I think that a lot of the problem is that it is very difficult for people to come to any informed conclusion on their own, whether it be the question of if the earth is warming or if mankind is responsible for it. Unless you are an expert in that field and have access to all the raw ice core data, etc, the best you can do is take one sides word for it.
A lot of people have a predisposition to one side or the other and are thus more inclined find their sides arguments more convincing. No doubt many people don't find spotted owl-saving, tree-hugging environmentalists very credible and will favor the GW deniers. On the flip side, many people find the greenhouse gas argument very logical in their own minds and won't do much critical analysis of supporting evidence.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Benjamin FranklinSmart man. Perhaps this quote should just be automatically added as the first comment to every privacy related article. It seems to show up every time in a karma-whoring fashion anyways.
That does hold to some extent, but I think you are underestimating how much electric resistive heating can cost compared to other methods. I have a heat pump which will run with a coefficient of performance of around three for the usual winter weather around here, meaning it requires three times less electricity to run than straight resistive heating. Gas heating is still a bargain compared to electric in most places. Plus, don't forget that if one lives someplace where A/C is needed in the summer, the A/C will have to run even longer to get rid of that waste heat.
Actually, it looks like they used some kind of new math in the second sentence. If the S wave travels at 3.5 km/s, then it should travel 35 km in 10 s and take 17 s to reach that city 60 km away. The difference in arrival time of the P and S waves at the city would be 7 seconds, which means this method of detection would be a ~100% increase in warning time.
So companies that burn carbon based fuels (BTW, you should really tax fossil fuels, not all carbon fuels) will do so abroad. You will lose the tax income, but still suffer from the global warming...perhaps even more of it, because more transportation may be necessary.
This is only true if the carbon tax were sufficiently painful to make it worthwhile to move. Most of the sources (power generation, residential and commercial, transportation) are stuck here regardless. To affect a major change will likely require a worldwide effort. Unfortunately, since the effect of CO2 is not local, there is no downside to being the country that lets all the "dirty" industries just do their thing, like there is with say lead, mercury, PCBs, etc.
The first question that comes up in my mind is how this will be enforced. Are we going to send inspectors _everywhere_ to measure carbon emissions?
The most logical thing to do would be to tax all carbon based fuels. If in the future a reliable carbon dioxide capture and sequestration technology becomes economically feasible, rebates could be offered to companies that install those technologies.
You are still making it more complicated than it needs to be. For instance, why are car owners taxed on the basis of the value of their car if the goal is to target gas usage? That will more likely just drive down the price of SUVs. Plus it doesn't take into account that grandma's 15 mpg Lincoln driven 10 miles a week is doing a lot less harm than Joe-environmentalist's 400 miles a week in his 50 mpg Prius.
If you want to discourage the burning of carbon based fuels, then tax the fuels themselves. Thus eliminating the need for complicated measurements and metrics, which ultimately would prove unreliable and prone to manipulation.
On the other hand, the game also clearly demonstrates the US view that your own side is always the good guys, and the opponents are always the bad guys: both sides see their team mates as US soldiers, and the other side as terrorists. It confuses a lot of new players who want to know if they're the Americans or the terrorists, and who else is on their side.
I think you need to remember that the game is made by the US Army to be a recruiting tool for the US Army. Dressing up as terrorists and killing other US soldiers is not a typical Army mission. If someone wants an inkling of what life as a terrorist or insurgent is like, they will have to wait for next spring's release of Allah's Army.
Plus the game would have been shutdown in a heartbeat when the taxpayers found out they were paying for a game in which people were naming themselves bin Laden, etc, and bragging about how many US soldiers they'd blown up in game.
This just in! Britney Spears pays $92M to be the first woman to have a child on another spacial body. Sources report that she is no longer content to have child on earth, like the social norm. Critics suggest its just another cry for attention.
The following week: Madonna flies to asteroid to adopt Britney's baby!
Yeah! And I bet this whole skin cancer thing is just a fraud foisted upon us by those huge sunscreen conglomerates. I mean, if I am exposed to all this other electromagnetic radiation and not dead yet, then UV can't be that bad either, right?
Please note, I am not saying that I think this technology will cause cancer. I just hate it when "irrational exuberance" for a new technology causes any one who expresses the slightest bit of caution to be labeled as a Chicken Little or an ignoramus.
Now I'm off to buy a black-market X-ray machine so I can give myself a chest X-ray every morning just for kicks.
I resorted to Google and found papers about this problem having increased over the years in England. Some researchers found it seemed to be associated with deficiency in omega-3 or omega-6 (something-linoleic acid)....
End of story, but another time medical science simply did not work. One wonders if "science" would be a correct designation for Medicine. 8-/
What would you call the papers you found that were helpful? Voo-doo? It appears that "medical science" did ultimately help, but that the doctors that you initially consulted were deficient.
Indeed. Actualy, considering IBM's track record, which while not perfect, is not quit in line with a patent troll...I wouldn't be surprised if the ONLY reason they used this against Amazon, is because Amazon does the same thing to others.
I would. IBM is going to spend millions of dollars on a lawsuit just to prove a point to Amazon?? Perhaps Amazon will respond with an "I know you are, but what am I?" countersuit.
According to the NHTSA, 42,636 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2004.
Here is a list of the top fifteen causes of death for 2004 from the CDC: 1) Diseases of heart; 2) Malignant neoplasms; 3) Cerebrovascular diseases; 4) Chronic lower respiratory diseases; 5) Accidents (unintentional injuries); 6) Diabetes mellitus; 7) Alzheimer's disease; 8) Influenza and pneumonia; 9) Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis; 10) Septicemia; 11) Intentional self-harm (suicide); 12) Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis; 13) Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease; 14) Parkinson's disease; and 15) Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids.
The bottom on that list accounts for over 15,000 deaths. I wonder how much the government spends fighting these compared to terrorism?
Of course, I assume a box like that will run me $4000, come only in black or beige, weigh over 30kg and require way more attention than I'm willing to give it, but what the hell, we like appliances.
Appliances don't come in beige, they come in bisque.
Because you will likely need some kind of big ass tower to put the thing on. Which entails the actual cost of the tower, pouring some kind of foundation, maybe installing some guy wires, hiring a crane to install the tower and put the turbine on top. Then you actually need to wire the whole thing up including any provisions for backup batteries or selling back to the grid. You would probably be lucky to find a single contractor in town to do all this, so you will of course get bent over on the materials and pay at least $70/man-hour labor.
Not at all... Hell, I'm getting more than that on a fixed-return money market fund. My high-risk fund portfolio has earned me over 10% annually the past three years; my total portfolio return, excluding additional funds I've put in, has been over 8% annually since 2002.
Be glad that you didn't start investing two years earlier. The Dow Jones just got back to the high it set six years ago, the S&P 500 is still ~10% below its high, and the NASDAQ ~%50 below its high in 2000.
Not at all... Hell, I'm getting more than that on a fixed-return money market fund. My high-risk fund portfolio has earned me over 10% annually the past three years; my total portfolio return, excluding additional funds I've put in, has been over 8% annually since 2002.
Be glad that you didn't start investing two years earlier. The Dow Jones just got back to the high it set six years ago, the S&P 500 is still ~10% below its high, and the NASDAQ ~%50 below its high in 2000.
I don't imagine many Americans have $8k-$11k laying around and the current month's rates for energy in my neighborhood are 2.2 cents/kWh for the first 800 kWh and 1.2 cents/kWh after.
Those rates are insanely low. The national average is about $0.095/kWh with some paying close to twice that. For me, $0.09/kWh is about what I pay after taxes, etc, but I would rather skip the backyard windmill.
Sadly, I think you are probably right about most Americans lack of liquidity.
And despite this vast population loss, Pittsburgh has not experienced economic "collapse". I live in the Burgh, and I'd call the economic situation malaise at worst.
It is most likely the economic malaise that has caused the exodus from Pittsburgh rather than the exodus causing the malaise. Although younger people looking to start careers may be more likely to leave than those nearing or at retirement age, it probably has not caused as much "aging" of the population as declining birthrates would, so the overall effect is a little different.
If this is life after population stops growing, I'm not all that worried.
It is different on a national scale than a local scale though. For example, it isn't the declining population of Pittsburgh that is paying its senior citizens their Social Security and Medicare, it's the expanding U.S. population.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that a lot of the problem is that it is very difficult for people to come to any informed conclusion on their own, whether it be the question of if the earth is warming or if mankind is responsible for it. Unless you are an expert in that field and have access to all the raw ice core data, etc, the best you can do is take one sides word for it.
A lot of people have a predisposition to one side or the other and are thus more inclined find their sides arguments more convincing. No doubt many people don't find spotted owl-saving, tree-hugging environmentalists very credible and will favor the GW deniers. On the flip side, many people find the greenhouse gas argument very logical in their own minds and won't do much critical analysis of supporting evidence.
That does hold to some extent, but I think you are underestimating how much electric resistive heating can cost compared to other methods. I have a heat pump which will run with a coefficient of performance of around three for the usual winter weather around here, meaning it requires three times less electricity to run than straight resistive heating. Gas heating is still a bargain compared to electric in most places. Plus, don't forget that if one lives someplace where A/C is needed in the summer, the A/C will have to run even longer to get rid of that waste heat.
Actually, it looks like they used some kind of new math in the second sentence. If the S wave travels at 3.5 km/s, then it should travel 35 km in 10 s and take 17 s to reach that city 60 km away. The difference in arrival time of the P and S waves at the city would be 7 seconds, which means this method of detection would be a ~100% increase in warning time.
And ironically your insightful comment was modded funny.
So companies that burn carbon based fuels (BTW, you should really tax fossil fuels, not all carbon fuels) will do so abroad. You will lose the tax income, but still suffer from the global warming...perhaps even more of it, because more transportation may be necessary.
This is only true if the carbon tax were sufficiently painful to make it worthwhile to move. Most of the sources (power generation, residential and commercial, transportation) are stuck here regardless. To affect a major change will likely require a worldwide effort. Unfortunately, since the effect of CO2 is not local, there is no downside to being the country that lets all the "dirty" industries just do their thing, like there is with say lead, mercury, PCBs, etc.
Point taken. My bad.
The first question that comes up in my mind is how this will be enforced. Are we going to send inspectors _everywhere_ to measure carbon emissions?
The most logical thing to do would be to tax all carbon based fuels. If in the future a reliable carbon dioxide capture and sequestration technology becomes economically feasible, rebates could be offered to companies that install those technologies.
You are still making it more complicated than it needs to be. For instance, why are car owners taxed on the basis of the value of their car if the goal is to target gas usage? That will more likely just drive down the price of SUVs. Plus it doesn't take into account that grandma's 15 mpg Lincoln driven 10 miles a week is doing a lot less harm than Joe-environmentalist's 400 miles a week in his 50 mpg Prius.
If you want to discourage the burning of carbon based fuels, then tax the fuels themselves. Thus eliminating the need for complicated measurements and metrics, which ultimately would prove unreliable and prone to manipulation.
On the other hand, the game also clearly demonstrates the US view that your own side is always the good guys, and the opponents are always the bad guys: both sides see their team mates as US soldiers, and the other side as terrorists. It confuses a lot of new players who want to know if they're the Americans or the terrorists, and who else is on their side.
I think you need to remember that the game is made by the US Army to be a recruiting tool for the US Army. Dressing up as terrorists and killing other US soldiers is not a typical Army mission. If someone wants an inkling of what life as a terrorist or insurgent is like, they will have to wait for next spring's release of Allah's Army.
Plus the game would have been shutdown in a heartbeat when the taxpayers found out they were paying for a game in which people were naming themselves bin Laden, etc, and bragging about how many US soldiers they'd blown up in game.
That anyone modded that shit insightful just goes to show how cool it is to bash religion, especially christianity, on slashdot.
The following week: Madonna flies to asteroid to adopt Britney's baby!
Yeah! And I bet this whole skin cancer thing is just a fraud foisted upon us by those huge sunscreen conglomerates. I mean, if I am exposed to all this other electromagnetic radiation and not dead yet, then UV can't be that bad either, right?
Please note, I am not saying that I think this technology will cause cancer. I just hate it when "irrational exuberance" for a new technology causes any one who expresses the slightest bit of caution to be labeled as a Chicken Little or an ignoramus.
Now I'm off to buy a black-market X-ray machine so I can give myself a chest X-ray every morning just for kicks.
End of story, but another time medical science simply did not work. One wonders if "science" would be a correct designation for Medicine. 8-/
What would you call the papers you found that were helpful? Voo-doo? It appears that "medical science" did ultimately help, but that the doctors that you initially consulted were deficient.
I would. IBM is going to spend millions of dollars on a lawsuit just to prove a point to Amazon?? Perhaps Amazon will respond with an "I know you are, but what am I?" countersuit.
I would leave my wife for Bill Gates in a heartbeat.
According to the NHTSA, 42,636 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2004.
Here is a list of the top fifteen causes of death for 2004 from the CDC:
1) Diseases of heart;
2) Malignant neoplasms;
3) Cerebrovascular diseases;
4) Chronic lower respiratory diseases;
5) Accidents (unintentional injuries);
6) Diabetes mellitus;
7) Alzheimer's disease;
8) Influenza and pneumonia;
9) Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis;
10) Septicemia;
11) Intentional self-harm (suicide);
12) Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis;
13) Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease;
14) Parkinson's disease; and
15) Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids.
The bottom on that list accounts for over 15,000 deaths. I wonder how much the government spends fighting these compared to terrorism?
No doubt it will cost you money, but you will have to pay it up front when you buy the hardware.
Appliances don't come in beige, they come in bisque.
Because you will likely need some kind of big ass tower to put the thing on. Which entails the actual cost of the tower, pouring some kind of foundation, maybe installing some guy wires, hiring a crane to install the tower and put the turbine on top. Then you actually need to wire the whole thing up including any provisions for backup batteries or selling back to the grid. You would probably be lucky to find a single contractor in town to do all this, so you will of course get bent over on the materials and pay at least $70/man-hour labor.
Not at all... Hell, I'm getting more than that on a fixed-return money market fund. My high-risk fund portfolio has earned me over 10% annually the past three years; my total portfolio return, excluding additional funds I've put in, has been over 8% annually since 2002.
Be glad that you didn't start investing two years earlier. The Dow Jones just got back to the high it set six years ago, the S&P 500 is still ~10% below its high, and the NASDAQ ~%50 below its high in 2000.
Be glad that you didn't start investing two years earlier. The Dow Jones just got back to the high it set six years ago, the S&P 500 is still ~10% below its high, and the NASDAQ ~%50 below its high in 2000.
Cary, NC?
Those rates are insanely low. The national average is about $0.095/kWh with some paying close to twice that. For me, $0.09/kWh is about what I pay after taxes, etc, but I would rather skip the backyard windmill.
Sadly, I think you are probably right about most Americans lack of liquidity.
It is most likely the economic malaise that has caused the exodus from Pittsburgh rather than the exodus causing the malaise. Although younger people looking to start careers may be more likely to leave than those nearing or at retirement age, it probably has not caused as much "aging" of the population as declining birthrates would, so the overall effect is a little different.
If this is life after population stops growing, I'm not all that worried.
It is different on a national scale than a local scale though. For example, it isn't the declining population of Pittsburgh that is paying its senior citizens their Social Security and Medicare, it's the expanding U.S. population.