I've driven 4 Fords, 3 Nissans, a Pontiac LeMans/Diahatsu, an Subaru, '67 Pontiac Tempest, 2 Chevys, and a '72 Riviera. Less said about that the better.
I drove two Tauruses, a '93 and a '96. Both went 200,000+ without major trouble. No complaints.
My '95 Explorer has 305,000+ on it, and the original transmission went to 236,000. Origional engine, has needed predictable repairs, though only got 270,000 out of the original blower motor:)
The Mustang II was just awful. But it ran.
So you say Fords are terrible? Not in my experience.
The Nissans were a Datsun F10, a 310, and the '85 or so Sentra Wagon. The F10 rusted out but went. The 310 had a worn thrust bearing in the transmission and you needed three feet to stop; one to hold the accelerator a bit to keep the engine from stalling, and of course clutch and brake. Don't ask. When my boss (company car) came to swap it out for me, he couldn't drive it. Only then did he realize I wasn't a whiner. The wagon was great.
The LeMans was crap. Blew the odometer at 60,000, brakes needed work every 30,000, but it drove pretty well. Oh, and the odd engine component that needed replacement every 15,000. It died an early death.
The Subaru was an '88 turbo wagon. What a great car. If you remembered to let the turbo spin down and cool for minute after being on the highway, it was fine, and I drove it to 208,000 when the alternator failed. At $600 for a replacement, we gave it away for the cost of the tow. I would have bought another one then and there.
The Cavalier was entirely subpar, but it suffered no problems for 30,000. Boring.
The Malibyu Maxx was slammin. I loved that car. Had to give it back when I quit my job.
Now, my wife loves Saabs. She had 3 original 900s and loved them all so much she fixed them until even her SAAB mechanic turned her away. Now she has a '98 900 convertible, and of course it suffers random crap like second gear grinding, the top being difficult, regular leaks in the A/C (disaster in Phoenix) and of course suspension issues. At 168,000 it needs a lot of work, but it still goes. And it is a pain to work on. I hate it. It hates me.
I so miss the Tempest, two-speed transmission and all. The Riviera was a rust bucket, and I sold it to a kid so he could take out the drivetrain and mod it for drag racing in his Nova. He was so damned happy.
Anecdotes don't mean as much as you think they do. I think the worst car on the used market now is a 97-03 Malibu, rife with engine problems and just not done well. That is besides the obvious losers.
Now I'm looking for a commuter car. I really want a CRX, but they are getting old. Maybe an Elantra GT, or an Altima. But I can't think of an American car that qualifies as a good beater with good MPG. Suggestions?
1. The argument that legal immigration into the U.S. is wrong and invalid. The U.S. grew, up until around WWII, largely through legal immigration. Since then, we have not needed to grow via immigration, though we permitted it even after WWII. The reality is that we do not need legal immigration to satisfy our labor needs; we are told by industries that we 'need immigrant workers', when in reality the demand from them is for lower-paid workers. Technology, service, every industry that employs legal or illegal immigrants does so to lower costs. The H1B program is an exampole of the abuse of a legal immigration program. Illegal immigration speaks for itself.
An example of illegal immigration causign problems is the Maine blueberry harvest. This used to be, in the 60s and 70s, dominated by Mic Mac indians and local people (like me) who could make decent money for a few weeks' work. It is now 60% Hispanics, many illegal immigrants. Some stay and take other jobs in Maine. The refrain is ';who will clean the toilets? Americans don' want thosejobs' My question is, who cleaned them before Hispanics came to Maine? The answer is, Mainers. Americans. But they will cost more. If it's about wages, let's have that discussion. ok? It is my contention that Americans will do the work avaialble if they have a chance, and if they need to. If it's about minimum wage, ok, fix that. If it's about working conditions, fix that. But if it's about letting illegal immigrants do the work for less, then either legalize them or send them home.
2. No one has a dog in this fight except for everyday citizens. Business obviously likes cheaper labor. Politicians like new voters, and cater to them. Unions see them as potential new members. Government and other agencies see them as needing services and increasing demand for their services. Other nations use them as 'safety valves', sparing their own economies the trouble of providing jobs or services. So how do we fix this?
3. Illegal immigration is ILLEGAL. Let's either address that and stop the flow, or change the rules. I don't mind if we decide to allow unfettered immigration, or lower the barriers, but we should certainly make the choice. Until then, when will our government address the problem? Do we need to vote them out again and again until they get the point? When does our government stop listening to the corporations and start listening to us?
And just declaring amnesty doesn't work. Stopping the flow is the only first step, securing the souther border first. We cannot expect Mexico to do anything at all, as it is not in their interest. And if we do secure the border, expect Mexico to react harshly. The Mexican government most certainly has a stake in this, and will be significantly impacted if we do shut off the flow. Then we can begin to have honest discussions with them, perhaps. But not before. We've proven to them that we do not have the will. We will need to change that first.
Complaints that legal immigration is difficult miss the point that it is supposed to be. The U.S. is much more welcoming of legal immigration than most any other nation. But we do have the right to choose who we let in, don't we?
ps- I used to play soccer with MANY foreign nationals going to school in the U.S., several if which were Nigerians. Wonderful people, and very different. Why does your wife's friend think they are a good candidate for legal immigration? We probably do give 'highly-educated' people a much easier path, but that makes senss to me. Is Italy so bad a place? I'm genuinely interested in this. Can you tell me?
If you are sick, and you go to a hospital emergency room, you are cared for.
If you can't pay, you still get cared for.
It's the law ALREADY. And even if it were not, most hospitals would still care for you.
And we ALREADY pay for this. And it is paid for by both government programs and increased costs to other payers.
No one who needs care is turned away unless the hospital chooses to risk losing non-profit status, or a for-profit hospital chooses to risk similar sanctions.
Your assertion, veiled as it was, is false.
And we could do better, perhaps, but the claime that we do nothing is false.
More to the point, our current Administration is unwilling to subject their most intrusive proposals to scrutiny, for whatever reason.
So, as it is with many other proposals, we should consider this unwillingness to fully explain the measure as reason enough alone to be suspicious. And that's reason enough to reject it.
But back to the point that the Constitution is a 'dead' document?
Six amendments have been enacted since 1950. Twelve amendments have been enacted since 1900. One, the Eighteenth Amendment, was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment, so ten unique and active amendments have been enacted since 1900. 'Those two' cancelled each other out...
The Fourteenth Amendment in particular addressed several issues, and shows a way to resolve multiple problems with one instrument. Not that this is the preferred way, but arguments that admendments are unnecessarily difficult and so bundling several solutions into one is expeditious but dangerous have to deal with the apparent success of this measure.
The concept that our Constitution is unwieldy and so cannot govern our nation's affairs in a dynamic modern environment is an excuse for ignoring it when it suits the powers in place. This is not a partisan issue, nor is it limited to any single branch of government. Our Constitution is fundamental to our nation, and should not be easy to change.
Again, our Constitution should NOT be easy to change. It guides our government in fundamental ways, and grants us rights and privileges that should not be modified without sober judgement and careful consideration.
Current abuses make this even more clear to me.
And to describe 'constitutionalists' as "blissfully unaware of all the things that our government makes possible that their libertarian utopia would not have" is both an insult and inaccurate. I'm not a Libertarian, but our government makes possible the warrantless spying on my communications (NSA, telco collusion, email surveillance, ISP monitoring, etc), seizure of my property without due process for no stated cause (laptop confiscation at the border for LEGAL returning citizens), and the intentional proposed usurping of an entire industry (a healthcare proposal to regulate the health insurance into oblivion). None of these are Utopian ideas for a Libertarian, and I believe they are not Utopian for your average citizen. All of these actions have reasoned and well-explained intentions, but they are unconstitutional and just plain wrong.
whew. I get a little worked up when people justify ignoring our Constitution. If you want to change it, do so. If you don't like this nation because of it, consider your alternatives.
"The world is much different than it was 220 years ago. Deal with it."The world is much different than it was 220 years ago. Deal with it."
Maybe so, but people are the same. And our Constitution is actually intended to restrain people from behaving badly, more or less.
So which right(s) do you think is(are) now outmoded in our 'different' world? It's not the knee-jerk strict constitutionalists I fear, it's those who would pick and choose which parts to keep and which to use, and do so without the approval process that includes people like me. At least give us a choice we can vote on, instead of picking away at our rights behind closed doors and deceitful legislation.
In the U.S., we are supposed to be protected from unnecessary search and seizure, the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution grants us this right. Generally, this implies that the prosecution, usually the Government, must have reasonable (or probable) cause to accuse us of a crime. Taking my DNA for an identification database SEEMS, to me, to violate this right, as it takes identifying information primarily for the potential future use in prosecution. I need not even be suspected of a crime to do this. It SEEMS to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment guarantees us the right to not be compelled to be a witness against ourselves. This is regularly overriden by fingerprinting suspects as they are processed in jail, under the assumption that merely knowing your identity is not a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Fair enough. DNA is excessive for this purpose.
The idea of creating a national DNA database and fingerprinting all of us as soon as possible in our lives smacks of unconstitutional excess. While there are fingerprint clinics for children offered sometimes to 'aid in recovery of missing children', these are not mandatory. Yet. A mandatory DNA database is unconstitutional, IMHO.
And I fear this is not enough to stop such a project.
We just don't live in a nation that permits this by law. Changing the law to allow this will change our nation.
I don't like building servers any more. Rather I would have had my clients purchasing either well-known systems already builtr and burned, or at least primary assembly. Maybe I would install drives.
Now a more fun competition would be to build a full sized cabinet, rack/stack the servers, create RAID volumes, install and wire a KVM switch, configure the servers to the KVM, wire Ethernet, configure IPs and remote access, and put your hands up. Then let the referees try and remote in to start OS loads. Extra points for configuring to load a network-based image. Of course this all avoids making decisions like volumes and names, but hey, this is a speed demo.
THAT would be fun to watch. Yes, you must velcro the cabling and leave it so that each server can be extended and serviced. Sadly, while stacking a full cabinet probably would take an hour, it would take, what, how long to verify the work? Better way to test would be to leave them ready to accept a push of a multicast image.
Actually, I would rather field-strip an M16. Servers are boring until the OS is running.
May be not as effective, but apparently marginally saleable. the user experience so far has been terrible but that's the way it is with any newtechnology.
Now, to make working CPUs out of lead. Solomon's Gold to the rescue!!! Moore's law will be salvaged by modern alchemy!!!
It seems inevitable. Rural Electrification was a tremendous blessing, allowing dairy farmers to cool milk and improve quality, and giving other farmers a few more hours a night to have a life. Telephones (the original cyberspace, thank you, perhaps superceded only by telegraph, the precursor to Usenet) also solved many a problem. So universal Internet will be the logical extension of that. Yes, VOIP for rural America might be worth it alone. Think of it as an uplift of the POTS cable plant. Some part of America sure need that. The existing POTS cable plant is getting pretty old and decrepit here and there.
Much as I hate being billed for universl Internet *AGAIN*, it is probably a good thing. Certainly more value to me than universal Federal healthcare or a national biometric ID card.
I don't really begrudge rural Americans the access to broadband (read 'actually useful') Internet access, but I've lived a fair amount of my life in 'rural America'. There are tradeoffs:
You can't just pop around the corner for late-night pizza. You can't get it delivered at all.
It takes some planning to buy ice cream at the supermarket.
Getting the oil tank filled can become a neighborhood effort, or you pay much more per gallon.
Letting your car run low on gas becomes an adventure.
Cell service is not just spotty, you lose the call three times before your party answers, and batteries go quick as your phone spends a lot of its time searching for signal. Roaming to the #@@hole local provider that refuses to make an agreement with your national provider makes your wallet feel like Grand Central Station.
Satellite TV is always a challenge. Every few years you need to move the dish as your treasured cedar hedge grows another few feet. At some point the mast is high enough to sway in high winds (as in frequently) and give you more snow than February.
Broadcast HDTV is pointless. You need an array to get a decent signal.
Then again:
The nights are so quiet you are deafend by it for the first few weeks. Until the peepers come out in spring.
Drive-by shootings are largely jackers thinking that shiny windcatcher on your deck is a deers eyes. Fortunately, they are fairly accurate shooters. Unfortunately, they mostly use.308s and 30-06s.
Your annoying in-laws rarely visit.
You are no longer at the beck and call of your boss. He can't get through.
Instead of spending the nights watching pr0n, you spend the nights making pr0n.
You can walk around the backyard looking as if you are making pr0n. Nobody sees or cares.
Your annoying neighbors are at least a half-mile away.
Calling in sick because you can't shovel out the end of the driveway is plausible. Not doing any work because satellite Internet makes the VPN unusable is a blessing.
And satellite TV is overrated. You get to read a lot more.
Actually, what he is asking is unreasonable. Well, unreasonably expensive.
It seems that having a U.S. phone in Canada is almost the most expensive thing you can do. It's worth pointing out that the expense has to be worth it. To him.
I took a look at the T-Mobile options. A discounted International plan gets you Canadian minutes at $.04/min. Not bad, but add that to everything else and it sucks. A Rogers plan in the U.S. is painfully expensive.
Dual SIMs, use Google Voice to consolidate your calls, and be prepared to pay.
My stepfather gave me a Christmas present; A Mach 10 board with a copy 'Windows'.
He also gave me a game. Balance of Power.
Oh
My
God
I frittered away hours, days, weeks, trying to survive without being thrown out of office at the end of the first term. It took me two weeks to keep from blowing up the world in a half hour of play.
The game never made it to any other version of Windows, but crap, it was magnificent. In fact, I may play it again.
ps- My rig back then was an XT clone, 4.77/8MHz, 2 720k FDD, 20MB HD (ST228, I think), and CGA. Wicked decent. Getting an EGA board and monitor was a big step. The Mach board had LIM memory on it. A whopping 1MB, which cost me well over $500 and three trips back to swap bad chips. Ah, the memorys...
Same sort of people, learning English as their first language (even in Lewiston), 12 years of public school (it's not free, BTW), had access to Pell grants and student loans, and could have gone on to establish careers as skilled individuals. But they didn't.
So we live in a free country, where you are free to fail or succeed.
But are we expected to tolerate the literal invasion of illegal immigrants? Is this excused because they fill a need that was already being met?
Figures. To solve the illegal immigration problem, punish/suspect/subject the LEGAL CITIZENS of the U.S.
What a load.
- Our Congress doesn't dare solve this problem. No special interest group will let them. - Business doesn't want it solved. Cheap and compliant labor is good for them. - Politicians don't want to offend new voters, legal or not. - Unions see illegals as potential new members.
Meanwhile:
- Citizens struggle to find even the lowest-paying jobs. It's hard to compete with less. - Work is going to illegals that never did before. Who cleaned toilets in Maine before illegals came? - Existing laws are ignored by federal authorities. - Some municipalities actually PROMOTE illegal immigration. A slap in the face of the citizens that pay taxes directly to these conspirators and law-breakers. - The southern border is as easy to walk across as Times Square. Only the terrible stupid or unlucky get caught. - All proposals to secure the southern border are diminished and neutered so as to become useless. - Employers pay minimal service to eVerify, etc, and largely are permitted to skate off of any violations. - We see just enough enforcement action to give ICE a plausible story that they are actually effective. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are impotent, and deliberately so. - We even prosecute those agents that are effective, and actively thwart local and state authorities that make an effort to deal with the problem. We put effective agents in JAIL.
I'm not hopeful. This transcends party politics. Republicans and Democrats alike are complicit in this. No Administration since Reagan has made even a marginal effort. And Reagan failed. We cannot tolerate this in the long run, and really have only the four boxes to use.
That the UE will be the force that compels opening up this process.
The U.S. should be, but our current Administration is acting, well, frankly, as I would expect a European administration to. No offense intended.
Go for it, EU! We need someone to step up and deal with this. Legislation crafted in secret is kept secret for a reason, and that reason is never in the best interest of the people.
We have fallen in the U.S. We've let this Administration go much too far in the wrong directions. At least with ACTA, we may yet prevail, with a little help from our friends.
If the major car companies could indeed implement any of various technologies or techniques to enhance fuel economy, why would they NOT do it?
For instance, if just introducing turbulence in the fuel stream or direct injection in the chamber improved fuel economy substantially, why would they not do it?
Actually, they do.
TFA makes a few claims about the Transonic invention:
- Heating the gasoline. - Pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber. - injecting it into the combustion chamber.
Pre-heating the gasoline is not common, to my knowledge, in passenger car engines. However, it is the subject of a patent. Indeed, there is an fascinating writeup by a determined and fairly clever amateur (maybe) on preheating the fuel. His concept seems dangerous, but it might work... Might, if we could test it adequately.
Pressurizing the gasoline is fundamental to injection; the process is obvious upon inspection. Higher pressures are being used now to overcome other problems. So far, we are not seeing improved economy, largely because these techniques are being used to improve performance. More about that later.
Injecting it into the chamber is not new, nor is it unused in passenger cars. Porche uses the technique, and advertises that it does improve economy. This is not new art.
So, if these techniques are well-known ( I know of them, so I expect the engineers know them even better), why aren;t they beign used to improve economy?
Well, it's later now. Performance is also a goal.
Turbocharging is used to essentially stuff more air and fuel into the chamber and either improve performance or economy, at little cost since it uses exhaust gas to power the pump. Usually used to deliver performance. actually, to deliver improved performance from otherwise economical engines. Serving two purposes at the same time - good engineering. Supercharging requires engine power to deliver the improved performance, so economy is not a goal there.
And the American market at least is not so focused on economy. Somewhat, but we also want to be able to beat the other guy to the end of the ramp. Deal with it.
Toyota clearly demonstrates the incentive manufacturers have to pursue economical cars, though right now it's as much marketing as it is market share. All-electric cars were tried - the Chevy EV1. It probably failed primarily because it threatened dealer profits. There is some diversity of opinion on this. The EV1 was just an experiment.
But my answer to the question "why not" is simple. These techniques to improve economy are not without consequences. Preheating fuel increases pressure and therefore chamber pressures. This imposes new demands on engine design, some increasing weight and size, which is contrary to current design trends. Complex injector design needs to be tested to verify it can survive at least the 100,000 mile standards. Lots of inventors don't ever test long-term or design life. The EPA does.
Bottom line, for me, is that if it were that simple it's either a true breakthrough or it's not that good in practice. Which one is this? I vote not that good in practice, but if it is, the manufacturers will either license it or steal it. Or not, for a good (to them) reason.
The incumbent suppliers, gas/coal/oil-fueled generating utilities, have NO, repeat NO incentive to encourage a competitor. And every incentive to prevent the entry to market of viable competitors such as wind, solar, etc.
I'm not trolling, nor am I just trying to be contrary. This is a business fact. Show me a business that has a good case for encouraging their competition. I have one, too, the exception that proves the rule; retail. Clustering retail outlets together, such as clothing or even convenience stores, can increase business by concentrating traffic. But even this is intended to deny their remote competitors opportunity.
Just be honest about this. Their businesses are under incredible pressure - costs rising, alternatives becoming viable and either cheaper or not significantly more expensive, social pressure to change their processes at great expense and diminishment of profits, government regulation that is threatening to become puntitive and eventually literally drive them out of the business. They will want to hold on as long as possible. And use every means available, that they can survive, to stop or slow down their competitors.
It is naive to state, for instance, that "they'd embrace the new tech and get in on it, rather than trying to fight it". The reality is that they also know that their competitors would have every reason to denigrate any such attempts as failed and futile attempts for these incumbent industries to plot their survival and continued monopoly, soley for the purpose of denying entry to new competitors. These new competitors would petition our government to tax or regulate the existing players to 'level the playing field', as well as ask for breaks and grants to 'encourage alternatives'. The petroleum industry is locked in this no-win situation, and is being stufffed into the pre-defined role of evil lords of power and control. And they deserve that position, largely if not entirely due to their own past acts.
I have NO sympathy for them. They have massive capital available, and if they would bear down and exercise their immense leverage, they could do the research, snap up smart minds to solve problems, and bring to market their future products that are now being developed by the nimbler competitors. They have their chance still, but are squandering the opportunity, or perhaps see that this is a fight they just don't have the stomach for and will milk the world for all it's worth. The Third World may be their growth market for the next 40 years. Then again, Africa for example might decide to choose wisely in advance. That leaves China and India, who might just do their own thing. A gamble, and the hand has not yet been called.
To repeat, while the current powers should indeed be making the investment, they are not idiots to not do so. They could adopt that strategy, but they have other options, which are not, from a business viewpoint, entirely without merit. Just risky, and perhaps not serving us the citizens of the world as well as it might, but these are profit-centered organizations. They do not exist to protect the environment. If you think this is 'wrong', then you need to work to change the nature and regulation of corporations worldwide. And I'm with you. We need to do that. Soon. Now.
And we do have a right, indeed a duty, to compel them to be less evil. This is not limited to the petroleum industry, and may be even more important in other sectors.
And another application might be to use this to charge a supercapacitor, allowing time for the cell to regenerate/refuel/cool down, and repeat as necessary.
Really interesting. Power density is the new frontier. If this can increase density usably by just a factor or 10, it is a tremendous advance. And I'm just thinking about portable electronics. For a vehicle, this really could be a good fit. Temperature could be manageable if you have space to put some insulation and cooling structures in...
I just saw the Altiris agent pop up on my work machine this morning. Our network weasels are busy virtualizing application installs. Good for them.
But Novell ZenWorks was doing this via layered imaging 7-10 years ago. Not to mention volatile Windows accounts, a Godsend in school environments. And other cool thing Novell did that Microsoft didn't.
But what caught my eye was that Altiris seems to have been gobbled up by Symantec. How sad. Now we fear the worst...
...how about we tax Microsoft? How many of these security problems over the past 15 years were based on bad design decisions, and how many were inevitable?
And while we're at it, Adobe deserves a levy also.
Of course, if the majority of these security problems were essentially unforseeable by anybody, then why not encourage the ISPs to take the reins and do what needs to be done.
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I've driven 4 Fords, 3 Nissans, a Pontiac LeMans/Diahatsu, an Subaru, '67 Pontiac Tempest, 2 Chevys, and a '72 Riviera. Less said about that the better.
I drove two Tauruses, a '93 and a '96. Both went 200,000+ without major trouble. No complaints.
My '95 Explorer has 305,000+ on it, and the original transmission went to 236,000. Origional engine, has needed predictable repairs, though only got 270,000 out of the original blower motor :)
The Mustang II was just awful. But it ran.
So you say Fords are terrible? Not in my experience.
The Nissans were a Datsun F10, a 310, and the '85 or so Sentra Wagon. The F10 rusted out but went. The 310 had a worn thrust bearing in the transmission and you needed three feet to stop; one to hold the accelerator a bit to keep the engine from stalling, and of course clutch and brake. Don't ask. When my boss (company car) came to swap it out for me, he couldn't drive it. Only then did he realize I wasn't a whiner. The wagon was great.
The LeMans was crap. Blew the odometer at 60,000, brakes needed work every 30,000, but it drove pretty well. Oh, and the odd engine component that needed replacement every 15,000. It died an early death.
The Subaru was an '88 turbo wagon. What a great car. If you remembered to let the turbo spin down and cool for minute after being on the highway, it was fine, and I drove it to 208,000 when the alternator failed. At $600 for a replacement, we gave it away for the cost of the tow. I would have bought another one then and there.
The Cavalier was entirely subpar, but it suffered no problems for 30,000. Boring.
The Malibyu Maxx was slammin. I loved that car. Had to give it back when I quit my job.
Now, my wife loves Saabs. She had 3 original 900s and loved them all so much she fixed them until even her SAAB mechanic turned her away. Now she has a '98 900 convertible, and of course it suffers random crap like second gear grinding, the top being difficult, regular leaks in the A/C (disaster in Phoenix) and of course suspension issues. At 168,000 it needs a lot of work, but it still goes. And it is a pain to work on. I hate it. It hates me.
I so miss the Tempest, two-speed transmission and all. The Riviera was a rust bucket, and I sold it to a kid so he could take out the drivetrain and mod it for drag racing in his Nova. He was so damned happy.
Anecdotes don't mean as much as you think they do. I think the worst car on the used market now is a 97-03 Malibu, rife with engine problems and just not done well. That is besides the obvious losers.
Now I'm looking for a commuter car. I really want a CRX, but they are getting old. Maybe an Elantra GT, or an Altima. But I can't think of an American car that qualifies as a good beater with good MPG. Suggestions?
Even people with 'insurance' get substandard care. Are we going to have the Government legislate 'good' care?
The model would be Medicare. I'll pass on that. Ask my mother, and remember - she's in pretty good health.
The Federal government won't do better.
Three points;
1. The argument that legal immigration into the U.S. is wrong and invalid. The U.S. grew, up until around WWII, largely through legal immigration. Since then, we have not needed to grow via immigration, though we permitted it even after WWII. The reality is that we do not need legal immigration to satisfy our labor needs; we are told by industries that we 'need immigrant workers', when in reality the demand from them is for lower-paid workers. Technology, service, every industry that employs legal or illegal immigrants does so to lower costs. The H1B program is an exampole of the abuse of a legal immigration program. Illegal immigration speaks for itself.
An example of illegal immigration causign problems is the Maine blueberry harvest. This used to be, in the 60s and 70s, dominated by Mic Mac indians and local people (like me) who could make decent money for a few weeks' work. It is now 60% Hispanics, many illegal immigrants. Some stay and take other jobs in Maine.
The refrain is ';who will clean the toilets? Americans don' want thosejobs' My question is, who cleaned them before Hispanics came to Maine? The answer is, Mainers. Americans. But they will cost more. If it's about wages, let's have that discussion. ok? It is my contention that Americans will do the work avaialble if they have a chance, and if they need to. If it's about minimum wage, ok, fix that. If it's about working conditions, fix that. But if it's about letting illegal immigrants do the work for less, then either legalize them
or send them home.
2. No one has a dog in this fight except for everyday citizens. Business obviously likes cheaper labor. Politicians like new voters, and cater to them. Unions see them as potential new members. Government and other agencies see them as needing services and increasing demand for their services. Other nations use them as 'safety valves', sparing their own economies the trouble of providing jobs or services. So how do we fix this?
3. Illegal immigration is ILLEGAL. Let's either address that and stop the flow, or change the rules. I don't mind if we decide to allow unfettered immigration, or lower the barriers, but we should certainly make the choice. Until then, when will our government address the problem? Do we need to vote them out again and again until they get the point? When does our government stop listening to the corporations and start listening to us?
And just declaring amnesty doesn't work. Stopping the flow is the only first step, securing the souther border first. We cannot expect Mexico to do anything at all, as it is not in their interest. And if we do secure the border, expect Mexico to react harshly. The Mexican government most certainly has a stake in this, and will
be significantly impacted if we do shut off the flow. Then we can begin to have honest discussions with them, perhaps. But not before. We've proven to them that we do not have the will. We will need to change that first.
Complaints that legal immigration is difficult miss the point that it is supposed to be. The U.S. is much more welcoming of legal immigration than most any other nation. But we do have the right to choose who we let in, don't we?
ps- I used to play soccer with MANY foreign nationals going to school in the U.S., several if which were Nigerians. Wonderful people, and very different. Why does your wife's friend think they are a good candidate for legal immigration? We probably do give 'highly-educated' people a much easier path, but that makes senss to me. Is Italy so bad a place? I'm genuinely interested in this. Can you tell me?
If you are sick, and you go to a hospital emergency room, you are cared for.
If you can't pay, you still get cared for.
It's the law ALREADY. And even if it were not, most hospitals would still care for you.
And we ALREADY pay for this. And it is paid for by both government programs and increased costs to other payers.
No one who needs care is turned away unless the hospital chooses to risk losing non-profit status, or a for-profit hospital chooses to risk similar sanctions.
Your assertion, veiled as it was, is false.
And we could do better, perhaps, but the claime that we do nothing is false.
Right on!
More to the point, our current Administration is unwilling to subject their most intrusive proposals to scrutiny, for whatever reason.
So, as it is with many other proposals, we should consider this unwillingness to fully explain the measure as reason enough alone to be suspicious. And that's reason enough to reject it.
But back to the point that the Constitution is a 'dead' document?
Six amendments have been enacted since 1950.
Twelve amendments have been enacted since 1900. One, the Eighteenth Amendment, was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment, so ten unique and active amendments have been enacted since 1900. 'Those two' cancelled each other out...
The Fourteenth Amendment in particular addressed several issues, and shows a way to resolve multiple problems with one instrument. Not that this is the preferred way, but arguments that admendments are unnecessarily difficult and so bundling several solutions into one is expeditious but dangerous have to deal with the apparent success of this measure.
The concept that our Constitution is unwieldy and so cannot govern our nation's affairs in a dynamic modern environment is an excuse for ignoring it when it suits the powers in place. This is not a partisan issue, nor is it limited to any single branch of government. Our Constitution is fundamental to our nation, and should not be easy to change.
Again, our Constitution should NOT be easy to change. It guides our government in fundamental ways, and grants us rights and privileges that should not be modified without sober judgement and careful consideration.
Current abuses make this even more clear to me.
And to describe 'constitutionalists' as "blissfully unaware of all the things that our government makes possible that their libertarian utopia would not have" is both an insult and inaccurate. I'm not a Libertarian, but our government makes possible the warrantless spying on my communications (NSA, telco collusion, email surveillance, ISP monitoring, etc), seizure of my property without due process for no stated cause (laptop confiscation at the border for LEGAL returning citizens), and the intentional proposed usurping of an entire industry (a healthcare proposal to regulate the health insurance into oblivion). None of these are Utopian ideas for a Libertarian, and I believe they are not Utopian for your average citizen. All of these actions have reasoned and well-explained intentions, but they are unconstitutional and just plain wrong.
whew. I get a little worked up when people justify ignoring our Constitution. If you want to change it, do so. If you don't like this nation because of it, consider your alternatives.
"The world is much different than it was 220 years ago. Deal with it."The world is much different than it was 220 years ago. Deal with it."
Maybe so, but people are the same. And our Constitution is actually intended to restrain people from behaving badly, more or less.
So which right(s) do you think is(are) now outmoded in our 'different' world? It's not the knee-jerk strict constitutionalists I fear, it's those who would pick and choose which parts to keep and which to use, and do so without the approval process that includes people like me. At least give us a choice we can vote on, instead of picking away at our rights behind closed doors and deceitful legislation.
Yep, and you can be sure no one else will be using it...
In fact, no one will have any interest in it at all. Your 'secret' is safe!
So, are you implying that our President should be going back in time and agreeign with himself?
I would agree, you know. You do know, don't you?
Let's get this straight once and for all...
In the U.S., we are supposed to be protected from unnecessary search and seizure, the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution grants us this right. Generally, this implies that the prosecution, usually the Government, must have reasonable (or probable) cause to accuse us of a crime. Taking my DNA for an identification database SEEMS, to me, to violate this right, as it takes identifying information primarily for the potential future use in prosecution. I need not even be suspected of a crime to do this. It SEEMS to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment guarantees us the right to not be compelled to be a witness against ourselves. This is regularly overriden by fingerprinting suspects as they are processed in jail, under the assumption that merely knowing your identity is not a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Fair enough. DNA is excessive for this purpose.
The idea of creating a national DNA database and fingerprinting all of us as soon as possible in our lives smacks of unconstitutional excess. While there are fingerprint clinics for children offered sometimes to 'aid in recovery of missing children', these are not mandatory. Yet. A mandatory DNA database is unconstitutional, IMHO.
And I fear this is not enough to stop such a project.
We just don't live in a nation that permits this by law. Changing the law to allow this will change our nation.
Choose carefully.
I don't like building servers any more. Rather I would have had my clients purchasing either well-known systems already builtr and burned, or at least primary assembly. Maybe I would install drives.
Now a more fun competition would be to build a full sized cabinet, rack/stack the servers, create RAID volumes, install and wire a KVM switch, configure the servers to the KVM, wire Ethernet, configure IPs and remote access, and put your hands up. Then let the referees try and remote in to start OS loads. Extra points for configuring to load a network-based image. Of course this all avoids making decisions like volumes and names, but hey, this is a speed demo.
THAT would be fun to watch. Yes, you must velcro the cabling and leave it so that each server can be extended and serviced. Sadly, while stacking a full cabinet probably would take an hour, it would take, what, how long to verify the work? Better way to test would be to leave them ready to accept a push of a multicast image.
Actually, I would rather field-strip an M16. Servers are boring until the OS is running.
No it's the MRSA virus.
May be not as effective, but apparently marginally saleable. the user experience so far has been terrible but that's the way it is with any new technology.
Now, to make working CPUs out of lead. Solomon's Gold to the rescue!!! Moore's law will be salvaged by modern alchemy!!!
The first step to rolling out universal coverage.
At taxpayer expense.
It seems inevitable. Rural Electrification was a tremendous blessing, allowing dairy farmers to cool milk and improve quality, and giving other farmers a few more hours a night to have a life. Telephones (the original cyberspace, thank you, perhaps superceded only by telegraph, the precursor to Usenet) also solved many a problem. So universal Internet will be the logical extension of that. Yes, VOIP for rural America might be worth it alone. Think of it as an uplift of the POTS cable plant. Some part of America sure need that. The existing POTS cable plant is getting pretty old and decrepit here and there.
Much as I hate being billed for universl Internet *AGAIN*, it is probably a good thing. Certainly more value to me than universal Federal healthcare or a national biometric ID card.
I don't really begrudge rural Americans the access to broadband (read 'actually useful') Internet access, but I've lived a fair amount of my life in 'rural America'. There are tradeoffs:
You can't just pop around the corner for late-night pizza. You can't get it delivered at all.
It takes some planning to buy ice cream at the supermarket.
Getting the oil tank filled can become a neighborhood effort, or you pay much more per gallon.
Letting your car run low on gas becomes an adventure.
Cell service is not just spotty, you lose the call three times before your party answers, and batteries go quick as your phone spends a lot of its time searching for signal. Roaming to the #@@hole local provider that refuses to make an agreement with your national provider makes your wallet feel like Grand Central Station.
Satellite TV is always a challenge. Every few years you need to move the dish as your treasured cedar hedge grows another few feet. At some point the mast is high enough to sway in high winds (as in frequently) and give you more snow than February.
Broadcast HDTV is pointless. You need an array to get a decent signal.
Then again:
The nights are so quiet you are deafend by it for the first few weeks. Until the peepers come out in spring.
Drive-by shootings are largely jackers thinking that shiny windcatcher on your deck is a deers eyes. Fortunately, they are fairly accurate shooters. Unfortunately, they mostly use .308s and 30-06s.
Your annoying in-laws rarely visit.
You are no longer at the beck and call of your boss. He can't get through.
Instead of spending the nights watching pr0n, you spend the nights making pr0n.
You can walk around the backyard looking as if you are making pr0n. Nobody sees or cares.
Your annoying neighbors are at least a half-mile away.
Calling in sick because you can't shovel out the end of the driveway is plausible. Not doing any work because satellite Internet makes the VPN unusable is a blessing.
And satellite TV is overrated. You get to read a lot more.
Actually, what he is asking is unreasonable. Well, unreasonably expensive.
It seems that having a U.S. phone in Canada is almost the most expensive thing you can do. It's worth pointing out that the expense has to be worth it. To him.
I took a look at the T-Mobile options. A discounted International plan gets you Canadian minutes at $.04/min. Not bad, but add that to everything else and it sucks. A Rogers plan in the U.S. is painfully expensive.
Dual SIMs, use Google Voice to consolidate your calls, and be prepared to pay.
I saw TESB first night (at midnight, thank you) in Southern Maine, and I don't recall anything about this 'short'.
And I was checking the room, and had to stay to the first reel.
So where indeed was 'Black Angel' shown? Not out in the woods, I can tell ya.
Actually, illegal immigrants are just like the rest of us.
They commit real crimes (such as: theft, murder, etc.)
They are just like us. Except they are in the U.S. illegally.
My stepfather gave me a Christmas present; A Mach 10 board with a copy 'Windows'.
He also gave me a game. Balance of Power.
Oh
My
God
I frittered away hours, days, weeks, trying to survive without being thrown out of office at the end of the first term. It took me two weeks to keep from blowing up the world in a half hour of play.
The game never made it to any other version of Windows, but crap, it was magnificent. In fact, I may play it again.
ps- My rig back then was an XT clone, 4.77/8MHz, 2 720k FDD, 20MB HD (ST228, I think), and CGA. Wicked decent. Getting an EGA board and monitor was a big step. The Mach board had LIM memory on it. A whopping 1MB, which cost me well over $500 and three trips back to swap bad chips. Ah, the memorys...
Wrong.
Same sort of people, learning English as their first language (even in Lewiston), 12 years of public school (it's not free, BTW), had access to Pell grants and student loans, and could have gone on to establish careers as skilled individuals. But they didn't.
So we live in a free country, where you are free to fail or succeed.
But are we expected to tolerate the literal invasion of illegal immigrants? Is this excused because they fill a need that was already being met?
Figures. To solve the illegal immigration problem, punish/suspect/subject the LEGAL CITIZENS of the U.S.
What a load.
- Our Congress doesn't dare solve this problem. No special interest group will let them.
- Business doesn't want it solved. Cheap and compliant labor is good for them.
- Politicians don't want to offend new voters, legal or not.
- Unions see illegals as potential new members.
Meanwhile:
- Citizens struggle to find even the lowest-paying jobs. It's hard to compete with less.
- Work is going to illegals that never did before. Who cleaned toilets in Maine before illegals came?
- Existing laws are ignored by federal authorities.
- Some municipalities actually PROMOTE illegal immigration. A slap in the face of the citizens that pay taxes directly to these conspirators and law-breakers.
- The southern border is as easy to walk across as Times Square. Only the terrible stupid or unlucky get caught.
- All proposals to secure the southern border are diminished and neutered so as to become useless.
- Employers pay minimal service to eVerify, etc, and largely are permitted to skate off of any violations.
- We see just enough enforcement action to give ICE a plausible story that they are actually effective. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are impotent, and deliberately so.
- We even prosecute those agents that are effective, and actively thwart local and state authorities that make an effort to deal with the problem. We put effective agents in JAIL.
I'm not hopeful. This transcends party politics. Republicans and Democrats alike are complicit in this. No Administration since Reagan has made even a marginal effort. And Reagan failed. We cannot tolerate this in the long run, and really have only the four boxes to use.
And you know what I'm talking about.
That the UE will be the force that compels opening up this process.
The U.S. should be, but our current Administration is acting, well, frankly, as I would expect a European administration to. No offense intended.
Go for it, EU! We need someone to step up and deal with this. Legislation crafted in secret is kept secret for a reason, and that reason is never in the best interest of the people.
We have fallen in the U.S. We've let this Administration go much too far in the wrong directions. At least with ACTA, we may yet prevail, with a little help from our friends.
I'm left with the same old question.
If the major car companies could indeed implement any of various technologies or techniques to enhance fuel economy, why would they NOT do it?
For instance, if just introducing turbulence in the fuel stream or direct injection in the chamber improved fuel economy substantially, why would they not do it?
Actually, they do.
TFA makes a few claims about the Transonic invention:
- Heating the gasoline.
- Pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber.
- injecting it into the combustion chamber.
Pre-heating the gasoline is not common, to my knowledge, in passenger car engines. However, it is the subject of a patent. Indeed, there is an fascinating writeup by a determined and fairly clever amateur (maybe) on preheating the fuel. His concept seems dangerous, but it might work... Might, if we could test it adequately.
Pressurizing the gasoline is fundamental to injection; the process is obvious upon inspection. Higher pressures are being used now to overcome other problems. So far, we are not seeing improved economy, largely because these techniques are being used to improve performance. More about that later.
Injecting it into the chamber is not new, nor is it unused in passenger cars. Porche uses the technique, and advertises that it does improve economy. This is not new art.
So, if these techniques are well-known ( I know of them, so I expect the engineers know them even better), why aren;t they beign used to improve economy?
Well, it's later now. Performance is also a goal.
Turbocharging is used to essentially stuff more air and fuel into the chamber and either improve performance or economy, at little cost since it uses exhaust gas to power the pump. Usually used to deliver performance. actually, to deliver improved performance from otherwise economical engines. Serving two purposes at the same time - good engineering. Supercharging requires engine power to deliver the improved performance, so economy is not a goal there.
And the American market at least is not so focused on economy. Somewhat, but we also want to be able to beat the other guy to the end of the ramp. Deal with it.
Toyota clearly demonstrates the incentive manufacturers have to pursue economical cars, though right now it's as much marketing as it is market share. All-electric cars were tried - the Chevy EV1. It probably failed primarily because it threatened dealer profits. There is some diversity of opinion on this. The EV1 was just an experiment.
But my answer to the question "why not" is simple. These techniques to improve economy are not without consequences. Preheating fuel increases pressure and therefore chamber pressures. This imposes new demands on engine design, some increasing weight and size, which is contrary to current design trends. Complex injector design needs to be tested to verify it can survive at least the 100,000 mile standards. Lots of inventors don't ever test long-term or design life. The EPA does.
Bottom line, for me, is that if it were that simple it's either a true breakthrough or it's not that good in practice. Which one is this? I vote not that good in practice, but if it is, the manufacturers will either license it or steal it. Or not, for a good (to them) reason.
The incumbent suppliers, gas/coal/oil-fueled generating utilities, have NO, repeat NO incentive to encourage a competitor. And every incentive to prevent the entry to market of viable competitors such as wind, solar, etc.
I'm not trolling, nor am I just trying to be contrary. This is a business fact. Show me a business that has a good case for encouraging their competition. I have one, too, the exception that proves the rule; retail. Clustering retail outlets together, such as clothing or even convenience stores, can increase business by concentrating traffic. But even this is intended to deny their remote competitors opportunity.
Just be honest about this. Their businesses are under incredible pressure - costs rising, alternatives becoming viable and either cheaper or not significantly more expensive, social pressure to change their processes at great expense and diminishment of profits, government regulation that is threatening to become puntitive and eventually literally drive them out of the business. They will want to hold on as long as possible. And use every means available, that they can survive, to stop or slow down their competitors.
It is naive to state, for instance, that "they'd embrace the new tech and get in on it, rather than trying to fight it". The reality is that they also know that their competitors would have every reason to denigrate any such attempts as failed and futile attempts for these incumbent industries to plot their survival and continued monopoly, soley for the purpose of denying entry to new competitors. These new competitors would petition our government to tax or regulate the existing players to 'level the playing field', as well as ask for breaks and grants to 'encourage alternatives'. The petroleum industry is locked in this no-win situation, and is being stufffed into the pre-defined role of evil lords of power and control. And they deserve that position, largely if not entirely due to their own past acts.
I have NO sympathy for them. They have massive capital available, and if they would bear down and exercise their immense leverage, they could do the research, snap up smart minds to solve problems, and bring to market their future products that are now being developed by the nimbler competitors. They have their chance still, but are squandering the opportunity, or perhaps see that this is a fight they just don't have the stomach for and will milk the world for all it's worth. The Third World may be their growth market for the next 40 years. Then again, Africa for example might decide to choose wisely in advance. That leaves China and India, who might just do their own thing. A gamble, and the hand has not yet been called.
To repeat, while the current powers should indeed be making the investment, they are not idiots to not do so. They could adopt that strategy, but they have other options, which are not, from a business viewpoint, entirely without merit. Just risky, and perhaps not serving us the citizens of the world as well as it might, but these are profit-centered organizations. They do not exist to protect the environment. If you think this is 'wrong', then you need to work to change the nature and regulation of corporations worldwide. And I'm with you. We need to do that. Soon. Now.
And we do have a right, indeed a duty, to compel them to be less evil. This is not limited to the petroleum industry, and may be even more important in other sectors.
And another application might be to use this to charge a supercapacitor, allowing time for the cell to regenerate/refuel/cool down, and repeat as necessary.
Really interesting. Power density is the new frontier. If this can increase density usably by just a factor or 10, it is a tremendous advance. And I'm just thinking about portable electronics. For a vehicle, this really could be a good fit. Temperature could be manageable if you have space to put some insulation and cooling structures in...
I just saw the Altiris agent pop up on my work machine this morning. Our network weasels are busy virtualizing application installs. Good for them.
But Novell ZenWorks was doing this via layered imaging 7-10 years ago. Not to mention volatile Windows accounts, a Godsend in school environments. And other cool thing Novell did that Microsoft didn't.
But what caught my eye was that Altiris seems to have been gobbled up by Symantec. How sad. Now we fear the worst...
...how about we tax Microsoft? How many of these security problems over the past 15 years were based on bad design decisions, and how many were inevitable?
And while we're at it, Adobe deserves a levy also.
Of course, if the majority of these security problems were essentially unforseeable by anybody, then why not encourage the ISPs to take the reins and do what needs to be done.
Oh, no, that doesn't make any sense...