The last 8 years. Admitted, the Gold Standard is dead, but the US Dollar is anything but stable, and the Fed solution to recent economic woes (More Loans! Lower Rates!) is unlikely to do anything to change that.
You really need to research Bretton Woods. Also the argument that "Good isn't useful for much and is precious only because its precious" is just insane. The first part is dead wrong. Gold has myriad industrial uses. As for the second, its even more true of money, and I really fail to see how that's a criticism of the idea. Also, you're attacking a completely tangential part of my point, which is that (completely aside from the relative merits of gold back vs. fiat currency) the Fed is guilty of grossly mismanaging the money supply in the USA which has resulted in prolonged periods of very high inflation.
There are problems with your numbers, most relating to the fact that they're old. At least 5-10 years old in most cases. Inflation has resulted in the $200 Nintendo 64 of 1996 being much more comparable to the $300 XBOX 360 of 2006. Add into that the recent huge losses of the US dollar against most international currencies and it adds up to Americans better get used to paying more for things.
Who to Blame? Alan Greenspan. His policy of Fed Lending to get out of recessions has left the dollar hugely weaker than it was 15 years ago. He did at least as much damage as Richard Nixon's destruction of the gold standard.
As an aside, I think its valid to argue that a large portion of the legal morass these days is caused by the rise of lawmakers with no legal training. Back in the "good old days" (sarcasm intended) the vast majority of members in a State Legislature, or United States Congress would at least have legal education (whether they had actually practiced criminal or civil law or not although the further back in time you go, the more common it is for members to have experience in Criminal Law Practice). Nowadays, Bill Frist is the more common model, a Medical Doctor with no legal education whatsoever. MBAs are also common.
I argue that this gives rise to chaos when it comes to actually enforcing the law, as actual legal professionals have to then interpret and decode the ramblings of uneducated amateurs into their language.
For a Comp-Sci analogy - what happens when you take an amateur web-developer, who does mostly HTML, but knows a little Perl and PHP, and put him in charge of a production C/C++ OS development team?
Depends on how much telepathy we get! If we got technology where you could read people's surface thoughts, society could go downhill pretty quick. Example: Person 1: "How do I look?"; Person 2: "Great!" (Unspoken: Weelll, that skirt makes your ass look big, and that blouse makes your tits look sorta saggy.)
We'll either get so good at lying personal interaction won't mean anything anymore (Hell, identity won't mean anything anymore), or society will collapse into a flaming pile of rubble.
I ask that you ignore that the "science" is utterly impossible. What I think you miss is that even before ADAM was discovered, poverty and social stratification had already become major issues. That was how Fontaine was able to set himself up in the first place. ADAM simply serves as an impetus for revolutionary change. The desire to overthrow Andrew Ryan was already there, but the people were powerless to do so.
As an aside any non-Keynesian economist expects 95+% of citizens to be completely rational in deed.
Also, the plot of the game is really quite solid, you just have to find enough of the audio logs to fill in the holes, unraveling the plot is a detective story in itself, and quite enjoyable in my opinion.
As for the "science" being impossible, that's an issue related to the difficulty of writing hard science fiction today, especially if writing for a science literate audience. Which is an idea I'd really like to explore further. But Bioshock really isn't even soft Sci-Fi, it is firmly in the realm of fantasy.
Generally, Science Fiction arose in the early part of the 20th century out of the Romantic Adventure. Arguably the archetype is really epic myth, but the immediate predecessors are adventure stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne, themselves modeled on novels like "The Three Musketeers." Hard Science Fiction arises out of that pulp tradition at least by the 1940's, as a way of appealing to the growing science literate population. A fit of inspiration strikes me, and it occurs that it could be seen as an extension of the "God of the Gaps" phenomena, the premise was to extend beyond our knowledge into the realm of possibility an populate it with the extraordinary and the exciting. Martians, Jungles on Venus, Interplanetary and Interstellar trade and Empire. Thrilling stuff most definitely. But as our scientific knowledge expands, the gaps contract. There are no jungles on Venus, and the possibility of any ancient Martian Civilizations is vanishingly small. Our expansion and development of transportation technology has stalled. How do you write Hard Sci-Fi in the style of Asimov, Heinlein, Pournelle, etc to an audience who knows that Faster than Light travel is incompatible with the known laws of physics? Who have at least a passable understanding of the Genetics, and the functional units of the Genetic Code?
Alternatively, you could have read Rousseau, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Hume, Machiavelli, etc in High School. Not that anyone does, except myself apparently.
I'd argue that "Bioshock" beats "Deus Ex" in being meaningful in a literary way by miles. "Deus Ex" was, in my humble opinion, a fairly stale regurgitation of standard cyberpunk, as seen in Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, and The Matrix. Bioshock is a far more novel and refreshing rebuttal of Objectivism. As well as being an interesting treatise on the issues of choice and free will, and their often illusory existence.
"Deus Ex" was a better game than it was literature or philosophy, "Bioshock" excels as both.
All of these were heralded as revolutionary advances in "Medicine." These were practices widely performed, on thousands (if not more) patients. They're now regarded as either bizarre, or outright horrifying, as well as completely unfounded in any kind of scientific understanding. The history of about 1800-1950 has taught medicine some well needed lessons about hubris.
None of which is to say I think Homeopathy is anything pseudo-scientific quackery. But the history of medical science is anything but pristine. At worst, Homeopaths are con-men selling bottled water (and at best, they're hopelessly deluded witchdoctors selling bottled water). At it's worst Medical doctors were advocating shoving ice-picks up peoples noses and mashing up their frontal lobes (and doing it).
In my opinion, fuck the rich. They can take care of themselves. Forcing them to ride on public transportation might teach them some well earned humility.
I didn't say that at all. My intention was more that automobiles aren't exactly the most efficient or desirable means of moving people from place to place in a highly urban environment. Parking difficulties and the inefficient use of land being prime reasons. It has nothing to do with it being an Apple store or not.
Yes, Cities would have to plan their zoning intelligently! The Horrors! Or, even worse, ban automobiles inside the city limits and install a robust public transportation system. YE Gods! IT would be the beginning of the end.
You're seeing a lot of really discouraging things
on
Entry-Level Astronomy?
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· Score: 1
One: Take a Deep Breath, and decide what you really want to do. Sadly, you do really need a much higher budget to get into Astrophotography. Entry level to get results that will give you satisfaction is probably in excess of $3000.
Now, are you still interested in Amateur Astronomy? It can certainly be a lot of fun, but unless you go the strictly Binoculars and Star Charts route, cheap it is not.
If you're still interested, what do you want to see? There are really three distinct classes of objects, with different requirements: Stars (looking at doubles and multi-star systems), Planets, and Deep-Sky (Faint Fuzzies, the Nebulae, galaxies, and globular clusters.) For Stars and planets, you want the best quality refractor you can buy, largely becase these are pursuits that push high magnifications. For the Faint Fuzzies, you need as much aperture as you can get, and the cheapest way to do that is a Newtonian Reflector.
Now, there is a third way, not mentioned by many of the other posts I see, the Catadiotropics, these are telescopes that contain compound Mirror/Lens combinations. They provide a way to the get much of the optical performance of Refractors, with the light gathering ability of Reflectors. Orion imports a number of Chinese made models that are rather well regarded of this type.
Resources for more information - You really need to learn as much before making a purchase. I recommend: Ed Ting's http://www.scopereviews.com/, which hasn't been updated much lately but has a lot of good information nonetheless. Also, as mentioned by others: http://www.cloudynights.com/ is an excellent resource with a great, and active forum community.
Now, just to give you more of the Kind of answer you wanted, for $1000, what do I like? In a Refractor, I like the William Optics http://www.williamoptics.com/ Zenithstar 80 ED Refractor, a nice budget OTA (optical tube assembly) with well regarded performance, and a very nice focuser. That will leave you enough money left over to buy a decent Mount and Tripod (a hugely complex subject in and of itself), and a decent eyepiece or two (I like the University Optics http://www.universityoptics.com/ HD Abbe Orthoscopics, which give a lot of Bang for the Buck Performance). Now, in a Reflector, the Orion http://www.telescope.com/ Skyquest XT12 Classic is a good buy and comes with everything you need to get started. And the Third way? The Orion 150mm Skyview Pro Maksutov Cassegrain is probably a good start. Note that the Skyquest XT12 will definitely show you the most things (Aperture wins!) BUT, it does not have an equatorial mount and it will NOT track the sky.
In closing, I strongly suggest thinking about what it is you want to see, and spending a good bit of time reading the Cloudy Nights Forum before making a purchase.
Gazuh? Since when was "OS X" = Windows? Even Photographers have options. Pro/Prosumer Photo software is usually equally we supported on both platforms, and if the app you use isn't, there are alternatives that are. CS3 is available for OS X. The Big RAW workflow tools are as well.
He is not stuck. Do a bit of research and you can find a top quality replacement for any tool he needs on the Windows platform. Now, Linux, you'd be right. Important tools like CS3, DXO Optics (a raw processing program) Lightroom/Apeture, etc have no presence on Linux.
Shockingly, if you look carefully, you'll notice I said, "Silicon and Silicon based compounds." Both Silica, and Silicone are definitely "Silicon based compounds".
I'd be willing to bet it is the container. Shockingly there do seem to be people sensitive to Silicon and Silicon based compounds (see the controversy over Silicone breast implants.)
I say: 1. No more implants in people. 2. More Study.
What exactly is your proposed mechanism for RF signals causing cancer? I remain convinced that the "Cellphones Cause Cancer" people are a mixture of Schizophrenics and Hypochondriacs (both natural, and amphetamine induced.)
Not the concern. Other than a few chicken littles running around, no-one is seriously concerned about the bombs being accidentally detonated on USA soil. The real issue, is that the warheads went missing for three and a half hours during which they could have been anywhere. The legitimate concern is this one: Want to steal some nukes for whatever purpose you might have? Steal'em from the US military, they don't bother to keep track.
That's alarming. The Military ought to know damn well where every warhead is, every second of every day. The idea that a half dozen nukes could be flown off in a plane they aren't supposed to be in, and it go unnoticed until the destination is reached is terrifying.
Nope, it's nowhere near as flexible as a Newton. No expansion capabilities (all the Newtons had PCMCIA slots). You're stuck with a (way too small) 8 or 16GB of memory. Hacking will alleviate the limitations of the OS and built-in software, but that storage is just too small. I'd prefer the 160GB classic myself (no less than 10x the amount of space! for $150 less?), while the 1" diagonal is significant, in my opinion, it's not worth it. The iPod touch couldn't hold what's on my (years old!) 3G iPod.
Personally, I'm rooting for intel to Deliver the goods with their "Mobile Internet Devices" Those things DO have the potential to be an "iPod Newton," if they're open enough, and have and SDHC slot or two, they have the potential to be pretty awesome, in my opinion. Note "potential," the prototypes look pretty crap, and the power issues will probably kill battery life until the 45nm die shrink arrives next year, I just hope the platform survives long enough, and manages to hit their target price range ($500-$600) I'd pay that for a device with a 600mhz Pentium 3 with a 5" screen, enough ram, and two 2SDHC slots. Those SDHC cards provide enough flexibility to let you carry around 40+GB of media.
Re:Not just that, but many Euro diesels with 80+ m
on
Green Cars You Can't Buy
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· Score: 4, Interesting
You forgot yet another one: Diesel engines are easier to run off of non-petroleum derived fuels. In fact, they were designed to! The 1900 World's Fair featured a diesel engine running on Peanut Oil! The sturdy construction and glow plugs of diesel engines even today are artifacts of the diesel engine being designed to run on virtually any properly filtered oil of the correct viscosity.
Both are employed pretty heavily by advanced "Amateur" astronomers. I put amateur in quotes because people at the high end of the hobby may have setups costing $50,000-$100,000+ dollars, going up to as much as people are willing to spend. There are several companies (http://www.sbig.com/ for example) that specialize in producing imaging equipment and software for these setups. It's pretty amazing what these people are able to do.
I wouldn't go that far. I think it was more that they were aware they just a bunch of marketing shills, and were suitably contrite about it. They didn't go around acting like they were the shit and were very respectful of other bands and "real" artists. Which is to say: they were reasonably decent human beings. Hell, they even learned to play instruments eventually.
Gold has plenty of uses. It's exceptionally malleable, and ductile, but otherwise very durable, and resistant to corrosion. It has very high electrical conductivity. It is also comparatively rare. Best of all, it is shiny, and people (much like crows) like shiny things. Gold has always had value in human societies, and barring some major changes in human psychology (or an efficient method to use nuclear transmutation to create it) it always will. It doesn't "have value because they said it had value" it has value because people want it. Which is the very concept of value.
Execs apparently have no concept of branding, or what it means. To further explain: account for franchises like "Turok - Dinosaur Hunter" or "Outpost." These games where horrible, and sold horribly too, yet they got sequels, and in Turok's case, several! How the hell does that meeting go down? "We've got this property, it sold wretchedly in its first iteration, and is universally reviled by critics and our target audience alike, but we'd like to have another go at this financial rat-hole." "Brilliant! Let's go to Lunch!"
Who makes these decisions, and how do they stay employed? This is present in so many industries. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ford Introduce a 2009 Edsel. Or Chevrolet do a special, Mexico only Chevy No Va.
It's like these people have no connection with taste or reality, and they're just asking the "Magic Meatball" for answers. Like they're genuinely surprised when they shit in a box and people refuse to buy it.
Slashdot Mirror
The last 8 years. Admitted, the Gold Standard is dead, but the US Dollar is anything but stable, and the Fed solution to recent economic woes (More Loans! Lower Rates!) is unlikely to do anything to change that.
You really need to research Bretton Woods. Also the argument that "Good isn't useful for much and is precious only because its precious" is just insane. The first part is dead wrong. Gold has myriad industrial uses. As for the second, its even more true of money, and I really fail to see how that's a criticism of the idea. Also, you're attacking a completely tangential part of my point, which is that (completely aside from the relative merits of gold back vs. fiat currency) the Fed is guilty of grossly mismanaging the money supply in the USA which has resulted in prolonged periods of very high inflation.
Who to Blame? Alan Greenspan. His policy of Fed Lending to get out of recessions has left the dollar hugely weaker than it was 15 years ago. He did at least as much damage as Richard Nixon's destruction of the gold standard.
I argue that this gives rise to chaos when it comes to actually enforcing the law, as actual legal professionals have to then interpret and decode the ramblings of uneducated amateurs into their language.
For a Comp-Sci analogy - what happens when you take an amateur web-developer, who does mostly HTML, but knows a little Perl and PHP, and put him in charge of a production C/C++ OS development team?
Congratulations: You're a Sociopath.
This is really my whole point. I could belabor the point and offer arguments about why that's condemnable, but why bother?
We'll either get so good at lying personal interaction won't mean anything anymore (Hell, identity won't mean anything anymore), or society will collapse into a flaming pile of rubble.
As an aside any non-Keynesian economist expects 95+% of citizens to be completely rational in deed.
Also, the plot of the game is really quite solid, you just have to find enough of the audio logs to fill in the holes, unraveling the plot is a detective story in itself, and quite enjoyable in my opinion.
As for the "science" being impossible, that's an issue related to the difficulty of writing hard science fiction today, especially if writing for a science literate audience. Which is an idea I'd really like to explore further. But Bioshock really isn't even soft Sci-Fi, it is firmly in the realm of fantasy.
Generally, Science Fiction arose in the early part of the 20th century out of the Romantic Adventure. Arguably the archetype is really epic myth, but the immediate predecessors are adventure stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne, themselves modeled on novels like "The Three Musketeers." Hard Science Fiction arises out of that pulp tradition at least by the 1940's, as a way of appealing to the growing science literate population. A fit of inspiration strikes me, and it occurs that it could be seen as an extension of the "God of the Gaps" phenomena, the premise was to extend beyond our knowledge into the realm of possibility an populate it with the extraordinary and the exciting. Martians, Jungles on Venus, Interplanetary and Interstellar trade and Empire. Thrilling stuff most definitely. But as our scientific knowledge expands, the gaps contract. There are no jungles on Venus, and the possibility of any ancient Martian Civilizations is vanishingly small. Our expansion and development of transportation technology has stalled. How do you write Hard Sci-Fi in the style of Asimov, Heinlein, Pournelle, etc to an audience who knows that Faster than Light travel is incompatible with the known laws of physics? Who have at least a passable understanding of the Genetics, and the functional units of the Genetic Code?
Alternatively, you could have read Rousseau, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Hume, Machiavelli, etc in High School. Not that anyone does, except myself apparently.
"Deus Ex" was a better game than it was literature or philosophy, "Bioshock" excels as both.
Woops, should say "anything but pseudo-scientific quackery"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_male_circumcision#Male_circumcision_to_prevent_masturbation,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Voronoff#.22Monkeygland.22_transplant_work,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy,
All of these were heralded as revolutionary advances in "Medicine." These were practices widely performed, on thousands (if not more) patients. They're now regarded as either bizarre, or outright horrifying, as well as completely unfounded in any kind of scientific understanding. The history of about 1800-1950 has taught medicine some well needed lessons about hubris.
None of which is to say I think Homeopathy is anything pseudo-scientific quackery. But the history of medical science is anything but pristine. At worst, Homeopaths are con-men selling bottled water (and at best, they're hopelessly deluded witchdoctors selling bottled water). At it's worst Medical doctors were advocating shoving ice-picks up peoples noses and mashing up their frontal lobes (and doing it).
In my opinion, fuck the rich. They can take care of themselves. Forcing them to ride on public transportation might teach them some well earned humility.
I didn't say that at all. My intention was more that automobiles aren't exactly the most efficient or desirable means of moving people from place to place in a highly urban environment. Parking difficulties and the inefficient use of land being prime reasons. It has nothing to do with it being an Apple store or not.
Yes, Cities would have to plan their zoning intelligently! The Horrors! Or, even worse, ban automobiles inside the city limits and install a robust public transportation system. YE Gods! IT would be the beginning of the end.
Now, are you still interested in Amateur Astronomy? It can certainly be a lot of fun, but unless you go the strictly Binoculars and Star Charts route, cheap it is not.
If you're still interested, what do you want to see? There are really three distinct classes of objects, with different requirements: Stars (looking at doubles and multi-star systems), Planets, and Deep-Sky (Faint Fuzzies, the Nebulae, galaxies, and globular clusters.) For Stars and planets, you want the best quality refractor you can buy, largely becase these are pursuits that push high magnifications. For the Faint Fuzzies, you need as much aperture as you can get, and the cheapest way to do that is a Newtonian Reflector.
Now, there is a third way, not mentioned by many of the other posts I see, the Catadiotropics, these are telescopes that contain compound Mirror/Lens combinations. They provide a way to the get much of the optical performance of Refractors, with the light gathering ability of Reflectors. Orion imports a number of Chinese made models that are rather well regarded of this type.
Resources for more information - You really need to learn as much before making a purchase. I recommend: Ed Ting's http://www.scopereviews.com/, which hasn't been updated much lately but has a lot of good information nonetheless. Also, as mentioned by others: http://www.cloudynights.com/ is an excellent resource with a great, and active forum community.
Now, just to give you more of the Kind of answer you wanted, for $1000, what do I like? In a Refractor, I like the William Optics http://www.williamoptics.com/ Zenithstar 80 ED Refractor, a nice budget OTA (optical tube assembly) with well regarded performance, and a very nice focuser. That will leave you enough money left over to buy a decent Mount and Tripod (a hugely complex subject in and of itself), and a decent eyepiece or two (I like the University Optics http://www.universityoptics.com/ HD Abbe Orthoscopics, which give a lot of Bang for the Buck Performance). Now, in a Reflector, the Orion http://www.telescope.com/ Skyquest XT12 Classic is a good buy and comes with everything you need to get started. And the Third way? The Orion 150mm Skyview Pro Maksutov Cassegrain is probably a good start. Note that the Skyquest XT12 will definitely show you the most things (Aperture wins!) BUT, it does not have an equatorial mount and it will NOT track the sky.
In closing, I strongly suggest thinking about what it is you want to see, and spending a good bit of time reading the Cloudy Nights Forum before making a purchase.
He is not stuck. Do a bit of research and you can find a top quality replacement for any tool he needs on the Windows platform. Now, Linux, you'd be right. Important tools like CS3, DXO Optics (a raw processing program) Lightroom/Apeture, etc have no presence on Linux.
Shockingly, if you look carefully, you'll notice I said, "Silicon and Silicon based compounds." Both Silica, and Silicone are definitely "Silicon based compounds".
I say: 1. No more implants in people. 2. More Study.
What exactly is your proposed mechanism for RF signals causing cancer? I remain convinced that the "Cellphones Cause Cancer" people are a mixture of Schizophrenics and Hypochondriacs (both natural, and amphetamine induced.)
That's alarming. The Military ought to know damn well where every warhead is, every second of every day. The idea that a half dozen nukes could be flown off in a plane they aren't supposed to be in, and it go unnoticed until the destination is reached is terrifying.
Personally, I'm rooting for intel to Deliver the goods with their "Mobile Internet Devices" Those things DO have the potential to be an "iPod Newton," if they're open enough, and have and SDHC slot or two, they have the potential to be pretty awesome, in my opinion. Note "potential," the prototypes look pretty crap, and the power issues will probably kill battery life until the 45nm die shrink arrives next year, I just hope the platform survives long enough, and manages to hit their target price range ($500-$600) I'd pay that for a device with a 600mhz Pentium 3 with a 5" screen, enough ram, and two 2SDHC slots. Those SDHC cards provide enough flexibility to let you carry around 40+GB of media.
You forgot yet another one: Diesel engines are easier to run off of non-petroleum derived fuels. In fact, they were designed to! The 1900 World's Fair featured a diesel engine running on Peanut Oil! The sturdy construction and glow plugs of diesel engines even today are artifacts of the diesel engine being designed to run on virtually any properly filtered oil of the correct viscosity.
Both are employed pretty heavily by advanced "Amateur" astronomers. I put amateur in quotes because people at the high end of the hobby may have setups costing $50,000-$100,000+ dollars, going up to as much as people are willing to spend. There are several companies (http://www.sbig.com/ for example) that specialize in producing imaging equipment and software for these setups. It's pretty amazing what these people are able to do.
I wouldn't go that far. I think it was more that they were aware they just a bunch of marketing shills, and were suitably contrite about it. They didn't go around acting like they were the shit and were very respectful of other bands and "real" artists. Which is to say: they were reasonably decent human beings. Hell, they even learned to play instruments eventually.
Gold has plenty of uses. It's exceptionally malleable, and ductile, but otherwise very durable, and resistant to corrosion. It has very high electrical conductivity. It is also comparatively rare. Best of all, it is shiny, and people (much like crows) like shiny things. Gold has always had value in human societies, and barring some major changes in human psychology (or an efficient method to use nuclear transmutation to create it) it always will. It doesn't "have value because they said it had value" it has value because people want it. Which is the very concept of value.
Who makes these decisions, and how do they stay employed? This is present in so many industries. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ford Introduce a 2009 Edsel. Or Chevrolet do a special, Mexico only Chevy No Va.
It's like these people have no connection with taste or reality, and they're just asking the "Magic Meatball" for answers. Like they're genuinely surprised when they shit in a box and people refuse to buy it.