Atheism is not a religion. They can act just as nuts as anybody else can.
A religion by definition requires belief in something supernatural; gods, powers, unfounded forces of nature or "beyond" nature etc. Doesn't have to be a conscious being, you are right on that (Buddhism for example) but it still has a supernatural component which due to it being supernatural can't be proven.
Atheism is the BELIEF in nothing supernatural; some define it as only denying conscious supernatural beings; re-incarnation may be acceptable so may other supernatural forces. Atheism by either definition is a unproven belief just like all religions; however, because it is defined by being the NEGATION of the core definition of religion. It can't itself be a religion even if its believers limit its scope.
A belief that capitalism is the best system is a religion and the fanatics sure make it look similar to the other religions... Communists did a similar thing a while back and went to extremes; "purging sinners" just like a church. The adherents of either both religiously believe it will lead us as close to Utopia as humanly possible. They always defend it saying people don't believe strongly enough... sound familiar?? No need to try or consider something else because you KNOW the answer already.
A song (software) should be patented because it can be reduced to math just like the instruments (hardware) that it run upon are patented and it NEEDS hardware the to run it...
Red herring: Hardware may be reduced down to math but so can a whole lot of things (think CAD drawings used to illustrate some patents.) False analogies are possible by oversimplification and that is what is going on when it is "framed" in such ways.
JUST LIKE MATH, the big point is that it is not tangible!! Just like a story, it is not tangible, just like a song, it is not tangible... just like an idea, it is not tangible... Sure you write it down and run it on something; but just like those, that doesn't make it tangible; it is just expressed by tangible means. (Just as an abstract concept is expressed and experienced by tangible sentient beings...) You can't patent a book; well a certain kind of book or ebook reader but the story itself can't be patented (yet....)
A patent is a REAL item which is described abstractly on paper for the purpose of identifying the real-item so when they are made it is the legal basis for comparison upon which ownership decisions are made-- the patent is for the REAL PHYSICAL items, people are free to copy the description all they want but when they MAKE IT then it becomes active. This abstract description process is inherently similar to that of copywrite and trademarks which makes it extremely easy to confuse them especially when a broken political system allows patents to expand when copywrite and patents have such a thin line between them. It is getting TOO FUZZY.
The gov contracts made are often horrible and decided with bribes or at least it encourages corruption more than most other government actions. They should be avoided simply because they harm democracy; and watched heavily when they are necessary.
People act like employees are lazy... management is the worst; and that is rarely ever contracted out.
I think one reason contractors do better is because management is almost UNINVOLVED and they are on the outside of the client's institutional glut. Contractors manage themselves... I've been on both sides. I've seen a long term contractor become like an employee gaming the system more than most employees and still slacking off.
Its usually a management problem and it seems those in management are just those who are best at shifting blame from themselves, which is how they get promoted - the person with the fewest flaws gets the job (its like job interview 101.)
Any sizable corp has an H.R. dept to handle benefits, unions, hiring, firing etc. The private side makes it easier because there is a dept to deal with it. The gov often lacks an H.R. dept to aid in such matters (plus suing the gov is so much more desirable than suing a corp.)
I think many HR related functions should be provided by government (some countries do aspects of this) Sometimes the union gets too much HR powers and most the time the corp gets too much HR powers. Lawyers benefit in both cases... and we only elect lawyers to office... Neutral 3rd party HR services should be provided cheaply by government. Small businesses would benefit greatly. It would make employee costs more predictable and lower mistakes that cause lawsuits. Hiring illegals wouldn't be easier because legal employees would be managed by the free HR services (yes, illegals would still be cheaper; but it would be easier to catch a business hiring them.) Unions could still fight and corps could still exploit-- but it would be a little moderated.
Not that anything government related can function in the USA when 1 major party is constantly rewarded for breaking government.
Haven't you seen some adult try to fool children into doing something by billing it as something else then put a thinly veiled theme around it?
Sir, could you be a zombie victim who hasn't died yet? Our EMTs don't know about the invasion at this point so they will need to rescue you.
Mam, you and your friends were shot so much that all you can do is lay on the ground moaning unable to bite anybody...
Hay! I faked biting this cop and he just ignored me and then cuffed me-- he wasn't in character! No cop is going to let a zombie bite them and why would they arrest one instead of shooting it in the head? Whats going on?
Excuse me, why do you have a group of us zombies standing around behind some plastic police tape and a couple barriers when we clearly could get past them? You didn't think this thing out did you? Have you seen a zombie movie?
Grand scales are broad and generalized - we can't accurately predict the weather because that is really complex and extremely chaotic. We predict winter and summer despite our inability to predict the weather-- how is that possible??!
Over the long term with a broader stroke you can see emerging patterns; see the forest instead of just the trees.
Individuals can't accurately predict how many marbles are in the jar. The more people you average into the prediction the more it approximates the actual number of marbles in the jar. You may have heard "wisdom of the masses" well, this actually quantified it a long time ago. (I leave it to you to wonder why I mentioned this.)
I don't see how you could get those two mixed up. I didn't. I keep hearing from people bashing wind power claiming it kills birds but WINDOWS kill way more birds than wind power ever could. So next we get MORE invisible glass to kill MORE birds???? It probably isn't even an issue because coal corps will not be making it into an issue.
I suggest the skeptics actually LEARN something before they start taking positions on something they don't know about. Just because you drive past it and we have more roads than we can maintain (so they always are being fixed and many are past due.)
The FCC has too many political lawyer types appointed; a reflection of the broken democracy we (collectively) are responsible for. Shifting it away from you might make you feel better by avoiding blame for your part in the mess but it doesn't FIX anything-- ignorance is only bliss initially...
RURAL AREAS HAVE ROADS. Roads cost a lot of money; so do water, gas, sewer, power, phone, cable lines-- For my area, the gov deals with the drains, water, and sewer when they do the roads; which saves a lot of money and removes monopoly powers from raping the citizens. The other services that also run on the public land next to the road are private and cost us more long term. We have a fleet of people for each company to maintain their grids; which they do poorly because that is bad for profits. Every year we have gas explosions because the grid is overdue and they only fix the leaky spots when they get X number of complaints (or it blows up.) Insurance is cheaper than doing their job.
Running 1 good data line would remove HALF the overhead-- no more phone lines. Underground doesn't cost as much if you have DoT do it with the roads-- long term underground SAVES MONEY; which is why you do not see cable or phone put underground because that would involve huge long term investment. We PAY to have cable & phone & power do separate grids on the poles. If gov had been doing it we'd have put funding into data over powerlines decades ago and many areas would be using that. Not much incentive for that to happen the way things are today.
Plus these energy savings things the power company does are just lip service to the monopoly regulators and they are really half-ass about it-- obviously because they make more money the more power you consume. It's even gone so far as them turning off power and creating blackouts to raise prices back in the Enron days.
Highways are expensive and more is involved in building those than other roads-- the speed, weight, and traffic are HUGE factors in design, cost, materials, and labor. It should be obvious if you THINK at all about the physics going on. Highways are also USED HEAVILY while under construction which greatly slows down the process. A friend of mine worked with the DoT on some roads in college, they do not work fast that is true; but some of the work is hard labor and some of it is SLOW-- plus there are many factors slowing down the process you don't think about while you speed bye effortlessly above the speed limit. They don't just run the grading machine 1 pass down the whole length of road you know (and it moves slowly.) Management and planning takes a lot of the speed blame but also do the real world situations they must handle. You check things over many times because you can't redo much of anything cheaply.
I'm sick of ignorant people saying wind power is a threat to birds; windows are a far greater threat. Just where are the estimates for the damage coal does to birds (and everything else?) Hell, asthma rates here are about 50x what they were 40 years ago and the warnings about eating local fish went from a few per week in the 90s to a few per month today (and they NEVER make the connection as to why when they report it in the TV news.)
I don't think anybody should get out of high school without understanding density, mass, and gravity! Somehow people fail to grasp the concept of 1 lb of tiny coal turning into a HUGE volume of gas (let alone the chemistry involved that actually cause it to gain weight.) We have unlimited air is the belief; thinking its like invisible land or something; completely ignoring its density.
I've been wondering why there are not super cheap ones out yet. Its not far above a LCD WATCH with a special cap that probably costs as much as the watch which cycles at different rates depending upon the temp. (I took my $17 unit apart and found the cap acting as a sensor.) Add a transistor switch and program the watch... I can get optical mice cheaper than these thermostats. programming them would only take a little bit of labor upfront-- these watches do a ton of stuff and have more buttons...for nothing. Actually... one probably could hack a watch with the right skills... The beeper could trigger the transistor to switch; an unused button could be used for the temp CAP-- maybe you could have 2 of those... only need 2 buttons... If one could just program the chip in the watch to do what you want...
This would me electronic ones long lasting and really cheap... could put one in each room or something. Good project for DIY people... make a super cheap electric thermostat.
Why are we paying for private corps to build our infrastructure? Can't we wake up and have the DoT lay the lines when they work on the roads? Put them under ground X distance from all roads that have any work done. Same with the water and gas lines. If you don't have a decent enough road; then you are on your own. The huge profit margins of these corps could fund a great deal.... they don't innovate anymore; they avoid upgrading to maximize profit 1st. Profit is #1 and if they are a monopoly your happiness doesn't have much of an impact on their profit.
Government internet; low level-- ISPs run on top the network; which they encrypt etc (not that they won't just hand over all traffic anyway...) No different than how government roads, police, fire provide a place to run a business and invest. no roads, no reason to go there. Internet speed / cost is a factor.
DARPA just doesn't know about the one the NSA had already.... its a "need to know"... Or perhaps they just want to see what the state of the tech out there is...
You should actually read into Solyndra, its another spin machine scandal with nothing to it. Thin film tech is really risky with big potential payoffs should somebody get it working; much of it is invented by gov funding anyhow-- cheap mass production seems to be an area we won't let gov do research-- we keep having to outsource that work as we ruin our gov research by trying to outsource that too. As we continue to decline we won't notice the causes and will just do more of the same until maybe after we run it all into the ground then realize what was wrong; although, I expect tea bagger nuts to just keep trying to dig a deeper hole claiming at some point we'll be going upwards somehow (maybe after coming out on the other side of the planet?)
Hell, the US tire industry is dying because China is subsidizing their tire industry with the purpose of killing our industry and Obama couldn't even get a good tariff in place (watered down compromise was all he got... only delaying the rate at which our businesses die.) Chinese solar is trying to kill the world solar market so they can dominate it; Solyndra was partially a result of this. (note the bad gov report cited online was from 2010 not from when the loan was given; not to mention that it was ignoring that thin-film is a cutting edge new tech that costs 4-6x as much.... not that we'd recoup if we fixed that because China would just copy the tech while claiming they are protecting our I.P. )
Ignore facts, expertise, education; do what FEELS GOOD to you personally. This anti-intellectual attitude isn't the only reason people are more foolish today than in the past (including the ironic lip service payed to education.) The consumer culture we've built to extremes since WW2, raises us upon following our thoughtless and emotional impulses. It doesn't feel good to hear things that are unpleasant.
With heavy personalization, we are taking this to another extreme where one is automatically censored from even seeing something that doesn't feel good; it has and will continue to even change how people interact as they become more sensitive to unpleasant things -- since they grow up not being exposed to them as often.
I agree 110%. Its the nature of democracies to end in despotism at their own hands. Ben Franklin ended the constitutional convention by pointing this out and how our nation will die a similar fate. It can't be made perfect so it lasts forever. The better it does the sooner the apathy sets in. The hope of the system is to create relatively civil revolutions to the up/down cycle all human civilizations have; to replace revolutionary wars with political ones.
The problem isn't sports themselves; its the HUGE distractions and promotion of them along with ALL other forms of escapism and civic irresponsibility ("individuality".)
The information age also is a HUGE problem and probably the only new part of the history repeat we are experiencing (except maybe some modern applied psychology tricks.) Everybody reads now and most have internet access and many other sources of media to access-- MORE INFORMATION available than at any point in human history. There is TOO much junk information it takes more effort to find the decent parts or even the true stuff.
The 1% have too much influence; the bigger problem is corporations who have way too much power. The problem in history and today is in the distribution of power. The US government was designed to distribute power and provide balanced powerful groups that could keep each other in check. This was limited to the function of government itself and wisely it kept the church out of the state as well and made the 4th branch of government the press more powerful and independent (and heavily subsidized it with about 3% of GDP; until the civil war.)
This kept the church from messing up the government which happened enough that the founders were aware of the problem. This also kept the president from being a king (for a while, we sure have gone backwards on this one.) The issue they MISSED was business and the super wealthy. Corporations didn't exist (not as they did post civil war; or post legalese person-hood) and the small nation at the time needed it's wealthy; besides the founders were fairly rich themselves and not infallible (they did amazingly well despite their self interests.)
Too much power consolidated by the few ALWAYS leads to problems. We limit historical situations of power consolidation to prevent repeats but the ones we MISS will eventually evolve into a problem. The corporations are the #1 problem (including the banksters) the super rich are next.
We have an economy based on gambling not actual business which benefited when capital markets served them. Business payed taxes; now only the small businesses pay taxes. The gamblers not only pay no taxes but they get bailed out by the public and poorly regulated because a pittance of the funny money they make goes into buying off our democracy. That e-paper economy supplanting our real economy not only costs jobs but it is lost tax revenue. The economic downturn (depression) caused the big hole in the budget.
Not to mention how the fed hands them our money to loan out for free to make huge profits --- they don't earn it, they steal it from us--- I'm sure I could do pretty well if I could print money and charge interest to those I loaned it to (and I wouldn't be publicly traded either... why be that greedy? I can leverage my money 50x and get bailed out then take the bail out and leverage that 50x and pay it back in a year with the "profits"... when I go under, I'll be in the top 1% anyway.)
I suppose you believe in trickle down economics too. Given its horrible track record, it should only be a belief because it doesn't have any real world backing.
Government contractors are public robbery... Not sure what to call what the banks do to us...
These business MBA people are worse than the religious nuts-- unfortunately we never established a separation of business and state! All our big problems today in the world are business linked -- in the past religion was a huge problem for governments so people learned to separate them; I wonder if we'll learn this next lesson??
A real CIO solution:
Create the Computer Core (or some other name, obvious geek squad is taken) with a student worker program, all open source and all free.
Hire the best and brightest at stable and HIGH pay - instead of the going rate with good benefits.
A government non-profit similar to PBS or like the USPS was but funded by charging government offices for their services; it can also run at a loss (since it serves gov and is payed by gov it's at a loss anyhow.)
It would be barred from being forced to pay pensions 50+ years in advance (which the GOP did to the US postal service to create a fake debt so they can try to break it up; the USPS is not in financial trouble, BTW.)
A formal process would be devised for software specifications; because 1 of the big problems with soft dev and government is that the requirements are a moving target! Gov clients would be contractually locked in; no moving targets; in fact, most design work should also be removed from those lawyers too.
Student lawyer group; gain experience suing gov offices for bad contracts and corruption. Tech scams are rampant and tech makes great cover for old fashioned corrupt contract deals.
Since management is MOSTLY the problem in any organization public or private; it would be difficult to design a system by which to attract and keep good management-- one method that seems to work ok is to only promote from within. I also don't see why we can't have democratically run organizations; where the workers get to vote -- as opposed to a top-down authoritarian model we seem to love so much (more each year.)
Your city, your state, your elementary schools--- all have the SAME website needs. Much of their other software as well. WHY do their office PCs need upgrades?? they don't.
Slippery slope is a logical fallacy; yet for some reason it is popular to completely misunderstand it and use it as an argument. When you claim something is a "slippery slope" so we should stop the 1st steps from happening because it'll slip down into the extremes--- you are literally invoking the NAME of the fallacy while you are also committing the fallacy!!!
I can't even think of a word to describe such "reasoning"-- its like out of the mouth of some stupid fictional character trying to be funny (but obviously something else since apparently most wouldn't get the slippery slope joke.)
Sad that the fallacy itself has become a popular label for advocating the use of it in arguments.
Sure, one can characterize the opposition to claim they want to progressively go to some extreme and they quite possibly intend to do so; however, logically each step is separate and not connected to the other steps without a valid linking argument. (sadly, slippery slope is used to link them all in 1 move despite its purpose is to say that move is illegal.)
Global warming is an easy one with a lot of concerned people spreading the science; but look at how it has become a total political mess that the tobacco industry could only dream of. Without a lot of work on your own or a movement to promote the facts it just looks like another political mess where the answer is not clear; when it fact, it likely is not a difficult problem once the truth filters out.
female primates are way worse than the males; it has to be genetic and it also went on to the humans! females hold on to stuff for a long time and will do nasty things during or finally at the end of that time; won't even be a logical connection, just wham! out from nowhere comes some vindictive thing from the past. at least males deal with it upfront and get over it... that male aggression has a few good sides (just a FEW.)
obviously, there are exceptions, we are not totally run by our genes.
how about human teens? when stuff can still be acted out and self control is weak (that is before we jailed them for being kids, now they fear...well if they think ahead at all they hold back.) The males can be split up in a fight; especially by a female -- but the fighting females can easily harm anybody who gets in their path. Seen it. heard about it from teachers. ask one, they'll tell you about it. even really upset males it comes down to a chest thumping power show even when elevated with weapons its mostly just a show like apes making noise and throwing sticks.. females will fight to the actual death; if not, they may harm or kill the other's offspring later. good reason to be sure and fight all out now...
This is a false problem. The thing only treats most of the HPV strains not all of them. The cancer they may cause IF you get the virus, someday kills too few women per year to make this into a big issue; however, it makes a TON OF PROFITS if we start giving all teens a shot for a bunch of cash for a problem that wasn't really on the radar before the hype.
The odds for reactions short and long term are higher than the odds for the cancer!!! Plus this is MERCK we are dealing with-- you could die 5 years later and your family could spend a decade in court only to get gift certificate, no admission of wrong doing. Plus AFTER the "vaccine" is proven too harmful; as in, so bad that it takes years before real action happens, MERCK will stall or illegally sell the drug until it runs out of inventory not necessarily even bothering to just dump it on another country; which is also done.
I bet more people die from plastic bag suffocation than HPV... we'll solve that one when Merck finds a vaccine for that "problem".
Somebody should be making prayer bots, god chat, and dead relative chats!! Twitter your dead relative! etc.
Maybe even some money in that one?
Wouldn't it be awesome if someday there is a fan club or cult of followers of a chat bot? cyber prophet? why not.... Joseph Smith pulled it off and wasn't even believable; how many years until we get a bot as capable? I suppose you'd need a human face on it because people would be less trusting of a machine... I also suppose having it in text on the internet would also make it more difficult to build trust (even with a human photo to go with it.)
Slashdot Mirror
Atheism is not a religion. They can act just as nuts as anybody else can.
A religion by definition requires belief in something supernatural; gods, powers, unfounded forces of nature or "beyond" nature etc. Doesn't have to be a conscious being, you are right on that (Buddhism for example) but it still has a supernatural component which due to it being supernatural can't be proven.
Atheism is the BELIEF in nothing supernatural; some define it as only denying conscious supernatural beings; re-incarnation may be acceptable so may other supernatural forces. Atheism by either definition is a unproven belief just like all religions; however, because it is defined by being the NEGATION of the core definition of religion. It can't itself be a religion even if its believers limit its scope.
A belief that capitalism is the best system is a religion and the fanatics sure make it look similar to the other religions... Communists did a similar thing a while back and went to extremes; "purging sinners" just like a church. The adherents of either both religiously believe it will lead us as close to Utopia as humanly possible. They always defend it saying people don't believe strongly enough... sound familiar?? No need to try or consider something else because you KNOW the answer already.
A song (software) should be patented because it can be reduced to math just like the instruments (hardware) that it run upon are patented and it NEEDS hardware the to run it...
Red herring: Hardware may be reduced down to math but so can a whole lot of things (think CAD drawings used to illustrate some patents.) False analogies are possible by oversimplification and that is what is going on when it is "framed" in such ways.
JUST LIKE MATH, the big point is that it is not tangible!!
Just like a story, it is not tangible, just like a song, it is not tangible... just like an idea, it is not tangible... Sure you write it down and run it on something; but just like those, that doesn't make it tangible; it is just expressed by tangible means. (Just as an abstract concept is expressed and experienced by tangible sentient beings...) You can't patent a book; well a certain kind of book or ebook reader but the story itself can't be patented (yet....)
A patent is a REAL item which is described abstractly on paper for the purpose of identifying the real-item so when they are made it is the legal basis for comparison upon which ownership decisions are made-- the patent is for the REAL PHYSICAL items, people are free to copy the description all they want but when they MAKE IT then it becomes active. This abstract description process is inherently similar to that of copywrite and trademarks which makes it extremely easy to confuse them especially when a broken political system allows patents to expand when copywrite and patents have such a thin line between them. It is getting TOO FUZZY.
We still have chalkboards?
I thought everybody was getting high off those markers? How about why do those give me headaches?
The gov contracts made are often horrible and decided with bribes or at least it encourages corruption more than most other government actions. They should be avoided simply because they harm democracy; and watched heavily when they are necessary.
People act like employees are lazy... management is the worst; and that is rarely ever contracted out.
I think one reason contractors do better is because management is almost UNINVOLVED and they are on the outside of the client's institutional glut. Contractors manage themselves... I've been on both sides. I've seen a long term contractor become like an employee gaming the system more than most employees and still slacking off.
Its usually a management problem and it seems those in management are just those who are best at shifting blame from themselves, which is how they get promoted - the person with the fewest flaws gets the job (its like job interview 101.)
Any sizable corp has an H.R. dept to handle benefits, unions, hiring, firing etc. The private side makes it easier because there is a dept to deal with it. The gov often lacks an H.R. dept to aid in such matters (plus suing the gov is so much more desirable than suing a corp.)
I think many HR related functions should be provided by government (some countries do aspects of this) Sometimes the union gets too much HR powers and most the time the corp gets too much HR powers. Lawyers benefit in both cases... and we only elect lawyers to office... Neutral 3rd party HR services should be provided cheaply by government. Small businesses would benefit greatly. It would make employee costs more predictable and lower mistakes that cause lawsuits. Hiring illegals wouldn't be easier because legal employees would be managed by the free HR services (yes, illegals would still be cheaper; but it would be easier to catch a business hiring them.) Unions could still fight and corps could still exploit-- but it would be a little moderated.
Not that anything government related can function in the USA when 1 major party is constantly rewarded for breaking government.
Haven't you seen some adult try to fool children into doing something by billing it as something else then put a thinly veiled theme around it?
Sir, could you be a zombie victim who hasn't died yet? Our EMTs don't know about the invasion at this point so they will need to rescue you.
Mam, you and your friends were shot so much that all you can do is lay on the ground moaning unable to bite anybody...
Hay! I faked biting this cop and he just ignored me and then cuffed me-- he wasn't in character! No cop is going to let a zombie bite them and why would they arrest one instead of shooting it in the head? Whats going on?
Excuse me, why do you have a group of us zombies standing around behind some plastic police tape and a couple barriers when we clearly could get past them? You didn't think this thing out did you? Have you seen a zombie movie?
Grand scales are broad and generalized - we can't accurately predict the weather because that is really complex and extremely chaotic. We predict winter and summer despite our inability to predict the weather-- how is that possible??!
Over the long term with a broader stroke you can see emerging patterns; see the forest instead of just the trees.
Individuals can't accurately predict how many marbles are in the jar. The more people you average into the prediction the more it approximates the actual number of marbles in the jar. You may have heard "wisdom of the masses" well, this actually quantified it a long time ago. (I leave it to you to wonder why I mentioned this.)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/weathering-fights---science---what-s-it-up-to-
I don't see how you could get those two mixed up. I didn't. I keep hearing from people bashing wind power claiming it kills birds but WINDOWS kill way more birds than wind power ever could. So next we get MORE invisible glass to kill MORE birds???? It probably isn't even an issue because coal corps will not be making it into an issue.
Yeah, the consumer will want to buy the one labeled "runs microsoft only" and the other one "runs everything"
I suggest the skeptics actually LEARN something before they start taking positions on something they don't know about. Just because you drive past it and we have more roads than we can maintain (so they always are being fixed and many are past due.)
The FCC has too many political lawyer types appointed; a reflection of the broken democracy we (collectively) are responsible for. Shifting it away from you might make you feel better by avoiding blame for your part in the mess but it doesn't FIX anything-- ignorance is only bliss initially...
RURAL AREAS HAVE ROADS. Roads cost a lot of money; so do water, gas, sewer, power, phone, cable lines-- For my area, the gov deals with the drains, water, and sewer when they do the roads; which saves a lot of money and removes monopoly powers from raping the citizens. The other services that also run on the public land next to the road are private and cost us more long term. We have a fleet of people for each company to maintain their grids; which they do poorly because that is bad for profits. Every year we have gas explosions because the grid is overdue and they only fix the leaky spots when they get X number of complaints (or it blows up.) Insurance is cheaper than doing their job.
Running 1 good data line would remove HALF the overhead-- no more phone lines. Underground doesn't cost as much if you have DoT do it with the roads-- long term underground SAVES MONEY; which is why you do not see cable or phone put underground because that would involve huge long term investment. We PAY to have cable & phone & power do separate grids on the poles. If gov had been doing it we'd have put funding into data over powerlines decades ago and many areas would be using that. Not much incentive for that to happen the way things are today.
Plus these energy savings things the power company does are just lip service to the monopoly regulators and they are really half-ass about it-- obviously because they make more money the more power you consume. It's even gone so far as them turning off power and creating blackouts to raise prices back in the Enron days.
Highways are expensive and more is involved in building those than other roads-- the speed, weight, and traffic are HUGE factors in design, cost, materials, and labor. It should be obvious if you THINK at all about the physics going on. Highways are also USED HEAVILY while under construction which greatly slows down the process. A friend of mine worked with the DoT on some roads in college, they do not work fast that is true; but some of the work is hard labor and some of it is SLOW-- plus there are many factors slowing down the process you don't think about while you speed bye effortlessly above the speed limit. They don't just run the grading machine 1 pass down the whole length of road you know (and it moves slowly.) Management and planning takes a lot of the speed blame but also do the real world situations they must handle. You check things over many times because you can't redo much of anything cheaply.
I'm sick of ignorant people saying wind power is a threat to birds; windows are a far greater threat. Just where are the estimates for the damage coal does to birds (and everything else?) Hell, asthma rates here are about 50x what they were 40 years ago and the warnings about eating local fish went from a few per week in the 90s to a few per month today (and they NEVER make the connection as to why when they report it in the TV news.)
I don't think anybody should get out of high school without understanding density, mass, and gravity! Somehow people fail to grasp the concept of 1 lb of tiny coal turning into a HUGE volume of gas (let alone the chemistry involved that actually cause it to gain weight.) We have unlimited air is the belief; thinking its like invisible land or something; completely ignoring its density.
A horse is way faster than a cow. probably smarter too.
I've been wondering why there are not super cheap ones out yet. Its not far above a LCD WATCH with a special cap that probably costs as much as the watch which cycles at different rates depending upon the temp. (I took my $17 unit apart and found the cap acting as a sensor.) Add a transistor switch and program the watch... I can get optical mice cheaper than these thermostats. programming them would only take a little bit of labor upfront-- these watches do a ton of stuff and have more buttons...for nothing. Actually... one probably could hack a watch with the right skills... The beeper could trigger the transistor to switch; an unused button could be used for the temp CAP-- maybe you could have 2 of those... only need 2 buttons... If one could just program the chip in the watch to do what you want...
This would me electronic ones long lasting and really cheap... could put one in each room or something. Good project for DIY people... make a super cheap electric thermostat.
Why are we paying for private corps to build our infrastructure? Can't we wake up and have the DoT lay the lines when they work on the roads? Put them under ground X distance from all roads that have any work done. Same with the water and gas lines. If you don't have a decent enough road; then you are on your own.
The huge profit margins of these corps could fund a great deal.... they don't innovate anymore; they avoid upgrading to maximize profit 1st. Profit is #1 and if they are a monopoly your happiness doesn't have much of an impact on their profit.
Government internet; low level-- ISPs run on top the network; which they encrypt etc (not that they won't just hand over all traffic anyway...) No different than how government roads, police, fire provide a place to run a business and invest. no roads, no reason to go there. Internet speed / cost is a factor.
DARPA just doesn't know about the one the NSA had already.... its a "need to know"...
Or perhaps they just want to see what the state of the tech out there is...
You should actually read into Solyndra, its another spin machine scandal with nothing to it. Thin film tech is really risky with big potential payoffs should somebody get it working; much of it is invented by gov funding anyhow-- cheap mass production seems to be an area we won't let gov do research-- we keep having to outsource that work as we ruin our gov research by trying to outsource that too. As we continue to decline we won't notice the causes and will just do more of the same until maybe after we run it all into the ground then realize what was wrong; although, I expect tea bagger nuts to just keep trying to dig a deeper hole claiming at some point we'll be going upwards somehow (maybe after coming out on the other side of the planet?)
Hell, the US tire industry is dying because China is subsidizing their tire industry with the purpose of killing our industry and Obama couldn't even get a good tariff in place (watered down compromise was all he got... only delaying the rate at which our businesses die.) Chinese solar is trying to kill the world solar market so they can dominate it; Solyndra was partially a result of this. (note the bad gov report cited online was from 2010 not from when the loan was given; not to mention that it was ignoring that thin-film is a cutting edge new tech that costs 4-6x as much.... not that we'd recoup if we fixed that because China would just copy the tech while claiming they are protecting our I.P. )
Ignore facts, expertise, education; do what FEELS GOOD to you personally. This anti-intellectual attitude isn't the only reason people are more foolish today than in the past (including the ironic lip service payed to education.) The consumer culture we've built to extremes since WW2, raises us upon following our thoughtless and emotional impulses. It doesn't feel good to hear things that are unpleasant.
With heavy personalization, we are taking this to another extreme where one is automatically censored from even seeing something that doesn't feel good; it has and will continue to even change how people interact as they become more sensitive to unpleasant things -- since they grow up not being exposed to them as often.
Surely recent years has shown the most successful bank robbers run banks.
I agree 110%. Its the nature of democracies to end in despotism at their own hands. Ben Franklin ended the constitutional convention by pointing this out and how our nation will die a similar fate.
It can't be made perfect so it lasts forever. The better it does the sooner the apathy sets in. The hope of the system is to create relatively civil revolutions to the up/down cycle all human civilizations have; to replace revolutionary wars with political ones.
The problem isn't sports themselves; its the HUGE distractions and promotion of them along with ALL other forms of escapism and civic irresponsibility ("individuality".)
The information age also is a HUGE problem and probably the only new part of the history repeat we are experiencing (except maybe some modern applied psychology tricks.) Everybody reads now and most have internet access and many other sources of media to access-- MORE INFORMATION available than at any point in human history. There is TOO much junk information it takes more effort to find the decent parts or even the true stuff.
The 1% have too much influence; the bigger problem is corporations who have way too much power. The problem in history and today is in the distribution of power. The US government was designed to distribute power and provide balanced powerful groups that could keep each other in check. This was limited to the function of government itself and wisely it kept the church out of the state as well and made the 4th branch of government the press more powerful and independent (and heavily subsidized it with about 3% of GDP; until the civil war.)
This kept the church from messing up the government which happened enough that the founders were aware of the problem. This also kept the president from being a king (for a while, we sure have gone backwards on this one.) The issue they MISSED was business and the super wealthy. Corporations didn't exist (not as they did post civil war; or post legalese person-hood) and the small nation at the time needed it's wealthy; besides the founders were fairly rich themselves and not infallible (they did amazingly well despite their self interests.)
Too much power consolidated by the few ALWAYS leads to problems. We limit historical situations of power consolidation to prevent repeats but the ones we MISS will eventually evolve into a problem. The corporations are the #1 problem (including the banksters) the super rich are next.
We have an economy based on gambling not actual business which benefited when capital markets served them. Business payed taxes; now only the small businesses pay taxes. The gamblers not only pay no taxes but they get bailed out by the public and poorly regulated because a pittance of the funny money they make goes into buying off our democracy. That e-paper economy supplanting our real economy not only costs jobs but it is lost tax revenue. The economic downturn (depression) caused the big hole in the budget.
Not to mention how the fed hands them our money to loan out for free to make huge profits --- they don't earn it, they steal it from us--- I'm sure I could do pretty well if I could print money and charge interest to those I loaned it to (and I wouldn't be publicly traded either... why be that greedy? I can leverage my money 50x and get bailed out then take the bail out and leverage that 50x and pay it back in a year with the "profits"... when I go under, I'll be in the top 1% anyway.)
I suppose you believe in trickle down economics too. Given its horrible track record, it should only be a belief because it doesn't have any real world backing.
Government contractors are public robbery... Not sure what to call what the banks do to us...
These business MBA people are worse than the religious nuts-- unfortunately we never established a separation of business and state! All our big problems today in the world are business linked -- in the past religion was a huge problem for governments so people learned to separate them; I wonder if we'll learn this next lesson??
A real CIO solution:
Create the Computer Core (or some other name, obvious geek squad is taken) with a student worker program, all open source and all free.
Hire the best and brightest at stable and HIGH pay - instead of the going rate with good benefits.
A government non-profit similar to PBS or like the USPS was but funded by charging government offices for their services; it can also run at a loss (since it serves gov and is payed by gov it's at a loss anyhow.)
It would be barred from being forced to pay pensions 50+ years in advance (which the GOP did to the US postal service to create a fake debt so they can try to break it up; the USPS is not in financial trouble, BTW.)
A formal process would be devised for software specifications; because 1 of the big problems with soft dev and government is that the requirements are a moving target! Gov clients would be contractually locked in; no moving targets; in fact, most design work should also be removed from those lawyers too.
Student lawyer group; gain experience suing gov offices for bad contracts and corruption. Tech scams are rampant and tech makes great cover for old fashioned corrupt contract deals.
Since management is MOSTLY the problem in any organization public or private; it would be difficult to design a system by which to attract and keep good management-- one method that seems to work ok is to only promote from within. I also don't see why we can't have democratically run organizations; where the workers get to vote -- as opposed to a top-down authoritarian model we seem to love so much (more each year.)
Your city, your state, your elementary schools--- all have the SAME website needs. Much of their other software as well. WHY do their office PCs need upgrades?? they don't.
Slippery slope is a logical fallacy; yet for some reason it is popular to completely misunderstand it and use it as an argument. When you claim something is a "slippery slope" so we should stop the 1st steps from happening because it'll slip down into the extremes--- you are literally invoking the NAME of the fallacy while you are also committing the fallacy!!!
I can't even think of a word to describe such "reasoning"-- its like out of the mouth of some stupid fictional character trying to be funny (but obviously something else since apparently most wouldn't get the slippery slope joke.)
Sad that the fallacy itself has become a popular label for advocating the use of it in arguments.
Sure, one can characterize the opposition to claim they want to progressively go to some extreme and they quite possibly intend to do so; however, logically each step is separate and not connected to the other steps without a valid linking argument. (sadly, slippery slope is used to link them all in 1 move despite its purpose is to say that move is illegal.)
Global warming is an easy one with a lot of concerned people spreading the science; but look at how it has become a total political mess that the tobacco industry could only dream of. Without a lot of work on your own or a movement to promote the facts it just looks like another political mess where the answer is not clear; when it fact, it likely is not a difficult problem once the truth filters out.
female primates are way worse than the males; it has to be genetic and it also went on to the humans! females hold on to stuff for a long time and will do nasty things during or finally at the end of that time; won't even be a logical connection, just wham! out from nowhere comes some vindictive thing from the past. at least males deal with it upfront and get over it... that male aggression has a few good sides (just a FEW.)
obviously, there are exceptions, we are not totally run by our genes.
how about human teens? when stuff can still be acted out and self control is weak (that is before we jailed them for being kids, now they fear ...well if they think ahead at all they hold back.) The males can be split up in a fight; especially by a female -- but the fighting females can easily harm anybody who gets in their path. Seen it. heard about it from teachers. ask one, they'll tell you about it. even really upset males it comes down to a chest thumping power show even when elevated with weapons its mostly just a show like apes making noise and throwing sticks.. females will fight to the actual death; if not, they may harm or kill the other's offspring later. good reason to be sure and fight all out now...
This is a false problem. The thing only treats most of the HPV strains not all of them. The cancer they may cause IF you get the virus, someday kills too few women per year to make this into a big issue; however, it makes a TON OF PROFITS if we start giving all teens a shot for a bunch of cash for a problem that wasn't really on the radar before the hype.
The odds for reactions short and long term are higher than the odds for the cancer!!! Plus this is MERCK we are dealing with-- you could die 5 years later and your family could spend a decade in court only to get gift certificate, no admission of wrong doing. Plus AFTER the "vaccine" is proven too harmful; as in, so bad that it takes years before real action happens, MERCK will stall or illegally sell the drug until it runs out of inventory not necessarily even bothering to just dump it on another country; which is also done.
I bet more people die from plastic bag suffocation than HPV... we'll solve that one when Merck finds a vaccine for that "problem".
Somebody should be making prayer bots, god chat, and dead relative chats!! Twitter your dead relative! etc.
Maybe even some money in that one?
Wouldn't it be awesome if someday there is a fan club or cult of followers of a chat bot? cyber prophet? why not.... Joseph Smith pulled it off and wasn't even believable; how many years until we get a bot as capable? I suppose you'd need a human face on it because people would be less trusting of a machine... I also suppose having it in text on the internet would also make it more difficult to build trust (even with a human photo to go with it.)