We've never had a free market. Our ancestors back 150 years ago may have, I don't know-- it's hard to describe "free" when slaves are also part of that market.

But what we have had is a regulated market, which tends to evolve into a fascist market.

Regulated markets are not free. Patent law, copyright,are aspects of regulation. They were enacted for the benefit of king's friends, and not for the benefit of either producers or consumers.

I don't know if a free market is even possible, as great as the demand for slaves is in the human psyche. However, I do take offense at people using the current American Fascism as proof that free markets don't work. Especially since they are the same people who continually prevent free markets from ever being tried.

Simply say, "I don't want you to have a free market because it scares me to not have slaves" and be done with it. Or say, "I profit from the current lack of freedom. Get back to work and shut up." But cut the malarky about âoeWe tried letting the slaves choose whether to hoe or shuck, and it proves freedom doesn't work."

The proof that you have no concept of what freedom is, is that you use that word so much.

It's not just Amazon. Back about 1985, James Madison University's associated hospital got a "cancer center". By 1988, the hospital had tripled in size. By 1992, I saw cancer centers at hospitals throughout the state. By 1998, most hospitals had tripled in size.
    Then the other specialist centers started popping up.

But it's also in education. It's in research. It's in banking. It's in central banking. It's in real estate. It's in investment houses. It's in computer software.

And yes, it HAS metastasized.

Let me name it for what it is: chesterton professionalism. When justice fails, then people learn that they can get paid only for doing the opposite of their job, and holding society hostage. When each group learns how to do that, then they take over thir profession, and the cancer has just spread to another organ.

It

If you can get fusion, you don't need to worry about losing the protein. Suppose you have a protein shaped like your chest, with your two arms tied behind your back with a highly unstable bond in the tie. In each hand is a hydrogen atom ball. You enzymatically manufacture the proteins cold, you raise the temperature until the bonds start bursting and driving the nuclei together, and in one out of ten thousand of them you get tunneling fusion... it's good enough.

No, robotic taxis will monetize the poor the same way they do now: by licensing only a limited number of companies to operate the taxis. Today, that mans that Joe Schmoe, who wants to be a taxi driver, has to rent his taxi at a hundred dollars a day from a taxi company that doesn't drive, doesn't properly repair, doesn't upkeep its vehicles.

That keeps him poor, and the prices high, and the other poor poor.

Do the same thing with robotic taxis, and you simply have locked down the poor with yet another set of shackles.

The GP really did have it right.

I'm all for exploring ideas that are energy-economically feasible, as well as potentially resource-econemically feasible.

However, I really think that the cold-fusion idea was killed by stupidity prematurely, and --no offense -- I think that for those who want to work on a cheap fusion alternative, they should look at protein-folding to see if there is a way to get nuclei momentarily within a reasonable tunnelling cross section.

Point being, they could work on their protein folding designs on a computer to their heart's content. Then, if they do find something interesting, they can publish that as a theoretical protein model for cold-fusion purposes. Get THAT accepted, and one can then work on DNA recombination to develop the thing.

The epitome of word processing was achieved a generation befor that, with PC-Write.

It could do underline, and italics, and real text characters!

Really, I think it was far better than wordstar, and even better than write-now. In any case,it was better for programming and could handle word processing okay.

Ethical simply means following a consistent ethic (rule). So "I steal everything I can, and some I can't" is immoral, but ethical as long as that is the rule you consistently follow.

Which is why I hate the use of the word "ethical" in our society. It's a lie.

Bill Clinton was our most ethical president ever.

And if anyone didn't know ahead of time what was going to happen to whistleblowers with "the most transparent administration ever", they didn't understand the meaning of "transparent".

Hint: I absolutely despise modern language.

Get better efficiency for your solar dollar. Use solar driven steam turbines. Or go with wind power. Sun heats air, air makes wind, wind turns windmill. Or go one better if you're a country like Indonesia: use wave power. Sun heats air, air makes wind, wind pushes wave, wave powers wave mill. That for the short term, perhaps. More bang for the same buck. Solar panels are very material- and energy-intensive for the total solar dollar, and the debris is not terribly useful and somewhat toxic.

I don't know that anyone thinks lead caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. I think it is attributed as 'one of many factors'. I think the more immediate cause of the downfall of the Roman Empire, was the invasion of the Huns, who conquered one germanic tribe, took their land, and promised them freedom if they would then conquer the next tribe over, for them. This triggered a cascade of refugees, of which the Vandals came to Northern Italy, starving. The Senate voted to tell them 'come halfway to Rome, stop, and we will give you humanitarian aid' [food]. They then gave the contract for the food to a senator who was expected to embezzle most of the money. He embezzled it all, and the Vandals went through the whole Roman empire looking for food, and picking up slaves who walked away from their jobs to join the Vandals. Thus, the Empire lost its labor force. After that, since it still was the crown jewel for despots, it got conquered continuously.

Kindof like Iraq, kindof like Poland, Kindof like Lithuania, kindof like what'll happen to Russia, kindof like what's happening to the US.

oh, and ---- almost forgot.

No, monuments weren't first introduced to later Rome with concrete. Nor were big buildings. Come to think of it, nor were concrete buildings. All of that long predated Rome.

Horrible article. Fine slashdot fare, if I ever saw it.

It would be better to say, "the fall of Rome was caused by the introduction of Slashdot. Polling shows that..."

Boy, this makes me feel so good about not working for NASA. People all the time used to say I ought to work there, and I didn't have a good reply. But I'd do better in industry, I think.

Umm, Nice troll.

I'm sure that a nobel - Physics prizewinner who invented quantum chromodynamics for quark analysis knows statistics.

In fact, as we saw with the Challenger, the failure of one booster was enough to destroy the vehicle. The boosters were not redundant, and nowhere close to identical, especially since in the rocket design of that era, the ablation rates at any point in the solid-fuel rocket booster tended to be faster where it had progressed more.

I remember working on an experiment where they wanted to test the aerodynamics within a scalloped shape interior, in 1987, that was related to that problem.

Not to overly criticrise your analogy, but I prefer nonfiction to fiction in my decision-making process.

This is a good analysis of NASA. It's a good oldie, but people should read it more often.

I would note that it was valid then, when it was written, it was valid when Columbia fell apart, and it is valid now.

And it is an EXCELLENT reason why Nasa shouldn't be messing with asteroid capture. Fortunately, it is more likely that our country will be glowing embers, than that NASA will see this accomplished. And I view that glowing embers bit as a negative, brought about by similar egos by similar wackos in OTHER government offices (including Putin's Russia).

But yes, I am very glad that other problems are likely to make this problem a moot point.

You know, Harrisonburg Va has been a boom town even through the umm-- not-quite-a-recession-but-worse-than a-depression.

Part of it is the mennonite agriculture. Part of it is being the farthest beltway bandit. But a major part of it is that the electricity is so cheap, and electricity is a majsor factor for businesses. The city sits at one of the power nodes, and the city electricity is provided by Harrisonburg Electric Co-op, which bids on the power as it comes off the main lines. It makes the electricity for HEC significantly cheaper, and they in turn pass the savings on to the consumer. You won't find that at DOM.com. Or Potomac Electric.

Anyhow, that was the point of the clearinghouse bit.

Maybe you're right, and my pat answer is a bit simplistic, too much so to work. However, the Grandparent's pat answer was deliberately moreso, and was trying to argue that 'when I want to go slave-raiding, just look the other way, okay?'

And my answer is a version of, 'no, I think we should cut [corporate] slave raiders into little pieces first.'

As a free market fan, I absolutely favor privatizing their state -supported industry. Let the entire network be split up into parallel systems, give every residental owner an equal number of credits towards buying the stock of any particular line, set up a transmission bidding clearinghouse, and let everyone with credits bid on the stock. Then, with the profits already pocketed by the electric companies, turn around and install MORE parallel networks wherever there isn't much of a choice, and let the public bid with cash on those. Then with those proceeds, rinse and repeat.

Or maybe you don't agree?

I understand that some think that free market means that we first use the government to nationalize competitors, create a monopoly, then privatize the nationalized institutions, and give them to the wealthiest bidders, which are the monopolies.

Is that your definition of free market? If so, I'll let you know that as a conservative I haven't voted Republican in twenty years.

You can't do that, unless you can figure out how to make and file TWO resumes. Different ones, I mean.

Man, these data scientists are all pipe dreams.