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User: tmosley

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Comments · 4,533

  1. Re:1% on When Having the US Debt Paid Off Was a Problem · · Score: 1

    You are making a joke, but that was probably the exact plan. Note that this process started long, LONG ago, and both parties share equal blame.

    Though perhaps it gives these politicians too much credit. It seems to me that all (or most) that has occurred has been a result of Federal Reserve policy. Overly loose monetary policy in the 90s gave us a boom that lead to the Internet bubble. They "solved" that with more loose monetary policy, which lead to the housing bubble, and now they are "solving" THAT with "hotdog down a hallway" monetary policy (ie zero percent interest rate policy). Many nations have tread this path before. Funny how none ever seem to know where it leads. They never think it can happen to them. It can. It is only a matter of "when". Like seeing a gigantic mountain in the distance, you don't have a sense of how far it is until you actually get to it. These fools will drive us to the top, and off the face on the other side.

  2. Re:Hydrogen on Highly Efficient Oxygen Catalyst Found · · Score: 1

    Presumably, it leaves behind hydrogen, as that is the only other component of water.

  3. Re:Slashdot is posting blatant scams now? on 1 MW Cold Fusion Plant Supposedly To Come Online · · Score: 1

    They are only interested if it works. He plans to sell the devices, not to become a power company. It's hard being a power company for the whole world, with a near infinite array of differing regulatory issues in each and every country. Better to let those familiar with those systems handle it.

    I hold out some hope that this isn't a scam simply because it has (supposedly) all been self funded so far. If nickel+hydrogen=>copper becomes a reality, it ensures the survival of humanity, more or less forever, as it allows us to leave the planet (and encourages us to do so to mine the asteroids), and even the star system. All things become possible with this kind of energy at our fingertips.

  4. Re:Oblig xkcd on 1 MW Cold Fusion Plant Supposedly To Come Online · · Score: 1

    As I recall, the miniature engine that runs off of this tech is STEAM based, not electric.

  5. Re:Only tax-sponsored nuclear plants can compete on Fukushima's Fallout Worse Than Thought · · Score: 1

    Regulators get to make up the law as they go. This is the problem with regulators. If you want to argue that there is no ban, then tell me exactly when the last new nuclear plant was opened in the United States.

    I will have a look over your links when I get home tonight.

  6. Re:first thanks! on Google Releases Geothermal Potential Map of the US · · Score: 1

    Funny, since I have proven to be the cooler head in every last one of those debates, while you have always proven to be the screaming ape who doesn't care to make valid arguments or use scientific principles.

    There isn't infinite energy, therefore we're all gonna die next Thursday!

  7. Re:first thanks! on Google Releases Geothermal Potential Map of the US · · Score: 1

    It is my experience that doctors don't know much at all about microbiology, but do tend to think they know everything. They also tend to think of themselves as Gods, which is why they always lose their life savings in Vegas.

    I guess doctors these days are so stupid they don't even understand the concept of metaphor, despite the fact that they try to use them to prove their pithy little opinions about how we are all going to die because there aren't infinite resources where we are right now.

  8. Sell the roadways to private operators if you must. Privately owned roads are generally much better maintained than publicly owned ones.

    I like how you think that a person can't be held accountable for selling bad water, as if people wouldn't immediately put him out of business by getting their water from elsewhere, and suing him for damages caused by his polluted water.

    Just because the government funds a lot of things doesn't mean that those things wouldn't happen without government funding. Indeed, private citizens, with the money that would have been spent on the programs PLUS the amount of money that would have been spent paying the salaries of the government workers administering those benefits AND the salaries of those private sector workers who oversee regulatory compliance could create more efficient projects, and have more money left over for more capital investment.

  9. Sure, but there is a difference between "voluntary subsidization" ie paying more for goods created in the country, like food products, and "involuntary subsidization" where we pay more for nothing.

  10. But we PAY for beef. If the rubes want free internet in exchange for free beef for city dwellers, then I'm all for it. The rubes will be on the losing end of that deal.

  11. Re:Natural monopoly is a myth on Rural Broadband to Replace POTS As Beneficiary of US Gov't Subsidies · · Score: 1

    Surely, just like all the fast food restaurants merged into one. Now Taco Bell is the only restaurant.

    Pfft, I bet you don't even know how to use the three shells.

  12. Re:One new car on Rural Broadband to Replace POTS As Beneficiary of US Gov't Subsidies · · Score: 1

    Prior to the institution of tax privileged, employer paid health insurance, and the accompanying lawsuit frenzy, the vast majority of hospitals were charitable, and didn't charge the poor for their use. Emergency rooms certainly didn't. But now, with all you can eat health plans everywhere (meaning more healthcare consumption), ever rising educational requirements for doctors (meaning decreased supply), people can be left to die on the floor of emergency rooms. Nicely done, American fascist overlords.

  13. Re:Make broadband a tariffed, regulated utility on Rural Broadband to Replace POTS As Beneficiary of US Gov't Subsidies · · Score: 1

    This doesn't sound like the suburbs. Sounds more like some white bred mountain compound. Probably surrounded by survivalist compounds on pot plantations.

  14. Re:Make broadband a tariffed, regulated utility on Rural Broadband to Replace POTS As Beneficiary of US Gov't Subsidies · · Score: 1

    Wait wait wait. You are on the one hand complaining about not being able to get service, and on the other holding up government enforced monopolies as "good" even though it means you can't get service for ANY price?

    I think they need to fill in the valley.

  15. Re:Shred? on DARPA: Reconstruct Shredded Docs, Win $50K USD · · Score: 2

    Nuke them from orbit.

    It's the only way to be sure.

  16. Re:Tap Energy of Volcano? on In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Hence my "should have started 270K years ago" comment.

    Sapping energy from it couldn't be a bad thing, in any event.

  17. Re:silver lining on In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising · · Score: 1

    Half the population of Europe died out during the Plague, but they didn't lose any of their technology. Indeed, it seemed to advance faster afterwards.

    A prudent precaution would be to increase granary stocks from the few months supply we have now.

  18. Re:silver lining on In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising · · Score: 1

    Maybe you don't catch my meaning. I mean we are able to move fast with the aid of machinery.

    Borders won't mean anything with a supervolcano going off. There aren't enough guns in the world to stop that flood of people.

  19. Re:Tap Energy of Volcano? on In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising · · Score: 1

    Sooner is good, as it will be less powerful. Too bad we didn't have the foresight to start 270,000 years ago...

  20. Re:silver lining on In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising · · Score: 1

    I would dare say we are a lot better at both moving around and hunting today than we were 70K years ago.

  21. Re:silver lining on In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising · · Score: 1

    Can't be THAT bad, if this one erupts every 300K years. If there were a major extinction event every 300K years, then we would have a problem, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

  22. Re:china copys us stuff and pass it off as there o on PROTECT IP Renamed To the E-PARASITE Act · · Score: 1

    The English said the same of the US as they were building their industrial base.

    Then they lost the Empire.

  23. Re:If only big government had stayed off their bac on Fukushima's Fallout Worse Than Thought · · Score: 1

    Citation needed.

  24. Re:Consumer Reports only exists in the shelter of on Fukushima's Fallout Worse Than Thought · · Score: 1

    If companies murdered people who gave them negative reviews, then it wouldn't be a free market, as those companies would have taken up the role of government in the systematic initiation of aggressive force.

    Further, you gravely misunderstand Rand if you think that her system would allow murder by companies. She was FOR GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF THE AIRWAVES AND PATENTS for fuck's sake. She was not the anarchist you claim her to have been.

    Although I myself am an anarcho-capitalist, I would certainly accept a libertarian or Randian society as "good enough". That is the nice thing about free markets, they don't need to be implemented in an ideologically pure manner to work, unlike other "extremist" policies. That is the reason we have continued to have economic and technological advance since the end of the free market era in 1913. Unfortunately, the sliding scale of the "mixed" economic system has gone too far away from freedom, such that we are drowning, and people don't even know which way is up any more, and wind up trying to swim deeper in their haste to destroy the system.

  25. Re:If only big government had stayed off their bac on Fukushima's Fallout Worse Than Thought · · Score: 1

    I only saw that there were proposals for new reactors (in your link). None have been approved, nor have any new ones been approved for a very long time.

    Also, please note that just because nuclear plants receive subsidies does not mean they are not economically viable, especially after the cost of regulatory compliance is lifted. If there are genuinely cheaper alternatives to nuclear power, great. I'm all for it.

    And yes, there really aren't many possible systems that could be worse than what we have now. I'm reminded of a SOuth Park episode where Mr. Garrison invents a new form of rapid transit because he was tired of dealing with crappy bailed out airlines. Even though it required a butt plug, among other gross things, everyone agreed it was still better than flying. That is pretty much the point we are at now.