Comment Re:China? (Score 1) 131
And Russia. And the Ukraine.
You misunderstand what a sunken cost is and why it matters. How much we have already spent has NO bearing on whether we should continue to spend more. That money is gone and it isn't coming back. It doesn't matter AT ALL that the project isn't finished. All financing decisions are made for projects that haven't completed yet. It's not different if it is research or if it is manufacturing a product or digging for ore. The payoff for all of these activities is uncertain. Research is more uncertain than many other activities but the basic process of deciding whether to continue to invest in research is identical.
Almost all (rational) financing decisions for any project are made on a forward looking probabilistic basis. We estimate the cost and benefits of the project and we guess at the probability of success given what we know. If the project is a failure or probable failure based on *currently known* information, then you do not continue to spend on it. If the prospects are such that there remains a reasonable chance of success in the future then you continue to invest. In either case what happened in the past is irrelevant to the decision to continue to invest more.
Think of it a bit like playing a hand of poker. You do not have perfect information about what will happen so you bet based on what you know and the probabilities of a positive outcome. Your decision to stay in a hand should in no way be influenced by what you have already bet. If the odds are against you then it makes sense to get out and cut your loses. If the odds are in your favor then it makes sense to stay in the hand. Either way the information that determines how you play the hand isn't dependent on what you've already bet.
I'm an accountant with a degree in finance. Doing this sort of analysis is part of what I do for a living.
Were you trying to imply narcotics trade or something like that?
That is merely one of the possible options. There are countries where you cannot legally do certain activities that have nothing to do with narcotics trafficking. For instance in some countries it is illegal to exchange the local currency for dollars because the government is trying to control the money supply. I said they were doing something illegal and that can mean many things.
That's my backhanded way of saying you are wrong. In place such as Argentina, there can be a lot of risk in exchanging dollars under one of the "cambio" signs, and the fees can be quite stiff.
So they ARE doing something illegal and I was right.
I do hope that the congress critters redirect at least some of the funds towards US based non-tokamak alternatives which have struggled to get funding in light of the giant sucking sound that is ITER.
Which "alternatives" are worthy of greater funding? (credible alternatives mind you) I think fusion research is hugely important but its unclear to me what worthy research is being starved of funds by ITER. If an idea has real merit it typically doesn't have too much difficulty getting funded so I find it surprising that you think there is some worthwhile project that would obviously work if only it had more money. That's the sales pitch a scam usually makes.
Assume that the remaining members of ITER are successful before they are bled dry. Do you honestly think that any commercial venture will exclude customers in non-ITER countries?
Customers? No. But being a customer isn't where the biggest economic benefit lies. A successful project would have a lot of technology that would be controlled by those who contributed. Like any investment, the biggest rewards usually go the the folks who were involved at the earliest stages and stuck with it.
Better that the US pay a premium on each reactor built (assuming that someday ever happens) than to continue to pour money down a hole today.
I disagree. Iit is unclear if ITER is a money pit but let's assume for the moment that it is not. In those circumstances it is definitely NOT better that the US pay a premium for the technology. The premiums that would be paid would be enormous. On the other hand if ITER is simply a research project with the usual unclear future benefits, then it still makes sense to invest as long as the money is available to do so, which it is if we want it to be. The only cases where it clearly makes sense to get out is if it is obviously a dead end, if there is a clearly better alternative or if we simply cannot afford it. Neither of those are clearly true here. We might have other priorities for the money but the US certainly can afford it and it isn't at all clear if the research is a dead end. Might be but that case does not appear to be at all conclusive.
Besides, I'd rather pour money into a dead end fusion project and hope for some spinoff benefits than buy yet another aircraft carrier that we really don't need.
"This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was," Sandberg said. "It was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you."
This is identical to saying "I don't know what we did that upset you but whatever it was I apologize". They don't get it. It basically means that they are going to continue treating their users as insects to be experimented upon and lack the moral compass to understand why what they did was wrong. The fact that they ran an experiment is fine in principle but HOW you do it matters. We insist that academic researchers run their psychology experiments by a review board and when necessary get informed consent. It's not a hard thing to do and we do it for very good reasons. Facebook has not presented any plausible reason we should hold them to a different standard.
I'm very glad I do not have a facebook account and at this point I doubt I ever will. This is simply not a company I care to be involved with any closer than I have to be.
Seems a little odd to have gone this far and then bow out.
Depends on what you believe the prospects of the project to be. If you think that ITER may result in some worthwhile advances at some point then you are right that it would be odd to bow out now. However if you are less sure then any money spent to this point is a sunk cost and further investment would just be throwing good money after bad. The fallacy most people tend to make is "well I've spent so much already I have to see it through" which is not rational. The money has already been spent so the only question worth asking is whether future expenditures will get the result you want for a price tag you can live with. How much has already been spent is irrelevant. The money is gone and cannot be recovered regardless of the future prospects of the project. Any future investment in the project needs to be done on a forward looking basis.
Personally I don't really know enough about ITER to really make an informed judgement about whether it is sensible research project or not. However I suspect more good will come out of it than from buying a few more bombers even if the project ultimately fails so I'd say get the money out of the defense department's budget. We spend too much on the military as it is.
Yes, but who owns the patents?
Probably Monsanto...
On the other hand, if you shut down the coal plant, and use the PV panels to generate the same amount of electricity, you've saved all 10 units.
Except we aren't going to shut down the coal plants any time soon and we do not presently have the ability to use PV panels to replace it. There is NO energy scenario for the next 40 years which does not involve substantial amounts of burning fossil fuels, including coal. Even if we reduce the amount of coal used and thus reduce CO2 emissions, why would we not reduce them further (even if only a little) by other means if those means are economically viable? Your point is valid theoretically but it's a bit of a strawman.
There's no point at removing a small amount of CO2 if you continue to add 10 times the amount somewhere else.
Sure there is. It keeps you from adding 11 times the CO2. Granted you could accomplish more by getting rid of whatever is adding the CO2 but that doesn't make this a futile endeavor. Furthermore if we eventually are going to need CO2 scrubbing technology to survive then we may as well get busy developing it now. This strikes me as the sort of technology we don't want to start thinking about after climate change gets out of hand.
Seriously, I love hearing that. Not everybody deserves to be a Bitcoin early adopter.
"Deserves"? How precious that you think yourself so clever. You go ahead and put your money on the bitcoin roulette wheel. I'm going to put mine in investments that actually do something productive and are a lot more predictable as well. Maybe you'll get lucky and exchange rates will move in your favor... but I doubt it. Your odds are better in Vegas frankly.
I know a couple folks who don't have the option of using US dollars thanks to their governments. They are doing a substantial amount of business in bitcoin instead.
In other words that is a backhanded way of saying they are doing something illegal. I've been all over the world including to places where they don't allow free exchange of the local currency into dollars (like China). It is NEVER a problem to do business in dollars. In fact in places where the local currency is a bit shaky (like Vietnam) they actually generally prefer to do business in dollars.
Bitcoin frees people from trying to operate in a modern market economy with weak currencies.
No it does not. A currency that is "weak" is a relative valuation of exchange compared with other currencies. Weak does not (necessarily) equal bad. A "weak" currency benefits exporters and hurts importers. China has purposely been keeping their currency weak for some time now to facilitate their manufacturing exports. Whether bitcoin is "strong" or "weak" depends entirely on what you are comparing it with. (Never mind the fact that bitcoin is ridiculously volatile which doesn't help either) Furthermore unless you plan to actually hold bitcoins instead of using them as a fancy money order spending little time holding them, the relative strength of bitcoin as a currency is irrelevant.
With the help of Vaurum and this newly purchased bitcoin, we expect to be able to create new services that can provide liquidity and confidence to markets that have been hamstrung by weak currencies.
What a load of malarkey. Bitcoin is no where near stable enough nor widely accepted enough to serve this function.
Of course, no one is totally secure in holding their own country’s currency.
I'll take my chances with the US dollar thanks. I trust it FAR more than I do bitcoin.
This isn't a monitor, it's a TV.
A distinction without much of a difference these days. I can pipe my TiVO or my laptop through either a TV or a monitor with basically the same results and using the same HDMI cable. The screen resolution is identical (1920x1080) either way.
And burn-in is an issue if you have a plasma TV
Not if you turn it off when you aren't watching it.
I find the problem happens when you're watching Netflix and the show ends and you are off doing something else
Either you are watching Netflix or you are off doing something else. You cannot be doing both. If you are doing something else, turn the TV off if it cannot do it without you. Not seeing anything in your argument I feel inclined to sympathize with. There is no excuse for any TV sold in the last 10+ years to not have reliable power saving equipment. There also is no real excuse for people being lazy about turning it off when they aren't using it.
Isn't it obvious?
No not really. Reliable power save capability should be a built in feature of every TV sold. In fact it should be a mandatory feature. This is the very definition of low hanging fruit when it comes to conservation of energy.
The devices outputting screensavers can't turn off the screen in most cases, that's why.
Sounds like a problem with the TV, not the device. I know some people (like me) have old TVs but there really is no excuse for any TV sold in the last 15 years to not have the ability to power off the screen. I understand what you are saying but I'm not terribly sympathetic to the "plight" of those who leave their TV on when they aren't watching it.
The moon is made of green cheese. -- John Heywood
