No, you haven't done Lisp macros in VB;). Macros are a code-generation facility. You can call this macro anywhere, anytime, even at "run-time".
A properly formatted COM class can do the same in Visual Studio 6. Realizing this lets you access the real power behind Windows Archetecture. Unfortuneately, it can also open your code up to the worst weakness of the Windows Archetecture- dll hell. I'm sure that Lisp Macros are much better- in that as long as the list is similar (not even neccessarily the same) the macro will still operate and not crash. Such is the power of weak typing.
Paul Graham wrote a book in 1993 entitled "On Lisp". You can get it for free now from his website. He can show in much better detail than I could the power of Lisp.
I could have sworn this was the textbook in Advanced Artificial Intelligence, a senior level class that I took in 1994- but it's been a few years and I've been infected by corporate coding since then.
Complete isomorphism of a theory has to mean that it requires equal cognitive power to understand it. Translating the theory to Japanese means Japanese people can read it, but it doesn't mean anything *scientifically* or *logically* more than the same theory in English or German.
Not quite true, unfortuneately. After all, making steel works equally well with doping the metal with impurities as it does plunging the still hot sword into the body of a young slave in Damascus with the appropriate spoken prayers to Chrom, the Greek God of Iron. But anybody can learn to do the second- where only the most highly educated can learn to do the first. The steel created is equally strong either way.
You can call science a religion if you want, but only by closing your eyes to the profound differences between how these modes of thinking operate.
It's only bigotry that suggests there is a difference in how the modes of thinking operate- and historically ignorant bigotry at that.
Are you really saying that you can go into a scientific laboratory or lecture hall, and then go into a house of worship or seminary, and honestly cannot tell the difference in approach between what goes on there?
I'm in fact saying that the scientific laboratory and lecture hall is the modern version of the seminary or house of worship- it's the same thing with a different name.
Physics (or other science) does not split into sects over time.
That's funny, because I see at least four sects of physics in existance at the current time.
The geocentrists are no longer with us. The people who disbelieve in atoms are no longer with us. The people who believed in the phlogiston theory of combustion are no longer with us. Instead, basically every physicist in the world believes in the same things, with one or two questions in dispute, which tend to get settled and replaced with new questions. 100 years ago, every physicist in the world believed in atoms and Maxwell's equations and Newton's theory of gravity. Now, every physicist in the world believes in atoms and Maxwell's equations, and quantum field theory and General Relativity, which is equivalent to Newton's theory of gravity in the limit.
I only see one of the four sects of physics believing these items. Chi physics doesn't, for instance.
There are sociological issues involved, OF COURSE. Scientists are imperfect humans working together. But they are *different* sociological issues than confront religion.
Not really- unless of course you're bigoted against religion in general. Then of course, to support your worldview, you need to make up different words for the same thing.
People who believe in Judaism are still with us. There are still Zoroastrians. There are still Buddhists. There are still Catholics and Protestants of various stripes, and Muslims, and Animists, etc., etc., etc.
To some extent yes- but only so far as the different theories still apply to people's lives. For instance, the Shaker sect of American Protestantism is now long dead.
Protestants over time show no signs of accepting Catholic doctrine, and Catholics show no signs of accepting Protestantism.
Funny then that the current Pope believes differently- and in fact was instrumental in a bit of high theological research just a few years ago joining the justification theology of Lutherans and Catholics. However- I'd point out this phenomenon you see is more due to a certain theological theory from the time of the reformation than anything else.
The guys who believe in transubstantiation don't "win" by convincing others of the truth of their position. Perhaps violent conflict results in conversion, and natural birth and death rates can cause changes over time.
Funny, but I see the same problem with science. Old scientists don't accept new paradigms easily- and only with the death of the old does the new get accepted.
Funny, my priests don't work wonders and miracles.
Then you've got some pretty useless priests, don't you?
They minister and preach, but they believe miracles, to the extent they exist, are made by God.
Same thing if you understand the terminology.
You seem to have a doctrine of miracles that is quite limited. "Advanced technology"??
It's actually the same one Augustine of Hippo put forth in City Of God in 450 AD, as well as in more modern times by Arthur C. Clarke. Commonly known among geeks as Clarke's Law.
Funny, technology to me is man-made by definition. Not god-made.
There's no difference. One doing the will of God as they see it is doing the work of God, and therefore that person's man-made works are the work of God. Go read the legend of St. Nicholas- particularily the miracle of the three maidens.
Faith in experimental results is very different from faith in revealed religious truth. Even religious folks admit that RELIGIOUS FAITH IS BELIEF WITHOUT PROOF.
Well, for the most part, so is faith in experimental results. Whenever you trust somebody else, you're taking a leap of faith- you're accepting a belief without proof.
I can buy a dilution fridge and get drawings from Gabrielse, and have machinist make electrodes for a Penning trap, and try it myself, and see if I can trap an electron too. This happens all the time as graduate students start their own labs and build new apparatus.
Or at least, that's what the scientific community would like us to believe.
However, there is no way I can demonstrate to myself the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity except by thinking and reading until I change my mind one way or the other. There's no experiment I can do.
Actually, there is a very good experiment you can do- you can examine the experimental data of all of recorded history, and compare the results of cultures and sects that believe in the Trinity to those that don't.
Question the Trinity, and a religious guy will call you a heretic or tell you to read a text. Question Gabrielse's results, and he'll invite you to his lab to turn the knobs, or redo the experiment with your objections in mind, and come back with new information.
Incorrect. Question Gabrielse's results and you'll find yourself with your grants yanked and your papers ignored for publication. That's the political cost of having a peer reviewed journal system.
Have you ever done a science experiment with your own hands?
Yes, I have- it always comes out slightly differently than expected- and slightly differently from the last time I did it. Scientists claim this is "accepted error"- I call it sloppy observation.
Maybe someday we'll actually evolve to fit into our man-made environments. Maybe my great grandchildren, after several generations of computer programming, will become clostrophiles who like to live in cubicles sitting on cheap workstation chairs.
along with stamping out what I like to call "legislated morality".
Has it ever occured to you that the 24th century Federation in Star Trek is made up ENTIRELY of legislated morality? If you subscribe to a set of shared values, and you write those values into law, you are legislating morality- even if the shared value is only "let me do what I want as long as I don't harm anybody else".
Halfways there, chief. Nowadays (Common) Lisp is compiled to either bytecode or directly to native assembly. It's quite amazing to compile new functions on-the-fly. And it's fast, too. Check it out!
What is the technical difference between a line-by-line compile-on-the-fly and interpretation? Is it just a bigger buffer of how big a chunk you compile/assemble at a given time, or is it the persistance of the compiled code after initial interpretation as well?
Wait till you see code writing code (Lisp);)
I actually have done some of this even in Visual Basic- after all, since version 5 it hasn't been that hard to write your own add-in wizards.
Funny- that isn't that different from my suggestion that interpreted languages come first. Lisp and Prolog are both interpreted languages- as is Scheme. I haven't had a chance to play with Smalltalk.
However, I'd point out that innovation isn't actually required for 95% of the coding done today- basically the way to earn a living right now is to take a paper business model and turn it into a client-server database. I've never quite figured out how to break into professional programming in LISP or PROLOG- and near as I can tell, only the military uses Smalltalk.
If more people learned real languages before jumped-up assembly languages like C and pseudo-OO languages like C++ then we might see a bit more innovation in the language design community. Oh, and all three of the languages on my list run in an introspective environment.
True enough- though I might actually throw REAL assembly in there, but a microassembler rather than a macroassembler. Some of the most innovative programming I've ever seen was back in the 1980s trying to speed up graphics routines on an Apple IIe in 64k of memory; that was the first time I was exposed to self-modifying code.
Look, the only way I believe you can come up with an "elf theory" that has as wide an applicability as the widely accepted "electron theory" is by doing a search-and-replace for the word "electron." I.e., your theory would be completely isomorphic to the current theory, and therefore of no greater or lesser value, except that you have changed the words, so that no one can recognize it. That has NO value.
FINALLY- you're begining to get my point. But you're wrong that it has no value- it in fact has a great value in passing knowledge to the next generation to people who may not be able to understand it, and maybe more importantly, it has value in injecting a layer of ethics into the discussion, that is, allowing large numbers of people to live together in peace. These two items are not valueless in politics.
I do not believe you (or anyone else alive today) can come up with a better theory for electronic behavior without using something that is absolutely logically equivalent. Maybe you can come up with a slightly better *description* of the theory, so one person understands it better. But if it is true understanding, it will be in accord with the theory.
Agreed- it's not better, just different. It will be functionally equivalent to the theory; theories and myths are completely interchangeable with some political wrangling.
Why do I believe this? Because very-very-very smart people are trying as hard as they can to understand quantum field theory better than before, and they haven't announced anything different. And other very-very-very smart and diligent people like Gabrielse are trying as hard as they can to make more and more precise measurements on electrons and other things, and they haven't announced anything different.
I believe it too- but what you don't understand is the external-to-science value of antrhomorphsizing the theory.
When people discovered evidence for quarks, and revolutionized the understanding of the atomic nucleus and subatomic particles, they got Nobel Prizes for it. They weren't censored and excommunicated, they were heralded as bringers of progress.
Actually, the first set died unknown and ridiculed before ever getting close to a Nobel Prize- because the first ones by definition had only *subjective* evidence, not reproducible. It was only after later rediscovery AND confirmation that the Nobel Prizes came. But the same thing happens in any religion- Buddha would be horrified by the lack of change wrought by the religion in his name, and Christ would be equally horrified by the transformation of the world done in his.
You can believe it is all some great religious exercise, but let me tell you, these people are not acting like religious folks. They are acting like scientists.
There's no difference whatsoever. Modern Science is merely running into the second phase of religious sect lifecycles, as befits it's age. Like I said before- the hard line between subjective evidence and objective evidence is no different than orthodoxy- it plays the same role.
Yes, it is conceivable that there is some great conspiracy among scientists to put forward some arcane, unjustifiable "electron orthodoxy."
More scientific orthodoxy. Don't you DARE refer to scientific beliefs as faith! Don't you dare point out the parallels between the current peer review journals and early Christian Councils declareing certain beliefs as heretical! OOOH, and don't you dare refer to thousands of years of evolved culture as experimental data! We can't have any mixing of religion and science- science is so obviously better that we should wipe all religion out of the schools.
But it is much more likely you are being deliberately difficult
No more than you are. Actually far more likely is that you're not getting my point, and think I'm not getting yours.
I haven't climbed to the top of Mount Everest, either. But that doesn't mean I don't accept the existence of "the top of Mount Everest", and it doesn't mean that I believe everyone who claims to have been there are engaged in some "Everest religion" or "Everest conspiracy."
Would it matter if you did? Think about it for a second. Could you live a perfectly happy life without ever knowing that Everest exists? Which is more dangerous- putting trust in people, or not trusting anybody? If you trust people, you open yourself up to fraud. If you don't trust people, you will be ignorant of some stuff that doesn't affect your life.
You have a practically useless notion of proof.
Yes, it is indeed. UNLESS, of course, you're talking politics instead of science- and the evolution of HUMAN knowledge as opposed to a specific branch thereof. At which point, proof simply becomes impossible.
Do you believe 2+2=4 is proven?
No, I believe it's defined.
Can you actually *prove* it yourself?
Within mathematical myth, yes. But that's just a religion.
Starting from what axioms?
Axioms in and of themselves are merely myths.
If you haven't proven 2+2=4 rigorously, is it not true?
Like any other religious myth, it's true within the context that it is meant to be true, and false in contexts that don't fit the mythology.
Or just a religious belief?
There is no human knowledge that is not "just a religious belief". That doesn't mean it doesn't work in the context of that religion. Priests do work wonders and miracles. But all a miracle is in the end is an advanced technology- and for some, the wonder leaves once it is explained. Not for me though- because I know there is no metaphysics, no metanature- only religious truth we don't understand yet.
Silly preschool analogies let preschoolers (or slashdotters) believe they understand a theory, when they understand nothing. Because when your elves are in a microchip, you must change your story, while the scientist keeps the same theory.
Not really- the elves just react differently to different environmental inputs- just as human beings do.
What, do your elves get sleepy in microchips, and they need dwarves to take over?
More that they have a different environment, and thus react *slightly* differently.
Preschoolers cannot design microchips.
Well, really, neither can most adults. Most people in the industry use expert systems to do the heavy lifting for them in the form of CAD programs.
That's not because they don't have the right analogy, but because the behavior of microchips is complex enough that it cannot be usefully done without some amount of skill and knowledge.
We've actually found large-scale mechanical boolean gate arrays in a wide variety of primative cultures, done in a huge variety of materials. What does it matter if you use electrons, vines, water? The output is the same.
The electrical engineering textbooks use the same electronic theory as the chemistry textbooks and the particle physics textbooks.
Actually, no they don't. Electrons in electrical engineering textbooks flow like a liquid, and in chemistry textbooks they orbit in shells and want to fill up their shells, and in particle theory textbooks they aren't really particles at all but rather waveicles that pop in and out of existance wherever they are needed within the radiation sphere of the originating particle. To say these are the same is a lie.
The presentation emphasizes different *aspects,* but they are still the same theory.
Yeah, in that the story of Jospeh and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and the parable of the Birds and Flowers are the same religion- but teaching two entirely different aspects of resource allocation. From that point of view- what does it matter that you need a different story emphasizing different aspects between a CRT and a microprocessor? It's all the same theory.
Quantum mechanics and the basic parameters of the standard model of particle physics form a coherent, rigorous, scientific theory of electron behavior,
If by "cohernent" and "rigorous" you mean "chaotic" and "imaginary", then sure.
Fooling oneself into believing one understands something is worse than simply not understanding.
And fooling oneself that a myth is more than just a myth because it works for what it is intended for and renamed a "theory" shows a very superficial lack of understanding.
Gabrielse, et al. have isolated a single electron in a "Penning trap" and can do detailed experiments on the motion of that single electron in a magnetic field.
Or at least the motion of something. Maybe. If you accept that a Penning trap is really doing what it is doing, and if you accept the concept that Gabielse isn't lying. You see, that's the problem with any complex controlled experiment- it can't be done by just anybody and thus can't actually be proven.
You act as if nothing has happened in science since about 1905.
No- a great deal has happened in science since 1905- great achievements have been made since then. But it has ALSO changed into a religion, one that is entering the second stage of religious sects (reacting to outside criticism and attacks with censorship and orthodoxy). This puts it in direct conflict with American Fifth and Sixth Generation Protestant Christianity, which is now in the third stage of religious sects (gaining governmental power and using that power to destroy younger competitors).
Any cartoon theory that you come up with for electron behavior in semiconductor devices is either going to be the same physical theory with "names changed to protect the innocent", or is going to be seriously deficient in some crucial way.
That's all religion ever was. Or for that matter science. Truth with the names changed to make the theory easier to understand.
They DON'T work as well. Separate theories, made up fresh for every application is negative progress.
Who said it was made up fresh for every application? I'm just pointing out that there's no reason to be bigotted about it.
Now you need a theory that works for CRTs, one that works for LCDs, one that works for laser diodes, one that works for transistors, one that works for electric motors, one that works for neon tubes, one that works for incandescent light bulbs, one that works for chemical reactions, one that works for beta decay, and on and on and on.
So what? Are you telling me you have a one-sentence explaination of electron theory that works for all of those and works to explain it to a two year old? Different analogies make theories available to DIFFERENT PEOPLE.
How about just one theory that works for all of these, and, as far as we can tell, unlimited possible future uses of electrons.
Such a thing would be no different than any other myth.
Like, for instance, the perfectly good theory that physicists have right now? Because, believe it or not, every one of these electrons is exactly the same as every other electron.
Are they? Has anybody ever actually seen a single electron? 'cause I haven't. Call it an electron or call it an elf- it's all the same to me if the properties of its actions are the same.
The fundamental scientific revolution Isaac Newton made was to realize that the SAME physical theory could explain BOTH celestial motion as well as the fact that things fall to the ground. See, one theory that explains twice as many phenomena is BETTER than two separate special-purpose theories.
Only for a definition of the word "better" that means "more specialized and less accessible to the common man". Plus- what's the diference between Newton's theory of Gravity and the myth of an ever-expanding universe? None as far as I can see. Occam was an idiot- sometimes the simplest explaination is not the best explaination, and there's no real reason to be bigoted about either.
So can I. The #Region " Windows Form Designer generated code " seems to be a bit of a giveaway, no?
Well, some remove that- and #Region wasn't in earlier versions of VB at all. But the lack of any code other than in events was still a bit of a giveaway. As was the use of datacontrols.
From that point of view- compilers are a bad idea for a first language. The student needs to learn the first rule of programming- the computer does just what you ask, never what you want. That lesson comes quickest in an intepreter, not in a compiler.
Oh yeah, and completely agreed. I'm a professional programmer who learned VB after college- and I can always tell the difference in code between a real programmer and Visual Studio Wizards.
That's just fucking bullshit. Intel can't make microprocessors with your elf theory of electricity;
No, the elf theory only works for TV sets- but other similar anthromorphological theories can be created for anything you desire, and work just as well as the non-anthromorphological ones. Actually, a good one for microprocessors isn't elves, but creeks and rivers and dams.
they *can* make microprocessors using 20th century solid-state physics and materials science.
Yes, they can- so what? Why are you personally so bigotted against non-scientific explainations of things that work just as well as the scientific explaination?
My entire point was: limitless people don't help if they can't compete with high technology in porduction, and if that high technology reqires solid infrastructure (as it often does), India will take 50 years before those limitless people have places to work. 50 years from now, it seems unlikely that India will still be a cheap labor market.
At which point the cheap labor will just move to another country- perhaps even here if you stupid wealthy people keep printing fiat currency.
Well, you've gon too far off the rails to have any sort of rational discussion at this point, but I will note that in following my economic ideals I've gone from poverty to wealth in my lifetime. Theory is nice, but how are your ideals working in practice? Doesn't sound like you've found something that works in practice yet (much like any other Marxist). Best of luck with that.
I started out very heavily capitalist. I've been both very poor and very rich in my life, currently very poor. It stopped working for me when the economy collapsed out from under me, and I suddenly realized that Marxism and Capitalism Doesn't matter unless you have local control over the laws that regulate your economy. Otherwise it's just other people making decisions for you that are completely unrelated to your interests, and will eventually destroy you economically. I see *no* difference whatsoever between a Totalitarian Marxist Dictatorship and a Stock Market- both are equally uninterested in the needs and wants of people they don't know, both are far more interested in building their own wealth.
In the end, here's the one ideal I follow- you have *NO* right to force me to take part in your economy. And I have *no* right to force you to take part in mine. So I'm trying an entirely different tack at this point in time. I'm taking a government job for the stability- the one position where a Marxist can be safe in America. On the side, I'm paying off my debts as quickly as possible- fully 85% of my monthly income is currently used in paying off debt. In 4 years I'll get rid of the consumer debt the layoff saddled me with- at which point I'm going to pay off my house as quickly as possible. I'm planting the land around my house with food-bearing plants rather than ornamentals because I no longer trust the food market to provide food for my family. I'm working on plans to make my house grid-neutral as far as energy usage is concerned. I can no longer truly entirely trust the tax structure in this state, and Katrina proved that you can't count on the Federal Government for military or national protection anymore, so I plan on installing automatic fire suppression systems, security systems, and weaponry as well. Eventually, the market in it's chaos will provide me with an opportunity for exit- and exit I shall. I'll take as many natural resources with me as possible. Have fun trying to eat money when the dollar dips below the value of the Mexican Peso.
Exactly- it's something I've been for for a long time. The only difference now is- as America changes from being a net food exporter to a net food importer this year, it's become as much of a national security concern as an economic one. There are solid cost based reasons against local processing; but there are some real national security benefits for it. I'm hoping the security reasons outgrow the business reasons to the extent that it becomes a no-brainer.
while i agree with your intent, your content is incorrect. Dupai Ports would only be acquiring about 10% of each of 6 or something like that of port business, not security, etc. There will still be other docks that would be in operation, Port of Houston not affected, whereas Port of New Orleans is, etc. There would be ways around it, but what if we had/were to piss the British off enough to have them declare a blockade on us (at the ports). Yeah, it's so extremely unlikely as to be a non existent threat, however, it could happen, and could affect us in the same way.
Agreed- the real problem isn't a single country at this point in time, it's foreign control in general over our trade. Same reason I'm opposed to the WTO and Clinton's trade treaties (that Bush has made worse).
I thought farm subsidies were to help the farmer keep food on his own table (pun intended) because nobody was farming except for a handful, and those were big conglomerates. You know, produce only has so long before it starts to decompose on its own. You tell me how, without major commercial refrigeration (remember harmful CO2 from powerplant emissions) we can keep some produce at peak longer than that?
The newest big thing in food storage is a combination of freeze drying and vacuum packing- that's what our military uses. I'd suggest handling the suplus in that fashion- huge government warehouses of MREs that either get rotated out for use by the military or sold after 5 years to backpackers. After about 3 years of bumper crops, you'd have a six week supply of food for 300 million people, no problem. Of course, the food still goes bad- but the shelf life of the fruit and main dish in an MRE is 7 years. Yes, it's not going to be "produce at peak"- but it will be actually using the food instead of letting it rot or not producing it at all, which are our only other two options.
The neat thing about this is such supplies could be airlifted and make up the bulk of the American response to a natural disaster anywhere in the world. Imagine what we could have done if we had dropped several tons of MREs in NOLA within 12 hours of helicopters being able to fly.
Yeah, corn and wheat and potatos would be okay, and tomatoes grow all season long for the most part, and do we really need bananas?
Actually, we do really need bananas- but there are now (thanks to global warming) areas of the United States that some subspecies grow year round.
But how long does it take for the apples and oranges you buy at the local grocer to start turning?
Depends what you do to them after you pick them- my family for apples raised on my brother's farm takes one day every year that we have an apple crop, and make enough cider to freeze and last us for the next three years. But that's using some pretty OLD tech- and we could always let it turn hard and then it would be fine for up to 10 years. I imagine oranges would be similar- you could always juice them and make a shelf-stable alcoholic beverage out of them, or better yet, chop them up and freeze dry them into something that is shelf stable for 7 years.
Not long at my house, when the food makes it that long.
When the problem is starvation, fresh don't matter.
Doesn't work that way. If you have a Treasury Bill or other government bond, you get paid a certain interest payment in dollars every so often, then at maturity you get your dollars back.
At which point, if those dollars are completely worthless, the foreign bank wants it's original VALUE back- and if that foreign bank is backed up by a government with nuclear weapons, they will simply take it.
Of course, foreign investors looking for somehting to do with all of those dollars flowing in migh decide to start buying land instead of buying bonds, but we saw what happened when the Japanese tried that - a disaster, but not for America.
Or they might just simply buy American Politicians, who will be paid to vote against the American economic interest.
Come now, money is printed on bits, not atoms. Do try to keep up.
And a bit is stored how?
America is still the safest investment around, as measured on the one scale that matters: the interest rates we have to offer to get buyers.
You're reading that one backwards- if America was a SAFE investment, one could find buyers even if the buyer had to pay 500% interest, because the payoff for buying American would be so huge that it would be worth paying the high interest rate. Prime rate in America is 6.75% today- which means that America is an incredibly risky investment.
I know you believe all the reserve bankers and other proven financial leaders are idiots and you're the only smart one, but you do understand that no one agrees with you on that, right?
Most reserve bankers I've read about are fleeing from the dollar to the Euro- as is OPEC- for exactly the reasons I've put forth. America has gone money-printing crazy; eventually the market will correct the imbalance. The only people still investing in America have a military reason to do so.
Again, the numbers simply don't support such a view. Public debt in foreign hands is just $2 T, with an average maturity of about 5 years. Even if all foreign debt holders stopped buying any new American debt today, it wouldn't be a critical problem to repay $400 B per year, though either taxes or inflation would have to go up a few percent.
And who can afford that, with the jobs fleeing our shores like Americans had the plague? Wages are already down 3% real value across the board- just who do you think could pay those taxes or extra inflation? I certainly can't- and given the loss of standard of living over the past 5 years, by the time my 2 year old son is 16 and gets a work permit, Oregon will be a part of a third world country. The US government is junk bond status- anybody still investing in T-bills is either stupid, or has military reasons for doing so.
Everyone accepts Euros for oil today. The larger markets *price* contracts in dollars, because we're such a big consumer it's conveniet that way, but it's not exactly difficult to convert between currencies. For futures contacts there's a currency exchange risk, but you can simply buy dollaars futures to offest that risk. If someone wants to price conracts in Euros it's a trivial inconvenience to pay with dollars in the amounts these markets operate on.
And yet, when Saddam Hussien threatened to do so, we invaded Iraq.
I was thinking mainly grain - corn. I'm not sure how unstable corn is, unless you happen to be standing in a bin full of it - but it certainly is unprocessed.
Depends on the type of corn. The sugar reverts to starch less than 12 hours off the stalk. The dryer types, like popcorn, can last a lot longer than sweet corns can- sweet corns have so much water that less than 36 hours after being removed from the stock, without refridgeration, they get infected by yeast and the starch starts fermenting. I know this because I once worked in a cannery canning sweet corn.
Now drier grains, such as wheat and oats, will last a lot longer- but aren't as easily processible anymore even with automation, so many companies have left our shores that we simply don't have the processing capacity. What we really need to do to have a backup to the siege scenario at this point is to develop, but leave unused, excess processing capacity, combined with say a six week supply of MREs for 300 million people in government warehouses, rotated out to sell to backpackers and other people spending time in the outdoors after 5 years, with the proceeds used to replace what is sold. It would take 3 years of not exporting food to get to that point from our surplus bumper crops alone- at which time the worldwide food market will have stablized and we can start trading surpluses again.
If it's a critical enough piece of the infrastructure, it is owned at the pleasure of the state - no matter who owns it.
And I'd consider low-quality, designed for storage, foodstuffs to be a part of that infrastructure.
On the same note - hurricane Katrina did a pretty good number on the grain markets this fall becuase there was a great deal grain that couldn't be shipped out of the country (or at least the interior of the country) when the ports of New Orleans were closed.
Exactly. What the guy on Lou Dobbs pointed out last week was that for the most part, it's unstable, unprocessed foodstuffs that we ship out, not exactly the stuff you'd find in the supermarket, and the kind of stuff that two weeks in the warehouse spoils. Four weeks after that, with no incomming processed food, our diminished capacity to process food locally, and the exports rotting in the warehouses, we're in deep shit as far as feeding the 150 million people on the heavily populated East Coast is concerned.
But it seems to me that such a problem, if taken out of free market economics and placed within the power of the state, becomes an opportunity- we bring state-owned unemployed-staffed bakeries online to make shelf stable bread out of the surplus grain- pulling it out of the general luxury-food-goods stream, and giving us a bunch of vacuum-wrapped saltines for inclusion in MREs. If things get too bad a couple of weeks later, well, you just release the paid-for-by-taxpayers MREs back into the market stream, keeping prices low enough so that nobody starves. It's basically a 21st century turn on a 6000 year old idea from the Hebrew Bible- and doesn't rely on a corrupt for-profit market to feed our people unless that market is efficient enough to do so.
I'll keep them in mind. I have a few non-market-based theories I'd like to ask them about- based on the idea that critical national security infrastructure is no place to trust the invisible hand of the market, and thus, perhaps we need to have a different aim for food production than profitability.
I personally find a statistic I heard last week (that we're exporting so much food under the WTO that if, say, Dubai Ports decided to shut down operations for six weeks on the six ports they're talking about buying, we'd have some serious starvation problems in inner cities throughout the eastern 1/3rd of the country) extremely frightening (especially since unstable countries like China and Saudi Arabia also own American port operation companies).
We need to get a handle on owning our own infrastructure- and maintaining that infrastructure. And that includes our food production.
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No, you haven't done Lisp macros in VB ;). Macros are a code-generation facility. You can call this macro anywhere, anytime, even at "run-time".
A properly formatted COM class can do the same in Visual Studio 6. Realizing this lets you access the real power behind Windows Archetecture. Unfortuneately, it can also open your code up to the worst weakness of the Windows Archetecture- dll hell. I'm sure that Lisp Macros are much better- in that as long as the list is similar (not even neccessarily the same) the macro will still operate and not crash. Such is the power of weak typing.
Paul Graham wrote a book in 1993 entitled "On Lisp". You can get it for free now from his website. He can show in much better detail than I could the power of Lisp.
I could have sworn this was the textbook in Advanced Artificial Intelligence, a senior level class that I took in 1994- but it's been a few years and I've been infected by corporate coding since then.
Complete isomorphism of a theory has to mean that it requires equal cognitive power to understand it. Translating the theory to Japanese means Japanese people can read it, but it doesn't mean anything *scientifically* or *logically* more than the same theory in English or German.
Not quite true, unfortuneately. After all, making steel works equally well with doping the metal with impurities as it does plunging the still hot sword into the body of a young slave in Damascus with the appropriate spoken prayers to Chrom, the Greek God of Iron. But anybody can learn to do the second- where only the most highly educated can learn to do the first. The steel created is equally strong either way.
You can call science a religion if you want, but only by closing your eyes to the profound differences between how these modes of thinking operate.
It's only bigotry that suggests there is a difference in how the modes of thinking operate- and historically ignorant bigotry at that.
Are you really saying that you can go into a scientific laboratory or lecture hall, and then go into a house of worship or seminary, and honestly cannot tell the difference in approach between what goes on there?
I'm in fact saying that the scientific laboratory and lecture hall is the modern version of the seminary or house of worship- it's the same thing with a different name.
Physics (or other science) does not split into sects over time.
That's funny, because I see at least four sects of physics in existance at the current time.
The geocentrists are no longer with us. The people who disbelieve in atoms are no longer with us. The people who believed in the phlogiston theory of combustion are no longer with us. Instead, basically every physicist in the world believes in the same things, with one or two questions in dispute, which tend to get settled and replaced with new questions. 100 years ago, every physicist in the world believed in atoms and Maxwell's equations and Newton's theory of gravity. Now, every physicist in the world believes in atoms and Maxwell's equations, and quantum field theory and General Relativity, which is equivalent to Newton's theory of gravity in the limit.
I only see one of the four sects of physics believing these items. Chi physics doesn't, for instance.
There are sociological issues involved, OF COURSE. Scientists are imperfect humans working together. But they are *different* sociological issues than confront religion.
Not really- unless of course you're bigoted against religion in general. Then of course, to support your worldview, you need to make up different words for the same thing.
People who believe in Judaism are still with us. There are still Zoroastrians. There are still Buddhists. There are still Catholics and Protestants of various stripes, and Muslims, and Animists, etc., etc., etc.
To some extent yes- but only so far as the different theories still apply to people's lives. For instance, the Shaker sect of American Protestantism is now long dead.
Protestants over time show no signs of accepting Catholic doctrine, and Catholics show no signs of accepting Protestantism.
Funny then that the current Pope believes differently- and in fact was instrumental in a bit of high theological research just a few years ago joining the justification theology of Lutherans and Catholics. However- I'd point out this phenomenon you see is more due to a certain theological theory from the time of the reformation than anything else.
The guys who believe in transubstantiation don't "win" by convincing others of the truth of their position. Perhaps violent conflict results in conversion, and natural birth and death rates can cause changes over time.
Funny, but I see the same problem with science. Old scientists don't accept new paradigms easily- and only with the death of the old does the new get accepted.
Funny, my priests don't work wonders and miracles.
Then you've got some pretty useless priests, don't you?
They minister and preach, but they believe miracles, to the extent they exist, are made by God.
Same thing if you understand the terminology.
You seem to have a doctrine of miracles that is quite limited. "Advanced technology"??
It's actually the same one Augustine of Hippo put forth in City Of God in 450 AD, as well as in more modern times by Arthur C. Clarke. Commonly known among geeks as Clarke's Law.
Funny, technology to me is man-made by definition. Not god-made.
There's no difference. One doing the will of God as they see it is doing the work of God, and therefore that person's man-made works are the work of God. Go read the legend of St. Nicholas- particularily the miracle of the three maidens.
Faith in experimental results is very different from faith in revealed religious truth. Even religious folks admit that RELIGIOUS FAITH IS BELIEF WITHOUT PROOF.
Well, for the most part, so is faith in experimental results. Whenever you trust somebody else, you're taking a leap of faith- you're accepting a belief without proof.
I can buy a dilution fridge and get drawings from Gabrielse, and have machinist make electrodes for a Penning trap, and try it myself, and see if I can trap an electron too. This happens all the time as graduate students start their own labs and build new apparatus.
Or at least, that's what the scientific community would like us to believe.
However, there is no way I can demonstrate to myself the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity except by thinking and reading until I change my mind one way or the other. There's no experiment I can do.
Actually, there is a very good experiment you can do- you can examine the experimental data of all of recorded history, and compare the results of cultures and sects that believe in the Trinity to those that don't.
Question the Trinity, and a religious guy will call you a heretic or tell you to read a text. Question Gabrielse's results, and he'll invite you to his lab to turn the knobs, or redo the experiment with your objections in mind, and come back with new information.
Incorrect. Question Gabrielse's results and you'll find yourself with your grants yanked and your papers ignored for publication. That's the political cost of having a peer reviewed journal system.
Have you ever done a science experiment with your own hands?
Yes, I have- it always comes out slightly differently than expected- and slightly differently from the last time I did it. Scientists claim this is "accepted error"- I call it sloppy observation.
Oh yeah- another luxury foodstuff that comes from a very inconvient part of the world to import.
Maybe someday we'll actually evolve to fit into our man-made environments. Maybe my great grandchildren, after several generations of computer programming, will become clostrophiles who like to live in cubicles sitting on cheap workstation chairs.
along with stamping out what I like to call "legislated morality".
Has it ever occured to you that the 24th century Federation in Star Trek is made up ENTIRELY of legislated morality? If you subscribe to a set of shared values, and you write those values into law, you are legislating morality- even if the shared value is only "let me do what I want as long as I don't harm anybody else".
Halfways there, chief. Nowadays (Common) Lisp is compiled to either bytecode or directly to native assembly. It's quite amazing to compile new functions on-the-fly. And it's fast, too. Check it out!
;)
What is the technical difference between a line-by-line compile-on-the-fly and interpretation? Is it just a bigger buffer of how big a chunk you compile/assemble at a given time, or is it the persistance of the compiled code after initial interpretation as well?
Wait till you see code writing code (Lisp)
I actually have done some of this even in Visual Basic- after all, since version 5 it hasn't been that hard to write your own add-in wizards.
Funny- that isn't that different from my suggestion that interpreted languages come first. Lisp and Prolog are both interpreted languages- as is Scheme. I haven't had a chance to play with Smalltalk.
However, I'd point out that innovation isn't actually required for 95% of the coding done today- basically the way to earn a living right now is to take a paper business model and turn it into a client-server database. I've never quite figured out how to break into professional programming in LISP or PROLOG- and near as I can tell, only the military uses Smalltalk.
If more people learned real languages before jumped-up assembly languages like C and pseudo-OO languages like C++ then we might see a bit more innovation in the language design community. Oh, and all three of the languages on my list run in an introspective environment.
True enough- though I might actually throw REAL assembly in there, but a microassembler rather than a macroassembler. Some of the most innovative programming I've ever seen was back in the 1980s trying to speed up graphics routines on an Apple IIe in 64k of memory; that was the first time I was exposed to self-modifying code.
Look, the only way I believe you can come up with an "elf theory" that has as wide an applicability as the widely accepted "electron theory" is by doing a search-and-replace for the word "electron." I.e., your theory would be completely isomorphic to the current theory, and therefore of no greater or lesser value, except that you have changed the words, so that no one can recognize it. That has NO value.
FINALLY- you're begining to get my point. But you're wrong that it has no value- it in fact has a great value in passing knowledge to the next generation to people who may not be able to understand it, and maybe more importantly, it has value in injecting a layer of ethics into the discussion, that is, allowing large numbers of people to live together in peace. These two items are not valueless in politics.
I do not believe you (or anyone else alive today) can come up with a better theory for electronic behavior without using something that is absolutely logically equivalent. Maybe you can come up with a slightly better *description* of the theory, so one person understands it better. But if it is true understanding, it will be in accord with the theory.
Agreed- it's not better, just different. It will be functionally equivalent to the theory; theories and myths are completely interchangeable with some political wrangling.
Why do I believe this? Because very-very-very smart people are trying as hard as they can to understand quantum field theory better than before, and they haven't announced anything different. And other very-very-very smart and diligent people like Gabrielse are trying as hard as they can to make more and more precise measurements on electrons and other things, and they haven't announced anything different.
I believe it too- but what you don't understand is the external-to-science value of antrhomorphsizing the theory.
When people discovered evidence for quarks, and revolutionized the understanding of the atomic nucleus and subatomic particles, they got Nobel Prizes for it. They weren't censored and excommunicated, they were heralded as bringers of progress.
Actually, the first set died unknown and ridiculed before ever getting close to a Nobel Prize- because the first ones by definition had only *subjective* evidence, not reproducible. It was only after later rediscovery AND confirmation that the Nobel Prizes came. But the same thing happens in any religion- Buddha would be horrified by the lack of change wrought by the religion in his name, and Christ would be equally horrified by the transformation of the world done in his.
You can believe it is all some great religious exercise, but let me tell you, these people are not acting like religious folks. They are acting like scientists.
There's no difference whatsoever. Modern Science is merely running into the second phase of religious sect lifecycles, as befits it's age. Like I said before- the hard line between subjective evidence and objective evidence is no different than orthodoxy- it plays the same role.
Yes, it is conceivable that there is some great conspiracy among scientists to put forward some arcane, unjustifiable "electron orthodoxy."
More scientific orthodoxy. Don't you DARE refer to scientific beliefs as faith! Don't you dare point out the parallels between the current peer review journals and early Christian Councils declareing certain beliefs as heretical! OOOH, and don't you dare refer to thousands of years of evolved culture as experimental data! We can't have any mixing of religion and science- science is so obviously better that we should wipe all religion out of the schools.
But it is much more likely you are being deliberately difficult
No more than you are. Actually far more likely is that you're not getting my point, and think I'm not getting yours.
I haven't climbed to the top of Mount Everest, either. But that doesn't mean I don't accept the existence of "the top of Mount Everest", and it doesn't mean that I believe everyone who claims to have been there are engaged in some "Everest religion" or "Everest conspiracy."
Would it matter if you did? Think about it for a second. Could you live a perfectly happy life without ever knowing that Everest exists? Which is more dangerous- putting trust in people, or not trusting anybody? If you trust people, you open yourself up to fraud. If you don't trust people, you will be ignorant of some stuff that doesn't affect your life.
You have a practically useless notion of proof.
Yes, it is indeed. UNLESS, of course, you're talking politics instead of science- and the evolution of HUMAN knowledge as opposed to a specific branch thereof. At which point, proof simply becomes impossible.
Do you believe 2+2=4 is proven?
No, I believe it's defined.
Can you actually *prove* it yourself?
Within mathematical myth, yes. But that's just a religion.
Starting from what axioms?
Axioms in and of themselves are merely myths.
If you haven't proven 2+2=4 rigorously, is it not true?
Like any other religious myth, it's true within the context that it is meant to be true, and false in contexts that don't fit the mythology.
Or just a religious belief?
There is no human knowledge that is not "just a religious belief". That doesn't mean it doesn't work in the context of that religion. Priests do work wonders and miracles. But all a miracle is in the end is an advanced technology- and for some, the wonder leaves once it is explained. Not for me though- because I know there is no metaphysics, no metanature- only religious truth we don't understand yet.
Silly preschool analogies let preschoolers (or slashdotters) believe they understand a theory, when they understand nothing. Because when your elves are in a microchip, you must change your story, while the scientist keeps the same theory.
Not really- the elves just react differently to different environmental inputs- just as human beings do.
What, do your elves get sleepy in microchips, and they need dwarves to take over?
More that they have a different environment, and thus react *slightly* differently.
Preschoolers cannot design microchips.
Well, really, neither can most adults. Most people in the industry use expert systems to do the heavy lifting for them in the form of CAD programs.
That's not because they don't have the right analogy, but because the behavior of microchips is complex enough that it cannot be usefully done without some amount of skill and knowledge.
We've actually found large-scale mechanical boolean gate arrays in a wide variety of primative cultures, done in a huge variety of materials. What does it matter if you use electrons, vines, water? The output is the same.
The electrical engineering textbooks use the same electronic theory as the chemistry textbooks and the particle physics textbooks.
Actually, no they don't. Electrons in electrical engineering textbooks flow like a liquid, and in chemistry textbooks they orbit in shells and want to fill up their shells, and in particle theory textbooks they aren't really particles at all but rather waveicles that pop in and out of existance wherever they are needed within the radiation sphere of the originating particle. To say these are the same is a lie.
The presentation emphasizes different *aspects,* but they are still the same theory.
Yeah, in that the story of Jospeh and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and the parable of the Birds and Flowers are the same religion- but teaching two entirely different aspects of resource allocation. From that point of view- what does it matter that you need a different story emphasizing different aspects between a CRT and a microprocessor? It's all the same theory.
Quantum mechanics and the basic parameters of the standard model of particle physics form a coherent, rigorous, scientific theory of electron behavior,
If by "cohernent" and "rigorous" you mean "chaotic" and "imaginary", then sure.
Fooling oneself into believing one understands something is worse than simply not understanding.
And fooling oneself that a myth is more than just a myth because it works for what it is intended for and renamed a "theory" shows a very superficial lack of understanding.
Gabrielse, et al. have isolated a single electron in a "Penning trap" and can do detailed experiments on the motion of that single electron in a magnetic field.
Or at least the motion of something. Maybe. If you accept that a Penning trap is really doing what it is doing, and if you accept the concept that Gabielse isn't lying. You see, that's the problem with any complex controlled experiment- it can't be done by just anybody and thus can't actually be proven.
You act as if nothing has happened in science since about 1905.
No- a great deal has happened in science since 1905- great achievements have been made since then. But it has ALSO changed into a religion, one that is entering the second stage of religious sects (reacting to outside criticism and attacks with censorship and orthodoxy). This puts it in direct conflict with American Fifth and Sixth Generation Protestant Christianity, which is now in the third stage of religious sects (gaining governmental power and using that power to destroy younger competitors).
Any cartoon theory that you come up with for electron behavior in semiconductor devices is either going to be the same physical theory with "names changed to protect the innocent", or is going to be seriously deficient in some crucial way.
That's all religion ever was. Or for that matter science. Truth with the names changed to make the theory easier to understand.
They DON'T work as well. Separate theories, made up fresh for every application is negative progress.
Who said it was made up fresh for every application? I'm just pointing out that there's no reason to be bigotted about it.
Now you need a theory that works for CRTs, one that works for LCDs, one that works for laser diodes, one that works for transistors, one that works for electric motors, one that works for neon tubes, one that works for incandescent light bulbs, one that works for chemical reactions, one that works for beta decay, and on and on and on.
So what? Are you telling me you have a one-sentence explaination of electron theory that works for all of those and works to explain it to a two year old? Different analogies make theories available to DIFFERENT PEOPLE.
How about just one theory that works for all of these, and, as far as we can tell, unlimited possible future uses of electrons.
Such a thing would be no different than any other myth.
Like, for instance, the perfectly good theory that physicists have right now? Because, believe it or not, every one of these electrons is exactly the same as every other electron.
Are they? Has anybody ever actually seen a single electron? 'cause I haven't. Call it an electron or call it an elf- it's all the same to me if the properties of its actions are the same.
The fundamental scientific revolution Isaac Newton made was to realize that the SAME physical theory could explain BOTH celestial motion as well as the fact that things fall to the ground. See, one theory that explains twice as many phenomena is BETTER than two separate special-purpose theories.
Only for a definition of the word "better" that means "more specialized and less accessible to the common man". Plus- what's the diference between Newton's theory of Gravity and the myth of an ever-expanding universe? None as far as I can see. Occam was an idiot- sometimes the simplest explaination is not the best explaination, and there's no real reason to be bigoted about either.
So can I. The #Region " Windows Form Designer generated code " seems to be a bit of a giveaway, no?
Well, some remove that- and #Region wasn't in earlier versions of VB at all. But the lack of any code other than in events was still a bit of a giveaway. As was the use of datacontrols.
From that point of view- compilers are a bad idea for a first language. The student needs to learn the first rule of programming- the computer does just what you ask, never what you want. That lesson comes quickest in an intepreter, not in a compiler.
Oh yeah, and completely agreed. I'm a professional programmer who learned VB after college- and I can always tell the difference in code between a real programmer and Visual Studio Wizards.
That's just fucking bullshit. Intel can't make microprocessors with your elf theory of electricity;
No, the elf theory only works for TV sets- but other similar anthromorphological theories can be created for anything you desire, and work just as well as the non-anthromorphological ones. Actually, a good one for microprocessors isn't elves, but creeks and rivers and dams.
they *can* make microprocessors using 20th century solid-state physics and materials science.
Yes, they can- so what? Why are you personally so bigotted against non-scientific explainations of things that work just as well as the scientific explaination?
My entire point was: limitless people don't help if they can't compete with high technology in porduction, and if that high technology reqires solid infrastructure (as it often does), India will take 50 years before those limitless people have places to work. 50 years from now, it seems unlikely that India will still be a cheap labor market.
At which point the cheap labor will just move to another country- perhaps even here if you stupid wealthy people keep printing fiat currency.
Well, you've gon too far off the rails to have any sort of rational discussion at this point, but I will note that in following my economic ideals I've gone from poverty to wealth in my lifetime. Theory is nice, but how are your ideals working in practice? Doesn't sound like you've found something that works in practice yet (much like any other Marxist). Best of luck with that.
I started out very heavily capitalist. I've been both very poor and very rich in my life, currently very poor. It stopped working for me when the economy collapsed out from under me, and I suddenly realized that Marxism and Capitalism Doesn't matter unless you have local control over the laws that regulate your economy . Otherwise it's just other people making decisions for you that are completely unrelated to your interests, and will eventually destroy you economically. I see *no* difference whatsoever between a Totalitarian Marxist Dictatorship and a Stock Market- both are equally uninterested in the needs and wants of people they don't know, both are far more interested in building their own wealth.
In the end, here's the one ideal I follow- you have *NO* right to force me to take part in your economy. And I have *no* right to force you to take part in mine. So I'm trying an entirely different tack at this point in time. I'm taking a government job for the stability- the one position where a Marxist can be safe in America. On the side, I'm paying off my debts as quickly as possible- fully 85% of my monthly income is currently used in paying off debt. In 4 years I'll get rid of the consumer debt the layoff saddled me with- at which point I'm going to pay off my house as quickly as possible. I'm planting the land around my house with food-bearing plants rather than ornamentals because I no longer trust the food market to provide food for my family. I'm working on plans to make my house grid-neutral as far as energy usage is concerned. I can no longer truly entirely trust the tax structure in this state, and Katrina proved that you can't count on the Federal Government for military or national protection anymore, so I plan on installing automatic fire suppression systems, security systems, and weaponry as well. Eventually, the market in it's chaos will provide me with an opportunity for exit- and exit I shall. I'll take as many natural resources with me as possible. Have fun trying to eat money when the dollar dips below the value of the Mexican Peso.
Exactly- it's something I've been for for a long time. The only difference now is- as America changes from being a net food exporter to a net food importer this year, it's become as much of a national security concern as an economic one. There are solid cost based reasons against local processing; but there are some real national security benefits for it. I'm hoping the security reasons outgrow the business reasons to the extent that it becomes a no-brainer.
while i agree with your intent, your content is incorrect. Dupai Ports would only be acquiring about 10% of each of 6 or something like that of port business, not security, etc. There will still be other docks that would be in operation, Port of Houston not affected, whereas Port of New Orleans is, etc. There would be ways around it, but what if we had/were to piss the British off enough to have them declare a blockade on us (at the ports). Yeah, it's so extremely unlikely as to be a non existent threat, however, it could happen, and could affect us in the same way.
Agreed- the real problem isn't a single country at this point in time, it's foreign control in general over our trade. Same reason I'm opposed to the WTO and Clinton's trade treaties (that Bush has made worse).
I thought farm subsidies were to help the farmer keep food on his own table (pun intended) because nobody was farming except for a handful, and those were big conglomerates. You know, produce only has so long before it starts to decompose on its own. You tell me how, without major commercial refrigeration (remember harmful CO2 from powerplant emissions) we can keep some produce at peak longer than that?
The newest big thing in food storage is a combination of freeze drying and vacuum packing- that's what our military uses. I'd suggest handling the suplus in that fashion- huge government warehouses of MREs that either get rotated out for use by the military or sold after 5 years to backpackers. After about 3 years of bumper crops, you'd have a six week supply of food for 300 million people, no problem. Of course, the food still goes bad- but the shelf life of the fruit and main dish in an MRE is 7 years. Yes, it's not going to be "produce at peak"- but it will be actually using the food instead of letting it rot or not producing it at all, which are our only other two options.
The neat thing about this is such supplies could be airlifted and make up the bulk of the American response to a natural disaster anywhere in the world. Imagine what we could have done if we had dropped several tons of MREs in NOLA within 12 hours of helicopters being able to fly.
Yeah, corn and wheat and potatos would be okay, and tomatoes grow all season long for the most part, and do we really need bananas?
Actually, we do really need bananas- but there are now (thanks to global warming) areas of the United States that some subspecies grow year round.
But how long does it take for the apples and oranges you buy at the local grocer to start turning?
Depends what you do to them after you pick them- my family for apples raised on my brother's farm takes one day every year that we have an apple crop, and make enough cider to freeze and last us for the next three years. But that's using some pretty OLD tech- and we could always let it turn hard and then it would be fine for up to 10 years. I imagine oranges would be similar- you could always juice them and make a shelf-stable alcoholic beverage out of them, or better yet, chop them up and freeze dry them into something that is shelf stable for 7 years.
Not long at my house, when the food makes it that long.
When the problem is starvation, fresh don't matter.
Doesn't work that way. If you have a Treasury Bill or other government bond, you get paid a certain interest payment in dollars every so often, then at maturity you get your dollars back.
At which point, if those dollars are completely worthless, the foreign bank wants it's original VALUE back- and if that foreign bank is backed up by a government with nuclear weapons, they will simply take it.
Of course, foreign investors looking for somehting to do with all of those dollars flowing in migh decide to start buying land instead of buying bonds, but we saw what happened when the Japanese tried that - a disaster, but not for America.
Or they might just simply buy American Politicians, who will be paid to vote against the American economic interest.
Come now, money is printed on bits, not atoms. Do try to keep up.
And a bit is stored how?
America is still the safest investment around, as measured on the one scale that matters: the interest rates we have to offer to get buyers.
You're reading that one backwards- if America was a SAFE investment, one could find buyers even if the buyer had to pay 500% interest, because the payoff for buying American would be so huge that it would be worth paying the high interest rate. Prime rate in America is 6.75% today- which means that America is an incredibly risky investment.
I know you believe all the reserve bankers and other proven financial leaders are idiots and you're the only smart one, but you do understand that no one agrees with you on that, right?
Most reserve bankers I've read about are fleeing from the dollar to the Euro- as is OPEC- for exactly the reasons I've put forth. America has gone money-printing crazy; eventually the market will correct the imbalance. The only people still investing in America have a military reason to do so.
Again, the numbers simply don't support such a view. Public debt in foreign hands is just $2 T, with an average maturity of about 5 years. Even if all foreign debt holders stopped buying any new American debt today, it wouldn't be a critical problem to repay $400 B per year, though either taxes or inflation would have to go up a few percent.
And who can afford that, with the jobs fleeing our shores like Americans had the plague? Wages are already down 3% real value across the board- just who do you think could pay those taxes or extra inflation? I certainly can't- and given the loss of standard of living over the past 5 years, by the time my 2 year old son is 16 and gets a work permit, Oregon will be a part of a third world country. The US government is junk bond status- anybody still investing in T-bills is either stupid, or has military reasons for doing so.
Everyone accepts Euros for oil today. The larger markets *price* contracts in dollars, because we're such a big consumer it's conveniet that way, but it's not exactly difficult to convert between currencies. For futures contacts there's a currency exchange risk, but you can simply buy dollaars futures to offest that risk. If someone wants to price conracts in Euros it's a trivial inconvenience to pay with dollars in the amounts these markets operate on.
And yet, when Saddam Hussien threatened to do so, we invaded Iraq.
I was thinking mainly grain - corn. I'm not sure how unstable corn is, unless you happen to be standing in a bin full of it - but it certainly is unprocessed.
Depends on the type of corn. The sugar reverts to starch less than 12 hours off the stalk. The dryer types, like popcorn, can last a lot longer than sweet corns can- sweet corns have so much water that less than 36 hours after being removed from the stock, without refridgeration, they get infected by yeast and the starch starts fermenting. I know this because I once worked in a cannery canning sweet corn.
Now drier grains, such as wheat and oats, will last a lot longer- but aren't as easily processible anymore even with automation, so many companies have left our shores that we simply don't have the processing capacity. What we really need to do to have a backup to the siege scenario at this point is to develop, but leave unused, excess processing capacity, combined with say a six week supply of MREs for 300 million people in government warehouses, rotated out to sell to backpackers and other people spending time in the outdoors after 5 years, with the proceeds used to replace what is sold. It would take 3 years of not exporting food to get to that point from our surplus bumper crops alone- at which time the worldwide food market will have stablized and we can start trading surpluses again.
If it's a critical enough piece of the infrastructure, it is owned at the pleasure of the state - no matter who owns it.
And I'd consider low-quality, designed for storage, foodstuffs to be a part of that infrastructure.
On the same note - hurricane Katrina did a pretty good number on the grain markets this fall becuase there was a great deal grain that couldn't be shipped out of the country (or at least the interior of the country) when the ports of New Orleans were closed.
Exactly. What the guy on Lou Dobbs pointed out last week was that for the most part, it's unstable, unprocessed foodstuffs that we ship out, not exactly the stuff you'd find in the supermarket, and the kind of stuff that two weeks in the warehouse spoils. Four weeks after that, with no incomming processed food, our diminished capacity to process food locally, and the exports rotting in the warehouses, we're in deep shit as far as feeding the 150 million people on the heavily populated East Coast is concerned.
But it seems to me that such a problem, if taken out of free market economics and placed within the power of the state, becomes an opportunity- we bring state-owned unemployed-staffed bakeries online to make shelf stable bread out of the surplus grain- pulling it out of the general luxury-food-goods stream, and giving us a bunch of vacuum-wrapped saltines for inclusion in MREs. If things get too bad a couple of weeks later, well, you just release the paid-for-by-taxpayers MREs back into the market stream, keeping prices low enough so that nobody starves. It's basically a 21st century turn on a 6000 year old idea from the Hebrew Bible- and doesn't rely on a corrupt for-profit market to feed our people unless that market is efficient enough to do so.
I'll keep them in mind. I have a few non-market-based theories I'd like to ask them about- based on the idea that critical national security infrastructure is no place to trust the invisible hand of the market, and thus, perhaps we need to have a different aim for food production than profitability.
I personally find a statistic I heard last week (that we're exporting so much food under the WTO that if, say, Dubai Ports decided to shut down operations for six weeks on the six ports they're talking about buying, we'd have some serious starvation problems in inner cities throughout the eastern 1/3rd of the country) extremely frightening (especially since unstable countries like China and Saudi Arabia also own American port operation companies).
We need to get a handle on owning our own infrastructure- and maintaining that infrastructure. And that includes our food production.