The question becomes, "So, OK, you have paid to develop this data, but why? It is, after all, public data."
This gets into the contracts and the "data rights" agreements. For example, there are a few different contracts that can be set up even when a government pays a company to develop an application.
No Data Rights: The customer (government) buys the application and can use it as is. The customer gets no detailed information, source code or redistribution rights, just an end product.
Trade-off: The developer charges less for development as they believe they will be able to sell it elsewhere or further develop it as the sole source.
Limited Data Rights: The customer buys the application and has full access to the detailed information, source code, etc. However, it can not be redistributed for a number of years (say, 5). After that number of years, the customer has full data rights.
Trade-off: The developer charges slightly more for development, as they will not have a monopoly on the product after a few years.
Full Data Rights: The customer has full access to everything necessary to duplicate and modify the product immediately.
Trade-off: The developer chargers more as they can not guarantee that they will make any further money off of the product.
It's like professional photographers. It's a picture of you, but if you want a copy, you're going to have to pay for it. If you want the negatives, you're going to have to pay for those as well. There are further variations that combine these ones, but they give you an idea of the three types that get modified for an actual contract. From the article, it sounds like NBIS is trying to claim that SF doesn't have the data rights to redistribute the information beyond a specific set of applications/methods. To figure out what the truth is, we would need to read the contracts.
Actually, that 2-3% is for the entire US Grid as a whole, including all the transformers, stations, substations, etc. The entire grid has an efficiency of close to 98%. However, California probably has one of the less efficient sections due to having to run the electricity in from farther out as you say.
I'd recommend looking into a ground source heatpump. It's generally more efficient than AC and should save you quite a bit of money there. I can't say much about your heating, as you don't say what kind you have.
The pump for the solar thermal on the roof shouldn't be using up that much electricity, as the water creating a vacuum going down should really help to offset the energy required to push the water up.
That said, you either sure use a lot of electricity or have one crazy high electric rate. Are you in California, by chance?
Recommendation, especially since you live in Nebraska: Plan on skiping solar panels for now (but have your roof built in such a way they can be added later). That way when the costs come down more, you can add them later. (Provided they have not come down sufficiently by then) Instead, look at energy saving technologies, such as ground source heat pumps. Water pond heat pumps may work, but do the ponds get too cold in winter to heat your house? Also, a windmill might give you a better ROE than solar.
One other thing, that will really help in the long term. Get conduits put into your walls from the beginning. That way, when you run/re-run network cable and other things, you can do it easily instead of having a major construction project on your hands.
Assuming the man had the money in his pocket to start with. If a loan was required for the initial investment, that has to be taken into account.
Regardless of the money being in his pocket to start with, two things have to be taken into account. Interest and Inflation need to be taken into account. Interest because, at worst, he could just put the money into a savings account and earn interest on the money. Inflation because $3000 saved 5 years from now is not worth $3000 today. Realistically, he would have to be saving much more to have it break even in the 12 years he claims. 7 year Certificates of Deposit are paying 3.75%. Using only 3.1% as interest on $38k with $3k savings per year and ignoring inflation, he's never going to break (compound interest kills it). Oh, and the reason I'm ignoring inflation is because he could easily get more than 3.1%+inflation on $38k.
My highest bill (August last year) was ~$1000 and I was averaging ~$700/month over the year;
Why are you using so much power? How much were you using, for that matter, and what was the rate? My parents house maxed out at $400 in winter when the heatpump broke and they were stuck on emergency heat.
200B or 26% of your own numbers. Umm.. yeah.. sure thats a small percent, not even outside of the margin of error really.
$200B out of $3591B? Yeah, that is a small percentage. Under 5.5% is for weapons. Well under. Most of that is for replacement aircraft, ships and vehicles with very little being for bombs, bullets and missiles. $200B out of just the DoD budget? There you go trying to say only discretionary spending matters when it is a small portion of the total bill.
Nope, there is a lot more to it then just the DoD buying weapons. Including but not limited to how heavily we are deployed all of the world for our War on Terror, War on Drugs and interventionism by our Intelligence agencies.
If so, do you think it would help keep weapons out of the wrong hands if we were producing so much less of them? That's the crux of my original point.
Will you make up your mind on what your argument is? You first said the problem was that the DoD was over half the budget, which I proved false. Then you said that decreasing the DoD budget would prevent weapons from falling into the 'wrong hands', yet I asked for evidence of DoD weapons falling into the wrong hands and you try to dodge it by now claiming that "it's more than just the DoD buying weapons". What is your point? You try to claim one, then change it every time I show that you have no point or ask for evidence.
Read up on what most lobbying actual entails, it's budget appropriation as well as the securing of no-bid contracts and either way, who gets the contract has nothing to do with whether or not we are spending too much.
If there is anything that is decidedly not free market, its using Tax dollars to purchase products from select companies, decided almost entirely by lobbying efforts
"almost entirely" Gee, sure seems like you're saying that no-bid contracts are the reason we're "spending too much" (your words, not mine). As I said, let me know when you get your argument straight.
Then let me ask you this, WHY DIDN'T YOU MENTION THAT IN YOUR PREVIOUS POST.
My point is that we in the USA alone could supply the entire global energy demands just from wind power - and even do that without shading any areas that don't need shade - e.g. our vast desert areas, the tops and sides of buildings with direct sunlight, and the use of passive solar alone.
In fact, you specifically excluded several of the other technologies you just mentioned. BE CONSISTENT.
I do not believe we spend too much on the military. I believe that artificially narrowing it to one third of the budget is deceitful as you are putting blinders over your eyes to claim something that isn't true. The military is not over half the budget, as I have shown. I believe the actual problem is the non-discretionary spending, which has ballooned over the years, and that if we didn't spend over half the actual budget on it we would be in a much better position today.
Further,
If so, do you think it would help keep weapons out of the wrong hands if we were producing so much less of them?
Lets see, the US produces 1 F-18 for $30 million or China or Russia produce 100,000 AK-47s with ammunition. Further, when was the last time 'the wrong hands' got a weapon that was owned by the US DoD? So no, I don't think the US DoD having a decent budget, of which the majority is used for spare parts (non-ammunition), personnel pay, building construction and RDT&E. A small percentage of that, under $200B is for weapons.
That's the crux of my original point.
Then why were you trying to include the NSA, DHS and other budget in with the DoD? If your argument is that the DoD buys too many weapons, you don't include non-weapons budgets in your totals.
its using Tax dollars to purchase products from select companies, decided almost entirely by lobbying efforts
By the way, this too is not true. If you knew anything about the actual DoD acquisitions process, you would know that just about everything is put out for bid and the winner must be justified as being better than the rest in concrete numbers.
Still waiting for a point. China has loaned less than 10% of the money borrowed in the past 10 years. They haven't done the financing for Iraq. More money has come from Americans by several multiples than china.
That link I posted requires Java. It sometimes takes a minute to load. Also, I see the link you mean now. I didn't realize you meant back in the original post and thought you meant you messaged me after that.
Why is it odd? I'm including everything in the budget. Even the link you posted says discretionary spending "is one third of total government spending". Whenever I've talked about the budget with someone, it has been the whole budget, discretionary and non-discretionary. Social Security is in the budget and voted on, so is Medicare/Medicaid and a variety of other things. Regardless of it being discretionary or not, it is money being spent by the federal government and is part of the presidents budget. All that non-discretionary means is that the government has some equation made years ago for making payments and it can change it when it wants to. i.e. It can change social security payments or medicare/medicaid payments by passing a bill as it has before for both of them. Non-discretionary spending has to be voted on in appropriations bills, just like discretionary spending, which means the president still signs the spending bill into law.
Also, It's also not like the non-discretionary spending doesn't increase the national debt. Medicare/Medicaid spending alone this year totals $1058B, while medicaid/medicare taxes total about $375B, leaving a difference of about $675B that has to be made up in taxes or borrowing.
(PDF) Here's the presidents budget for FY10. You want page 3, receipts and outlays, specifically outlays. FY10 Outlays: $3591B
Wind power still has the issue of a non-controllable supply. Too much power into the grid is just as bad as too little and wind is not controllable. It's fine when it makes up a small percentage of the total but in large amounts it will both change the frequency of the grid and cause voltage spikes. Equally matching supply and demand within a very small percentage is required to maintain a stable grid.
As to the nuclear power, reenrichment of the material and a variety of other methods make it a lot safer than it's made out to be. Especially when the waste is about as radioactive as the ore, which you can handle without any protective gear. Also, if the mining is as risky as coal mining, that's pretty safe.
You messed up your conversions. You're using 10mm^2=1cm^2 instead of 100mm^2=1cm^2. Area, not length.
100mm^2=100mm^2*(1cm/10mm)^2=1cm^2
20ma/(10um/mm^2)=2,000mm^2
20cm^2=20*(10mm/cm)^2=2,000mm^2
That 20cm^2 is cross sectional area, not 20cm on a side. If it were square, it would be 4.5cm on a side.
No message or link received. Post it here. And your numbers are far off. Look at my numbers again.
Me:From Here
Social Security: $749.1B
Medicare/Medicaid: $1058.4B
Interest on Public Debt: $454.5B
Military Budget: $743.2B
Other: $585.9B
You:
Military: $799B
Everything Else: $383B
Military budget difference of $55.8B. Yet the budget this year is $3,591B. Your numbers total to $1182B, a difference of $2,409B. Your numbers do not include interest on the public debt, medicare/medicaid, Social Security or a variety of other things. Even using $799B as the total military spending on the entire budget, it comes out to 22.3%.
It doesn't come down to organ damage, it comes down to interfering with the electrical signals controlling the heart. 20ma is what is necessary to send you into defibrilation. That comes out to 20 cm^2, not a lot of area and less than the cross sectional area of the heart.
Or if electricity could be converted to something else? It's possible to turn CO2 and water into Methane, and Methane into Diesel and other liquid fuels.
Lets say the cable going one way carries 1000 Amp with a cross section of 0.1 square metres. If the return path uses 100 square metres the current density would be 1000th of that in the cable.
That would make a current density of 10 amps/meter^2. It only takes 20ma to kill you.
Even prior to firing Froomkin my impression is the quality of their editorials, and original news reporting in general, has been in steep decline lately.
As someone who's lived in the DC area for over 25 years, it's been more than 'lately'. Try at least 15-20 years.
Generally speaking, if I am paying for something, I feel entitled to the results or products it produces.
If you're paying for it, then you're a US citizen. Which means you have a first class military to protect you and your property. You are getting the results and products. Then there is the internet and computer you used to post this. It may occasionally take time, but you do get the benefits from it.
It's possible to angle the lenses on the sattelites so that they don't look straight down. This makes it more difficult to tell where they are looking. It is possible to repoint a satellite, but this takes fuel and when the satelite gets near the end of the fuel, it is required to de-orbit. Constantly repointing the satellite takes fuel. Also, knowing where/when the meteors are that are found makes it possible to tell what may have been caught be the satellites. Knowing what the watchers know, even if you don't necessarily know what they don't know, is still of use.
Slashdot Mirror
The question becomes, "So, OK, you have paid to develop this data, but why? It is, after all, public data."
This gets into the contracts and the "data rights" agreements. For example, there are a few different contracts that can be set up even when a government pays a company to develop an application.
No Data Rights: The customer (government) buys the application and can use it as is. The customer gets no detailed information, source code or redistribution rights, just an end product.
Trade-off: The developer charges less for development as they believe they will be able to sell it elsewhere or further develop it as the sole source.
Limited Data Rights: The customer buys the application and has full access to the detailed information, source code, etc. However, it can not be redistributed for a number of years (say, 5). After that number of years, the customer has full data rights.
Trade-off: The developer charges slightly more for development, as they will not have a monopoly on the product after a few years.
Full Data Rights: The customer has full access to everything necessary to duplicate and modify the product immediately.
Trade-off: The developer chargers more as they can not guarantee that they will make any further money off of the product.
It's like professional photographers. It's a picture of you, but if you want a copy, you're going to have to pay for it. If you want the negatives, you're going to have to pay for those as well. There are further variations that combine these ones, but they give you an idea of the three types that get modified for an actual contract. From the article, it sounds like NBIS is trying to claim that SF doesn't have the data rights to redistribute the information beyond a specific set of applications/methods. To figure out what the truth is, we would need to read the contracts.
Actually, that 2-3% is for the entire US Grid as a whole, including all the transformers, stations, substations, etc. The entire grid has an efficiency of close to 98%. However, California probably has one of the less efficient sections due to having to run the electricity in from farther out as you say.
Note to self: Never move to California. That electric rate is crazy. 'Progressive' tax rate or just rate hike?
I'd recommend looking into a ground source heatpump. It's generally more efficient than AC and should save you quite a bit of money there. I can't say much about your heating, as you don't say what kind you have.
The pump for the solar thermal on the roof shouldn't be using up that much electricity, as the water creating a vacuum going down should really help to offset the energy required to push the water up.
That said, you either sure use a lot of electricity or have one crazy high electric rate. Are you in California, by chance?
Recommendation, especially since you live in Nebraska: Plan on skiping solar panels for now (but have your roof built in such a way they can be added later). That way when the costs come down more, you can add them later. (Provided they have not come down sufficiently by then) Instead, look at energy saving technologies, such as ground source heat pumps. Water pond heat pumps may work, but do the ponds get too cold in winter to heat your house? Also, a windmill might give you a better ROE than solar.
One other thing, that will really help in the long term. Get conduits put into your walls from the beginning. That way, when you run/re-run network cable and other things, you can do it easily instead of having a major construction project on your hands.
Assuming the man had the money in his pocket to start with. If a loan was required for the initial investment, that has to be taken into account.
Regardless of the money being in his pocket to start with, two things have to be taken into account. Interest and Inflation need to be taken into account. Interest because, at worst, he could just put the money into a savings account and earn interest on the money. Inflation because $3000 saved 5 years from now is not worth $3000 today. Realistically, he would have to be saving much more to have it break even in the 12 years he claims. 7 year Certificates of Deposit are paying 3.75%. Using only 3.1% as interest on $38k with $3k savings per year and ignoring inflation, he's never going to break (compound interest kills it). Oh, and the reason I'm ignoring inflation is because he could easily get more than 3.1%+inflation on $38k.
My highest bill (August last year) was ~$1000 and I was averaging ~$700/month over the year;
Why are you using so much power? How much were you using, for that matter, and what was the rate? My parents house maxed out at $400 in winter when the heatpump broke and they were stuck on emergency heat.
Or maybe, "Pravda"?
Why does this sound so much like the proposal to bail out newspapers in the US
200B or 26% of your own numbers. Umm.. yeah.. sure thats a small percent, not even outside of the margin of error really.
$200B out of $3591B? Yeah, that is a small percentage. Under 5.5% is for weapons. Well under. Most of that is for replacement aircraft, ships and vehicles with very little being for bombs, bullets and missiles. $200B out of just the DoD budget? There you go trying to say only discretionary spending matters when it is a small portion of the total bill.
Nope, there is a lot more to it then just the DoD buying weapons. Including but not limited to how heavily we are deployed all of the world for our War on Terror, War on Drugs and interventionism by our Intelligence agencies.
If so, do you think it would help keep weapons out of the wrong hands if we were producing so much less of them? That's the crux of my original point.
Will you make up your mind on what your argument is? You first said the problem was that the DoD was over half the budget, which I proved false. Then you said that decreasing the DoD budget would prevent weapons from falling into the 'wrong hands', yet I asked for evidence of DoD weapons falling into the wrong hands and you try to dodge it by now claiming that "it's more than just the DoD buying weapons". What is your point? You try to claim one, then change it every time I show that you have no point or ask for evidence.
Read up on what most lobbying actual entails, it's budget appropriation as well as the securing of no-bid contracts and either way, who gets the contract has nothing to do with whether or not we are spending too much.
If there is anything that is decidedly not free market, its using Tax dollars to purchase products from select companies, decided almost entirely by lobbying efforts
"almost entirely" Gee, sure seems like you're saying that no-bid contracts are the reason we're "spending too much" (your words, not mine). As I said, let me know when you get your argument straight.
My point is that we in the USA alone could supply the entire global energy demands just from wind power - and even do that without shading any areas that don't need shade - e.g. our vast desert areas, the tops and sides of buildings with direct sunlight, and the use of passive solar alone.
In fact, you specifically excluded several of the other technologies you just mentioned. BE CONSISTENT.
Further,
If so, do you think it would help keep weapons out of the wrong hands if we were producing so much less of them?
Lets see, the US produces 1 F-18 for $30 million or China or Russia produce 100,000 AK-47s with ammunition. Further, when was the last time 'the wrong hands' got a weapon that was owned by the US DoD? So no, I don't think the US DoD having a decent budget, of which the majority is used for spare parts (non-ammunition), personnel pay, building construction and RDT&E. A small percentage of that, under $200B is for weapons.
That's the crux of my original point.
Then why were you trying to include the NSA, DHS and other budget in with the DoD? If your argument is that the DoD buys too many weapons, you don't include non-weapons budgets in your totals.
its using Tax dollars to purchase products from select companies, decided almost entirely by lobbying efforts
By the way, this too is not true. If you knew anything about the actual DoD acquisitions process, you would know that just about everything is put out for bid and the winner must be justified as being better than the rest in concrete numbers.
Still waiting for a point. China has loaned less than 10% of the money borrowed in the past 10 years. They haven't done the financing for Iraq. More money has come from Americans by several multiples than china.
That link I posted requires Java. It sometimes takes a minute to load. Also, I see the link you mean now. I didn't realize you meant back in the original post and thought you meant you messaged me after that.
Why is it odd? I'm including everything in the budget. Even the link you posted says discretionary spending "is one third of total government spending". Whenever I've talked about the budget with someone, it has been the whole budget, discretionary and non-discretionary. Social Security is in the budget and voted on, so is Medicare/Medicaid and a variety of other things. Regardless of it being discretionary or not, it is money being spent by the federal government and is part of the presidents budget. All that non-discretionary means is that the government has some equation made years ago for making payments and it can change it when it wants to. i.e. It can change social security payments or medicare/medicaid payments by passing a bill as it has before for both of them. Non-discretionary spending has to be voted on in appropriations bills, just like discretionary spending, which means the president still signs the spending bill into law.
Also, It's also not like the non-discretionary spending doesn't increase the national debt. Medicare/Medicaid spending alone this year totals $1058B, while medicaid/medicare taxes total about $375B, leaving a difference of about $675B that has to be made up in taxes or borrowing.
(PDF) Here's the presidents budget for FY10. You want page 3, receipts and outlays, specifically outlays. FY10 Outlays: $3591B
No. 20*(1cm^2). I said NOT 20cm on a side. If you want it that way, it's about 4.5^2 cm^2.
Wind power still has the issue of a non-controllable supply. Too much power into the grid is just as bad as too little and wind is not controllable. It's fine when it makes up a small percentage of the total but in large amounts it will both change the frequency of the grid and cause voltage spikes. Equally matching supply and demand within a very small percentage is required to maintain a stable grid.
As to the nuclear power, reenrichment of the material and a variety of other methods make it a lot safer than it's made out to be. Especially when the waste is about as radioactive as the ore, which you can handle without any protective gear. Also, if the mining is as risky as coal mining, that's pretty safe.
You messed up your conversions. You're using 10mm^2=1cm^2 instead of 100mm^2=1cm^2. Area, not length.
100mm^2=100mm^2*(1cm/10mm)^2=1cm^2
20ma/(10um/mm^2)=2,000mm^2
20cm^2=20*(10mm/cm)^2=2,000mm^2
That 20cm^2 is cross sectional area, not 20cm on a side. If it were square, it would be 4.5cm on a side.
No message or link received. Post it here. And your numbers are far off. Look at my numbers again.
Me:From Here
Social Security: $749.1B
Medicare/Medicaid: $1058.4B
Interest on Public Debt: $454.5B
Military Budget: $743.2B
Other: $585.9B
You:
Military: $799B
Everything Else: $383B
Military budget difference of $55.8B. Yet the budget this year is $3,591B. Your numbers total to $1182B, a difference of $2,409B. Your numbers do not include interest on the public debt, medicare/medicaid, Social Security or a variety of other things. Even using $799B as the total military spending on the entire budget, it comes out to 22.3%.
It doesn't come down to organ damage, it comes down to interfering with the electrical signals controlling the heart. 20ma is what is necessary to send you into defibrilation. That comes out to 20 cm^2, not a lot of area and less than the cross sectional area of the heart.
Please state why you think the French have to get everything wrong every time.
Or if electricity could be converted to something else? It's possible to turn CO2 and water into Methane, and Methane into Diesel and other liquid fuels.
Project HYDRA, look into it.
Lets say the cable going one way carries 1000 Amp with a cross section of 0.1 square metres. If the return path uses 100 square metres the current density would be 1000th of that in the cable.
That would make a current density of 10 amps/meter^2. It only takes 20ma to kill you.
Even prior to firing Froomkin my impression is the quality of their editorials, and original news reporting in general, has been in steep decline lately.
As someone who's lived in the DC area for over 25 years, it's been more than 'lately'. Try at least 15-20 years.
Generally speaking, if I am paying for something, I feel entitled to the results or products it produces.
If you're paying for it, then you're a US citizen. Which means you have a first class military to protect you and your property. You are getting the results and products. Then there is the internet and computer you used to post this. It may occasionally take time, but you do get the benefits from it.
It's possible to angle the lenses on the sattelites so that they don't look straight down. This makes it more difficult to tell where they are looking. It is possible to repoint a satellite, but this takes fuel and when the satelite gets near the end of the fuel, it is required to de-orbit. Constantly repointing the satellite takes fuel. Also, knowing where/when the meteors are that are found makes it possible to tell what may have been caught be the satellites. Knowing what the watchers know, even if you don't necessarily know what they don't know, is still of use.