Part of the job of the Fed is to increase the money supply at an appropriate rate, since mild inflation tends to be good for the economy and deflation tends to be disastrous. The _real_ economy also tends to increase by a few percent each year, so the money supply needs to be increased a few percent each year to compensate for this (or else there would be deflationary pressure because of real growth).
Deflation only tends to be disasterous because it is an exception that people are not prepared for. As another poster pointed out earlier in these comments, one of the features of fractional banking is mild inflation and horrible deflation.
The natural state ofthe economy is minor deflation This is an inevitable byproduct of industialization. Look at all the things that people made 20, 50, 100 years ago. Most of them are worth less because we make better ones today, and we make more of the new ones further lowering the value of the older stuff. Deflation is an indication of material progress. ( A correlary of this is that land prices ought to stay more or less the same, since the ammount of land almost never changes. A good way to determine if your bankers/govt is fucking with you is to check to see if land prices are changing over the long term.)
Even if it is natural, is mild deflation a good thing? People wiser than I have debated this one. But one thing is for certain: if artificial measures are used to maintain mild inflation when there should be mild deflation, all this does is dam up the deflationary pressure. It does not make it go away. And when the dam breaks, the major deflation is devastating.
Mild overeating is yummy until one has a heart attack.
* 15:17 11 May 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Kelly Young
A trio of mini-satellites has failed in their attempt to deploy a kilometre-long tether in space.
The setback means the low-cost Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment, launched on 17 April, may not achieve its goal of testing the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space.
Over the past week, mission managers determined that the tether-deploying element, known as Ted, had properly separated from the tether inspector, a tiny satellite called Gadget. But a glitch in the restraint system kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool. So the tether deployed just a few metres, rather than a full kilometre.
Robert Hoyt, chief executive officer of Tethers Unlimited, which designed the picosatellites, says mission managers suspect they know what caused the glitch, but the company is not ready to disclose this to the public yet. "I don't think we'll ever know for sure," he says.
Space tethers could one day be used to fling satellites into different orbits, thus saving satellite companies money on fuel.
Or tethers could enable clusters of satellites to fly in formation and prevent them from drifting away from one another over time. Such an application might be useful in interferometry, where images from several telescopes, spaced some distance apart, are combined to give greater resolution. Some data
Despite the setback, the MAST team at Tethers Unlimited, a company in Bothell, Washington, US, still may be able to get other data from Gadget to learn how a short tether behaves in microgravity.
MAST team members discussed having Gadget crawl down the tether to Ted to try to restart the deployment, but they decided that option was too risky. "If we were to have Gadget start to crawl, there is the possibility of the satellites banging together, which would be very likely to damage solar cells and other systems," Hoyt says.
This was not the first setback for the mission, which costs less than $1 million. After launch, the satellite team could not get a signal from Ted (see No signal yet heard from tether-deploying satellite). But they said that this should not have affected Ted's ability to deploy the tether. Longest tether
Then, sky watchers who had been on the lookout for the deployed tether and satellites from the ground had not seen anything when MAST was scheduled to appear overhead. "That's one confirmation that the tether is not deployed to a very long length," Hoyt told New Scientist.
In other space tether news, the longest planned space tether just got a little closer to launch. The satellite, a project of 500 students in Europe known as Young Engineers Satellite 2 (YES2), was shipped to its launch site in Russia from the Netherlands on 10 May.
YES2, a project of the European Space Agency, is scheduled to launch in September. If everything goes as planned, the satellite will unroll a 30-kilometre-long tether that is a mere 0.5 millimetres thick. The end of the tether will be attached to a small round capsule called Fotino that will eventually re-enter Earth's atmosphere and attempt to land
From new scientist
Experimental space tether fails to deploy
* 15:17 11 May 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Kelly Young
A trio of mini-satellites has failed in their attempt to deploy a kilometre-long tether in space.
The setback means the low-cost Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment, launched on 17 April, may not achieve its goal of testing the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space.
Over the past week, mission managers determined that the tether-deploying element, known as Ted, had properly separated from the tether inspector, a tiny satellite called Gadget. But a glitch in the restraint system kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool. So the tether deployed just a few metres, rather than a full kilometre.
Robert Hoyt, chief executive officer of Tethers Unlimited, which designed the picosatellites, says mission managers suspect they know what caused the glitch, but the company is not ready to disclose this to the public yet. "I don't think we'll ever know for sure," he says.
Space tethers could one day be used to fling satellites into different orbits, thus saving satellite companies money on fuel.
Or tethers could enable clusters of satellites to fly in formation and prevent them from drifting away from one another over time. Such an application might be useful in interferometry, where images from several telescopes, spaced some distance apart, are combined to give greater resolution.
Some data
Despite the setback, the MAST team at Tethers Unlimited, a company in Bothell, Washington, US, still may be able to get other data from Gadget to learn how a short tether behaves in microgravity.
MAST team members discussed having Gadget crawl down the tether to Ted to try to restart the deployment, but they decided that option was too risky. "If we were to have Gadget start to crawl, there is the possibility of the satellites banging together, which would be very likely to damage solar cells and other systems," Hoyt says.
This was not the first setback for the mission, which costs less than $1 million. After launch, the satellite team could not get a signal from Ted (see No signal yet heard from tether-deploying satellite). But they said that this should not have affected Ted's ability to deploy the tether.
Longest tether
Then, sky watchers who had been on the lookout for the deployed tether and satellites from the ground had not seen anything when MAST was scheduled to appear overhead. "That's one confirmation that the tether is not deployed to a very long length," Hoyt told New Scientist.
In other space tether news, the longest planned space tether just got a little closer to launch. The satellite, a project of 500 students in Europe known as Young Engineers Satellite 2 (YES2), was shipped to its launch site in Russia from the Netherlands on 10 May.
YES2, a project of the European Space Agency, is scheduled to launch in September. If everything goes as planned, the satellite will unroll a 30-kilometre-long tether that is a mere 0.5 millimetres thick. The end of the tether will be attached to a small round capsule called Fotino that will eventually re-enter Earth's atmosphere and attempt to land
I'd certainly prefer it for 1000 mile trips. Heck, even for LA-NY ( assuming Union Station in LA top Grand Central in NYC ) I'd prefer it. I'd rather be comfortable for 12 hours instead of cramped for 5. ( And by the time that one counts delays, baggage check, and getting to and from airports, a flight from LA to NY is a 10-hour affair, doorstep to doorstep. )
Are there really any memory problems that cannot be cured by strict adherance to the rule of "allocate memory at the beginging of a routine, deallocate same amount at the end"?
The very short article consisted of Berners-Lee saying that male geeks act stupid, and that causes women to not want to enter the field. It would be nice to have some examples of this so-called stupid behavior... I agree that the article is very short on specifics, so I'll try to supply one. And I'll offer my guess as to why it works
Here on slashdot, there is the stupid running joke about "In Russia [noun][verb] YOU" It contains an implied sentence "you [verb][noun]". For someone to compose such a joke, or to understand it, they must understand the rules of grammar which are very useful in programming computers. Futhermore, if somone understands the joke, and likes it, we can infer that they like the mechanics of tranformational grammars and are therefore comfortable working with them regularly.
In summary, from one idiotic joke, we infer that they have some of the skills and interests that make for a good programmer.
I get discriminated against by stupid, pretty female culture a LOT more than women get discriminated against by stupid male geek culture. I am willing to be that most geeks feel the same way. In both cases, the 'culture' is a set of rules that one follows - or does not. This enables a person to make predictive judgements about someone else. If you don't follow unstated rule #1 now, they can conclude with some accuracy that you will not follow rule #n later.
For example, if you don't complement her on something that she is wearing when you first see her, she correctly concludes that you will have no future interest in a number of other silly things that are important to her. ( This, BTW, save you both a lot of heartache. Trust me on this. Go for the women that like using their brains. )
Geek culture is the same way. The stupid jokes weed out people who won't make good engineers.
So if you read something on the net - through your filtered connection - about making explosives or picking locks, and then use that information to harm some third party, then that third party can sue you and AT+T?
My bet is if they ever really could tell what people are thinking... it would go something like this - FOOD,SEX,FOOD,SEX,FOOD,SEX... Actually, it look like this: "FOOD,SEX,DRUGS,FOOD,SEX,DRUGS,FOOD,SEX,DRUGS..."
To get to Mars in a week, only about 5m/s^2 is necessary. ( Mars at 1G is about 3.5 days, so a week is 1/2 G, turnaround halfway )
So call it a mere 1.5*10^13 watts.
From TFA:
Autodesk's attorney Andrew S. Mackay is currently under investigation (# 07-24456) by the California State Bar Association for his actions in this matter. Strictly speaking, that sentence is true. But here in California, all complaints about a lawyer are investigated. There is no screening process. So you can alledge that a lawyer has kidnapped Elvis and locked him up in his basement along with a bunch of alien corpses stolen from Roswell and the bar association will open an investigation.
A far more relevant statement would have been:
The plantiff has filed a complaint about Mackay with the California State Bar Association for his actions in this matter. The merits of the complaint are unknown.
Furthermore, the plantiff lacks standing. In the state of California, to sue for fraud, party A must alledge that party B defrauded party A. If A claims that the money comes from C, then he has no standing to sue, even if his statements are correct.
Slashdot Mirror
Deflation only tends to be disasterous because it is an exception that people are not prepared for. As another poster pointed out earlier in these comments, one of the features of fractional banking is mild inflation and horrible deflation.
The natural state ofthe economy is minor deflation This is an inevitable byproduct of industialization. Look at all the things that people made 20, 50, 100 years ago. Most of them are worth less because we make better ones today, and we make more of the new ones further lowering the value of the older stuff. Deflation is an indication of material progress. ( A correlary of this is that land prices ought to stay more or less the same, since the ammount of land almost never changes. A good way to determine if your bankers/govt is fucking with you is to check to see if land prices are changing over the long term.)
Even if it is natural, is mild deflation a good thing? People wiser than I have debated this one. But one thing is for certain: if artificial measures are used to maintain mild inflation when there should be mild deflation, all this does is dam up the deflationary pressure. It does not make it go away. And when the dam breaks, the major deflation is devastating.
Mild overeating is yummy until one has a heart attack.
Experimental space tether fails to deploy
* 15:17 11 May 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Kelly Young
A trio of mini-satellites has failed in their attempt to deploy a kilometre-long tether in space.
The setback means the low-cost Multi-Application Survivable Tether (MAST) experiment, launched on 17 April, may not achieve its goal of testing the survivability of a thin, braided tether in space.
Over the past week, mission managers determined that the tether-deploying element, known as Ted, had properly separated from the tether inspector, a tiny satellite called Gadget. But a glitch in the restraint system kept Ted from pushing away hard enough to keep unreeling the tether from its spool. So the tether deployed just a few metres, rather than a full kilometre.
Robert Hoyt, chief executive officer of Tethers Unlimited, which designed the picosatellites, says mission managers suspect they know what caused the glitch, but the company is not ready to disclose this to the public yet. "I don't think we'll ever know for sure," he says.
Space tethers could one day be used to fling satellites into different orbits, thus saving satellite companies money on fuel.
Or tethers could enable clusters of satellites to fly in formation and prevent them from drifting away from one another over time. Such an application might be useful in interferometry, where images from several telescopes, spaced some distance apart, are combined to give greater resolution.
Some data
Despite the setback, the MAST team at Tethers Unlimited, a company in Bothell, Washington, US, still may be able to get other data from Gadget to learn how a short tether behaves in microgravity.
MAST team members discussed having Gadget crawl down the tether to Ted to try to restart the deployment, but they decided that option was too risky. "If we were to have Gadget start to crawl, there is the possibility of the satellites banging together, which would be very likely to damage solar cells and other systems," Hoyt says.
This was not the first setback for the mission, which costs less than $1 million. After launch, the satellite team could not get a signal from Ted (see No signal yet heard from tether-deploying satellite). But they said that this should not have affected Ted's ability to deploy the tether.
Longest tether
Then, sky watchers who had been on the lookout for the deployed tether and satellites from the ground had not seen anything when MAST was scheduled to appear overhead. "That's one confirmation that the tether is not deployed to a very long length," Hoyt told New Scientist.
In other space tether news, the longest planned space tether just got a little closer to launch. The satellite, a project of 500 students in Europe known as Young Engineers Satellite 2 (YES2), was shipped to its launch site in Russia from the Netherlands on 10 May.
YES2, a project of the European Space Agency, is scheduled to launch in September. If everything goes as planned, the satellite will unroll a 30-kilometre-long tether that is a mere 0.5 millimetres thick. The end of the tether will be attached to a small round capsule called Fotino that will eventually re-enter Earth's atmosphere and attempt to land
I'd certainly prefer it for 1000 mile trips. Heck, even for LA-NY ( assuming Union Station in LA top Grand Central in NYC ) I'd prefer it. I'd rather be comfortable for 12 hours instead of cramped for 5. ( And by the time that one counts delays, baggage check, and getting to and from airports, a flight from LA to NY is a 10-hour affair, doorstep to doorstep. )
To Grand Central? That is hardly enough room to build up speed. How about JFK to LAX?
Are there really any memory problems that cannot be cured by strict adherance to the rule of "allocate memory at the beginging of a routine, deallocate same amount at the end"?
Of course it is nothing new - this is a Roland submission.
Here on slashdot, there is the stupid running joke about "In Russia [noun][verb] YOU" It contains an implied sentence "you [verb][noun]". For someone to compose such a joke, or to understand it, they must understand the rules of grammar which are very useful in programming computers. Futhermore, if somone understands the joke, and likes it, we can infer that they like the mechanics of tranformational grammars and are therefore comfortable working with them regularly.
In summary, from one idiotic joke, we infer that they have some of the skills and interests that make for a good programmer.
I'm not saying that there is a cause-and-effect relationship, rather that there is a correlation. And that that correlation can be used predictively.
For example, if you don't complement her on something that she is wearing when you first see her, she correctly concludes that you will have no future interest in a number of other silly things that are important to her. ( This, BTW, save you both a lot of heartache. Trust me on this. Go for the women that like using their brains. )
Geek culture is the same way. The stupid jokes weed out people who won't make good engineers.
So if you read something on the net - through your filtered connection - about making explosives or picking locks, and then use that information to harm some third party, then that third party can sue you and AT+T?
Glad to hear that. The polar bears seem to be running out of room up north. It's good to know they'lll have something to eat.
Legalize drugs for consenting adults, and put the crime-fighting resourses to use stopping cybercrime.
I could change the HD on my old IBM laptop faster blindfolded than I could on my wife's Mac.
Lawyers? Not yet. Lawyers leave after the rats. ( Some things, even rats won't do. )
Only the ones with rich parents. The rest of us had to make do with clay tablets.
He just put TFA in perspective. And with documented facts, no less.
Whoops! You're right. I should check my figures before posting...
It includes turnaround at the halfway point.
To get to Mars in a week, only about 5m/s^2 is necessary. ( Mars at 1G is about 3.5 days, so a week is 1/2 G, turnaround halfway )
So call it a mere 1.5*10^13 watts.
About 1/2 G.
...we fried it duing liftoff.
A far more relevant statement would have been: The plantiff has filed a complaint about Mackay with the California State Bar Association for his actions in this matter. The merits of the complaint are unknown.
Furthermore, the plantiff lacks standing. In the state of California, to sue for fraud, party A must alledge that party B defrauded party A. If A claims that the money comes from C, then he has no standing to sue, even if his statements are correct.