I'm just a simple unfrozen caveman lawyer. Your modern world scares and confuses me. When I see a stoplight I want to get OUT of my Lexus and run into the hills. Is there a demon indise the little box? I don't know, because I am a caveman--that's the way I think.
But there's ONE thing that even I can see, that voting for Sarah Palin for ANY elected office, much less the Presidency of the United States of America, is just plain stupid.
They are about the same size, but the brains of larger animals have to work harder, as there is more body to control. Having a small body with a big brain means that there is excess capacity which can be devoted to higher thought.
No, a child's brain is able to recover from such trauma by growing to fill the brain cavity. Although 90% of the brain may have been gone, it "regenerated" (not exactly, but more brain tissue grew), with the new tissues adapting to process all of the same things your brain or mine does, perhaps in a somewhat different manner.
It's sort of like trimming a young tree. Sure, you removed 90% of it's leaves, but come back in a few years and it'll look just like a regular tree. If you cut off 90% of a mature tree, come back in a few years, and you'll probably have a dead tree, or one that is just barely hanging on.
If she is found guilty of 'torturous' acts, does that mean that psychological techniques will then be redefined as torture? If so, what implications does that have for the US military's treatment of detainees?
If she is convicted, but there is no change in military policy, isn't that a double standard?
So the grand canyon had to be as old as it was to accept the ant? Your thesis assumes that humans are the only sentient beings out there, or are at least the first. There is no evidence of that. It's nothing more than a wild assumption at this point.
Well, all things exist within the Universe, by definition, even if they are outside of physical reality.
Also, one should not confuse the word eternal with unending. One could set sail on a ship and sail the seas forever, that doesn't mean that the sea is infinite in extent. Time and space are probably the same way, and other curious things probably exist over and above reality as we see it (but still within the definition of "the Universe").
Just because an ant crawls into the Grand Canyon doesn't mean that that is the smallest space that it can fit into, or that if it were any smaller, it couldn't get inside.
Our universe lays somewhere inside of a (not necessarily congruous) set of potential circumstances that could support life. That is not to say that other universes exist in that range, however. It's sort of like how Earth is within a "habitable zone" around the sun. There aren't other Earths at every value within that zone.
Wow, you have no idea what you are talking about. Ben Bernanke himself accepted that the Fed caused the Great Depression. The Fed was founded in 1913.
Hoover is often (mistakenly) blamed for allowing the Depression to take hold due to his "laissez-faire" economics when in fact he started many of the interventionist programs that FDR took credit for (and which prolonged what should have been a two or three year correction into a decade of depression). The largest of these was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which provided government secured loans to financial institutions (sound familiar?), railroads, and farmers. It had no positive effect, and only acted as a drain on the treasury. Doing such a thing today is simply going to bankrupt us, because we have no money. Hoover's critics misattributed one of his economic advisors opinions to Hoover himself, and the banks perpetuated the lies because the regulations keep out competition. It's just an urban legend perpetuated by those in power. I would suggest you read the Wikipedia article on the subject to educate yourself.
Before the FDIC, banks were free to fail, and such failures posed little systemic risk, but now we have a system where, should a large number of bank failures occur, the GOVERNMENT will collapse, because it will have printed the dollar into oblivion to pay back all the depositors. Bank runs are bad, sure, but they are better than tying the whole system up under one umbrella. It takes away much of the incentive for banks to safeguard their deposits, because the government is there to bail them out. But the government can only do so much before it collapses the dollar with excessive printing.
The fact is that while there were "depressions" before the Fed came into existence (today they would be called recessions), all of the worst economic times have come during their reign (or during times of war at home). They created the business cycle by manipulating interest rates. They created the booms, and they created the busts. They think they have the power to control the market, but they don't. They do have the terrible power to tax every dollar in existence through inflation, though.
A dollar today buys well under 4% of what it bought in 1913, when the bankers seized power. Seems pretty crappy, doesn't it? It has left us with a system where no-one knows that they are being taxed, they just feel the pain when they go to buy groceries. Inflation is the most regressive tax there is, as it equally effects every dollar, whether you are rich or poor. People have to constantly scratch for raises to keep up.
It's not a good system. It's all going to crumble, probably before the next election (nothing to do with who is in office, though).
I'm not short treasuries, but I am long gold, which is the only investment really worth making at this point. Anyone who is short treasuries is certain to be blamed for their eventual collapse, and they'll likely get hit with punitive measures by a faltering government. Gold on the other hand is both depressed in value, immune to inflationary pressure, and has no counterparty risk.
If you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. Enjoy your bread lines. Just because some things are different now doesn't mean that past events are irrelevant, or that we can't learn any useful lessons from them. Hell, modern military has changed more than almost any other aspect of life, yet West Point cadets still learn about the tactics of Alexander the Great.
If you don't like the Roman Empire analogy, try a car analogy instead. You buy a nice new car and drive it for a while. You never change the oil. Everyone tells you "You need to change the oil or the car is going to break down". Your response? "It's never broken down before." Well, one of these days, you're going to be calling AAA to drag off your $20000 paperweight. Just because something hasn't happened before (or even happened recently), doesn't mean it won't happen again.
How on Earth can you say that the 1929 crash doesn't matter? They did the exact same things we are doing today, the same policies that lead to a decade of depression. The government actually had money backed by gold then, what do we have now? Money backed by debt, and a further ten trillion dollar "official" debt plus another
Your hubris will be your downfall. I'll gladly be waiting to pick the pockets of your corpse, and those of others like you (financially speaking, of course).
I can't even imagine the energy requirements for vaporizing large chunks of metal. It should be pretty easy to separate the elements using a big quadrapole or so, which would connect to collection tubes at the strike points for each type of ion.
Well, if you divide all the big religions up into their respective subcategories (Sunni vs Shia, Catholic vs Methodist, etc), you'd probably find that Atheism is by far the largest cogent belief system.
Of course, it's still just a plurality, far from a majority, but you can't say that we are outnumbered by those who believe in God, because none of them can actually agree on what they believe. They all think that everyone else but their little group is wrong (for the most part, those who don't aren't particularly consistent in their beliefs though).
1. I think you didn't take into account that the government was quite wealthy in 1929. Now we are trillions in debt (some estimates point as high as 100 trillion in future liabilities).
2. Define wealth. I would say that wealth is having money that does work for you. We don't have any real money (just imaginary money in the form of derivatives--multiple quadrillions of them). Instead we have debt, which we have to work just to maintain (something like half of your income tax dollars go to paying interest on the national debt). Further, our money itself is inherently worthless, as it is backed purely by debt.
3. So what? The Roman Empire never collapsed, until it did. The amount of debt we have vs. GDP has NEVER been paid back in the history of the world. We don't have manufacturing capability any more, so there is no way to offset our debt through trade. Even were we to sell our technology to the highest bidder, it wouldn't come close to paying down what we owe. Is the US "too big to fail"? In reality, there is no such thing. Institutions that are "too big to fail" only exist in the tiny little minds of those we have (foolishly) elected as our representatives, yet who act expressly against our wishes (90% of people were against it).
4. The largest buyer of US bonds is the Federal Reserve. They are buying like there is no tomorrow with money that they create from thin air. They are exchanging worthless paper for worthless paper, with interest calculated in more worthless paper. No one save perhaps a few other (collusive) central banks is buying US treasuries.
5. I would suggest that you hang yourself, rather than throwing yourself off the top of a building when you find your money and assets have all vaporized. The splatter makes an awful mess.
The fact is, you fail to take into account just how DIFFERENT things are now. The whole economy is interconnected, so the ENTIRE WORLD will be in a depression, rather than just certain markets (western markets in the 30's, Japan in the 90's). Back then, outside markets could come in and buy up assets with the cash they had from their own market booms. This will not happen this time. It's like we have harmonized a bunch of waveforms. This time, instead of subtle vibrations, they will be in tune with each other and shake the world to its foundations.
Monoculture inevitably leads to extinction, and we have developed an almost perfect financial monoculture on this planet. Just because we haven't collapsed yet doesn't mean we aren't going to.
I would think that they could send it to a refinery, or have one built on site. If they could separate out the precious metals from electronics, that might provide enough income by itself to make it economical.
It liberates more energy than it consumes, mainly from carbon-carbon bonds. If you collect the metals and other by-products, you just makes some extra profit. The hydrogen won't last very long, as water is far more stable.
It'd take quite a powerful plasma to vaporize metal, though. I wonder how they will handle it (or stuff like silicone or minerals, which are already about as stable as they are going to get). My guess is it just sits in the reaction chamber, and they have to clean it out every so often.
Maybe I missed something, but how is this impressive?
Considering that there are commercial cameras on the market that have resolutions of 50+ megapixels for "just" $40,000 (not much for professional scientists or astronomers). It seems like a fairly simple thing to modify for use in the UV spectrum (maybe that's the part we are supposed to be impressed with?).
I don't think there is anywhere they could move that would have a LESS tolerant reception, so it doesn't really matter if they move. It can only stay about the same or get better.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just a simple unfrozen caveman lawyer. Your modern world scares and confuses me. When I see a stoplight I want to get OUT of my Lexus and run into the hills. Is there a demon indise the little box? I don't know, because I am a caveman--that's the way I think.
But there's ONE thing that even I can see, that voting for Sarah Palin for ANY elected office, much less the Presidency of the United States of America, is just plain stupid.
They are about the same size, but the brains of larger animals have to work harder, as there is more body to control. Having a small body with a big brain means that there is excess capacity which can be devoted to higher thought.
No, a child's brain is able to recover from such trauma by growing to fill the brain cavity. Although 90% of the brain may have been gone, it "regenerated" (not exactly, but more brain tissue grew), with the new tissues adapting to process all of the same things your brain or mine does, perhaps in a somewhat different manner.
It's sort of like trimming a young tree. Sure, you removed 90% of it's leaves, but come back in a few years and it'll look just like a regular tree. If you cut off 90% of a mature tree, come back in a few years, and you'll probably have a dead tree, or one that is just barely hanging on.
If she is found guilty of 'torturous' acts, does that mean that psychological techniques will then be redefined as torture? If so, what implications does that have for the US military's treatment of detainees?
If she is convicted, but there is no change in military policy, isn't that a double standard?
Ah the Rumsfeld Proof.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I hear that worked out well in Iraq.
My son, I welcome you to into the fold of scientology.
ALL HAIL XENU.
You can't draw conclusions from a single data point. You can only speculate. Which is what you are doing. Illogically, I might add.
So the grand canyon had to be as old as it was to accept the ant? Your thesis assumes that humans are the only sentient beings out there, or are at least the first. There is no evidence of that. It's nothing more than a wild assumption at this point.
Well, all things exist within the Universe, by definition, even if they are outside of physical reality.
Also, one should not confuse the word eternal with unending. One could set sail on a ship and sail the seas forever, that doesn't mean that the sea is infinite in extent. Time and space are probably the same way, and other curious things probably exist over and above reality as we see it (but still within the definition of "the Universe").
Just because an ant crawls into the Grand Canyon doesn't mean that that is the smallest space that it can fit into, or that if it were any smaller, it couldn't get inside.
Our universe lays somewhere inside of a (not necessarily congruous) set of potential circumstances that could support life. That is not to say that other universes exist in that range, however. It's sort of like how Earth is within a "habitable zone" around the sun. There aren't other Earths at every value within that zone.
Invisible angels are a lot more complex than mutual gravitation.
Wow, you have no idea what you are talking about. Ben Bernanke himself accepted that the Fed caused the Great Depression. The Fed was founded in 1913.
Hoover is often (mistakenly) blamed for allowing the Depression to take hold due to his "laissez-faire" economics when in fact he started many of the interventionist programs that FDR took credit for (and which prolonged what should have been a two or three year correction into a decade of depression). The largest of these was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which provided government secured loans to financial institutions (sound familiar?), railroads, and farmers. It had no positive effect, and only acted as a drain on the treasury. Doing such a thing today is simply going to bankrupt us, because we have no money. Hoover's critics misattributed one of his economic advisors opinions to Hoover himself, and the banks perpetuated the lies because the regulations keep out competition. It's just an urban legend perpetuated by those in power. I would suggest you read the Wikipedia article on the subject to educate yourself.
Before the FDIC, banks were free to fail, and such failures posed little systemic risk, but now we have a system where, should a large number of bank failures occur, the GOVERNMENT will collapse, because it will have printed the dollar into oblivion to pay back all the depositors. Bank runs are bad, sure, but they are better than tying the whole system up under one umbrella. It takes away much of the incentive for banks to safeguard their deposits, because the government is there to bail them out. But the government can only do so much before it collapses the dollar with excessive printing.
The fact is that while there were "depressions" before the Fed came into existence (today they would be called recessions), all of the worst economic times have come during their reign (or during times of war at home). They created the business cycle by manipulating interest rates. They created the booms, and they created the busts. They think they have the power to control the market, but they don't. They do have the terrible power to tax every dollar in existence through inflation, though.
A dollar today buys well under 4% of what it bought in 1913, when the bankers seized power. Seems pretty crappy, doesn't it? It has left us with a system where no-one knows that they are being taxed, they just feel the pain when they go to buy groceries. Inflation is the most regressive tax there is, as it equally effects every dollar, whether you are rich or poor. People have to constantly scratch for raises to keep up.
It's not a good system. It's all going to crumble, probably before the next election (nothing to do with who is in office, though).
I'm not short treasuries, but I am long gold, which is the only investment really worth making at this point. Anyone who is short treasuries is certain to be blamed for their eventual collapse, and they'll likely get hit with punitive measures by a faltering government. Gold on the other hand is both depressed in value, immune to inflationary pressure, and has no counterparty risk.
If you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. Enjoy your bread lines. Just because some things are different now doesn't mean that past events are irrelevant, or that we can't learn any useful lessons from them. Hell, modern military has changed more than almost any other aspect of life, yet West Point cadets still learn about the tactics of Alexander the Great.
If you don't like the Roman Empire analogy, try a car analogy instead. You buy a nice new car and drive it for a while. You never change the oil. Everyone tells you "You need to change the oil or the car is going to break down". Your response? "It's never broken down before." Well, one of these days, you're going to be calling AAA to drag off your $20000 paperweight. Just because something hasn't happened before (or even happened recently), doesn't mean it won't happen again.
How on Earth can you say that the 1929 crash doesn't matter? They did the exact same things we are doing today, the same policies that lead to a decade of depression. The government actually had money backed by gold then, what do we have now? Money backed by debt, and a further ten trillion dollar "official" debt plus another
Your hubris will be your downfall. I'll gladly be waiting to pick the pockets of your corpse, and those of others like you (financially speaking, of course).
I've got to admit that would be pretty cool.
I can't even imagine the energy requirements for vaporizing large chunks of metal. It should be pretty easy to separate the elements using a big quadrapole or so, which would connect to collection tubes at the strike points for each type of ion.
Well, if you divide all the big religions up into their respective subcategories (Sunni vs Shia, Catholic vs Methodist, etc), you'd probably find that Atheism is by far the largest cogent belief system.
Of course, it's still just a plurality, far from a majority, but you can't say that we are outnumbered by those who believe in God, because none of them can actually agree on what they believe. They all think that everyone else but their little group is wrong (for the most part, those who don't aren't particularly consistent in their beliefs though).
1. I think you didn't take into account that the government was quite wealthy in 1929. Now we are trillions in debt (some estimates point as high as 100 trillion in future liabilities).
2. Define wealth. I would say that wealth is having money that does work for you. We don't have any real money (just imaginary money in the form of derivatives--multiple quadrillions of them). Instead we have debt, which we have to work just to maintain (something like half of your income tax dollars go to paying interest on the national debt). Further, our money itself is inherently worthless, as it is backed purely by debt.
3. So what? The Roman Empire never collapsed, until it did. The amount of debt we have vs. GDP has NEVER been paid back in the history of the world. We don't have manufacturing capability any more, so there is no way to offset our debt through trade. Even were we to sell our technology to the highest bidder, it wouldn't come close to paying down what we owe. Is the US "too big to fail"? In reality, there is no such thing. Institutions that are "too big to fail" only exist in the tiny little minds of those we have (foolishly) elected as our representatives, yet who act expressly against our wishes (90% of people were against it).
4. The largest buyer of US bonds is the Federal Reserve. They are buying like there is no tomorrow with money that they create from thin air. They are exchanging worthless paper for worthless paper, with interest calculated in more worthless paper. No one save perhaps a few other (collusive) central banks is buying US treasuries.
5. I would suggest that you hang yourself, rather than throwing yourself off the top of a building when you find your money and assets have all vaporized. The splatter makes an awful mess.
The fact is, you fail to take into account just how DIFFERENT things are now. The whole economy is interconnected, so the ENTIRE WORLD will be in a depression, rather than just certain markets (western markets in the 30's, Japan in the 90's). Back then, outside markets could come in and buy up assets with the cash they had from their own market booms. This will not happen this time. It's like we have harmonized a bunch of waveforms. This time, instead of subtle vibrations, they will be in tune with each other and shake the world to its foundations.
Monoculture inevitably leads to extinction, and we have developed an almost perfect financial monoculture on this planet. Just because we haven't collapsed yet doesn't mean we aren't going to.
I would think that they could send it to a refinery, or have one built on site. If they could separate out the precious metals from electronics, that might provide enough income by itself to make it economical.
It liberates more energy than it consumes, mainly from carbon-carbon bonds. If you collect the metals and other by-products, you just makes some extra profit. The hydrogen won't last very long, as water is far more stable.
It'd take quite a powerful plasma to vaporize metal, though. I wonder how they will handle it (or stuff like silicone or minerals, which are already about as stable as they are going to get). My guess is it just sits in the reaction chamber, and they have to clean it out every so often.
Great White or Tiger?
You can't give away your freedom.
Maybe I missed something, but how is this impressive?
Considering that there are commercial cameras on the market that have resolutions of 50+ megapixels for "just" $40,000 (not much for professional scientists or astronomers). It seems like a fairly simple thing to modify for use in the UV spectrum (maybe that's the part we are supposed to be impressed with?).
Perhaps they meant gigapixels?
I don't think there is anywhere they could move that would have a LESS tolerant reception, so it doesn't really matter if they move. It can only stay about the same or get better.
Unless you're European.
The "g" was lower case, so I can only assume he was referring to Apollo, or perhaps Thor.
Although why he's asking characters from popular Scifi Channel series to bless them is beyond me.
I bought a TV on the cheap from an option, but I took it home and found out that the V-chip was enabled, and I have no idea how to disable it.
:(
Even worse, I don't have a remote for it, so I couldn't access the functionality even if I knew how to use it.
Basically, no late night Comedy Central or Adult Swim in my bedroom.