Comment Re:Happy Father's Day from The Golden Girls (Score 1) 466
That's not cosmonaut, it's confidant. None of the gals was Russian AFAIK, and probably none of them had been higher than a commercial airliner normally flies.
That's not cosmonaut, it's confidant. None of the gals was Russian AFAIK, and probably none of them had been higher than a commercial airliner normally flies.
FTA:
If the best-case outcome is just 0.03% extra growth per year, is TAFTA/TTIP worth the massive upheavals it will require to both US and EU regulatory systems to achieve that?"
Those "massive upheavals" are precisely what makes the effort worthwile in the minds of the legislators and negotiators responsible. Just think of how much opportunity there is here for consultants, contractors, family members, and other corporate and governmental parasites and hangers-on. No, it's not going to boost the overall economy - probably quite the opposite. And no, it's not going to result in jobs where they're needed - it's going to result in extra money and bigger power bases for people who already have too big a slice of the pie. Make no mistake, it's the globalization of nepotism - only in this case, the 'family' is 'the 0.1%' It probably isn't that way by design, (though maybe it is), but you can bet the people who are and will be involved see the opportunity and are happy about it.
FIle under underwhelming slashvertisment?
Amen to that! The 'slashvertisement' thought occurred to me about half way through reading TFS. Talking about technical innovations, production problems, bugs, or relevant regulations would be appropriate. Talking about how Tesla is engaging in the sleazy practices that have been the hallmark of its entire industry for decades? Not so much...
and what is the latest news in the prenda soap series ?...
This seems to be the latest: http://www.jdjournal.com/2014/...
I agree with much of what you've said, and you stated it reasonably and eloquently. However, there is one part I would change:
As it stands, their rejection of the principles behind that license is shared by the politicians for whom they paid, the judges who were appointed by said politicians, and a large enough percentage of the anaesthetized-and-spell-bound-by-bread-and-circuses voting population that their concept of data ownership continues to be the way things are done.
I think it's important to recognize that things are the way they are at least in part because politicians and laws are sold to the highest bidder, and because a large portion of the electorate is too clueless, uncritical, self-absorbed, or otherwise distracted to care.
This sounds so prohibitively expensive to build and maintain that I don't see how any energy gained from the solar panels makes it worth it, especially since they are going to be covered by cars for a large portion of the time.
Please explain how this is better than asphalt?
From the Solar Roadways FAQ:
Since our system is modular, repair will be much quicker and easier than our current maintenance system for asphalt roads. We've learned that in the U.S., over $160 billion is lost each year in lost productivity from people sitting in traffic due to road maintenance.
What they're saying is that between reduced cost of paving, filling potholes, etc, and the reduced loss of productivity that results from less construction/maintenance, the system should pretty much pay for itself. (Also, it might make sens to factor in reduced healthcare costs and legal costs from fewer accidents as a result of better nighttime visibility, etc).
Initially the cost will probably be huge, especially accounting for the 'things they don't know they don't know' that will bite them during initial deployments. But I think in the end it will be a net economic benefit, especially since it's also an opportunity in many cases to bury vulnerable overhead lines, install additional data communications backbones, and possibly even reduce carbon footprints significantly. Besides 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' - big ideas like this are how civilization advances.
From the Solar Roadways FAQ:
We designed our prototype to use 'virtual storage', meaning that any excess energy is placed back to the grid during daylight hours and then can be drawn back out of the grid at night. This is important as solar energy is only available during the day, but our heating elements need to have power at night in the wintertime in northern climates for snowy weather. However, we can add any current or future energy storage devices to our system. For instance, batteries and flywheels can be placed in the Cable Corridor for easy access, if customers wish to incorporate them. We chose to not use batteries in our prototype system. We fear that, if we make that the norm, our environmental project could leave mountains of lead acid battery in its wake."
Because solar roads will be on the electrical grid as both producers and consumers, the net effect is that roads and parking lots that aren't under snow cover, (because they've been plowed already, or because they're in a snowless region), provide power to offset that used to melt snow on roads that do have snow falling on them. Yes, this means that the snow melting capability will only be significant when the total road surface area 'paved' with these cells reaches a certain critical point - as with so many things economy of scale plays a role.
If we're really serious about this, governments and health agencies need to offer a variety of vaccines for a given disease, with different adjuvants, egg-free versions, etc, to accomodate those who have a nasty reaction to the most popular formulations. Then, offer people the choice between vaccine and quarantine.
Then again, this world is getting awfully overpopulated, and maybe we're due for another major culling, cold-hearted and horrible as that may sound...
The more important question is: Why would you develop for FirefoxOS in the first place?
I dunno - maybe because you want to see a more free, more open mobile OS that you have more control over? One that Google doesn't have a zillion hooks into? One that offers the user more control over the permissions that apps are granted?
Asking "why would you develop for firefox", (as opposed to Android, Apple, or whatever), is kind of like asking why one would develop for Linux as opposed to Windows.
I think advertisers are shooting themselves in the foot with this, I have recently noticed just don't believe a word any of them say anymore...
What I think a lot of people are missing is that individual advertisments don't need to work, (in the way that they are no longer working on you), in order for advertising itself to work.
Advertising establishes its own culture and its own set of expectations. It creates its own zeitgeist, one in which consumerism is the 'ism' of the century. One only needs to hear about young women starving themselves to death to be fashionable, or obese people eating themselves to death on fast food, or people ending up bankrupt buying shit they patently don't need in order to be happy and fulfilled, to realize that advertising works big time.
Advertising is the umbrella propaganda organization under which all consumer-oriented corporations operate. If one advertiser's ads fail for him, chances are they are working for some other company, (perhaps even a nominal competitor), and vice versa. If one ad doesn't getcha, another probably will - if it doesn't induce you to buy a specific product, it probably at least makes you more likely to buy something at some point in time. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this was the plan all along, while my rational side says that things just evolved this way.
In either case, if advertising didn't work, it would have died out long ago.
...even if they would only be using Firefox, Thunderbird and LibreOffice...
I just finished installing Debian Wheezy with XFCE4 on the laptop of a friend whose usage pretty much fits this description, and she loves it. (She *hated* Win 7 but quite liked WinXP). Personally I stay away from Ubuntu because, as I understand it, an upgrade is somewhat more painful than it is for Debian. So if you're interested in Linux Mint, you might want to try Linux Mint Debian Edition, (LMDE), as it has the slickness of Mint but maintains rolling releases.
The supply of money is completely independent of the economics of trading.
If a cow is worth 4 goats, changing the monetary price of a cow to 3 dollars or 300,000 dollars or 25 bazillion lira changes nothing about the trading situation. A goat is still worth one-fourth of a cow. If cows die off and become scarcer and more valuable, then they might end up being worth 10 goats but notice that is COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT of the "value" of our money.
Money is merely a tracking device.
Money is also a storage device. If I trade my cow for 4 goats today when I could have gotten 5 goats for it next week, I've lost out. But if I trade my cow for money today and hold the money, then I can buy 4 goats next week, have money left over to buy something else, and have the savings that come from not having had to feed and care for the cow for a week. Of course it could also go the other way - I could lose on the transaction. And this is how stock markets are supposed to work, for better or worse.
But that storage medium makes room for all kinds of middle men, and ultimately gives rise to all sorts of ways to game the system. And because so much money is paid to people who have added little or no value to the system, or who in fact have taken value out of the sytem, a large percentage of 'legal' tender might as well be counterfeit.
Money makes assets and liabilities more fluid, more portable, and easier to hide. It introduces both efficiencies and inefficiencies, and it causes different market sectors to be much more interdependent on each other than they otherwise would. So, no, money is not "merely a tracking device".
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire
