Yeah. I can buy Roger Water's "In The Flesh" concert DVD for 9 bucks at deepdiscountdvd (excellent DVD, BTW), and it's 20 bucks for the CD of the same performance. And the DVD has 5.1 sound.
Monopolizing is an activity that is illegal. Having a monopoly is not.
If I make styrofoam coffee cups, and I am very good at making them and distributing them, and no other business finds it worth their while to make styrofoam coffe cups as they can make more money doing other things, I have not broken the law.
It's only if you do unethical things like dumping, etc. that you are "monopolizing". Or do you consider doing a very good job to be a crime?
Laser launch systems, microwave launch systems. Keep the motor on the ground. Don't carry all your fuel; squirting fuel into air and lighting it isn't the only way to heat it up, and heating it with EM works as well at Mach 5 as it does at Mach 0.05.
I seem to recall that VSE is a standard thing you have to do when you have leprosy (which is what Thomas Covenant suffered from and which was why he couldn't feel his extremeties).
The guy who wrote the books, his father was a doctor in (I believe) India who worked with lepers.
And yeah, pretty good book. Although it's weird having a protagonist that's a leper and a rapist.
That's not why Henry Ford paid his employees well. It was hard, tiring work and it took a while for people to get up to speed, and back then people thought nothing of just up and leaving a job, just not show up. Mass production doesn't work unless people show up reliably, and the only way he was able to get them to do that was to pay them quite a bit more than the prevailing wage.
Of course, *saying* they were paid well was so they could afford to buy his cars was brilliant PR.
Read much? Current gravitational theory is *known* to be wrong. Missing mass, Voyager space probe trajectories, etc. It's already been falsified. Nobody's come up with a better theory yet.
Feel free to call Bush a fraud, but Perot kicks ass. He puts his money where his mouth is. The list of veterans he's helped is very, very, very long, and the fact that that's not widely known means it's real and not some PR stunt.
And we don't even have to talk about what he did to get his people out of Iran when the nutjobs took over.
Given the fact that "unnatural" sexual behavior is practiced by many species other than human, monogamous heterosexuality isn't necessarily the way God designed us to be. Our closest relative, the bonobo chimp, engages in sexual behaviour that is, to put it mildly, considerable different than ours.
I've got a cell and cable modem; the only reason I have a land line anymore is for my security system. Doesn't seem to be an easy way to go wireless for that.
You'd think some bright boy could swing a deal with a wireless provider to get low price cellular for home security. Would be worth paying more for wireless home security even if you had a landline; wouldn't have to worry about someone cutting the phone line.
WTF? A hydrogen bomb explodes with a force of a million tons of high explosive, and it's triggered by setting off a hundred pounds or so of high explosive. Or are you using some definition of "break even" that I'm not aware of?:)
Unless you're talking about the energy cost of making the U-235 and tritium (done in a nuclear reactor that *generates* electricity) or extracting the deuterium (which isn't that much).
For the source read "Downfall" by Richard Frank. It's about the end of the war in the Pacific. Sure, we didn't need to firebomb them. We'd already destroyed their coastal shipping, so they couldn't get their harvest to the cities. Winter was coming, and millions of Japanese would have starved if the war hadn't ended when it did *and* Allied occupation troops were on the ground to provide food relief. As it was, over a hundred thousand Japanese starved that winter anyway.
And I've seen "Fog Of War". All it does is reaffirm Sherman's statement "War is Hell".
As far as the Soviets are concerned, as it was they captured over a half a million Japanese soldiers, most of whom died in captivity. If the war had gone on a few more weeks there wouldn't be a North and South Korea, and there would probably be a North and South Japan. And you can damn well bet food relief wouldn't be high on their list of things to do.
Truman wasn't an idiot. He knew whatever territory Stalin grabbed would become a slave state, and he wanted the war over as quickly as possible, ideally before the Soviets even got involved.
Curtis LeMay was told to force the Japanese to surrender. He chose to do it in a way that messed them up as much as possible as fast as possible. Funny how ending the war as quickly as possible kept the body count down on both sides.
And as far as questioning the competence of the American commanders, since you've seen "Fog Of War" you should know how competent they were at their task.
People who aren't wearing seatbelts have a harder time controlling their vehicles when bad things start happening; they don't just make it less likely you will get hurt, but make it less likely others will be hurt too.
In August 1945 the Japanese Army was killing civilians at the rate of about 100,000 a month, and they'd been doing it for, oh, about 10 years. If it took vaporizing a few cities to get them to stop, I have no problems with that.
*Those* civilians didn't volunteer to sacrifice their lives to test *your* theory about whether Japan would capitulate if we'd only say "pretty please".
You're right. We didn't need to invade. Or use the bomb. It was over.
Thing is, though, the Japanese food supply kind of relied on coastal shipping, which by then had pretty much been sunk. And what little rail capacity they had (mostly to and from the ports; their internal trade was by ship) was being destroyed. And winter was coming.
As it was, surrendering when they did, over a hundred thousand Japanese died from starvation/malnutrition that winter. If the war hadn't ended when it did, with Allies occupying the country, *millions* would have starved.
That fall, McArthur had to go before Congress and shame them into providing food relief for the Japanese. He pointed out that we were executing Japanese officers for war crimes involving starving occupied people.
Well, about the only way they could get someone with a rifle close enough to Tojo or Hirohito to off them was to kill a few million people they've got between you and them.
Maybe you can share with us your clever plan for getting an assassin close to Kim Il Jong.
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Yeah. I can buy Roger Water's "In The Flesh" concert DVD for 9 bucks at deepdiscountdvd (excellent DVD, BTW), and it's 20 bucks for the CD of the same performance. And the DVD has 5.1 sound.
Monopolizing is an activity that is illegal. Having a monopoly is not.
If I make styrofoam coffee cups, and I am very good at making them and distributing them, and no other business finds it worth their while to make styrofoam coffe cups as they can make more money doing other things, I have not broken the law.
It's only if you do unethical things like dumping, etc. that you are "monopolizing". Or do you consider doing a very good job to be a crime?
So, we pay $5000 a pound to put up these large objects, bring them back, and spend $5000 a pound to put them into space *again*?
Go back to Saturns. Instead of spacehabs, have a real space station. Build it up every flight. Put the friggin robot arm on the space station.
Laser launch systems, microwave launch systems. Keep the motor on the ground. Don't carry all your fuel; squirting fuel into air and lighting it isn't the only way to heat it up, and heating it with EM works as well at Mach 5 as it does at Mach 0.05.
I seem to recall that VSE is a standard thing you have to do when you have leprosy (which is what Thomas Covenant suffered from and which was why he couldn't feel his extremeties).
The guy who wrote the books, his father was a doctor in (I believe) India who worked with lepers.
And yeah, pretty good book. Although it's weird having a protagonist that's a leper and a rapist.
That's not why Henry Ford paid his employees well. It was hard, tiring work and it took a while for people to get up to speed, and back then people thought nothing of just up and leaving a job, just not show up. Mass production doesn't work unless people show up reliably, and the only way he was able to get them to do that was to pay them quite a bit more than the prevailing wage.
Of course, *saying* they were paid well was so they could afford to buy his cars was brilliant PR.
It's all part of the master plan...
:)
When you owe the bank $100,000 the bank tells you what to do.
When you owe the bank $100,000,000,000 you tell the bank what to do.
That little lesson was learned by Donald Trump about ten years ago when he almost went bankrupt.
For most practical purposes the earth is flat. What's your point.
Read much? Current gravitational theory is *known* to be wrong. Missing mass, Voyager space probe trajectories, etc. It's already been falsified. Nobody's come up with a better theory yet.
Find human fossils in rock layers that geoligists say are a billion years old. Or bunny rabbit fossils.
Find a bird with insect (compound) eyes.
Ever hear of a duck-billed platypus? Ever wonder why scientists were fascinated by it?
That's why I have hardwood floors.
Feel free to call Bush a fraud, but Perot kicks ass. He puts his money where his mouth is. The list of veterans he's helped is very, very, very long, and the fact that that's not widely known means it's real and not some PR stunt.
And we don't even have to talk about what he did to get his people out of Iran when the nutjobs took over.
Don't know if you've read "Cryptonomicon". If not, you'd probably like it. One of the main characters is involved with stuff like that.
Given the fact that "unnatural" sexual behavior is practiced by many species other than human, monogamous heterosexuality isn't necessarily the way God designed us to be. Our closest relative, the bonobo chimp, engages in sexual behaviour that is, to put it mildly, considerable different than ours.
Put some scrap metal in with it. Old fishing weights or something like that; lead is good because they can't (legally) just throw it away.
I've got a cell and cable modem; the only reason I have a land line anymore is for my security system. Doesn't seem to be an easy way to go wireless for that.
You'd think some bright boy could swing a deal with a wireless provider to get low price cellular for home security. Would be worth paying more for wireless home security even if you had a landline; wouldn't have to worry about someone cutting the phone line.
Brown noise. Have to wait for a human caller, though.
Yeah. For an American high school graduate, joining the Army's smarter that getting a CS degree.
Too bad there's not an emoticon for sarcasm.
WTF? A hydrogen bomb explodes with a force of a million tons of high explosive, and it's triggered by setting off a hundred pounds or so of high explosive. Or are you using some definition of "break even" that I'm not aware of? :)
Unless you're talking about the energy cost of making the U-235 and tritium (done in a nuclear reactor that *generates* electricity) or extracting the deuterium (which isn't that much).
For the source read "Downfall" by Richard Frank. It's about the end of the war in the Pacific. Sure, we didn't need to firebomb them. We'd already destroyed their coastal shipping, so they couldn't get their harvest to the cities. Winter was coming, and millions of Japanese would have starved if the war hadn't ended when it did *and* Allied occupation troops were on the ground to provide food relief. As it was, over a hundred thousand Japanese starved that winter anyway.
And I've seen "Fog Of War". All it does is reaffirm Sherman's statement "War is Hell".
As far as the Soviets are concerned, as it was they captured over a half a million Japanese soldiers, most of whom died in captivity. If the war had gone on a few more weeks there wouldn't be a North and South Korea, and there would probably be a North and South Japan. And you can damn well bet food relief wouldn't be high on their list of things to do.
Truman wasn't an idiot. He knew whatever territory Stalin grabbed would become a slave state, and he wanted the war over as quickly as possible, ideally before the Soviets even got involved.
Curtis LeMay was told to force the Japanese to surrender. He chose to do it in a way that messed them up as much as possible as fast as possible. Funny how ending the war as quickly as possible kept the body count down on both sides.
And as far as questioning the competence of the American commanders, since you've seen "Fog Of War" you should know how competent they were at their task.
Quick response on your seatbelt comment:
People who aren't wearing seatbelts have a harder time controlling their vehicles when bad things start happening; they don't just make it less likely you will get hurt, but make it less likely others will be hurt too.
In August 1945 the Japanese Army was killing civilians at the rate of about 100,000 a month, and they'd been doing it for, oh, about 10 years. If it took vaporizing a few cities to get them to stop, I have no problems with that.
*Those* civilians didn't volunteer to sacrifice their lives to test *your* theory about whether Japan would capitulate if we'd only say "pretty please".
You're right. We didn't need to invade. Or use the bomb. It was over.
Thing is, though, the Japanese food supply kind of relied on coastal shipping, which by then had pretty much been sunk. And what little rail capacity they had (mostly to and from the ports; their internal trade was by ship) was being destroyed. And winter was coming.
As it was, surrendering when they did, over a hundred thousand Japanese died from starvation/malnutrition that winter. If the war hadn't ended when it did, with Allies occupying the country, *millions* would have starved.
That fall, McArthur had to go before Congress and shame them into providing food relief for the Japanese. He pointed out that we were executing Japanese officers for war crimes involving starving occupied people.
Yeah, we didn't need to invade. We'd already won.
Well, about the only way they could get someone with a rifle close enough to Tojo or Hirohito to off them was to kill a few million people they've got between you and them.
Maybe you can share with us your clever plan for getting an assassin close to Kim Il Jong.