North Carolina is on the coast, yet it's pretty poor. Ditto for Louisiana. Baja California in Mexico is also opposite the Pacific Rim and yet it's dirt poor.
Democrats manage CA resources just fine, unlike some Republican strongholds like Kansas or Oklahoma.
Uhm, if you're calling a consistent budget surplus and healthy economic growth a "fucked up state" then I shudder to think of what you call "success". Detroit, perhaps?
Tesla Model S was crappy for some time after launch, it had lots of teething and reliability problems. They are now mostly fixed. The cycle is repeating itself with Model X - it had too many innovations for the sake of innovation (gullwing doors) with tons of initial problems. It's been a year and it's already getting better, but still has a ways to go.
Anyway, both Model S and Model X are _fun_ to drive. The steering is extremely responsive, the acceleration is downright heady and curve handling is great for the car of its size. It's way, way better than luxury German sedans.
And repealing net neutrality is like killing babies. Hey, you're making nonsense analogies, why can't I?
Net neutrality _as_ _it's_ _written_ simply ensures that ISPs can't treat traffic differently based on who's paying them. If anything, it doesn't go far enough as it doesn't cover peering agreements, still allowing a kind of non-neutrality.
He's draining the swamp - into his cabinet positions. Soon he'll employ all the lobbyists. After all, he has never said where to he's going to drain it.
Modern light water power plants use more than 3% of energy in fuel and they also produce quite a bit of (non weapons grade) plutonium. This plutonium can be extracted and re-used in MOX (mixed oxide) fuel in regular reactors, US does NOT do this but France and Russia do. Spent fuel also contains some nasty minor actinides that have long half-lives and must be stored for a long time, they are chemically extracted during reprocessing. It is possible to transmute them into less harmful elements by enough fast neutron flux.
Right now the only 2 working fast neutron reactors are in Russia (BN-600 and BN-800), France terminated its fast neutron reactor project long ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). Fast neutron reactors are not necessarily breeder reactors (breeder reactors allow to produce more fissile products than they get) but in most cases they are.
It's more complicated. Copyright provisions are really not the major part of the treaty, they are poisoned pills. The bulk of the treaty is good - it explicitly binds the future of Pacific Rim countries to the US economy (and to some degree vice versa).
So TPP is very popular in Asian countries - they don't really care about intellectual property (they have almost none) but they want to trade with the US and NOT with China. I think Obama supports it for the same reason (he's part of the executive branch, after all) - it'll give the US more clout against China and he probably considers IP ramifications to be of less importance.
In short, it could have been a history-altering deal if negotiators were not stuffed by media and pharma corporations' lobbyists.
Actually it doesn't. The book itself doesn't name any other occupations in the "Federal Service". Later author's comments expand it, but not the book itself.
Oh, jeez, another idiot who thinks an author must be endorsing something just because he wrote about it. I'll leave it to you to reconcile Troopers and Moon.
Heinlein was well-known to be militaristic (with his Navy career and everything), it's not even controversial. And I fail to see how "The Moon's A Harsh Mistress" contradicts anything, given that they ruthlessly bombard the Earth in it.
I actually re-read "Starship Troopers" and it's even more horrifying than I remembered it. For example, "History and Moral Philosophy" course (_mandatory_ in schools) was only taught by veteran teachers (no doubt specially prepared) who then communicate their evaluation of students to the government. Or that children are taught that their ideology is scientifically superior.
Is it the "nukular" part that's scary? Are you projecting that fear onto this fiction world for some reason?
Not really. I just came back from a tour of the first breeder reactor in Hanford - I love everything that's radioactive. It's nuking civilian targets to use nuclear fallout as a cover that I dislike.
So, like any war we've ever fought, then?
Pretty much. Though the US is getting better.
Fuck Scalzi, that Hugo-ruining SJW asshole.
But so was Heinlein. See: "Friday". If that's not a social justice war then I don't know what is.
They don't restrict voting rights to the military - read it again. I could be wrong, but I think most of the serving military couldn't vote, not having finished their first term. You had to have completed some sort of term of service to the community (military was just one option) to earn the vote.
I actually re-read the portion describing it and they DO restrict rights to those who served in the Federal Service. Though the book does state that most servicemen (as in most real armies) do not see any combat.
It's neither presented as particularly good or bad, just the way things are. It's never "justified", merely explained.
Heinlein quite obviously tries to justify it in-universe and pretty much fails.
I found the relevant piece:
Sally didn't tell it by the book. Finally Major Reid cut him off. "Bring a summary to class tomorrow, three thousand words. Mr. Salomon, can you give me a reason—not historical nor theoretical but practical—why the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans?"
"Uh, because they are picked men, sir. Smarter."
"Preposterous!"
"Sir?"
"Is the word too long for you? I said it was a silly notion. Service men are not brighter than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d'etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called ‘Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility. I've given you a hint, Mister; can you pick it up?"
Sally answered, "Uh, service men are disciplined, sir."
Major Reid was gentle with him. "Sorry. An appealing theory not backedup by facts. You and I are not permitted to vote as long as we remain in the Service, nor is it verifiable that military discipline makes a man self-disciplined once he is out; the crime rate of veterans is much like that of civilians. And you have forgotten that in peacetime most veterans come from non-combatant auxiliary services and have not been subjected to the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried, overworked, and endangered—yet their votes count."
Major Reid smiled. "Mr. Salomon, I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.
And there's actually a country that's close to what Heinlein dreamed of - it's China. Gaining political power unofficially requires at least some military service... with the expected results: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Or are you talking about the military traditions that set so much of modern military behavior?
Stuff like adherence to Geneva Convention: nuclear bombing a city (with "small" 2kt nuclear weapons), purposefully attacking civilian infrastructure to intimidate the population, that sort of thing. And right at the beginning of the book.
Of course after that Heinlein invents an enemy that is completely alien and unreasonable so that chemical weapons and massive nuclear bombardments against them pose no ethical questions (which is a crime against literature). "Old Man's War" by Scalzi is much more nuanced in this regard.
I don't remember this passage. Care to point the chapter?
And in reality lots of countries have mandatory military service yet there's little correlation with the level of democracy. Both utter hellholes and highly successful democracies have draft and/or mandatory civil service.
So I guess you're also for limiting the 2nd Amendment protections? After all, only military should own guns.
If you actually read the book you'd find a passage about the reason for this system. And the answer in the novel is "just because". But yeah, giving voting rights only to people who spend 2 years in a totalitarian (by design) organization under all kinds of pressure surely would produce the greatest democracy ever. After all, when a putsch happens military always establishes a perfect democracy with respect of human rights.
"Starship Troopers" is not "remotely" hinting at anything. It _is_ fascist militarist fiction. It's funny that Heinlein himself couldn't even justify it in-novel. Read it again, you'll see a dialog about why they keep voting rights to military - the answer is basically "just because".
The behavior of troopers is also contrary to the modern rules and laws of war.
You don't get it. F1 binding for iTerm is NOT context-sensitive, it works EVERYWHERE overriding the default functionality. It appears to be impossible with the fondlebar.
Also all of the hate over no ESC is totally incorrect. You can get to the traditional FN row (including ESC) at any time just by pressing the FN key in the corner. But the reality is you'd pretty much never need to do that because any key where ESC could be used will leave ESC in the TouchBar.
I'm using ALL of the functional keys all the time. In particular, F1 is a shortcut to bring up iTerm which I'm using in ALL contexts. So now it'll become impossible.
It's also not clear what "just press FN" means. Does it mean that Esc will become FN+Esc all the time? Cause that's how I read it.
The build quality of Model X is OK. It's the engineering that lacks - they introduced a lot if new features (automatic driver door opening, gullwing rear doors, etc.) and they simply are not yet polished enough. The core engineering (drivetrain and battery) is solid, though.
Yup. They found a way to weasel around them, even though their meaning was well-clear in the context of 1800-s. Back at that time muzzle-loaded flintlock guns were useful only when used by a well-organized militia.
Yeah, these activist judges also overlooked clearly written "well regulated militia". Or the letters that suggested mandatory standardized weapon distribution and mandatory military training for all (male) population. Clearly, we should go back all the way to 1800.
Do you know that people on the Democratic payroll also initiated a crowdfunding campaign to replace the firebombed office in NC? Do you know that the target for this campaign had been reached in just 40 minutes?
Slashdot Mirror
North Carolina is on the coast, yet it's pretty poor. Ditto for Louisiana. Baja California in Mexico is also opposite the Pacific Rim and yet it's dirt poor.
Democrats manage CA resources just fine, unlike some Republican strongholds like Kansas or Oklahoma.
Uhm, if you're calling a consistent budget surplus and healthy economic growth a "fucked up state" then I shudder to think of what you call "success". Detroit, perhaps?
And why should Alaska and Wyoming with its over-privileged voters should decide how California runs?
Tesla Model S was crappy for some time after launch, it had lots of teething and reliability problems. They are now mostly fixed. The cycle is repeating itself with Model X - it had too many innovations for the sake of innovation (gullwing doors) with tons of initial problems. It's been a year and it's already getting better, but still has a ways to go.
Anyway, both Model S and Model X are _fun_ to drive. The steering is extremely responsive, the acceleration is downright heady and curve handling is great for the car of its size. It's way, way better than luxury German sedans.
And repealing net neutrality is like killing babies. Hey, you're making nonsense analogies, why can't I?
Net neutrality _as_ _it's_ _written_ simply ensures that ISPs can't treat traffic differently based on who's paying them. If anything, it doesn't go far enough as it doesn't cover peering agreements, still allowing a kind of non-neutrality.
He's draining the swamp - into his cabinet positions. Soon he'll employ all the lobbyists. After all, he has never said where to he's going to drain it.
Uhm... Where do I start?...
Modern light water power plants use more than 3% of energy in fuel and they also produce quite a bit of (non weapons grade) plutonium. This plutonium can be extracted and re-used in MOX (mixed oxide) fuel in regular reactors, US does NOT do this but France and Russia do. Spent fuel also contains some nasty minor actinides that have long half-lives and must be stored for a long time, they are chemically extracted during reprocessing. It is possible to transmute them into less harmful elements by enough fast neutron flux.
Right now the only 2 working fast neutron reactors are in Russia (BN-600 and BN-800), France terminated its fast neutron reactor project long ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ). Fast neutron reactors are not necessarily breeder reactors (breeder reactors allow to produce more fissile products than they get) but in most cases they are.
It's more complicated. Copyright provisions are really not the major part of the treaty, they are poisoned pills. The bulk of the treaty is good - it explicitly binds the future of Pacific Rim countries to the US economy (and to some degree vice versa).
So TPP is very popular in Asian countries - they don't really care about intellectual property (they have almost none) but they want to trade with the US and NOT with China. I think Obama supports it for the same reason (he's part of the executive branch, after all) - it'll give the US more clout against China and he probably considers IP ramifications to be of less importance.
In short, it could have been a history-altering deal if negotiators were not stuffed by media and pharma corporations' lobbyists.
Except that Congress is also controlled by Republicans. And soon the SCOTUS will also be. Feel better now?
Actually it doesn't. The book itself doesn't name any other occupations in the "Federal Service". Later author's comments expand it, but not the book itself.
Oh, jeez, another idiot who thinks an author must be endorsing something just because he wrote about it. I'll leave it to you to reconcile Troopers and Moon.
Heinlein was well-known to be militaristic (with his Navy career and everything), it's not even controversial. And I fail to see how "The Moon's A Harsh Mistress" contradicts anything, given that they ruthlessly bombard the Earth in it.
I actually re-read "Starship Troopers" and it's even more horrifying than I remembered it. For example, "History and Moral Philosophy" course (_mandatory_ in schools) was only taught by veteran teachers (no doubt specially prepared) who then communicate their evaluation of students to the government. Or that children are taught that their ideology is scientifically superior.
Is it the "nukular" part that's scary? Are you projecting that fear onto this fiction world for some reason?
Not really. I just came back from a tour of the first breeder reactor in Hanford - I love everything that's radioactive. It's nuking civilian targets to use nuclear fallout as a cover that I dislike.
So, like any war we've ever fought, then?
Pretty much. Though the US is getting better.
Fuck Scalzi, that Hugo-ruining SJW asshole.
But so was Heinlein. See: "Friday". If that's not a social justice war then I don't know what is.
They don't restrict voting rights to the military - read it again. I could be wrong, but I think most of the serving military couldn't vote, not having finished their first term. You had to have completed some sort of term of service to the community (military was just one option) to earn the vote.
I actually re-read the portion describing it and they DO restrict rights to those who served in the Federal Service. Though the book does state that most servicemen (as in most real armies) do not see any combat.
It's neither presented as particularly good or bad, just the way things are. It's never "justified", merely explained.
Heinlein quite obviously tries to justify it in-universe and pretty much fails.
I found the relevant piece:
Sally didn't tell it by the book. Finally Major Reid cut him off. "Bring a summary to class tomorrow, three thousand words. Mr. Salomon, can you give me a reason—not historical nor theoretical but practical—why the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans?"
"Uh, because they are picked men, sir. Smarter."
"Preposterous!"
"Sir?"
"Is the word too long for you? I said it was a silly notion. Service men are not brighter than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d'etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called ‘Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility. I've given you a hint, Mister; can you pick it up?"
Sally answered, "Uh, service men are disciplined, sir."
Major Reid was gentle with him. "Sorry. An appealing theory not backedup by facts. You and I are not permitted to vote as long as we remain in the Service, nor is it verifiable that military discipline makes a man self-disciplined once he is out; the crime rate of veterans is much like that of civilians. And you have forgotten that in peacetime most veterans come from non-combatant auxiliary services and have not been subjected to the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried, overworked, and endangered—yet their votes count."
Major Reid smiled. "Mr. Salomon, I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.
And there's actually a country that's close to what Heinlein dreamed of - it's China. Gaining political power unofficially requires at least some military service... with the expected results: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Or are you talking about the military traditions that set so much of modern military behavior?
Stuff like adherence to Geneva Convention: nuclear bombing a city (with "small" 2kt nuclear weapons), purposefully attacking civilian infrastructure to intimidate the population, that sort of thing. And right at the beginning of the book.
Of course after that Heinlein invents an enemy that is completely alien and unreasonable so that chemical weapons and massive nuclear bombardments against them pose no ethical questions (which is a crime against literature). "Old Man's War" by Scalzi is much more nuanced in this regard.
I don't remember this passage. Care to point the chapter?
And in reality lots of countries have mandatory military service yet there's little correlation with the level of democracy. Both utter hellholes and highly successful democracies have draft and/or mandatory civil service.
So I guess you're also for limiting the 2nd Amendment protections? After all, only military should own guns.
If you actually read the book you'd find a passage about the reason for this system. And the answer in the novel is "just because". But yeah, giving voting rights only to people who spend 2 years in a totalitarian (by design) organization under all kinds of pressure surely would produce the greatest democracy ever. After all, when a putsch happens military always establishes a perfect democracy with respect of human rights.
"Starship Troopers" is not "remotely" hinting at anything. It _is_ fascist militarist fiction. It's funny that Heinlein himself couldn't even justify it in-novel. Read it again, you'll see a dialog about why they keep voting rights to military - the answer is basically "just because".
The behavior of troopers is also contrary to the modern rules and laws of war.
At first I read the title as if they're fueling the rockets using people.
Izhevsk has a nice pond with some quite beautiful beachfront locations. Disclaimer: I actually lived there.
Appear for how long?
You don't get it. F1 binding for iTerm is NOT context-sensitive, it works EVERYWHERE overriding the default functionality. It appears to be impossible with the fondlebar.
Also all of the hate over no ESC is totally incorrect. You can get to the traditional FN row (including ESC) at any time just by pressing the FN key in the corner. But the reality is you'd pretty much never need to do that because any key where ESC could be used will leave ESC in the TouchBar.
I'm using ALL of the functional keys all the time. In particular, F1 is a shortcut to bring up iTerm which I'm using in ALL contexts. So now it'll become impossible.
It's also not clear what "just press FN" means. Does it mean that Esc will become FN+Esc all the time? Cause that's how I read it.
The build quality of Model X is OK. It's the engineering that lacks - they introduced a lot if new features (automatic driver door opening, gullwing rear doors, etc.) and they simply are not yet polished enough. The core engineering (drivetrain and battery) is solid, though.
Yup. They found a way to weasel around them, even though their meaning was well-clear in the context of 1800-s. Back at that time muzzle-loaded flintlock guns were useful only when used by a well-organized militia.
Yeah, these activist judges also overlooked clearly written "well regulated militia". Or the letters that suggested mandatory standardized weapon distribution and mandatory military training for all (male) population. Clearly, we should go back all the way to 1800.
Do you know that people on the Democratic payroll also initiated a crowdfunding campaign to replace the firebombed office in NC? Do you know that the target for this campaign had been reached in just 40 minutes?
No? I guessed so.
Thorium is WORSE for proliferation. Thorium breeding produces Np-237 as a by-product. And it can be extracted rather easily - it's a chemical process.