I can name another good one: de-bureaucratization. We can do many stuff by internet, or physical at a "loja do cidadão" without even a fraction of the paperwork, and we can do many things much much faster. For instance, creating a company in an hour, an day to take care of every legal and fiscal requirement to sell a house, etc. Other than these 3 things yes... I agree this government sucks.
Well, in Netherlands (I think, but it can also be in some other Northern European country), they had some project to store energy by heating a mass of water deep below the soil (so that the energy losses by irradiation where very low). That seemed more energy efficient and much less pervasive of nature. I don't know what's the present status of the project tough.
Do you think that gasoline consumption doesn't change if more people have cars? Or better roads?
It changes for more if you have more cars... but changes for less if you have better roads. Improving our internet connection is the equivalent of better roads... not more cars.
Err. I don't know if you live here (in Portugal), but if you do you are seeing too much Jornal da TVI (our equivalent to FOx News). You do know that these renewable energy start-ups are all private right? And that the money to pay extra for this renewable energy comes from the companies (or company, EDP) that still produces a lot from carbon fuel sources (also, of course, it's the one the produces the most energy in total), since the law is that they have to preferentially buy energy produced from renewable means... and for a slightly higher price.
Well, no, this is not the problem. The public spending in these projects, even when it fails is not the problem here.
Portugal's problem, and you can check in the wikipedia by seeing our awful gini index (the worst of all European union), is the very bad distribution of wealth. Most company owners see people as a source of cheap labour... so of course, if people doesn't earn enough, they also tend not to work very hard. And mind you, the bosses don't pay low wages because they don't have money (like I said they have a LOT OF MONEY), they pay low wages because, well, they all do, and unless you have a very specialized job, if you don't want to do it for what they pay, they find another one to do it.
Another problem, is that, there is a very big tax fraud in here. The proletariat pays taxes because they have a steady income... the rich don't because the system is made so that it's very difficult to control what they really earn. Portugal it's a great country in some aspects... but a very shitty one in some others:S
You do realize the computers exist witouth being connected to the internet, right? In fact, you do realize that the computers that are connected to broadband internet are normally much more recent and much more energy efficient than the one your grandmother uses to store cooking recipes, without internet connection, right?
You do know that the cities in USA are much more populated than in EU where the population is much more spread out around the country right? So actually the argument works even more against you.
I do agree in the nuclear point though. We can and should use it here in Portugal.
Are you crazy or something? You are actually trying to say that providing broadband access across all the country AND IN OPTICAL FIBRE, it's not even coper, and putting up 3.5G internet instead of GPRS, is actually making any appreciable difference to our energy consumption?
Portugal, you mean that country that's less than 1/3 the population of California? Surely what works for them will work for us, right?
Actually, Portugal has a population density of 115.129 inhabitants per square Km. USA: 32.191 inhabitants per square Km. So yes, what works for us in this case should work 3 times better for USA since you have 3 times more area per inhabitant to produce wind energy and gather sun energy.
Yes, it is. I completely agree. But what I was trying to say is that, not all is bad. It would be worst to be like Greece, with public accounts worst than Portugal and lagging back in everything.
You can be sure I'm not defending our government. Just that there is also a positive point to the picture.
Well, the hydros in the new energetic plan were made and are being made to store the solar and wind energy by pumping the water. Because during the night you cannot use solar power and the wind power reduces a lot.
The hydros are not being made to produce energy by themselves.
Mind you, I'm against hydros, but unless we embrace nuclear or someone comes up with huge and efficient energy storing methods, hydros are unavoidable in this scenario. And between burning oil and hydros... we choose the less of the 2 evils.
Well, the hydros in the new energetic plan were made and are being made to store the solar and wind energy by pumping the water. Because during the night you cannot use solar power and the wind power reduces a lot.
The hydros are not being made to produce energy by themselves.
Mind you, I'm against hydros, but unless we embrace nuclear or someone comes up with huge and efficient energy storing methods, hydros are unavoidable in this scenario.
Well, USA has a public debt of 93% and an electric grid quite archaic compared to Portugal.
And did I mention that Portugal has one of the most state of the art internet broadband internet coverage (with optical fibre connecting the house in major cities) and 3.5G across most of the country in the all world. Being Portugal only rival as far as I know, Estonia?
Yeah, the public accounts might be bad... but we are investing in the future.
Actually most of the public transportation in the big urban areas (mind you big urban areas in here is about 5 only) run exclusively in natural gas or, in some few cases hydrogen.
One of the most important facts for that was actually not energetic consumption, but air pollution. We have many old monuments, and it's not nice to be burning oil around them.
I believe this will be an easier way to immortality than any genetic treatment.
If you think about, from the moment on that you can store you memories and later thoughts in a chip, just like you do in your brain, how can you distinguish between what goes on in your biological brain and digital one? Where is the barrier?
I know we are still far from that time. Perhaps decades at the best, but just think about the philosophic implications of that and how the concept of life, intelligent life and humanity will need to be re-defined.
Oh brother. Another one. Look, memorize these numbers: Immigration in Sweden 18%, Immigration in USA 13%. Ok? Repeat after me: "Immigration in Sweden 18%, Immigration in USA 13%" And if you think they are all Nordic people, with blue eyes and blond hair (which they aren't, you just say that because you've never been there).
Then repeat after me: Immigration in Netherlands, 18%, Immigration in USA, 13%. And if you still say that Dutch are an homogeneous population. Then sir, what about reading a book for a change?
Looking at your reference I note that at most half are not from other first world nations (taking wild ass guesses for 'Europe' and 'Americas' but assuming Asia and Africa are mostly third world immigrants).
Actually, USA is one of the biggest contributors to immigration in Sweden. Guess not everyone is blind around there in USA after all.
Care to comment on how much of Sweden's social system is funded by rapidly depleting Oil reserves?
And Finland? And Denmark? And France? And Iceland? Do they also base their social system in "rapidly depleting Oil reserves"? What about waking up?
Further both Sweden and the United States of America are mixed economies (just mixed differently). Neither is pure capitalism or socialism. IMHO social-democracy has had so many definitions over the last 100 years a to lose all real meaning (like 'Liberal' in the USA).
I agree Sweden is not pure Socialism, but wise up mate, USA is pure Capitalism.
People vote with their feet. Are there more Sweeds in America or Americans in Sweden?
Actually the number is practically the same. So it seems the people has voted already. Your comments are almost ridiculous of how un-informed they are.
Slashdot Mirror
I can name another good one: de-bureaucratization. We can do many stuff by internet, or physical at a "loja do cidadão" without even a fraction of the paperwork, and we can do many things much much faster. For instance, creating a company in an hour, an day to take care of every legal and fiscal requirement to sell a house, etc. Other than these 3 things yes ... I agree this government sucks.
Ion electric engines.
Well, in Netherlands (I think, but it can also be in some other Northern European country), they had some project to store energy by heating a mass of water deep below the soil (so that the energy losses by irradiation where very low). That seemed more energy efficient and much less pervasive of nature. I don't know what's the present status of the project tough.
Do you think that gasoline consumption doesn't change if more people have cars? Or better roads?
It changes for more if you have more cars ... but changes for less if you have better roads. Improving our internet connection is the equivalent of better roads ... not more cars.
Err. I don't know if you live here (in Portugal), but if you do you are seeing too much Jornal da TVI (our equivalent to FOx News). You do know that these renewable energy start-ups are all private right? And that the money to pay extra for this renewable energy comes from the companies (or company, EDP) that still produces a lot from carbon fuel sources (also, of course, it's the one the produces the most energy in total), since the law is that they have to preferentially buy energy produced from renewable means ... and for a slightly higher price.
Well, no, this is not the problem. The public spending in these projects, even when it fails is not the problem here.
Portugal's problem, and you can check in the wikipedia by seeing our awful gini index (the worst of all European union), is the very bad distribution of wealth. Most company owners see people as a source of cheap labour ... so of course, if people doesn't earn enough, they also tend not to work very hard. And mind you, the bosses don't pay low wages because they don't have money (like I said they have a LOT OF MONEY), they pay low wages because, well, they all do, and unless you have a very specialized job, if you don't want to do it for what they pay, they find another one to do it.
Another problem, is that, there is a very big tax fraud in here. The proletariat pays taxes because they have a steady income ... the rich don't because the system is made so that it's very difficult to control what they really earn. Portugal it's a great country in some aspects ... but a very shitty one in some others :S
You do realize the computers exist witouth being connected to the internet, right? In fact, you do realize that the computers that are connected to broadband internet are normally much more recent and much more energy efficient than the one your grandmother uses to store cooking recipes, without internet connection, right?
You do know that the cities in USA are much more populated than in EU where the population is much more spread out around the country right? So actually the argument works even more against you.
I do agree in the nuclear point though. We can and should use it here in Portugal.
Yup, a lot! Portugal has the biggest Uranium deposits of Europe !... but we don't use it. Don't use it for ourselves, or even mine it for exporting :S
Are you crazy or something? You are actually trying to say that providing broadband access across all the country AND IN OPTICAL FIBRE, it's not even coper, and putting up 3.5G internet instead of GPRS, is actually making any appreciable difference to our energy consumption?
You are either trolling or joking. So I will let Slashdot points system straight that out.
Portugal, you mean that country that's less than 1/3 the population of California? Surely what works for them will work for us, right?
Actually, Portugal has a population density of 115.129 inhabitants per square Km. USA: 32.191 inhabitants per square Km. So yes, what works for us in this case should work 3 times better for USA since you have 3 times more area per inhabitant to produce wind energy and gather sun energy.
Yes, it is. I completely agree. But what I was trying to say is that, not all is bad. It would be worst to be like Greece, with public accounts worst than Portugal and lagging back in everything.
You can be sure I'm not defending our government. Just that there is also a positive point to the picture.
Well, the hydros in the new energetic plan were made and are being made to store the solar and wind energy by pumping the water. Because during the night you cannot use solar power and the wind power reduces a lot.
The hydros are not being made to produce energy by themselves.
Mind you, I'm against hydros, but unless we embrace nuclear or someone comes up with huge and efficient energy storing methods, hydros are unavoidable in this scenario. And between burning oil and hydros ... we choose the less of the 2 evils.
Well, the hydros in the new energetic plan were made and are being made to store the solar and wind energy by pumping the water. Because during the night you cannot use solar power and the wind power reduces a lot.
The hydros are not being made to produce energy by themselves.
Mind you, I'm against hydros, but unless we embrace nuclear or someone comes up with huge and efficient energy storing methods, hydros are unavoidable in this scenario.
Well, USA has a public debt of 93% and an electric grid quite archaic compared to Portugal.
And did I mention that Portugal has one of the most state of the art internet broadband internet coverage (with optical fibre connecting the house in major cities) and 3.5G across most of the country in the all world. Being Portugal only rival as far as I know, Estonia?
Yeah, the public accounts might be bad ... but we are investing in the future.
Actually most of the public transportation in the big urban areas (mind you big urban areas in here is about 5 only) run exclusively in natural gas or, in some few cases hydrogen.
One of the most important facts for that was actually not energetic consumption, but air pollution. We have many old monuments, and it's not nice to be burning oil around them.
What about: Because of the crisis that Capitalist countries created?
I believe this will be an easier way to immortality than any genetic treatment.
If you think about, from the moment on that you can store you memories and later thoughts in a chip, just like you do in your brain, how can you distinguish between what goes on in your biological brain and digital one? Where is the barrier?
I know we are still far from that time. Perhaps decades at the best, but just think about the philosophic implications of that and how the concept of life, intelligent life and humanity will need to be re-defined.
It's a "brave new world".
Thanks for the info. Did you find if any of these 2 is the double agent or if it's the 3rd name I can't find?
Oh brother. Another one. Look, memorize these numbers: Immigration in Sweden 18%, Immigration in USA 13%. Ok? Repeat after me: "Immigration in Sweden 18%, Immigration in USA 13%" And if you think they are all Nordic people, with blue eyes and blond hair (which they aren't, you just say that because you've never been there).
Then repeat after me: Immigration in Netherlands, 18%, Immigration in USA, 13%. And if you still say that Dutch are an homogeneous population. Then sir, what about reading a book for a change?
Sorry, I forgot Canada and Netherlands in the list. :)
Looking at your reference I note that at most half are not from other first world nations (taking wild ass guesses for 'Europe' and 'Americas' but assuming Asia and Africa are mostly third world immigrants).
Actually, USA is one of the biggest contributors to immigration in Sweden. Guess not everyone is blind around there in USA after all.
Care to comment on how much of Sweden's social system is funded by rapidly depleting Oil reserves?
And Finland? And Denmark? And France? And Iceland? Do they also base their social system in "rapidly depleting Oil reserves"? What about waking up?
Further both Sweden and the United States of America are mixed economies (just mixed differently). Neither is pure capitalism or socialism. IMHO social-democracy has had so many definitions over the last 100 years a to lose all real meaning (like 'Liberal' in the USA).
I agree Sweden is not pure Socialism, but wise up mate, USA is pure Capitalism.
People vote with their feet. Are there more Sweeds in America or Americans in Sweden?
Actually the number is practically the same. So it seems the people has voted already. Your comments are almost ridiculous of how un-informed they are.
Hi, yes, it's here. But I actually can only find 2 names, not 3: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread598661/pg1
pete6677
Ok, but pete6677 seems to do it a lot :p