A couple of years ago I picked up an edition of "The Hugo Winners" edited by Isaac Asimov, they were full of beautiful flowery descriptions. Plot & storytelling seemed to be of far less importance, so I tend to be weary of anything with a Hugo nomination or award. In fact, I tend to be weary of any awards.
They were written in the style of the day. If the volume you picked up was just titled The Hugo Winners, that was Volume 1, stories written between 1955 and 1961, so they will seem a bit dated, I expect. (Later Hugo anthologies had volume numbers, up to volume 5, going to 1982. The first did not, and was just titled The Hugo Winners.)
The style will change with the year. Find a later volume to read things with a more contemporary feel.
If you liked any of Greg Bear, Heinlein/Clarke/Asimov, Peter Hamilton, Joe Haldeman, Hal Clement - just get the books and enjoy them without any spoilers..
With the caveat here that if you like Hal Clement for the science, don't expect to find that here. There is some gosh-wow superscience, perhaps reminiscent of Peter Hamilton, but only the superficial appearance of based-in-real-physics worked-out science that Hal Clement was famous for.
Good thing I didn't buy the BMW i3 electric car I was thinking about getting! Their website tells me it's "the revolution", but here Reuters claims BMW says it's not viable until 2020!
A 10-15% VAT tax, like most of the rest of the world has, would pay for UBI and universal healthcare.
Before you could even come close do enacting some type of VAT like that, you'd have to:
1. Entirely remove, and BAN from existence by law, the current income tax we have now.
No. "VAT" is a fancy term for sales tax. (The "value added" just means that you don't double-tax something that goes through a middle broker. If I buy steel and turn it into, say, kitchen knives, the tax is only on the value added, since the steel itself was already taxed.)
Sales tax and income tax are not mutually exclusive. You can have both.
2. You'd have to also get rid of all state and local taxes...
Sales tax and state tax are not mutually exclusive. You can have both.
and the Feds can't dictate that type of policy directly to the states, so, guessing that wouldn't fly. To get something like that through, you'd have to make it the ONLY tax there is...
Again: no. There are many many many examples of places you have multiple taxes. It happens all the time. One tax does not mean you can't have another
Look, lets call a spade a spade here... he is asking for socialism.
No. Socialism is defined as worker ownership of the means of production (that is, the factories). We usually think of state socialism: state ownership of the means of production (where the state claims to be operating on behalf of the workers.)
Unless he is advocating worker (or state) ownership fo the means of production, it's not socialism.
His platform is "democracy is dead." People need to get comfortable saying that, because that's what it is... if you are for UBI, you are a socialist.;)
Democracy is a political system and socialism is an economic system. But, no. If you are for the state ownership of the means of production you are a socialist. If you are for UBI, you are for something that is not socialism (unless it also includes state ownership of the means of production.)
I have gotten tired of people calling pretty much everything under the sun that isn't laissez faire capitalism "socialism." The word has a defined meaning. Use it.
The problem is that we have ratings at all, and it's weird to me that the conversation is under the assumption that ratings are necessary. What do they do?
You can browse at +1 and avoid reading the trolls.
They're certainly not keeping slashdot (or reddit, etc) free of trolls, never mind faulty or bad-faith arguments.
Yeah, but if you want to, it gives you the ability to skip over the troll comments and just read the interesting comments.
What happens if a person has this procedure performed and a forensic analysis of the brain reveals that they have memories of committing a crime? Will they be punished? Should they be punished?
...and what if they have memories of having committed acts that, in the future are decided to have been crimes?
...today, we mostly have the belief that if it wasn't a crime when you did it, you're not guilty if it becomes a crime after, but that may not be universal. (And, even so, there's the Nuremberg trials.)
Isn't it a bit too bold? I for one see great opportunity for things going wrong very fast.
I think that's a feature, not a bug: the main impediment to implementing flying cars in the 20th century was that you can't debug the idiots who would be flying them.
You'd call him an evil Nazi racist if he made Mexico pay for it....
I was already calling him a Nazi before he was elected.
Wow, so you're saying that he was Godwinized even before the election.
The corollary to Godwin's law is "...and once the Hitler comparison is made, all useful discussion in the thread has terminated." That seems to be accurate.
I do. I've been running LEDs since 2008; I have 75 of them in my house. Some of the earlier ones did die early, but the current versions just keep on going; a lot more long-lived than even the old CF bulbs.
Utilities are the largest owners of renewable energy systems in the US so I'm not sure why you equate renewable with not being a part of the utility. The truth is ten years ago Nuclear was more cost effective than any other source of energy
Ten years ago? 2008? No, it wasn't. Natural gas.
which is why it was so poplar with utilities.
Ten years ago? 2008? No, it wasn't. The last nuclear plant built in the U.S. was the River Bend plant in LA, which was started in 1977 . You're off by thirty years.
And ten years ago energy storage was too expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
That is what happens to people who jump bail.
The "concept" of bail does not exist in Europe.
It does exist in Britain, which is all that's relevant here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail#History
Spoiler Alert, haha.
You can't even read the back cover copy without learning that much, so it's not really a spoiler.
"It would be nice if these devices automatically unlocked after some time limit, like 1 year."
This gives you an easy attack vector: just reset the clock.
Probably a mistake. you really shouldn't trust any of them.
A couple of years ago I picked up an edition of "The Hugo Winners" edited by Isaac Asimov, they were full of beautiful flowery descriptions. Plot & storytelling seemed to be of far less importance, so I tend to be weary of anything with a Hugo nomination or award. In fact, I tend to be weary of any awards.
They were written in the style of the day. If the volume you picked up was just titled The Hugo Winners, that was Volume 1, stories written between 1955 and 1961, so they will seem a bit dated, I expect. (Later Hugo anthologies had volume numbers, up to volume 5, going to 1982. The first did not, and was just titled The Hugo Winners.)
The style will change with the year. Find a later volume to read things with a more contemporary feel.
If you liked any of Greg Bear, Heinlein/Clarke/Asimov, Peter Hamilton, Joe Haldeman, Hal Clement - just get the books and enjoy them without any spoilers..
With the caveat here that if you like Hal Clement for the science, don't expect to find that here. There is some gosh-wow superscience, perhaps reminiscent of Peter Hamilton, but only the superficial appearance of based-in-real-physics worked-out science that Hal Clement was famous for.
The cultural part is fascinating.
The science does not make a lick of sense. Weirdly cool in some places, but not science.
Main protagonist characters are Chinese. The antagonists are not Chinese.
The antagonists are aliens from a triple-star system, so, no, by definition they are not Chinese.
Good thing I didn't buy the BMW i3 electric car I was thinking about getting! Their website tells me it's "the revolution", but here Reuters claims BMW says it's not viable until 2020!
https://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/bmwi.html
I suspect he wants his name associated with positive news, not negative news.
Can you blame him? Let the lawyers take the bullets!
In other news 99% of the population unemployed because of tractors.
99% of the oxen and draft horse population: yes.
Slave labor has built many societies. /cough Pyramids?
Slave labor indeed built the infrastructure of many societies. Strangely enough, though, not the pyramids (despite the persistent myth).
The pyramids were, basically, a work project to keep people employed during the non-planting months.
https://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
https://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/01/12/egypt-new-find-shows-slaves-didnt-build-pyramids
Before you could even come close do enacting some type of VAT like that, you'd have to:
1. Entirely remove, and BAN from existence by law, the current income tax we have now.
No. "VAT" is a fancy term for sales tax. (The "value added" just means that you don't double-tax something that goes through a middle broker. If I buy steel and turn it into, say, kitchen knives, the tax is only on the value added, since the steel itself was already taxed.)
Sales tax and income tax are not mutually exclusive. You can have both.
2. You'd have to also get rid of all state and local taxes...
Sales tax and state tax are not mutually exclusive. You can have both.
and the Feds can't dictate that type of policy directly to the states, so, guessing that wouldn't fly.
To get something like that through, you'd have to make it the ONLY tax there is...
Again: no. There are many many many examples of places you have multiple taxes. It happens all the time. One tax does not mean you can't have another
Look, lets call a spade a spade here... he is asking for socialism.
No. Socialism is defined as worker ownership of the means of production (that is, the factories). We usually think of state socialism: state ownership of the means of production (where the state claims to be operating on behalf of the workers.)
Unless he is advocating worker (or state) ownership fo the means of production, it's not socialism.
His platform is "democracy is dead." People need to get comfortable saying that, because that's what it is... if you are for UBI, you are a socialist. ;)
Democracy is a political system and socialism is an economic system. But, no. If you are for the state ownership of the means of production you are a socialist. If you are for UBI, you are for something that is not socialism (unless it also includes state ownership of the means of production.)
I have gotten tired of people calling pretty much everything under the sun that isn't laissez faire capitalism "socialism." The word has a defined meaning. Use it.
The problem is that we have ratings at all, and it's weird to me that the conversation is under the assumption that ratings are necessary. What do they do?
You can browse at +1 and avoid reading the trolls.
They're certainly not keeping slashdot (or reddit, etc) free of trolls, never mind faulty or bad-faith arguments.
Yeah, but if you want to, it gives you the ability to skip over the troll comments and just read the interesting comments.
Let us presume this works as advertised.
What happens if a person has this procedure performed and a forensic analysis of the brain reveals that they have memories of committing a crime? Will they be punished? Should they be punished?
...and what if they have memories of having committed acts that, in the future are decided to have been crimes?
...today, we mostly have the belief that if it wasn't a crime when you did it, you're not guilty if it becomes a crime after, but that may not be universal. (And, even so, there's the Nuremberg trials.)
https://www.penny-arcade.com/c...
Illustrating what I said: all useful discussion has concluded. It's all random insults now.
Isn't it a bit too bold? I for one see great opportunity for things going wrong very fast.
I think that's a feature, not a bug: the main impediment to implementing flying cars in the 20th century was that you can't debug the idiots who would be flying them.
New Zealand's not a realistic testbed, they only have two destinations, hobbitown and mt doom.
Yes, but that's exactly why they need flying taxis: because one does not simply walk into Mordor.
One takes a flying taxi!
Excellent!!
I WANT MY FLYING CAR ...even if I have to go to New Zealand to get it.
You'd call him an evil Nazi racist if he made Mexico pay for it....
I was already calling him a Nazi before he was elected.
Wow, so you're saying that he was Godwinized even before the election.
The corollary to Godwin's law is "...and once the Hitler comparison is made, all useful discussion in the thread has terminated." That seems to be accurate.
Yes, there's a difference, I think, between the cheap ones and the good ones.
I got a bunch of the Philips L-Prize bulbs when they just came out-- those were very seriously tested against extreme environmental conditions.
These days I see you can get LED bulbs at the dollar store-- don't know how well those will last.
LED have a longer life
I don't know about that.
I do. I've been running LEDs since 2008; I have 75 of them in my house. Some of the earlier ones did die early, but the current versions just keep on going; a lot more long-lived than even the old CF bulbs.
Utilities are the largest owners of renewable energy systems in the US so I'm not sure why you equate renewable with not being a part of the utility. The truth is ten years ago Nuclear was more cost effective than any other source of energy
Ten years ago? 2008? No, it wasn't. Natural gas.
which is why it was so poplar with utilities.
Ten years ago? 2008? No, it wasn't. The last nuclear plant built in the U.S. was the River Bend plant in LA, which was started in 1977 . You're off by thirty years.
And ten years ago energy storage was too expensive.
Now, on that one, you're right.