BS. There were no claims like those you make in any newspaper in the affected countries in the 80s. If anything, the accident was heavily downplayed, and that after being denied for months.
Real information about the size of the problem became available to the public three or four years after the accident.
As for the consideration of Belarus to resettle these areas -- well, if you really think the government of Lukashenko is a beacon of good governance, concerned with the well-being of his people, there is little we can talk about.
Nobody has said the area will become lifeless for generations, only mostly uninhabited by people for generations. That is still the case, and isn't changing for the foreseeable future.
The rest of your comment is just rehashing the debunked theorizing from the early years about some miraculous wildlife recovery, probably colored with your own expectations.
The expectations of everyone else with a modicum of knowledge about the consequences of radiation -- for a sea of sick animal and plant life -- are more or less on par.
Yeah, and also I remember the number of articles on slashdot about how wildlife was thriving there, which were then totally debunked.
Then, when real research was carried out, wild animals turned out to have shorter lifespans, all kinds of genetic diseases, have smaller litter, more defective offspring and generally be much less healthy than elsewhere.
If I had to bet, I'd bet this new "research" has about as much validity as the brouhaha about the Przhevalsky horses in 2002.
But hey, the sexy chick on the motorcycle was cool.
The US government has been actively using Hollywood as mouthpiece since at least the glorious days of WWII propaganda. The war for "hearts and minds" is not from yesterday.
The enthusiasm with which the government has been embracing MAFIAA lawyer ideas for increased surveillance, control and enforcement suggest a deeper interest than lobby money.
While I agree opposition is important, it is too bad the economics of this plan works against you and me.
The outcome of ACTA across the economies of the participating states will be, of course, a huge cumulative loss of what the economists call "consumer surplus" (which is, simply put, the difference between price in a free, competitive market that in a market, restricted by monopoly or regulation).
The problem is the structure of that cost. While huge to the whole economy, to the average consumer it doesn't up to much at all, at most a few hundred dollars or euros per year, if that. The same total amount, unfortunately, goes to the very few on other side in the form of extra profit. It becomes not only a huge incentive to push for more government restrictions, it is also an enormous war chest to buy influence.
And, don't forget, money buys the appearance of credibility.
It will take a lot more than a few friends and calls to mount a significant challenge to acts like ACTA.
What is worse, they've come up with a very neat way to do it - it is called "international agreements".
The ideas that would be opposed at home get floated at the IFPI, WPO, WTO, etc. Then a number of small, spineless or otherwise dependent countries are made to support those. Then the idea is re-branded as "the international consensus". Then it is heavily marketed and accepted by the European Commission and the US whatever representative, who work hard to sell it to the respective national legislatures.
Then it becomes a binding treaty, and is fast tracked at the various national legislatures, usually sweetened with some pork. Job done, consumer raped again.
Both posts weren't very serious - I tried a lot to emphasize that nothing of the things I list has any merit to those, who make the actual market for creative work - the artists and the end consumers, and who are ostensibly those who benefit from the copyright regime.
In fact, the law has fallen behind and the copyright and related rights need reform in substance to reflect the new technological realities and consumer preferences.
IM real HO, ntroducing more enforcement will only distort the market more. Shifting costs away from one of the players and creating more incentives for lobbying and gray connections between the government and the, well, MAFIAA industry will, in all likelihood will be detrimental to both creators and consumers.
But that will be the general direction until such time when people are hurt enough by the copyright regime to begin to realize it is a problem. It may not come very soon.
Ordinarily I don't even see you ACs, because my thrashold is set to MAX garbage, but to your comment I must respond, because it may be misread by the random bleeding heart liberal as threatening my tractate on the benefits of strict copyright enforcement. This is emphatically not so.
Why?
Your first point is a strawman. I never-ever discuss the "losses" this "piracy" is allegedly causing to the companies. Honest, read my post. I strictly limit my points to out-of-pocket expenses in enforcement of copyright via civil legislation which is already in place.
These are large (we know MAFIAA is losing a lot of money) and the relief obtained as a result is largely imaginary, not unlike the property that is being protected. This, without question, hurts the companies that are hired to enforce rights on behalf of the copyright holders. This, undoubtedly, hurts the copyright holders as well.
Of course, any of this isn't related to sales or creative activity, but these are secondary concerns to the MAFIAA lobby. And, I am not sure anything can hurt the Hungry Artists, but them being well-fed is not a priority - we know artists must be Hungry, or they stop producing art.
So, your point #1 is completely reduced to ashes. Puff, gone.
Second, from the point of view of the taxpayer, a complicated and expensive government may indeed suck. I have yet to see a proof of this expressed by a popular vote or the support of rational candidates, but theoretically you could be right.
But again, this is a strawman to my argument, because I look at the things not from the overrated point of the taxpayer, but, instead, from the point of view of the overworked and underpaid government official.
From that point of view, all is fine and dandy. The government official has a new and important job, he can request more funds and expand his bureaucracy. What is to dislike about it if you work for the government?
And the extra benefit of being able to censor incorrect, misinforming or inflammatory and subversive articles and sites is indeed a boon to the government official in these times of crisis and terror.
Third, this law will not affect the consumer, except channel their frustration from browsing fake torrents into something productive. If the consumer has no torrents to browse and the "real thing" is too expensive and too dull, maybe they will find more time to read slashdot, or a book or two, and educate themselves on important issues of citizen democracy in the intertubes age.
The citizenry making informed decision about complex issues like the drugs use and child porn will probably bring better solutions in those two problem areas as well.
Hence, as I say, I see no downside.
And I am being dead serial, 8 bits, parity on an everything.
This is happening because enforcing civil law on behalf of the Hungry Artists is a costly and difficult exercise in the US.
Especially so since you have evil commies like our resident slashdotter lawyer, who is destroying business value by promoting socialist ideas like fair use, copyright limits and the like on his blog.
Dumping the enforcement on the government has benefits for all involved.
It is good for the companies -- they get to save some extra buck on prosecution and enforcement, and face significantly lower legal risks while protecting their valuable business model (which benefits the shareholders, and our great capitalist society).
It is good for the government -- with little cooperation from the interested parties, they get a nice tool for shooting things on the web they don't like.
It is good for the consumer -- for access to unapproved, and potentially dangerous and unlawful content is restricted.
Finally, since this will obviously help combat child porn and drug abuse, it is good for the future of this great nation. Why don't you think of the children?
No matter how I look at it, this is a beneficial measure for everyone except the few Communist slashdotters who abuse the internet to steal from our creative industry.
Imagine all that money going into research that is not tied to the need to kill people and maintain a rigid command structure and comparative advantage in violence.
Imagine the priorities are decided not by the perception of the next imagined military threat or "need".
Then you'll begin to understand what Eisenhower was talking about.
FYI, the US taxpayer has been swindled into shelling out at least 50 or 60 times more than necessary to create a credible response to the Soviet nuclear threat. Imagine all that money going into useful science...
There were a few more, all playing the theme "your phone is your best friend".
I've no doubt this will do miracles for the improvement of the communication skills of everyone - waiting for your phone to guess the mode of the other side.
Actually, it is not a spelling fail, it is a knowledge fail. The name comes from abbreviating the Russian name of the device, which is, if memory serves (too lazy to wikipedia) TOroidal Chamber with MAnetic Coils.
The word for "chamber" in Russian begins with a KA, and the one for coil with a K, so TO(roidal)-KA(chamber)-with-MA(gnetic)-K(coils).
Spelling it wrong means subby don't has a clue what they're talking about.
Thereforely, as a true Slashdotter I refuse to read past the first mistake in the summary.
Protecting and classifying the odd few petabytes that probably move daily in different formats across several hundred collecting agencies and several thousand user organizations is a tad more involved.
Except when you grow them on sunlight during the day and on LED light at night. Then you get more growth out of your tank, because you stretch your day.
But the government will come in and sue you for giving the plants stress;)
Uranium has not had such an intense exploration effort as oil and... can be found in a much larger variety of rocks.
Well, thanks, I'll take your word on that to an extent, although the literature I've read on the topic says otherwise.
I'll try to educate myself more on if I have the opportunity, until then I'll make a mental note that the issue of unproven uranium reserves may not be as straightforward as the IAEA and DoE publications make it seem.
Still, that doesn't change the other basic problems of nuclear - that uranium is difficult to extract (although technology improvements happen), and that nuclear power is still not paying for itself even when there is enough fissile material around.
Slashdot Mirror
BS. There were no claims like those you make in any newspaper in the affected countries in the 80s. If anything, the accident was heavily downplayed, and that after being denied for months.
Real information about the size of the problem became available to the public three or four years after the accident.
As for the consideration of Belarus to resettle these areas -- well, if you really think the government of Lukashenko is a beacon of good governance, concerned with the well-being of his people, there is little we can talk about.
I am not crazy, you're uninformed and quite rude.
Nobody has said the area will become lifeless for generations, only mostly uninhabited by people for generations. That is still the case, and isn't changing for the foreseeable future.
The rest of your comment is just rehashing the debunked theorizing from the early years about some miraculous wildlife recovery, probably colored with your own expectations.
The expectations of everyone else with a modicum of knowledge about the consequences of radiation -- for a sea of sick animal and plant life -- are more or less on par.
I've always wondered about bird vs. helicopter efficiency ... here's one guy's opinion.
http://mb-soft.com/public3/birdeff.html
If true, nature's "painfully inefficient reciprocating motion" leaves our "nice, efficient rotary motion" in the dust.
Yeah, and also I remember the number of articles on slashdot about how wildlife was thriving there, which were then totally debunked.
Then, when real research was carried out, wild animals turned out to have shorter lifespans, all kinds of genetic diseases, have smaller litter, more defective offspring and generally be much less healthy than elsewhere.
If I had to bet, I'd bet this new "research" has about as much validity as the brouhaha about the Przhevalsky horses in 2002.
But hey, the sexy chick on the motorcycle was cool.
There is no place for citizens in this mechanism. Since there is no representation involved, I thought "consumers" is more apt.
You're wrong about that.
The US government has been actively using Hollywood as mouthpiece since at least the glorious days of WWII propaganda. The war for "hearts and minds" is not from yesterday.
The enthusiasm with which the government has been embracing MAFIAA lawyer ideas for increased surveillance, control and enforcement suggest a deeper interest than lobby money.
While I agree opposition is important, it is too bad the economics of this plan works against you and me.
The outcome of ACTA across the economies of the participating states will be, of course, a huge cumulative loss of what the economists call "consumer surplus" (which is, simply put, the difference between price in a free, competitive market that in a market, restricted by monopoly or regulation).
The problem is the structure of that cost. While huge to the whole economy, to the average consumer it doesn't up to much at all, at most a few hundred dollars or euros per year, if that. The same total amount, unfortunately, goes to the very few on other side in the form of extra profit. It becomes not only a huge incentive to push for more government restrictions, it is also an enormous war chest to buy influence.
And, don't forget, money buys the appearance of credibility.
It will take a lot more than a few friends and calls to mount a significant challenge to acts like ACTA.
It is a hard problem to solve.
What is worse, they've come up with a very neat way to do it - it is called "international agreements".
The ideas that would be opposed at home get floated at the IFPI, WPO, WTO, etc. Then a number of small, spineless or otherwise dependent countries are made to support those. Then the idea is re-branded as "the international consensus". Then it is heavily marketed and accepted by the European Commission and the US whatever representative, who work hard to sell it to the respective national legislatures.
Then it becomes a binding treaty, and is fast tracked at the various national legislatures, usually sweetened with some pork. Job done, consumer raped again.
International cooperation at its best.
If you for a moment believe that isn't really the US government asking, using MAFIAA as a mouthpiece, you live in a happier world ...
Both posts weren't very serious - I tried a lot to emphasize that nothing of the things I list has any merit to those, who make the actual market for creative work - the artists and the end consumers, and who are ostensibly those who benefit from the copyright regime.
In fact, the law has fallen behind and the copyright and related rights need reform in substance to reflect the new technological realities and consumer preferences.
IM real HO, ntroducing more enforcement will only distort the market more. Shifting costs away from one of the players and creating more incentives for lobbying and gray connections between the government and the, well, MAFIAA industry will, in all likelihood will be detrimental to both creators and consumers.
But that will be the general direction until such time when people are hurt enough by the copyright regime to begin to realize it is a problem. It may not come very soon.
Ordinarily I don't even see you ACs, because my thrashold is set to MAX garbage, but to your comment I must respond, because it may be misread by the random bleeding heart liberal as threatening my tractate on the benefits of strict copyright enforcement. This is emphatically not so.
Why?
Your first point is a strawman. I never-ever discuss the "losses" this "piracy" is allegedly causing to the companies. Honest, read my post. I strictly limit my points to out-of-pocket expenses in enforcement of copyright via civil legislation which is already in place.
These are large (we know MAFIAA is losing a lot of money) and the relief obtained as a result is largely imaginary, not unlike the property that is being protected. This, without question, hurts the companies that are hired to enforce rights on behalf of the copyright holders. This, undoubtedly, hurts the copyright holders as well.
Of course, any of this isn't related to sales or creative activity, but these are secondary concerns to the MAFIAA lobby. And, I am not sure anything can hurt the Hungry Artists, but them being well-fed is not a priority - we know artists must be Hungry, or they stop producing art.
So, your point #1 is completely reduced to ashes. Puff, gone.
Second, from the point of view of the taxpayer, a complicated and expensive government may indeed suck. I have yet to see a proof of this expressed by a popular vote or the support of rational candidates, but theoretically you could be right.
But again, this is a strawman to my argument, because I look at the things not from the overrated point of the taxpayer, but, instead, from the point of view of the overworked and underpaid government official.
From that point of view, all is fine and dandy. The government official has a new and important job, he can request more funds and expand his bureaucracy. What is to dislike about it if you work for the government?
And the extra benefit of being able to censor incorrect, misinforming or inflammatory and subversive articles and sites is indeed a boon to the government official in these times of crisis and terror.
Third, this law will not affect the consumer, except channel their frustration from browsing fake torrents into something productive. If the consumer has no torrents to browse and the "real thing" is too expensive and too dull, maybe they will find more time to read slashdot, or a book or two, and educate themselves on important issues of citizen democracy in the intertubes age.
The citizenry making informed decision about complex issues like the drugs use and child porn will probably bring better solutions in those two problem areas as well.
Hence, as I say, I see no downside.
And I am being dead serial, 8 bits, parity on an everything.
And more importantly, not how, but why?
I am sure some people would love it on landing and takeoff, but I see a lot of inconvenience.
I hate heights, and I like to be able to nap in the dark on some of those long daytime flights, which arrive in the morning.
Nah, this will be a prototype, the real thing will only have an observation deck :)
Your question is rhetorical, but let me bite.
This is happening because enforcing civil law on behalf of the Hungry Artists is a costly and difficult exercise in the US.
Especially so since you have evil commies like our resident slashdotter lawyer, who is destroying business value by promoting socialist ideas like fair use, copyright limits and the like on his blog.
Dumping the enforcement on the government has benefits for all involved.
It is good for the companies -- they get to save some extra buck on prosecution and enforcement, and face significantly lower legal risks while protecting their valuable business model (which benefits the shareholders, and our great capitalist society).
It is good for the government -- with little cooperation from the interested parties, they get a nice tool for shooting things on the web they don't like.
It is good for the consumer -- for access to unapproved, and potentially dangerous and unlawful content is restricted.
Finally, since this will obviously help combat child porn and drug abuse, it is good for the future of this great nation. Why don't you think of the children?
No matter how I look at it, this is a beneficial measure for everyone except the few Communist slashdotters who abuse the internet to steal from our creative industry.
Yes, it is frustrating.
Imagine all that money going into research that is not tied to the need to kill people and maintain a rigid command structure and comparative advantage in violence.
Imagine the priorities are decided not by the perception of the next imagined military threat or "need".
Then you'll begin to understand what Eisenhower was talking about.
FYI, the US taxpayer has been swindled into shelling out at least 50 or 60 times more than necessary to create a credible response to the Soviet nuclear threat. Imagine all that money going into useful science ...
Mineshaft gap indeed.
double props if it is an arduino
Forget the horseless carriages, imagine a robot made from some metal like that, robot that can remold his body into different sharp shapes.
Imagine now that someone let this robot loose with only one goal - to terminate people.
I already need to change my pants.
as "personal assistant" and what not has already started in Japan in full force.
Here's few of the "your phone is your friend" idiotic commercials from this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIIQK1bUQzg
(the pink body is the phone)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5FIiu7xkcI
(ken watanabe is the phone)
There were a few more, all playing the theme "your phone is your best friend".
I've no doubt this will do miracles for the improvement of the communication skills of everyone - waiting for your phone to guess the mode of the other side.
Isn't that more like a max of 1-1.2kW/m2?
Actually, it is not a spelling fail, it is a knowledge fail. The name comes from abbreviating the Russian name of the device, which is, if memory serves (too lazy to wikipedia) TOroidal Chamber with MAnetic Coils.
The word for "chamber" in Russian begins with a KA, and the one for coil with a K, so TO(roidal)-KA(chamber)-with-MA(gnetic)-K(coils).
Spelling it wrong means subby don't has a clue what they're talking about.
Thereforely, as a true Slashdotter I refuse to read past the first mistake in the summary.
Protecting and classifying the odd few petabytes that probably move daily in different formats across several hundred collecting agencies and several thousand user organizations is a tad more involved.
The category is Communist Job-Killing Atheistic Sikrit Muslin Obamanaut With A Hint Of _REVERSE_ Racism, you behind-the-times nerd loser.
With "Fujitsu" as the maker, the standard question is "how much skin will they want from me".
It will be small, efficient and maybe even work, but it won't be cheap enough to make sense to buy.
At least the Japanese model.
/ Yes, I have a few Loox notebooks.
So, you just stuff one more tank under your bed, and grow those bacteria there ;)
Except when you grow them on sunlight during the day and on LED light at night. Then you get more growth out of your tank, because you stretch your day.
But the government will come in and sue you for giving the plants stress ;)
Uranium has not had such an intense exploration effort as oil and ... can be found in a much larger variety of rocks.
Well, thanks, I'll take your word on that to an extent, although the literature I've read on the topic says otherwise.
I'll try to educate myself more on if I have the opportunity, until then I'll make a mental note that the issue of unproven uranium reserves may not be as straightforward as the IAEA and DoE publications make it seem.
Still, that doesn't change the other basic problems of nuclear - that uranium is difficult to extract (although technology improvements happen), and that nuclear power is still not paying for itself even when there is enough fissile material around.