It's highly unlikely that any two civilizations who have been completely seperate will meet and be at the same or a similar level of advancement. Small advancements can make huge differences. Look at the huge differences between the different human civilaztions that have had semi-direct or indirect contact with each other.
We also see that once technology begins to take root the rate of advancement can be astonishing. The technological differences between the civilaztion occupying the city of Rome in 2000 and 1500 AD is much greater than the differences between the civilations occupying the same city in 1500 and 50 AD.
If there are other civilizations out there they are likely to be completely different between us. And if we were able to establish communication with them but neither is able to travel the great distance, its impossible to say whether the more advanced civilization among the two will still be more advanced when the initial hellos end.
Well, if you fetched the fucking full containers home from the supermarket, why the fuck can't you take them back there when they're fucking empty? Dickheads.
Well to answer it in your own vulgar words... People are ignorant, lazy, selfish cunts. It's not fucking rocket science. That's why things don't get recycled.
I can just imagine the television campagain you would run to promot cycle... "Recycle, you stupid people!"
Guess what? That doesn't work.
You're hell bent on "punishing" people who don't recycle, well what do you think deposit refunds do? They economicly punish those who don't return the item for the refund.
The curb-side recycling programs are undeniably conveniet, but that's not good enough. A lot of people don't bother recycling because they have no personal incentive to do so.
I would propose deposits on batteries that can be reedemed at the store of purchase or other location. A fifty cents deposit on every battery would result in most of them being recycled.
This is identical to the bottlebills (http://www.bottlebill.org/) that exist in several states on beverages. Opponents of bottle bills argue that they are inefficient. (http://www.gmabrands.com/publicpolicy/docs/whitep aper.cfm?DocID=118&) However, I have read numerous studies that curb side recycling is inefficient. Regardless I can attest that in the house I grew up in every single bottle with a deposit was saved and eventually returned for the refund, whereas every other recycleable item went straight to the trash, regardless of a mandatory curb side county-wide recycling program. We used that blue bin to save deposit bottles in.
It's simple, if you want things recycled create a personal economic incentive for people to do it. Pay for each item with the consumers own money.
I haven't ever really understood what the RIAA hopes to achieve from all their lawsuits and extortion rackets, I mean all they are doing is alienating their core market
That's a somewhat silly question. They're attempting to scare people into not pirating songs by showing them examples of where others have been severly punished for doing so. Even if you don't think this works you should understand the idea.
Remarkably, I think its working with the average consumer. I went to RIT for undergrad, a very tech oriented school. Even the public policy majors were computer nerds. Everyone was file sharing.
I now go to law school at a State University. I'm absolutely amazed at the lack of technical know how on the part of the average student here. Beyond that most of them are scared of the possibility of lawsuits and want nothing to do with file sharing, where as at RIT everyone was downloading all day long.
You're missing the point. FFV cars and trucks can use E85 or Gasoline. And I would be one (for an extra $150 bucks) and lots of other people would probably buy one, espically if they are in a two car family.
Haha, nope. But I had just read that wikipedia article the other day after researching wind power for hours. It looks like hydro power is the best way to store electricity.
So, theoretically, your plan could work, but this story gives me concern that there simply isn't a sufficient supply of E85. If you implement your tax plan, and more people switch to E85, the price of E85 will go up, so you raise your taxes, which causes more pepole to switch, which causes the price of E85 to go up, and so in an inflationary spiral. At some point, people will not put up with ridiculous amounts of taxes, and they will vote in politicians who will scrap your plan. Better to let E85 compete in open market, and let people adopt it when and if it is ready to be adopted.
I agree with you...
The public outcry is possible, so the taxes on oil imports should be "throttled" (kinda like the Federal Reserve throttles the economy with interest rates) to incourage domecstic E85 production. Tax only enough to balance the prices of the two fuels and stop increasing taxes when E85 production capacity levels off.
so like any population ours will rise until it consumes too many resources. If you want a glimpse of the future from an economic and ecological perspective, look at countries with populations that are growing too large for their space. China is a great example. They're destroying thier soil, they have problems generating enough electricity. They have population problems. They have disease problems. All these things stem either directly from too many people, or from the side effect of all those people trying to live like kings.
I guess the Chineses just need some Lebensraum ('living space') in order to survive! The Chinese may want to look to history (circa 1937) for ideas on how to sustain their growing nation.
Arg... my equations got cut out by slashdot's HTML parser...
Basically... use taxes on oil imports to manipulate the cost of gasoline so that it is always at the level where E85 is in high/growing demand.
So...
It WAS the case that E85 WAS cheaper than regular gasoline and E85 was in short supply, but market conditions apparently changed that. Maybe some higher demand for E85 (not enough supply)? Maybe some lower demand for gasoline (plently of supply available now)?
The article says that E85 contains ~72% as much energy as typical gasoline. (This I've read many other places and I haven't seen it dispute.) Since it's 72% as much engery in every gallon the article says E85 needs to sell at 72% the price of gasoline "To be an even-up energy value..." Well, that ignores the efficiency of the vechiles engines under each fuel, but its an easy calculation for JOE CONSUMER to do.
"Ok, self...
If( E85.cost
Buy E85
Else
Buy Gas
End
....", JOE CONSUMER says to himself. (well maybe that's not too easy for everyone, but lots of cell phones have calculators now-a-days).
Anyway, this is good, its the market working, and the market can be manipulated to work in certain ways. How? Well, taxes is one way. Whenever (E85.cost >= Gas.Cost * 0.72) Tax OIL IMPORTS at an additional 10% to make the equation (E85.cost
When a super majority of vehicles in the US can use E85, then just tax the heck out of oil imports.
I read a great article in the New York Times the other day (go figure... its available for free at my law school) about E85.
Anyway I was shocked to read that to make a car compatible with E85 it only costs an extra $150. I'm hardly a rich man and I try to save my money, but $150 per car doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, espically considering the way our modern day governments spend and tax the hell out of everything. I was skeptical, about that $150 figure, but here that price is quoute in another article http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A ID=/20060122/BUSINESS/601220310/1003 And Since its so cheap why doesn't our government mandate all (or 50% of) new cars made and imported be E85 comptabile and let the consumer/market choose their fuel? Even if the federal government won't do this, you think some of the midwestern states would. Since the #1 problem with consumer adoption of E85 is its availability, wouldn't these state economies based on farming want to hurry up its availability so they could increase demand for their own product?
If I were an Iowa Legislator I'd want to make every car sold in the state E85 compatible and mandate every gas station sell E85. If the state can succesfuly force E85 onto the market it'd only be a matter of time until gas stations in the surronding states started selling E85 by choice to get those consumers and it spreads. Kind of like how McDonald's spread across America.
Other Problems with E85:
#2 promblem: You get less energy per gallon about 10 to 15% less. But E85 is aparently cheaper than gasoline. So at some point, I don't know where, and I can't find any information on this, there is a "Cost Per Mile" equilabrium between the two. Sure you have to fill up your gas tank more often if you use E85 because you get less milage, but maybe each mile is cheaper. This is a little harder than calculating "MPG" but I'm betting a savy company can add this metric to an onboard dash. If the Prius can calculate MPG, why not be able to enter how much it cost you to fill up the tank and then you get a cost per mile read out, so you can see which is cheaper for you.
That's a great article you linked to. I was just thinking of that the last time I read about this topic. If we're going to have cameras tracking the citizens we should allow all citizens to watch the cameras, not just police.
99% of police, law enforcement officials and judges are honorable people, at least when they enter the profession. The possibility of corruption and injustice, however, is huge. That's why we have open courts in most Western countries. An official's sense of honor and fairness is our first and best line of defense against injustice but it can't be our only. Allowing the public to see how the government treats its citizens can confirm fair justice is being done. While, sites like TheSmokingGun.com that take people's personal problems and turn them in to enteraining human misery, are deplorable, perhaps more deplorable is what might happen if all court cases were closed. How would we know if equal justice was occuring? We wouldn't.
I certainly don't want my fellow citizen's watching me drive to work, or go to the grocery store; just as I don't want my fellow citizen's reading about my embarrasing run in with the law. But the only way to prove to the citizenry that I got treated fairly by the courts is to make sure its open to all to see.
I suppose this will have to be the same for CCTV in the future, lest some people are monitored by the police and prosecuted over every infraction, and others are allowed to commit infractions with impunity.
Thomas Jefferson When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when
the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The Russian Federation is the legal successor state to the Soviet Union and bound by all earlier treaties unless it acts to repeal them. The treaty would still be inforce.
Traditional Geneva Conventions apply to air. There are few practical constraints here.
There are separate treaties outlawing militarization of space. How prohibitive the treaties will be in practice is yet to be seen. Regardless the US will always act to defend itself, particularly in regards to its satellite system which is today's "high ground" that facilities military dominance. Certainly the US will deploy defensive systems to protect satellites. Whether it will deploy systems designed to disable enemy satellites is uncertain, but likely.
There are no legal treaties explicitly controlling cyber wars. There may be some older international law that could be applied to this new arena. Such would be similar to the desire of some to apply the international laws allowing nations the right to attack and capture pirates to the current war on terrorism -treating terrorists as pirates. If legal scholars can see parallels here, they'll surely see them in cyber warfare.
Today many would consider carpet bombing an entire city filled with civilians in an attempt to destroy a radar tower as a practical violation of the Geneva Conventions' rule against targeting civilians because the same tower could be destroyed with other means that would not endanger a whole city of noncombatants.
Would targeting an entire ISP to take out one terrorist website be similar? If that ISP refused to take down the website, how careful does the US have to be if it chooses to electronically attack it? Can it wipe out the data on all the ISP's servers, thus affecting "noncombatant websites?" Or must it be more careful and try to affect only the enemy's website? Probably not because the collateral damage is not that serious... loss of a website, eh... he'll live.
But what if the US is at war with an entire country, how careful must it be in attacking entire networks in that country? In that case, there may be some serious considerations. Taking out a major ISP may disrupt not only government and military networks of the enemy but also hospital networks or networks that control municipal water systems, etc, etc, which would knowingly endanger civilian lives and possibly affect third party nations. In war a country must differ to saving its citizen's lives over those of the enemy when it has no other options. So, I suppose the legal limitations are such that the US has to decided, what options it has that will likely defeat/incapacitate the enemy and then choose the ones that least endanger civilians (lives and property). Maybe it will be that cruise missiles are safer to civilians than a cyber war.
Slashdot Mirror
There is. Its called LACHES!
http://www.converium.com/2103.asp
Has anyone seen a law review article on this?
Ticket master's new system will certainly take some scalpers out of the business, which in theory will free up their labor to perform other work.
So what you're saying is that I can now use my cell phone to talk to other people. Amazing!
It's highly unlikely that any two civilizations who have been completely seperate will meet and be at the same or a similar level of advancement. Small advancements can make huge differences. Look at the huge differences between the different human civilaztions that have had semi-direct or indirect contact with each other. We also see that once technology begins to take root the rate of advancement can be astonishing. The technological differences between the civilaztion occupying the city of Rome in 2000 and 1500 AD is much greater than the differences between the civilations occupying the same city in 1500 and 50 AD. If there are other civilizations out there they are likely to be completely different between us. And if we were able to establish communication with them but neither is able to travel the great distance, its impossible to say whether the more advanced civilization among the two will still be more advanced when the initial hellos end.
Well to answer it in your own vulgar words... People are ignorant, lazy, selfish cunts. It's not fucking rocket science. That's why things don't get recycled.
I can just imagine the television campagain you would run to promot cycle... "Recycle, you stupid people!"
Guess what? That doesn't work.
You're hell bent on "punishing" people who don't recycle, well what do you think deposit refunds do? They economicly punish those who don't return the item for the refund.
The curb-side recycling programs are undeniably conveniet, but that's not good enough. A lot of people don't bother recycling because they have no personal incentive to do so.
p aper.cfm?DocID=118&) However, I have read numerous studies that curb side recycling is inefficient. Regardless I can attest that in the house I grew up in every single bottle with a deposit was saved and eventually returned for the refund, whereas every other recycleable item went straight to the trash, regardless of a mandatory curb side county-wide recycling program. We used that blue bin to save deposit bottles in.
I would propose deposits on batteries that can be reedemed at the store of purchase or other location. A fifty cents deposit on every battery would result in most of them being recycled.
This is identical to the bottlebills (http://www.bottlebill.org/) that exist in several states on beverages. Opponents of bottle bills argue that they are inefficient. (http://www.gmabrands.com/publicpolicy/docs/white
It's simple, if you want things recycled create a personal economic incentive for people to do it. Pay for each item with the consumers own money.
Well, I finally do one of the In Russia comments, where there is actually some relievance here and the moderator missed the irony.
A government's Secret Documents may often Classify people who are threats, and we should be mindful of that and fear abuse.
In Russia Secret Documents Reclassify you!
You're missing the point. FFV cars and trucks can use E85 or Gasoline. And I would be one (for an extra $150 bucks) and lots of other people would probably buy one, espically if they are in a two car family.
Haha, nope. But I had just read that wikipedia article the other day after researching wind power for hours. It looks like hydro power is the best way to store electricity.
Right On!
I guess the Chineses just need some Lebensraum ('living space') in order to survive! The Chinese may want to look to history (circa 1937) for ideas on how to sustain their growing nation.
It's kind of funny how no one understands energy storage vs. energy production, isn't it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage
Arg... my equations got cut out by slashdot's HTML parser... Basically ... use taxes on oil imports to manipulate the cost of gasoline so that it is always at the level where E85 is in high/growing demand.
I'm really glad you posted that link. This is the kind of information that needs to get out. I listed to this NPR storry, which is about six months old: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4832608
....", JOE CONSUMER says to himself. (well maybe that's not too easy for everyone, but lots of cell phones have calculators now-a-days).
So...
It WAS the case that E85 WAS cheaper than regular gasoline and E85 was in short supply, but market conditions apparently changed that. Maybe some higher demand for E85 (not enough supply)? Maybe some lower demand for gasoline (plently of supply available now)?
The article says that E85 contains ~72% as much energy as typical gasoline. (This I've read many other places and I haven't seen it dispute.) Since it's 72% as much engery in every gallon the article says E85 needs to sell at 72% the price of gasoline "To be an even-up energy value..." Well, that ignores the efficiency of the vechiles engines under each fuel, but its an easy calculation for JOE CONSUMER to do.
"Ok, self...
If( E85.cost Buy E85
Else
Buy Gas
End
Anyway, this is good, its the market working, and the market can be manipulated to work in certain ways. How? Well, taxes is one way. Whenever (E85.cost >= Gas.Cost * 0.72) Tax OIL IMPORTS at an additional 10% to make the equation (E85.cost
When a super majority of vehicles in the US can use E85, then just tax the heck out of oil imports.
I read a great article in the New York Times the other day (go figure... its available for free at my law school) about E85. Anyway I was shocked to read that to make a car compatible with E85 it only costs an extra $150. I'm hardly a rich man and I try to save my money, but $150 per car doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, espically considering the way our modern day governments spend and tax the hell out of everything. I was skeptical, about that $150 figure, but here that price is quoute in another article http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A ID=/20060122/BUSINESS/601220310/1003 And Since its so cheap why doesn't our government mandate all (or 50% of) new cars made and imported be E85 comptabile and let the consumer/market choose their fuel? Even if the federal government won't do this, you think some of the midwestern states would. Since the #1 problem with consumer adoption of E85 is its availability, wouldn't these state economies based on farming want to hurry up its availability so they could increase demand for their own product?
If I were an Iowa Legislator I'd want to make every car sold in the state E85 compatible and mandate every gas station sell E85. If the state can succesfuly force E85 onto the market it'd only be a matter of time until gas stations in the surronding states started selling E85 by choice to get those consumers and it spreads. Kind of like how McDonald's spread across America.
Other Problems with E85:
#2 promblem: You get less energy per gallon about 10 to 15% less. But E85 is aparently cheaper than gasoline. So at some point, I don't know where, and I can't find any information on this, there is a "Cost Per Mile" equilabrium between the two. Sure you have to fill up your gas tank more often if you use E85 because you get less milage, but maybe each mile is cheaper. This is a little harder than calculating "MPG" but I'm betting a savy company can add this metric to an onboard dash. If the Prius can calculate MPG, why not be able to enter how much it cost you to fill up the tank and then you get a cost per mile read out, so you can see which is cheaper for you.
For those of you who RTF, you'll recognize it here again... only this time, as THE COMPANY PRESS RELEASE.
T O.pdf
http://www.intellevate.com/india/MistakesFoundUSP
Great PR.
How, would the deliver that though? Do you have to tell them where you were, what cameras saw you?
99% of police, law enforcement officials and judges are honorable people, at least when they enter the profession. The possibility of corruption and injustice, however, is huge. That's why we have open courts in most Western countries. An official's sense of honor and fairness is our first and best line of defense against injustice but it can't be our only. Allowing the public to see how the government treats its citizens can confirm fair justice is being done. While, sites like TheSmokingGun.com that take people's personal problems and turn them in to enteraining human misery, are deplorable, perhaps more deplorable is what might happen if all court cases were closed. How would we know if equal justice was occuring? We wouldn't.
I certainly don't want my fellow citizen's watching me drive to work, or go to the grocery store; just as I don't want my fellow citizen's reading about my embarrasing run in with the law. But the only way to prove to the citizenry that I got treated fairly by the courts is to make sure its open to all to see.
I suppose this will have to be the same for CCTV in the future, lest some people are monitored by the police and prosecuted over every infraction, and others are allowed to commit infractions with impunity.
Thomas Jefferson When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The Russian Federation is the legal successor state to the Soviet Union and bound by all earlier treaties unless it acts to repeal them. The treaty would still be inforce.
Traditional Geneva Conventions apply to air. There are few practical constraints here.
There are separate treaties outlawing militarization of space. How prohibitive the treaties will be in practice is yet to be seen. Regardless the US will always act to defend itself, particularly in regards to its satellite system which is today's "high ground" that facilities military dominance. Certainly the US will deploy defensive systems to protect satellites. Whether it will deploy systems designed to disable enemy satellites is uncertain, but likely.
There are no legal treaties explicitly controlling cyber wars. There may be some older international law that could be applied to this new arena. Such would be similar to the desire of some to apply the international laws allowing nations the right to attack and capture pirates to the current war on terrorism -treating terrorists as pirates. If legal scholars can see parallels here, they'll surely see them in cyber warfare.
Today many would consider carpet bombing an entire city filled with civilians in an attempt to destroy a radar tower as a practical violation of the Geneva Conventions' rule against targeting civilians because the same tower could be destroyed with other means that would not endanger a whole city of noncombatants.
Would targeting an entire ISP to take out one terrorist website be similar? If that ISP refused to take down the website, how careful does the US have to be if it chooses to electronically attack it? Can it wipe out the data on all the ISP's servers, thus affecting "noncombatant websites?" Or must it be more careful and try to affect only the enemy's website? Probably not because the collateral damage is not that serious... loss of a website, eh... he'll live.
But what if the US is at war with an entire country, how careful must it be in attacking entire networks in that country? In that case, there may be some serious considerations. Taking out a major ISP may disrupt not only government and military networks of the enemy but also hospital networks or networks that control municipal water systems, etc, etc, which would knowingly endanger civilian lives and possibly affect third party nations. In war a country must differ to saving its citizen's lives over those of the enemy when it has no other options. So, I suppose the legal limitations are such that the US has to decided, what options it has that will likely defeat/incapacitate the enemy and then choose the ones that least endanger civilians (lives and property). Maybe it will be that cruise missiles are safer to civilians than a cyber war.