Remember that the Royal Society is a non-profit organization, and does more than just publish journals. They also fund research, organize meetings, and do public outreach. What the Royal Society said is that they use the revenue from their journals to subsidise these other activities, and if the revenue from journals went away, they would most likely have to cut back on public outreach etc.
They're not saying they're against free information flow. They are saying that for them it will have a significant impact on the scope of their activities.
Has anyone submitted "thou shalt not murder" to a rigorous economic analysis? Why not? Maybe we could show that in some circumstances murder has a net positive economic benefit. Should it then be allowed?
A while ago in an article in the Economist they picked out the phrase
just because it's a market-based solution doesn't mean it's a socially desirable one.
Economics is not the be-all and end-all of everything.
(Also, the subject line is slightly misleading. The Royal Society is the UK's equivalent of a National Academy of Sciences.)
Why not just use the same money to place contracts with the major private space companies? why have a State run organisation at all?
Because a state-run organization is cheaper? Lockheed/Boeing/etc are out to make a profit. That means that they won't accept a fixed-price contract to do this work (too high risk). Instead, they'll insist on the usual cost-plus contract. Which means that now tax money is used to both pay for the space exploration, and also to pay a dividend to the companies' shareholders. Doing it in-house (NASA) means that it's done at cost (not cost-plus).
(Disclaimer: I work for a non-profit NASA contractor)
Just set up a big prize for the first team to land a man on the moon and safely return him to the earth.
And how big would this prize have to be in order to make someone interested in competing for it? Remember that they have to factor in the chance that they might fail, or that someone else might do it first. Remember that Burt Rutan said that going in to orbit (which is still a long way from the moon) is at least an order of magnitude more difficult than what space ship one did. Looks to me like the prize you would have to offer is on the order of what NASA would spend to do the job themselves.
Remeber also, that with current costs for access to space, any ideas of commercializing space (other than communications satellites/remote sensing satellites) are non-starters. The cost to get into space, to keep workers alive out there, and to bring back whatever it is you have mined, mean that the economics are just not there.
The only way this will change is if someone comes up with a whole new way of getting mass into orbit. If they can do that, they won't need any incentive in terms of a prize, because their development expenditure will pay for itself very quickly.
Face facts. Putting people in space is expensive. It's also a one-off proposition; there will never be lots of companies competing on price to take people into space. Free market economics don't apply here. It's just as economical for the government to do it itself (via NASA) than for a company to do it, and send the bill to the government.
Go get a real job and stop destroying the US's pioneering heritage, and don't you dare lobby my Congressman with your time and travel paid for by my taxes
For your information, NASA employees are forbidden by law from lobbying congress, so that's one use of your taxes that you don't have to worry about.
(Disclaimer: I work for a NASA contractor on-site at a NASA location.)
I emailed the list of MEPs for North West England that I found on the web (I don't remember where I found it -- it was linked in a reply to an earlier./ article).
I got a lot of bounce messages.
I also got two replies. One from Den Dover (conservative), who gave a one-line reply saying "I will be doing as you say" (ie voting against), and a reply from Gary Titley, who said that it's not over until the Parliament and the Council approve it in identical terms. He also said that the parliament has aked to Council to come and give a statement (which hasn't yet happened).
Maybe the rest of them don't read their email. Or don't think that email is a proper form of correspondance -- UK MPs are required to reply to correspondance from constituents. I don't know if this also holds for MEPs.
The email I sent was as follows:
Today, the European Council decided that form was more important than
content, and decided to approve the Computer Implemented Patents
Directive. This was despite a previous no vote in the European
Parliament, and opposition from 3 member states, who were told,
incorrectly, that an A-item could not be reclassified as a B-item (and
therefore re-opened for discussion).
I remind you that when this directive came last before the European
Parliament, the parliament voted against it. The Council decided to
ignore the will of the European Parliament, and approve the measure.
For the Parliament to exercise its will, and to affirm that the
elected parliament should take precedence over the unelected council,
it is imperative that you vote against this directive when it is
returned to the Parliament. It is imperative that you vote, as now an
absolute majority is needed to overturn the directive.
The Computer Implemented Patents Directive would allow software
patents. In practice, software patents hurt small to medium sized
software firms, and will seriously hurt Europe's software industry,
which is made up of primarily small to medium sized firms.
Please vote against the directive. Due to the absolute majority
requirement, an abstention is not sufficent. Please vote against.
Has no one out there read Day of the Triffids to know what happens when you go and look at military-generated light-shows-in-the-sky?
It's not big, and it's not clever. And it leaves you blind (and susceptible to plants that attack humans; but that part of the sci-fi novel hasn't been implemented yet).
Completely off-topic, but I hope you see this message.
I was diagnosed with OSA last summer (aren't sleep studies fun:), after, looking back on it, having the problem for the last 15-20 years.
When discussing treatment options, the doctor was pushing CPAP, but also discussed "oral applicances" -- essentially two mouthguards, one for the top teeth and one for the bottom, that are attached together at the front. The net effect is to move your lower jaw forward, so that your tongue doesn't fall back into your throat. They're only good for mild to moderate OSA.
I didn't like the idea of being hooked to a compressor at night, so I decided to try one of these.
It's made a huge difference to how well I sleep, and how awake I am during the day. They're not suitable for everyone, but it does elminate the problems with dust that you seem to be having.
but it's *not* unreasonable to expect a newcomer to invest in the pot for some time before they can take from it.
You need to pay into the US Social Security system for 10 years before you can get a dime back in retirement benefits. An H1 visa is for 6 years. Anyone who stays on an H1 visa will therefore pay lots of money into the social security system, and see nothing back. How does this not meet your criteria?
The reason that creationism wasn't mentioned is that the article is in the Guardian -- a newspaper published in England. Fortunately, the evangelical lobby is much smaller there than in the US, and so the push for creationism in schools is that much smaller as well.
Any politician in England seriously suggesting that creationism be taught alongside evolution would get laughed at.
I'd imagine that cleanup costs are included to the extent that the vendors of the related energy sources are required to pay for such cleanup
Which means that you're very nieve. In economics there's something called externalities, which is where you transfer some of your costs onto someone else.
Power generation and cars are the classic examples -- the power plants do not have to pay for the effects of global warming. Car manufacturers/drivers/gas companies do not have to pay for the effects of smog (ill health, etc), those costs are passed on to the general population to pay for out of your taxes, etc.
And the more of these costs a company can pass off onto other people, the more profit it makes.
There is a great deal of evidence that the precincts that had the highest rate of "spoiled" ballots where predominantly African American. Whilst a ballot-counting machine can't determine the "will of the voter" if there is a hanging chad, a manual recount certainly can. Also, a punch card is rejected if any ballot is unclear - so even if the chad for dog-catcher is hanging, the one for president may be very clear indeed. It's important that these spoiled ballots are counted.
And then there's the situation with the provisional ballots.
If you look at this page you'll see that it's broadcast twice (Tuesday at 6.30pm and Thursday at 11pm, both times local to England (GMT+1)), and is then available from a link on that page for a whole week afterwards. Plenty of time for you to listenn to it, or for someone to grab the stream and put it up on the web somewhere.
And there I was thinking that the link to http://www.thehaefners.com/gallery/ had something to do with somoene with a slightly different spelling of their surname, and a penchant for bunnies.
Imagine the pictures you'd get from flying a kite around that Heffner's house.
Following the theme of the earlier
discussion, should this be called a "computer science" AP exam, or a "computer programming" exam? Calling it "computer science" gives the students the impression that CS is about programming; programming is only a very small part of computer science.
Many years ago I took "o-level" computer studies, which nicely finessed the issue.
What tends to hapen with new launch vehicles is that for the first few launches, they give much reduced launch fees to organizations such as AMSAT or other scientific organizations. These people have satellites that, while having cost them a great deal of money, have lesser problems if they fail than commercial satellites. The first launch (failure) of Ariane 5 was carrying payloads with a high experimental content.
I also heard a talk last summer which was looking at just this problem -- modelling the probability of failure of launch vehicles. The conclusion was (basically) that the learning curve is very steep -- a company that has had 3 launches (successful or not, as it happens -- the unsuccessful ones go out of buisiness quicker than that) has almost the same reliability as a company that's been launching for many years. There's a pdf linked from the conference page. The main data points are that after the first two launches, new companies have a success rate of 0.88, and established companies, a success rate of 0.89.
The highest honor we can give TBL is not a three letter prefix Sir, but the recogniton that his work, kick started all this web stuff and his ideas for the furture of the web are more important than making a fast buck.
The "three letter prefix" is exactly what you describe -- a very public recognition of what his ideas have achieved.
Slashdot Mirror
They're not saying they're against free information flow. They are saying that for them it will have a significant impact on the scope of their activities.
A while ago in an article in the Economist they picked out the phrase
Economics is not the be-all and end-all of everything.(Also, the subject line is slightly misleading. The Royal Society is the UK's equivalent of a National Academy of Sciences.)
Because a state-run organization is cheaper? Lockheed/Boeing/etc are out to make a profit. That means that they won't accept a fixed-price contract to do this work (too high risk). Instead, they'll insist on the usual cost-plus contract. Which means that now tax money is used to both pay for the space exploration, and also to pay a dividend to the companies' shareholders. Doing it in-house (NASA) means that it's done at cost (not cost-plus).
(Disclaimer: I work for a non-profit NASA contractor)
And how big would this prize have to be in order to make someone interested in competing for it? Remember that they have to factor in the chance that they might fail, or that someone else might do it first. Remember that Burt Rutan said that going in to orbit (which is still a long way from the moon) is at least an order of magnitude more difficult than what space ship one did. Looks to me like the prize you would have to offer is on the order of what NASA would spend to do the job themselves.
Remeber also, that with current costs for access to space, any ideas of commercializing space (other than communications satellites/remote sensing satellites) are non-starters. The cost to get into space, to keep workers alive out there, and to bring back whatever it is you have mined, mean that the economics are just not there.
The only way this will change is if someone comes up with a whole new way of getting mass into orbit. If they can do that, they won't need any incentive in terms of a prize, because their development expenditure will pay for itself very quickly.
Face facts. Putting people in space is expensive. It's also a one-off proposition; there will never be lots of companies competing on price to take people into space. Free market economics don't apply here. It's just as economical for the government to do it itself (via NASA) than for a company to do it, and send the bill to the government.
Go get a real job and stop destroying the US's pioneering heritage, and don't you dare lobby my Congressman with your time and travel paid for by my taxes
For your information, NASA employees are forbidden by law from lobbying congress, so that's one use of your taxes that you don't have to worry about.
(Disclaimer: I work for a NASA contractor on-site at a NASA location.)
In the USA, you have a year after publication to file for a patent. Assuming it was you who published it in the first place.
In the USA, you have a year after publication to file for a patent.
In this case, that means that the Canadian office of the Washington Post should be sued. And quite rightly if they published something false.
I got a lot of bounce messages.
I also got two replies. One from Den Dover (conservative), who gave a one-line reply saying "I will be doing as you say" (ie voting against), and a reply from Gary Titley, who said that it's not over until the Parliament and the Council approve it in identical terms. He also said that the parliament has aked to Council to come and give a statement (which hasn't yet happened).
Maybe the rest of them don't read their email. Or don't think that email is a proper form of correspondance -- UK MPs are required to reply to correspondance from constituents. I don't know if this also holds for MEPs.
The email I sent was as follows:
Today, the European Council decided that form was more important than content, and decided to approve the Computer Implemented Patents Directive. This was despite a previous no vote in the European Parliament, and opposition from 3 member states, who were told, incorrectly, that an A-item could not be reclassified as a B-item (and therefore re-opened for discussion).
I remind you that when this directive came last before the European Parliament, the parliament voted against it. The Council decided to ignore the will of the European Parliament, and approve the measure.
For the Parliament to exercise its will, and to affirm that the elected parliament should take precedence over the unelected council, it is imperative that you vote against this directive when it is returned to the Parliament. It is imperative that you vote, as now an absolute majority is needed to overturn the directive.
The Computer Implemented Patents Directive would allow software patents. In practice, software patents hurt small to medium sized software firms, and will seriously hurt Europe's software industry, which is made up of primarily small to medium sized firms.
Please vote against the directive. Due to the absolute majority requirement, an abstention is not sufficent. Please vote against.
Sincerely,
Robin Morris
It's not big, and it's not clever. And it leaves you blind (and susceptible to plants that attack humans; but that part of the sci-fi novel hasn't been implemented yet).
I was diagnosed with OSA last summer (aren't sleep studies fun:), after, looking back on it, having the problem for the last 15-20 years.
When discussing treatment options, the doctor was pushing CPAP, but also discussed "oral applicances" -- essentially two mouthguards, one for the top teeth and one for the bottom, that are attached together at the front. The net effect is to move your lower jaw forward, so that your tongue doesn't fall back into your throat. They're only good for mild to moderate OSA.
I didn't like the idea of being hooked to a compressor at night, so I decided to try one of these.
It's made a huge difference to how well I sleep, and how awake I am during the day. They're not suitable for everyone, but it does elminate the problems with dust that you seem to be having.
See google and sleep-breathing.bc.ca
Robin
You need to pay into the US Social Security system for 10 years before you can get a dime back in retirement benefits. An H1 visa is for 6 years. Anyone who stays on an H1 visa will therefore pay lots of money into the social security system, and see nothing back. How does this not meet your criteria?
Any politician in England seriously suggesting that creationism be taught alongside evolution would get laughed at.
Which means that you're very nieve. In economics there's something called externalities, which is where you transfer some of your costs onto someone else.
Power generation and cars are the classic examples -- the power plants do not have to pay for the effects of global warming. Car manufacturers/drivers/gas companies do not have to pay for the effects of smog (ill health, etc), those costs are passed on to the general population to pay for out of your taxes, etc.
And the more of these costs a company can pass off onto other people, the more profit it makes.
And then there's the situation with the provisional ballots.
See Just count the ballots at the back of the bus.
If you've never seen it, watch it and be very afraid.
If you look at this page you'll see that it's broadcast twice (Tuesday at 6.30pm and Thursday at 11pm, both times local to England (GMT+1)), and is then available from a link on that page for a whole week afterwards. Plenty of time for you to listenn to it, or for someone to grab the stream and put it up on the web somewhere.
As a British ex-pat, I listen to NPR all the time, but it's not the same as Radio 4. Radio 4 is what NPR want's to be, but doesn't manage to achieve.
Imagine the pictures you'd get from flying a kite around that Heffner's house.
"less" is used with continuous quantities ("less flour"); "fewer" is used with discrete quantities ("fewer marbles").
So "less lawyers" implies that lawyers are continuously divisible. I'll have 2.7223 lawyers, please. Hmm, maybe you have an idea here...
I disagree with the war in Iraq. Can I refuse to help pay for that?
Would you say the same about someone who used "nigger" in a casual context? If not, why not?
Many years ago I took "o-level" computer studies, which nicely finessed the issue.
I also heard a talk last summer which was looking at just this problem -- modelling the probability of failure of launch vehicles. The conclusion was (basically) that the learning curve is very steep -- a company that has had 3 launches (successful or not, as it happens -- the unsuccessful ones go out of buisiness quicker than that) has almost the same reliability as a company that's been launching for many years. There's a pdf linked from the conference page. The main data points are that after the first two launches, new companies have a success rate of 0.88, and established companies, a success rate of 0.89.
The "el" ending means "god" (essentially), so it's not surprising that these names end up sounding slightly Jewish.
The "three letter prefix" is exactly what you describe -- a very public recognition of what his ideas have achieved.