The big difference between design and academia is that when you build something it is judged by Reality. In academia another person is the judge. A person can be manipulated into agreeing with your theoretical ideas. Reality doesn't care. That is why engineering is so difficult. Unlike almost any other field you can't BS your way through. When you build something it either works or doesn't and it is apparent for even a layperson to know you screwed up. Ask the BP engineers. They have millions of hours of experience drilling wells in deep water but in this one Reality came in and showed them they don't know everything. It doesn't take an engineer to know they screwed up.
The same can't be said of a scientist, lawyer, doctor, politician, teacher, ect. They can always blame their failures on other things and it usually takes someone with a similar level of education to know they screwed up.
One of the reasons Oil is so cheap is because of the US military protecting it's production and shipping all around the world. One way to reduce oil consumption is to stop this protection. This would reduce spending on the military and at the same time force the Oil Companies to pay for their own security. This would cause oil prices to naturally rise to where it should be if it wasn't subsidized. The same would be true for trade. If we didn't protect the shipping lanes than cargo companies would have to hire their own security and foreign products would become more expensive. It's stupid for this country to pay 50% of the worlds military budget to make it cheaper for other countries to ship stuff to us and undercut domestic producers.
I work in the space program and this is not a fun time. Many people I know moved to the areas where the work is being done because they love space and want to be a part of advancing civilization. Here is the problem with space budgets. There just aren't enough flights to recoup development costs. So take the $10 Billion that was already spent on Constellation. Just guessing that half was for the Ares I rocket. So what would $5 Billion buy you on the commercial market today? 50 Atlas V/Delta IV launches or about 15 Delta IV Heavy Launches. That is a lot of payload in space. I personally think NASA should get out of the rocket design business. I think it would be better to get the countries involved in the ISS and work on an IMS International Moon Station. Let the Russians launch people until our commercial guys can prove they can do it. Consider it a return on the favor when we kept MIR operating for 4 years with the shuttle. Build the parts small and light enough to fit into existing launchers. Also to spur development use a Prize system with no more feed money. Say set aside $2B a year to put into a pot that keeps growing until someone successfully launches 3 missions with a 100 ton payload. That way you can harness private money for the development costs and the tax payers aren't stuck with a bill for a useless design.
The money is there. $19B is a lot of money. The jobs will be there too we just may have to move to find them. Since most of us already did move to work in this field we will do it again.
You are partially right. I don't mind these people gambling and making money as long as we aren't forced to bail them out when they lose.
I always think of the "hot" fund manager like this. Imagine a market where you are picking heads and tails or some random event. You have 1000 fund managers picking heads and tails. After 10 flips you might have a few that have picked them all right. The people that give their money to fund managers are the ones that go "Oh man, that guy is a genius. He picked the last 10 right I'm putting my money with him".
The strategy I use is from a Harry Browne book called Failsafe Investing. Basically 1/4 in cash, 1/4 in Long Yield Bonds, 1/4 in S&P 500, and 1/4 in Gold. If the balance gets too out like one goes above 35% or below 15% of the portfolio it's time to rebalance. The idea is one of those does well during any economic condition so your total portfolio is never hit by any one event. It isn't really going to make you money but it at least maintains the purchasing power of my savings.
I'm a mechanical engineer. Look up Psychrometric Chart on the web. Dry hot air 110 deg 20% RH has the same enthalpy as cooler wet air 80 deg F 80% RH. So cooling both to a nice 72 deg 80% humidify takes about the same energy. BTW I live in Florida and I havea 3800 sqft house and power averages$150/mo. That is all electric appliances no gas. I did spend a bundle getting two 19 seer heat pumps though.
The actual policy is you can do whatever the heck you want as long as you get your job done. But if you pissed someone off enough that they want to fire you they will look at your internet history as a justification.
I worked as an automation engineer for about 5 years. We would get calls from people that wanted to automate their manufacturing. But it all comes down to money. Most of the time money was better spent doing semi-automation where we made the people more productive. So conveyor systems to move the parts from station to station. Some of the things would be automated like inspection and other things like screwing parts together would be manual. It was rare to build a fully automated system. Once of the coolest but low tech things was a vibratory part feeder. Check one out here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xFbj3zIOxQ&feature=PlayList&p=F93757C9C38DFF7D&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=5
The folks made these bowls by hand and using small differences in where the CG of the part is they can make sure all of the parts are fed out in the same orientation. These things kick robots asses in how fast they can feed parts that come in a random orientation.
From what I can gather Mohammad was basically an anarchist and was against organized religion. He basically said there was one God of Abraham and everyone is responsible for themselves. It seems that was the first big experiment in freedom and self government in the world. In the Muslim world there was freedom of speech, religion, education, ect. It wasn't written in law it just is what people came to believe and followed. And it lasted a VERY long time. Something like 800 years. I still haven't satisfied myself on why it came to an end but I guess it's human nature that people eventually get tired of personal responsibility and want people in control of them to relieve them of responsibility. Kind of like what has been happening in the US for the past 50 years or so.
Here is the difference between the west and China as of today. There seems to be a big misunderstanding of what a free market means (in either ideas or economics). For some reason people point out unethical companies or individuals (AIG, GM, Maddock) that cause destruction as a failure of the free market. But in reality it is a success. It is only because of a free market did the problems come to light. Sure it causes some loses when a cover up is exposed and the true value is realized. But the alternative is never finding out of the government covering it up. The latter is what I am afraid is happening in the US. Companies that were no longer fit to survive have been propped back up and they will only collapse later. A free market is brutal and fair. Those companies would go out of business. Now if that sounds harsh think of what it really would mean. There are still customers that need the product or service. The employees of that company still have their talents. Some company will either start or expand to make use of those employees to meet those customer needs.
The same is true with education. In a free market of ideas the fake results will be caught eventually. And if your country of school establishes a reputation of shoddy research it's value will drop considerable.
In my opinion it is impossible for either Apple or MS to be considered a Monopoly. Just having a huge percentage of the market doesn't make you a monopoly. You have to have the backing of a government federal, state, local. So my utility company is a monopoly because I can't shop around. Same with water, sewer, roads, ect. But a company that makes a product can't have a monopoly because there is no barrier to entry into the marketplace except for consumers. So say Apple becomes this tyrannical company and people get angry. They can start their own company or buy from another company. But if my sewer company wants to triple their rates there is nowhere for me to go.
You have to figure in taxes as well. $450 Million per launch doesn't get thrown in a hole. It goes to US employees that pay a minimum of 25% in taxes on that. So the cost to the government is more like $338 Million or $48 million per person.The money that goes to the Russians doesn't come back.
One thing that makes this much more difficult to understand is feedback. Anyone with experiences in control systems or other nonlinear systems knows how difficult and sometimes counter intuitive things are.
Take your example of feeding a poor person in another nation. That sounds good. But the feedback you forget is that by giving that person free food you put the farmers in that country out of business. What would happen in this country if China gave us all the free rice we could eat? It would put all of our rice farmers and many other farmers out of business as people switched to rice. And as those farmers lose their jobs they can no longer afford to feed themselves or their employees.
The same goes for healthcare. Price is a very important thing in the real world. It works as a signal between producers and consumers so that resources can be used most efficiently. For instance I just got a quote from a dentist saying I needed a cavity filled. But during the procedure I may need a crown. The cavity filling will cost me $120 but the crown $900. With this information I decided to call around to find out prices for crowns. My insurance doesn't cover crowns so I have to find the best deal.
The only difference is emergency medicine. I think that should be socialized on a county level like fire rescue, emt, and police are now. The reason is when you have a heart attack you can't call up hospitals to shop around. But in order to do this you have to treat emergency rooms like the police and emt. You can's sure them for messing up. It's an emergency and they don't have time or all the information. If the results of them doing nothing is you dying then whatever happens when they try to help you should be covered under the good Samaritan laws. Also anyone going to an emergency room for non emergencies should not only be turned away but fined just like calling 9-11 because you didn't get cheese with your quarter pounder. Once a person is stabilized and can be moved then they are back in the paying system where they should have to shop around for the best service they can afford.
Great Post. I think this shows more about the authors than the slums. Recycling and reducing waste always occurs when people are poor. When you are poor you must make use of every last scrap. A rich society can afford to be wasteful.You can't have fresh fruit available and not have waste. The fact that you want it fresh requires it to not be preserved. And since there is no way for the seller to make sure they supply just enough to meet demand they will usually have more than they need. When that doesn't sell it goes bad and it is thrown away (wasted). In order to have no waste you would have a few options. Prohibit fresh fruit since it can spoil and be wasted. Or only allow a small supply of fresh fruit so you are assured it isn't wasted. Come up with some alternative use of the rotten fruit but by definition it is still wasteful if that use is much less valuable than the preserved fruit.
I would rather live in a place where you are allowed to be free and wasteful. I would rather be allowed to throw all my trash into one bin and if the company that charges me to take my trash thinks it is worth it they can go through it and pick out valuable things. Or they can reduce my rate if I agree to separate my waste.
Here is the problem with your analysis. If I choose not to do drugs my life is still harmed by the war on drugs. It is the war that causes something that should be next to free to cost more than gold. That amount of profit goes to fund armed gangs, corrupt police, fill jails, and plenty of other things that directly affect me. In a free society the person who takes the risks should suffer the consequences of their actions not punish everyone because a few people can't control themselves.
Re:Can someone who understands the IRS explain?
on
Our Low-Tech Tax Code
·
· Score: 1
The problem is if you want to become a consultant. It is impossible.
To be hired as a consultant you need to be a consultant.
To be a consultant you need to have more than one client.
To have more than one client and you are starting out you need to start with one client.
If you only have one client you are an employee not a consultant.
It is similar to many cartels. The existing consultants want to prevent competition so they pass a law banning people from being considered consultants.
There are many states that have licensure laws where in order to get the licence you need to be approved by people already in the industry. So the people in the industry get to decide if you are allowed to compete with them. Complete BS.
The Institute for Justice routinely battles these laws.
http://www.ij.org/
Put it this way. If it was just a study and no policies were to be made it wouldn't be politicized. But politics is all about power and control. And if groups want to use science to increase their power and control over other people then you can expect it to become politicized.
I think we need to see a separation of science and state.
I don't know if you have ever read the US Constitution. The powers of each branch are explicitly demarcated. The meaning of the Constitution should never change. If the people think something is important enough to change we have a way to amend the constitution. If enough people think the government should have a power it doesn't currently have we can easily give them or take away those powers. People actually used to respect it. For instance we had an amendment to prohibit alcohol. We then passed another amendment to repeal that one. But now we let the government prohibit all sorts of things without an expressed authority.
I hope to offset some of the costs to the government the private companies are allowed to run launch ticket lotteries. 50 million tickets at $1 each could help.
When I was about this kids age I made a trip wire motion detector with a copper pipe, buzzer, some batteries, toggle switch and a mercury switch purchased at my local Radio Shack. I tied a monofilament line to a tree and stuck this in the ground with the line tied to it. If another kid ran past my house and tripped it, it would go off. I forgot about it and it was found in the street by someones mom who called the police. The police went to her house and talked to her and her kid who knew it was mine. The kid ratted me out so I got a visit from the cop. He asked me if I made such a device and I told him what it was. He apologized to me and said to go pick it out of the street so the mother would calm down. I can't imagine what would happen today.
Oh BTW I'm a mechanical engineer now.
I agree. Poverty is a due to a mindset of not respecting property. You get out of poverty by working to create things of value (wealth) and having a mentality where you don't steal or destroy wealth. But I have no idea how you can teach that to people.
I have the same problem with the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. We are smart enough in this country not to let our military run the country and to make our government as weak as possible. But then we want to install a powerful government in these other countries to keep the people under control.
I agree with the isolationists. The best thing we can do is mind our own business and lead by example. If people are impressed with us they might try to copy our ways.
Slashdot Mirror
In Obama's 2011 budget for NASA there is funding for the DOE to restart P-238 production for RTG's.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1372
The big difference between design and academia is that when you build something it is judged by Reality. In academia another person is the judge. A person can be manipulated into agreeing with your theoretical ideas. Reality doesn't care. That is why engineering is so difficult. Unlike almost any other field you can't BS your way through. When you build something it either works or doesn't and it is apparent for even a layperson to know you screwed up. Ask the BP engineers. They have millions of hours of experience drilling wells in deep water but in this one Reality came in and showed them they don't know everything. It doesn't take an engineer to know they screwed up.
The same can't be said of a scientist, lawyer, doctor, politician, teacher, ect. They can always blame their failures on other things and it usually takes someone with a similar level of education to know they screwed up.
One of the reasons Oil is so cheap is because of the US military protecting it's production and shipping all around the world. One way to reduce oil consumption is to stop this protection. This would reduce spending on the military and at the same time force the Oil Companies to pay for their own security. This would cause oil prices to naturally rise to where it should be if it wasn't subsidized. The same would be true for trade. If we didn't protect the shipping lanes than cargo companies would have to hire their own security and foreign products would become more expensive. It's stupid for this country to pay 50% of the worlds military budget to make it cheaper for other countries to ship stuff to us and undercut domestic producers.
I work in the space program and this is not a fun time. Many people I know moved to the areas where the work is being done because they love space and want to be a part of advancing civilization. Here is the problem with space budgets. There just aren't enough flights to recoup development costs. So take the $10 Billion that was already spent on Constellation. Just guessing that half was for the Ares I rocket. So what would $5 Billion buy you on the commercial market today? 50 Atlas V/Delta IV launches or about 15 Delta IV Heavy Launches. That is a lot of payload in space. I personally think NASA should get out of the rocket design business. I think it would be better to get the countries involved in the ISS and work on an IMS International Moon Station. Let the Russians launch people until our commercial guys can prove they can do it. Consider it a return on the favor when we kept MIR operating for 4 years with the shuttle. Build the parts small and light enough to fit into existing launchers. Also to spur development use a Prize system with no more feed money. Say set aside $2B a year to put into a pot that keeps growing until someone successfully launches 3 missions with a 100 ton payload. That way you can harness private money for the development costs and the tax payers aren't stuck with a bill for a useless design. The money is there. $19B is a lot of money. The jobs will be there too we just may have to move to find them. Since most of us already did move to work in this field we will do it again.
You are partially right. I don't mind these people gambling and making money as long as we aren't forced to bail them out when they lose. I always think of the "hot" fund manager like this. Imagine a market where you are picking heads and tails or some random event. You have 1000 fund managers picking heads and tails. After 10 flips you might have a few that have picked them all right. The people that give their money to fund managers are the ones that go "Oh man, that guy is a genius. He picked the last 10 right I'm putting my money with him". The strategy I use is from a Harry Browne book called Failsafe Investing. Basically 1/4 in cash, 1/4 in Long Yield Bonds, 1/4 in S&P 500, and 1/4 in Gold. If the balance gets too out like one goes above 35% or below 15% of the portfolio it's time to rebalance. The idea is one of those does well during any economic condition so your total portfolio is never hit by any one event. It isn't really going to make you money but it at least maintains the purchasing power of my savings.
I'm a mechanical engineer. Look up Psychrometric Chart on the web. Dry hot air 110 deg 20% RH has the same enthalpy as cooler wet air 80 deg F 80% RH. So cooling both to a nice 72 deg 80% humidify takes about the same energy. BTW I live in Florida and I havea 3800 sqft house and power averages$150/mo. That is all electric appliances no gas. I did spend a bundle getting two 19 seer heat pumps though.
The actual policy is you can do whatever the heck you want as long as you get your job done. But if you pissed someone off enough that they want to fire you they will look at your internet history as a justification.
I worked as an automation engineer for about 5 years. We would get calls from people that wanted to automate their manufacturing. But it all comes down to money. Most of the time money was better spent doing semi-automation where we made the people more productive. So conveyor systems to move the parts from station to station. Some of the things would be automated like inspection and other things like screwing parts together would be manual. It was rare to build a fully automated system. Once of the coolest but low tech things was a vibratory part feeder. Check one out here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xFbj3zIOxQ&feature=PlayList&p=F93757C9C38DFF7D&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=5 The folks made these bowls by hand and using small differences in where the CG of the part is they can make sure all of the parts are fed out in the same orientation. These things kick robots asses in how fast they can feed parts that come in a random orientation.
Anyone notice that the actuator that the robot is picking from is VERY slow? If you want to see fun have a person hold the puck and wave it around.
From what I can gather Mohammad was basically an anarchist and was against organized religion. He basically said there was one God of Abraham and everyone is responsible for themselves. It seems that was the first big experiment in freedom and self government in the world. In the Muslim world there was freedom of speech, religion, education, ect. It wasn't written in law it just is what people came to believe and followed. And it lasted a VERY long time. Something like 800 years. I still haven't satisfied myself on why it came to an end but I guess it's human nature that people eventually get tired of personal responsibility and want people in control of them to relieve them of responsibility. Kind of like what has been happening in the US for the past 50 years or so.
Heck a simple pendulum doesn't have a closed form solution for anything but small disturbances.
Here is the difference between the west and China as of today. There seems to be a big misunderstanding of what a free market means (in either ideas or economics). For some reason people point out unethical companies or individuals (AIG, GM, Maddock) that cause destruction as a failure of the free market. But in reality it is a success. It is only because of a free market did the problems come to light. Sure it causes some loses when a cover up is exposed and the true value is realized. But the alternative is never finding out of the government covering it up. The latter is what I am afraid is happening in the US. Companies that were no longer fit to survive have been propped back up and they will only collapse later. A free market is brutal and fair. Those companies would go out of business. Now if that sounds harsh think of what it really would mean. There are still customers that need the product or service. The employees of that company still have their talents. Some company will either start or expand to make use of those employees to meet those customer needs. The same is true with education. In a free market of ideas the fake results will be caught eventually. And if your country of school establishes a reputation of shoddy research it's value will drop considerable.
I have on my desktop.
In my opinion it is impossible for either Apple or MS to be considered a Monopoly. Just having a huge percentage of the market doesn't make you a monopoly. You have to have the backing of a government federal, state, local. So my utility company is a monopoly because I can't shop around. Same with water, sewer, roads, ect. But a company that makes a product can't have a monopoly because there is no barrier to entry into the marketplace except for consumers. So say Apple becomes this tyrannical company and people get angry. They can start their own company or buy from another company. But if my sewer company wants to triple their rates there is nowhere for me to go.
You have to figure in taxes as well. $450 Million per launch doesn't get thrown in a hole. It goes to US employees that pay a minimum of 25% in taxes on that. So the cost to the government is more like $338 Million or $48 million per person.The money that goes to the Russians doesn't come back.
One thing that makes this much more difficult to understand is feedback. Anyone with experiences in control systems or other nonlinear systems knows how difficult and sometimes counter intuitive things are. Take your example of feeding a poor person in another nation. That sounds good. But the feedback you forget is that by giving that person free food you put the farmers in that country out of business. What would happen in this country if China gave us all the free rice we could eat? It would put all of our rice farmers and many other farmers out of business as people switched to rice. And as those farmers lose their jobs they can no longer afford to feed themselves or their employees. The same goes for healthcare. Price is a very important thing in the real world. It works as a signal between producers and consumers so that resources can be used most efficiently. For instance I just got a quote from a dentist saying I needed a cavity filled. But during the procedure I may need a crown. The cavity filling will cost me $120 but the crown $900. With this information I decided to call around to find out prices for crowns. My insurance doesn't cover crowns so I have to find the best deal. The only difference is emergency medicine. I think that should be socialized on a county level like fire rescue, emt, and police are now. The reason is when you have a heart attack you can't call up hospitals to shop around. But in order to do this you have to treat emergency rooms like the police and emt. You can's sure them for messing up. It's an emergency and they don't have time or all the information. If the results of them doing nothing is you dying then whatever happens when they try to help you should be covered under the good Samaritan laws. Also anyone going to an emergency room for non emergencies should not only be turned away but fined just like calling 9-11 because you didn't get cheese with your quarter pounder. Once a person is stabilized and can be moved then they are back in the paying system where they should have to shop around for the best service they can afford.
Great Post. I think this shows more about the authors than the slums. Recycling and reducing waste always occurs when people are poor. When you are poor you must make use of every last scrap. A rich society can afford to be wasteful.You can't have fresh fruit available and not have waste. The fact that you want it fresh requires it to not be preserved. And since there is no way for the seller to make sure they supply just enough to meet demand they will usually have more than they need. When that doesn't sell it goes bad and it is thrown away (wasted). In order to have no waste you would have a few options. Prohibit fresh fruit since it can spoil and be wasted. Or only allow a small supply of fresh fruit so you are assured it isn't wasted. Come up with some alternative use of the rotten fruit but by definition it is still wasteful if that use is much less valuable than the preserved fruit. I would rather live in a place where you are allowed to be free and wasteful. I would rather be allowed to throw all my trash into one bin and if the company that charges me to take my trash thinks it is worth it they can go through it and pick out valuable things. Or they can reduce my rate if I agree to separate my waste.
Here is the problem with your analysis. If I choose not to do drugs my life is still harmed by the war on drugs. It is the war that causes something that should be next to free to cost more than gold. That amount of profit goes to fund armed gangs, corrupt police, fill jails, and plenty of other things that directly affect me. In a free society the person who takes the risks should suffer the consequences of their actions not punish everyone because a few people can't control themselves.
The problem is if you want to become a consultant. It is impossible. To be hired as a consultant you need to be a consultant. To be a consultant you need to have more than one client. To have more than one client and you are starting out you need to start with one client. If you only have one client you are an employee not a consultant. It is similar to many cartels. The existing consultants want to prevent competition so they pass a law banning people from being considered consultants. There are many states that have licensure laws where in order to get the licence you need to be approved by people already in the industry. So the people in the industry get to decide if you are allowed to compete with them. Complete BS. The Institute for Justice routinely battles these laws. http://www.ij.org/
Put it this way. If it was just a study and no policies were to be made it wouldn't be politicized. But politics is all about power and control. And if groups want to use science to increase their power and control over other people then you can expect it to become politicized. I think we need to see a separation of science and state.
I think it was a partnership between France and Ford. I could be wrong.
I don't know if you have ever read the US Constitution. The powers of each branch are explicitly demarcated. The meaning of the Constitution should never change. If the people think something is important enough to change we have a way to amend the constitution. If enough people think the government should have a power it doesn't currently have we can easily give them or take away those powers. People actually used to respect it. For instance we had an amendment to prohibit alcohol. We then passed another amendment to repeal that one. But now we let the government prohibit all sorts of things without an expressed authority.
I hope to offset some of the costs to the government the private companies are allowed to run launch ticket lotteries. 50 million tickets at $1 each could help.
When I was about this kids age I made a trip wire motion detector with a copper pipe, buzzer, some batteries, toggle switch and a mercury switch purchased at my local Radio Shack. I tied a monofilament line to a tree and stuck this in the ground with the line tied to it. If another kid ran past my house and tripped it, it would go off. I forgot about it and it was found in the street by someones mom who called the police. The police went to her house and talked to her and her kid who knew it was mine. The kid ratted me out so I got a visit from the cop. He asked me if I made such a device and I told him what it was. He apologized to me and said to go pick it out of the street so the mother would calm down. I can't imagine what would happen today. Oh BTW I'm a mechanical engineer now.
I agree. Poverty is a due to a mindset of not respecting property. You get out of poverty by working to create things of value (wealth) and having a mentality where you don't steal or destroy wealth. But I have no idea how you can teach that to people. I have the same problem with the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. We are smart enough in this country not to let our military run the country and to make our government as weak as possible. But then we want to install a powerful government in these other countries to keep the people under control. I agree with the isolationists. The best thing we can do is mind our own business and lead by example. If people are impressed with us they might try to copy our ways.