The FCC mandated a change for broadcasts... through the air, that you pick up with an antenna. If you have analog paid cable service from the cable company that comes in on a wire THERE IS NOTHING that requires them to discontinue the service at the changeover.
That doesn't mean the cable companies won't use the confusion to try to get rid of analog cable altogether. This is a big issue for apartment complexes that pay for group rates and include extended basic cable with rentals. It takes $100+/mo to get the same channels on a digital lineup that you get in extended basic. You get a higher number of channels with low end digital packages but they are crap.
'The project was started and then the whining (of the lazy) began'
As I recall it was the whining of the hungry... or rather those who had to feed hungry children. A wholesale conversion to metric at that point would have been very expensive. Hell it would be extremely expensive now and they've been teaching the metric system in schools for decades.
As you admit, its not a big problem and its hard to justify spending tens of billions of dollars on something that isn't a big problem.
It's easier to do math with metric, no doubt about it. But really, the standards system is perfectly workable.
It really doesn't matter that once upon a time a foot had multiple measurements, it doesn't today and hasn't for a very very long time. I don't compare boards to light in a vacuum anymore than I compare them to kings feet. So from my perspective meters and feet are equally arbitrary. I am also capable of thinking of things in.1 feet,.01 feet, 10 feet, etc to do math without ever having a need to convert to another awkward unit.
Conceptually it doesn't matter what unit system we are working in as long as we can agree on definitions for the units. But in practice I can look at a floor and give you a rough estimate in feet across and square feet. I can give you the same in metric but it will only be an imprecise conversion of my already imprecise estimate in feet.
This is one of the most overrated problems. And don't bother with NASA screwups.
On Slashdot everyone is already well aware that the changeover is for over the air broadcasts and not cable but outside the tech crowd nobody understands this. TV's are being sold cheaply because they have analog cable tuners, and even a number of comcast cable guys I've talked to were under the impression that the changeover meant analog cable was going and they didn't know what the company was going to do when it did.
'3 TV's DVD's Game Consoles PayTV (you may call this cable) Computer Internet Multiple telephones'
This is the result of improved manufacturing technologies and technology in general. Their prevalence has little to do with an improved economy.
'First off, the US has an abundance of some resources and a total lack of others.'
Which resources is it you think the U.S. lacks? There are things we consume more of than we produce, but I'm not aware of anything the U.S. doesn't produce. Russia has fewer resources than the U.S. along with Europe but not by far.
Australia... I've never heard of Australia as a large resource powerhouse I was under the impression that is mostly barren terrain of a single type. As opposed to large nations in temperate climates. Within the United States we have tropical, swamp, desert, plains, volcanic regions, all types of water bodies, mountains, and cold mountain regions. All with a range of weather conditions appropriate to producing virtually anything that can be produced in that type of terrain.
I have no doubt that asian labor is cheaper and that this increases the profit margins of individual companies but as far as our economy at large is concerned we have to factor in that purchasing goods and services from Asia and abroad costs us 300 billion. 300 billion could pay for a lot of local manufacturing at reasonable wages.
'The first example that comes to mind is textiles. The cost of (non-branded) clothing now is incredibly low, almost entirely due to the low costs of production in countries like China. If you were to block importating to make a domestic textiles trade viable then the cost to consumers would rocket, doing this effectively makes everyone poorer due to higher cost of living and any wage rise to counter this would raise the price of other goods and services domestically, while also making America less competitive in other markets.'
That is the theory used to support globalized production but fortunately we have seen both in action now and don't have to guess at the reality. The reality is that shipping all that production overseas has siphoned wealth off the U.S. economy, that has devalued the dollar AND drastically lowered the quality of the goods we purchase. Today citizens are poorer than ever and only advances in technology have offset the drastic reduction in the quality of the few goods they can afford to purchase.
You can reasonably compare this with locally owned stores versus a Wal-mart. Wal-mart contributes as little as possible back to the local community with welfare wage jobs. It puts all the local stores that pay living wages out of business and in the end utterly destroys the local economy.
Just because the population is stupid enough to purchase the cheapest crap you put in front of them doesn't mean producing the cheapest crap possible and sending profits overseas is beneficial to the United States.
'Additionally, creating a volume textile industry with the need for say 500,000 workers is allocating American workers to an extremely low value industry with no export potential.'
The industry is undervalued, but I'd certainly call employing 500,000 of the unemployed Americans and eliminating our 300 billion dollar trade deficit a good start. It wouldn't be 500,000 though, in the United States technology would be used in place of labor.
I used to work at a U.S. sports clothing manufacturer. They make most of the gym clothing used by high schools in the United States. The entire facility is operated by about 20 people. All of them make enough to drive new vehicles, own homes, and feed their families. Even the most menial job in the United States should pay enough that you can say that.
'The fact of the matter is that a good life in America relies on getting a good job, and this in part relies on peoples abilities and education, if your competing for jobs that a Chinese factory worker can do more cost effectively you've a big problem.'
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans don't have a good education and our economy has been ignoring that segment since the 1950's. High school graduates and dropouts need to be able to make living wages in order to support our economy.
The U.S. remains the largest bastion of natural resources in the world, that and not our economic policy is what made us the wealthiest nation in the world. We've stopped using them. The only thing we produce now it technology and technology is expensive to produce and cheap to copy. Corn and Steel not so much.
'When artificial value deflates, the economy has a tendency to over-correct and move into a downward spiral as people lose confidence.'
Artificial valuations are affected by confidence. Actual wealth cannot. Confidence can affect artificial valuations like the stock market and bank balances, it can't evaporate houses, cars, and bars of gold.
'The US could never compete with Asia on manufacturing.'
You are forgetting a very critical point, it is primarily the U.S. the consumes and utilizes the goods in the first place. With no taxation on nationally produced goods and high tariffs on imports, it will be economical for Americans to purchase quality American made goods again relative to cheap imports. It really doesn't matter for the moment if Canadians or Europeans would use said goods.
The United States holds the largest pool of natural resources in the world. Ultimately, because resources are scarce, all we have to do to remain the wealthiest nation is to utilize those resources and limit the amount of sharing we do with the rest of the world.
People talk of the Utopia of the 60's and 70's but they forget that in the 50's any high school dropout who was willing to work hard could own a home, a quality vehicle, and support a family on a single income. I don't care what any Harvard MBA economic theory you apply, in reality, the economy hasn't been anywhere near that strong since.
'If that's so, do you then advocate that prostitution should be legal?'
Yes. Along with most other people. That has to be the poorest example I've ever seen. Prostitution is much like the illicit drug trade, the problems come from it being illicit and it its only illicit because its outlawed. Yet all those problems, ruined lives, slave trade, etc that result from outlawing the practice are used to justify the outlawing!
Big business, government, and any other organization large enough that the people making decisions don't have a personal interest in the results will always do a poor job at producing.
Private business can be more effective than government at most things but you are right, there are exceptions. Bascially anytime the quality of the result is more important than being cost effective or that the result must be realized even if the result is a loss. Roads, healthcare, schools, etc.
If we are going to stimulate something, we should stimulate small businesses, education, and manufacturing. Grants (as opposed to loans) for students that are not based on minority status, the same for small business start-ups, and the elimination of taxes on the refinement, processing, and manufacturing of materials and products that qualify for a "made in the usa" sticker. Not to mention eliminating income tax for those working to make such products.
Quite frankly, we could do far worse than to find ourselves in a position where our local manufacturing infrastructure had grown so large that these tax breaks were causing our nation a problem. While we are at it, lets stop punishing small businesses and self-employed individuals on their taxes.
You can't exclude trade and ignore offshoring in the modern globalized economy. The jobs aren't here because they have been sent overseas. They have been sent overseas to lower costs and increase consumer spending. The result is that on a national level our wealth is being transferred not from one U.S. Citizen to another, but overall wealth is being siphoned from the U.S. to third party nations. The more spending, the more that is siphoned away.
You really can't have greater net savings than net investment when individuals have no excess income to save or invest.
'no americans will do hard work for $10/h -that is why illegals take that work, not because they work under min wage'
That is a myth. I would gladly do steady full-time hard work for $10/hr at this point. Maybe not in California where the cost of living is ridiculous but there are no shortage of places in the midwest where labor rates are inexpensive in the U.S.
We have the minimum wage for a reason. Stop blaming the minimum wage and stop claiming the illegals are harmless. Actively pursue them, brand them, and send them home. Make Mexico agree to imprison them if we catch them twice or we suspend NAFTA. There are immigration procedures in place for those who wish to foreswear their allegiance to Mexico, learn English, and work under the same rules and terms as other Americans. Neither California nor any other part of the southwest are the rightful homes of Mexicans or other illegal immigrants.
The solution is not to pay U.S. workers low wages or to forgive the use of illegal labor. Enforce our borders, increase taxes on imports, grant tax-breaks to U.S. manufacturing. Ultimately, corporations can not leave the U.S. as a result of these things because the U.S. controls the largest pool of natural resources in the world.
In reality, the economy is what is left after all artificial valuation has crashed. It can't die, only the economy as we know it can die and that shift of real wealth could very well have been a good thing.
'People sitting around doing nothing is wasted capital. Even if you have to borrow to get them to do work, you have produced something greater than your investment.'
Not all work creates value. Everything you do is work, including what you do at home. Unless you have those people creating value with those jobs then you are wasting capital by employing them as well.
All of this pretends creating jobs is a magical and wonderful thing. In an ideal economy no jobs would be needed, machines would do the work and wealth would just be distributed to citizens who merely invested it in their choice of machine warehouses.
Net Value is what must be increased. Our economy has gone astray in a number of areas. A service-based economy is a great choice for a poor nation with limited resources because it is cheap to educated individuals to perform services. A service-based economy is great for banks which siphon off money as its exchanged, the more fluid money the better banks do and service is fluid as can be (banks don't increase net value). Refining and utilizing natural resources is what increases value. Clean a floor and get paid $100 and you've moved $100 around. After the fact you still have one floor and $100. Make a blanket and sell it for $100 and you've turned $20 of raw materials in $100 worth of raw materials leaving you with $100 and $100 worth of materials, or a net value gain for the nation of $80. When as a nation you have a largest pool of national resources in the world, this is the only way to go.
The U.S. shouldn't be investing in IP generating ventures, IP is artificial value that depends upon regulation to maintain its artificial scarcity. A scarcity that our competitors will not honor. The U.S. should be investing in its own manufacturing and resource infrastructure. Stop taxing the production and profits from materials that qualify for a "Made in the USA" tag and eliminate taxes on the pay of workers who make said products.
'And you'll still be left, with the $100, somewhere in the system, unless it's been exported overseas. (joy)'
Which is exactly why a service based economy is for the birds. Particularly for a nation with the largest pool natural resources on the planet. I spend a hundred dollars and you clean my floor, we haven't created value, we've just shifted it around. I spend $100 on a hammer, the $100 shifted around but somewhere down the line another hammer will be produced. Leaving the nation with $100 + a hammer. That is a net increase.
Service-based economies are great for countries with limited national resources (that is why Finland has one of the best educational systems in the world, you can always train people to supplant a service based economy) and for banks, who benefit from money shifting around as much as possible. And nothing keeps money more fluid than service-based economies.
'There are good opportunities in the field of bioinformatics for computer scientists who know enough biology!'
While I've got a bio-engineer on the line... I'm starting to play a bit at home but I've found a bit a of a dead end. Perhaps you can clue me in on what procedures I need to Google next. The big problem I see is that while PCR itself is conceptually straightforward enough, and determining what the primers should contain is as well. There are entire documents online on designing primers.
But once you've determined the code for your primer what techniques are there to construct the primer itself? Preferably techniques that could be used on the small scale using home lab equipment.
Actually you have that backwards. Age causes problems focusing on things near you, that is farsightedness, not nearsightedness.
People with perfect vision will need reading glasses sooner than they would if they were otherwise nearsighted. The nearsightedness counteracts the 'farsightedness' caused by aging (in quotes because actual farsightedness improves focus on things far away, aging just deteriorates vision closeup).
If you are nearsighted then having Lasik will cause you to need reading glasses sooner, but not any sooner than you would have needed them if you had perfect vision in the first place.
The parent also misspoke. Farsightedness can be corrected with lasik, but old age can not. Old age doesn't make your lens go out of focus, it makes your eye muscles lose the ability to refocus. The best they can do is adjust one eye permanently to focus near, and fix any nearsightedness in the other. You will still continue to age, your eye muscles will continue to degenerate until those adjustments are no longer good enough. And prolonged focus either close or far will cause strain so that you still need glasses to read a book or drive long distance.
Whether you are near-sighted or far-sighted, Lasik will correct your lens problem. As you age you don't actually become far-sighted at all, your eye muscles weaken and lose the ability to refocus. If you are near-sighted your eyes are off-focus and the two problems might delay your need to get reading glasses.
If you have lasik to correct your vision problem you will need reading glasses in your 40's just like everyone who had perfect vision in the first place.
My biggest suggestion is to make sure that whoever does your lasik is using the latest equipment. They should be using custom cornea and be using a laser that accounts for eye movements faster than the eye can move. They also should be using a laser and not a blade to cut the corneal flap, almost all lasik complications arise from the use of a mechanical blade to cut the flap.
It isn't really painful, if you've been somewhere dusty enough to irritate your eyes then you've felt as bad. But the clinics tell you that you will experience perfect vision as early as the next day. That is true but the vision is fleeting, your eyes will be clogged with drops, drops and more drops, and you will be practically blinded if you are near anything as bright as a street lamp. Don't makes plans that require you to drive or work for a solid week after the surgery.
Sort of a myth. The myth part is where they can correct the far sightedness. Far sightedness due to aging is caused by weakening of the eye muscles, this causes an inability to refocus the eye properly. Lasik fixes the cornea and the cornea is not the problem in this instance. If you are young and far sighted then a lasik adjustment can fix the problem.
If you are far sighted due to being older then the best they can do with lasik is permanently adjust one eye to see well close and leave the other well enough to see far away (or fix it if you have a near sighted cornea). Supposedly the two will compensate for each other but in practice you will still be holding boxes at arms length to read the directions, will need to pop a lens out of reading glasses to read a book, and will need prescription lenses to drive long distance. This is because whether you are looking close or far, one eye is doing all the work without the glasses and it causes strain.
Early to mid 40's is typical to have your eye muscles begin to wear out. People who are near-sighted can avoid the reading glasses longer not because their eye muscles last longer but because their eyes are already out of focus the other direction and the two problems correct each other to a certain extent. That 'advantage' is the only thing you are giving up by having lasik. If you hadn't had the lasik then sooner or later you wouldn't be able to see close-up OR far away.
Most evidence suggests that prolonged contact is required for fluoride to strengthen enamel. That is why the dentist leaves the fluoride on for awhile when he does the treatment. Water fluoridation does not allow the fluoride to contact the teeth long enough to provide any help and since there is evidence fluoride may be a mutagen it could in fact be responsible for health problems.
In other words, dentists make money on fluoride treatments and water fluoridation doesn't hurt their pocket books one bit.
Slashdot Mirror
The FCC mandated a change for broadcasts... through the air, that you pick up with an antenna. If you have analog paid cable service from the cable company that comes in on a wire THERE IS NOTHING that requires them to discontinue the service at the changeover.
That doesn't mean the cable companies won't use the confusion to try to get rid of analog cable altogether. This is a big issue for apartment complexes that pay for group rates and include extended basic cable with rentals. It takes $100+/mo to get the same channels on a digital lineup that you get in extended basic. You get a higher number of channels with low end digital packages but they are crap.
'The project was started and then the whining (of the lazy) began'
As I recall it was the whining of the hungry... or rather those who had to feed hungry children. A wholesale conversion to metric at that point would have been very expensive. Hell it would be extremely expensive now and they've been teaching the metric system in schools for decades.
As you admit, its not a big problem and its hard to justify spending tens of billions of dollars on something that isn't a big problem.
It's easier to do math with metric, no doubt about it. But really, the standards system is perfectly workable.
It really doesn't matter that once upon a time a foot had multiple measurements, it doesn't today and hasn't for a very very long time. I don't compare boards to light in a vacuum anymore than I compare them to kings feet. So from my perspective meters and feet are equally arbitrary. I am also capable of thinking of things in .1 feet, .01 feet, 10 feet, etc to do math without ever having a need to convert to another awkward unit.
Conceptually it doesn't matter what unit system we are working in as long as we can agree on definitions for the units. But in practice I can look at a floor and give you a rough estimate in feet across and square feet. I can give you the same in metric but it will only be an imprecise conversion of my already imprecise estimate in feet.
This is one of the most overrated problems. And don't bother with NASA screwups.
On Slashdot everyone is already well aware that the changeover is for over the air broadcasts and not cable but outside the tech crowd nobody understands this. TV's are being sold cheaply because they have analog cable tuners, and even a number of comcast cable guys I've talked to were under the impression that the changeover meant analog cable was going and they didn't know what the company was going to do when it did.
'2 refrigerators'
who has two fridges? Why?
'3 TV's
DVD's Game Consoles
PayTV (you may call this cable)
Computer
Internet
Multiple telephones'
This is the result of improved manufacturing technologies and technology in general. Their prevalence has little to do with an improved economy.
'First off, the US has an abundance of some resources and a total lack of others.'
Which resources is it you think the U.S. lacks? There are things we consume more of than we produce, but I'm not aware of anything the U.S. doesn't produce. Russia has fewer resources than the U.S. along with Europe but not by far.
Australia... I've never heard of Australia as a large resource powerhouse I was under the impression that is mostly barren terrain of a single type. As opposed to large nations in temperate climates. Within the United States we have tropical, swamp, desert, plains, volcanic regions, all types of water bodies, mountains, and cold mountain regions. All with a range of weather conditions appropriate to producing virtually anything that can be produced in that type of terrain.
I have no doubt that asian labor is cheaper and that this increases the profit margins of individual companies but as far as our economy at large is concerned we have to factor in that purchasing goods and services from Asia and abroad costs us 300 billion. 300 billion could pay for a lot of local manufacturing at reasonable wages.
'The first example that comes to mind is textiles. The cost of (non-branded) clothing now is incredibly low, almost entirely due to the low costs of production in countries like China. If you were to block importating to make a domestic textiles trade viable then the cost to consumers would rocket, doing this effectively makes everyone poorer due to higher cost of living and any wage rise to counter this would raise the price of other goods and services domestically, while also making America less competitive in other markets.'
That is the theory used to support globalized production but fortunately we have seen both in action now and don't have to guess at the reality. The reality is that shipping all that production overseas has siphoned wealth off the U.S. economy, that has devalued the dollar AND drastically lowered the quality of the goods we purchase. Today citizens are poorer than ever and only advances in technology have offset the drastic reduction in the quality of the few goods they can afford to purchase.
You can reasonably compare this with locally owned stores versus a Wal-mart. Wal-mart contributes as little as possible back to the local community with welfare wage jobs. It puts all the local stores that pay living wages out of business and in the end utterly destroys the local economy.
Just because the population is stupid enough to purchase the cheapest crap you put in front of them doesn't mean producing the cheapest crap possible and sending profits overseas is beneficial to the United States.
'Additionally, creating a volume textile industry with the need for say 500,000 workers is allocating American workers to an extremely low value industry with no export potential.'
The industry is undervalued, but I'd certainly call employing 500,000 of the unemployed Americans and eliminating our 300 billion dollar trade deficit a good start. It wouldn't be 500,000 though, in the United States technology would be used in place of labor.
I used to work at a U.S. sports clothing manufacturer. They make most of the gym clothing used by high schools in the United States. The entire facility is operated by about 20 people. All of them make enough to drive new vehicles, own homes, and feed their families. Even the most menial job in the United States should pay enough that you can say that.
'The fact of the matter is that a good life in America relies on getting a good job, and this in part relies on peoples abilities and education, if your competing for jobs that a Chinese factory worker can do more cost effectively you've a big problem.'
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans don't have a good education and our economy has been ignoring that segment since the 1950's. High school graduates and dropouts need to be able to make living wages in order to support our economy.
The U.S. remains the largest bastion of natural resources in the world, that and not our economic policy is what made us the wealthiest nation in the world. We've stopped using them. The only thing we produce now it technology and technology is expensive to produce and cheap to copy. Corn and Steel not so much.
'When artificial value deflates, the economy has a tendency to over-correct and move into a downward spiral as people lose confidence.'
Artificial valuations are affected by confidence. Actual wealth cannot. Confidence can affect artificial valuations like the stock market and bank balances, it can't evaporate houses, cars, and bars of gold.
'The US could never compete with Asia on manufacturing.'
You are forgetting a very critical point, it is primarily the U.S. the consumes and utilizes the goods in the first place. With no taxation on nationally produced goods and high tariffs on imports, it will be economical for Americans to purchase quality American made goods again relative to cheap imports. It really doesn't matter for the moment if Canadians or Europeans would use said goods.
The United States holds the largest pool of natural resources in the world. Ultimately, because resources are scarce, all we have to do to remain the wealthiest nation is to utilize those resources and limit the amount of sharing we do with the rest of the world.
People talk of the Utopia of the 60's and 70's but they forget that in the 50's any high school dropout who was willing to work hard could own a home, a quality vehicle, and support a family on a single income. I don't care what any Harvard MBA economic theory you apply, in reality, the economy hasn't been anywhere near that strong since.
'If that's so, do you then advocate that prostitution should be legal?'
Yes. Along with most other people. That has to be the poorest example I've ever seen. Prostitution is much like the illicit drug trade, the problems come from it being illicit and it its only illicit because its outlawed. Yet all those problems, ruined lives, slave trade, etc that result from outlawing the practice are used to justify the outlawing!
Big business, government, and any other organization large enough that the people making decisions don't have a personal interest in the results will always do a poor job at producing.
Private business can be more effective than government at most things but you are right, there are exceptions. Bascially anytime the quality of the result is more important than being cost effective or that the result must be realized even if the result is a loss. Roads, healthcare, schools, etc.
If we are going to stimulate something, we should stimulate small businesses, education, and manufacturing. Grants (as opposed to loans) for students that are not based on minority status, the same for small business start-ups, and the elimination of taxes on the refinement, processing, and manufacturing of materials and products that qualify for a "made in the usa" sticker. Not to mention eliminating income tax for those working to make such products.
Quite frankly, we could do far worse than to find ourselves in a position where our local manufacturing infrastructure had grown so large that these tax breaks were causing our nation a problem. While we are at it, lets stop punishing small businesses and self-employed individuals on their taxes.
'which means (excluding trade for now)'
You can't exclude trade and ignore offshoring in the modern globalized economy. The jobs aren't here because they have been sent overseas. They have been sent overseas to lower costs and increase consumer spending. The result is that on a national level our wealth is being transferred not from one U.S. Citizen to another, but overall wealth is being siphoned from the U.S. to third party nations. The more spending, the more that is siphoned away.
You really can't have greater net savings than net investment when individuals have no excess income to save or invest.
not all jobs are equal. Personally, I'd rather count small businesses with lifetimes over 5yrs created than jobs.
'no americans will do hard work for $10/h -that is why illegals take that work, not because they work under min wage'
That is a myth. I would gladly do steady full-time hard work for $10/hr at this point. Maybe not in California where the cost of living is ridiculous but there are no shortage of places in the midwest where labor rates are inexpensive in the U.S.
We have the minimum wage for a reason. Stop blaming the minimum wage and stop claiming the illegals are harmless. Actively pursue them, brand them, and send them home. Make Mexico agree to imprison them if we catch them twice or we suspend NAFTA. There are immigration procedures in place for those who wish to foreswear their allegiance to Mexico, learn English, and work under the same rules and terms as other Americans. Neither California nor any other part of the southwest are the rightful homes of Mexicans or other illegal immigrants.
The solution is not to pay U.S. workers low wages or to forgive the use of illegal labor. Enforce our borders, increase taxes on imports, grant tax-breaks to U.S. manufacturing. Ultimately, corporations can not leave the U.S. as a result of these things because the U.S. controls the largest pool of natural resources in the world.
Risk is relative.
The goal of private industry is to line their own pockets. For them risk is about whether or not they will profit on the venture.
The goal of the government is not to realize a profitable return on their investment for the government but for the people at large.
Someone else making profit is simply a lost opportunity for a corporation. At worst it is increased taxes for government.
In reality, the economy is what is left after all artificial valuation has crashed. It can't die, only the economy as we know it can die and that shift of real wealth could very well have been a good thing.
'People sitting around doing nothing is wasted capital. Even if you have to borrow to get them to do work, you have produced something greater than your investment.'
Not all work creates value. Everything you do is work, including what you do at home. Unless you have those people creating value with those jobs then you are wasting capital by employing them as well.
All of this pretends creating jobs is a magical and wonderful thing. In an ideal economy no jobs would be needed, machines would do the work and wealth would just be distributed to citizens who merely invested it in their choice of machine warehouses.
Net Value is what must be increased. Our economy has gone astray in a number of areas. A service-based economy is a great choice for a poor nation with limited resources because it is cheap to educated individuals to perform services. A service-based economy is great for banks which siphon off money as its exchanged, the more fluid money the better banks do and service is fluid as can be (banks don't increase net value). Refining and utilizing natural resources is what increases value. Clean a floor and get paid $100 and you've moved $100 around. After the fact you still have one floor and $100. Make a blanket and sell it for $100 and you've turned $20 of raw materials in $100 worth of raw materials leaving you with $100 and $100 worth of materials, or a net value gain for the nation of $80. When as a nation you have a largest pool of national resources in the world, this is the only way to go.
The U.S. shouldn't be investing in IP generating ventures, IP is artificial value that depends upon regulation to maintain its artificial scarcity. A scarcity that our competitors will not honor. The U.S. should be investing in its own manufacturing and resource infrastructure. Stop taxing the production and profits from materials that qualify for a "Made in the USA" tag and eliminate taxes on the pay of workers who make said products.
'And you'll still be left, with the $100, somewhere in the system, unless it's been exported overseas. (joy)'
Which is exactly why a service based economy is for the birds. Particularly for a nation with the largest pool natural resources on the planet. I spend a hundred dollars and you clean my floor, we haven't created value, we've just shifted it around. I spend $100 on a hammer, the $100 shifted around but somewhere down the line another hammer will be produced. Leaving the nation with $100 + a hammer. That is a net increase.
Service-based economies are great for countries with limited national resources (that is why Finland has one of the best educational systems in the world, you can always train people to supplant a service based economy) and for banks, who benefit from money shifting around as much as possible. And nothing keeps money more fluid than service-based economies.
Thank you, just what I needed.
I've found $20/custom primer which leaves experimentation on a budget within reach.
'There are good opportunities in the field of bioinformatics for computer scientists who know enough biology!'
While I've got a bio-engineer on the line... I'm starting to play a bit at home but I've found a bit a of a dead end. Perhaps you can clue me in on what procedures I need to Google next. The big problem I see is that while PCR itself is conceptually straightforward enough, and determining what the primers should contain is as well. There are entire documents online on designing primers.
But once you've determined the code for your primer what techniques are there to construct the primer itself? Preferably techniques that could be used on the small scale using home lab equipment.
I can confirm the lasik price, mine was about the same and that was with the top lasik surgeon in the country.
You can't always go by price though. Uncle bob's drive through lasik can charge a high price just as easily as anyone else.
Actually you have that backwards. Age causes problems focusing on things near you, that is farsightedness, not nearsightedness.
People with perfect vision will need reading glasses sooner than they would if they were otherwise nearsighted. The nearsightedness counteracts the 'farsightedness' caused by aging (in quotes because actual farsightedness improves focus on things far away, aging just deteriorates vision closeup).
If you are nearsighted then having Lasik will cause you to need reading glasses sooner, but not any sooner than you would have needed them if you had perfect vision in the first place.
The parent also misspoke. Farsightedness can be corrected with lasik, but old age can not. Old age doesn't make your lens go out of focus, it makes your eye muscles lose the ability to refocus. The best they can do is adjust one eye permanently to focus near, and fix any nearsightedness in the other. You will still continue to age, your eye muscles will continue to degenerate until those adjustments are no longer good enough. And prolonged focus either close or far will cause strain so that you still need glasses to read a book or drive long distance.
Read my reply to the parent.
Whether you are near-sighted or far-sighted, Lasik will correct your lens problem. As you age you don't actually become far-sighted at all, your eye muscles weaken and lose the ability to refocus. If you are near-sighted your eyes are off-focus and the two problems might delay your need to get reading glasses.
If you have lasik to correct your vision problem you will need reading glasses in your 40's just like everyone who had perfect vision in the first place.
My biggest suggestion is to make sure that whoever does your lasik is using the latest equipment. They should be using custom cornea and be using a laser that accounts for eye movements faster than the eye can move. They also should be using a laser and not a blade to cut the corneal flap, almost all lasik complications arise from the use of a mechanical blade to cut the flap.
It isn't really painful, if you've been somewhere dusty enough to irritate your eyes then you've felt as bad. But the clinics tell you that you will experience perfect vision as early as the next day. That is true but the vision is fleeting, your eyes will be clogged with drops, drops and more drops, and you will be practically blinded if you are near anything as bright as a street lamp. Don't makes plans that require you to drive or work for a solid week after the surgery.
Sort of a myth. The myth part is where they can correct the far sightedness. Far sightedness due to aging is caused by weakening of the eye muscles, this causes an inability to refocus the eye properly. Lasik fixes the cornea and the cornea is not the problem in this instance. If you are young and far sighted then a lasik adjustment can fix the problem.
If you are far sighted due to being older then the best they can do with lasik is permanently adjust one eye to see well close and leave the other well enough to see far away (or fix it if you have a near sighted cornea). Supposedly the two will compensate for each other but in practice you will still be holding boxes at arms length to read the directions, will need to pop a lens out of reading glasses to read a book, and will need prescription lenses to drive long distance. This is because whether you are looking close or far, one eye is doing all the work without the glasses and it causes strain.
Early to mid 40's is typical to have your eye muscles begin to wear out. People who are near-sighted can avoid the reading glasses longer not because their eye muscles last longer but because their eyes are already out of focus the other direction and the two problems correct each other to a certain extent. That 'advantage' is the only thing you are giving up by having lasik. If you hadn't had the lasik then sooner or later you wouldn't be able to see close-up OR far away.
Most evidence suggests that prolonged contact is required for fluoride to strengthen enamel. That is why the dentist leaves the fluoride on for awhile when he does the treatment. Water fluoridation does not allow the fluoride to contact the teeth long enough to provide any help and since there is evidence fluoride may be a mutagen it could in fact be responsible for health problems.
In other words, dentists make money on fluoride treatments and water fluoridation doesn't hurt their pocket books one bit.