Actually, my experience is that for the vast majority of informed people, evolution is not seen as a disproof of God. There are exceptions, such as Phillip Adams and Richard Dawkins.
I have found that most fundy Christians seem to believe that belief in God and acceptance of Evolution are incompatible. I find this a real shame. The facts of the matter are that the Bible says very little about microbiology, population dynamics, cosmology, biochemistry and mathematics, and a lot about morals, ethics and spirituality. Similarly, Physics and Biology don't have a hell of a lot to say about morals and ethics, but they do help us understand the physical universe.
I believe the term used is "orthogonal".
St Augustine made the statement that "whenever scripture and experience seem to be in conflict, it is ibnvariably our interpretation of scripture that is flawed". Accept that the Bible is inerrant on matters moral, ethical and spiritual, but accept that ancient Hebrew doesn't possess the words to discuss genetics, biochemistry or quantum mechanics, and as such doesn't address these topics. Look at Leviticus Chapter 6 as an example - a literal reading of an English translation would have us belive that grasshoppers have 4 legs, bats are avians and that hares are hoofed animals that chew cud (ruminants). None of these things are true. Rather we should accept that perhaps we don't know exactly what Moses was talking about back then, and we don't know exactly what context we should try to understand the meaning in Moses' time.
You are assuming that your mutation does not have some (as yet unidentified) benefit. Sickle Cell Anemia is a well known mutation, that is fatal when homozygous, but provides partial immunity to malaria when heterozygous.
Another example is colour-blindness. As a Red/Green blind person, it can be argued that this is a potentially fatal mutation ("red is active, green is earth" - right.....). However red-green blind people have a distinct advantage when hunting, as most camouflage patterns (both natural and artificial) are really really loud. In times of famine, whose family is the well fed one in the cave? The colour-blind hunter's family. The rest of the time colour-blindness is at best slightly inconvenient, and at times potentially dangerous.
"other people who chose not to be vaccinated and therefore willingly took that risk"
So the 9 year old girl whose parents decide she won't be vaccinated but then gets HPV at age 18 due to marrying a boy who caught HPV is solely responsible for that dose of STD? And I suppose she's also responsible for that hysterectomy she gets at 35 due to Cervical Cancer. And she's at fault for the HPV she gave her kids when they were born?
I think that's open to debate. Personally I see vaccination as a matter of public health, and I believe that the individual's right to say no is superseded by rights of others and the greater good of society. But then I'm a Socialist.
My sister-in-law was dead set against vaccinating her kids (she's on the "feral people living in the bush" fringe) until a local 9yo boy died of german measles, and then his new born baby sister was born profoundly retarded 6 months later. Then she realised that the issue goes way beyond Big Pharma getting money from immunisations, and that her decision not to immunise her kids could put other people's kids at risk. Her kids are now all immunised against the standard set of childhood disorders.
Actually, we have far superior Free-to-air TV than in America. I lived in the USA for a while, so have seen both sides of the Pacific.
Here on the Gold Coast we have:
9NBN (Newcastle) 9 Gold Coast ABC(Brisbane) ABC (Northern Rivers) 10 Gold Coast 10 Brisbane 10 Prime (Northern Rivers) 7 Sydney 7 Brisbane SBS
Which leads to competition. Of these, 10 is owned by Fox, 7 by Murdoch (I think) and 9 by Packer (I could have ownership of 9 and 7 backwards).
The ABC is Government owned, but independent, and has no commercial advertising.
SBS is the "multicultural" channel, is Government owned and is in turn one of the major owners of World Movies.
7 is the "White Trash" channel, with the "Extreme Makeover" type shows, and lots of small words. 7 has the big car races (like Bathurst) 9 is where the most Game Shows are. 9 also has the Cricket. 10 concentrates on the medical and crime dramas (like House, Law and Order, NCIS)
ABC has docos, historical dramas, Shakespeare, and "Order in the House", which is broadcasts of Parliament in session. It does have a slight leftist bias.
SBS has subtitled foreign language shows (like Inspector Rex and The Octopus), Deustch Watch, the Laher News Hour, thought provoking documentaries (such as "The President versus David Hicks") and truely awesome cooking shows.
The problem seem to me that the major Networks don't actually care much about our little market. A case in point is the show House (10 Network), which as well as being many months behind the US, was actually shown out-of-order for the first two series, which totally destroyed the plot. The other day I was waiting for Rockwiz on SBS, and Iron Chef was on. The line used was "today in 1996 we don't have to follow the old traditional methods for great cuisine".
In comparison, in San Diego we had 2 free to air channels, which were pretty poor. of the 200+ cable channels, far too many were "shopping channels" or just endless re-runs of the same old series and docos.
One of the tenets of Christianity is that after one has become Born Again, his or her past is gone and forgotten. What if the young man alluded to above was a gay slut before he converted, but has ever since been celibate? Is he likely to be "revealing" his sordid past to the Pastor's daughter he's about to marry? Or are we to expect that by simply donating a few Dollars to Creflo A Dollar he'll be disinfected and "made whole, restored to his intended pre-fall perfection"?
And what about my son? He claims to be intent to remain celibate till marriage (he's 14, let's see if he still has this attitude in 5 years time...). Isn't he at risk if the girl he falls for has anything other than a "perfect" past?
It seems to me that not only is there loud shouts of "only celibacy really works" (and yes. celibacy DOES work, but it's totally realistic to expect everyone to do that, or more precisely not do it...), but this whole argument from the religious right and from the "Women's movement" smacks of "all evil is born of woman". Seriously, immunising little girls against a STD will turn them into little 2-bob tunnel-cunted gutter sluts that will screw anyone that moves?
The fact is that such am immunisation will probably not drive a kid towards sexual activity in any way. The real drivers are surely that effectiveness of parents and teachers in giving these kids self-respect and in them gaining a real appreciation for the real issues of STDs and the emotional costs of sexual behaviour.
I find this whole debate rather ridiculous, except for the implications for human and women's rights. Why do you Americans let the wacko right dictate so much rubbish?
DISCLAIMER:
I am a practising Christian. I am a Socialist and active supporter of our Political Left. I am not an American.
I'd advise you have a look at the history of Organised Labour around the world. I understand that a lot of Unions are like you describe in the USA, but in the majority of countries the Union does a fine job of protecting the Interests of the Workers.
It seems to me that Unions are more likely to get out of hand in countries like the USA, where Capitalism is running at the extreme end. As a result corruption and graft can easily become the norm. Mind you, the extreme Left also has the same result due to human weakness combined with perceived shortages.
Unions work well when they concentrate on provision of Social Justice in the Workplace, and fail when they become an Instrument of Applied Industrial Inertia. In both cases the principle of Collective Bargaining is the strength and weakness.
The real beauty of RPN is that it's close to how your brain works. This has two benefits:
First, you are forced to think about your calculation, increasing the chance you'll hit the right buttons in the right order
Second, because you see intermediate calculations on the stack, you're more likely to identify when you've hit the wrong button, or the right buttons in the wrong order.
I've seen 1st year students who were incapable of identifying when they'd made an error on calculators with pure "algebraic entry" - in my mind calculators where you type '6 + 4 x 5 - 3 =' are pretty toys - especially as some will calculate 23 whilst others will calculate 47. RPN is '6 4 5 x + 3 -' which is NOT shorter, but is a lot closer to how you'd do it on paper.
I think there's more to it than that - you have to be confident that as well as having the right to a fair and democratic election, you have to be confident that (a) you were well informed and (b) the system has to really work.
Here in Oz there's plenty of evidence that the election was manipulated by lying to the electorate to appeal to our baser instincts (How many children were thrown overboard John? None. And you knew it.).
I understand that their are many who believe that Bush was elected by manipulation of the Judiciary - which if true casts the democracy into serious doubt. I'd go even further, and suggest that if a substantial proportion believes that the Judiciary was manipulated that due to a resulting lack of confidence in the system there is a lack of Democracy.
And so the right of an American to not be "sexually harrassed" far outweighs thousands of women, children and families being destroyed in the Middle East doesn't it?
Get a clue, please. If you want to support sexual equality you have to respect all human life as being of equal value. Otherwise you are just shifting the inequity to somewhere beyond your own front yard.
Don't think that just because the extreme right of Australian politics saw a payout in being "the USA's best friend" that the majority of Australians are in support of the war. I think it's fair to say that we all support our troops, and admire them for doing a hell of a job, but the test will be in November when we have Federal Election....
Assuming of course that John "Bonsai" Howard doesn't pull another fast one. How many children were thrown overboard John? What do we pay for petrol John? GST money will be distributed to the states for health care and education John? How much in in the future fund John? How much have all those ads cost John? Why do you sell the *profitable* public utilities John?
Except that we don't have extremely long leads to connect cars and trucks to the grid, while we do have hydrogen fuel cells. The whole hydrogen fuel thing isn't about producing energy for general use, but rather it's about producing a greenhouse neutral, renewable fuel for vehicles. By the way, we could also say that it doesn't make sense to piss away petrochemicals by burning them just so you can have noisy, dirty fuel. By your logic we shouldn't be using petrol in cars, as it would be much more efficient to use it generating electricity in a power station.
"In the market place, hydrogen would have to compete with its own source of energy, i.e. with ("green") electricity from the grid," he says. "For this reason, creating a new energy carrier is a no-win solution. We have to solve an energy problem not an energy carrier problem."
Why do we have to use electricity from the grid to generate hydrogen? Why can't we use floating arrays of photovoltaic cells to crack the water on the ocean? Or we could use large banks of mirrors to power an array of Stirling engines to generate the power to crack the water? It's not as if you need a large voltage to do the job, I think there are many ways of getting the power other than off the grid.
I have to admit I'm rather partial ton the idea of using arrays of mirrors to power a series of stirling engines - apart from possible loss of heat transfer fluid, and wear and tear (which is minimised by the typically low RPM of stirling engines) it should be very cheap power once you amortise the cost of setting up the thing. There are several places in the world (in the USA, South America, Africa and Australia at least) where you have ubiquitous sunshine at beaches where desert (or otherwise low-productivity land) comes down to the beach. The real problems to be solved for Hydrogen as a stored energy source are purely matters of storage and shipping. There are several technologies for renewable energy that could power the cracking with relatively low research costs to get them to a point where they would be usable.
No, I didn't think your post deserved to be rated as "troll". Far too often posts are rated as "troll" when they're nothing of the kind. It seems to me that over the last eight or so years there are now a large number of netizens who don't know what "troll" and "flame" mean, and use both terms to mean "controversial" and "abuse". Ah, the price of democratisation of technology!
He is seeming to claim that the reciprocal is some kind of superset of the multiplicative inverse, having that it has two distinct multiplicative zeros (0 and Phi) that both have reciprocals. Now "numbers" as we use then to do real sums, and not just talk shit, have certain useful properties, such as being in a ring, wherein we have the result that if there are two zeros they must be distinct:
a x 0=a
Phi x a=Phi
So 0 + Phi = 0 and 0 x Phi = Phi, so 0=Phi... but it isn't so we don't have a ring, and we don't have anything that looks much like numbers.
I fail to see how introducing brokenness to numbers makes them more useful.
Actually I was in San Diego. Try suburbs such as El Cajon (sp?), National City, and the other areas in the east and southeast of the town. I was shocked by the communities around the west shore of Salton Sea, and the non-resort areas around Anzo-Borrego, which compare to the worst you find at places such as Bilouila in Oz, the North West in England and nowhere in Japan. Moving North, Los Angeles has large chunks of urban poverty that should make every American hide his or her head in shame, that one of the grandest cities in the richest country in the world should have so much that is of such a low standard.
Any rate, you might consider learning more about the subject before you share your uninfomred views on America. After that's all said and done, there are certainly a very small number of homeless and poor which are trying to find/make a better life for themselves...but it's fairly uplikely that's what you've observed.
Actually, I've lived in several countries, and have worked with the disadvantaged and with minorities for many years, before I was forced into retirement by being crippled. I went to America believing that I was going to see a society that showcased capitalism at its finest, the "Land of Freedom and Opportunity" we hear about in the media (I assumed there was a foundation for those claims). Instead I found a country that was deeply divided, where for far too many people a person's value was based on their bank balance. I only ever met 3 people who didn't have the view that the homeless and mentally ill were responsible for their own conditions, and all 3 had lived for long times in other countries (UK, Oz and Singapore). I met and talked to many people from all walks of life, ranging from the extremely wealthy (people who live, with their entire family, in the Hyatt!!), to an astounding "fleet" of homeless people who lived in their cars and floated around La Jolla trying to stay ahead of the tow-trucks hired by the City. I was looking at moving my family to the USA permanently, but eventually made the decision that I could live without the $250k job for the equalitarian society here - I still believe that I got a good deal.
The problem with a flat tax is that it represents a huge burden to the poorest, and proportionally less of a burden to the richest. I personally favour a moderate income tax combined with aggressive consumption tax. But I readily admit such a system would not be perfect, and would not be popular with the most wealthy.
When I lived in the US, I found a disturbingly large number of people who held this position. I find it quite gratifying that so many/. readers take objection to this statement, and I believe it bodes well for the future of American culture as it could be, as against how it is.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that Oz is in a better position to exploit Solar Power than the US, if only the current government would get off its ideological hobby horse and admit that fission based power is not the most practical way for us to go. We have a population that is largely concentrated on the east coast, so many of the issues of having to supply several large cities widely spread apart don't exist for us. We have plenty of regions with in excess of 300 sunny days per year - I grew up in a town where rain was expected 12 days per year, and clouds were expected no more than 30 days per year. We also have fairly large areas that are fit for little purpose other than growing camels and lizards, where mirror arrays probably would have limited impacts on the local ecosystems. We could take advantage of excess power generation by desalinating water and pumping it up to Lake Jindabyne, where it would be used for hydro-power in the Tumut power stations. Australia is the highest greenhouse polluter per capita on the planet - an issue that our Government seems to be only just beginning to realise is a problem. We could lead the world in this area, but instead we have a Government telling us that we need 25 nuclear power plants.
Does the current American policy portfolio protect the interests of Americans in general, or just the interests of the few? When I lived there I saw poverty far exceeding that of other "less developed" nations. Try to keep in mind that to The Rest Of The World, America does come across as hostile to civilisation, humanity and freedom, with a selfish bravado that seems to have no or little regard for cultural diversity or what are generally considered human rights, such as the right to medical care, education, safe and adequate housing just to name a few.
I found myself thinking "people will take this as a troll" as I hit the submit button. I actually found it quite funny that in a discussion on how Indian students feel they aren't getting a useful education, there was a post with that kind of spelling error. I should have typed what I was thinking (actually no, my thinking was so disjointed due to insomnia it would have made no sense at all!), which was the strange dialect of English that you get from many Indian call centers. Recently I was asked the "20 questions" by an Indian person in an attempt to identify me so I could change my 'phone service. She kept asking me "How was your birthday?", to which the correct answer was "Quite good, although my kids were more excited about it than me". The call center person was most unhappy about this, and was most insistent that she wanted to know "How was your birthday?". Eventually I worked out that she wanted my birthdate. She was very very upset when I tried to explain basic English grammer to her.
Meanwhile, I guess I should be more careful what I type when I haven't slept very much for a few days. My apologies that I appeared to be trolling.
- are the "models" properly compensated for their work, or are they desperately poor or disadvantaged and being exploited?
- does the site promote the denigration of Humans to the level of meat, or is it completely non-discriminatory?
- does the site promulgate the class struggle, or does it inspire the viewer/models to rise above the oppression of the working conditions to a position of a self-image of pride and actualisation?
Although I don't like the form that Chinese Communism/New Chinese Capitalism takes in general, I fully support their right to regulate this side of the "Internet". China has a history of sexual decadence that's rather mind blowing, in fact you can find historical Chinese art and literature that makes most Western porn seem very very tame in comparison. Suppression of porn is just another example of the Central Committee suppressing those parts of the past that they have decided are not to be part of the New China. This is one holdover from the Cultural Revolution that I believe will make Chinese society stronger, and will help work against some of the more egregious downsides to their New Capitalism and the stratification of the Communal Society that is currently evolving.
Please read this post 3 times very carefully before you mod it down.
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Actually, my experience is that for the vast majority of informed people, evolution is not seen as a disproof of God. There are exceptions, such as Phillip Adams and Richard Dawkins.
I have found that most fundy Christians seem to believe that belief in God and acceptance of Evolution are incompatible. I find this a real shame. The facts of the matter are that the Bible says very little about microbiology, population dynamics, cosmology, biochemistry and mathematics, and a lot about morals, ethics and spirituality. Similarly, Physics and Biology don't have a hell of a lot to say about morals and ethics, but they do help us understand the physical universe.
I believe the term used is "orthogonal".
St Augustine made the statement that "whenever scripture and experience seem to be in conflict, it is ibnvariably our interpretation of scripture that is flawed". Accept that the Bible is inerrant on matters moral, ethical and spiritual, but accept that ancient Hebrew doesn't possess the words to discuss genetics, biochemistry or quantum mechanics, and as such doesn't address these topics. Look at Leviticus Chapter 6 as an example - a literal reading of an English translation would have us belive that grasshoppers have 4 legs, bats are avians and that hares are hoofed animals that chew cud (ruminants). None of these things are true. Rather we should accept that perhaps we don't know exactly what Moses was talking about back then, and we don't know exactly what context we should try to understand the meaning in Moses' time.
You are assuming that your mutation does not have some (as yet unidentified) benefit. Sickle Cell Anemia is a well known mutation, that is fatal when homozygous, but provides partial immunity to malaria when heterozygous.
Another example is colour-blindness. As a Red/Green blind person, it can be argued that this is a potentially fatal mutation ("red is active, green is earth" - right.....). However red-green blind people have a distinct advantage when hunting, as most camouflage patterns (both natural and artificial) are really really loud. In times of famine, whose family is the well fed one in the cave? The colour-blind hunter's family. The rest of the time colour-blindness is at best slightly inconvenient, and at times potentially dangerous.
"other people who chose not to be vaccinated and therefore willingly took that risk"
So the 9 year old girl whose parents decide she won't be vaccinated but then gets HPV at age 18 due to marrying a boy who caught HPV is solely responsible for that dose of STD? And I suppose she's also responsible for that hysterectomy she gets at 35 due to Cervical Cancer. And she's at fault for the HPV she gave her kids when they were born?
I think that's open to debate. Personally I see vaccination as a matter of public health, and I believe that the individual's right to say no is superseded by rights of others and the greater good of society. But then I'm a Socialist.
My sister-in-law was dead set against vaccinating her kids (she's on the "feral people living in the bush" fringe) until a local 9yo boy died of german measles, and then his new born baby sister was born profoundly retarded 6 months later. Then she realised that the issue goes way beyond Big Pharma getting money from immunisations, and that her decision not to immunise her kids could put other people's kids at risk. Her kids are now all immunised against the standard set of childhood disorders.
Actually, we have far superior Free-to-air TV than in America. I lived in the USA for a while, so have seen both sides of the Pacific.
Here on the Gold Coast we have:
9NBN (Newcastle)
9 Gold Coast
ABC(Brisbane)
ABC (Northern Rivers)
10 Gold Coast
10 Brisbane
10 Prime (Northern Rivers)
7 Sydney
7 Brisbane
SBS
Which leads to competition. Of these, 10 is owned by Fox, 7 by Murdoch (I think) and 9 by Packer (I could have ownership of 9 and 7 backwards).
The ABC is Government owned, but independent, and has no commercial advertising.
SBS is the "multicultural" channel, is Government owned and is in turn one of the major owners of World Movies.
7 is the "White Trash" channel, with the "Extreme Makeover" type shows, and lots of small words. 7 has the big car races (like Bathurst)
9 is where the most Game Shows are. 9 also has the Cricket.
10 concentrates on the medical and crime dramas (like House, Law and Order, NCIS)
ABC has docos, historical dramas, Shakespeare, and "Order in the House", which is broadcasts of Parliament in session. It does have a slight leftist bias.
SBS has subtitled foreign language shows (like Inspector Rex and The Octopus), Deustch Watch, the Laher News Hour, thought provoking documentaries (such as "The President versus David Hicks") and truely awesome cooking shows.
The problem seem to me that the major Networks don't actually care much about our little market. A case in point is the show House (10 Network), which as well as being many months behind the US, was actually shown out-of-order for the first two series, which totally destroyed the plot. The other day I was waiting for Rockwiz on SBS, and Iron Chef was on. The line used was "today in 1996 we don't have to follow the old traditional methods for great cuisine".
In comparison, in San Diego we had 2 free to air channels, which were pretty poor. of the 200+ cable channels, far too many were "shopping channels" or just endless re-runs of the same old series and docos.
One of the tenets of Christianity is that after one has become Born Again, his or her past is gone and forgotten. What if the young man alluded to above was a gay slut before he converted, but has ever since been celibate? Is he likely to be "revealing" his sordid past to the Pastor's daughter he's about to marry? Or are we to expect that by simply donating a few Dollars to Creflo A Dollar he'll be disinfected and "made whole, restored to his intended pre-fall perfection"?
And what about my son? He claims to be intent to remain celibate till marriage (he's 14, let's see if he still has this attitude in 5 years time...). Isn't he at risk if the girl he falls for has anything other than a "perfect" past?
It seems to me that not only is there loud shouts of "only celibacy really works" (and yes. celibacy DOES work, but it's totally realistic to expect everyone to do that, or more precisely not do it...), but this whole argument from the religious right and from the "Women's movement" smacks of "all evil is born of woman". Seriously, immunising little girls against a STD will turn them into little 2-bob tunnel-cunted gutter sluts that will screw anyone that moves?
The fact is that such am immunisation will probably not drive a kid towards sexual activity in any way. The real drivers are surely that effectiveness of parents and teachers in giving these kids self-respect and in them gaining a real appreciation for the real issues of STDs and the emotional costs of sexual behaviour.
I find this whole debate rather ridiculous, except for the implications for human and women's rights. Why do you Americans let the wacko right dictate so much rubbish?
DISCLAIMER:
I am a practising Christian. I am a Socialist and active supporter of our Political Left. I am not an American.
Isn't this the same "service" that makes it so much harder to track down spammers and other low-lifes?
I'd advise you have a look at the history of Organised Labour around the world. I understand that a lot of Unions are like you describe in the USA, but in the majority of countries the Union does a fine job of protecting the Interests of the Workers.
It seems to me that Unions are more likely to get out of hand in countries like the USA, where Capitalism is running at the extreme end. As a result corruption and graft can easily become the norm. Mind you, the extreme Left also has the same result due to human weakness combined with perceived shortages.
Unions work well when they concentrate on provision of Social Justice in the Workplace, and fail when they become an Instrument of Applied Industrial Inertia. In both cases the principle of Collective Bargaining is the strength and weakness.
The real beauty of RPN is that it's close to how your brain works. This has two benefits:
First, you are forced to think about your calculation, increasing the chance you'll hit the right buttons in the right order
Second, because you see intermediate calculations on the stack, you're more likely to identify when you've hit the wrong button, or the right buttons in the wrong order.
I've seen 1st year students who were incapable of identifying when they'd made an error on calculators with pure "algebraic entry" - in my mind calculators where you type '6 + 4 x 5 - 3 =' are pretty toys - especially as some will calculate 23 whilst others will calculate 47. RPN is '6 4 5 x + 3 -' which is NOT shorter, but is a lot closer to how you'd do it on paper.
I think there's more to it than that - you have to be confident that as well as having the right to a fair and democratic election, you have to be confident that (a) you were well informed and (b) the system has to really work.
Here in Oz there's plenty of evidence that the election was manipulated by lying to the electorate to appeal to our baser instincts (How many children were thrown overboard John? None. And you knew it.).
I understand that their are many who believe that Bush was elected by manipulation of the Judiciary - which if true casts the democracy into serious doubt. I'd go even further, and suggest that if a substantial proportion believes that the Judiciary was manipulated that due to a resulting lack of confidence in the system there is a lack of Democracy.
And so the right of an American to not be "sexually harrassed" far outweighs thousands of women, children and families being destroyed in the Middle East doesn't it?
Get a clue, please. If you want to support sexual equality you have to respect all human life as being of equal value. Otherwise you are just shifting the inequity to somewhere beyond your own front yard.
Don't think that just because the extreme right of Australian politics saw a payout in being "the USA's best friend" that the majority of Australians are in support of the war. I think it's fair to say that we all support our troops, and admire them for doing a hell of a job, but the test will be in November when we have Federal Election....
Assuming of course that John "Bonsai" Howard doesn't pull another fast one. How many children were thrown overboard John? What do we pay for petrol John? GST money will be distributed to the states for health care and education John? How much in in the future fund John? How much have all those ads cost John? Why do you sell the *profitable* public utilities John?
Except that we don't have extremely long leads to connect cars and trucks to the grid, while we do have hydrogen fuel cells. The whole hydrogen fuel thing isn't about producing energy for general use, but rather it's about producing a greenhouse neutral, renewable fuel for vehicles. By the way, we could also say that it doesn't make sense to piss away petrochemicals by burning them just so you can have noisy, dirty fuel. By your logic we shouldn't be using petrol in cars, as it would be much more efficient to use it generating electricity in a power station.
The article seems to have a basic flaw:
"In the market place, hydrogen would have to compete with its own source of energy, i.e. with ("green") electricity from the grid," he says. "For this reason, creating a new energy carrier is a no-win solution. We have to solve an energy problem not an energy carrier problem."
Why do we have to use electricity from the grid to generate hydrogen? Why can't we use floating arrays of photovoltaic cells to crack the water on the ocean? Or we could use large banks of mirrors to power an array of Stirling engines to generate the power to crack the water? It's not as if you need a large voltage to do the job, I think there are many ways of getting the power other than off the grid.
I have to admit I'm rather partial ton the idea of using arrays of mirrors to power a series of stirling engines - apart from possible loss of heat transfer fluid, and wear and tear (which is minimised by the typically low RPM of stirling engines) it should be very cheap power once you amortise the cost of setting up the thing. There are several places in the world (in the USA, South America, Africa and Australia at least) where you have ubiquitous sunshine at beaches where desert (or otherwise low-productivity land) comes down to the beach. The real problems to be solved for Hydrogen as a stored energy source are purely matters of storage and shipping. There are several technologies for renewable energy that could power the cracking with relatively low research costs to get them to a point where they would be usable.
Mmm that may be part of the problem.
You mean the fact you use a distro with a broken package management system?
No, I didn't think your post deserved to be rated as "troll". Far too often posts are rated as "troll" when they're nothing of the kind. It seems to me that over the last eight or so years there are now a large number of netizens who don't know what "troll" and "flame" mean, and use both terms to mean "controversial" and "abuse". Ah, the price of democratisation of technology!
He is seeming to claim that the reciprocal is some kind of superset of the multiplicative inverse, having that it has two distinct multiplicative zeros (0 and Phi) that both have reciprocals. Now "numbers" as we use then to do real sums, and not just talk shit, have certain useful properties, such as being in a ring, wherein we have the result that if there are two zeros they must be distinct:
a x 0=a
Phi x a=Phi
So 0 + Phi = 0 and 0 x Phi = Phi, so 0=Phi... but it isn't so we don't have a ring, and we don't have anything that looks much like numbers.
I fail to see how introducing brokenness to numbers makes them more useful.
Actually I was in San Diego. Try suburbs such as El Cajon (sp?), National City, and the other areas in the east and southeast of the town. I was shocked by the communities around the west shore of Salton Sea, and the non-resort areas around Anzo-Borrego, which compare to the worst you find at places such as Bilouila in Oz, the North West in England and nowhere in Japan. Moving North, Los Angeles has large chunks of urban poverty that should make every American hide his or her head in shame, that one of the grandest cities in the richest country in the world should have so much that is of such a low standard.
Any rate, you might consider learning more about the subject before you share your uninfomred views on America. After that's all said and done, there are certainly a very small number of homeless and poor which are trying to find/make a better life for themselves...but it's fairly uplikely that's what you've observed.
Actually, I've lived in several countries, and have worked with the disadvantaged and with minorities for many years, before I was forced into retirement by being crippled. I went to America believing that I was going to see a society that showcased capitalism at its finest, the "Land of Freedom and Opportunity" we hear about in the media (I assumed there was a foundation for those claims). Instead I found a country that was deeply divided, where for far too many people a person's value was based on their bank balance. I only ever met 3 people who didn't have the view that the homeless and mentally ill were responsible for their own conditions, and all 3 had lived for long times in other countries (UK, Oz and Singapore). I met and talked to many people from all walks of life, ranging from the extremely wealthy (people who live, with their entire family, in the Hyatt!!), to an astounding "fleet" of homeless people who lived in their cars and floated around La Jolla trying to stay ahead of the tow-trucks hired by the City. I was looking at moving my family to the USA permanently, but eventually made the decision that I could live without the $250k job for the equalitarian society here - I still believe that I got a good deal.
The problem with a flat tax is that it represents a huge burden to the poorest, and proportionally less of a burden to the richest. I personally favour a moderate income tax combined with aggressive consumption tax. But I readily admit such a system would not be perfect, and would not be popular with the most wealthy.
When I lived in the US, I found a disturbingly large number of people who held this position. I find it quite gratifying that so many /. readers take objection to this statement, and I believe it bodes well for the future of American culture as it could be, as against how it is.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that Oz is in a better position to exploit Solar Power than the US, if only the current government would get off its ideological hobby horse and admit that fission based power is not the most practical way for us to go. We have a population that is largely concentrated on the east coast, so many of the issues of having to supply several large cities widely spread apart don't exist for us. We have plenty of regions with in excess of 300 sunny days per year - I grew up in a town where rain was expected 12 days per year, and clouds were expected no more than 30 days per year. We also have fairly large areas that are fit for little purpose other than growing camels and lizards, where mirror arrays probably would have limited impacts on the local ecosystems. We could take advantage of excess power generation by desalinating water and pumping it up to Lake Jindabyne, where it would be used for hydro-power in the Tumut power stations. Australia is the highest greenhouse polluter per capita on the planet - an issue that our Government seems to be only just beginning to realise is a problem. We could lead the world in this area, but instead we have a Government telling us that we need 25 nuclear power plants.
Does the current American policy portfolio protect the interests of Americans in general, or just the interests of the few? When I lived there I saw poverty far exceeding that of other "less developed" nations. Try to keep in mind that to The Rest Of The World, America does come across as hostile to civilisation, humanity and freedom, with a selfish bravado that seems to have no or little regard for cultural diversity or what are generally considered human rights, such as the right to medical care, education, safe and adequate housing just to name a few.
I found myself thinking "people will take this as a troll" as I hit the submit button. I actually found it quite funny that in a discussion on how Indian students feel they aren't getting a useful education, there was a post with that kind of spelling error. I should have typed what I was thinking (actually no, my thinking was so disjointed due to insomnia it would have made no sense at all!), which was the strange dialect of English that you get from many Indian call centers. Recently I was asked the "20 questions" by an Indian person in an attempt to identify me so I could change my 'phone service. She kept asking me "How was your birthday?", to which the correct answer was "Quite good, although my kids were more excited about it than me". The call center person was most unhappy about this, and was most insistent that she wanted to know "How was your birthday?". Eventually I worked out that she wanted my birthdate. She was very very upset when I tried to explain basic English grammer to her.
Meanwhile, I guess I should be more careful what I type when I haven't slept very much for a few days. My apologies that I appeared to be trolling.
Bashing out that first year's code in the "free time" I had between a very full lode of classes,
Perhaps you'd have been better off studying spelling. "Lode" is a mineral deposit. I believe the word you want is "load".
I recall file extensions being meaningful on TOPS-20 release 3. I assume that they had meaning even earlier.
There's also a few other issues, such as:
- are the "models" properly compensated for their work, or are they desperately poor or disadvantaged and being exploited?
- does the site promote the denigration of Humans to the level of meat, or is it completely non-discriminatory?
- does the site promulgate the class struggle, or does it inspire the viewer/models to rise above the oppression of the working conditions to a position of a self-image of pride and actualisation?
Although I don't like the form that Chinese Communism/New Chinese Capitalism takes in general, I fully support their right to regulate this side of the "Internet". China has a history of sexual decadence that's rather mind blowing, in fact you can find historical Chinese art and literature that makes most Western porn seem very very tame in comparison. Suppression of porn is just another example of the Central Committee suppressing those parts of the past that they have decided are not to be part of the New China. This is one holdover from the Cultural Revolution that I believe will make Chinese society stronger, and will help work against some of the more egregious downsides to their New Capitalism and the stratification of the Communal Society that is currently evolving.
Please read this post 3 times very carefully before you mod it down.