The necessary thrust could be reduced by using an ion drive like VASIMR, which could be operated at a low enough thrust that it wouldn't snap the station in half like a twig. The station would slowly (VERY slowly!) spiral up towards the moon like SMART-1 did. Here's some recommended reading that shows how difficult this would be. It would also make resupply much harder, and require a complete redesign of the attitude stabilization and tracking software for the solar panels. I suspect the insulation and radiators would have to be modified as well because low earth orbit is a much different thermal environment than a lunar orbit.
No. The ISS is huge, so getting it into a Hohmann transfer orbit would require vastly more fuel than the Apollo missions did. And, the ISS isn't designed for more than the miniscule amount of thrust needed for station keeping. And, the ISS is designed to keep humans alive underneath the Van Allen radiation belts. Venturing above them would subject the astronauts to much more radiation. Also, lunar orbits are very unstable because of the "lumpiness" of the moon's gravity field. Only orbits with specific inclinations are remotely stable, which means the fuel requirements are even higher than a straightforward Hohmann trajectory would imply.
I contacted someone far more knowledgeable about finances than me, and this is what he said after reading our conversation (with names and addresses removed):
It was a little hard to follow the course of the correspondence with all the links to names and "Score 1" and "Score 2", etc. but I think I got the gist of the discussion. Both you and your friend have some valid points.
I don't know if the Motley Fool is correct about the average increase in the value of a home residence because it has certainly been higher than the rate of inflation over the last 80 years for the homes purchased by my parents and by me. You have to take all statistics with a grain of salt. You would also have to look at an appropriate time frame and location to draw any valid conclusions. It also makes a big difference in whether you buy at the top of the real estate cycle or at the bottom. It seems to me that today might be one of those time periods that will turn out to be most opportunistic.
You are correct that you must itemize your deductions on your tax return in lieu of taking the standard deduction in order to take the deduction for mortgage interest expense. Therefore, your tax "savings" is limited to the product of your top marginal tax rate times the excess of your total itemized deductions over your standard deduction for that year. In many cases in today's market, this tax savings will result in a lower cost to buy a home than to rent. In addition, for those "new" home buyers, there is a Federal income tax credit of up to $8,000 if the residence is purchased before 11/30/09. Every situation is different and you have to run the numbers to see the result. Even if it does cost a little more, to some people, the personal benefits of home ownership vs the hassles of renting are worth the difference in costs. And of course, there are also the disadvantages of being responsible for the upkeep and repair if you own your home that you don't have to worry about if you rent.
As far as the investment analysis, the biggest thing you are missing is the power of leverage. If Einstein called compound interest the most powerful force in the universe, then leverage has to be second. Using your statistics, if a home only increased in value by 4%, but you only put 20% down, the actual cash on cash return would be 20% as compared to the average 9% return from the equity markets.
I also understand that the home prices in your city in Colorado are somewhat higher than in other areas near by. If you were to do the analysis based on home prices in another area, the conclusions might be significantly different. I know my daughter is currently in a purchase transaction for a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath with a 2 car garage and a small fenced back yard in a city in Colorado for $145,000. This is what they call a "short sale" but the monthly costs with property tax and insurance will be less than she is currently paying for rent in a city near yours.
In my opinion, the bottom line (as you could probably tell from the tone of my response) is that I believe from an economic and tax standpoint, if an individual is going to remain in the home for awhile (say 5 years or so), it would be better to buy that rent in today's economic climate.
Let me ask you this, though- Are you taking that difference in your rent and throwing it into your IRA? I have decent financial discipline, but I have a hard time accounting for what disposable income I do have going into investments. Some have the financial discipline to throw every disposable dollar into savings, debt or investments, but I like to splurge with my disposable income.
Yeah, that's a serious concern. I'm the same way, which is why years ago I set up direct deposit to put most of my paycheck in my checking account but $200 goes into my savings account each month. Then Vanguard automatically withdraws $200 a couples of days later, so the money never shows up in my checking account and it's gone very quickly. That provides an enormous psychological advantage-- it only took discipline to set it up, and it's been smooth sailing every since then. Otherwise I'd be even more broke than I am...
Another related benefit of a mortgage (after a while of paying it), is that you can borrow against the equity if you need to. If something comes up, lenders see your principle balance as an asset.
True, I hadn't thought of that. On the other hand, a stock market account is more liquid and could actually be used to purchase something outright if it's important enough. Your house equity might also count as something that can be seized in certain types of lawsuits and bankruptcies, but I think retirement accounts are more protected. (I might be wrong about this...)
In addition, there is the tax benefit aspect. I deduct the interest I pay on my taxes. While not a justification in itself, it is an auxiliary benefit that a percentage of my housing costs does provide the benefit. One should not get a mortgage for just a tax benefit, but it is a nice fringe benefit.
Yes, I'd considered that, but I don't know if deducting interest paid on mortgages requires itemizing deductions. If so, you can't claim the standard deduction of $5700 for single people in 2009. So you only benefit by the amount that's greater than $5700, unless you spend a lot more time on your taxes than I do. Tax forms fill me with a special kind of dread, so I don't bother to itemize anything.
On a side note, the cost for my mortgage is actually LESS than what I would pay for an 2 bedroom apartment in my area. In fact, the house next door is rented for about 15% more than what I pay in a mortgage on my house. Of course this is limited to the area/situation, but it makes great financial sense for me in this regard.
Aye, there's no "silver bullet" which works for every city.
Hmm.. okay. Well, anyway, it's been... interesting. Just FYI, I'll be linking to your comments and quoting them when I finally get around to writing a blog article about my experiences debating climate change with the general public. It's usually helpful to see opposing points of view, and so far your posts are among the most educated and polite of those taking your position.
I really enjoyed the article, personally. But I didn't post because I didn't have anything to add. I did post on the mission blog itself, and then I came here to discover that another poster answered my question by saying that they'd measured the temperature of the dust blobs in the M74 picture. That means it can't be foreground stars as I'd been wondering.
I haven't read anything in this thread (sorry!) and I don't have time to come up with a proper link, but The Motley Fool says that real estate has only recently provided a decent return. If you average all the way back to 1890, the rate of return has mirrored the inflation rate. In other words, you're doing better than if you stuck your money in the mattress (which would underperform a house by exactly the inflation rate) but you're way behind stocks which (if I recall correctly) have a 9% APY if you choose an index mutual fund. Assuming an average inflation rate of 4%, this means your money grows 5% faster in this kind of fund rather than in real estate. That's significant-- remember that Einstein called compound interest the most powerful force in the universe!
Incidentally, I'd recommend a Vanguard Target Retirement fund (I use the 2045 fund) because it's highly diversified, rebalances every year or so, and slowly shifts your asset allocation to a more conservative mix (fewer stocks, more bonds) based on how close you are to retirement. That's why each fund has a different year, and why "2045" tells the world exactly how old I am. Fidelity and other large companies have similar investments, but be sure to check the asset allocation, expense ratio (important!) and the fees/minimum balances. (Note: Aside from having an account with Vanguard, I'm not connected to them and am not a representative of this company in any manner.)
And a person who rents (like myself) is able to put the extra money saved by renting (this depends on your area, but for me it's significantly cheaper to rent a 1br apt) directly into this account, which can be your "Roth IRA" account so it's tax deferred (or delayed, or whatever) and grows much faster on average than real estate. Plus, you're only actually building equity with the portion of your mortgage check that doesn't go towards interest, and in the early years this means that you're still "pissing away" 90% of your payments.
That doesn't mean that buying a house is stupid. My sister bought a house because she has kids, and if you have a zoo of dogs and cats it's probably better to avoid worrying about the security deposits and noise complaints. But it's not an investment any more than buying comic books is an investment. You might be able to find someone at the height of a boom who wants to buy your house for more than you could have gotten on the stock market, but that's gambling. It's not too surprising, either... stocks represent investments in new technologies, which should make profits year after year. A house just... sits there. In fact, it slowly decays...
Like other people who take your position, you appear to think that science is democratic...
THAT is complete bullshit. That is the exactly the point that I made in a preceding post... and you claim to have read this thread??? Go back and read it again. You are in error.
When asked for a peer-reviewed article, you presented a list of scientists. It doesn't really matter what you've written in any other post-- that kind of category error gives the appearance that you think science is democratic because that's the only scenario in which this wouldn't be a category error.
Most of your other complaints follow the same pattern. It's not that I haven't read your other posts, so there's no need to wait for Slashdot to get fixed. In fact, I've been reading your posts on this subject for many months now. Your recent postdid include a peer-reviewed article, which is progress of sorts and I applaud you for it. (Although the objections in my previous comments still stand.) But as far as I can tell, none of your previous comments contained even a single direct link to a peer-reviewed article. It's hard to be certain when you spam dozens of links into a single post, so I may very well have missed a direct link to a legitimate journal. If that's the case, I apologize and humbly ask-- again-- that you copy the link here so I can see whatever evidence you've seen that makes you so... excitable.
Note that peer review is a necessary but not sufficient condition for establishing a valid scientific claim. Not all peer-reviewed papers are accurate, as I've shown. But if you want respect from scientists, you have to first rise above this reliance on pseudo-scientific websites that display approximately the same level of rigor and oversight as this site.
If you go to the "about me" page (found at the top right) on my homepage (listed next to my name here at slashdot) then I've got an email address listed.
But, frankly, I'd rather you didn't. I'm not sure I want my email account filled with dozens upon dozens of pseudoscientific websites accusing me of participating in a Global Evil Conspiracy, punctuated only by cursing and accusations of being lazy. (Incidentally, that has much more to do with my definition of "uncivilized" than asking a polite question.) I don't have a blood pressure problem yet, and I'd rather keep it that way...
I'm not quite sure which of the claims you've made in that last response haven't been retracted, so I won't discuss any of them at length. However, I can't help but point out that you've casually dismissed every top-tier hard-science journal, in favor of a social science journal. With all due respect, Science, Nature and all the other journals I mentioned are where science actually happens. The claim that sunspot cycle length correlates well with Earth's average temperature was made in the mainstream journals in 1991. But it was quickly shown to be a spurious connection based on data smoothing parameters. The fact that "Energy and Environment" didn't catch this when the argument was made again 15 years later just shows that they're not experts in the field. As I've said, there's no shame in that. I'm not an expert in all subjects in the universe, so I don't fault their lack of highly specialized knowledge in this particular subject any more than my lack of knowledge about synchronized swimming is a black mark on my career as a climate scientist. I'm sure their journal is excellent at analyzing the social science issues associated with energy use, and those issues are important too.
And perhaps that particular article WAS wrong. But I have cited -- and pointed you to -- much more recent research that contradicts that.
More recent != more credible. If they were both articles in Science, yes, all other things being equal, the more recent article would have more weight (unless it was so new that other scientists hadn't yet had time to respond to it.) In fact, that article you're leaning on quotes Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen (1991) several times, without seeming to understand that the reason their conclusions are no longer valid has nothing to do with the data they used, and everything to do with the way they smoothed the data. My other post quotes legitimate, peer-reviewed articles that show this warming is due mainly to anthropogenic CO2.
I'm sorry; I really don't know which of the dozens of links you're talking about. If you want to make a strong scientific case, pick one article that you think presents the strongest evidence. Bonus points if it hasn't been disproven by later research (found through "cited by" in google scholar), and is in one of these journals: Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Physical Review, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.
Apparently you think *I* am an idiot. Try reading the goddamned thread.... If you really don't want to be perceived as a "brainwashed idiot", maybe you could bother to figure out what the argument is about before you put in your irrelevant 2 cents.... As for the rest, you are one of those lazy asses I mentioned.... But you are too damned lazy to look any of them up?... And yes, that to me means "brainwashed idiot".... get off your lazy ass and LOOK IT UP YOURSELF!!!... since you insist on being spoon-fed... There are many more, very easily found, but I am not going to do your homework for you. Now go away. You disgust me.
There's really no need to be so uncivilized. I'm just saying that all your posts on this subject clearly imply that scientists are either so stupid that they overlook trivially obvious "problems" with their own research, or are willing members in a global conspiracy. Based on your (mistaken) assumption that I haven't read this thread, I don't have to guess which of these alternatives you've chosen in my case. Pity. I bet conspirators get jetpacks!
And I most certainly do not think you're an idiot. At worst, I think you're making mistakes while talking about a highly advanced subject that lies far outside of your own professional experience. Everyone does that. It'd be a different story if I was saying that you were pathetically wrong about your own life's work... the subject that you've studied since childhood with the passionate intensity of a monk. I'd never insult you like that; at most I'd simply ask polite questions to try to understand your subject of expertise better.
First, the Petition Project is a legitimate collection of scientists.
I asked for peer-reviewed references, not a list of people with PhDs. There's a difference. A list of PhDs is an argument from authority. A peer-reviewed article is evidence of a very specific claim, along with equations and links to data that I could use to verify that claim. It's the product of the scientific process, which is given weight by the confrontational nature of the review process in addition to the fact that everyone involved has a PhD in that specific field. Like other people who take your position, you appear to think that science is democratic-- that scientific decisions are made by comparing the number of people on each side. It's not. It's about evidence.
Energy & Environment (an appropriately peer-reviwed journal) in 2006. You asked for one, you got it.
My apologies. I wasn't nearly specific enough in my original request. Scientific journals are rather specialized, and we're discussing a very specialized hard science topic. It wouldn't be appropriate to reference an article from a social science journal (which is what "Energy and Environment" is). The reason is that the referees need to be experts in their field in order to properly vet the paper. Journals I'd suggest reading are Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Physical Review, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, etc.
I'm sorry for not making that caveat more explicit, but I figured it was an assumption that all scientists would make...
But I'll make it up to you. Here's an article by Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen, published in Science in 1991. This would have been a legitimate example of a peer-reviewed journal article supporting your claim.
Of course, it's incorrect. You can find out how-- if you're interested-- by following its citations
Mon Dieu! Quantity != quality. You'd get a lot more respect if you'd simply link to one or two legitimate, peer-reviewed articles instead of dozens of pseudo-scientific websites. I don't have time to relieve you of your many misconceptions, but here are the most glaring errors:
On the contrary, if you had watched those YouTube videos I linked to...
We're scientists, not preteen girls looking for cat videos. Link to peer-reviewed articles or expect to be ignored.
Anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of a small, but measurable, increase in average global temperature. This temperature increase is a detectable deviation away from the statistical variations due to natural causes, and is now quite well understood."
That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard to date. It is NOT known, precisely because it has been impossible to statistically separate it from other influencing factors. (Including sunspots!) While many scientists believe that it probably has some effect, nobody has yet managed to measure it with any real statistical significance. Where did you get this idea, anyway? Do you have any sources that purport to have this measurement? The fact is that such a beast does not exist!
Geoffrey's statement is most certainly not ridiculous. I suggest looking at the IPCC 4th report. Download chapter 3, open the PDF to page 15 (which is labeled 249) and look at figure 3.6. The trend obtained from the data in figure 3.6 is 0.65 C plus or minus 0.2 C over the period from 1901 to 2005. The report notes that this rate is higher than at any other point since the 11th century. Meehl 2004 shows that this warming can't be explained by natural forcings alone, but including anthropogenic CO2 emissions matches the observations very well. And, yes, those "natural forcings" include variations in solar output, which can be measured by satellites at L1 so there's no need to search for weak correlations in sunspot data.
Furthermore, as I've repeatedly argued, Vostok shows that the current CO2 level is higher than it's been in half a million years. If you don't think that CO2 can warm the planet, I suggest you remember your sophomore-level physics classes and examine the spectrum of the sun. Then open a textbook and examine the absorption spectrum of CO2. Notice that the peak of the sun's radiation goes through? Now open your thermodynamics textbook and calculate the blackbody radiation of a planet at 286K. Notice that the CO2 absorbs more of this radiation.
That's why scientists say that CO2 is warming the planet. It's not exactly cutting-edge science.
Most of the science that is used to support the greenhouse warming model come from the IPCC Assessment reports, and much of that "science" has been shown to be flawed, not to mention that the reports themselves are heavily politicized, and their conclusions do not match the actual science that they reference.
That's exactly backwards. The IPCC reports are simply compilations of pre-existing, peer-reviewed science. I've read their reports and talked with scientists whose work is referenced in the IPCC reports. No scientist I've met (in public or private) thinks your conspiracy theory is valid. In fact, I've personally confirmed the mass loss in Greenland's glaciers with my own research. I've seen climate change happening with my own data and my own personal algorithms. Does that mean I'm part of the conspiracy too?
Below I link to a letter from Chris Landsea, who is the one who actually did the research on wh
Further, I had in fact answered one of Geoffrey's posts, and I have just answered another one, at length, with a reply that indirectly references about 150 or more peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Here's proof that the Moon doesn't cause the tides, that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that the Earth doesn't move. The website has more than 150 peer-reviewed references, I'm sure!
Not convinced? Why not? Do you see any difference between the post wrote in response to Geoffrey Landis and the fixedearth.com website? Because I don't. That's why we're asking you to provide us with a direct link to an actual peer-reviewed article supporting your claim that sunspots are responsible for global warming. It's all too common for pseudoscientists to quote legitimate articles to support their outlandish claims, and then ignore the scientists' complaints.
Or maybe scientists aren't the brainwashed idiots you clearly think we are? We're aware that the sun exists, and that it impacts the climate. But the overwhelming evidence is that sunspots have a negligible impact on climate.
People are asking you for serious, peer-reviewed references not because scientists are idiots who "believe what they are told on the 11 o'clock news, and who can't be bothered to do any real research or even lookups on their own" but because we've spent our lives studying these issues and what you're saying contradicts all the evidence we've seen.
... it'd take a while but is it really so far fetched to think that ultimately all our water and atmosphere are extra-terrestrial?
The point is that the isotope abundances of the oceans don't match the only four comets that have been observed precisely enough. H20 and HDO are easily distinguished from each other, and deuterium (the "D" in HDO) is quite stable so the isotope abundances shouldn't have changed. We've only measured 4 comets, though, so perhaps other comets more closely resemble our oceans.
Coincidentally, I attended Dr. Goldblatt's fascinating talk at the Fall 2008 AGU conference where he showed that the faint young sun paradox could be mitigated by a higher nitrogen pressure in the primordial atmosphere. Someone in the crowd (a Slashdot user, perhaps?) answered my question about experimental constraints on this pressure by saying that current research involving "raindrops" might produce a constraint soon.
This paper seems like it should be relevant, but I've yet to see a direct connection. If anything, the disparities in the isotope abundances between 15N/14N and D/H seem to imply their origins are (at best) only loosely connected. But unfortunately the guy who shouted "raindrops" didn't have a microphone and he was across a crowded lecture hall, so I don't have the foggiest idea what he meant. Maybe "raindrops" was a brief reference to the "enstatite chondrites" on page 7 of this new paper (the context seems similar, at least). However, Javoy's paper was published in 1986 and my mysterious benefactor definitely said the research was currently underway. Plus, the topic at the time was the total pressure of nitrogen, not the isotope abundance...
Anyone who knows about this subject, please enlighten me!
You don't have an email address listed or a homepage, so I'm not sure how to get you to notice these messages (sorry I was so late into the discussion). This comment will add to the list of replies in your comment history, though, so you might notice it...
Just a quick note that I've added some more points to my arguments, and made the language far less confrontational. Sorry about that... sometimes I get carried away.
As for marriage, why does 3-5% of the population get to decide for the other 96% what a marriage is?... Because the 4% are the ruling class and they get to decide?
It's true that homosexuals make up about 4% of the population. That much is true. But it's completely disingenuous to claim that they're opposing the heterosexuals that make up the other 96%. In point of fact, they're only opposing the bigots who still think it's acceptable to discriminate on the basis of sexuality. I'm straight, and I resent your implication that my accidental membership in the 96% majority means that I'm opposed to gay marriage. This isn't about gays vs. straights. It's about bigots vs. non-bigots; you should use those percentages instead.
And marriage isn't a civil liberties issue anyway, unless you think the government is stomping on the civil liberties of brothers who can't marry their sisters or a guy who can't marry his second or third wife.
This reasoning also shows that Alabama was wrong to legalize interracial marriage in 2001. After all, we already discriminate against brother/sister couples, so it's perfectly okay to discriminate against black/white couples.
And 40% of Alabama voters agreed with you: they wanted to keep the ban on interracial marriage. I'm curious: would you have voted to keep that ban? If I take your statements at face value, I have to assume you'd support the ban.
(Incidentally, I'm not against recognizing polygamous marriages but I've also noted that-- unlike gay relationships-- polygamous relationships actually can pose a threat to straight marriage.)
If all relationships are the same as a marriage, then incestuous relationships are the same as a marriage. If we can't discriminate against any two people, then we can't discriminate against any two people. That's why.
I've noted that gay marriage opponents bring up "horse marriage" to argue against gay marriage. But that's a ridiculous distraction because horses can't sign contracts. Some people even compare gay people to pedophiles, claiming that marriage between an old man and a 5 year old boy is the same as a gay marriage where both partners are adults. (Hopefully I don't have to explain how bigoted and ignorant this comparison is.)
These are both forms of discrimination. But they're justified forms of discrimination-- like refusing to issue a driver's license to a blind man. Discriminating against incestuous marriages is justified by the increased risk of birth defects.
But discriminating against gay marriage isn't justified by anything except bigotry, usually of the religious variety.
It seems pretty obvious how traditional marriage helps society: forming families and providing a structure for the raising of children. That's why there are hundreds of thousands of years of history of marriages, all more-or-less the same as today's unions.
Marriage has been changing (often for the better) for centuries, as I've previously said.
But gay marriages don't seem to benefit society. And honestly, beyond the advancement of certain political goals, I don't see how they benefit gay folks either.
Do you see how interracial marriages benefit people in love with a person of a different race? If so, you've just seen how marriage benefits gay people.
Also, we improve society every time individual rights are expanded, every time an injustice is corrected, every time a second-class citizen is given equal protection under the law. The more impartial and fair the law is, the more it will be respected.
And no one will be free to disagree that they're married. If you treat them differently because you disagree, be prepared to be fined or arrested (or at least sued) for discriminating. And if your religion says they're not married, well you can forget your freedom to act according to your conscience.
Wait... you're actually arguing that your right to discriminate against gay people trumps their right to the 1,000 tangible benefits of marriage? Are you serious?
As I've mentioned in a previous comment, Fred Phelps is a free man, and he "treats them
We need micro fusion generators that weigh just a few ounces.
Considering we can't even build fusion generators that produce power at all, it's just as plausible to wish for a laptop that runs on unicorn farts. Maybe a small nuclear (fission) battery would be a more realistic goal.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, it's lumpy.
The necessary thrust could be reduced by using an ion drive like VASIMR, which could be operated at a low enough thrust that it wouldn't snap the station in half like a twig. The station would slowly (VERY slowly!) spiral up towards the moon like SMART-1 did. Here's some recommended reading that shows how difficult this would be. It would also make resupply much harder, and require a complete redesign of the attitude stabilization and tracking software for the solar panels. I suspect the insulation and radiators would have to be modified as well because low earth orbit is a much different thermal environment than a lunar orbit.
No. The ISS is huge, so getting it into a Hohmann transfer orbit would require vastly more fuel than the Apollo missions did. And, the ISS isn't designed for more than the miniscule amount of thrust needed for station keeping. And, the ISS is designed to keep humans alive underneath the Van Allen radiation belts. Venturing above them would subject the astronauts to much more radiation. Also, lunar orbits are very unstable because of the "lumpiness" of the moon's gravity field. Only orbits with specific inclinations are remotely stable, which means the fuel requirements are even higher than a straightforward Hohmann trajectory would imply.
I contacted someone far more knowledgeable about finances than me, and this is what he said after reading our conversation (with names and addresses removed):
It was a little hard to follow the course of the correspondence with all the links to names and "Score 1" and "Score 2", etc. but I think I got the gist of the discussion. Both you and your friend have some valid points.
I don't know if the Motley Fool is correct about the average increase in the value of a home residence because it has certainly been higher than the rate of inflation over the last 80 years for the homes purchased by my parents and by me. You have to take all statistics with a grain of salt. You would also have to look at an appropriate time frame and location to draw any valid conclusions. It also makes a big difference in whether you buy at the top of the real estate cycle or at the bottom. It seems to me that today might be one of those time periods that will turn out to be most opportunistic.
You are correct that you must itemize your deductions on your tax return in lieu of taking the standard deduction in order to take the deduction for mortgage interest expense. Therefore, your tax "savings" is limited to the product of your top marginal tax rate times the excess of your total itemized deductions over your standard deduction for that year. In many cases in today's market, this tax savings will result in a lower cost to buy a home than to rent. In addition, for those "new" home buyers, there is a Federal income tax credit of up to $8,000 if the residence is purchased before 11/30/09. Every situation is different and you have to run the numbers to see the result. Even if it does cost a little more, to some people, the personal benefits of home ownership vs the hassles of renting are worth the difference in costs. And of course, there are also the disadvantages of being responsible for the upkeep and repair if you own your home that you don't have to worry about if you rent.
As far as the investment analysis, the biggest thing you are missing is the power of leverage. If Einstein called compound interest the most powerful force in the universe, then leverage has to be second. Using your statistics, if a home only increased in value by 4%, but you only put 20% down, the actual cash on cash return would be 20% as compared to the average 9% return from the equity markets.
I also understand that the home prices in your city in Colorado are somewhat higher than in other areas near by. If you were to do the analysis based on home prices in another area, the conclusions might be significantly different. I know my daughter is currently in a purchase transaction for a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath with a 2 car garage and a small fenced back yard in a city in Colorado for $145,000. This is what they call a "short sale" but the monthly costs with property tax and insurance will be less than she is currently paying for rent in a city near yours.
In my opinion, the bottom line (as you could probably tell from the tone of my response) is that I believe from an economic and tax standpoint, if an individual is going to remain in the home for awhile (say 5 years or so), it would be better to buy that rent in today's economic climate.
Yeah, that's a serious concern. I'm the same way, which is why years ago I set up direct deposit to put most of my paycheck in my checking account but $200 goes into my savings account each month. Then Vanguard automatically withdraws $200 a couples of days later, so the money never shows up in my checking account and it's gone very quickly. That provides an enormous psychological advantage-- it only took discipline to set it up, and it's been smooth sailing every since then. Otherwise I'd be even more broke than I am...
True, I hadn't thought of that. On the other hand, a stock market account is more liquid and could actually be used to purchase something outright if it's important enough. Your house equity might also count as something that can be seized in certain types of lawsuits and bankruptcies, but I think retirement accounts are more protected. (I might be wrong about this...)
Yes, I'd considered that, but I don't know if deducting interest paid on mortgages requires itemizing deductions. If so, you can't claim the standard deduction of $5700 for single people in 2009. So you only benefit by the amount that's greater than $5700, unless you spend a lot more time on your taxes than I do. Tax forms fill me with a special kind of dread, so I don't bother to itemize anything.
Aye, there's no "silver bullet" which works for every city.
Hmm.. okay. Well, anyway, it's been... interesting. Just FYI, I'll be linking to your comments and quoting them when I finally get around to writing a blog article about my experiences debating climate change with the general public. It's usually helpful to see opposing points of view, and so far your posts are among the most educated and polite of those taking your position.
I really enjoyed the article, personally. But I didn't post because I didn't have anything to add. I did post on the mission blog itself, and then I came here to discover that another poster answered my question by saying that they'd measured the temperature of the dust blobs in the M74 picture. That means it can't be foreground stars as I'd been wondering.
Or, hmmm... maybe Einstein didn't say that. But even if he didn't, he should have.
I haven't read anything in this thread (sorry!) and I don't have time to come up with a proper link, but The Motley Fool says that real estate has only recently provided a decent return. If you average all the way back to 1890, the rate of return has mirrored the inflation rate. In other words, you're doing better than if you stuck your money in the mattress (which would underperform a house by exactly the inflation rate) but you're way behind stocks which (if I recall correctly) have a 9% APY if you choose an index mutual fund. Assuming an average inflation rate of 4%, this means your money grows 5% faster in this kind of fund rather than in real estate. That's significant-- remember that Einstein called compound interest the most powerful force in the universe!
Incidentally, I'd recommend a Vanguard Target Retirement fund (I use the 2045 fund) because it's highly diversified, rebalances every year or so, and slowly shifts your asset allocation to a more conservative mix (fewer stocks, more bonds) based on how close you are to retirement. That's why each fund has a different year, and why "2045" tells the world exactly how old I am. Fidelity and other large companies have similar investments, but be sure to check the asset allocation, expense ratio (important!) and the fees/minimum balances. (Note: Aside from having an account with Vanguard, I'm not connected to them and am not a representative of this company in any manner.)
And a person who rents (like myself) is able to put the extra money saved by renting (this depends on your area, but for me it's significantly cheaper to rent a 1br apt) directly into this account, which can be your "Roth IRA" account so it's tax deferred (or delayed, or whatever) and grows much faster on average than real estate. Plus, you're only actually building equity with the portion of your mortgage check that doesn't go towards interest, and in the early years this means that you're still "pissing away" 90% of your payments.
That doesn't mean that buying a house is stupid. My sister bought a house because she has kids, and if you have a zoo of dogs and cats it's probably better to avoid worrying about the security deposits and noise complaints. But it's not an investment any more than buying comic books is an investment. You might be able to find someone at the height of a boom who wants to buy your house for more than you could have gotten on the stock market, but that's gambling. It's not too surprising, either... stocks represent investments in new technologies, which should make profits year after year. A house just... sits there. In fact, it slowly decays...
When asked for a peer-reviewed article, you presented a list of scientists. It doesn't really matter what you've written in any other post-- that kind of category error gives the appearance that you think science is democratic because that's the only scenario in which this wouldn't be a category error.
Most of your other complaints follow the same pattern. It's not that I haven't read your other posts, so there's no need to wait for Slashdot to get fixed. In fact, I've been reading your posts on this subject for many months now. Your recent post did include a peer-reviewed article, which is progress of sorts and I applaud you for it. (Although the objections in my previous comments still stand.) But as far as I can tell, none of your previous comments contained even a single direct link to a peer-reviewed article. It's hard to be certain when you spam dozens of links into a single post, so I may very well have missed a direct link to a legitimate journal. If that's the case, I apologize and humbly ask-- again-- that you copy the link here so I can see whatever evidence you've seen that makes you so... excitable.
Note that peer review is a necessary but not sufficient condition for establishing a valid scientific claim. Not all peer-reviewed papers are accurate, as I've shown. But if you want respect from scientists, you have to first rise above this reliance on pseudo-scientific websites that display approximately the same level of rigor and oversight as this site.
If you go to the "about me" page (found at the top right) on my homepage (listed next to my name here at slashdot) then I've got an email address listed.
But, frankly, I'd rather you didn't. I'm not sure I want my email account filled with dozens upon dozens of pseudoscientific websites accusing me of participating in a Global Evil Conspiracy, punctuated only by cursing and accusations of being lazy. (Incidentally, that has much more to do with my definition of "uncivilized" than asking a polite question.) I don't have a blood pressure problem yet, and I'd rather keep it that way...
I'm not quite sure which of the claims you've made in that last response haven't been retracted, so I won't discuss any of them at length. However, I can't help but point out that you've casually dismissed every top-tier hard-science journal, in favor of a social science journal. With all due respect, Science, Nature and all the other journals I mentioned are where science actually happens. The claim that sunspot cycle length correlates well with Earth's average temperature was made in the mainstream journals in 1991. But it was quickly shown to be a spurious connection based on data smoothing parameters. The fact that "Energy and Environment" didn't catch this when the argument was made again 15 years later just shows that they're not experts in the field. As I've said, there's no shame in that. I'm not an expert in all subjects in the universe, so I don't fault their lack of highly specialized knowledge in this particular subject any more than my lack of knowledge about synchronized swimming is a black mark on my career as a climate scientist. I'm sure their journal is excellent at analyzing the social science issues associated with energy use, and those issues are important too.
More recent != more credible. If they were both articles in Science, yes, all other things being equal, the more recent article would have more weight (unless it was so new that other scientists hadn't yet had time to respond to it.) In fact, that article you're leaning on quotes Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen (1991) several times, without seeming to understand that the reason their conclusions are no longer valid has nothing to do with the data they used, and everything to do with the way they smoothed the data. My other post quotes legitimate, peer-reviewed articles that show this warming is due mainly to anthropogenic CO2.
I'm sorry; I really don't know which of the dozens of links you're talking about. If you want to make a strong scientific case, pick one article that you think presents the strongest evidence. Bonus points if it hasn't been disproven by later research (found through "cited by" in google scholar), and is in one of these journals: Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Physical Review, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.
There's really no need to be so uncivilized. I'm just saying that all your posts on this subject clearly imply that scientists are either so stupid that they overlook trivially obvious "problems" with their own research, or are willing members in a global conspiracy. Based on your (mistaken) assumption that I haven't read this thread, I don't have to guess which of these alternatives you've chosen in my case. Pity. I bet conspirators get jetpacks!
And I most certainly do not think you're an idiot. At worst, I think you're making mistakes while talking about a highly advanced subject that lies far outside of your own professional experience. Everyone does that. It'd be a different story if I was saying that you were pathetically wrong about your own life's work... the subject that you've studied since childhood with the passionate intensity of a monk. I'd never insult you like that; at most I'd simply ask polite questions to try to understand your subject of expertise better.
I asked for peer-reviewed references, not a list of people with PhDs. There's a difference. A list of PhDs is an argument from authority. A peer-reviewed article is evidence of a very specific claim, along with equations and links to data that I could use to verify that claim. It's the product of the scientific process, which is given weight by the confrontational nature of the review process in addition to the fact that everyone involved has a PhD in that specific field. Like other people who take your position, you appear to think that science is democratic-- that scientific decisions are made by comparing the number of people on each side. It's not. It's about evidence.
My apologies. I wasn't nearly specific enough in my original request. Scientific journals are rather specialized, and we're discussing a very specialized hard science topic. It wouldn't be appropriate to reference an article from a social science journal (which is what "Energy and Environment" is). The reason is that the referees need to be experts in their field in order to properly vet the paper. Journals I'd suggest reading are Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Physical Review, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, etc.
I'm sorry for not making that caveat more explicit, but I figured it was an assumption that all scientists would make...
But I'll make it up to you. Here's an article by Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen, published in Science in 1991. This would have been a legitimate example of a peer-reviewed journal article supporting your claim.
Of course, it's incorrect. You can find out how-- if you're interested-- by following its citations
Mon Dieu! Quantity != quality. You'd get a lot more respect if you'd simply link to one or two legitimate, peer-reviewed articles instead of dozens of pseudo-scientific websites. I don't have time to relieve you of your many misconceptions, but here are the most glaring errors:
We're scientists, not preteen girls looking for cat videos. Link to peer-reviewed articles or expect to be ignored.
Geoffrey's statement is most certainly not ridiculous. I suggest looking at the IPCC 4th report. Download chapter 3, open the PDF to page 15 (which is labeled 249) and look at figure 3.6. The trend obtained from the data in figure 3.6 is 0.65 C plus or minus 0.2 C over the period from 1901 to 2005. The report notes that this rate is higher than at any other point since the 11th century. Meehl 2004 shows that this warming can't be explained by natural forcings alone, but including anthropogenic CO2 emissions matches the observations very well. And, yes, those "natural forcings" include variations in solar output, which can be measured by satellites at L1 so there's no need to search for weak correlations in sunspot data.
Furthermore, as I've repeatedly argued, Vostok shows that the current CO2 level is higher than it's been in half a million years. If you don't think that CO2 can warm the planet, I suggest you remember your sophomore-level physics classes and examine the spectrum of the sun. Then open a textbook and examine the absorption spectrum of CO2. Notice that the peak of the sun's radiation goes through? Now open your thermodynamics textbook and calculate the blackbody radiation of a planet at 286K. Notice that the CO2 absorbs more of this radiation.
That's why scientists say that CO2 is warming the planet. It's not exactly cutting-edge science.
That's exactly backwards. The IPCC reports are simply compilations of pre-existing, peer-reviewed science. I've read their reports and talked with scientists whose work is referenced in the IPCC reports. No scientist I've met (in public or private) thinks your conspiracy theory is valid. In fact, I've personally confirmed the mass loss in Greenland's glaciers with my own research. I've seen climate change happening with my own data and my own personal algorithms. Does that mean I'm part of the conspiracy too?
Here's proof that the Moon doesn't cause the tides, that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that the Earth doesn't move. The website has more than 150 peer-reviewed references, I'm sure!
Not convinced? Why not? Do you see any difference between the post wrote in response to Geoffrey Landis and the fixedearth.com website? Because I don't. That's why we're asking you to provide us with a direct link to an actual peer-reviewed article supporting your claim that sunspots are responsible for global warming. It's all too common for pseudoscientists to quote legitimate articles to support their outlandish claims, and then ignore the scientists' complaints.
Or maybe scientists aren't the brainwashed idiots you clearly think we are? We're aware that the sun exists, and that it impacts the climate. But the overwhelming evidence is that sunspots have a negligible impact on climate.
People are asking you for serious, peer-reviewed references not because scientists are idiots who "believe what they are told on the 11 o'clock news, and who can't be bothered to do any real research or even lookups on their own" but because we've spent our lives studying these issues and what you're saying contradicts all the evidence we've seen.
The point is that the isotope abundances of the oceans don't match the only four comets that have been observed precisely enough. H20 and HDO are easily distinguished from each other, and deuterium (the "D" in HDO) is quite stable so the isotope abundances shouldn't have changed. We've only measured 4 comets, though, so perhaps other comets more closely resemble our oceans.
Coincidentally, I attended Dr. Goldblatt's fascinating talk at the Fall 2008 AGU conference where he showed that the faint young sun paradox could be mitigated by a higher nitrogen pressure in the primordial atmosphere. Someone in the crowd (a Slashdot user, perhaps?) answered my question about experimental constraints on this pressure by saying that current research involving "raindrops" might produce a constraint soon.
This paper seems like it should be relevant, but I've yet to see a direct connection. If anything, the disparities in the isotope abundances between 15N/14N and D/H seem to imply their origins are (at best) only loosely connected. But unfortunately the guy who shouted "raindrops" didn't have a microphone and he was across a crowded lecture hall, so I don't have the foggiest idea what he meant. Maybe "raindrops" was a brief reference to the "enstatite chondrites" on page 7 of this new paper (the context seems similar, at least). However, Javoy's paper was published in 1986 and my mysterious benefactor definitely said the research was currently underway. Plus, the topic at the time was the total pressure of nitrogen, not the isotope abundance...
Anyone who knows about this subject, please enlighten me!
You don't have an email address listed or a homepage, so I'm not sure how to get you to notice these messages (sorry I was so late into the discussion). This comment will add to the list of replies in your comment history, though, so you might notice it...
Just a quick note that I've added some more points to my arguments, and made the language far less confrontational. Sorry about that... sometimes I get carried away.
It's true that homosexuals make up about 4% of the population. That much is true. But it's completely disingenuous to claim that they're opposing the heterosexuals that make up the other 96%. In point of fact, they're only opposing the bigots who still think it's acceptable to discriminate on the basis of sexuality. I'm straight, and I resent your implication that my accidental membership in the 96% majority means that I'm opposed to gay marriage. This isn't about gays vs. straights. It's about bigots vs. non-bigots; you should use those percentages instead.
This reasoning also shows that Alabama was wrong to legalize interracial marriage in 2001. After all, we already discriminate against brother/sister couples, so it's perfectly okay to discriminate against black/white couples.
And 40% of Alabama voters agreed with you: they wanted to keep the ban on interracial marriage. I'm curious: would you have voted to keep that ban? If I take your statements at face value, I have to assume you'd support the ban.
(Incidentally, I'm not against recognizing polygamous marriages but I've also noted that-- unlike gay relationships-- polygamous relationships actually can pose a threat to straight marriage.)
I've noted that gay marriage opponents bring up "horse marriage" to argue against gay marriage. But that's a ridiculous distraction because horses can't sign contracts. Some people even compare gay people to pedophiles, claiming that marriage between an old man and a 5 year old boy is the same as a gay marriage where both partners are adults. (Hopefully I don't have to explain how bigoted and ignorant this comparison is.)
These are both forms of discrimination. But they're justified forms of discrimination-- like refusing to issue a driver's license to a blind man. Discriminating against incestuous marriages is justified by the increased risk of birth defects.
But discriminating against gay marriage isn't justified by anything except bigotry, usually of the religious variety.
Marriage has been changing (often for the better) for centuries, as I've previously said.
Do you see how interracial marriages benefit people in love with a person of a different race? If so, you've just seen how marriage benefits gay people.
Also, we improve society every time individual rights are expanded, every time an injustice is corrected, every time a second-class citizen is given equal protection under the law. The more impartial and fair the law is, the more it will be respected.
Wait... you're actually arguing that your right to discriminate against gay people trumps their right to the 1,000 tangible benefits of marriage? Are you serious?
As I've mentioned in a previous comment, Fred Phelps is a free man, and he "treats them
You're my new hero.
(Why, yes, I have had a couple of drinks.)
I can't seem to play that file. Hopefully I'm not mispronouncing the word from an Iranian perspective?
Considering we can't even build fusion generators that produce power at all, it's just as plausible to wish for a laptop that runs on unicorn farts. Maybe a small nuclear (fission) battery would be a more realistic goal.
Weird. My Iranian friends pronounce it more like "eee-ron".