It is not just a majority opinion. It's real science with data to back it up put forward by professionals in relevant fields. It's hard to get a lot of scientists to agree on one issue. A lot of scientist's agree that global warming is real.
Ever hear of eugenics? You could just as well be talking about eugenics in the early 1900's with that paragraph. As for global warming, I will not debate that the globe is getting warmer. What I will debate is how much humans are having an effect on it.
Very few scientists with bad data and ties to politically motivated organizations say otherwise.
Last time I checked Green Peace (among many others) were politcal groups. And a lot of scientists believe that more study is needed on global warming as well. Not to disprove that it is happening, but to find what all the causes of it is.
In 1969, forty-eight professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to protest America's involvement in the Vietnam War
Interesting considering it was Lyndon B Johnson (D) that got us into that dam war in the first place.
CSS uses 40 bit encryption to "protect" the movies. To give you an idea of how "strong" 40 bit is, I could brute force every (all 1Trillion keys) in about two weeks at the outside with an old P3. And CSS has multiple keys that will decrypt the movie.
Maybe it's just a marketing ploy. After all, a lot of people have now heard of the game, and the fact that there are skins. Probably not going to do their sales a lot of harm. Gamers aren't typically puritanical.
Considering that I was planning on buying the game anyway (when the X-Box got cheaper) this just gives me more reason to. So yeah, as soon as the site comes back up I'm dloading that stuff.
How long is the developing world going to suffer because technological nations remain sentimental over their own agriculture?
eing able to support all (or most) of your own population on in country grown food allows for a much higher level of national security and self sufficiency. If all your food is grown outside of the country, that become a threat to national security no matter what country you are.
I don't know much about most of that, but NK and SK recently started an economic zone where SK companies could employ NK people. Not much, but it does help the economy of NK a bit. Not sure if it will make much of a diference in the long run, but it is interesting that the two Koreas are working somewhat together still.
Can we add Rome (they got all the way to England), Handibal, Napolean, the Spanish Conquistadors (sorry, some of their names excape me right now), China->Tibet, the Mongols with the Kahns. Hell, even the arabs have done quite a bit of this (though for some it has been a while, and for some it has been only 15 years).
Not entirely, this admission raises the spectre of a Japan having to develope nukes to protect themselves from a nuclear N. Korea. The thought of a nuclear Japan really ruins China's day, so there maybe some real friction in the region.
Two things in respons to this. First, Japan can NOT develope weapons. Read the treaty they signed with the USA at the end of WWII. Weapons developement is pretty much forbiden. Second, they don't need to have nukes to protect themselves as long as the USA has a defence treaty with them. Japan gets atacked, the USA retaliates.
Until the U.S. adopts a "loser pays" court system similar to the UK, these types of exploratory frivolous lawsuits will continue.
Replace that with "If the judge deems the lawsuit sufficiently frivilous, the plantif pays". That would be enough to deter these lawsuits. As for loser pays, if the plantif wins they are already paying something so their is no point. If the plantif loses, there lawsuit may not have been frivilous.
Most bottelnecks are already known. Here is a breakdown of access time when you are running at processor speeds:
L1 & L2 Cache: Almost instantanious, Picoosecond resonse time
L3 and higher Cache: A bit slower, but still pretty quick, Nano resonse time
Main memmory: Go do something else while waiting for this, Nano/Microsecond resonse time
Hard Drive: Go to lunch and come back, Milisecond resonse time
[1] For the record, I'm still trying to figure out if his SS plan is good or bad overall. However, excluding the numbers from the budget is wrong and deceitful.
Oh, my me. I get to have some fun with this given some information I just read in the paper yesterday. Lets see if I can find a link.
Published: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 12:56 PM EST
E-mail this story | Print this page
If Social Security is such a great deal for American workers, as its supporters insist, then why are more than 5 million of them desperately trying to keep out of the program?
Thanks to the way Social Security was established 70 years ago, state and local government workers in 15 states aren't covered by Social Security. These teachers, firefighters and police officers don't pay a penny into the program, putting money instead into state-run pension programs. And if they spend their entire careers in these state jobs, they get nothing out of Social Security. Their retirement income is financed entirely by these state plans.
Groups like the AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, want to force these folks into Social Security as a way to shore the program up. As the AARP sees it, once they start paying 12.4 percent of wages just like everyone else does, a total of $200 billion will pour into the bankrupt system.
The idea meets intense resistance from the state pension program managers, giant public-sector unions such as the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) -- and prominent Democrats who are normally singing the benefits of Social Security.
Better than Social Security . . .
Why? Because it turns out that these state and local pensions offer a far better deal that Social Security.
The Louisiana State Empoloyee's Retirement System (LASERS) notes that a state worker who earned an average $35,000 a year and retired at age 65 would get more than $2,100 a month from LASERS -- but a paltry $886 per month from Social Security. "LASERS's monthly benefit is almost two and a half times higher," it noted in an article decrying reform ideas like the AARP's. Plus, many of these state workers can retire at age 55 with full benefits, and most provide disability and survivor benefits.
As Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, Boxer and other more than a dozen other Democrats and Republicans, noted in a 2001 letter to President Bush's Social Security commission: "Millions of our constituents receive higher retirement benefits from their current public pensions than they would under Social Security."
Because it invests in stocks and bonds...
How, exactly, do these state and local governments manage this trick? As LASERS put it, the state's benefits are substantially higher than Social Security because the contributions the workers and their employers make into the program are -- gasp! -- "invested in a mix of equities, bonds and other investments whose return far exceeds returns earned under Social Security's fixed income-only approach."
The director of Ohio's Public Employees Retirement System reported in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee that "over 80 percent of our benefit disbursements are paid by investment income." Investment income, imagine that!
Seems that if investment in stocks and bonds is a good enough retirement plan for a school teacher in Boston, then it ought to be good enough for a factory worker in Detroit.
one of the problems (certainly their tyranical compulsory nature is the biggest) with american schools is that funding is based on property tax. Thus poor areas have poor funding. People remain ignorant and economically disadvantaged in certain communities for years.
Not so, some areas fund it in other ways. Such as Chicago with the Gas Tax. Also, this is why many areas of the country group together to have larger school districts. Some states also help out with funding.
National funding is certainly more equitable and most american's would not be opposed to it.
Do you know how much power the feds would then have over the school system? This would be a bad thing. Whoever was in office could push their veiws onto the kids for 4 years. And also, who decides how to split the money and who needs more schools? I don't think the Fed should be involved in schooling and this goes directly against that.
Any libertarian should hold that the first thing the government (state or national) should do is stop regulating public schools, or regulate them in a way that maxamises students rights (ie ban schools from making students attend, ban police without warents or military recruiters from schools).Students are required by federal law to be schooled until they are 16. Whether it be home schooled, private school or public school. Change that first. Police are required under current law to bring any student to school caught playing hookie. Change that. As for military recruiters at schools, what is wrong with that?
I'm just wondering - couldn't those same factors affect a captain's visibility to a lighthouse?
While the weather you mention can affect the captains ability to see a lighthouse, the lighthouse has a powerful enough beam to cut through most weather. If a captain can't see a light house beam, it is some very bad weather and the captain is effectively sailing blind. Any captain stupid enough to get near land in a case like that is going to get their license revoked.
You're not thinking small enough. I have been on sailboats that are 22 feet long and some that are 42 feet long. They do NOT have radar. Loran was installed (but it isn't very accurate). GPS is finialy cheap enough, but not always available (requires bateries that can die). Our sailboat had a small gas motor. We had no power source other than bateries on hte smaller boats. Radar is still far and few between on them and will not pick up shallow watters or wrecks. Some form of light is still an advantage in storms where GPS is either un available or too hard to compare to a chart of the area. Lighthoses and buoies are still the best way to go for the smaller boats.
I provide links (and ask for them too). That way I can see what data they are using to make their opinion and judge it for myself. If I only have access to links I find I may miss information they have found and vice versa. Also, it makes them (and me) have to look for information to prove it instead of relying on anecdotal evidence and memmory. As for changing their mind, it's those who dont ask for links that will ignore links posted that wont change their mind on anything. At least those asking for links will read them if they are given. I know I do.
Ah, ok. I have recently heard the social security trust fund is at about 1.6 trillion, so that would put it at about 6 trillion to other investers still.
That should help their nuclear weapons proliferation effort a great deal. DPRK, and Iran are already lined up to buy one.
Only certain (one each?) isotopes of Uranium and Plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons. Why not just give them the types that can't be used in them?
Nuclear Waste can be recylced and refined. Among other ways, we can use a breeder reactor to re-enrich the spent fuel and reuse it in power plants. This would greatly decrease the amount of waste left over and the leftover would be much less radioactive. For some reason, no one seems to talk about this. Partly the reason we haven't done this is that Carter put a ban on them in the US. Overturn the ban, get much safer nuclear power.
Not sure what year you are living in. US national debt clock. I hate to admit it but it is a lot higher than 4.4 trillion. But it is still only around 62% of the GDP. Much lower (percentage wise) than some European countries (Spain, Germany, Belgium). One thing that might help the US however, is if China would float their currency. I.E. Let the market set the exchange rate instead of tying it to the dollar. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2186rank.html
A. just stopped taking 12.5% out of my income and I'll just live without the whole bloody thing.
B. or ideally just gave me back what I've paid in a lump sum.
Given how the slow the Repubs would have to work to keep people from spending, Moving the money into private accounts is the first step in getting it away from the government (and geting the gov to reduce spending). Then, once it it in private accounts, individuals can start making the case about why they should be required to pay into it in the first place. Traditionaly (going back to when SS was implemented) the SS funds have gone into the general fund to prop up spending. Getting it out of the general fund in the first place is a good starter.
Of course if we built a breeder reactor and re-enricher we could recycle our spent reactor fuel as well and cut down on the nuclear waste produced. Gah, I agree with you "vehemently protesting any movement down any path that might actually allow us to realistically release ourselves from some of that dependence, e.g., new nuclear plants. But no: must... be... scared... of... anything..."nuclear""
Slashdot Mirror
It is not just a majority opinion. It's real science with data to back it up put forward by professionals in relevant fields. It's hard to get a lot of scientists to agree on one issue. A lot of scientist's agree that global warming is real.
Ever hear of eugenics? You could just as well be talking about eugenics in the early 1900's with that paragraph. As for global warming, I will not debate that the globe is getting warmer. What I will debate is how much humans are having an effect on it.
Very few scientists with bad data and ties to politically motivated organizations say otherwise.
Last time I checked Green Peace (among many others) were politcal groups. And a lot of scientists believe that more study is needed on global warming as well. Not to disprove that it is happening, but to find what all the causes of it is.
In 1969, forty-eight professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) to protest America's involvement in the Vietnam War
Interesting considering it was Lyndon B Johnson (D) that got us into that dam war in the first place.
CSS uses 40 bit encryption to "protect" the movies. To give you an idea of how "strong" 40 bit is, I could brute force every (all 1Trillion keys) in about two weeks at the outside with an old P3. And CSS has multiple keys that will decrypt the movie.
Maybe it's just a marketing ploy. After all, a lot of people have now heard of the game, and the fact that there are skins. Probably not going to do their sales a lot of harm. Gamers aren't typically puritanical.
Considering that I was planning on buying the game anyway (when the X-Box got cheaper) this just gives me more reason to. So yeah, as soon as the site comes back up I'm dloading that stuff.
How long is the developing world going to suffer because technological nations remain sentimental over their own agriculture?
eing able to support all (or most) of your own population on in country grown food allows for a much higher level of national security and self sufficiency. If all your food is grown outside of the country, that become a threat to national security no matter what country you are.
Gah, need to proofread what I type. But I'd still like to know how that was flamebait.
I don't know much about most of that, but NK and SK recently started an economic zone where SK companies could employ NK people. Not much, but it does help the economy of NK a bit. Not sure if it will make much of a diference in the long run, but it is interesting that the two Koreas are working somewhat together still.
Can we add Rome (they got all the way to England), Handibal, Napolean, the Spanish Conquistadors (sorry, some of their names excape me right now), China->Tibet, the Mongols with the Kahns. Hell, even the arabs have done quite a bit of this (though for some it has been a while, and for some it has been only 15 years).
Not entirely, this admission raises the spectre of a Japan having to develope nukes to protect themselves from a nuclear N. Korea. The thought of a nuclear Japan really ruins China's day, so there maybe some real friction in the region.
Two things in respons to this. First, Japan can NOT develope weapons. Read the treaty they signed with the USA at the end of WWII. Weapons developement is pretty much forbiden. Second, they don't need to have nukes to protect themselves as long as the USA has a defence treaty with them. Japan gets atacked, the USA retaliates.
Even if they did, they would be lucky if any of their missles could hit the continental US. Sorry Hawaii ^_^.
I'd be more sorry about Guam, American Samoa, Japan and South Korea personally. (among others)
Wow, I think that is the first time I have ever read an article from the post that is not against Bush. Thanks for the link.
Until the U.S. adopts a "loser pays" court system similar to the UK, these types of exploratory frivolous lawsuits will continue.
Replace that with "If the judge deems the lawsuit sufficiently frivilous, the plantif pays". That would be enough to deter these lawsuits. As for loser pays, if the plantif wins they are already paying something so their is no point. If the plantif loses, there lawsuit may not have been frivilous.
Most bottelnecks are already known. Here is a breakdown of access time when you are running at processor speeds:
L1 & L2 Cache: Almost instantanious, Picoosecond resonse time
L3 and higher Cache: A bit slower, but still pretty quick, Nano resonse time
Main memmory: Go do something else while waiting for this, Nano/Microsecond resonse time
Hard Drive: Go to lunch and come back, Milisecond resonse time
[1] For the record, I'm still trying to figure out if his SS plan is good or bad overall. However, excluding the numbers from the budget is wrong and deceitful.
/ editorial/01aaedit.txt
...
Oh, my me. I get to have some fun with this given some information I just read in the paper yesterday. Lets see if I can find a link.
Summary: Social Security pays shit on returns and state run pension plans give back a much better return.
http://dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/02/08/opinion
Article text, since it won't be there forever:
Dems favor privatized accounts for a few
Published: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 12:56 PM EST E-mail this story | Print this page
If Social Security is such a great deal for American workers, as its supporters insist, then why are more than 5 million of them desperately trying to keep out of the program?
Thanks to the way Social Security was established 70 years ago, state and local government workers in 15 states aren't covered by Social Security. These teachers, firefighters and police officers don't pay a penny into the program, putting money instead into state-run pension programs. And if they spend their entire careers in these state jobs, they get nothing out of Social Security. Their retirement income is financed entirely by these state plans.
Groups like the AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, want to force these folks into Social Security as a way to shore the program up. As the AARP sees it, once they start paying 12.4 percent of wages just like everyone else does, a total of $200 billion will pour into the bankrupt system.
The idea meets intense resistance from the state pension program managers, giant public-sector unions such as the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) -- and prominent Democrats who are normally singing the benefits of Social Security.
Better than Social Security . . .
Why? Because it turns out that these state and local pensions offer a far better deal that Social Security.
The Louisiana State Empoloyee's Retirement System (LASERS) notes that a state worker who earned an average $35,000 a year and retired at age 65 would get more than $2,100 a month from LASERS -- but a paltry $886 per month from Social Security. "LASERS's monthly benefit is almost two and a half times higher," it noted in an article decrying reform ideas like the AARP's. Plus, many of these state workers can retire at age 55 with full benefits, and most provide disability and survivor benefits.
As Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, Boxer and other more than a dozen other Democrats and Republicans, noted in a 2001 letter to President Bush's Social Security commission: "Millions of our constituents receive higher retirement benefits from their current public pensions than they would under Social Security."
Because it invests in stocks and bonds...
How, exactly, do these state and local governments manage this trick? As LASERS put it, the state's benefits are substantially higher than Social Security because the contributions the workers and their employers make into the program are -- gasp! -- "invested in a mix of equities, bonds and other investments whose return far exceeds returns earned under Social Security's fixed income-only approach."
The director of Ohio's Public Employees Retirement System reported in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee that "over 80 percent of our benefit disbursements are paid by investment income." Investment income, imagine that!
Seems that if investment in stocks and bonds is a good enough retirement plan for a school teacher in Boston, then it ought to be good enough for a factory worker in Detroit.
one of the problems (certainly their tyranical compulsory nature is the biggest) with american schools is that funding is based on property tax. Thus poor areas have poor funding. People remain ignorant and economically disadvantaged in certain communities for years.
Not so, some areas fund it in other ways. Such as Chicago with the Gas Tax. Also, this is why many areas of the country group together to have larger school districts. Some states also help out with funding.
National funding is certainly more equitable and most american's would not be opposed to it.
Do you know how much power the feds would then have over the school system? This would be a bad thing. Whoever was in office could push their veiws onto the kids for 4 years. And also, who decides how to split the money and who needs more schools? I don't think the Fed should be involved in schooling and this goes directly against that.
Any libertarian should hold that the first thing the government (state or national) should do is stop regulating public schools, or regulate them in a way that maxamises students rights (ie ban schools from making students attend, ban police without warents or military recruiters from schools).Students are required by federal law to be schooled until they are 16. Whether it be home schooled, private school or public school. Change that first. Police are required under current law to bring any student to school caught playing hookie. Change that. As for military recruiters at schools, what is wrong with that?
I'm just wondering - couldn't those same factors affect a captain's visibility to a lighthouse?
While the weather you mention can affect the captains ability to see a lighthouse, the lighthouse has a powerful enough beam to cut through most weather. If a captain can't see a light house beam, it is some very bad weather and the captain is effectively sailing blind. Any captain stupid enough to get near land in a case like that is going to get their license revoked.
You're not thinking small enough. I have been on sailboats that are 22 feet long and some that are 42 feet long. They do NOT have radar. Loran was installed (but it isn't very accurate). GPS is finialy cheap enough, but not always available (requires bateries that can die). Our sailboat had a small gas motor. We had no power source other than bateries on hte smaller boats. Radar is still far and few between on them and will not pick up shallow watters or wrecks. Some form of light is still an advantage in storms where GPS is either un available or too hard to compare to a chart of the area. Lighthoses and buoies are still the best way to go for the smaller boats.
I provide links (and ask for them too). That way I can see what data they are using to make their opinion and judge it for myself. If I only have access to links I find I may miss information they have found and vice versa. Also, it makes them (and me) have to look for information to prove it instead of relying on anecdotal evidence and memmory. As for changing their mind, it's those who dont ask for links that will ignore links posted that wont change their mind on anything. At least those asking for links will read them if they are given. I know I do.
Ah, ok. I have recently heard the social security trust fund is at about 1.6 trillion, so that would put it at about 6 trillion to other investers still.
That should help their nuclear weapons proliferation effort a great deal. DPRK, and Iran are already lined up to buy one.
Only certain (one each?) isotopes of Uranium and Plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons. Why not just give them the types that can't be used in them?
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/bud/pd112801b.html9 30.Ph.r.html m l h ome.htm
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/jun99/928862
http://www.atomicinsights.com/apr95/waste_myth.ht
http://www.nmcco.com/education/facts/waste/waste_
how's that?
Coal contains radioactive material such as uranium.4 02.HTM
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99
Nuclear Waste can be recylced and refined. Among other ways, we can use a breeder reactor to re-enrich the spent fuel and reuse it in power plants. This would greatly decrease the amount of waste left over and the leftover would be much less radioactive. For some reason, no one seems to talk about this. Partly the reason we haven't done this is that Carter put a ban on them in the US. Overturn the ban, get much safer nuclear power.
Not sure what year you are living in. US national debt clock. I hate to admit it but it is a lot higher than 4.4 trillion. But it is still only around 62% of the GDP. Much lower (percentage wise) than some European countries (Spain, Germany, Belgium). One thing that might help the US however, is if China would float their currency. I.E. Let the market set the exchange rate instead of tying it to the dollar. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2186rank.html
A. just stopped taking 12.5% out of my income and I'll just live without the whole bloody thing.
B. or ideally just gave me back what I've paid in a lump sum.
Given how the slow the Repubs would have to work to keep people from spending, Moving the money into private accounts is the first step in getting it away from the government (and geting the gov to reduce spending). Then, once it it in private accounts, individuals can start making the case about why they should be required to pay into it in the first place. Traditionaly (going back to when SS was implemented) the SS funds have gone into the general fund to prop up spending. Getting it out of the general fund in the first place is a good starter.
Of course if we built a breeder reactor and re-enricher we could recycle our spent reactor fuel as well and cut down on the nuclear waste produced. Gah, I agree with you "vehemently protesting any movement down any path that might actually allow us to realistically release ourselves from some of that dependence, e.g., new nuclear plants. But no: must ... be ... scared ... of ... anything ..."nuclear""