The one piece missing from this analysis is current taxation methodology. Labor is heavily taxed in the US and this distorts the labor market. Quit taxing labor and I believe outsourcing would NOT be a problem. What to tax then? Simple, tax the one thing nobody is making any more of - land.
Could a circuit be devised that would take an external frequency outside of hearing range, and enable it to be fed into the audio input of a soundcard, so a media player's oscilloscope would work?
A sample-hold should do it. Run the sample-hold at the same frequency that you are running the sound card sampling. Essentially you fold the higher frequencies into the sound cards range and since you are doing an ocilloscope you use software to offset each cycle of sampling and build up your picture of a cycle over several cycles. By the time you had that all figured out you'd be better off with the scope card and software. Especially since the sound card won't do DC-30Hz. Interesting idea though.
Mores the pity. It has been argued that an easy to learn ubiquitous second language would be instrumental in keeping alive both the languages and cultures of smaller societies. Esperanto of course was designed explicitly to fill that bill but sadly (IMHO) the idea of an easy to learn second language elicits a strong negative reaction in many people and resistance to adopting it is high. A google search with the words esperanto and psychological yields some interesting opinion pieces on that subject.
Might make you feel better but it annoys me when I attempt to contact someone only to have my mail bounce because I didn't notice their obfuscated mail address.
Personally I use Active Spam Killer (http://http://sourceforge.net/projects/a-s-k) and generally don't care who gets my email address. I get two or three spams a week due to false hits on my white list which I could clean up with a little effort. I'll say it again - if enough folks used ASK or a similar mechanism then spammers would be without a purpose. Unless of course I'm missing something...
Don't be so quick to dismiss wood! Take one 30' coil of steel tubing (auto store), used weed eater two stroke engine, make a bash valve, injector, and condensor (water cooled) and a few hours of lathe and mill work and some brazing. Add a used alternator, and some controls and add a deep cycle battery and a 1000W or so inverter ($100 online). Google will reveal the details. Now a cord of wood will not only keep you warm all winter but also run your PC, lights and a small fridge/freezer. Much more sensible than a solar/wind system:) If I wasn't so dang busy helping my wife get her business off the ground I'd have mine built by now:(
O.k., now I'm both confused and feeling a little dumbfounded. The Pledge of Allegiance isn't a formal part of being an American? I admit I didn't go to school here (the US) but don't they say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools? This is interesting because I have heard this differentiation between Republic and Democracy made before and I had sort of just passed it off as being mincing words. Thank you for your added perspective!
Thanks for pointing that out. I've seen that distinction made before but never really thought it through. The analysis here: www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/depvsdem.htm is fairly clear. It seems to me that IRV is even more important to a Republic than a Democracy. After all the nature of a two party system is to wash out the effects of smaller groups. Quite the antithesis of a Republic.
Right on the money. Until we have instant run-off voting we do NOT have a democracy in the United States. You have only two choices: dem or rep. Both suck, personally I think the Democrats suck a litle less but Nader (who I don't necessarily endorse) said it quite well: "The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is the speed at which their knees hit the floor to accept corporate money." or something to that effect
You really seem quite tolerant of economic leeches. The landlord/land speculator has not only kept people from doing economically productive activities by keeping usable land out of circulation but is now effectively forcing people to move to other areas of the country. And this benefits our economy how? Did you study the remedy proposed by Henry George? The landlord or land speculator still retains full control of the resource in question. They can choose to utilise it or sell it at any time.
Are there any resources that are "just sitting there" today? In our highly populated world there are no such resources that I know of. As for the spirt of your question I suspect you and I have different values. A coding guru cranking out some complex code to solve someones problem, a CEO making tough choices on how to address changes in the market, an actor bringing a story alive on the screen, or a truck driver delivering goods to my door, all these and many more contribute to the economy in a fundamental way. In many cases the land speculator or land holder is actively keeping the resource from being used to increase its value. This actively harms the economy(*) and benefits no one except the land holder. I do not value land speculation because I believe it harms the economy.
(*) The classic example of this is the empty lot in a city or the lot with a broken down building on it. The owner is holding out for windfall profits (i.e. speculating) and meanwhile people who could be profitably utilizing that land or building are kept from participating in the economy.
In that reality, retraining is fruitless. But we're racing to the bottom, creating a plutocratic society where government and industry collude to create a handful of very wealthy people and a sea of working poor, with little in between
IMHO it doesn't have to end that way. A little re-shuffling of how we tax people (start by eliminating the income tax) and there will be no "poor" and, best of all, there will be no undeserving(*) rich. See http://www.henrygeorge.org for details. WARNING: It takes some effort to really understand how it works, a five minute read will leave you with nothing but wrong ideas.
(*) By undeserving rich I mean people who get rich not by working hard and producing something of value but who get (or stay) rich by controlling resources. E.g. someone inherited some valuable land and makes money by renting it out to others but does no real work in the process.
FACT 3: For practical purposes, there is an unlimited supply of people who can learn your job.
100% correct and yet totally wrong. The root cause is completely skipped in almost every discussion on this topic. Unfortunately it takes a couple of hours of reading, some concerted effort to open the mind and a few days of reflection to *get* it - "it" being the cause and the solution I am alluding to. Briefly, take your three points and extrapolate and you can't help but draw the conclusion that all resources rightfully go only to those who have learned to do something remarkable as you put it. The solution is very simple, but again, unless you spend the time to really understand the model you will just reject it. Nobody deserves to be shut out of their portion of the resources of the planet. Your approach does exactly that. In fact if carried to its logical extreme your three facts can deny people the right to live - 100% in violation of the principles in the US Constitution. Spend an hour learning the alternative view at http://henrygeorge.org and then if you disagree please post back here.
1. The "I don't understand it, we're all gonna die" crowd and...
2. The "I understand it, I don't trust those irresponsible buggers, if we don't do something we're all gonna die" crowd.
Large corporations (and some small ones) have repeated proven themselves to be untrustworthy and irresponsible. Crowd #2 have every reason to fear what they fear.
Yup, all available fronts is good. Now, how about as many folks as possible start using the Active Spam Killer? I've been using it for a month or two and it seems great. If enough people used it then the wind would be taken out of the spammers sails (sales?) so to speak and the problem of spam would go away. Why spam if the message ain't getting through. So, hop over to sourceforge and download/install a-s-k, and do your part in the war against spam.
I find your blind faith in the Corporations disturbing. My observation has been that the Corps are only too happy to roll out stuff long before all the unintended consequences have been identified. GM foods may or may not have problems. Still, why not let the free market decide? The free market requires information flow to operate (one of the fundamental tenents IIRC) so merely label foods apropriately and the market will let you know how much trust the general public has in Corporate decision making.
Being responsible for several email lists I'd second those thoughts and add that I don't understand why more people are not using Active Spam Killer. I've been using it for a couple months and love it. No spam, no hassles (once set up admittedly) and no fear of missing a legit. email.
What should be taxed? Easy answer: land. Never tax human labor or the products of human labor. After all we *want* people to be producing and taxing something tends to diminish it (you going to work longer and harder when you are taxed up the wazoo(sp?)? Land isn't produced by anyone. It is the only thing you can tax and actually cause the economy to grow. For details on this point of view spend some time at http://www.henrygeorge.org. At first glance the Georgist point of view might seem socialist or even communist but on closer examination it is the quite the antithesis of either of those ideas.
Where did you get this information? I'm not sure I believe it. Any way as the plants grow we harvest them (think wood products) and a pretty healthy percentage of that fixed carbon is fixed for a pretty long time. Want to do your part for global warming? Buy wood stuff and KEEP it!
If you continue to import H2 from space then eventually all the O2 on planet earth will be tied up in water! My original point: energy has ALREADY been stored and is available as coal and we can tap into that. The O2 made available as part of that process (photosynthesis) is as much a part of the energy resource as the coal or oil itself.
Whats so bad about coal? The technology is available to burn it cleanly (albeit not cheap) and CO2 and H2O can be recycled by plant growth. In fact according to a recent article (dang, can't find it) plant growth on the planet is up 6% due to extra CO2 availablity and possibly global warming.
The whole hydrogen economy thing is bull. As has been pointed out over and over again hydrogen is NOT a source of energy. It is a means of transporting and storing energy. Coal, natural gas, nuclear fission/fusion, solar, etc. etc. are sources of energy. Unless there is a big break through fuel cells will always be too expensive to compete with internal combustion engines for automotive transportation (see recent EE times article on this).
Sad to say but it is looking more and more unlikely that technology can solve problems created by too many people competing for the limited land and natural resources on the planet.
As has been mentioned elsewhere in this discussion: take a look at http://sourceforge.net/projects/a-s-k. Those guys have already figured out most of the questions being asked here. Setting up ASK is on my to-do list for sure...
Nuclear plants may be clean in responsible hands. Unfortunately Corporations and Governments often seem to prove themselves rather less than responsible and careful. Too bad really. There would be no need for constrictive environmental laws if people (individuals, Corporations and Governments) would be conscientious in their actions.
As for those batteries, I wonder what will be more efficient: My wood fired steam power plant (2kW, under construction) or farming some grain or plant that can be easily converted by fermentation to alcohol and putting the alcohol into one of those batterys. I'd be delighted to get 15% overall effiency from the steam system (80% if you count the waste heat heating the pool!).
Does zsh support the $f:r syntax? I'm not sure what to look for but it sure looks useful. BTW someone above didn't like the multiple zsh man pages. If you look a little closer you might notice that zshall gives all the man pages in one massive page - at least on my debian system.
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The one piece missing from this analysis is current taxation methodology. Labor is heavily taxed in the US and this distorts the labor market. Quit taxing labor and I believe outsourcing would NOT be a problem. What to tax then? Simple, tax the one thing nobody is making any more of - land.
It comes up in a quiz at www.henrygeorge.org
Could a circuit be devised that would take an external frequency outside of hearing range, and enable it to be fed into the audio input of a soundcard, so a media player's oscilloscope would work?
A sample-hold should do it. Run the sample-hold at the same frequency that you are running the sound card sampling. Essentially you fold the higher frequencies into the sound cards range and since you are doing an ocilloscope you use software to offset each cycle of sampling and build up your picture of a cycle over several cycles. By the time you had that all figured out you'd be better off with the scope card and software. Especially since the sound card won't do DC-30Hz. Interesting idea though.
Mores the pity. It has been argued that an easy to learn ubiquitous second language would be instrumental in keeping alive both the languages and cultures of smaller societies. Esperanto of course was designed explicitly to fill that bill but sadly (IMHO) the idea of an easy to learn second language elicits a strong negative reaction in many people and resistance to adopting it is high. A google search with the words esperanto and psychological yields some interesting opinion pieces on that subject.
"obfuscation makes us feel better..."
Might make you feel better but it annoys me when I attempt to contact someone only to have my mail bounce because I didn't notice their obfuscated mail address.
Personally I use Active Spam Killer (http://http://sourceforge.net/projects/a-s-k) and generally don't care who gets my email address. I get two or three spams a week due to false hits on my white list which I could clean up with a little effort. I'll say it again - if enough folks used ASK or a similar mechanism then spammers would be without a purpose. Unless of course I'm missing something...
Don't be so quick to dismiss wood! Take one 30' coil of steel tubing (auto store), used weed eater two stroke engine, make a bash valve, injector, and condensor (water cooled) and a few hours of lathe and mill work and some brazing. Add a used alternator, and some controls and add a deep cycle battery and a 1000W or so inverter ($100 online). Google will reveal the details. Now a cord of wood will not only keep you warm all winter but also run your PC, lights and a small fridge/freezer. Much more sensible than a solar/wind system :) :(
If I wasn't so dang busy helping my wife get her business off the ground I'd have mine built by now
O.k., now I'm both confused and feeling a little dumbfounded. The Pledge of Allegiance isn't a formal part of being an American? I admit I didn't go to school here (the US) but don't they say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools? This is interesting because I have heard this differentiation between Republic and Democracy made before and I had sort of just passed it off as being mincing words. Thank you for your added perspective!
Thanks for pointing that out. I've seen that distinction made before but never really thought it through. The analysis here:m is fairly clear. It seems to me that IRV is even more important to a Republic than a Democracy. After all the nature of a two party system is to wash out the effects of smaller groups. Quite the antithesis of a Republic.
www.chrononhotonthologos.com/lawnotes/depvsdem.ht
Right on the money. Until we have instant run-off voting we do NOT have a democracy in the United States. You have only two choices: dem or rep. Both suck, personally I think the Democrats suck a litle less but Nader (who I don't necessarily endorse) said it quite well: "The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is the speed at which their knees hit the floor to accept corporate money." or something to that effect
You really seem quite tolerant of economic leeches. The landlord/land speculator has not only kept people from doing economically productive activities by keeping usable land out of circulation but is now effectively forcing people to move to other areas of the country. And this benefits our economy how? Did you study the remedy proposed by Henry George? The landlord or land speculator still retains full control of the resource in question. They can choose to utilise it or sell it at any time.
Are there any resources that are "just sitting there" today? In our highly populated world there are no such resources that I know of. As for the spirt of your question I suspect you and I have different values. A coding guru cranking out some complex code to solve someones problem, a CEO making tough choices on how to address changes in the market, an actor bringing a story alive on the screen, or a truck driver delivering goods to my door, all these and many more contribute to the economy in a fundamental way. In many cases the land speculator or land holder is actively keeping the resource from being used to increase its value. This actively harms the economy(*) and benefits no one except the land holder. I do not value land speculation because I believe it harms the economy.
(*) The classic example of this is the empty lot in a city or the lot with a broken down building on it. The owner is holding out for windfall profits (i.e. speculating) and meanwhile people who could be profitably utilizing that land or building are kept from participating in the economy.
In that reality, retraining is fruitless. But we're racing to the bottom, creating a plutocratic society where government and industry collude to create a handful of very wealthy people and a sea of working poor, with little in between
IMHO it doesn't have to end that way. A little re-shuffling of how we tax people (start by eliminating the income tax) and there will be no "poor" and, best of all, there will be no undeserving(*) rich. See http://www.henrygeorge.org for details. WARNING: It takes some effort to really understand how it works, a five minute read will leave you with nothing but wrong ideas.
(*) By undeserving rich I mean people who get rich not by working hard and producing something of value but who get (or stay) rich by controlling resources. E.g. someone inherited some valuable land and makes money by renting it out to others but does no real work in the process.
FACT 1: Your job is not hard.
FACT 2: There is a limited demand for your job.
FACT 3: For practical purposes, there is an unlimited supply of people who can learn your job.
100% correct and yet totally wrong. The root cause is completely skipped in almost every discussion on this topic. Unfortunately it takes a couple of hours of reading, some concerted effort to open the mind and a few days of reflection to *get* it - "it" being the cause and the solution I am alluding to. Briefly, take your three points and extrapolate and you can't help but draw the conclusion that all resources rightfully go only to those who have learned to do something remarkable as you put it. The solution is very simple, but again, unless you spend the time to really understand the model you will just reject it. Nobody deserves to be shut out of their portion of the resources of the planet. Your approach does exactly that. In fact if carried to its logical extreme your three facts can deny people the right to live - 100% in violation of the principles in the US Constitution. Spend an hour learning the alternative view at http://henrygeorge.org and then if you disagree please post back here.
There are two kinds of Luddites:
1. The "I don't understand it, we're all gonna die" crowd and...
2. The "I understand it, I don't trust those irresponsible buggers, if we don't do something we're all gonna die" crowd.
Large corporations (and some small ones) have repeated proven themselves to be untrustworthy and irresponsible. Crowd #2 have every reason to fear what they fear.
Yup, all available fronts is good. Now, how about as many folks as possible start using the Active Spam Killer? I've been using it for a month or two and it seems great. If enough people used it then the wind would be taken out of the spammers sails (sales?) so to speak and the problem of spam would go away. Why spam if the message ain't getting through. So, hop over to sourceforge and download/install a-s-k, and do your part in the war against spam.
I find your blind faith in the Corporations disturbing. My observation has been that the Corps are only too happy to roll out stuff long before all the unintended consequences have been identified. GM foods may or may not have problems. Still, why not let the free market decide? The free market requires information flow to operate (one of the fundamental tenents IIRC) so merely label foods apropriately and the market will let you know how much trust the general public has in Corporate decision making.
Being responsible for several email lists I'd second those thoughts and add that I don't understand why more people are not using Active Spam Killer. I've been using it for a couple months and love it. No spam, no hassles (once set up admittedly) and no fear of missing a legit. email.
What should be taxed? Easy answer: land. Never tax human labor or the products of human labor. After all we *want* people to be producing and taxing something tends to diminish it (you going to work longer and harder when you are taxed up the wazoo(sp?)? Land isn't produced by anyone. It is the only thing you can tax and actually cause the economy to grow. For details on this point of view spend some time at http://www.henrygeorge.org. At first glance the Georgist point of view might seem socialist or even communist but on closer examination it is the quite the antithesis of either of those ideas.
Where did you get this information? I'm not sure I believe it. Any way as the plants grow we harvest them (think wood products) and a pretty healthy percentage of that fixed carbon is fixed for a pretty long time. Want to do your part for global warming? Buy wood stuff and KEEP it!
If you continue to import H2 from space then eventually all the O2 on planet earth will be tied up in water! My original point: energy has ALREADY been stored and is available as coal and we can tap into that. The O2 made available as part of that process (photosynthesis) is as much a part of the energy resource as the coal or oil itself.
Whats so bad about coal? The technology is available to burn it cleanly (albeit not cheap) and CO2 and H2O can be recycled by plant growth. In fact according to a recent article (dang, can't find it) plant growth on the planet is up 6% due to extra CO2 availablity and possibly global warming.
Couldn't agree more.
The whole hydrogen economy thing is bull. As has been pointed out over and over again hydrogen is NOT a source of energy. It is a means of transporting and storing energy. Coal, natural gas, nuclear fission/fusion, solar, etc. etc. are sources of energy. Unless there is a big break through fuel cells will always be too expensive to compete with internal combustion engines for automotive transportation (see recent EE times article on this).
Sad to say but it is looking more and more unlikely that technology can solve problems created by too many people competing for the limited land and natural resources on the planet.
Just my 2 femto pennies worth.
As has been mentioned elsewhere in this discussion: take a look at http://sourceforge.net/projects/a-s-k. Those guys have already figured out most of the questions being asked here. Setting up ASK is on my to-do list for sure...
Nuclear plants may be clean in responsible hands. Unfortunately Corporations and Governments often seem to prove themselves rather less than responsible and careful. Too bad really. There would be no need for constrictive environmental laws if people (individuals, Corporations and Governments) would be conscientious in their actions.
As for those batteries, I wonder what will be more efficient: My wood fired steam power plant (2kW, under construction) or farming some grain or plant that can be easily converted by fermentation to alcohol and putting the alcohol into one of those batterys. I'd be delighted to get 15% overall effiency from the steam system (80% if you count the waste heat heating the pool!).
Does zsh support the $f:r syntax? I'm not sure what to look for but it sure looks useful. BTW someone above didn't like the multiple zsh man pages. If you look a little closer you might notice that zshall gives all the man pages in one massive page - at least on my debian system.