I'm inclined to agree that they're scum. The problem with this mentality is that people who embrace it can rarely see far enough past the face of the issue to care about the possibility of innocence. People are wrongfully accused, and wrongfully imprisoned. There have even been people executed for crimes they did not commit. There is a reason that the "accused" have specific protections granted by the Constitution. Not all accused are guilty, nor are all those convicted necessarily guilty.
The other problem with the mentality of using cruelty in punishment is that it inures people to such treatment. Such societies usually have a barbaric side that would shock most anyone who has even a shred of decency in their soul.
Truly, the knowledge that climate fluctuations exist is quite different from arguing that mankind causes them.
However, man certainly has an effect on them. The only argument that really matters is determining what that effect is, and whether or not it is likely to be catastrophic in nature.
While it is ignorant to claim that all or even a majority of climate change is as a result of mankind's positive production of greenhouse gases, it is also ignorant to claim that there is no effect.
Certainly, the possibility exists that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as a result of burned carbon stores could be speeding up the return of the next ice age (what happens after a warming peak). Unfortunately, the science really doesn't exist to definitively answer the question one way or the other, and by the time people start thinking about contingency plans it'll be too late.
So, I say let nature take its course. If mankind helps the trend, the abrupt climate changes will likely kill a large portion of the human population quicker than would otherwise happen, killing off a lot of those pesky under- or mal-developed genetic lines. Maybe humans will figure it out next time before it's too late. I don't see that happening this time though. Just another setback for those lines of evolution that didn't quite turn out to work in tune with the rest of the world.
In the macro view of Earth history, it will likely be a minor, and ultimately positive, bump in the road.
The ice shelves are where they hunt seal until the summer melts. Earlier melts mean less fat stores. Less fat stores mean they can't make it as long without ice, which now takes longer to freeze again in the fall. So, polar bears start showing up more frequently in civilization to raid landfills, transfer stations, and dumpsters.
I believe it comes bundled with SoulBringer, a game I had never heard of and ended up having a blast playing. Another overlooked RPG with great character.
This is another YMMV. I've seen microwaves (new ones) that throw so much radiation that using a 2.4GHz cordless phone within sight of it is like talking on a horrible cell connection, forget trying to actually get a wireless signal.
And DC current won't hold its power through any wire longer than 500 feet!
Only if you make certain assumptions about voltage, amperage, and wire size. Making those same assumptions, the same assertion can be made about AC and be just as true.
That is to say, the statement above is true only in cases of gross incompetence by the person specifying the materials for a certain electrical run.
I'd certainly agree he was a less than savory character. Being a genius doesn't preclude one from being a scuzzy little asshole.:)
Okay, I realized it was in a book that I no longer have, but if you want to get ahold of a copy it's Blood and Oil by Michael T. Klare.
IIRC it's fully footnoted, and there's much dedicated to the US-Saud relations in it. The footnotes should lead to more authoritative sources regarding US diplomatic promises to the House of Saud.
Really a good read regarding the history of US involvement in the Eastern Hemisphere as a result of the US oil-based economy.
If I had been paying more attention (or any apparently, since it was so obvious), I would have realized from your sig the nature of your stance on the issue. Unfortunately, barring something so obvious it is dangerous to assume either way about such a comment. There are many who could have written the same line and believed the basis of it wholeheartedly.
As for the reference, I'll have to dig it up tomorrow and post another reply (assuming I remember then). It was the only way the Saudis would allow the US troops onto Saudi soil following the invasion of Kuwait. Their monarchy is extraordinarily tenuous, and they must walk a fine line between accepting the arms and training the US provides (and demands that go along with them) and the animosity this causes between their subjects and the Saudi royals.
The US leadership was also walking a fine line, one which they knew full-well about. The US military needed the Saudi airbases to maintain the no-fly zone (IIRC, I may be wrong on this particular point, but it related to controlling Saddam's behaviour in the region) and wouldn't pull out until the regional threat Saddam posed had passed. Not coincidentally, the US military made a complete withdrawal from Saudi Arabia (minus the personnel they had there to train the Saudi National Guard and Air Force on US-provided weapons) within 3 weeks (maybe 3 months, it's been a while and lack of sleep makes my brain fall out) of the fall of Baghdad.
9/11 would not have happened if the US had kept the promise made to Saudi Arabia before the first Gulf War, which was that as soon as Saddam was ousted from Kuwait they would remove all their troops from Saudi soil. Bin Laden himself said straight up that the reason 9/11 happened was because US troops did not leave Saudi soil.
It was a funny one-liner despite perpetuating a grossly ignorant misconception held by many US residents...:)
That depends on several things. The main one is line-of-sight. If you don't have line-of-sight, you have to retransmit the signal. That can introduce problems that a novice might rather avoid tackling right away.
It doesn't require much radio experience to put up one of these links as long as you have a good line of sight and don't have to put up a repeater. You can get off-the-shelf 24dB parabolic antennas and easily shoot a 10 mile link (what I use myself, actually) without even skirting the edge of the transmit power limit set by the FCC (I don't recall what it is off the top of my head) for 2.4GHz transmissions. Though the longer the range the more the Fresnel Zone becomes an issue if the line-of-sight is not wide-open...
The only other consideration is where to mount the antenna where you can attach your WiFi card or router with the shortest length possible cable. You can buy pre-terminated LMR400 and whatever pigtail is necessary to connect it to your router/WiFi card/PCMCIA card.
Aiming is pretty easy if you can see the other side of the link, or perhaps the building or tower it's mounted on. Aiming can be kind of tricky if your link is long enough where you can't actually see the other side. It helps if you have a PCI or PCMCIA card, then you can use NetStumbler to find the signal. If you are fairly self-reliant (as most people in the boonies are) you probably won't have too much trouble getting it done.
Now if only the people at my ISP could figure out how to keep their nodes functional, everything would be peachy.:|
Never learned the physics concept of conservation of energy, eh?
The total output is the same as the total input. Most of the input is in the form of free energy from the sun. Minus the inefficiency of the energy transfer process, and unless you really screwed something up, you have more energy out than you personally invested into the process.
Nuclear is a limited pollution power source only under certain definitions of the term limited.
Spent nuclear rods aren't something you want. Ever. Unless you want to kill people (or other living things).
As far as pollution reduction via biodiesel, the burning of it produces a much smaller effect than petroleum products. That is because petroleum products are carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere. Burning it returns it to the atmosphere, and it takes much longer to remove it again than it does to crank it out. Crops grown for biodiesel consume CO2 during their growth, and release no more than they consumed when they are burned. So, the only net increase pollution produced depends on the method of production used to make the esters that make up the rest of the biodiesel content (I don't include the catalysts in that statement, since they're not carbon-based). All in all, even if the esters are petroleum-based, the net effect will be a smaller increase in CO2 levels than through the burning of a 100% petroleum fuel.
No method of power production will be free of emissions. That is the cyclical nature of existence. It should be a balanced cycle, such as a fast production of emissions coupled with a fast reduction (via plant growth) of emissions, rather than a slow reduction (petroleum production) coupled with a fast production. When the regenerative half of the cycle is significantly slower than the degenerative half of the cycle, things get out of whack.
That's actually an semi-urban legend. Yes, one of Diesel's early engines (mfg by FAC, Paris Exposition, 1900) was run on peanut oil (at the behest of the French government, due to their peanut colonies) as a means to demonstrate the fuel adaptability of the engine, but the engine was not designed specifically to run on peanut oil. It was designed so that it would run on any oil. There were even diesel engines designed to run on coal tar.
That said, Diesel saw non-petroleum fuels as the future in the last few years before he died.
There are theories that algae can be used to produce more oil per acre than any other medium, and non-petroleum oil is one of the basic ingredients of biodiesel.
It's only a bullshit artist if you have to pick it up as you go along. There are many people who pick it up long before they have an opportunity or articulable reason to use the knowledge. Just because you may have to bullshit in order to take part in a myriad of discussion topics does not mean that others also taking part in such a diverse array need do likewise.
I do have to say that gp's equating diverse discussions with the previous topic of diverse abilities is a bit of a non sequitur.
Also, your title reference goes back to ciroknight's post, which did actually talk about physical abilities rather than discussion abilities. So, in that regard it does fulfill your challenge about doing rather than talking.
Personally, I'm not sure there is a method for constructing a society without (sometimes massive) stratification, at least not at this point in human evolution.
That said, there certainly are things that can be done to raise the bottoms rungs out of the muck (at least those on the bottom rungs with the desire to get out). What exactly those things are is the great question.
The major problems can be laid squarely at the doorstep of government. Governments protect the profit potential of their contributors, and as they print more (inflate) currency, a larger percentage of that is funneled to those who already hold large amounts of liquid capital than goes to those who hold smaller amounts. Inflation makes each doller worth less, but because of the distribution of that inflated money the wealth gap grows wider (there are many other issues related to the wealth gap, this just happens to be one most people have zero control over).
Governments have granted corporations all of the rights that actual, real people have. Coupling that with a corporation's immortality and inability to be imprisoned leads to a huge competitive advantage over real people.
My first proposal would be to strip corporations of rights and term them as they should be: privileges, which can be revoked with just cause. Without rights, corporations could be banned from funneling a single cent into political campaigns, which is a leading cause of widespread political corruption (another part of the current vicious cycle).
ciroknight didn't actually say he worked at Apple as a programmer, either. He may do something completely different, while also having programming skills.
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I'm inclined to agree that they're scum. The problem with this mentality is that people who embrace it can rarely see far enough past the face of the issue to care about the possibility of innocence. People are wrongfully accused, and wrongfully imprisoned. There have even been people executed for crimes they did not commit. There is a reason that the "accused" have specific protections granted by the Constitution. Not all accused are guilty, nor are all those convicted necessarily guilty.
The other problem with the mentality of using cruelty in punishment is that it inures people to such treatment. Such societies usually have a barbaric side that would shock most anyone who has even a shred of decency in their soul.
As far as I'm aware, polar bear populations are in decline, not on the rise...
Reads like computer-generated text.
Truly, the knowledge that climate fluctuations exist is quite different from arguing that mankind causes them.
However, man certainly has an effect on them. The only argument that really matters is determining what that effect is, and whether or not it is likely to be catastrophic in nature.
While it is ignorant to claim that all or even a majority of climate change is as a result of mankind's positive production of greenhouse gases, it is also ignorant to claim that there is no effect.
Certainly, the possibility exists that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as a result of burned carbon stores could be speeding up the return of the next ice age (what happens after a warming peak). Unfortunately, the science really doesn't exist to definitively answer the question one way or the other, and by the time people start thinking about contingency plans it'll be too late.
So, I say let nature take its course. If mankind helps the trend, the abrupt climate changes will likely kill a large portion of the human population quicker than would otherwise happen, killing off a lot of those pesky under- or mal-developed genetic lines. Maybe humans will figure it out next time before it's too late. I don't see that happening this time though. Just another setback for those lines of evolution that didn't quite turn out to work in tune with the rest of the world.
In the macro view of Earth history, it will likely be a minor, and ultimately positive, bump in the road.
They do, however, mind going hungry.
The ice shelves are where they hunt seal until the summer melts. Earlier melts mean less fat stores. Less fat stores mean they can't make it as long without ice, which now takes longer to freeze again in the fall. So, polar bears start showing up more frequently in civilization to raid landfills, transfer stations, and dumpsters.
Oh, come now. It's not like court-appointed counsel actually needs to be awake to give adequate representation.
I mean, if they had court-appointed counsel it means they were poor, and how innocent can a poor person accused of murder be?
I believe it comes bundled with SoulBringer, a game I had never heard of and ended up having a blast playing. Another overlooked RPG with great character.
This is another YMMV. I've seen microwaves (new ones) that throw so much radiation that using a 2.4GHz cordless phone within sight of it is like talking on a horrible cell connection, forget trying to actually get a wireless signal.
And DC current won't hold its power through any wire longer than 500 feet!
:)
Only if you make certain assumptions about voltage, amperage, and wire size. Making those same assumptions, the same assertion can be made about AC and be just as true.
That is to say, the statement above is true only in cases of gross incompetence by the person specifying the materials for a certain electrical run.
I'd certainly agree he was a less than savory character. Being a genius doesn't preclude one from being a scuzzy little asshole.
There are also a number Eastern, Middle Eastern, (and I believe African) languages which include the "j" sound.
Okay, I realized it was in a book that I no longer have, but if you want to get ahold of a copy it's Blood and Oil by Michael T. Klare.
IIRC it's fully footnoted, and there's much dedicated to the US-Saud relations in it. The footnotes should lead to more authoritative sources regarding US diplomatic promises to the House of Saud.
Really a good read regarding the history of US involvement in the Eastern Hemisphere as a result of the US oil-based economy.
If I had been paying more attention (or any apparently, since it was so obvious), I would have realized from your sig the nature of your stance on the issue. Unfortunately, barring something so obvious it is dangerous to assume either way about such a comment. There are many who could have written the same line and believed the basis of it wholeheartedly.
As for the reference, I'll have to dig it up tomorrow and post another reply (assuming I remember then). It was the only way the Saudis would allow the US troops onto Saudi soil following the invasion of Kuwait. Their monarchy is extraordinarily tenuous, and they must walk a fine line between accepting the arms and training the US provides (and demands that go along with them) and the animosity this causes between their subjects and the Saudi royals.
The US leadership was also walking a fine line, one which they knew full-well about. The US military needed the Saudi airbases to maintain the no-fly zone (IIRC, I may be wrong on this particular point, but it related to controlling Saddam's behaviour in the region) and wouldn't pull out until the regional threat Saddam posed had passed. Not coincidentally, the US military made a complete withdrawal from Saudi Arabia (minus the personnel they had there to train the Saudi National Guard and Air Force on US-provided weapons) within 3 weeks (maybe 3 months, it's been a while and lack of sleep makes my brain fall out) of the fall of Baghdad.
Nah, got nothing to do with freedoms here.
:)
9/11 would not have happened if the US had kept the promise made to Saudi Arabia before the first Gulf War, which was that as soon as Saddam was ousted from Kuwait they would remove all their troops from Saudi soil. Bin Laden himself said straight up that the reason 9/11 happened was because US troops did not leave Saudi soil.
It was a funny one-liner despite perpetuating a grossly ignorant misconception held by many US residents...
Err, how practical is this?
:|
That depends on several things. The main one is line-of-sight. If you don't have line-of-sight, you have to retransmit the signal. That can introduce problems that a novice might rather avoid tackling right away.
It doesn't require much radio experience to put up one of these links as long as you have a good line of sight and don't have to put up a repeater. You can get off-the-shelf 24dB parabolic antennas and easily shoot a 10 mile link (what I use myself, actually) without even skirting the edge of the transmit power limit set by the FCC (I don't recall what it is off the top of my head) for 2.4GHz transmissions. Though the longer the range the more the Fresnel Zone becomes an issue if the line-of-sight is not wide-open...
The only other consideration is where to mount the antenna where you can attach your WiFi card or router with the shortest length possible cable. You can buy pre-terminated LMR400 and whatever pigtail is necessary to connect it to your router/WiFi card/PCMCIA card.
Aiming is pretty easy if you can see the other side of the link, or perhaps the building or tower it's mounted on. Aiming can be kind of tricky if your link is long enough where you can't actually see the other side. It helps if you have a PCI or PCMCIA card, then you can use NetStumbler to find the signal. If you are fairly self-reliant (as most people in the boonies are) you probably won't have too much trouble getting it done.
Now if only the people at my ISP could figure out how to keep their nodes functional, everything would be peachy.
Never learned the physics concept of conservation of energy, eh?
The total output is the same as the total input. Most of the input is in the form of free energy from the sun. Minus the inefficiency of the energy transfer process, and unless you really screwed something up, you have more energy out than you personally invested into the process.
No, no, those are breweries run by bears. Where do you think those sweet honey ale microbrews come from, anyway?
Nuclear is a limited pollution power source only under certain definitions of the term limited.
Spent nuclear rods aren't something you want. Ever. Unless you want to kill people (or other living things).
As far as pollution reduction via biodiesel, the burning of it produces a much smaller effect than petroleum products. That is because petroleum products are carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere. Burning it returns it to the atmosphere, and it takes much longer to remove it again than it does to crank it out. Crops grown for biodiesel consume CO2 during their growth, and release no more than they consumed when they are burned. So, the only net increase pollution produced depends on the method of production used to make the esters that make up the rest of the biodiesel content (I don't include the catalysts in that statement, since they're not carbon-based). All in all, even if the esters are petroleum-based, the net effect will be a smaller increase in CO2 levels than through the burning of a 100% petroleum fuel.
No method of power production will be free of emissions. That is the cyclical nature of existence. It should be a balanced cycle, such as a fast production of emissions coupled with a fast reduction (via plant growth) of emissions, rather than a slow reduction (petroleum production) coupled with a fast production. When the regenerative half of the cycle is significantly slower than the degenerative half of the cycle, things get out of whack.
That's actually an semi-urban legend. Yes, one of Diesel's early engines (mfg by FAC, Paris Exposition, 1900) was run on peanut oil (at the behest of the French government, due to their peanut colonies) as a means to demonstrate the fuel adaptability of the engine, but the engine was not designed specifically to run on peanut oil. It was designed so that it would run on any oil. There were even diesel engines designed to run on coal tar.
That said, Diesel saw non-petroleum fuels as the future in the last few years before he died.
but why algae
There are theories that algae can be used to produce more oil per acre than any other medium, and non-petroleum oil is one of the basic ingredients of biodiesel.
What does this have to do with the post you're replying to?
If you were under the impression Michael was talking about petroleum, go back and read the post again.
It's only a bullshit artist if you have to pick it up as you go along. There are many people who pick it up long before they have an opportunity or articulable reason to use the knowledge. Just because you may have to bullshit in order to take part in a myriad of discussion topics does not mean that others also taking part in such a diverse array need do likewise.
I do have to say that gp's equating diverse discussions with the previous topic of diverse abilities is a bit of a non sequitur.
Also, your title reference goes back to ciroknight's post, which did actually talk about physical abilities rather than discussion abilities. So, in that regard it does fulfill your challenge about doing rather than talking.
Personally, I'm not sure there is a method for constructing a society without (sometimes massive) stratification, at least not at this point in human evolution.
That said, there certainly are things that can be done to raise the bottoms rungs out of the muck (at least those on the bottom rungs with the desire to get out). What exactly those things are is the great question.
The major problems can be laid squarely at the doorstep of government. Governments protect the profit potential of their contributors, and as they print more (inflate) currency, a larger percentage of that is funneled to those who already hold large amounts of liquid capital than goes to those who hold smaller amounts. Inflation makes each doller worth less, but because of the distribution of that inflated money the wealth gap grows wider (there are many other issues related to the wealth gap, this just happens to be one most people have zero control over).
Governments have granted corporations all of the rights that actual, real people have. Coupling that with a corporation's immortality and inability to be imprisoned leads to a huge competitive advantage over real people.
My first proposal would be to strip corporations of rights and term them as they should be: privileges, which can be revoked with just cause. Without rights, corporations could be banned from funneling a single cent into political campaigns, which is a leading cause of widespread political corruption (another part of the current vicious cycle).
ciroknight didn't actually say he worked at Apple as a programmer, either. He may do something completely different, while also having programming skills.
Haven't been around long, eh? ;)
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