That doesn't follow. It's a civil war based on religious differences. Hardly the first one in history.
I wasn't saying that religion wasn't involved; the reason I was pointing out that that it's a civil war is because he referred to it as a genocide. The two terms are not inherently mutually exclusive but when most people hear "genocide" they picture entire populations murdered and displaced through no fault of their own. This is decidedly not that. While I have some sympathy for the innocent Rohingya who are caught up in this, it's worth noting that this is not a case of Muslims being targeted for no reason. This is a case of Muslims being targeted because Muslim groups have repeatedly carried out attacks against the local government and the non-muslim populace.
There are continents in the way which make that somewhat difficult. And you have to rely on charts to get from place to place so, even if they did by some miracle manage to circumnavigate the globe, they would simply assume that the charts and navigational devices were all designed by Them to ensure that you travel a path which makes the world appear round.
A much simpler, cheaper, and less time consuming method would be to buy a weather balloon and strap a go-pro to it. A good weather baloon can attain altitudes of 120,000 feet, but even cheaper ones will reach at least 60,000 feet which is more than high enough to see the curvature of the earth. Highschool kids have done this. Flat earthers don't do it because they have no interest in testing their claims.
The vast majority of the worlds Buddhists are moderate! Buddhism is a religion of peace!
You understand that what's going on with the Rohingya is essentially a civil war, right? It's not like they're some peaceful group that just happened to be randomly attacked. Muslim militants in Myanmar have been carrying out attacks for a long time. The Buddhist government is responding to that; they're just not as queasy about group-punishment as the western world is.
I was amazed that they worked. The only explanation is that the people who were affected by those ads were so misinformed that they believed them. And not only misinformed but also unwilling to fact check making them doubly stupid.
That's how political propaganda works. There's very little benefit to targeting sophisticated, educated, thoughtful people, since they make up a relatively insignificant percentage of the populace and are much harder to convince. Instead you target the lowest common denominator, which massively increases your support with very little effort.
The reality is I like RT a lot because I get (real) news that is otherwise censored in Western media, and because there is a real diversity of opinion, something I do not see in Western media.
The kind of mental gymnastics one has to be capable of in order to reach this conclusion is just incredible. You can replace RT with InfoWars or DailyKos and it would sound no more absurd.
The notion that journalists can't be trusted arose directly from the observation that the quality of their reporting has been in decline for a long time, and has declined massively since the advent of the "24 hour news cycle". This has been going on for a long time. Christopher Hitchens once said that he watches the news, not in order to know what's going on in the world, but rather in order to know what other people think is going on in the world. That's an accurate assessment of my take on it as well.
Are the mainstream outlets more accurate and trustworthy than Breitbart? Sure, in most cases they are. But only marginally so. If you trust them unreservedly while rejecting everything you see on breitbart you are just as much of a fool as those who dismiss them wholecloth while fawning over breitbart.
You are absolutely right about the false premise of 24hr turnaround. Its not about how fast a turnaround but the revolution is being able to fly again, again, again, again, again, again...cheap, cheap, cheap, cheaper etc...
Except that they're related. If you can turn your rocket around in 24 hours it means inspection and repair requirements are minimal. Which means damage from re-entry is minimal. Which means you can re-use it more often, with less money spent on inspection and repair. Or, in your terms, "again, again, again, cheap, cheap, cheap".
In my Dodge, if I open the door while the car is stopped, it automatically goes into park.
That only became a "feature" after dodge killed Sulu.
I own a Dodge which originally had the new-type shifter without the auto-park ability. It was a known problem; my local dealership informed me a month before his death that Dodge was aware of multiple accidents occurring due to vehicles not going into park properly and "a fix is being developed" but wouldn't go into effect for another year.
After the publicity surrounding his death they fast-tracked and pushed out a software fix maybe a month later.
Most quad/hex/octocopters (multirotor) craft propellers will not have the mass needed to auto-rotate, even with variable pitch.
It's not about mass, it's about energy and surface area. Smaller, lighter propellers will simply spin faster, storing equivalent energy to a larger, slower moving blade. Of course there's an upper limit to how fast they can spin, but if they're capable of lifting the aircraft when powered then they're certainly capable of slowing it's descent to a survivable speed.
You're ignoring other risks like early failure and damage due to weather events. The latter can be offset by making sure your home insurance covers the panels, but then the added insurance premium is an ongoing cost which eats into your profits.
You're also ignoring ongoing maintenance costs and repair costs due to expected component failure (at a minimum, the inverter after 10 years or so, as well as batteries if you have them).
Panels also degrade in efficiency at a rate of about 1% per year, which would need to be accounted for in your calculations.
Solar panels from the 70s are still working in the upper 60% range today.
You may want to look up "survivor bias" to figure out why exactly you're wrong, but the short version would be that it's absurd to point to some specific cases while ignoring all the rest. It's like pointing to the worlds oldest person and saying "humans live 120 years!".
I agree that panels, in general, will last longer than 20 years, however you're ignoring multiple things:
1. As their efficiency degrades they produce less energy, which changes the original cost/benefit equation. If you want to provide enough energy for your household you either have to ovrsize the system to begin with, or you have to replace or add more panels as they age. 2. Other system components die much earlier, which increases the lifetime cost of the system past the original claimed price.
I assumed 20 years because it would be possible (if unlikely) for all system components to last that long. Realistically your inverter will probably quit much sooner, and if you have batteries they will definitely stop being useful far earlier. 20 years is a good average for estimating actual cost/benefit without having to break down costs of each specific part of the system.
It's unfortunate, but you appear to have just stumbled into something not completely relevant to the article, I apologise for being slightly off-topic. Windy has a nasty habit of calling me a liar without any evidence. So recently I've been pointing out some of his lies when I get the time. The per capita thing is part of that and his ongoing smear campaign against me.
I understand that it can be frustrating to have a third party step in when you're engaged in a heated exchange with someone you dislike. Obviously I don't know your history, and I'm not looking to pick sides anyway. Just keep in mind that what he has or hasn't done has nothing to do with me.
I'll address your other post when I get home later.
go figure and stop your stupid nitpicking when nitpicking has no point.
If you would just stop saying retarded things I wouldn't have to keep pointing out that you have no clue what you're talking about. It's hilarious that you can say shit like "hurt durr except for all the planets that are larger, Mars is the largest!" and then complain that someone is "nit picking" when they point out that you're an idiot.
Except for Kuwait and a few other states there are no states with people that use as much energy (for no sane reason) as americans do.
That's a hilarious comment. "Except for all the countries who use more energy than the US, nobody uses as much energy as the US!". It's great to see you continuing your proud tradition of being either wrong or retarded in literally every comment you post.
For the record, the US is #10 on the list. Iceland is #1 at more than double the US per capita consumption. Trinidad and Tobago comes it at #2, using almost as much as Iceland.
Yes, Americans use way way more energy than Chinese. That's the point.
Your "point" is a well known fact which nobody disputes? Cool. What's the point of your point?
Even though America has cleaner energy, they still use more coal per person just because of how much energy they use. The other said of the coin is that even though Chinese use dirty energy compared to America, they don't use nearly as much of it per person.
The difference being that Chinese power consumption is increasing dramatically as they upscale their economy, while american power usage is comparatively holding steady... AND Chinese are building more coal power plants while the US is mostly decommissioning them.
Nobody is arguing that China produces more emissions per person; you're the only one who seems interested in that strawman. People are pointing out that Chinese pollute more per unit of energy produced. When you project for the growth of their economy you can easily see why this would be a concern. If current trends continue, the US is going to continue reducing emissions while China continues drastically increasing. In a few decades Chinese pollution could completely eclipse the rest of the modern world put together.
Of course the Chinese have made attempts recently to become more "green", which is a welcome sign. That's rather the point of criticising their contribution to the pollution problem; it's perfectly valid to point out that their current figures aren't sustainable if they continue to grow, and to encourage them to put tighter reigns on their power generation industry now I'm order to minimise future impact.
"In 2018, most homeowners are paying between $2.71 and $3.57 per watt to install solar, and the average gross cost of solar panels before tax credits is $18,840. Using the U.S, average for system size at 6 kW (6,000 watts), solar panel cost will range from $11,380 to $14,990 (after tax credits)."
Even that is incredibly cheap; I'm in Canada and here you're looking at $25-30k minimum. Sure that can be reduced with "tax credits" but that doesn't make the system "cheap"; it just means you're getting everyone else to pay for your electricity.
My cost, after tax credits was about $12k. Since my electricity bill would be over $1,700/year (with A/C and electric cars), how long does it take to pay off? Even without the tax credits, it would pay off in less than 10 years (factor in some inflation of electricity prices, coming to you soon, courtesy of Trump's recent actions). The components all have warranties that are longer than 10 years.
If we assume a 20 year average life, that means that in 10 years you gained $17,000 (energy not paid for) and lost $6,000 (50% depreciation on your panels). So you are up $11,000.
If instead you had invested your original $12k in a fund with a 6% return compounded annually, you would now have $21,490. So you would be up $9,490.
How much are your maintenance/repair costs? If they're more than $150 per year, you're already doing worse than a safe investment scenario.
Keep in mind that 6% is a conservative return; the S&P 500 index has an annual return of 9.85% over the last 20 years. Even just following the index you would be up $18,000 over 10 years vs the $11,000 you saved by installing solar.
Project that another 10 years down the road, and your total savings would be $22,000 while the S&P investment strategy would have you up $65,000.
Slashdot Mirror
That doesn't follow. It's a civil war based on religious differences. Hardly the first one in history.
I wasn't saying that religion wasn't involved; the reason I was pointing out that that it's a civil war is because he referred to it as a genocide. The two terms are not inherently mutually exclusive but when most people hear "genocide" they picture entire populations murdered and displaced through no fault of their own. This is decidedly not that. While I have some sympathy for the innocent Rohingya who are caught up in this, it's worth noting that this is not a case of Muslims being targeted for no reason. This is a case of Muslims being targeted because Muslim groups have repeatedly carried out attacks against the local government and the non-muslim populace.
There are continents in the way which make that somewhat difficult. And you have to rely on charts to get from place to place so, even if they did by some miracle manage to circumnavigate the globe, they would simply assume that the charts and navigational devices were all designed by Them to ensure that you travel a path which makes the world appear round.
A much simpler, cheaper, and less time consuming method would be to buy a weather balloon and strap a go-pro to it. A good weather baloon can attain altitudes of 120,000 feet, but even cheaper ones will reach at least 60,000 feet which is more than high enough to see the curvature of the earth. Highschool kids have done this. Flat earthers don't do it because they have no interest in testing their claims.
Slashdot used to be full of smart people, what happened?
People like you showed up.
Asking for physical proof of God's existence is like asking Bilbo Baggins to prove the existence of Tolkien.
Given that Tolkien exists (or existed) and Bilbo doesn't, it's more like asking Tolkien to prove that Bilbo exists.
The vast majority of the worlds Buddhists are moderate! Buddhism is a religion of peace!
You understand that what's going on with the Rohingya is essentially a civil war, right? It's not like they're some peaceful group that just happened to be randomly attacked. Muslim militants in Myanmar have been carrying out attacks for a long time. The Buddhist government is responding to that; they're just not as queasy about group-punishment as the western world is.
I was amazed that they worked. The only explanation is that the people who were affected by those ads were so misinformed that they believed them. And not only misinformed but also unwilling to fact check making them doubly stupid.
That's how political propaganda works. There's very little benefit to targeting sophisticated, educated, thoughtful people, since they make up a relatively insignificant percentage of the populace and are much harder to convince. Instead you target the lowest common denominator, which massively increases your support with very little effort.
The reality is I like RT a lot because I get (real) news that is otherwise censored in Western media, and because there is a real diversity of opinion, something I do not see in Western media.
The kind of mental gymnastics one has to be capable of in order to reach this conclusion is just incredible. You can replace RT with InfoWars or DailyKos and it would sound no more absurd.
the poor getting poorer
If you're going to repeat this kind of nonsense you can't really expect to be taken seriously on anything else you say.
The notion that journalists can't be trusted arose directly from the observation that the quality of their reporting has been in decline for a long time, and has declined massively since the advent of the "24 hour news cycle". This has been going on for a long time. Christopher Hitchens once said that he watches the news, not in order to know what's going on in the world, but rather in order to know what other people think is going on in the world. That's an accurate assessment of my take on it as well.
Are the mainstream outlets more accurate and trustworthy than Breitbart? Sure, in most cases they are. But only marginally so. If you trust them unreservedly while rejecting everything you see on breitbart you are just as much of a fool as those who dismiss them wholecloth while fawning over breitbart.
I can find at least 3 articles claiming that the Indian spaceflight to Planet Mars cost only $7.5 Milliions
You need new glasses, pops; the very first article says $74 million.
You are absolutely right about the false premise of 24hr turnaround. Its not about how fast a turnaround but the revolution is being able to fly again, again, again, again, again, again...cheap, cheap, cheap, cheaper etc...
Except that they're related. If you can turn your rocket around in 24 hours it means inspection and repair requirements are minimal. Which means damage from re-entry is minimal. Which means you can re-use it more often, with less money spent on inspection and repair. Or, in your terms, "again, again, again, cheap, cheap, cheap".
Correcting my own comment: they killed Chekov, not Sulu.
In my Dodge, if I open the door while the car is stopped, it automatically goes into park.
That only became a "feature" after dodge killed Sulu.
I own a Dodge which originally had the new-type shifter without the auto-park ability. It was a known problem; my local dealership informed me a month before his death that Dodge was aware of multiple accidents occurring due to vehicles not going into park properly and "a fix is being developed" but wouldn't go into effect for another year.
After the publicity surrounding his death they fast-tracked and pushed out a software fix maybe a month later.
Most quad/hex/octocopters (multirotor) craft propellers will not have the mass needed to auto-rotate, even with variable pitch.
It's not about mass, it's about energy and surface area. Smaller, lighter propellers will simply spin faster, storing equivalent energy to a larger, slower moving blade. Of course there's an upper limit to how fast they can spin, but if they're capable of lifting the aircraft when powered then they're certainly capable of slowing it's descent to a survivable speed.
You're ignoring other risks like early failure and damage due to weather events. The latter can be offset by making sure your home insurance covers the panels, but then the added insurance premium is an ongoing cost which eats into your profits.
You're also ignoring ongoing maintenance costs and repair costs due to expected component failure (at a minimum, the inverter after 10 years or so, as well as batteries if you have them).
Panels also degrade in efficiency at a rate of about 1% per year, which would need to be accounted for in your calculations.
What if you take your monthly power bill savings and invest in said return?
You're joking right?
Ever hear of compound interest?
Solar panels from the 70s are still working in the upper 60% range today.
You may want to look up "survivor bias" to figure out why exactly you're wrong, but the short version would be that it's absurd to point to some specific cases while ignoring all the rest. It's like pointing to the worlds oldest person and saying "humans live 120 years!".
I agree that panels, in general, will last longer than 20 years, however you're ignoring multiple things:
1. As their efficiency degrades they produce less energy, which changes the original cost/benefit equation. If you want to provide enough energy for your household you either have to ovrsize the system to begin with, or you have to replace or add more panels as they age.
2. Other system components die much earlier, which increases the lifetime cost of the system past the original claimed price.
I assumed 20 years because it would be possible (if unlikely) for all system components to last that long. Realistically your inverter will probably quit much sooner, and if you have batteries they will definitely stop being useful far earlier. 20 years is a good average for estimating actual cost/benefit without having to break down costs of each specific part of the system.
It's unfortunate, but you appear to have just stumbled into something not completely relevant to the article, I apologise for being slightly off-topic. Windy has a nasty habit of calling me a liar without any evidence. So recently I've been pointing out some of his lies when I get the time. The per capita thing is part of that and his ongoing smear campaign against me.
I understand that it can be frustrating to have a third party step in when you're engaged in a heated exchange with someone you dislike. Obviously I don't know your history, and I'm not looking to pick sides anyway. Just keep in mind that what he has or hasn't done has nothing to do with me.
I'll address your other post when I get home later.
I look forward to it.
Last time I looked it up it was 270
Well there's the reason why you're always wrong about everything; you're confusing "looked it up" with "made it up".
http://www.worldometers.info/g...
The world has 300 countries
195
go figure and stop your stupid nitpicking when nitpicking has no point.
If you would just stop saying retarded things I wouldn't have to keep pointing out that you have no clue what you're talking about. It's hilarious that you can say shit like "hurt durr except for all the planets that are larger, Mars is the largest!" and then complain that someone is "nit picking" when they point out that you're an idiot.
Except for Kuwait and a few other states there are no states with people that use as much energy (for no sane reason) as americans do.
That's a hilarious comment. "Except for all the countries who use more energy than the US, nobody uses as much energy as the US!". It's great to see you continuing your proud tradition of being either wrong or retarded in literally every comment you post.
For the record, the US is #10 on the list. Iceland is #1 at more than double the US per capita consumption. Trinidad and Tobago comes it at #2, using almost as much as Iceland.
Actually, it is not. Total energy is higher in china than America.
You are correct; I was thinking of numbers which are now a decade old. Much has changed in the intervening years. Thanks for the correction.
Yes, Americans use way way more energy than Chinese. That's the point.
Your "point" is a well known fact which nobody disputes? Cool. What's the point of your point?
Even though America has cleaner energy, they still use more coal per person just because of how much energy they use.
The other said of the coin is that even though Chinese use dirty energy compared to America, they don't use nearly as much of it per person.
The difference being that Chinese power consumption is increasing dramatically as they upscale their economy, while american power usage is comparatively holding steady ... AND Chinese are building more coal power plants while the US is mostly decommissioning them.
Nobody is arguing that China produces more emissions per person; you're the only one who seems interested in that strawman. People are pointing out that Chinese pollute more per unit of energy produced. When you project for the growth of their economy you can easily see why this would be a concern. If current trends continue, the US is going to continue reducing emissions while China continues drastically increasing. In a few decades Chinese pollution could completely eclipse the rest of the modern world put together.
Of course the Chinese have made attempts recently to become more "green", which is a welcome sign. That's rather the point of criticising their contribution to the pollution problem; it's perfectly valid to point out that their current figures aren't sustainable if they continue to grow, and to encourage them to put tighter reigns on their power generation industry now I'm order to minimise future impact.
That's ridiculous. You're just pulling numbers out of your ass.
https://news.energysage.com/ho...
"In 2018, most homeowners are paying between $2.71 and $3.57 per watt to install solar, and the average gross cost of solar panels before tax credits is $18,840. Using the U.S, average for system size at 6 kW (6,000 watts), solar panel cost will range from $11,380 to $14,990 (after tax credits)."
Even that is incredibly cheap; I'm in Canada and here you're looking at $25-30k minimum. Sure that can be reduced with "tax credits" but that doesn't make the system "cheap"; it just means you're getting everyone else to pay for your electricity.
My cost, after tax credits was about $12k. Since my electricity bill would be over $1,700/year (with A/C and electric cars), how long does it take to pay off? Even without the tax credits, it would pay off in less than 10 years (factor in some inflation of electricity prices, coming to you soon, courtesy of Trump's recent actions). The components all have warranties that are longer than 10 years.
If we assume a 20 year average life, that means that in 10 years you gained $17,000 (energy not paid for) and lost $6,000 (50% depreciation on your panels). So you are up $11,000.
If instead you had invested your original $12k in a fund with a 6% return compounded annually, you would now have $21,490. So you would be up $9,490.
How much are your maintenance/repair costs? If they're more than $150 per year, you're already doing worse than a safe investment scenario.
Keep in mind that 6% is a conservative return; the S&P 500 index has an annual return of 9.85% over the last 20 years. Even just following the index you would be up $18,000 over 10 years vs the $11,000 you saved by installing solar.
Project that another 10 years down the road, and your total savings would be $22,000 while the S&P investment strategy would have you up $65,000.