Why anyone considers that acceptable (and why Apple thinks it's a good idea) is baffling to me.
For the same reason that the majority of software written for PC and then back ported to Mac kept the windows look and feel. It is far easier if all versions of your app look as identical as possible.
So you think people in other places don't drive 60+ mph?... (hence no need for merging into traffic going at such speed...)
I then responded to this
This wasn't about HP, only about the time required to reach given speed; your cars aren't that heavier (and those which are...well, that's another problem)
Justifying wasteful HP levels with possible close calls is a vicious cycle. Would you prefer tanks?
I did not loose sight of the issues you and I had been discussing. You and I never mentioned the efficiency of car production. Are you thinking of someone else?
Those "cars so small that they looked like a glorified golf cart" (such false characterisations go a long way towards building certain approach...) are what's normal on Earth, not "weird".
Those were not my word, but those of American friends who'd seen them. If you don't like their characterizations, well that's just too bad. Whether or not they are normal where you are from does not make them normal here in the US, which was the entire point I was making. We were discussing the fact that US cars are on average more massive than European or Asian cars, not because a US sedan is larger than a European sedan, but because there are a lot more cars in smaller classes in Europe than in the US. Many of those smaller sized cars were not even available for sale here in the US until fairly recently.
Another poster gave decently passable argument BTW - you build way too short merging lanes
Having never driven in Europe myself, I can't speak to the relative length of our merging lanes. Sounds plausible to me.
Consuming without the will to put hard limits on oneself is plenty amoral...
In your opinion, but not in mine. To each their own.
... if all externalities were to be taken into account there's also no way it could be legal while operating by the current rules.
I have no idea what "Externalities" you are referring to, nor do I know of any laws that make wasting fuel illegal. If such laws exist, they are not in force in the US. The only laws I'm aware of that are relevant are regulations of fleet efficiency for newly manufactured cars. However, their is no control after the year the vehicle is manufactured, so if efficiency drops due to neglect no one is to know.
Look how wasteful you are [wikipedia.org], claiming for yourself almost three times more resources than the most lean places with comparable standard of living (and even those most likely exceed what this planet can provide long term).
I said that we could and should do better. I just said that in my opinion this does not raise to the level of a moral issue.
"I made a horrible choice, so I will stick with it for now...at least as far as not trying more to deal with it goes; oh, and life is hard"
I never said my choice was horrible. I made the choice that was right for me at the time. I've owned that truck for 5 years now and have only been thinking about trading it in for about 2 months. When I first bought it I used the hauling capacity frequently, when I rode the bus it was because I lived close enough to work that I could, which had not been the case before. I still used the hauling capacity on an as needed basis and since the truck was already paid off it cost me very little when I didn't need it. I recently graduated and got a new job, spending a month unemployed in between. That happened and is part of the reason why I cannot trade in the truck as soon as I would like. It's not hardship, it's life. I was not complaining, but pointing out that just because I don't view fuel inefficiency as amoral, does not mean that I think little of fuel efficiency. I rode public transit when I could, and will be
First, I wasn't saying that it was, but HP is a big part (along with transmission gearing) of what determines acceleration from 0 to 60. Horsepower requires more fuel (generally) and heavier cars require more HP to accelerate at the same rate. The US and Europe may have all the same sizes of cars represented, but the distribution (average car size) is very different here and across the pond. I'd only ever seen maybe 3 mini cars in my life before 2008, but my wife commented on how weird they had looked to her when she went to London back in the mid 90's. Maybe things have changed, but all my friends who've travel to Europe (a couple of them frequently) were amazed at the popularity of cars so small that they looked like a glorified golf cart.
Second, there is nothing illegal or amoral about driving a larger car. It may not be "Green" but if you need the space, you need the space. I'm looking into a minivan to replace my wife's Honda Civic because we're going to have more kids and already barely fit the three of us, the stroller, diaper bag and groceries in the car at the same time.
Third,... Tanks? Really? Isn't that being a little hyperbolic?
I prefer whichever car is the right size for my needs. I currently drive a full-size pickup truck because at one point I needed the hauling capacity fairly frequently. Then I stopped driving it and using public transportation. Now, I drive half an hour to work each morning in my truck and cringe when I need to fill it up every two weeks. I'd like to replace it but having just moved, a new 9 month old, an unemployed wife, and a former medical insurance company that keeps refusing to pay for things that they are supposed to have covered, I can't afford to get anything smaller yet. When we have our second child I'll probably trade in the pick-up and take my wife's Honda as my primary car since she'll be running all of the errands with the kids during the week. Remember, just because I don't see anything morally wrong with large cars doesn't mean that my personal preferences aren't more in line with yours.
Besides, you always remember to turn your computer off when it's not in use? You don't ever leave it drawing power while sleeping overnight? Human waste is almost a law of nature like the first and second laws of thermodynamics which make perpetual motion devices impossible. No human effort can be undertaken on a large scale without generating a lot of waste. Could we be better? Absolutely, but I'm not big on moral judgement of such a common human failing. Especially one that has only recently arisen to the level of a "Moral Issue" thanks to the Greenies.
US cars tend to be larger and heavier than their European or Asian analogs. Therefor they need more HP to get up to the same speed and avoid an accident.
I'm not saying that most US cars don't have more HP than they need, but as cars age their performance decreases. My pickup is 20 years old, and I'm sure it has no where near the HP it did back in 1990 when it rolled off of the lot. Just last week I avoided an accident by accelerating around someone not looking where they were going. It was pretty close, and I might not have been able to avoid it if my truck had rolled off the lot in 1990 with its current power performance and then had 20 years to get less powerful.
I think it depends on what drew you to the show in the first place. If it was the mystery about the island, then it has little if any replay value. If you were drawn by the characters, their (often erratic) evolution, and the journey itself then you might see more value in watching it again. I started out in the former camp, but later joined my wife in the later. I may watch it again in a few years, but my wife is already planning on watching the entire series over again starting sometime this year.
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I spent half an hour unsuccessfully trying to make that exact explanation to my wife after we finished watching LOST last night. I could not (and in fact did not) explain it any better myself.
I'm sorry if that part came across as hostile, but I was more interested in Where this is. My cattle experience is mostly in the northeast.
It's more efficient in that less indepth knowledge in a mix of fields is necessary.
It's also more efficient from the stand point of land usage. Acres previously devoted to housing livestock can be used to grow more feed. Intensive husbandry also can lead to decreased predator losses, increased feed efficiency (feed costs being upwards of 80% of total production costs), better reproductive efficiency (in part due to specialization as you point out, but also because it's easier for producers to observe signs of heat), etc. I should point out that my perspective is based largely on the swine and poultry industries. However, I did work in the dairy industry for several years before moving to non-ruminants.
Not sure where you're getting "far more land for feed, animal housing", etc. figures from
Free range animals spend more energy on locomotion, social behaviors, and thermoregulation. As a result they need to consume more energy dense feed, more feed of the same energy density, or simply grow slower and as a result they consume more feed during their longer growing period. Free range animals require more land in order to meet most definitions of "Free Range".
never mind being able to sell the resulting meat for more per pound.
Which is addressing a niche market. Niche markets frequently end up having higher price tags which can translate into higher profits for the producer. I've no argument with doing the smart thing financially. I just have issues with FUD masquerading as fact. Organic is a step backward in efficiency, but farmers get more money for the reduction in efficiency for a net increase in profit. However, that doesn't make Organic a good thing. If you are interested in being "Green" then you should be aware that organic production is more wasteful, and thus less "Green" than conventional production techniques.
I don't argue that farm subsidies can get out of hand at times. I'm of the opinion that any money wasted on wool subsidies is completely useless pork. I'm also of the opinion that we should try to eliminate farm subsidies whenever possible, as long as they don't endanger our national food supply (corn-ethanol anyone?).
However, farm subsidies generally do more good than harm in my opinion.
They only have differences when it is politically convenient. For example, stem cell research and abortion.
I think it is interesting that you bring up abortion as one of those issues. My initial thought was "How is this not a violation of the right to privacy". Now, I know that there is no "Right to Privacy" in the constitution or the bill rights, but I also know that a corner stone of Roe v. Wade was the judicially created Right to Privacy, that the majority justices claimed was found in the Penumbras (definition: the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object.) to the constitution.
I realize it looks like I'm trying to go off-topic, troll or start a flame war but I'm not. What ever your view on abortion, I fail to see how the party that is partially defined based on it's support of Roe v. Wade can unanimously vote in favor of a draconian law that violates this right that is fundamental to that decision. If there truly is a right to privacy, in addition to being innocent until proven guilty, and no double jeopardy, then this cannot possibly stand constitutional muster. Unless,... As I've been increasingly convinced, the supreme court only plays lip service to the constitution and is only interested in enforcing some of the rights it outlines for US citizens. They appear to pay more attention to case history, which I agree should be important, than the actual constitution that all federal case law is supposed to be contingent upon. They appear in my view to believe that the sections of the constitution can be overturned more easily than bad case law, and I find that unconscionable.
I should note that I'm not for industrial farming:
Why? It is irrelevant.
free-range meats are by far preferable, largely because they make better use of land.
Patently false. Free range requires far more land for animal housing, far more feed, and therefore far more land for grain production. Free range is less efficient than Intensive management. That's why farms have moved away from free range in the first place. No one intentionally changes from a more efficient system unless they have a ideology to live up to, or a niche market they want to address. There was no niche market for intensively managed swine or chicken production like their is for the horribly inefficient Organic or Free Range systems. And before you argue with me, be aware that I have a doctorate in animal agriculture, so unlike most/.er's my opinions on this topic are actually informed ones.
10 thousand acres per head of cattle.
I'd love to see the source of that number.
Otherwise I'd have to agree with you that cmdr_tofu is being a bit of a naive troll.
Ok given our current cow-poo management policies, it seems like it would make sense to get electricity from it, but if people we to stop eating cows, drinking, milk, dedicating land to cows, the land and water that is used for raising cattle (and growing grain to feel the cattle), could be used much more effectively.
Our current manure management policies are to improve digestive efficiency of the feed given to livestock, thus decreasing the quantity of manure produced, and then to use the manure as a source of fertilizer to grow more feed. What exactly is wrong with that. Farms were "Green" before being green was cool. Furthermore, you obviously have no idea as to how much surplus food is generated in the country. A large portion of the US grain production is in fact exported. I've always seen that as evidence that we are using the land very effectively. We can feed the entire US population along with a significant portion of the rest of the world. There is a reason that the Midwestern US is referred to as the "World's Bread Basket".
Of course given that we are engaged in this wasteful misuse/abuse of animals, I don't see anything wrong with using the poop.
I'll start by asking you a question. How many farms have you visited? How many animals have you personally seen abused (and I tend to discount PETA & HSUS's video's seeing as they are not above abusing the animals themselves, or creatively editing the videos to make things appear worse than they are). I have personally worked on half a dozen dairy farms, and visited at least 15 others. Routinely abused animals produce less milk, and thus are unprofitable. Anyone routinely abusing animals goes out of business in very short order. Hell even the most efficient farms spend months and occasionally years at a time selling milk at a loss because bulk milk prices drop below production costs. In the swine industry (where I work now) they just got off of a run of ~18 months of hog prices being below production prices due to increased input costs for feed (ethanol has more than doubled corn prices) and fuel and reduced demand (swine flu, which is not actually a risk but fear is irrational).
As for the original article:
I think this is an excellent idea. It could be used as an incentive for ISPs to offer higher bandwidth connections to rural areas, where many are still stuck with dial-up. It benefits the farmer because he can get higher speed connections for data transfer (many proposed animal tracking programs require a lot of data be sent in for tracking purposes fairly quickly), they also get money from the server farm for the electricity generated. The farm gets a rural location (potentially more secure), potentially cheaper electricity, cheaper land costs and taxes. The local community gets access to higher technology, and potentially higher paying jobs. Workers at the facility get the benefits of lower cost of living. It's potentially a win-win-win-win situation, assuming that the efficiency of electricity generation and facility construction costs work out.
As I stated before, not being a deal breaker does not make 3G undesirable. It just means that the other benefits of the phone may be enough to sway potential customers in spite of its absence. What is so difficult to understand about that? I own tons of things that are only a fraction of what I would like them to be, but they work well enough, and at the right price that I purchase them. No device is ever going to be 100% of what is desired by anyone, never mind everyone.
3G has always been desirable for the iPhone, just as the impending move to 4G over the next couple of years will be equally desirable. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to sell my iPhone 3GS once 4G becomes available just because it is 3G only. Nor does it mean that we should all refrain from purchasing any 3G phones now that Verizon has started adding 4G coverage to major cities.
The difference between most Apple fanboys and most Apple haters is whether or not the person is willing to see what their products ARE instead of what they ARE NOT. The original iPhone did not have 3G, but it did have a revolutionary new UI, browsing experience, etcetera that made it better than other phones that had 3G, but were so frustrating to use that it didn't matter (IMO). That many new smart phones are following the basic design strategy of the iPhone is evidence that it was the design and implementation of the other features that resulted in it selling so well despite the lack of 3G.
As to the comparison to their competitors in the market. Apple doesn't tend to fit easy classification. You can chalk that up to fanboyism on my part if you so choose, but I don't think that is the case. They do not operate the way that their competitors do. Apple exists to make money like it's peers, but they choose only to compete in markets where they can maintain high margins. That means that they sell far fewer units than their competitors such as motorola or Nokia in phones, or Dell/HP/etc. in computers, but they take home a disproportionate amount of the total Profit to be had from the market. IIRC, Apple has something on the order of 80% of the $1000 or greater computer market, which is where the profit is. In the case of the phone, they don't sell feature phones, or stripped down versions of the iPhone simply to get an extra sale. They also don't do buy-one-get-one either, because they are not interested in increased volume if it costs them too much of their margin. Therefore, selling well may mean selling fewer than their competitors because they have higher profit margins per phone.
I don't know that the iPhone was/is selling in greater or fewer numbers per capita in Europe countries, but I do know that Apple haters would have been jumping up and down hysterically if the iPhone had been a flop in Europe as one writer claimed in Japan. That the Japan claim turned out to be wrong, didn't stop the gloating and "See!! I Told You So!!"
I moved, not the 3G coverage. I moved from a fairly metropolitan area with decent 3G coverage to a town with a population of less than 20k in a region where that is considered a fairly big town.
No one offers 3G in my area, but even if they did I wouldn't go back with Verizon. I swore them off when I moved out of the Massachusetts back in 2002. They screwed me over one too many times. I've had issues with AT&T, but they have been orders of magnitude less frustrating than Verizon was. YMMV, but my decision will of course be based on my experiences.
The iPhone was not available outside the US at first, so it's status as "Deal Breaker" outside the US was irrelevant until that changed. When it did change, it sold just as well in the UK, France and Germany as it did in the US. That means the "Deal Breaker" nature of 3G in the rest of the world was not as much a given as you say. It may have been a "Deal Breaker" for you, but enough people did not share your view that Apple made a tidy profit off the international sales of the original iPhone.
I don't remember anyone saying that 3G wasn't desirable, only that it wasn't a deal breaker. IIRC, AT&T's 3G coverage was still pretty spotty as a result of the recent merger of Cingular et al. that led to it's creation.
Hell, I used to have 3G coverage with my iPhone before I moved, but now I've got Edge only when I'm away from WiFi. It works, just not as well. I'd love for AT&T to get 3G in my part of Minnesota, but it's not like I'm going to get rid of a phone just because the provider doesn't offer 3G in my area yet.
I see the real reason behind this hubbub being 2 fold.
1. There are a lot of formerly non-Apple programmers who are coming to terms with the mercurial nature of the CEO and the company itself. They are infamous for sudden changes in direction without a backward glance. Blessing or Curse? I'm sure this thread will be filled with hundreds of examples of each.
2. The uniqueness of this move. Yes, we all know that game consoles have this kind of "we control all" development structure to varying degrees. However, I am not aware of a console originally allowing something (by not explicitly denying it) and then taking that option away after developers had put time into it. That's got to sting.
As I said at the start MS could do this if they chose. However, MS has never been overly concerned with the user experience or the quality of 3rd party software. (I'm of the opinion that they prefer mediocre 3rd party software because it makes it easier to "Embrace and Extinguish" when they move into that market themselves, but that's speculation). They've also never been very comfortable with angering their developers, which is not something Apple has ever had an issue with. In the end, it's the culture at MS that prevents them from making this kind of move, not legal or moral. And we all know that the culture at MS and Apple are as different as their CEO's
As for the gaming consoles you mentioned (last I checked the iPad isn't one), those devices are sold at a loss with the assumption you will buy games from publishers who pay large fees to the manufacturer.
Just because they have the same development model does not mean that they are required to have the same business model. Apple has a different business model from that used by game consoles, one where they make their money off of the HW and the SW is primarily used to sell the HW. It's essentially the same business model they've been using for the Mac all along, only the development model has changed.
It's just like how Apple had the same development model as Wintel machines but had a different business model from either Microsoft or the Wintel hardware manufacturers. They haven't exactly cornered the PC market, but they have made money hand over fist over the last 8-10 years so it works for them. Not every competitor in a given market has to have the exact same business strategy. If they did, then only the large would survive as the economies of scale would allow them to undercut the competition on price (essentially the price war between manufacturers of windows machines).
If you don't like the business/development model for a device then don't develop for it. Just don't bitch that you want a profitable company to change their development model to suit you.
The typical US diet contains much, much more protein than the body actually needs.
No argument here, but I expect (and I could be wrong) that colonists on Mars would have a very physically demanding schedule. That would increase their protein requirement. Physical strain increases muscle damage, and basal muscle degradation. Some of the amino acids liberated thus can be recycled, but others cannot. Therefore increased levels of dietary protein must be consumed in order to offset the increased rate of muscle turnover.
The total amount of vitamin B12 they'll need is about 4 kg. That's for the entire group, for 100 years.
You are making alot of unfounded assumptions here. First, the shelf life of water soluble vitamins like B12 is pretty short. There is no way that 100 year old B12 will still be any good.
Then there is getting enough without getting too much and wasting it. Water soluble vitamins generally speaking are not stored in the body, and any excess is excreted. Therefore any misalignment in dose will simply go to waste. It would make more sense to bring along a set up to grow yeast, which is the main source of B-vitamins for supplements now. It could be a fairly small set up and as long as their is enough biomass to keep the culture growing, they could probably meet their entire B-vitamin requirement at one shot (and make martian hooch at the same time).
Most people who have lived since the invention of agriculture have eaten a negligible amount of meat. Yes, many of them had dietary-deficiency diseases, but those diseases had nothing to do with lack of meat.
Meat is not the requirement, you are correct. It is the nutrients that are the requirement. However, that does not change the fact that for many nutrients, plants are a poorer source than meat. A little meat goes a lot further toward satisfying a persons daily requirement for energy, amino acids, minerals, and fat soluble vitamins than an equal amount of corn, soy, tomatoes, carrots, apples, etc.
That is the Chinese Dairy Industry, and I expect that the melamine probably got into the milk powder there the same way that it got into the US milk and pet food supply. Chinese grain farmers added it to their grain to increase it's sale price at market (increased Crude Protein) and the cows eating the grain produced melamine tainted milk.
AFAIK, the only way that melamine has found its way into milk is through tainted feed purchased from China. I don't know of any reports that Farmers were adulterating their milk with melamine. All the dairy farmers I knew were horrified that melamine was making into their product.
Unless you can provide documentation that a dairy producer was caught intentionally adding melamine to their milk I'll have to accuse you of FUD. Furthermore, if there has been a case that I am unaware of, I'll have to accuse you of extrapolation unless you can provide evidence that it was more than an isolated incident (one farm does not a trend make).
The reason that melamine was being added to feed in China was to increase the Crude Protein value (essentially the Nitrogen concentration, which is high in melamine) and thus the sale price. Farmers in the US bought the high crude protein feed thinking that it was high quality feed. They only later discovered that they had been purchasing poor quality feed containing melamine and were outraged by the deception.
The Nitrogen in melamine is not available as a source of protein, so they were getting less than they paid for, which resulted in them unintentionally feeding their animals protein deficient diets. This kind of nutritional deficiency has all sorts of repercussions as far as animal growth, production, long term viability, etc. that make it unlikely any farmer would intentionally feed melamine tainted feed to their animals.
And in closing, there is only one dairy industry in the US. There are multiple markets to which milk might end up (Fluid milk, cheese, butter, dried milk, etc.), but they all pull from the same pool of milk. I know this because I worked on several dairy's in MA and CT while an undergrad and even visited the Agrimark Balancing Plant in Springfield, MA. It is part of a Regional Co-operative that helps diary farmers efficiently sell their milk to the various end users. Trucks are routed to local plants for bottling, ice cream production, etc. and any milk not sold off goes to a balancing plant. Milk from one dairy might end up in 1 gallon jugs one day, in ice cream the next, and cheese on another.
The Plant in Springfield makes butter and dried milk which both can be stored for extended periods of time. This helps keep the price of milk up (absorbing excess supply in periods of low demand). Not only does the milk from one farm end up in many different products, Many different brands are often manufactured in the same plants. The Springfield plant manufactured butter is sold under every label except Land O'Lakes (or was in 2002) and Land O'Lakes simply uses a different balancing plant somewhere else. It's safe to say that the store brand butter in just about any store in New England came off the same production line as butter sold under any other label (so buy the cheap stuff and save some money).
Whey and eggs are both sources of animal protein. Since both eggs and whey are intended as protein sources for growing animals (the developing chick and calf, respectively) it makes sense that they would have evolved to contain amino acid ratios that are close to ideal for the animal that is supposed to be consuming them. They are essentially designed to help a growing animal grow with as little nutritional waste as possible. Any nutrients going into whey or eggs that cannot be used, either because they are in excess of what can be used even under otherwise optimal conditions, or because other nutrients are deficient and thus limiting their use are wasted. Therefore, there would be strong evolutionary pressures to meet the ideal.
Obviously this is not perfect. Iron in pigs does not transfer efficiently across the placenta or the milk/blood barrier (similar to the blood brain barrier), which is why piglets are routinely given iron dextran injections shortly after birth. There is evidence in humans that Vitamin D does not transfer efficiently into milk, which is why our pediatrician advised that we give our daughter vitamin D drops to supplement my wife's breast milk. (However, each time we gave her the drop she got severe gastric upset so we don't actually give her the drops anymore and she seems to be doing fine. So I'm a little skeptical of that evidence.)
Plants on the other hand have had less evolutionary pressure to target the proteins within their own body at meeting the nutritional needs of another living being. Essentially, only since the advent of agriculture which is still fairly new when you think about the normal time scales of evolution.
Getting sufficient iron from plant-only sources, while possible, is impractical because the concentrations are so low.
I'm fairly sure this one is actually true for growing individuals. I'm a swine and poultry nutritionist and every practical ration (as opposed to a research ration) I've ever made or seen contains a trace mineral premix which, among other things, provides supplemental iron. Plants simply aren't a good source of iron, in part because of anti-nutrients like phytic acid which can chelate it during digestion and carry it out in the feces.
For adult individuals (ie not growing) the digestible iron in a vegan diet may not be deficient, but all the vegans I've ever met were on iron supplements. Doesn't make it impossible, but implies that it is difficult to be vegan without iron supplements.
. Consumers tend to get very upset about adulterated milk (rBST anyone?). Furthermore, the dairy industry is also very hostile toward the juice of the soy plant being called "milk" and marketed as a milk alternative. Technically "Soy Milk" is actually a juice. (only mammals produce milk and soy is not even an animal.) With that kind of background politics, I doubt that any milk producer is adding soy to liquid milk.
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Nope, just pointing out how much it sucks to have the shoe on the other foot this time.
Why anyone considers that acceptable (and why Apple thinks it's a good idea) is baffling to me.
For the same reason that the majority of software written for PC and then back ported to Mac kept the windows look and feel. It is far easier if all versions of your app look as identical as possible.
So you think people in other places don't drive 60+ mph?... (hence no need for merging into traffic going at such speed...)
I then responded to this
This wasn't about HP, only about the time required to reach given speed; your cars aren't that heavier (and those which are...well, that's another problem)
Justifying wasteful HP levels with possible close calls is a vicious cycle. Would you prefer tanks?
I did not loose sight of the issues you and I had been discussing. You and I never mentioned the efficiency of car production. Are you thinking of someone else?
Those "cars so small that they looked like a glorified golf cart" (such false characterisations go a long way towards building certain approach...) are what's normal on Earth, not "weird".
Those were not my word, but those of American friends who'd seen them. If you don't like their characterizations, well that's just too bad. Whether or not they are normal where you are from does not make them normal here in the US, which was the entire point I was making. We were discussing the fact that US cars are on average more massive than European or Asian cars, not because a US sedan is larger than a European sedan, but because there are a lot more cars in smaller classes in Europe than in the US. Many of those smaller sized cars were not even available for sale here in the US until fairly recently.
Another poster gave decently passable argument BTW - you build way too short merging lanes
Having never driven in Europe myself, I can't speak to the relative length of our merging lanes. Sounds plausible to me.
Consuming without the will to put hard limits on oneself is plenty amoral...
In your opinion, but not in mine. To each their own.
... if all externalities were to be taken into account there's also no way it could be legal while operating by the current rules.
I have no idea what "Externalities" you are referring to, nor do I know of any laws that make wasting fuel illegal. If such laws exist, they are not in force in the US. The only laws I'm aware of that are relevant are regulations of fleet efficiency for newly manufactured cars. However, their is no control after the year the vehicle is manufactured, so if efficiency drops due to neglect no one is to know.
Look how wasteful you are [wikipedia.org], claiming for yourself almost three times more resources than the most lean places with comparable standard of living (and even those most likely exceed what this planet can provide long term).
I said that we could and should do better. I just said that in my opinion this does not raise to the level of a moral issue.
"I made a horrible choice, so I will stick with it for now...at least as far as not trying more to deal with it goes; oh, and life is hard"
I never said my choice was horrible. I made the choice that was right for me at the time. I've owned that truck for 5 years now and have only been thinking about trading it in for about 2 months. When I first bought it I used the hauling capacity frequently, when I rode the bus it was because I lived close enough to work that I could, which had not been the case before. I still used the hauling capacity on an as needed basis and since the truck was already paid off it cost me very little when I didn't need it. I recently graduated and got a new job, spending a month unemployed in between. That happened and is part of the reason why I cannot trade in the truck as soon as I would like. It's not hardship, it's life. I was not complaining, but pointing out that just because I don't view fuel inefficiency as amoral, does not mean that I think little of fuel efficiency. I rode public transit when I could, and will be
First, I wasn't saying that it was, but HP is a big part (along with transmission gearing) of what determines acceleration from 0 to 60. Horsepower requires more fuel (generally) and heavier cars require more HP to accelerate at the same rate. The US and Europe may have all the same sizes of cars represented, but the distribution (average car size) is very different here and across the pond. I'd only ever seen maybe 3 mini cars in my life before 2008, but my wife commented on how weird they had looked to her when she went to London back in the mid 90's. Maybe things have changed, but all my friends who've travel to Europe (a couple of them frequently) were amazed at the popularity of cars so small that they looked like a glorified golf cart.
... Tanks? Really? Isn't that being a little hyperbolic?
Second, there is nothing illegal or amoral about driving a larger car. It may not be "Green" but if you need the space, you need the space. I'm looking into a minivan to replace my wife's Honda Civic because we're going to have more kids and already barely fit the three of us, the stroller, diaper bag and groceries in the car at the same time.
Third,
I prefer whichever car is the right size for my needs. I currently drive a full-size pickup truck because at one point I needed the hauling capacity fairly frequently. Then I stopped driving it and using public transportation. Now, I drive half an hour to work each morning in my truck and cringe when I need to fill it up every two weeks. I'd like to replace it but having just moved, a new 9 month old, an unemployed wife, and a former medical insurance company that keeps refusing to pay for things that they are supposed to have covered, I can't afford to get anything smaller yet. When we have our second child I'll probably trade in the pick-up and take my wife's Honda as my primary car since she'll be running all of the errands with the kids during the week. Remember, just because I don't see anything morally wrong with large cars doesn't mean that my personal preferences aren't more in line with yours.
Besides, you always remember to turn your computer off when it's not in use? You don't ever leave it drawing power while sleeping overnight? Human waste is almost a law of nature like the first and second laws of thermodynamics which make perpetual motion devices impossible. No human effort can be undertaken on a large scale without generating a lot of waste. Could we be better? Absolutely, but I'm not big on moral judgement of such a common human failing. Especially one that has only recently arisen to the level of a "Moral Issue" thanks to the Greenies.
US cars tend to be larger and heavier than their European or Asian analogs. Therefor they need more HP to get up to the same speed and avoid an accident.
I'm not saying that most US cars don't have more HP than they need, but as cars age their performance decreases. My pickup is 20 years old, and I'm sure it has no where near the HP it did back in 1990 when it rolled off of the lot. Just last week I avoided an accident by accelerating around someone not looking where they were going. It was pretty close, and I might not have been able to avoid it if my truck had rolled off the lot in 1990 with its current power performance and then had 20 years to get less powerful.
I think it depends on what drew you to the show in the first place. If it was the mystery about the island, then it has little if any replay value. If you were drawn by the characters, their (often erratic) evolution, and the journey itself then you might see more value in watching it again. I started out in the former camp, but later joined my wife in the later. I may watch it again in a few years, but my wife is already planning on watching the entire series over again starting sometime this year.
I spent half an hour unsuccessfully trying to make that exact explanation to my wife after we finished watching LOST last night. I could not (and in fact did not) explain it any better myself.
It's more efficient in that less indepth knowledge in a mix of fields is necessary.
It's also more efficient from the stand point of land usage. Acres previously devoted to housing livestock can be used to grow more feed. Intensive husbandry also can lead to decreased predator losses, increased feed efficiency (feed costs being upwards of 80% of total production costs), better reproductive efficiency (in part due to specialization as you point out, but also because it's easier for producers to observe signs of heat), etc. I should point out that my perspective is based largely on the swine and poultry industries. However, I did work in the dairy industry for several years before moving to non-ruminants.
Not sure where you're getting "far more land for feed, animal housing", etc. figures from
Free range animals spend more energy on locomotion, social behaviors, and thermoregulation. As a result they need to consume more energy dense feed, more feed of the same energy density, or simply grow slower and as a result they consume more feed during their longer growing period. Free range animals require more land in order to meet most definitions of "Free Range".
never mind being able to sell the resulting meat for more per pound.
Which is addressing a niche market. Niche markets frequently end up having higher price tags which can translate into higher profits for the producer. I've no argument with doing the smart thing financially. I just have issues with FUD masquerading as fact. Organic is a step backward in efficiency, but farmers get more money for the reduction in efficiency for a net increase in profit. However, that doesn't make Organic a good thing. If you are interested in being "Green" then you should be aware that organic production is more wasteful, and thus less "Green" than conventional production techniques.
I don't argue that farm subsidies can get out of hand at times. I'm of the opinion that any money wasted on wool subsidies is completely useless pork. I'm also of the opinion that we should try to eliminate farm subsidies whenever possible, as long as they don't endanger our national food supply (corn-ethanol anyone?).
However, farm subsidies generally do more good than harm in my opinion.
They only have differences when it is politically convenient. For example, stem cell research and abortion.
I think it is interesting that you bring up abortion as one of those issues. My initial thought was "How is this not a violation of the right to privacy". Now, I know that there is no "Right to Privacy" in the constitution or the bill rights, but I also know that a corner stone of Roe v. Wade was the judicially created Right to Privacy, that the majority justices claimed was found in the Penumbras (definition: the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object.) to the constitution.
I realize it looks like I'm trying to go off-topic, troll or start a flame war but I'm not. What ever your view on abortion, I fail to see how the party that is partially defined based on it's support of Roe v. Wade can unanimously vote in favor of a draconian law that violates this right that is fundamental to that decision. If there truly is a right to privacy, in addition to being innocent until proven guilty, and no double jeopardy, then this cannot possibly stand constitutional muster. Unless,... As I've been increasingly convinced, the supreme court only plays lip service to the constitution and is only interested in enforcing some of the rights it outlines for US citizens. They appear to pay more attention to case history, which I agree should be important, than the actual constitution that all federal case law is supposed to be contingent upon. They appear in my view to believe that the sections of the constitution can be overturned more easily than bad case law, and I find that unconscionable.
It's a matter of national security that is so well settled that we never need to think about it.
I should note that I'm not for industrial farming:
Why? It is irrelevant.
free-range meats are by far preferable, largely because they make better use of land.
Patently false. Free range requires far more land for animal housing, far more feed, and therefore far more land for grain production. Free range is less efficient than Intensive management. That's why farms have moved away from free range in the first place. No one intentionally changes from a more efficient system unless they have a ideology to live up to, or a niche market they want to address. There was no niche market for intensively managed swine or chicken production like their is for the horribly inefficient Organic or Free Range systems. And before you argue with me, be aware that I have a doctorate in animal agriculture, so unlike most /.er's my opinions on this topic are actually informed ones.
10 thousand acres per head of cattle.
I'd love to see the source of that number.
Otherwise I'd have to agree with you that cmdr_tofu is being a bit of a naive troll.
Ok given our current cow-poo management policies, it seems like it would make sense to get electricity from it, but if people we to stop eating cows, drinking, milk, dedicating land to cows, the land and water that is used for raising cattle (and growing grain to feel the cattle), could be used much more effectively.
Our current manure management policies are to improve digestive efficiency of the feed given to livestock, thus decreasing the quantity of manure produced, and then to use the manure as a source of fertilizer to grow more feed. What exactly is wrong with that. Farms were "Green" before being green was cool. Furthermore, you obviously have no idea as to how much surplus food is generated in the country. A large portion of the US grain production is in fact exported. I've always seen that as evidence that we are using the land very effectively. We can feed the entire US population along with a significant portion of the rest of the world. There is a reason that the Midwestern US is referred to as the "World's Bread Basket".
Of course given that we are engaged in this wasteful misuse/abuse of animals, I don't see anything wrong with using the poop.
I'll start by asking you a question. How many farms have you visited? How many animals have you personally seen abused (and I tend to discount PETA & HSUS's video's seeing as they are not above abusing the animals themselves, or creatively editing the videos to make things appear worse than they are). I have personally worked on half a dozen dairy farms, and visited at least 15 others. Routinely abused animals produce less milk, and thus are unprofitable. Anyone routinely abusing animals goes out of business in very short order. Hell even the most efficient farms spend months and occasionally years at a time selling milk at a loss because bulk milk prices drop below production costs. In the swine industry (where I work now) they just got off of a run of ~18 months of hog prices being below production prices due to increased input costs for feed (ethanol has more than doubled corn prices) and fuel and reduced demand (swine flu, which is not actually a risk but fear is irrational).
As for the original article:
I think this is an excellent idea. It could be used as an incentive for ISPs to offer higher bandwidth connections to rural areas, where many are still stuck with dial-up. It benefits the farmer because he can get higher speed connections for data transfer (many proposed animal tracking programs require a lot of data be sent in for tracking purposes fairly quickly), they also get money from the server farm for the electricity generated. The farm gets a rural location (potentially more secure), potentially cheaper electricity, cheaper land costs and taxes. The local community gets access to higher technology, and potentially higher paying jobs. Workers at the facility get the benefits of lower cost of living. It's potentially a win-win-win-win situation, assuming that the efficiency of electricity generation and facility construction costs work out.
As I stated before, not being a deal breaker does not make 3G undesirable. It just means that the other benefits of the phone may be enough to sway potential customers in spite of its absence. What is so difficult to understand about that? I own tons of things that are only a fraction of what I would like them to be, but they work well enough, and at the right price that I purchase them. No device is ever going to be 100% of what is desired by anyone, never mind everyone.
3G has always been desirable for the iPhone, just as the impending move to 4G over the next couple of years will be equally desirable. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to sell my iPhone 3GS once 4G becomes available just because it is 3G only. Nor does it mean that we should all refrain from purchasing any 3G phones now that Verizon has started adding 4G coverage to major cities.
The difference between most Apple fanboys and most Apple haters is whether or not the person is willing to see what their products ARE instead of what they ARE NOT. The original iPhone did not have 3G, but it did have a revolutionary new UI, browsing experience, etcetera that made it better than other phones that had 3G, but were so frustrating to use that it didn't matter (IMO). That many new smart phones are following the basic design strategy of the iPhone is evidence that it was the design and implementation of the other features that resulted in it selling so well despite the lack of 3G.
As to the comparison to their competitors in the market. Apple doesn't tend to fit easy classification. You can chalk that up to fanboyism on my part if you so choose, but I don't think that is the case. They do not operate the way that their competitors do. Apple exists to make money like it's peers, but they choose only to compete in markets where they can maintain high margins. That means that they sell far fewer units than their competitors such as motorola or Nokia in phones, or Dell/HP/etc. in computers, but they take home a disproportionate amount of the total Profit to be had from the market. IIRC, Apple has something on the order of 80% of the $1000 or greater computer market, which is where the profit is. In the case of the phone, they don't sell feature phones, or stripped down versions of the iPhone simply to get an extra sale. They also don't do buy-one-get-one either, because they are not interested in increased volume if it costs them too much of their margin. Therefore, selling well may mean selling fewer than their competitors because they have higher profit margins per phone.
I don't know that the iPhone was/is selling in greater or fewer numbers per capita in Europe countries, but I do know that Apple haters would have been jumping up and down hysterically if the iPhone had been a flop in Europe as one writer claimed in Japan. That the Japan claim turned out to be wrong, didn't stop the gloating and "See!! I Told You So!!"
I moved, not the 3G coverage. I moved from a fairly metropolitan area with decent 3G coverage to a town with a population of less than 20k in a region where that is considered a fairly big town.
No one offers 3G in my area, but even if they did I wouldn't go back with Verizon. I swore them off when I moved out of the Massachusetts back in 2002. They screwed me over one too many times. I've had issues with AT&T, but they have been orders of magnitude less frustrating than Verizon was. YMMV, but my decision will of course be based on my experiences.
The iPhone was not available outside the US at first, so it's status as "Deal Breaker" outside the US was irrelevant until that changed. When it did change, it sold just as well in the UK, France and Germany as it did in the US. That means the "Deal Breaker" nature of 3G in the rest of the world was not as much a given as you say. It may have been a "Deal Breaker" for you, but enough people did not share your view that Apple made a tidy profit off the international sales of the original iPhone.
I don't remember anyone saying that 3G wasn't desirable, only that it wasn't a deal breaker. IIRC, AT&T's 3G coverage was still pretty spotty as a result of the recent merger of Cingular et al. that led to it's creation.
Hell, I used to have 3G coverage with my iPhone before I moved, but now I've got Edge only when I'm away from WiFi. It works, just not as well. I'd love for AT&T to get 3G in my part of Minnesota, but it's not like I'm going to get rid of a phone just because the provider doesn't offer 3G in my area yet.
Microsoft has every right to do the same.
I see the real reason behind this hubbub being 2 fold.
1. There are a lot of formerly non-Apple programmers who are coming to terms with the mercurial nature of the CEO and the company itself. They are infamous for sudden changes in direction without a backward glance. Blessing or Curse? I'm sure this thread will be filled with hundreds of examples of each.
2. The uniqueness of this move. Yes, we all know that game consoles have this kind of "we control all" development structure to varying degrees. However, I am not aware of a console originally allowing something (by not explicitly denying it) and then taking that option away after developers had put time into it. That's got to sting.
As I said at the start MS could do this if they chose. However, MS has never been overly concerned with the user experience or the quality of 3rd party software. (I'm of the opinion that they prefer mediocre 3rd party software because it makes it easier to "Embrace and Extinguish" when they move into that market themselves, but that's speculation). They've also never been very comfortable with angering their developers, which is not something Apple has ever had an issue with. In the end, it's the culture at MS that prevents them from making this kind of move, not legal or moral. And we all know that the culture at MS and Apple are as different as their CEO's
As for the gaming consoles you mentioned (last I checked the iPad isn't one), those devices are sold at a loss with the assumption you will buy games from publishers who pay large fees to the manufacturer.
Just because they have the same development model does not mean that they are required to have the same business model. Apple has a different business model from that used by game consoles, one where they make their money off of the HW and the SW is primarily used to sell the HW. It's essentially the same business model they've been using for the Mac all along, only the development model has changed.
It's just like how Apple had the same development model as Wintel machines but had a different business model from either Microsoft or the Wintel hardware manufacturers. They haven't exactly cornered the PC market, but they have made money hand over fist over the last 8-10 years so it works for them. Not every competitor in a given market has to have the exact same business strategy. If they did, then only the large would survive as the economies of scale would allow them to undercut the competition on price (essentially the price war between manufacturers of windows machines). If you don't like the business/development model for a device then don't develop for it. Just don't bitch that you want a profitable company to change their development model to suit you.
The typical US diet contains much, much more protein than the body actually needs.
No argument here, but I expect (and I could be wrong) that colonists on Mars would have a very physically demanding schedule. That would increase their protein requirement. Physical strain increases muscle damage, and basal muscle degradation. Some of the amino acids liberated thus can be recycled, but others cannot. Therefore increased levels of dietary protein must be consumed in order to offset the increased rate of muscle turnover.
The total amount of vitamin B12 they'll need is about 4 kg. That's for the entire group, for 100 years.
You are making alot of unfounded assumptions here. First, the shelf life of water soluble vitamins like B12 is pretty short. There is no way that 100 year old B12 will still be any good.
Then there is getting enough without getting too much and wasting it. Water soluble vitamins generally speaking are not stored in the body, and any excess is excreted. Therefore any misalignment in dose will simply go to waste. It would make more sense to bring along a set up to grow yeast, which is the main source of B-vitamins for supplements now. It could be a fairly small set up and as long as their is enough biomass to keep the culture growing, they could probably meet their entire B-vitamin requirement at one shot (and make martian hooch at the same time).
Most people who have lived since the invention of agriculture have eaten a negligible amount of meat. Yes, many of them had dietary-deficiency diseases, but those diseases had nothing to do with lack of meat.
Meat is not the requirement, you are correct. It is the nutrients that are the requirement. However, that does not change the fact that for many nutrients, plants are a poorer source than meat. A little meat goes a lot further toward satisfying a persons daily requirement for energy, amino acids, minerals, and fat soluble vitamins than an equal amount of corn, soy, tomatoes, carrots, apples, etc.
That is the Chinese Dairy Industry, and I expect that the melamine probably got into the milk powder there the same way that it got into the US milk and pet food supply. Chinese grain farmers added it to their grain to increase it's sale price at market (increased Crude Protein) and the cows eating the grain produced melamine tainted milk.
AFAIK, the only way that melamine has found its way into milk is through tainted feed purchased from China. I don't know of any reports that Farmers were adulterating their milk with melamine. All the dairy farmers I knew were horrified that melamine was making into their product.
Unless you can provide documentation that a dairy producer was caught intentionally adding melamine to their milk I'll have to accuse you of FUD. Furthermore, if there has been a case that I am unaware of, I'll have to accuse you of extrapolation unless you can provide evidence that it was more than an isolated incident (one farm does not a trend make).
The reason that melamine was being added to feed in China was to increase the Crude Protein value (essentially the Nitrogen concentration, which is high in melamine) and thus the sale price. Farmers in the US bought the high crude protein feed thinking that it was high quality feed. They only later discovered that they had been purchasing poor quality feed containing melamine and were outraged by the deception.
The Nitrogen in melamine is not available as a source of protein, so they were getting less than they paid for, which resulted in them unintentionally feeding their animals protein deficient diets. This kind of nutritional deficiency has all sorts of repercussions as far as animal growth, production, long term viability, etc. that make it unlikely any farmer would intentionally feed melamine tainted feed to their animals.
And in closing, there is only one dairy industry in the US. There are multiple markets to which milk might end up (Fluid milk, cheese, butter, dried milk, etc.), but they all pull from the same pool of milk. I know this because I worked on several dairy's in MA and CT while an undergrad and even visited the Agrimark Balancing Plant in Springfield, MA. It is part of a Regional Co-operative that helps diary farmers efficiently sell their milk to the various end users. Trucks are routed to local plants for bottling, ice cream production, etc. and any milk not sold off goes to a balancing plant. Milk from one dairy might end up in 1 gallon jugs one day, in ice cream the next, and cheese on another.
The Plant in Springfield makes butter and dried milk which both can be stored for extended periods of time. This helps keep the price of milk up (absorbing excess supply in periods of low demand). Not only does the milk from one farm end up in many different products, Many different brands are often manufactured in the same plants. The Springfield plant manufactured butter is sold under every label except Land O'Lakes (or was in 2002) and Land O'Lakes simply uses a different balancing plant somewhere else. It's safe to say that the store brand butter in just about any store in New England came off the same production line as butter sold under any other label (so buy the cheap stuff and save some money).
Whey and eggs are both sources of animal protein. Since both eggs and whey are intended as protein sources for growing animals (the developing chick and calf, respectively) it makes sense that they would have evolved to contain amino acid ratios that are close to ideal for the animal that is supposed to be consuming them. They are essentially designed to help a growing animal grow with as little nutritional waste as possible. Any nutrients going into whey or eggs that cannot be used, either because they are in excess of what can be used even under otherwise optimal conditions, or because other nutrients are deficient and thus limiting their use are wasted. Therefore, there would be strong evolutionary pressures to meet the ideal.
Obviously this is not perfect. Iron in pigs does not transfer efficiently across the placenta or the milk/blood barrier (similar to the blood brain barrier), which is why piglets are routinely given iron dextran injections shortly after birth. There is evidence in humans that Vitamin D does not transfer efficiently into milk, which is why our pediatrician advised that we give our daughter vitamin D drops to supplement my wife's breast milk. (However, each time we gave her the drop she got severe gastric upset so we don't actually give her the drops anymore and she seems to be doing fine. So I'm a little skeptical of that evidence.)
Plants on the other hand have had less evolutionary pressure to target the proteins within their own body at meeting the nutritional needs of another living being. Essentially, only since the advent of agriculture which is still fairly new when you think about the normal time scales of evolution.
I'm fairly sure this one is actually true for growing individuals. I'm a swine and poultry nutritionist and every practical ration (as opposed to a research ration) I've ever made or seen contains a trace mineral premix which, among other things, provides supplemental iron. Plants simply aren't a good source of iron, in part because of anti-nutrients like phytic acid which can chelate it during digestion and carry it out in the feces.
For adult individuals (ie not growing) the digestible iron in a vegan diet may not be deficient, but all the vegans I've ever met were on iron supplements. Doesn't make it impossible, but implies that it is difficult to be vegan without iron supplements.
It's also added to milk on occasion
. Consumers tend to get very upset about adulterated milk (rBST anyone?). Furthermore, the dairy industry is also very hostile toward the juice of the soy plant being called "milk" and marketed as a milk alternative. Technically "Soy Milk" is actually a juice. (only mammals produce milk and soy is not even an animal.) With that kind of background politics, I doubt that any milk producer is adding soy to liquid milk.