the only place that had air conditioning. [lawn,off, and etc]. And cokes were a nickle and calls from a payphone were a nickle. No shyte.
But it's better now even if you only get one movie and it costs ten bucks. (mostly because you really don't have to go there and you can get the movie for less than ten bucks and watch it at home)
I wouldn't swap the internet and electronic miniaturization and so on for all that old tech. It was good enough, but it's better now in a lot of ways. Now I like older cars and trucks because they had some personality to them, but that tech is better now too. More complicated, but better.
*Some* old tech is still good and useful, but progress is progress. The tech then in the 35 cent movie days was a lot better than the 1800s. Stuff gets better because people want it better and we have a ton more smart guys working on stuff now. I have no flying car or hawt babe amazon warrior robot army...but all in all it's a lot better now. My major beef is a lot of stuff is really unfixable for most practical definitions of fixable. It works or chunk it, that part I don't like and I still hang onto way too much broken stuff now from inertia, because everything used to be somewhat fixable by joe average with a box of tools, or there was some dude on the corner with a shop and he could do it, cheap. That's pretty much gone now.
For diesel up here in north Georgia. Feeds my 81 Datsun diesel pickup. 40 MPG. About double what you get with a similar sized small truck with a gasoline engine, so even though diesel is a little higher, it's still a better deal and the power is pretty good for a small engine. These are industrial forklift engines from what I found out. Not fast, no turbo, but strong and designed to last for decades.
The best of the larger pickups are the 1990 to 1999 year Dodge Rams with the Cummins diesel. All sorts of farmers are getting 400 thou to half a million miles on them and still going strong. I read about them (favorably) all the time in this farm rag I read that has "best and worst buys". And you can tell on the used market they are good, they still get outrageous good prices for those trucks (main reason I haven't bought one yet).
Basically the same sort of problem we have with solar power here on Earth, just daily and not bi weekly like on the moon. Batteries are one possibility-over production during the sunshiny part, storage of power, etc. You'd need something better than a massive big heavy battery bank though, and what that could be on the moon I do not know. Perhaps refining out some gas like that helium and storing it under pressure. Besides that, if it was me, I'd still want two power sources, at least a second as an emergency limited use backup.
..you have a point on the different uses. I like dogs, we have six now here on the farm. They are mostly companions (all rescue dogs) and useful when the wild dogs and coyotes come around. I wish even one of them was a herding dog though..eventually I'll get one maybe.
...I'm not concerned much if any over random bombs all over. So rare it is almost a non issue. That might change, but now..meh. Where I live and my lifestyle I am way more concerned over disturbing a yellow jacket nest, hahahah!
I am concerned over false flag phony "terrorist" attacks and using something like the bird/swine/human flu scare to give the government an open ended "emergency powers" excuse. Or more middle class ripoffs to enrich casino bankers. Or more cost increasaes in everything to go to fatcat energy traders with "cap and trade" non scientific wealth skimming scams. Stuff like that. Way more important and way more impacts "we the people" than random bomb attacks.
Maybe they can train dogs to determine when an official authority figure or fatcat big economic "busy-ness" weasel is lying. THAT would be dang useful!
"Look! Rover got a "big fat steenking lie" hit! Legal grounds for lynching on the spot!"
Having two (or more) distinct and separate power sources makes more sense for security. Stuff built by humans sometimes has a tendency to malfunction. I know here on the farm having a few large redundant diesel generators has sure saved our bacon when the main grid supply goes down, which it tends to do on the very hottest days now, right when we really *need* the power the most to run the broiler houses air fans. We have roughly a five minute critical time window when we need to switch over, and that's here on Earth where it is quite pleasant compared to the extremes on the moon. I know I wouldn't want to be there with just one power supply, no matter how big it was.
And any handler can claim his dog "hit" on something as well, and use that as probable cause to confiscate the loot. And if someone was to loudly protest the confiscation of their money at some "random courtesy checkpoint", the cops can just shoot you and claim you made a "threatening furtive gesture" or were "interfering" or "resisting some lawful order" or anything else in cop CYA speak they dream up.
The point being made was, in some areas the cops use this "dog drug hit" BS as an excuse to outright rob people and get away with it or for intimidation to get people to confess to something else or whatever. They even go so far as to terrorize school kids with these dogs inside the schools. It's a con more than anything else. And it can be even worse than that for some people with phony dog-police type work
For legitimate rescue, I think dogs are great, useful, for most anything else as it intersects police work...starts to get wonky quickly.
Of course I am also in favor of ending the retarded prohibition laws, because they just cause more harm than good. If a 200 dollar day coke or smack or whatever habit was legal, it might cost all of two bucks, and I don't think there'd be much in the way of crime associated with it like it is today. It would still be technically "bad" IMO, the habit and what it does to people, but we as a society would get rid of a lot of the vast collateral damage associated with it being illegal.
40 is more like it. 2.3 as in the article summary wouldn't be enough for a human moon base, that wouldn't even cover the extremes of heating and cooling needed. 2.3 is a small home genny size.
Nice rant, man, +5 "right on, preach it"!
If these big telco skunks were really interested in running something decent out here in rural land, instead of milking 100 year old repurposed telegraph wires or whatever that chintzy stuff hanging on the poles is, they could and would have done it years ago. They ain't interested, low hanging fruit only. And even the chintzy stuff they had to get ordered to provide, they sure were never going to do it on their own. And because they took all that loot in the 90s and burned everyone, they should have their big fat pipes seized immediately and nationalized.
I am not in favor of too much government or that sort of action as a general rule, but it is obvious as all get out we will as you say fall further and further behind the rest of the planet if we let things sit as they are with those companies, so a lesser of two evils approach is needed in their collective cases. The internet now is a utility, like roads, water, sewage, electricity delivery etc, and should be treated as such. I would prefer it to be run like a big public non profit co-op.
..we were doing all that "flying through strange landscapes of flying numbers and other weird futuristic landscapes" stuff in the 60s, and didn't even need the goggles!
I always turn it right around on them instantly whenever some merchant wants my number. I got nailed years ago with ID theft, which really sucks and takes a long time to fix, so I came up with something that has been working for me.
I mention getting nailed previously, etc.,, then ask to see their indemnification policy on security breaches, in writing, so everything is "legal and proper".
You get the *really* blank stare then, because about zero of these companies have anything like that..because they are jerks, but we all know that anyway.
Let them sit for a bit and stew on that. Again, you throw it right back at them when they claim they are secure and "your data is safe with us" and all the other BS..."well, sir, we are secure, and...". They ALL say that, every single stupid company out there claims to be "secure". They initiate that claim when you ask. That's a *vital point* there. As part of this proposed business transaction now, they, through their rep who is talking to you right then and is prepared to accept your money, will make a statement that they are 'secure". This is the bingo moment.
I go, along these lines, "swell, that sounds great! You are secure, wonderful, that makes me feel better because ID theft is such a hassle and expense! Err..uhh..just for my records then, please just show me and if you could provide me simple copy of your "data security" warranty provisions, the indemnification policy you must have then, thanks! And BTW, not that this will ever come up, but exactly how much cash do I get back from you when and if you get compromised? If you are "totally secure" as you claim, then you should have no problems with a guarantee that you are secure in writing".
Salt to taste there, and I am never outright rude or obnoxious about it,(I will speak in a loud and clear tone though so any other customers present can hear this exchange) just make them backup their contractual claims they just made to you. They just offered you a proviso in the terms of an oral contract to go along with whatever written crap they want you to fill out that they are, in fact, "secure", so you can ask for proof and so on.
The original clerk will be baffled as expected and will then pass the buck. Then just keep bumping it up the food chain until you hit some manager who doesn't want to be bothered and they give you the service without having to hork over your precious. Sometimes it's fast, other times it takes awhile, but usually it works.
If some manager starts to get redneck on you, you can go, again, along these lines, "Oh, you now are withdrawing your offer, because your company lied to me? You tried to extract my cash from me based on a lie? That's serious legal fraud in this state my friend" and etc.
Anyway, it usually works and it certainly is fun!
Thanks for taking my razz in the good natured spirit it was offered (the smiley was the clue there)
As to the mob rule versus the enlightened aristocratic rule, I understand what you are saying. That's the original reason here for having direct elected Representatives, and then state appointed Senators. This was the best balance they could come up with. We screwed up royally going to direct elected Senators. The senators are supposed to really dig into the details and just go with what they think, our reps are supposed to do exactly what we tell them to do. Now..neither do that, the Reps have stopped listening to the people and the balance of power has swing so far to the command authority that it is right now a defacto dictatorship. There are worse dictatorships, but that doesn't mean this isn't one either, and all the trends and signs point to it going all the way, past [godwin or stalin level] reference. And soon..
I'll have to keep saying that it has swung way too far and the people, on some rather large issues, are not getting the government they want or are entitled to by our most basic and simple laws and tenets. A lot of examples, the ones I used previously, or how about just simple things medical marijuana and industrial hemp? Passes referendums in the states all over to legalize it, yet the Feds keep blocking that. Tons of stuff like that. Hell, our founders used the stuff, it's just a crop, how blatantly wrong can our current laws enforced by our "rulers" be then?
The US is unique, as in the only one among all nations past and present "unique", in that *we put the sovereignty of the individual first*, despite all the potential downsides there. We wanted more freedom, and less security or effectiveness, *if* the latter two conflicted with the previous and primary.
No other nation even comes remotely close to this structure and ideology. And a lot of us still like that idea. We accept the potential downside of failure for the freedom to excel.
The original design is to always err on the side of freedom and the wishes of the individual and the people at all times, as long as this or that does not remove freedom from others.
We fought the revolution precisely to avoid the dictates of the central power authority, because they inevitably become corrupt and then tyrannical. It has happened in every centralized command governmental structure in the past, the founders knew this, so they ran some serious skull sweat and came up with this "sovereign individual" idea. Which is rather cool. We (are supposed to) tell them what to do, they-government-are our employees, they are not supposed to tell us what to do.
Now, that concept is broken, hideously broken, and it it is and will continue to cause a lot of problems because of that. It could very well lead to a rather nasty big problem if you get my drift. You can just piss off and abuse and disenfranchise the people for so long before they "just say no".
The whole "getting voted out" part, the approval or disapproval by the voters. Say this current rep doesn't do what his constituents want, so he gets voted out, joe new guy gets in. Now is the cycle supposed to be self repairing now, or just self perpetuating? Joe new guy who gets voted in because he claims he will do what his constituents want reneges on those promises after election and does the same thing as the old guy, ie, doesn't represent the wishes of his constituents. What's the point of this little election soap opera then, why even bother?
How many iterations of this "elect people who do not represent your wishes" cycle need to occur before the obvious dumbness of even having the charade of a representative and a vote are apparent? Why even bother at all if they are never going to follow the wishes of those that elected them?
That's the system we have now, and I still contend is it way past broken, because we can see the proof that we are getting just too many bad results, precisely *because* a lot of these representatives do not follow the wishes of their constituents (and you can now go back to my original examples).
And I will also contend that if anyone "you", individually or collectively, keep doing this same thing over and over again and are expecting different results, at a gross gestalt level, that that is pure insanity, crazy.
If "we the people" simply can not get representation at the highest levels that really represent our viewpoints, then there is no further need to even have that particular organizational body or structure or practice. None whatsoever. IMO, we don't need a dictatorship, even if it tries to pass itself off as a benign one. but..let's explore that idea a little bit, shall we?
Now, if collectively the people really do want a dictatorship, then be open and honest about it and stop wasting time with the ludicrous vote. If it is going to be meaningless anyway, that no matter what all the little peeps want the few selected and anointed and appointed big peeps will just do whatever, just cut that fake out scam vote part out of the system entirely. Just have government declare one day that to save time and to stop wasting resources, they are just now going to be running everything,. and no further future votes will be needed. Just follow orders and diktats.
And to get more personal, because your contention is most annoying and..juvenile and overly simplistic to me, we'll go where you want to go.
Your quote "Government should never do what the people want"... as a hard declarative statement leaves me rather cold. This statement indicates to me two things: 1) you are in favor of pure fascism, because the "people are as dumb as dogshit", and 2) obviously you are one of these people by default (unless at this time you are a high level "elected representative" who is obviously just so much smarter that they just "know better").
I will go on the probably quite safe assumption that you are not, that you are just one of the vast herds of "we the dogshit stupid people". This is correct, yes?
So... someone who is admittedly as dumb as dogshit is in favor of fascism, so that is supposed to be a compelling argument in favor of that system.....
Uh huh, that's really convincing! ;)
Here's a several trillion bucks and counting glaring example about how most reps and senators give not crap one what their constituents want: Public opposition including phone calls, faxes, emails, snail mails and buttonholing was running well over 90% against the casino bankers bailouts. Yet it passed, both under the shrub admin and continues today under the yomama admin. People just wanted normal bankruptcy to occur, let the real free markets sort out those ludicrous collateralized debt obligations and hedged derivatives bets and all those other pseudo financial "products" and other forms of mass leechery from the real working folks. People said in huge numbers "No, we don't need to offer millionaires and billionaires welfare when they bet wrong, they should eat their own megacapitalist dogfood..we'll deal with whatever happens, but don't subsidise those people". But nope, the US public got put on the hook to bail them out.
GM and Chrysler, again, decades of getting it wrong in the auto industry, all the chance in the world for management, unions and investors to get it right..nope, they kept screwing up. People really didn't want to bail them out, again in huge numbers, just let them go bankrupt like normal, but, the quasi bailout happened anyway, and now we have some precedent that the executive branch can just seize corporations and run them. Seems like we fought a big fat war over that economic and governmental "blend" two generations ago, we were against that back then, and actually hung some of the high level proponents after that war. Now, it is *policy*, despite most folks being against it.
Look at the dumb wars..I sincerely doubt there is even close to a majority opinion anymore to continue these wars....but they still go on.
The bottom line is "government" doesn't give a rat's ass what "the people" want, they just go ahead and do whatever they want to do, or what they have been bribed and blackmailed into doing.. I can't give you an exact date when it happened, but voting and "representative democracy" has been broken on many levels for a long, long time now.
Now I still vote, inertia mostly and all, but I think it stopped having much meaning at the larger scales. Local elections I think your vote can make a little difference, at state and above levels though, you have your choice of the globalist screw the middle class party that subsidizes a.b and c over there at your expense, or the globalist screw the middle class party, who subsidizes x,y and z over thataway, again at your expense.
I *wish* it was different, really, I sincerely do, but not seeing it. Until such a time as the two corrupt major parties are abandoned or outlawed for major racketeering, just not seeing things getting any better. Just way too corrupt, for way too long now, it is just "business as usual", and neither party has any incentive to eliminate themselves or the other party, because they are equally corrupt, so they just are never going to go there.
My big hope, really..I hope the USA does a USSR and just dissolves as a bad idea, past prime, with no bloody revolutions. I want some real honest choice. If a regional bloc or state wants joe government to run all aspects of their lives, cradle to grave, and stay taxed at 90% with a herd of commissars overseeing them all the time...swell, let them try that, see how it works. If another wants just about no government at all, private everything, no rules except ferengi "profit at all costs!", fine, let them try that and see what happens.
Somewhere, some state or group of previous states will go "gee..ya know..the original Constitution and bill of rights actually seems well thought out..wonder what will happen if we really, REALLY follow those guidelines and not just lie about it all the time??". THAT place I *will* move to, even if I have to fight every step of the way there.
This should be good enough to start your research
Unless and until there's a cheap mr. fusion breakthrough, demand for energy in all its forms will just continue to go up. Peaks and valleys like everything else, but general trends are growth industry from here on out. There's a back log for "all of the above" in the energy biz, from more pipelines to more exploring to more drilling to more wind power to more solar PV and thermal to more geothermal and more nukes and they are just getting going on tidal power plus all the different directions for biofuels.
You can call it a bubble, but traditionally bubbles are in reference to demands that are artificially promoted and that get people to over speculate way beyond what the real market can bear and into mass dumbness or "irrational exuberance", such as tulip mania, dotbomb webpages with zero business models to actually make any money, the never ending "house flipping" stupidity bubble combined with the wall street repackaged bad mortgages serious parasitical leech dumbass bubble they just got bailed out on, etc. (and here's my prediction, the wall street derivatives bubble will be hitting hard, not the green energy bubble)
Energy demands on the other hand are *quite real* and are supposed to keep rising through this entire century.
There are only two things that could potentially drop energy demands, mr. fusion breakthrough, and if there was such a calamity or calamities that the bulk of the planets humans kicked off. If neither of those happen, people just want more power, and more people between now and 2100, by a huge multi billion person factor, and that means demands will be steady in general terms and always on a rising slope.
If you mean an overproduction of windchargers (or solar panels, or...)...they'll still get sold at a discount and put up someplace, they just work too well to ignore. Once you start talking about half a megawaatt to two point five megawatts worth of electricity for sale per windcharger, for example, someone will want it. Just not seeing a bubble there or any time in the near or even medium future.
Who knows though, stranger things have happened, but at this time I will have to disagree with your assessment. If you want to expound on your prediction, with the reasoning behind it, I would like to read it.
Are you getting one?
Meselfs, being of the low budget crowd, will have to wait until such a time as they have both electric pickup truck models, and also they are on the cheaper used market. But eventually I'll get one. Combined with my solar panels..having all or most of my transportation needs and costs covered for free eventually is quite an inducement.
Semi related as an alternative, here is a short article outlining the rising demand for new wind power tech jobs.
The Nissan Leaf going on sale next year is coming in at 25 grand, all electric, 100 mile range. They get by cheaper by selling the car, but renting the battery pack (don't know what that will cost yet). But eventually the car will get paid off, and when you go to upgrade the battery pack, no doubt it will be cheaper/more power/last longer, etc. I think they will do more to get affordable electrics in the hands of joe working guy more than Tesla will. Tesla is still going to be higher end for quite some time, Nissan is coming in right at almost base entry level. They are also the ones who are partners with the Better Place project, who are developing the fast battery swap out stations and recharge stations all over, to address range issues. They have entire *nations* signed up for this so far, starting with Israel. They are designing the electric charging infrastructure stack, nissan/renault are building the cars.
Another good thing about renting a vehicle for long trips is peace of mind. You aren't adding excessive miles to your own car, plus the rental company is 100% there for any potential breakdowns, etc. In your own vehicle, you could get stuck a thousand miles from home and have to eat expensive repairs, parts and labor. Closer to home, like normal just get a cheap tow in and fix it yourself, save a lot, only pay for parts.
Morton Grove Illinois banned them, Kennesaw Georgia required them (no enforcement though, just symbolic) Crime went way up in Morton Grove and dropped in Kennesaw.
I've lived a buncha places, the area with by far the least amount of crime I have seen was Vermont, which is one of two states that have basically a pure no BS second amendment stance. It works once everyone gets used to it.
The junkies and crime deal is primarily brought about because of astronomical street prices because drugs are a high demand black market product(s). If all this stuff was legal, it would be cheap, so cheap, no crime/robberies necessary to "afford" it. A $200 daily "habit" might hit two bucks if it was legal, and that would be with fancy packaging. Think bags of sugar, how much do they cost? The real price of now illegal drugs would be closer to that than "street prices" are now. Crime related to that would be approaching zero.
Half the police departments, an entire federal agency, half the judges, could be "let go" to go try and find some productive work, and we could close half the prisons. And a lot of hospital emergency rooms wouldn't look like a warzone triage effort every evening. And the "news" people would have to actually go and find some important stuff to investigate and write about. And mexico could maybe have a chance of building a real nation..and so on, too many positive results would be garnered from dropping drug prohibition. Ya, it would be the lesser of two evils, but right now we are still stuck with all the negative aspects of abusive drug use, PLUS the artificially negative created aspects of keeping them "illegal".
Liquid drugs prohibition did not work, it was a *total failure* and just made things worse (organized crime gangs prospered, official corruption soared, joe average had to worry about being a "criminal" or who he might need to payoff to avoid getting busted, etc).
Dry and leafy drug prohibition today is exactly the same, just moreso. It is the height of stupidity, but it's great and hugely profitable for both the huge organized crime gangs, the corrupt officials who take bribes (thousands of them, plus all the corrupt banks and real estate people and restaurants, etc who launder money), and for the mercenary poseur "drug warriors", lawyers, judges, the private prisons system that has developed, and various politicians. Job security for all those people. Well paid, too. It also, and this is even worse, has conditioned society to accept no knock raids, shooting people because "they made a furtive gesture", random stops, etc. That part is really really sucky. People got state sponsored terrorized into accepting half way to total big brother, literally scared into it.
It's ludicrous, and it is harmful for society to keep those things illegal. Yes, a lot of people will still get really fucked up if it was legal..they are anyway, that's a zero sum game to argue that point. There are no credible stats available to show that "drug use" is any higher now than back when all of this was still legal. And violent crime is much higher since two things occurred in our "justice" system, making drugs illegal, and instituting the two or three strikes laws.
Now that folks who are facing life with no parole are up against a decision to make in a split second, they mostly go "fuggit" and resort to violence, either to avoid arrest or to "leave no witnesses", etc.
People like to talk about the US "wild wild west" as being somehow more dangerous and scary. On the contrary, there was much less crime back then. Almost everything was legal, and if you were a persistent REAL bad guy, a for-real "threat to society", your recidivism rate was quite low, because some local citizen would just cap you in mid crime and that would be that.
These "music industry" people want the equivalent of 250 thou for a 25 grand commuter car. nuts. They wonder why sales are off, whereas a billion music purchasers know exactly why sales are off, they just don't feel like getting price gouged anymore.
I suggest the "music industry" lay off all the coke and booze for a year or two then come back and rethink their stance on pricing, for digital bits down the tubes or the same digital bits on two cents worth of plastic. Their "per unit" pricing is from decades ago, it doesn't come close to anything rational anymore. When it was very expensive to make a copy for sale, sure, it was understandable, but now, today?? Who are they kidding besides themselves?
Tech advances and much cheaper bandwith should have allowed them to both drop prices dramatically, plus increase sales dramatically, instead, they have clung to those old price models like a wino to a jug of t-bird with ten drops left swirling around the bottom. It's pathetic really. I bought music pretty steady from the late 50s until the 90s, that's forty years of being a customer..then...just finally one day got annoyed with the price gouging, quit then, my one guy boycott. I don't pirate, but I won't pay those ludicrous prices either for some digital download copy (a buck for a few megs, who do they thing they are, telco ringtone sellers??), and certainly not a lot of folding dollars for a dime's worth of plastic with some cardboard "liner" nonsense.
OK, maybe the car analogy sucks, how about computers? A decade ago, what did a decent desktop system go for, and what were the specs? Now, today, you can get something much faster, with equivalent increases in installed RAM and larger HDD and better video card etc, and for much less cash. You gets lots more, for less money, because of tech advances. And that's tangible hardware, manufactured stuff.
A decade ago, an album cost how much? And what do they want for it today? Oh ya, the same. And to *download* it they want similar loot? HAHAHAHA
Like I said, "nuts", you lost a good customer for being price gougers. In fact, looks like you lost millions and millions of customers, and the younger folks are starting to not even *be* customers in the first place, because they know even better that those "copies" just aren't worth what you ask.
But the deal is, we humans are explorers, we want to GO places. Hard coded DNA. Sure send robots to wherever, but we are going to be sending humans as well, no sense living in denial. I know I can't be the only one who is annoyed as all get out that here it is 2009 and we don't have a full time Mars colony yet. WTH?? Trillions for those parasite casino bankers and lameass stoopid wars, chump change relatively speaking for space exploration. The priorities are rather skewed there.
I remember sputnik, can tell you what happened all over the dang planet. Anyone and everytone who was aware of it, even villagers over in whoknow'swhereistan from listening to far away shortwave news broadcasts, everyone who was physically able to walk or get carried outside just went outside and just stared at the sky. Just stared. Billions of people all went outside and contemplated the universe and their place in it and other sorts of things like that, all of the above, it was scary and alse awe inspiring at the same time.
Not to many years later, we all did it again, a HUMAN was up there now!
Not too many years later, we did it AGAIN, a human was on the moon! Outside staring looking up.
Now what, what happened, what happened to the drive, the wonder, the excitement the longing? Strangled by lame politicians and pork and the "necessity" of wasting huge sums on total crap and Cxx "profits", that's what happened. And they even want to deorbit the biggest space station ever built, and also the only one we have. More WTF??
Humans need adventure, robots are OK, but it ISN'T adventure or exploring, not the stuff that gets people to all go outside and stare at the sky, or what they did in the olden days, stare at the horizon down at the beach after some little wooden sailboats set sail. That's what humans NEED and you just can't slap a price on that "need for exploration" with some bean counters cost/benefit spreadsheet.
Human spirit is priceless, destroy that, you've destroyed what really makes us human.
Went to the library today and had my Gf order it, she has the card so I don't even bother, usually I just buy my books used. It doesn't exist in our local but someplace in the system it does, will be here shortly. I'm looking forward to it.
Oh hey, saw you wrote Dr. Seuss taught you to read..for me it was correlating what the president at the time, Eisenhower, said on television (we had the first one in the neighborhood) and then seeing it written in the newspaper. Bingo, it clicked. My first word I recognized was "Ike". It's like I skipped a whole step there, went right to "seeing" words and skipped the whole individual letters deal. Headlines at first, then the whole articles. Became a news junky then and could read good enough from then on. I can't hardly remember *not* reading I was so young then, just entering kindergarten. One of the things I am eternally grateful for. It must suck just bad being illiterate.
Of course, it never helped me with my slanglish...hahahahahah! I have *fun* with words and writing, I don't care if it is exactly proper or not.