However if you actually read "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, the book that essentially defined modern capitalism, you will find that the free market ONLY works with small organisations. This is actually true regardless of the economic system you use.
Socialism works, facisim works, capitalism works, feudalism works, true democracy works and anarchy even works... they all work, so long as the number of people is less than about 1000. Above 1000 each and every system breaks down very quickly and requieres outside influences, like government, to keep things working smoothly. Take away government and capitalism will break within 48 hours. Within a year we will all be effective slaves to our CEO Lords.
There is actual a real and measuable psycological reason for this which I won't go into.
There is one reason why in general a US style federal government is "more trustworthy" than a mega corp. Elections. Every 2-6 years people can be replaced. They know this and while they may not listen to me, I can often get a conversation with my Rep or Senator. Plus my single vote is worth the same as the single vote of anyone else, regardless of how much money they have.
Yes I know that corporations have board elections. However there is typically no way for to select an indvidual board member (no primaries) and it is usually a single vote for the boards recomendations. Plus, votes are based off of shares, not individuals. Therefore my vote does NOT count as much as someone else. Plus I may be a customer but own no shares and I have no vote. All this means that it is almost impossible to contact the C-level executives or even the director level at any large company.
Fundamentally it comes down to "wWho do you feel Screws you the Most?"
For me personally, I have never really felt screwed by the government. Other than a single local cop I have never run into a capricious government worker. I know a great many and the general rule is that government works work very hard for not much money.
However I feel screwed by large companies Every Single Day.
I have had a large dental company lie to my insuance company and when the insuance called them on it they decided to try to extract it from me. I have had banks (plural) try to change the credit rules in a way that would eliminate my ability to decline...and did so in a very under handed way.
My profession is in Pharma, I write drug applications so I know the regs. I get Gout and the primary treatment is a drug called Colchicine. It has been on the market for 60+ years as a generic. Since it is so old there wasn't any formal safety studies done. The FDA solicited volunter companies, paid them to do the studies and then gave them 3 years market exclusivity. URL Pharma took the money to do the studies, which were very simple, then bumped the price from $0.09 per pill to $4.85 per pill and had all generics banned from the market...
Don't get me started on telecom, FedEx, UPS, Agra Business etc.
When possible I move to small companies or co-ops. Like I now bank through a credit union not a bank. These organizations are typically MUCH smaller. But often, like with food, it is impossible to do so. The mega corps, in one name or another, have taken over.
Government is the ONLY weapon we have against the Mega Corps, and in the US the government is actually extremly responsive and virtually coruption free.
Put your letter in a UPS ground envelope and it will get delivered. If you don't like UPS's policy of requiering small documents to be placed in standardized envelopes than you should complain...but it is the UPS policy NOT any sort of legal requierment.
My mailbox is routinly used to deliver lots of things besides mail... Like FedEx, DHS, UPS, the local paper, community advertisments etc. The only regulation around mailboxes is that no one can obstruct thier use. This means that no one can fill them to the brim AND you have to empty it before it gets too full to use.
Now it IS true that you can't deliver a letter for $0.44 (unless they changed it recently) anywhere BUT the USPS. But the USPS does not receive any direct federal support and only receives indirect support that is also available to FedEx and the rest. It is just the the USPS is EXTREMLY good at delivering small letters cheaply.
Umm, a "1st Class letter" is a service type of offered by the USPS. That is like saying you are FORCED to use FedEx to send "FedEx Overnight Express Packages"
And neither has it been really regulated for the last 30 years.
Look at the FCC ruling yesterday. They barley passed weak Net Neutrality rules which are not likely to last more than 6 months when the new Republicans come into ofice.
Technically, the Teleco/Cableco system we have is NOT free market and it is NOT regulated. It is callen an Oligopy. There are about 6 large companies with very well established and stable geographic regions. These companies cooperate to maintain the status quo while marginally competing on the technical services offered at the perimeter.
Telecom companies are a power to themselves because the last 30 years moved to fast for government (and almost everyone else) to keep up and we also starved the regulators of the resources needed to actually regulate the giants.
The number of peer-reviewed papers we publish is dropping fast compared to the rest of the world. We have very little manufacturing, our science and math eductions are abysmal (as proved by the original article of this discussion), and the prices we pay for high-tech services (like health care) are spiraling out of control compared to the rest of the world.
It looks to me that we are sinking not floating...
So why not add a 4th layer between the reactor and containment? (Yes I know retrofit is not likely but I am just talking theory)
I remember reading that nuclear waste is often cast into glass rods for long term storage. Why not create a second walled container outside the reactor but before the containment wall. Fill it with nuclear waste glass pellets and fill the air space with water or some other appropriate fluid to allow for heat extraction. If you need to do maintenance than you essentially open a drain and flush all the glass pellets into a shielded storage container. When you are done with maintenance you pump them back into the chamber.
Now you have a system that allows you to reduce the risk of the waste escaping into the ground water, you can easily replace the converted pellets, you shouldn't have much additional radiation risk and you don't need to worry about the chemistry.
One of the issues with nuclear energy is absorbing the high energy neutrons to generate heat. We can line the reactors with nuclear waste and the neutron bombardment would transmutate it from 100s of years to safe in decades.
Neanderthals formal species name is Homo sapiens neanderthalis
Modern man and Neanderthals are exactly the same species and there is actually genetic evidence that says we could interbreed.
The difference between moder man and neanderthals is equivalent to the difference between Great Danes and a Labrador Retriever.
They are capable of interbreeding but have some distinct traits. They are sub-species under the same species.
There is actually a lot of evidence that the Gallic tribes merged with Neanderthals through interbreeding rather than killing them off.
It is EXTREMLY unlikley that two tool using animals capable of symbolic communication would happen to evolve at the same time. If they evolved near each other from the same ancestors then they would likely compete for resources and one or both would die out before they expanded. If they evolved seperatly from different ancestors then they would ahve to do so within 50,000 years of each other since that is about how long it took Man to completly colonize the planet. Once a tool using animal takes over the planet we change the environment too quickly for another intelligent species to get a foothold.
This is the Fermi paradox but on earth. We are here therefore it is unlikly that any other tool using animal has evolved since the dinosaurs died out.
This is GPS navigation only. The article makes no mention of visual processing. Without much better "eyes" these cars will just run you over follwoing the map....
Energy has been deregulated for some time now. The owners of the power lines are forced to lease them to anyone. I live in Georgia and have the option of 3 different companies.
This law will encourage people to use power more efficiently. In addition it helps remove the subsidy that Coal powered electricity has enjoyed for most of the last century. (And yes it is subsidized through legal protections and by not having to clean up much of its environmental damage). This will also encourage the power companies to build / buy cleaner power to avoid the tax.
Since there is 1.5 lbs of CO2 (about) per KWH, we are talking about a tax of $0.004 to $0.02 per KWH. Or between 4 and 18 dollars per YEAR for the end user.
This won't affect end users much but would be expensive for larger industrial users. Since some forms of local generation are already almost competitive with coal, this law would encourage thoes people to install some non-CO2 emiiting power locally.
Finally, it also depends on what the money is used for. If it is just used for general funds or as a tax break for the wealthy it won't do much. If it is used to improve infrastructure, attact green tech, improve energy efficiency of clean up the environment then it is an EXCELLENT source.
Actually there IS a transfer of momentum. However it is transferring momentum to the rest of the universe. The overall distribution of Zero-Point energy has shifted which slightly shifts the center of mass of the entier universe.
It is like putting something in a box...you can move something in the box (with magnetic fields) without moving any mass in the box...but outside the box you will see the entire box has shifted slightly.
It hasn't been reproduced in a different lab. The lead scientist is stonewalling the effort by refusing to divulge the specific formula for his disk unless he gets a well equiped lab and a blank check.
This sounds fishy to me. However there are many interesting effects surounding superconductivity. The reported observation is within the range of possible considering known laws of physics. This effect IS possible.
They never claimed a perpetual motion machine. It is wrong to try and say they did. There are enough questions surounding this experiment that you don't need to add any.
and 80% of the population will get no education worth anything...then the illegal Mexican immigrants will get the jobs that require education and US citizens get the day laborer jobs.
The demonstrated reality is that societally mandated education is the single most stabilizing activity. In addition it provides the best ROI of ANYTHING we can do.
If you want to see the US turn into a 3rd world country in one generation, get rid of public education.
Slashdot Mirror
Now if we get it down to a second we can use it to control turnstyles...
The natural refferee is The Free Market
However if you actually read "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, the book that essentially defined modern capitalism, you will find that the free market ONLY works with small organisations. This is actually true regardless of the economic system you use.
Socialism works, facisim works, capitalism works, feudalism works, true democracy works and anarchy even works... they all work, so long as the number of people is less than about 1000. Above 1000 each and every system breaks down very quickly and requieres outside influences, like government, to keep things working smoothly. Take away government and capitalism will break within 48 hours. Within a year we will all be effective slaves to our CEO Lords.
There is actual a real and measuable psycological reason for this which I won't go into.
There is one reason why in general a US style federal government is "more trustworthy" than a mega corp. Elections. Every 2-6 years people can be replaced. They know this and while they may not listen to me, I can often get a conversation with my Rep or Senator. Plus my single vote is worth the same as the single vote of anyone else, regardless of how much money they have.
Yes I know that corporations have board elections. However there is typically no way for to select an indvidual board member (no primaries) and it is usually a single vote for the boards recomendations. Plus, votes are based off of shares, not individuals. Therefore my vote does NOT count as much as someone else. Plus I may be a customer but own no shares and I have no vote. All this means that it is almost impossible to contact the C-level executives or even the director level at any large company.
Fundamentally it comes down to "wWho do you feel Screws you the Most?"
For me personally, I have never really felt screwed by the government. Other than a single local cop I have never run into a capricious government worker. I know a great many and the general rule is that government works work very hard for not much money.
However I feel screwed by large companies Every Single Day.
I have had a large dental company lie to my insuance company and when the insuance called them on it they decided to try to extract it from me. I have had banks (plural) try to change the credit rules in a way that would eliminate my ability to decline...and did so in a very under handed way.
My profession is in Pharma, I write drug applications so I know the regs. I get Gout and the primary treatment is a drug called Colchicine. It has been on the market for 60+ years as a generic. Since it is so old there wasn't any formal safety studies done. The FDA solicited volunter companies, paid them to do the studies and then gave them 3 years market exclusivity. URL Pharma took the money to do the studies, which were very simple, then bumped the price from $0.09 per pill to $4.85 per pill and had all generics banned from the market...
Don't get me started on telecom, FedEx, UPS, Agra Business etc.
When possible I move to small companies or co-ops. Like I now bank through a credit union not a bank. These organizations are typically MUCH smaller. But often, like with food, it is impossible to do so. The mega corps, in one name or another, have taken over.
Government is the ONLY weapon we have against the Mega Corps, and in the US the government is actually extremly responsive and virtually coruption free.
Not true on either account...
Put your letter in a UPS ground envelope and it will get delivered. If you don't like UPS's policy of requiering small documents to be placed in standardized envelopes than you should complain...but it is the UPS policy NOT any sort of legal requierment.
My mailbox is routinly used to deliver lots of things besides mail... Like FedEx, DHS, UPS, the local paper, community advertisments etc. The only regulation around mailboxes is that no one can obstruct thier use. This means that no one can fill them to the brim AND you have to empty it before it gets too full to use.
Now it IS true that you can't deliver a letter for $0.44 (unless they changed it recently) anywhere BUT the USPS. But the USPS does not receive any direct federal support and only receives indirect support that is also available to FedEx and the rest. It is just the the USPS is EXTREMLY good at delivering small letters cheaply.
Are you complaining about good service?
Umm, a "1st Class letter" is a service type of offered by the USPS. That is like saying you are FORCED to use FedEx to send "FedEx Overnight Express Packages"
Well... DUHHHHH!
And neither has it been really regulated for the last 30 years.
Look at the FCC ruling yesterday. They barley passed weak Net Neutrality rules which are not likely to last more than 6 months when the new Republicans come into ofice.
Technically, the Teleco/Cableco system we have is NOT free market and it is NOT regulated. It is callen an Oligopy. There are about 6 large companies with very well established and stable geographic regions. These companies cooperate to maintain the status quo while marginally competing on the technical services offered at the perimeter.
Telecom companies are a power to themselves because the last 30 years moved to fast for government (and almost everyone else) to keep up and we also starved the regulators of the resources needed to actually regulate the giants.
Who says we are staying afloat?
The number of peer-reviewed papers we publish is dropping fast compared to the rest of the world. We have very little manufacturing, our science and math eductions are abysmal (as proved by the original article of this discussion), and the prices we pay for high-tech services (like health care) are spiraling out of control compared to the rest of the world.
It looks to me that we are sinking not floating...
And I am very Human
I thought it was the one where the crew was being abducted by sub-space aliens and experimented on...
So why not add a 4th layer between the reactor and containment? (Yes I know retrofit is not likely but I am just talking theory)
I remember reading that nuclear waste is often cast into glass rods for long term storage. Why not create a second walled container outside the reactor but before the containment wall. Fill it with nuclear waste glass pellets and fill the air space with water or some other appropriate fluid to allow for heat extraction. If you need to do maintenance than you essentially open a drain and flush all the glass pellets into a shielded storage container. When you are done with maintenance you pump them back into the chamber.
Now you have a system that allows you to reduce the risk of the waste escaping into the ground water, you can easily replace the converted pellets, you shouldn't have much additional radiation risk and you don't need to worry about the chemistry.
Who else mentally flashed to the episode of TNG?
Use nuclear waste as ... wait for it ...
radiation shielding.
One of the issues with nuclear energy is absorbing the high energy neutrons to generate heat. We can line the reactors with nuclear waste and the neutron bombardment would transmutate it from 100s of years to safe in decades.
Our formal species name is Homo sapiens sapiens.
Neanderthals formal species name is Homo sapiens neanderthalis
Modern man and Neanderthals are exactly the same species and there is actually genetic evidence that says we could interbreed.
The difference between moder man and neanderthals is equivalent to the difference between Great Danes and a Labrador Retriever.
They are capable of interbreeding but have some distinct traits. They are sub-species under the same species.
There is actually a lot of evidence that the Gallic tribes merged with Neanderthals through interbreeding rather than killing them off.
It is EXTREMLY unlikley that two tool using animals capable of symbolic communication would happen to evolve at the same time. If they evolved near each other from the same ancestors then they would likely compete for resources and one or both would die out before they expanded. If they evolved seperatly from different ancestors then they would ahve to do so within 50,000 years of each other since that is about how long it took Man to completly colonize the planet. Once a tool using animal takes over the planet we change the environment too quickly for another intelligent species to get a foothold.
This is the Fermi paradox but on earth. We are here therefore it is unlikly that any other tool using animal has evolved since the dinosaurs died out.
This is GPS navigation only. The article makes no mention of visual processing. Without much better "eyes" these cars will just run you over follwoing the map....
This is only safe because it is a closed road.
Question...Why can't you change energy companies?
Energy has been deregulated for some time now. The owners of the power lines are forced to lease them to anyone. I live in Georgia and have the option of 3 different companies.
This law will encourage people to use power more efficiently. In addition it helps remove the subsidy that Coal powered electricity has enjoyed for most of the last century. (And yes it is subsidized through legal protections and by not having to clean up much of its environmental damage). This will also encourage the power companies to build / buy cleaner power to avoid the tax.
Since there is 1.5 lbs of CO2 (about) per KWH, we are talking about a tax of $0.004 to $0.02 per KWH. Or between 4 and 18 dollars per YEAR for the end user.
This won't affect end users much but would be expensive for larger industrial users. Since some forms of local generation are already almost competitive with coal, this law would encourage thoes people to install some non-CO2 emiiting power locally.
Finally, it also depends on what the money is used for. If it is just used for general funds or as a tax break for the wealthy it won't do much. If it is used to improve infrastructure, attact green tech, improve energy efficiency of clean up the environment then it is an EXCELLENT source.
Using Pounds as a unit of measuring mass just proves that you aren't intelligent :)
Actually there IS a transfer of momentum. However it is transferring momentum to the rest of the universe. The overall distribution of Zero-Point energy has shifted which slightly shifts the center of mass of the entier universe.
It is like putting something in a box...you can move something in the box (with magnetic fields) without moving any mass in the box...but outside the box you will see the entire box has shifted slightly.
I wonder if this relates to "normal" people who have hyperhydrosis?
This also explains why botox is effective at limiting sweating...
It makes you wonder what else is influenced by these low level nerves.
We can just say its "nucular" and be all cute like George W.
The world will never know the truth!
So lets scale these up and replace the power pakcs on cars!
I would love to be able to drive for a few hundred years between recharges!
There is an interesting thing about salt...it dissolves in water!
If you start ussing NaCl for building you will desalinate the oceans causing massive damage to the environment.
How about instead we put it on a ship and slowly dissolve it with ocean water...tereby maintaining the balance.
The math seems to work out for me:
Known
Need: 110 MW
Distance Traveled: ~117 KM
Hours of full sun / day: 5.5
total solar flux: 1000 W / m^2
Assumed:
Width of the whole system (track plus side buffer): 10 M
Efficiency of panels used: 30%
So:
117 KM = 117000 M x 10 M = 1,170,000 m^2 x 30% = 531,000 Watts x 5.5 = 2,920,500 Watts/day = 2.9 Megawatts / day
This means you could use 15% efficiency panels and still do it. Plus 10 M width is probably on the low side.
I am not personally supporting the theory...yet.
It hasn't been reproduced in a different lab. The lead scientist is stonewalling the effort by refusing to divulge the specific formula for his disk unless he gets a well equiped lab and a blank check.
This sounds fishy to me. However there are many interesting effects surounding superconductivity. The reported observation is within the range of possible considering known laws of physics. This effect IS possible.
They never claimed a perpetual motion machine. It is wrong to try and say they did. There are enough questions surounding this experiment that you don't need to add any.
Re-read the experiment.
A spinning disk did noting.
A disk that being spun up DID do something.
It was the change in acceleration of the disk that caused the sheilding.
Very true...but history proves that the former is a prerequisite of the later.
and 80% of the population will get no education worth anything...then the illegal Mexican immigrants will get the jobs that require education and US citizens get the day laborer jobs.
The demonstrated reality is that societally mandated education is the single most stabilizing activity. In addition it provides the best ROI of ANYTHING we can do.
If you want to see the US turn into a 3rd world country in one generation, get rid of public education.