If the standard in any discussion is "exactly the same" then only the means used to establish the status quo can satisfy. And discussion is of no use.
But "the West was won" and commerce was established from coast to coast without benefit of the Interstate Highway System. In fact there were interstate highways before there was in Interstate Highway System.
My statement stands, and your objection serves only to reveal small-mindedness on your part. You err when you presume that the fact that I can imagine a world different than the one I occupy means that I believe that I occupy an imagined world.
Building roads is perfectly commercially viable. The ability to invoke eminent domain alleviates some non-trivial difficulties, but the idea that businesses can't or won't build roads is demonstrably false.
Totally off-topic, but thanks for LilyPond! I really need to write things down in order to remember them properly, and LilyPond is by far the best way I've found to meet that need.
I think that you want AC to reduce transmission losses, but my Physics might be out of date.
I love the idea of storing hot sodium in the ground when generation exceeds demand! It's like man-made geotherm! 'Course there's no reason not to do this with nuke. (But, of course, I understand that solar is "free".)
This map gives a good impression of the effects of coastline on insolation. By that Map Louisiana is no better than Missouri for solar.
Sodium tower based solar plants work great as long as you have a lot of unused land and a lot of sun. I ran the calculations a while back, and I may have some of the details wrong, but if I recall correctly you'd have to cover an area the size of Massachusetts assuming 100% efficiency, no transmission loss, and never a cloud in the sky, just to meet present demand. Area is really your enemy in solar generation.
So, again, nuclear works on a national scale today. All these other things, while really cool, have limitations at present which make the idea of using them for base load power speculative, at best.
Your ideas are hopelessly pie-in-the-sky, and chasing these pipe dreams distracts from the real, viable solution.
France runs largely on nuclear. In fact, their total nuclear production, including exports, nearly equals their total power consumption. This is not hypothetical in any way. This is deployed and functioning at scale today.
Canada runs about 60% on hydro, but geography plays a significant role there. But there is a case where hydro is basically workable.
Is ANYBODY running megawatt sterling engines (or megawatt arrays of sterling engines)? I can't find any reference to a practical deployment of sterling engines in Israel. Can you provide a link?
Is any developed nation getting a majority of its power from wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, or ANY combination?
I love the idea of distributed generation. Meanwhile we're burning coal, coal, coal. And coal has its good points. It's abundant and domestic. 'Course it's filthy.
Anyway, I'm 100% on board with the ideas of independence, self-reliance, and sustainability. I just don't believe in my heart of hearts that there is a direct line from where we are to there. I'd much rather make the transition to a decentralized grid of green sources in 100 years off of nuclear than do it in 50 years off of coal.
The other issue is that every form of power generation I have ever heard of has fallen under criticism from environmentalists. Every one. Every. Damn. One. Nuclear can meet our needs with environmental repercussions that I can live with. Full stop. Everything else has unknown side-effects, scalability problems, or other practical limitations. We know, for a fact, that we can do nuclear in a way that meets both current and any reasonable projected demand, and is safe and reasonably clean. We could be there now if environmentalists hadn't torpedoed it decades ago.
But once all the gasoline burning cars are out of the cities, why would the affluent and influential city dwellers agitate for cleaner power generation? Or the huge-voting-block suburbanites? Surely they (we?) should, and would like to think they would, but I don't think that's very realistic.
I have always held that plug-in electric cars are classist, as they merely offload pollution to economically depressed areas.
Of course, the only answer that makes any sense is nuclear, but it seems like we're never going to get another nuclear plant in the U.S.
And now you sidestep Kerry. I'd be willing to place a friendly wager that you, despite your vociferous objections to Iraq, voted for someone who approved it in the last presidential race. How does that not signal them to keep doing what they're doing?
As to plurality voting, we basically agree. The difficulty is that it is self-protecting. The only people that can change it are the ones propped up by it.
But the electorate has abandoned parties before. Have courage! Vote for someone with an idea!
Why did you ignore what I said about the Balkans? Clinton reversed himself in Somalia in the way that many feel Bush should have in Iraq, but Clinton was a major actor in the UN involvement in the Balkans which persists to this day. (Albeit under the purview of the EU.) If Iraq is a quagmire, then Bosnia is a quagmire. Certainly, Clinton took a more cooperative approach. But Hillary Clinton and John Kerry authorized Iraq. None of this seems to add up to there being a clear difference between the parties.
Neither party is running an anti-FISA presidential candidate. Done deal. Both parties have anti-FISA members. Again, no consistent, meaningful difference.
To your larger point, the electorate largely gets the candidates we deserve. I think, however, that your attitude that only Democrats and Republicans are worthy of consideration is part of the problem. The only way you can waste your vote is by voting for a candidate you don't want.
I kneejerked a little bit on my other reply. It stands, but this one includes some actual thought;-)
I simply cannot prove a negative. You have yet to propose a difference that I recognize. For the record, I didn't say they are identical. I said, "I don't see any consistent, substantial difference." So, for example, Bush is a hopeless homophobe, whereas Clinton did not seem to be. But I don't see any policy difference emerging from that fact. For all of Bush's bluster about gay marriage, it still isn't a "Federal" issue. This isn't a "difference" in any substantial way in my opinion.
When it comes to civil liberties, Clinton was less of a fan of firearms, and Bush is less of a fan of letting people alone in their own bedrooms. At the end of the day, neither one was really committed to civil liberty.
To address your specific point, Bush certainly is throwing the US military might around on a more grandiose scale, but it is nothing more than a matter of proportion. Clinton bombed Iraq. Clinton got us involved in Somalia with no clue what he was getting us into. SFOR remained in effect until 2005, when EUFOR took over in the Balkans. They're still there. I'll grant you that Clinton played nicer with the UN. One point to Jeremi?
I can continue listing ways in which they are functionally the same. They both seemed to think that the "war on drugs" is a swell idea. I think it is a fucking horrible, destructive idea. So, from where I stand, they look the same.
Consider that maybe the spectrum of politics is larger than what you typically think of. Again, from where I stand, it seems like the two dominant parties are full of sound and fury about whether to spend 20.2 billion on the war on drugs, or 20.4 billion. At the end of the day, this is a big jerk-off in my opinion. A real debate would be more like, "do we lock citizens up from making lousy decisions, or do we leave them the hell alone?" As long as we keep tuning in to the arguing over the scraps we'll keep getting run over by stuff that really matters, like FISA.
the simple existence of the predator drone has the effect of denying the enemy or potential enemy freedom of movement, irrespective of the ability/willingness to harm. [. ..] unless some careless politician had subscribed to a "no first use" policy.
You just made the same mistake as the careless politician. There must be at least a perceived ability/willingness to do harm. And let's face it, you give the other guy the idea that you're willing to harm him by harming his buddies first.
I thought its primary function was to gather intelligence, which hopefully has the effect of saving American, allied, and non-combatant's lives. But it does that by letting us kill enemy combatants better, which seems different on its face from what this article talks about.
I don't see any consistent, substantial difference. Both cut social programs. Both engaged in "nation building" to bad effect. Both were enemies of individual liberty. Both took steps to socialize medicine.
Let me give you an idea of what I would call different.
Withdrawing all troops from overseas. Not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but from Germany, Korea, Italy, Japan, and all the other countries where we have hundreds or thousands of troops. This can't be done overnight. We'd have to satisfy some treaties, and it would take some time.
Once that happens the Union budget could be slashed. Ideally to the point that the income tax could be phased out responsibly.
Does that give you some perspective, or do you continue to boggle?
Apple merely has to create some method, no matter how flimsy, whose purpose is to prevent unauthorized copying. (In this case, copying from the CD to the hard drive on a non-Apple computer.)
Slashdot Mirror
I never asserted that they were equivalent.
If the standard in any discussion is "exactly the same" then only the means used to establish the status quo can satisfy. And discussion is of no use.
But "the West was won" and commerce was established from coast to coast without benefit of the Interstate Highway System. In fact there were interstate highways before there was in Interstate Highway System.
My statement stands, and your objection serves only to reveal small-mindedness on your part. You err when you presume that the fact that I can imagine a world different than the one I occupy means that I believe that I occupy an imagined world.
-Peter
Look up the word "turnpike".
Building roads is perfectly commercially viable. The ability to invoke eminent domain alleviates some non-trivial difficulties, but the idea that businesses can't or won't build roads is demonstrably false.
-Peter
Appeal to authority never loses it's appeal.
-Peter
And if so, are you some kind of robot? And if so, what kind of powers do you have? Do you use them for good, or for awesome?
-Peter
They're not boxing gloves, they're his hands. How many times do we have to cover this?
-Peter
Totally off-topic, but thanks for LilyPond! I really need to write things down in order to remember them properly, and LilyPond is by far the best way I've found to meet that need.
Thanks!
-Peter
This "two-player" version of Pong sounds much more difficult than the original single-player version!
-Peter
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
-Peter
Really? You want a cookie for figuring out that the Batman is a reactionary?
-Peter
I think that you want AC to reduce transmission losses, but my Physics might be out of date.
I love the idea of storing hot sodium in the ground when generation exceeds demand! It's like man-made geotherm! 'Course there's no reason not to do this with nuke. (But, of course, I understand that solar is "free".)
This map gives a good impression of the effects of coastline on insolation. By that Map Louisiana is no better than Missouri for solar.
-Peter
Sodium tower based solar plants work great as long as you have a lot of unused land and a lot of sun. I ran the calculations a while back, and I may have some of the details wrong, but if I recall correctly you'd have to cover an area the size of Massachusetts assuming 100% efficiency, no transmission loss, and never a cloud in the sky, just to meet present demand. Area is really your enemy in solar generation.
So, again, nuclear works on a national scale today. All these other things, while really cool, have limitations at present which make the idea of using them for base load power speculative, at best.
-Peter
Your ideas are hopelessly pie-in-the-sky, and chasing these pipe dreams distracts from the real, viable solution.
France runs largely on nuclear. In fact, their total nuclear production, including exports, nearly equals their total power consumption. This is not hypothetical in any way. This is deployed and functioning at scale today.
Canada runs about 60% on hydro, but geography plays a significant role there. But there is a case where hydro is basically workable.
Is ANYBODY running megawatt sterling engines (or megawatt arrays of sterling engines)? I can't find any reference to a practical deployment of sterling engines in Israel. Can you provide a link?
Is any developed nation getting a majority of its power from wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, or ANY combination?
-Peter
I love the idea of distributed generation. Meanwhile we're burning coal, coal, coal. And coal has its good points. It's abundant and domestic. 'Course it's filthy.
Anyway, I'm 100% on board with the ideas of independence, self-reliance, and sustainability. I just don't believe in my heart of hearts that there is a direct line from where we are to there. I'd much rather make the transition to a decentralized grid of green sources in 100 years off of nuclear than do it in 50 years off of coal.
The other issue is that every form of power generation I have ever heard of has fallen under criticism from environmentalists. Every one. Every. Damn. One. Nuclear can meet our needs with environmental repercussions that I can live with. Full stop. Everything else has unknown side-effects, scalability problems, or other practical limitations. We know, for a fact, that we can do nuclear in a way that meets both current and any reasonable projected demand, and is safe and reasonably clean. We could be there now if environmentalists hadn't torpedoed it decades ago.
But that's just, like, my opinion, man.
-Peter
But once all the gasoline burning cars are out of the cities, why would the affluent and influential city dwellers agitate for cleaner power generation? Or the huge-voting-block suburbanites? Surely they (we?) should, and would like to think they would, but I don't think that's very realistic.
I have always held that plug-in electric cars are classist, as they merely offload pollution to economically depressed areas.
Of course, the only answer that makes any sense is nuclear, but it seems like we're never going to get another nuclear plant in the U.S.
Madness.
-Peter
And this ashtray.
Does it really go from less than a cent per kWh to 13 cents? Or is this Verizon Math?
Assuming it's 15.566 cents, why does it go down and then up based on use? Bizarre!
-Peter
As I said, Bosnia still isn't over. And you didn't look very hard.
And now you sidestep Kerry. I'd be willing to place a friendly wager that you, despite your vociferous objections to Iraq, voted for someone who approved it in the last presidential race. How does that not signal them to keep doing what they're doing?
As to plurality voting, we basically agree. The difficulty is that it is self-protecting. The only people that can change it are the ones propped up by it.
But the electorate has abandoned parties before. Have courage! Vote for someone with an idea!
-Peter
Why did you ignore what I said about the Balkans? Clinton reversed himself in Somalia in the way that many feel Bush should have in Iraq, but Clinton was a major actor in the UN involvement in the Balkans which persists to this day. (Albeit under the purview of the EU.) If Iraq is a quagmire, then Bosnia is a quagmire. Certainly, Clinton took a more cooperative approach. But Hillary Clinton and John Kerry authorized Iraq. None of this seems to add up to there being a clear difference between the parties.
Neither party is running an anti-FISA presidential candidate. Done deal. Both parties have anti-FISA members. Again, no consistent, meaningful difference.
To your larger point, the electorate largely gets the candidates we deserve. I think, however, that your attitude that only Democrats and Republicans are worthy of consideration is part of the problem. The only way you can waste your vote is by voting for a candidate you don't want.
-Peter
Come on! Don't feed the trolls!
Even an Algebra dropout must see that if this were true motion would be impossible!
-Peter
I kneejerked a little bit on my other reply. It stands, but this one includes some actual thought ;-)
I simply cannot prove a negative. You have yet to propose a difference that I recognize. For the record, I didn't say they are identical. I said, "I don't see any consistent, substantial difference." So, for example, Bush is a hopeless homophobe, whereas Clinton did not seem to be. But I don't see any policy difference emerging from that fact. For all of Bush's bluster about gay marriage, it still isn't a "Federal" issue. This isn't a "difference" in any substantial way in my opinion.
When it comes to civil liberties, Clinton was less of a fan of firearms, and Bush is less of a fan of letting people alone in their own bedrooms. At the end of the day, neither one was really committed to civil liberty.
To address your specific point, Bush certainly is throwing the US military might around on a more grandiose scale, but it is nothing more than a matter of proportion. Clinton bombed Iraq. Clinton got us involved in Somalia with no clue what he was getting us into. SFOR remained in effect until 2005, when EUFOR took over in the Balkans. They're still there. I'll grant you that Clinton played nicer with the UN. One point to Jeremi?
I can continue listing ways in which they are functionally the same. They both seemed to think that the "war on drugs" is a swell idea. I think it is a fucking horrible, destructive idea. So, from where I stand, they look the same.
Consider that maybe the spectrum of politics is larger than what you typically think of. Again, from where I stand, it seems like the two dominant parties are full of sound and fury about whether to spend 20.2 billion on the war on drugs, or 20.4 billion. At the end of the day, this is a big jerk-off in my opinion. A real debate would be more like, "do we lock citizens up from making lousy decisions, or do we leave them the hell alone?" As long as we keep tuning in to the arguing over the scraps we'll keep getting run over by stuff that really matters, like FISA.
But that's just me. Maybe they're worlds apart.
-Peter
As an IFOR/SFOR veteran I find your post simultaneously laughable and offensive.
-Peter
You just made the same mistake as the careless politician. There must be at least a perceived ability/willingness to do harm. And let's face it, you give the other guy the idea that you're willing to harm him by harming his buddies first.
-Peter
I thought its primary function was to gather intelligence, which hopefully has the effect of saving American, allied, and non-combatant's lives. But it does that by letting us kill enemy combatants better, which seems different on its face from what this article talks about.
-Peter
I don't see any consistent, substantial difference. Both cut social programs. Both engaged in "nation building" to bad effect. Both were enemies of individual liberty. Both took steps to socialize medicine.
Let me give you an idea of what I would call different.
Withdrawing all troops from overseas. Not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but from Germany, Korea, Italy, Japan, and all the other countries where we have hundreds or thousands of troops. This can't be done overnight. We'd have to satisfy some treaties, and it would take some time.
Once that happens the Union budget could be slashed. Ideally to the point that the income tax could be phased out responsibly.
Does that give you some perspective, or do you continue to boggle?
-Peter
Why don't you google for DMCA anti-circumvention?
Apple merely has to create some method, no matter how flimsy, whose purpose is to prevent unauthorized copying. (In this case, copying from the CD to the hard drive on a non-Apple computer.)
Also, they've already done this.
-Peter