Re: shuttle disaster
Alex Malinovich wrote: On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 14:11, Pigeon wrote: And apparently Delaware's department of transportation is either stupid or insane or both... http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing%20and%20marking.revised---V-1-12.gif [fixed the URL] You know, I was perfectly content ignoring this thread for a while now, but now I just HAVE to join in. Judging by the URL, I'm guessing that this was a PROPOSED sign idea and not an IMPLEMENTED one. That sign is absolutely asinine. I can easily see John Q. Rural, having never seen a roundabout before, running into cars while trying to make a left turn! To think that this image even exists is giving me reason enough to never visit Delaware! :) Yeah, it is pretty bad, but I think it's worth looking at the document it came from: http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing%20and%20marking.revised---V-1.htm but not all the images load on the first attempt (at least in Phoenix - I did a right-click View Image and then back again). (a usable URL too) These images are far more encouraging: http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing%20and%20marking.revised---V-1-9.gif http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing%20and%20marking.revised---V-1-4.gif -- David P. James 4th Year Economics Student Queen's University Kingston, Ontario http://members.rogers.com/dpjames/ The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. -Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek IV -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Em Dom, 2003-02-09 às 09:32, Paul Johnson escreveu: On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 05:01:22AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: I'm not entirely convinced of this, to be honest with you. If we were talking the RA and RCA in northern Europe, you're right. But even then, the RCA and RA was leading us into battle (not that this is a bad thing, the RA is more local and probaly had a slightly better idea of the local geography than the American and RCA soldiers did). By RA, you mean RAF? Royal Army, not Air Force. (Side note, Royal Canadian Air Farce is damn funny.) All during the CW, the French steered a much more independant military course, having their own, non-integrated nuclear policy, and not being fully integrated into NATO. Hence bombing whales with nukes in the mid-Atlantic clear into the 1990s. WTF?? Thier nuclear testing program by detonating nuclear devices underwater was killing whales with the concussions. Was in the South Pacific, too hot for whales. Michel. -- Michel Loos [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster (Socrates)
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 04:57:28PM +, Colin Watson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 11:26:44AM -0500, Mike M wrote: In America, we say, Those who can, do. Those that can't, teach. An interesting retcon. That's a quote from George Bernard Shaw, an Irishman, who also said: Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. yeah, well, we repossessed his 1939 rolls royce not too long ago (from a down-on-his-luck car collector). :) http://pix.dontuthink.com/1939RollsRoyceGeorgeBernardShaw/ -- I use Debian/GNU Linux version 3.0; Linux server 2.4.20-k6 #1 Mon Jan 13 23:49:14 EST 2003 i586 unknown DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #82 from USM Bish [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Want to SEE INSIDE A *.DEB FILE? Try this: dpkg -x foo.deb This unpacks the .deb file, and gives you a file called data.tar.gz which holds the contents. To look into this file: tar -tzf file.tar.gz | pager Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 04:21:55PM -0500, Geordie Birch wrote: And I can spend my Canadian dollars in Canada, but good luck trying to get rid of them in a town like Arcata California, or Berkeley even. US dollars on the other hand can be used with no problems in many small retail outlets in Canada. Big liquidity difference between the two. Though, more often than not, the small retail outlets will bone you on the exchange rate so American currency spends at around the same value as Canadian currency, and then go profit off the difference themselves. You pay for the convienence of not having to walk to the Canada Trust, Royal Bank or Toronto Dominion on the corner and get something closer to wholesale exchange for yourself. Just because American money does spend overseas doesn't mean it spends well or is the brightest way to pay for something. An aside: I recently exchanged some $US for $CDN at a bank in Vancouver and received a small amount of US currency back in exhange for itself. Only in Canada. No, that's typically how retail exchange rates work anywhere in the world. Find an ATM and use that when you need cash, instead of changing bills at banks, or change only small amounts ($40?) at a time, so when you leave the country, you're not stuck with a lot of what home considers really stylish Monopoly money and strange looking subway tokens. You'll get Canadian currency at wholesale withdrawn from your account and put into your hand. A check-card is invaluable for the same reasons, and if where your shopping takes Interac (nearly every business in Canada does), you're almost gauranteed to be able to use an ATM card with pin number. No, I'm not sure what currency the ATM is talking about when it reads off your account balance, either, I've yet to figure this one out, and I don't think what currency it's showing your balance in is consistant between banks. Why they don't tell you if you're looking at a US figure or a figure at the current Canadian exchange rate is beyond me. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29582/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 01:24:22AM -0500, Geordie Birch wrote: I thought so too, but no bank in Arcata would touch it if I didn't have an account. This was in 1995. What do you expect? It's a state that's been 0wnz3d by Wells Fargo, a bank known for screwing people attempting to use it's services in the proper coin of the realm. It doesn't help that all the other banks down there seem to be trying to play catchup on how badly they can screw thier customers to compete with Wells Fargo. I bank with Washington Mutual[1] (formerly Fred Meyer Saving and Loan), which offers unlimited free checking, free checks, free check card, free online banking, no charge for talking to a human teller, they'll let you overdraft up to $100 for free (more if your credit's good) and reasonable exchange rates. They also allow non-account-holders to do currency-to-currency transactions with a teller and use thier ATMs for free, and they won't charge account holders for using another bank's ATM (though the other bank might). [1] It's the anti-Fargo. They even promote themselves as much. This is not the reason I chose them, though, just a side perk. Why's this stage coach empty? You all robbers? No, ma'am, we're Californian! http://www.rodeograndmas.com/main.html -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29586/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 12:25:10AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: [re: Socialisation of airport security being a Good Thing(tm)] Either that, or rationalisation. It's usually synonymous, Canada is a prime example why (voted best country to live in seven years in a row by the United Nations isn't something America is likely to pull off considering how hostile and extortionist private industry is to the common man). Who was it on (another part of this huge thread) that was complaining about the balooning Federal deficit (partly because of the TSA), and how Bush 43rd was so evil? I'm not saying there weren't some fringe benefits, especially to the industry I work in, but it doesn't hide the fact the rest of his term has largely been a failure at home, and mixed at best abroad (and he's gotten himself in far enough now that no matter the outcome, even if he backs down, his foreign policy will be considered a failure). -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29588/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 00:24, Geordie Birch wrote: said Ron Johnson (on 2003-02-08), On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 15:21, Geordie Birch wrote: said David P James (on 2003-02-08), Travis Crump wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] And I can spend my Canadian dollars in Canada, but good luck trying to get rid of them in a town like Arcata California, or Berkeley even. US dollars on the other hand can be used with no problems in many small retail outlets in Canada. Big liquidity difference between the two. I'm sure that a Bank would exchange it for you. I thought so too, but no bank in Arcata would touch it if I didn't have an account. This was in 1995. I'm stunned, since I thought that currency exchange was part of a bank's duties. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 12:39:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: And at that, Canadian Forces are basically the British Forces but flying the Red Ensign instead. I took history from a US perspective, and I still see that the British more than held thier own. America If the US hadn't chipped in with more ships and long range bombers, all the valiant work of the RN RCN would hae come up short. I'm not entirely convinced of this, to be honest with you. If we were talking the RA and RCA in northern Europe, you're right. But even then, the RCA and RA was leading us into battle (not that this is a bad thing, the RA is more local and probaly had a slightly better idea of the local geography than the American and RCA soldiers did). All during the CW, the French steered a much more independant military course, having their own, non-integrated nuclear policy, and not being fully integrated into NATO. Hence bombing whales with nukes in the mid-Atlantic clear into the 1990s. I wonder if that's because (as I understand it) most Franch partisans during the war were communists, and many other French fell right in with the Nazis? http://www.bobfromaccounting.com/4_22_02/francesurrenders.html (The French are most ungrateful we twice hauled their arses out of the fire.) Well, my understanding is in World War II, when France practically opened thier doors to the Germans, most everyone said, Never mind the holocaust they want to bring with them, it's nice having some *sane* leadership around here for a change! -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29592/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 02:54, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 12:39:24AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: And at that, Canadian Forces are basically the British Forces but flying the Red Ensign instead. I took history from a US perspective, and I still see that the British more than held thier own. America If the US hadn't chipped in with more ships and long range bombers, all the valiant work of the RN RCN would hae come up short. I'm not entirely convinced of this, to be honest with you. If we were talking the RA and RCA in northern Europe, you're right. But even then, the RCA and RA was leading us into battle (not that this is a bad thing, the RA is more local and probaly had a slightly better idea of the local geography than the American and RCA soldiers did). By RA, you mean RAF? All during the CW, the French steered a much more independant military course, having their own, non-integrated nuclear policy, and not being fully integrated into NATO. Hence bombing whales with nukes in the mid-Atlantic clear into the 1990s. WTF?? -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 12:30:57AM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 01:24:22AM -0500, Geordie Birch wrote: I thought so too, but no bank in Arcata would touch it if I didn't have an account. This was in 1995. What do you expect? It's a state that's been 0wnz3d by Wells Fargo, a bank known for screwing people attempting to use it's services in the proper coin of the realm. It doesn't help that all the other banks down there seem to be trying to play catchup on how badly they can screw thier customers to compete with Wells Fargo. I bank with Washington Mutual[1] (formerly Fred Meyer Saving and Loan), which offers unlimited free checking, free checks, free check card, free online banking, no charge for talking to a human teller, they'll let you overdraft up to $100 for free (more if your credit's good) and reasonable exchange rates. They also allow non-account-holders to do currency-to-currency transactions with a teller and use thier ATMs for free, and they won't charge account holders for using another bank's ATM (though the other bank might). Last time I was in Arcata it had at least three or four banks that weren't Wells Fargo and one is a Washington Mutual. I don't recall if it was there in 1995 (I think not). That none would exchange currency with folks who aren't account holders isn't surprising. Arcata is behind the Redwood Curtain, 300 miles from anywhere and has a population less than 20,000 (and only that large due to the university). It's not exactly a hub of international commerce. The tellers could probably count the number of currency exchanges in any given year on one hand. When I was in some boony town halfway between Montreal and Quebec, the only restaurant wouldn't take my U.S. currency. Imagine that! And the dang menu was in French to boot. But, I didn't blame the proprietor for my lack of planning. I defy you to find something topical in this message or any of its predecessors in this thread. -- echo gra.fcw@2ztr eryyvZ .T pveR | rot13 | reverse -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: THE NAZIS DID IT!! (Re: shuttle disaster)
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 01:26:32AM -0800, John wrote: Now can this F**KING thread end? :) Intentional invocations don't count. You have to wait for it to come up in the course of conversation, which it's getting *dangerously* close to doing so already. I think it's going to take a master of debate to really get around getting tagged by it at this point; give it a few more hours or so. http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/godwin.faq http://ursine.dyndns.org/jargon/html/entry/Godwin's-Law.html If you've noticed, everything in this thread has stayed in this thread. Any real MUA, like mutt, has a thread-delete feature. You can also use the References as a good source of material for procmail rules. Technological solution to a social issue. And saying something's off-topic is off-topic in itself, so essentially, you're part of the problem, too. 8:oP -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29613/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 05:01:22AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: I'm not entirely convinced of this, to be honest with you. If we were talking the RA and RCA in northern Europe, you're right. But even then, the RCA and RA was leading us into battle (not that this is a bad thing, the RA is more local and probaly had a slightly better idea of the local geography than the American and RCA soldiers did). By RA, you mean RAF? Royal Army, not Air Force. (Side note, Royal Canadian Air Farce is damn funny.) All during the CW, the French steered a much more independant military course, having their own, non-integrated nuclear policy, and not being fully integrated into NATO. Hence bombing whales with nukes in the mid-Atlantic clear into the 1990s. WTF?? Thier nuclear testing program by detonating nuclear devices underwater was killing whales with the concussions. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29614/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 08:51, Ron Johnson wrote: On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 00:57, Gary Turner wrote: Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 10:32:10PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] From a logic class many years ago: All Volvo drivers are liberal, but not all liberals drive Volvos. Hey, I resent that!! If they still made 240s, and were affordable, I'd definitely still drive one. What's to stop you? Find a second-hand one. Our last one did 250,000 miles before it rusted across the bottom and had to be scrapped. The current one has done 120,000. We even bought one new once, and only sold it when it became too small to hold 5 growing children -- we had two in the extra rear-facing seat with their knees round their ears. But I can safely assert that the premise is false: not all Volvo drivers are liberals! (Now where else can this thread go?) -- Oliver Elphick[EMAIL PROTECTED] Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. Psalms 19:14 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 11:32, Paul Johnson wrote: By RA, you mean RAF? Royal Army, not Air Force. Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Marines but not Royal Army. It's just The Army or the British Army. Perhaps because each regiment has its separate traditions, whereas the navy and the air force were more centralised. -- Oliver Elphick[EMAIL PROTECTED] Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. Psalms 19:14 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 11:53:26AM -0600, DvB wrote: As far as essential goods, who decides this? The commonwealth of Pennsylvania currently (unless things have changed since I last heard) doesn't tax goods classified as foo and clothing. I support this despite the obvious drawback that people don't pay taxes on the purchase of designer clothing and caviar. Oregon lacks a general sales tax because there's no good way to make it not screw the poor, and Oregon has a lot of poor. Revenue that other states collect with sales tax instead come largely from property and income tax and the state lottery. The only items that have a sales tax are vices or luxuries, like tobacco, alcoholic beverages and gasoline. I remember reading about that somewhere. I think it's a very good idea, provided you can get the income from other sources (as Oregon appears to be doing without too much trouble). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: THE NAZIS DID IT!! (Re: shuttle disaster)
On Sun, 9 Feb 2003 03:29:19 -0800 Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 01:26:32AM -0800, John wrote: Now can this F**KING thread end? :) Intentional invocations don't count. You have to wait for it to come up in the course of conversation, which it's getting *dangerously* close to doing so already. I think it's going to take a master of debate to really get around getting tagged by it at this point; give it a few more hours or so. http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/godwin.faq http://ursine.dyndns.org/jargon/html/entry/Godwin's-Law.html Intention smentional. I can link to it too! http://faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/ If you've noticed, everything in this thread has stayed in this thread. Any real MUA, like mutt, has a thread-delete feature. You can also use the References as a good source of material for procmail rules. Technological solution to a social issue. Listen here you MUA Nazi, not all of use USE a seperate MUA to check their mail (either voluntarily or neccessity), so going on about any real MUA is rather elitist and degrading. So why don't you take this thread and drop it (I'm rather tired of going through and deleting all the posts in this thread anyways)? And saying something's off-topic is off-topic in itself, so essentially, you're part of the problem, too. 8:oP Pot. Kettle. Black. -- Let me meddle not in the affairs of Linuxen For I'm an idiot and will toast my boxen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: THE NAZIS DID IT!! (Re: shuttle disaster)
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 11:48:25AM -0500, JOSEPH A NAGY JR wrote: Listen here you MUA Nazi, not all of use USE a seperate MUA to check You lose. their mail (either voluntarily or neccessity), so going on about any real MUA is rather elitist and degrading. Sounds like a personal problem. Fix it. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29705/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 09:09:37AM -0600, DvB wrote: I remember reading about that somewhere. I think it's a very good idea, provided you can get the income from other sources (as Oregon appears to be doing without too much trouble). Actually, no. We're really, really screwed since the conservatives deadlocked the state congress last session and didn't pass a budget until nearly halfway through the biennium for which it applys, then sent a temporary tax increase to the voters. It should have passed, but didn't. It needed to pass. To see how conservative politics can destroy a state, Google News for Measure 28... -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29706/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On 08 Feb 2003 12:10:20 -0600, DvB wrote: Gary Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: DvB wrote: [...] Where did anything about taxes? You implied that investors did not deserve dividends, since they didn't make their money. There was no reference to taxation. This whole thread is about whether or not dividends should be taxed. It has nothing to do with what companies should or shouldn't do with their profits. The thread IIRC was about a certain space craft that flew but didn't return home. Then the discussion turned to high-lift systems, capitalism and urban transportation systems ;-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 9 Feb 2003, Paul Johnson wrote: use an ATM card with pin number. No, I'm not sure what currency the ATM is talking about when it reads off your account balance, either, I live in Canada. Whenever I've done this in the US in PA/NY area, it has given me the remaining withdrawal I can do that day, in USD. So my 1200 CDN limit a day turns into a balance of ~800, and if I take out 300, it'll say balance remaining of 500. Very worrying when you know the car payment and the rent payment are due while you're away, and the total of them is more than that 500. Very hurried and worried trip to my online banking when i got back from the mal to see what my real balance was! Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 02:51:12AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 00:57, Gary Turner wrote: Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 10:32:10PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] From a logic class many years ago: All Volvo drivers are liberal, but not all liberals drive Volvos. Hey, I resent that!! If they still made 240s, and were affordable, I'd definitely still drive one. In Britain, Volvo driver carries connotations of head stuck up arse and drives through motorcyclists. Which is a shame, since the cars themselves are great (especially the older models). I think the McPherson front end on the 240s was a step back from the preceding double-wishbone arrangement though. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 01:13:58AM -0500, David P James wrote: Pigeon wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:18:14PM -0500, David P James wrote: I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. I can't just use rupees anywhere; they are probably only redeemable in India and neighbouring countries, though I might be able to sell them to someone going to India at the current exchange rate or at a discount. I don't quite follow what you're trying to say here. In general a foreign currency is subject to much the same liquidity problems as other types of assets. That is, a foreign currency is not the same thing as cash. I was simply pointing out that the difference is one of degree rather than of kind. Arcade tokens can only be exchanged in the arcade; rupees can be exchanged in India and presumably some neighbouring countries; US dollars can be exchanged - officially or unofficially - in many countries beside the US. A foreign currency is the same thing as cash when you're in the country concerned - of course - and arcade tokens are cash when you're in the arcade. Note that I am not an economics student, so I am probably using terms in the context of the pigeon-in-the-street's definition rather than the rigorous economist's definition. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 10:36:13PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 08:55:15PM +, Pigeon wrote: In Bedford there is a rather daft roundabout laid out like this: | | Ashburnham Rd | | ___/ \__ __ / Car __ O - the roundabout park \___ Midland Rd People turning right from Midland Rd into Ashburnham Rd occasionally do what you describe, but only ever in the middle of the night when there are no other cars on the roads. I have never seen it done under normal traffic conditions, nor have I seen it done on roundabouts whose layout doesn't incite it so blatantly as the above example. I That's a typical modern American roundabout you describe above. Older ones are much larger (like the size of the inner ring of the Magic Roundabout previously mentioned). Looking at your reply in mutt's page viewer, it munged the diagram, apparently by converting spaces to tabs (well something did, it was originally entered with all spaces, but editing this reply I find tabs in it - which I have changed back to spaces) which rather ruined the main point, which was to show not the size of the island, but the fact that it is way off centre, so that when making the right turn mentioned above it is entirely natural to go the wrong way around the roundabout, acting as if there was no roundabout there. snip Same here. Vehicles obviously from rural Oregon or out of state are usually good to lay back a few extra meters from, because they either can't or won't sort out a traffic pattern that has a sign describing the maneuver in a simple diagram approaching the roundabout warning you of the traffic change, and another one on the roundabout itself describing the only legal movement around the damn thing. Your average Oregonian roundabout-ahead sign... http://www.mrtraffic.com/circleadvsign.jpg The sign telling you the only legal way of taking the circle (white signs are must-dos) http://www.trans.ci.portland.or.us/trafficcalming/images/pictures/circlesign5500.GIF Good signs, kind of hard to misinterpret... Your average (small) Portland roundabout (larger ones do not have stop signs) http://www.mrtraffic.com/circleport1.jpg Well, that one does look way off centre in the photo. In fact, it looks so off centre that a lot of vehicles would have difficulty getting between the island and the kerb. Is that a peculiarity to try and keep trucks out of residential streets? The off-centre nature of the Bedford roundabout is because it was plonked in the physical centre of the available space as opposed to the logical centre about which traffic would naturally pivot, and full-size trucks regularly snake around it, or over it. And apparently Delaware's department of transportation is either stupid or insane or both... http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing and marking.revised---V-1-12.gif AAARRGGHH!!! Incidentally, when telling mutt to pipe this message to 'grep http list.of.urls' (as a preliminary to wgetting the images) it munged the long URLs by wrapping the long lines, so the grep only pulled out half the URL. Is it possible to tell it not to do this? (Hey, we're on topic again!) Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 09:59:18PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 08:33:44PM +, Pigeon wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 10:03:50PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: s/geosynchronous/geostationary I claim 1:41am exemption. :-) I'm not sure that counts, you usually keep pace with me all night long. Don't you work the night shift, too? I am fortunate enough not to be working fixed hours. I repair things, more or less anything electrical or mechanical, and do odd plumbing jobs. I have no premises, I live in a cupboard and I get around on a bicycle, so practically all my work is carried out in other people's houses. Mostly I am repairing TVs, VCRs and washing machines, which is most easily achieved during the evening since the owners are at home. Jobs involving shutting off essential services, like plumbing and house wiring, I prefer to find a way to do during the daytime because of the inconvenience factor; similarly for car repairs, since most people don't have garages and it's awkward working with lead lights in the dark in the street. There aren't that many of these jobs, so I usually end up naturally keeping rather late hours. Also, once I've switched the computer on, I have difficulty switching the thing off again... Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 14:11, Pigeon wrote: And apparently Delaware's department of transportation is either stupid or insane or both... http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing and marking.revised---V-1-12.gif You know, I was perfectly content ignoring this thread for a while now, but now I just HAVE to join in. Judging by the URL, I'm guessing that this was a PROPOSED sign idea and not an IMPLEMENTED one. That sign is absolutely asinine. I can easily see John Q. Rural, having never seen a roundabout before, running into cars while trying to make a left turn! To think that this image even exists is giving me reason enough to never visit Delaware! :) -Alex signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: shuttle disaster
On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:08:17PM -0800, Brian Nelson wrote: Haha, wow. I would love to see one of those on Cape Cod, where a single, normal rotary can back up traffic all the way to Boston (because most Americans can't figure out how to drive in a circle, apparently). s/in a circle// -- Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. -- Chinese Proverb msg29372/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 09:22:33AM -0600, DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:34:51PM -0600, DvB wrote: James Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Famine victims OK, but nobody has mentioned the people living in poverty in America. Boost welfare, more education funding, subsidise pay rises for the lowest paid workers... ooops, America's budget all gone ;-) sarcasm Of course! If we spent that much, people with enough money to have significant amounts of it in taxable stock accounts wouldn't be able to keep it all! /sarcasm Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. You don't work hard for stock dividends. You just put your money in stocks and they come all by themselves... although I guess I did word that a little strangely. Did the stocks buy themselves? Where'd that money come from? Just put your money in stocks is oversimplifying the issue a bit, don't you think? And you think that clicking a few buttons on e-trade or calling Vanguard's tolls free number and filling out a form entitles people to tax-free income? Not any more than any other form of work (assuming the above qualifies as work) does. I find it deliciously ironic that so many people use the Internet to complain about the evils of capitalism and the United States of America. I think I have a right to complain about my own country and how my tax dollars are used. Or, in this case, what millionaires get tax cuts instead of me (even if my stock investments were in taxable accounts rather than tax deferred, the tax savings from untaxed dividend income would be negligible). A better way to lower taxes for all Americans would be to increase the amount of income that's taxed at the lowest level (currently the first $10,000 are taxed at 10%, IIRC). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 12:51:25AM -0600, DvB wrote: Gary Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: snip Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. You don't work hard for stock dividends. You just put your money in stocks and they come all by themselves... although I guess I did word that a little strangely. Where the hell do you think the money came from? Dividends, also called profit sharing, are monies payed to investors by companies as encourangement for current investors to continue to put their money in the aforementioned companies and to attract new investors. If an investor can't expect a return, why should he put himself at risk? Since when has the taxation of dividends robbed you of a return on your investment? Following that argument. If I don't get a return from my work (in the form of an untaxed salary), why should I make an effort to earn a living? I assume you are in favor of a progressive income tax scale. Shouldn't other taxes such as payroll taxes (not the same as income taxes!), sales taxes, and even taxes on investment income be progressive as well? If not, why not? I do believe that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes. I also don't see why there shouldn't be a progressive scale set for them (this could even be seen as an incentive program for small businesses, I suppose). I also wouldn't be opposed to taxing different goods at different levels depending on how essencial they are. As to investment income. It is income (as its name suggests) and should be taxed no differently from any other type of income (be it normal income or capital gains). What kind of idiot was your economics prof? More of an idiot than your fuzzy math prof, apparently. You must have really hated your economics prof. I only ever took one economics class and often missed half of it because my Numerical Methods prof's tests took two hours to complete instead of the one allotted, so I wouldn't really know :-) Besides, the class didn't cover much in the way of stock investment. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:40:27AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: I love the liberals who have no qualms about sending the military to important, strategic places like Somalia and Bosnia, cut the funding for the military at the same time, and then raise holy hell when something goes wrong. Why, it almost seems hypocritical. I'm more for the pre-World-War-II stance of you leave us alone, we leave you alone; you attack us, we blast your ass back to the stone age and go home. Waiting until attacked first means we don't have to do any of that nation building bullshit afterwards. It's also cheaper and puts fewer people, soldiers or otherwise, on both sides in harms way. Oh by the way, I believe you'll find that the social programs consume more budget dollars than any other program; I'm sure you're ready to make cuts there as well? Not unless you can find private industry that'll do it at the same quality for the same out-of-pocket cost. Good luck. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29381/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:31:31AM -0600, DvB wrote: Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:24:41PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: How much are the city/state/feds subsidizing TriMet? Right now, about half. Normally, nearly nothing or less. TriMet only goes net-loss and extra subsidy when it's building new rail lines, but usually makes headway for a year after that to then break roughly even. Yellow Line is expected to open in May, IIRC. To add to that, how much of the US Interstate Highway system is currently subsidized by city/state/fed governments? To answer my own question, I believe the figure is pretty close to 100% (correct me if I'm wrong). What's more, I believe less than half of the funding comes from fuel taxes. Does this make the Interstate Highway system a failure that should be done away with? If the purpose of the Interstate Highway system was to provide citizens with a fun way to drive around the country, yes. My point exactly. Doing away with useful projects just because they use government money doesn't make sense. It's also hypocritical to suggest doing so when you yourself (not necessarily referring to you, the typer of the above words) use and support a project that gets just about all its funding from the government. However, there's ample evidence that the Interstate Highway System (wait: make that the _Eisenhower_ Interstate Highway System) was designed for two, maybe three purposes: 1) Provide a robust road network for national defense purposes. This probably made a lot more sense in 1950. I believe providing a fast way to evacuate cities in case of attack is the way I've heard that phrased. Fast Interstate is sort of an oxymoron, nowdays and the system probably wouldn't support the above stated use (just take a look at some recent movie like Deep Impact). 2) Give the government something to spend money on as the post WWII economy was not the best. Spending money on public transit works just as well. 3) Give Dwight D. Eisenhower something to put his name on; here in the plains states that seems to be an overwhelming success. As much as I cringe at the thought of riding the George W. Bush Interstate Railway System, I'd take it over nothing. Most everyone knows this, but it's very probable that if Eisenhower hadn't been so impressed with the German Autobahns and if he hadn't become president, the push to quickly create a nationwide highway network would not have come so quickly to fruition. Kind of ironic, isn't it? snip Interstate comments Agreed. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:59:12AM -0600, DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 09:22:33AM -0600, DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:34:51PM -0600, DvB wrote: James Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Famine victims OK, but nobody has mentioned the people living in poverty in America. Boost welfare, more education funding, subsidise pay rises for the lowest paid workers... ooops, America's budget all gone ;-) sarcasm Of course! If we spent that much, people with enough money to have significant amounts of it in taxable stock accounts wouldn't be able to keep it all! /sarcasm Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. You don't work hard for stock dividends. You just put your money in stocks and they come all by themselves... although I guess I did word that a little strangely. Did the stocks buy themselves? Where'd that money come from? Just put your money in stocks is oversimplifying the issue a bit, don't you think? And you think that clicking a few buttons on e-trade or calling Vanguard's tolls free number and filling out a form entitles people to tax-free income? Not any more than any other form of work (assuming the above qualifies as work) does. If you want to have a debate, try to not put words into my mouth. Obviously I never said any such thing. I know I never thought it either, and I'm quite certain you don't know what I think. What I was originally objecting to was your seeming assertion that people with a lot of money (i.e. more money than you have) don't need or deserve it and thus the government should take it back. I find it deliciously ironic that so many people use the Internet to complain about the evils of capitalism and the United States of America. I think I have a right to complain about my own country and how my tax dollars are used. Or, in this case, what millionaires get tax cuts instead of me (even if my stock investments were in taxable accounts rather than tax deferred, the tax savings from untaxed dividend income would be negligible). Again, I never said you didn't have the right to complain. Do you always place words in the mouths of others? Anytime I hear people talking about millionaires getting tax cuts my bogometer goes off. I find that many people who make such statements lack knowledge of economics. This may or may not apply to you. In any case, you missed the irony altogether. That's ok. A better way to lower taxes for all Americans would be to increase the amount of income that's taxed at the lowest level (currently the first $10,000 are taxed at 10%, IIRC). I think the point of the dividend tax cut is to spur investment. I think we can safely deduce that most people receiving dividends are investors. The idea is that investors will spend or invest even more money which in turn will spur the economy. There seems to be ample evidence that investment spurs econimic growth (though haphazard `, reckless investment often yields phantom growth). You obviously do not agree. As you frantically point out, that is your right. That doesn't mean you _are_ right :-) By the way, isn't it a fact that the 2001 tax cut package, while lowering marginal rates, is in fact a more progressive tax scale? -- Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what's wrong with it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:46:10AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:08:17PM -0800, Brian Nelson wrote: Haha, wow. I would love to see one of those on Cape Cod, where a single, normal rotary can back up traffic all the way to Boston (because most Americans can't figure out how to drive in a circle, apparently). s/in a circle// Well, if you're going to be that way, you need to add one of the following lines, as well. s/most Americans/nearly all Californians/ I've been to Boston. I've been to NYC. I've been all over Jersey. I had the misfortune of living in California. Even Jersey's worst is far better than the average Californian driver. One of my buddies in Victoria, BC cracked the joke, Even [Québecois] drive better than Californians. I think it's a tossup, but he might be right. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that no Californian manages to make it to thier destination in one piece in the rain without divine intervention, totally colorblind or don't know what a traffic light is, and if thier turn signal is on, it was probably that way when they purchased the vehicle. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29385/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:17:16AM -0600, DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 12:51:25AM -0600, DvB wrote: Gary Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: snip Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. You don't work hard for stock dividends. You just put your money in stocks and they come all by themselves... although I guess I did word that a little strangely. Where the hell do you think the money came from? Dividends, also called profit sharing, are monies payed to investors by companies as encourangement for current investors to continue to put their money in the aforementioned companies and to attract new investors. If an investor can't expect a return, why should he put himself at risk? Since when has the taxation of dividends robbed you of a return on your investment? Following that argument. If I don't get a return from my work (in the form of an untaxed salary), why should I make an effort to earn a living? I assume you are in favor of a progressive income tax scale. Shouldn't other taxes such as payroll taxes (not the same as income taxes!), sales taxes, and even taxes on investment income be progressive as well? If not, why not? I do believe that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes. I also don't see why there shouldn't be a progressive scale set for them (this could even be seen as an incentive program for small businesses, I suppose). I also wouldn't be opposed to taxing different goods at different levels depending on how essencial they are. As to investment income. It is income (as its name suggests) and should be taxed no differently from any other type of income (be it normal income or capital gains). Uh, but ordinary income and capital gains _are_ taxed differently. I'll assume you know this and that either I'm tired and don't grok what you wrote, or you're tired and didn't quite get your point across. As far as essential goods, who decides this? I'd rather not live in a society where people tell me what I do and don't need based on some economic model. By the way, I feel obligated to point out that I quote progressive because I think it's a bogus word when used to describe taxes. What they mean to say is oppressive or punitive, though the closest I've heard is more fair. Just thought I'd warn you so you others don't think you and I mean the same thing when we quote that word :-) What kind of idiot was your economics prof? More of an idiot than your fuzzy math prof, apparently. You must have really hated your economics prof. I only ever took one economics class and often missed half of it because my Numerical Methods prof's tests took two hours to complete instead of the one allotted, so I wouldn't really know :-) Besides, the class didn't cover much in the way of stock investment. It's difficult to find good economics professors in my experience. I had one really good one in college but he was not given tenure, mostly because he gave honest grades (the school was/is a farce). -- Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous? A: A canary with the super-user password. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 12:40:36AM -0600, DvB wrote: Once again, if cutting taxes is going to put the government $300B in the hole, they need to cut some programs and I don't think there're many that can be justified being cut. Considering the military accounts for over 40% of government spending, I think we found a place to start trimming fat heavily. Especially if our politicians are going to keep claiming we're a peace-loving nation. Peace-loving nations don't spend damn near half thier money on a military. Uh, that's not exactly factual. The 40% you refer must be the amount spent on militant oldsters for Social Security (22%), Medicare (11%), and Medicaid (7%). The portion of the budget spent on defense is 17%.[1] The amazing tales of the amounts supposedly being spent on the military seem to be urban legends that just keep getting repeated. [1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ -- gt [EMAIL PROTECTED] If someone tells you--- I have a sense of humor, but that's not funny. ---they don't. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:38:26AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: What I was originally objecting to was your seeming assertion that people with a lot of money (i.e. more money than you have) don't need or deserve it and thus the government should take it back. Progressive taxing is a good idea because the lower the income, the percentage of income is required for day-to-day needs than it is for those with higher incomes. Government needs to function, and at this point, lower and middle classes can't take much more tax, it's like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Assume the tax is 10% of income: For a person making $10,000/yr and has no life savings, that 10% income tax is 10% tax on thier entire wealth. If they manage to keep a roof over thier head, they'll never get ahead. Meanwhile, on the other end of the scale, the richest 1% makes $300,000 or more a year and likely has vast savings. 10% income tax works out to be a tiny fraction of 1% of thier total wealth. It's a flat tax in theory, but who's really paying more? Anytime I hear people talking about millionaires getting tax cuts my bogometer goes off. I find that many people who make such statements lack knowledge of economics. This may or may not apply to you. I think the last thing this country needs is a tax cut to benefit the richest 1% (and you'd have to be for the dividend tax break to make more than pennies difference). I think the country would be a little better off, especially when we're about to go to war, with a one or two percent tax break for those in the bottom third, keep it even with the middle third, and one or two percent increase on the top third. That should help the economy out a little bit since the economy will remain stagnant until the little guys go shopping for more than groceries again. I think the point of the dividend tax cut is to spur investment. I think we can safely deduce that most people receiving dividends are investors. The idea is that investors will spend or invest even more money which in turn will spur the economy. There seems to be ample evidence that investment spurs econimic growth (though haphazard `, reckless investment often yields phantom growth). Not only that, but companies can't make all thier revenue on stock options, and I'm not sure why Bush still thinks otherwise. While he was sleeping, apparently, we had a stock market crash when everybody else realised this one for themselves. Stock doesn't sustain an economy, goods and services do. Free up some cash for the bottom two-thirds and the economy will slowly grind to a start, whereas with trying to toy with the investors, who is going to wait for some spark of growth before investing anyway... -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29389/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 00:14, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:24:41PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: [snip] I think government pretty much mops up after the services that aren't sexy enough for private enterprise to think of it (rapid transit, police, fire) and should take control of services everybody needs Ever heard of private security guards? It must be sexy enough for someone... (schools, health care, utilities) that private enterprise has abused (price-fixing, racketeering, etc). That should be the new threat to You haven't seen New Orleans City Hall, have you? It is chock full of Past Masters at corruption, stupidity, laziness, etc. businesses behaving badly: Shape up or we take it. Things must be different up in Oregon, because, here, for instance, even low-income people will go into debt to get their kids out of the public schools, and a 1/2 dozen policemen in the pennitentiary, one on death row, for killing the woman who was to testify against him, and a policewoman on death row for killing someone who double-crossed her while she was guarding a drug ring while on duty. (Note that this is in a small city, not New York, w/ it's 50,000 police!) And don't get me started about the streets! A national survey shows that New Orleans has the 2nd worst streets in the country. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 00:27, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:55:06PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: Ummm, somehow I don't think that when W was inaugurated, he was planning on having these new burdens placed on the Federal budget... Yeah, but that only accounts for the Afghan War last year, and *possibly* North Korea. Iraq is his own doing here. You mentioned Department of Homeland Security, with most of it in the Transportation Safety Administration. That would have happened with or without Iraq. Oh, and btw, it was the Democrats pushing to have all of the baggage screeners federalized, in the notion that would somehow make them competent. Clinton wanted to nationalize heath care, but neither happened. The Republicans forced Clinton to operate within the Budget Agreement, and pass welfare reform. Like I was saying, they expect more out of the Democrats than they themselves practice. Political sniping is played by both sides, remember. Oh, guess who came into office right around the time that the SL's finally got paid off? Right... Clinton! So without lifting a finger, the budget got a lot closer to being balanced, and Clinton took all the credit. He gets to take the credit because he wasn't the cause of the screwup to begin with. And things didn't start looking significantly better Bzzzt. If George 41 had been re-elected, the SL cleanup would have occured on the same schedule, anyway. (And the Dems wouldn't have lost the House...) until around the fifth or sixth Clinton year, *long* after Reagan and Bush were out of the picture and the SLs were paid off. When did I firmly disagree. things break down again? Almost immediately after Bush took office. And we still disagree on this point. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Wildly, wildly OT (was Re: shuttle disaster)
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 02:28, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 08:16:31PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 05:46:12PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: Where the hell do you think the money came from? If an investor can't expect a return, why should he put himself at risk? It's basically gambling picking a stock that'll last long enough and perform well enough to create dividends. Furthermore, the payoff frequently is drastically disproportionately high relative to the individual effort put in to creating that wealth: I see it basically as tricking some stupid asshole into giving you a $20 for a $5. That's not working, that's being a crook. The market is full of staid but solid performers which return a few percentage points (most) every year, which means overall you're doing better than putting your money in a savings account or even a money market account. I must be missing your point, or my view of the facts is in dissonance with yours. The big problem I see with the stock market is the same problem I see with the computer industry; it's full of idiots. Anyone who buys a single stock because someone told them to shouldn't be buying stock at all; they should be investing in mutual funds or index funds. Of course, if you just tax them to the hilt, they won't have to worry about investing at all. What this has to do with user issues of implementing and maintaining a Debian GNU/Linux system, on whatever platform is selected, I would say has long been lost. From my days on Usenet, there are numerous areas where this discussion would be on-topic. Please, agree on one, and take it there. And a quick interjection: the stock market has the side effect of allowing companies to solicit equity funds from time to time, when they choose to issue some new shares. Beyond that, the market is an ongoing gambling game jumping on the latest rumour, trend, and sometimes even corporate performance where the only ones with reasonably safe incomes are the brokers who take their fees for every fidgety transaction their clients pursue. Unless you have the volume of $$$ (or other appropriate currency) to justify having your own seat on the exchange, doing anything other than sensibly researched placement of funds in an effectively secure business or group of businesses is a gift of your money to your favorite brokerage. Brokerages love day traders as the real money maker is the broker, at risk only if they are silly enough to extend unsupported credit to a client. -- Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:57:29AM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: Paul Johnson wrote: Considering the military accounts for over 40% of government spending, I think we found a place to start trimming fat heavily. Especially if our politicians are going to keep claiming we're a peace-loving nation. Peace-loving nations don't spend damn near half thier money on a military. Uh, that's not exactly factual. The 40% you refer must be the amount spent on militant oldsters for Social Security (22%), Medicare (11%), and Medicaid (7%). The portion of the budget spent on defense is 17%.[1] The amazing tales of the amounts supposedly being spent on the military seem to be urban legends that just keep getting repeated. It's about 40% of *discretionary* spending. So, you're both right. Since Social Security, et al. are mandatory programs with separate payroll deductions, they are often excluded from budget discussions. -- echo gra.fcw@2ztr eryyvZ .T pveR | rot13 | reverse -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 02:37, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:40:27AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: I love the liberals who have no qualms about sending the military to important, strategic places like Somalia and Bosnia, cut the funding for the military at the same time, and then raise holy hell when something goes wrong. Why, it almost seems hypocritical. I'm more for the pre-World-War-II stance of you leave us alone, we leave you alone; you attack us, we blast your ass back to the stone age and go home. Waiting until attacked first means we don't have to do any of that nation building bullshit afterwards. It's also cheaper and puts fewer people, soldiers or otherwise, on both sides in harms way. Ya know, I've always wondered why Hitler declared war on us. We never did anything to him. He was fighting the Godless Communists, and a significant minority of Americans were anti-Semitic... The usual reason is that we declared war on Japan. Well, heck. He ignored treaties before. Why not ignore the Axis Treaty? It would have kept us out of the war long enough to starve England. Then he could have easily conquored it. But, of course, he was insane. Otherwise, why invade Russia? -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Wildly, wildly OT (was Re: shuttle disaster)
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 04:29:52AM -0500, Mark L. Kahnt wrote: What this has to do with user issues of implementing and maintaining a Debian GNU/Linux system, on whatever platform is selected, I would say has long been lost. From my days on Usenet, there are numerous areas where this discussion would be on-topic. Please, agree on one, and take it there. it was a good point... but then you completely ruined it by continuing the politics discussion on this list! hugh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 03:20:37AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: I think government pretty much mops up after the services that aren't sexy enough for private enterprise to think of it (rapid transit, police, fire) and should take control of services everybody needs Ever heard of private security guards? It must be sexy enough for someone... Yes, I have. I currently am one (and I'm lucky enough to be on a stationary post screening people at an infrequently travelled side door to a hospital; something to pass the time until they find me a new beat to drive or make me a dispatcher, sure beats working labor lockouts). While I'm sure my company and any other security company would be glad to try and take on an entire city, the problem is, what private business would hire us to protect an entire city? Anybody who has studied the history of policing and security knows this was already essentially answered centuries ago in England: Nobody. If the government doesn't provide police, nobody will hire the gaurds to do it. You haven't seen New Orleans City Hall, have you? It is chock full of Past Masters at corruption, stupidity, laziness, etc. Fraid I haven't been to the South. I hear the people are mostly friendly despite the weather being unbearable year round. Things must be different up in Oregon, because, here, for instance, even low-income people will go into debt to get their kids out of the public schools, and a 1/2 dozen policemen in the pennitentiary, one on death row, for killing the woman who was to testify against him, and a policewoman on death row for killing someone who double-crossed her while she was guarding a drug ring while on duty. (Note that this is in a small city, not New York, w/ it's 50,000 police!) Yes, things are different here. Worst thing I heard about the Portland Police in my lifetime, other than that Bureau's rather obnoxious Californian chief, was one female officer that lost her badge when she was arrested for marijuana posession last year. And don't get me started about the streets! A national survey shows that New Orleans has the 2nd worst streets in the country. I can imagine: I live in a city built on a swamp, and the roads are pretty bad. I can only guess they're worse when your swamp is below sea level. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29406/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster
On Thu, 2003-02-06 at 15:15, will trillich wrote: On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 10:02:09AM -0800, Paul E Condon wrote: Hal Vaughan wrote: Alchemists had three generally accepted [snip] Is there a parallel to alchemy in the modern world? aids research, and cancer research, to name a few. the moment anybody thinks they've got a cure, they'll disappear so their bosses will be able to keep the house in the hamptons. too big a business, by now, to be shut down by actual success. Do you have any proof of this illogical assertion? Logic: people are going to be getting cancer for a long, long time, so the money made from all those sick people will be magnatudes greater than any money recieved, from say, research grants. Besides, there's always something else to cure... -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 06:42:14AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: Well, fortunately, conservatives think that the police the military should always be under the control of the State... Well, I don't think either side is allowed to take credit for common sense. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29421/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster (Socrates)
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 11:26:44AM -0500, Mike M wrote: In America, we say, Those who can, do. Those that can't, teach. An interesting retcon. That's a quote from George Bernard Shaw, an Irishman, who also said: Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. -- Colin Watson [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:59:12AM -0600, DvB wrote: If you want to have a debate, try to not put words into my mouth. Obviously I never said any such thing. I know I never thought it either, and I'm quite certain you don't know what I think. Sorry, didn't mean to do any of those things. What I was originally objecting to was your seeming assertion that people with a lot of money (i.e. more money than you have) don't need or deserve it and thus the government should take it back. And I never said or thought any of those things. Shall we call it even? I find it deliciously ironic that so many people use the Internet to complain about the evils of capitalism and the United States of America. I think I have a right to complain about my own country and how my tax dollars are used. Or, in this case, what millionaires get tax cuts instead of me (even if my stock investments were in taxable accounts rather than tax deferred, the tax savings from untaxed dividend income would be negligible). Again, I never said you didn't have the right to complain. Do you always place words in the mouths of others? You sounded skeptical about my motives in complaining (I got the, possibly erroneous, impression that you thought I wasn't American) and I simply defended my actions. Anytime I hear people talking about millionaires getting tax cuts my bogometer goes off. I find that many people who make such statements lack knowledge of economics. This may or may not apply to you. Take it up with my economics prof. In any case, you missed the irony altogether. That's ok. Until we get to know each other, let me know what prosaical devices you're using :-) A better way to lower taxes for all Americans would be to increase the amount of income that's taxed at the lowest level (currently the first $10,000 are taxed at 10%, IIRC). I think the point of the dividend tax cut is to spur investment. I think we can safely deduce that most people receiving dividends are investors. The idea is that investors will spend or invest even more money which in turn will spur the economy. There seems to be ample evidence that investment spurs econimic growth (though haphazard `, reckless investment often yields phantom growth). IMHO, if people are already investing in stocks despite taxes on dividends, getting rid of the tax probably won't make that much difference. To back up my statement, all the (informal and unscientific) polls I've seen on financial websites have had the majority of the respondents say that a dividend tax cut wouldn't have any effect on their investment strategy. The only effect it would have for me is to make me move my investments into (formerly) taxable instead of tax exempt accounts for greater liquidity (which might jeopardize my retirement and make me more dependent of social security if I don't happen to be a disciplined person). A tax cut that really does go to all* Americans, OTOH, might provide an incestive to people who aren't current investors to invest. Had I any extra money, I would open an income producing taxable account right now in addition to my tax exempt investments. Unfortunately, Under Bush's plan, doing so would give me negligible benefits until quite a few years down the road[1] You obviously do not agree. As you frantically point out, that is your right. Watch me wave my arms frantically :-) That doesn't mean you _are_ right :-) I never claimed that excercising my rights made me right :-) By the way, isn't it a fact that the 2001 tax cut package, while lowering marginal rates, is in fact a more progressive tax scale? It keeps the former progressive scale intact, yes. I doubt that congress would've supported Bush, had he proposed a flat tax (they're not that dumb). I also support the rate cuts, despite their flaws.[2] However, a little known fact about it is that it gives an extra ~1% cut to the highest bracket (those earning salaries over ~$300,000) while it doesn't change the bottom two brackets one iota[3][4] [1] (keep in mind this is supposed to be a stimulous plan for the current, I.e. right now, economic situation). [2] I don't, however, support a large budget deficit so, if Bush wants the cuts to go through, he'll have to justify making some spending cuts. [3] See the Tax Rates Decline box near the bottom of http://money.cnn.com/pf/taxes/ [4] See my earlier comments about increasing the amount of income taxed at the lowest bracket, which would also give people in the upper tax bracket more discressionary income to invest in stocks if they so pleased. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:17:16AM -0600, DvB wrote: I assume you are in favor of a progressive income tax scale. Shouldn't other taxes such as payroll taxes (not the same as income taxes!), sales taxes, and even taxes on investment income be progressive as well? If not, why not? I do believe that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes. I also don't see why there shouldn't be a progressive scale set for them (this could even be seen as an incentive program for small businesses, I suppose). I also wouldn't be opposed to taxing different goods at different levels depending on how essencial they are. As to investment income. It is income (as its name suggests) and should be taxed no differently from any other type of income (be it normal income or capital gains). Uh, but ordinary income and capital gains _are_ taxed differently. I'll assume you know this and that either I'm tired and don't grok what you wrote, or you're tired and didn't quite get your point across. Ordinary income is taxed differently depending on whether or not it's classified as capital gains and I have no problems with that. That's why I took the time to make that distinction before someone else brought it up. As far as essential goods, who decides this? The commonwealth of Pennsylvania currently (unless things have changed since I last heard) doesn't tax goods classified as foo and clothing. I support this despite the obvious drawback that people don't pay taxes on the purchase of designer clothing and caviar. I'd rather not live in a society where people tell me what I do and don't need based on some economic model. People need food to live and are required by law to wear clothing. I'm sure the vast majority of other goods can be classified fairly accurately based on the same criteria. Also, and this is just my personal opinion, taxing things that things that aren't deemed to be necessities isn't telling you what you do or don't need. You're still free to purchase those things. What kind of idiot was your economics prof? More of an idiot than your fuzzy math prof, apparently. You must have really hated your economics prof. I only ever took one economics class and often missed half of it because my Numerical Methods prof's tests took two hours to complete instead of the one allotted, so I wouldn't really know :-) Besides, the class didn't cover much in the way of stock investment. It's difficult to find good economics professors in my experience. I had one really good one in college but he was not given tenure, mostly because he gave honest grades I've learned most of my economics by reading. I already knew, to some extent or other, most of what the class covered before I took it. (the school was/is a farce). That would explain a lot of things if your school was/is a farce ;-)[1] [1] Note the smiley. Your arguments aren't totally bogus, even if I don't agree with the vast majority of them. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster (Socrates)
On Saturday 08 February 2003 11:57, Colin Watson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 11:26:44AM -0500, Mike M wrote: In America, we say, Those who can, do. Those that can't, teach. An interesting retcon. That's a quote from George Bernard Shaw, an Irishman, who also said: Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. He goes on and on: http://www.amusingquotes.com/h/s/George_Bernard_Shaw_1.htm -- Mike M. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 00:14, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:24:41PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: [snip] businesses behaving badly: Shape up or we take it. Things must be different up in Oregon, because, here, for instance, even low-income people will go into debt to get their kids out of the public schools, and a 1/2 dozen policemen in the pennitentiary, one on death row, for killing the woman who was to testify against him, and a policewoman on death row for killing someone who double-crossed her while she was guarding a drug ring while on duty. (Note that this is in a small city, not New York, w/ it's 50,000 police!) You seem to be suggesting that there's a lot of corruption in your society (and I would agree. I live close enough to La. to know). what makes you think privitizing things would make any difference? Why? And don't get me started about the streets! A national survey shows that New Orleans has the 2nd worst streets in the country. Yes, the south is known for it's urban sprawl and poor planning. Where I live, the central city has terrible streets and crumbling infrastructure while my tax dollars get spent to provide new roads and services in far outlying areas that I'll probably never visit in my entire life (BTW, N.O. streets are, IMO, better than the ones where I live). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Gary Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: DvB wrote: Gary Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: DvB wrote: Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: snip Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. You don't work hard for stock dividends. You just put your money in stocks and they come all by themselves... although I guess I did word that a little strangely. Where the hell do you think the money came from? Dividends, also called profit sharing, are monies payed to investors by companies as encourangement for current investors to continue to put their money in the aforementioned companies and to attract new investors. A share of the profit is a fair statement. After all, the investor is taking a vested interest (part ownership) in the enterprise. A profitable company does make further capitalization more attractive to people with discretionary capital. Oh, yeah, a profitable business is more likely to continue paying wages. I agree with you on that. I also still think dividends should be taxed the same as an individual's other income. If an investor can't expect a return, why should he put himself at risk? Since when has the taxation of dividends robbed you of a return on your investment? Following that argument. If I don't get a return from my work (in the form of an untaxed salary), why should I make an effort to earn a living? Where did anything about taxes? You implied that investors did not deserve dividends, since they didn't make their money. There was no reference to taxation. This whole thread is about whether or not dividends should be taxed. It has nothing to do with what companies should or shouldn't do with their profits. -- gt[EMAIL PROTECTED] You have a RIGHT to your opinion---even if it is crap. Ditto :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Travis Crump wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] eg. Actually, all goods and services come from the government...Try producing your own goods and services. Maybe I'm missing something, but what are you talking about. People and corporations produce their own goods and services every day. People and corporations produce their own money every day as well; have you ever written a check? Try coming up with a difference between checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government produced money that isn't circular, ie the first set isn't money because it is not government backed Have you ever gone to a fair or arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides? What are the tokens if they aren't money? I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. -- David P. James 4th Year Economics Student Queen's University Kingston, Ontario http://members.rogers.com/dpjames/ The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. -Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek IV -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Ron Johnson wrote: Ya know, I've always wondered why Hitler declared war on us. We never did anything to him. He was fighting the Godless Communists, and a significant minority of Americans were anti-Semitic... The usual reason is that we declared war on Japan. Well, heck. He ignored treaties before. Why not ignore the Axis Treaty? It would have kept us out of the war long enough to starve England. Then he could have easily conquored it. Easily? How? They couldn't manage to invade even when Britain was in the weak state that it was in the fall of 1940, never mind later. The Battle of the Atlantic was basically won in 1942 by the British and the Canadians before there was any significant American contribution to the war, and it is that battle that Germany would have had to have won to have been able to starve England. The Americans liberated Continental Europe. But they did not save Britain. Arguably Canada did, but not the United States. -- David P. James 4th Year Economics Student Queen's University Kingston, Ontario http://members.rogers.com/dpjames/ The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. -Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek IV -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:00, DvB wrote: Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 00:14, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:24:41PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: [snip] businesses behaving badly: Shape up or we take it. Things must be different up in Oregon, because, here, for instance, even low-income people will go into debt to get their kids out of the public schools, and a 1/2 dozen policemen in the pennitentiary, one on death row, for killing the woman who was to testify against him, and a policewoman on death row for killing someone who double-crossed her while she was guarding a drug ring while on duty. (Note that this is in a small city, not New York, w/ it's 50,000 police!) You seem to be suggesting that there's a lot of corruption in your society (and I would agree. I live close enough to La. to know). what makes you think privitizing things would make any difference? Why? My point was to counteract the businesses behaving badly: Shape up or we take it philosophy, reminding certain members of the list that government isn't the Be All And End All. In fact, as shown by the push for school vouchers and standardized testing, the same businesses behaving badly: Shape up or we take it. philosophy has been turned. Remember, the US as founded on Government of the People, By the People, and For the People, and not vide versa, so when government (specifcally Civil Servants) behaves very badly, the people have a obligation to take it back. Now, whether that means privatization or replacing the existing Civil Servants, must obviously be looked at on a case-by-case basis... And don't get me started about the streets! A national survey shows that New Orleans has the 2nd worst streets in the country. Yes, the south is known for it's urban sprawl and poor planning. Where I live, the central city has terrible streets and crumbling infrastructure while my tax dollars get spent to provide new roads and services in far outlying areas that I'll probably never visit in my entire life (BTW, N.O. streets are, IMO, better than the ones where I live). That's pretty darned bad! Maybe (a) your city's citizens haven't gotten fed up enough with the status quo, and (b) a viable reform candidate hasn't appeared yet. Here in N.O, it took some black men who were respected by the full spectrum of society, powerful enough to effect change, yet outside of the existing, corrupt power structure, to *begin* to effect change. Bizarrely(sp?) enough, that turned out to be the branch manager of the region's cable company! -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:06, DvB wrote: Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 00:27, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:55:06PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: Ummm, somehow I don't think that when W was inaugurated, he was planning on having these new burdens placed on the Federal budget... Yeah, but that only accounts for the Afghan War last year, and *possibly* North Korea. Iraq is his own doing here. You mentioned Department of Homeland Security, with most of it in the Transportation Safety Administration. That would have happened with or without Iraq. Oh, and btw, it was the Democrats pushing to have all of the baggage screeners federalized, in the notion that would somehow make them competent. Last time I flew, I was actually very impressed with the competence of the baggage screeners relative to the old ones. I made comments to friends and family to that effect. I wonder if the old ones were fired? Would adequate pay have attracted competent workers in the 1st place? We'll never know... -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:18, David P James wrote: Travis Crump wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] eg. Actually, all goods and services come from the government...Try producing your own goods and services. Maybe I'm missing something, but what are you talking about. People and corporations produce their own goods and services every day. People and corporations produce their own money every day as well; have you ever written a check? Try coming up with a difference between checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government produced money that isn't circular, ie the first set isn't money because it is not government backed Have you ever gone to a fair or arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides? What are the tokens if they aren't money? I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. -- David P. James 4th Year Economics Student Queen's University David, You're missing the point, which is that money, when it has no intrinsic value (or backed by that which has intrinsic value, for example, precious metals), become only, as another on the thread aptly put it, a means of keeping score, and is based on faith. I don't know what Canadian Dollars say on them, but greenbacks say this right above the dead President's head Federal Reserve *Note*. So if I go to Fort Knox, they won't give me gold in exchange for my cash, they'll just give me different US currency, who's face value equals my original amount of cash. (Well, either that, or laugh me off the base...) -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
said Ron Johnson (on 2003-02-08), you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. or you could control the supply by hoarding them and sell them at a premium. ;) Geordie. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:00, DvB wrote: [snip] Now, whether that means privatization or replacing the existing Civil Servants, must obviously be looked at on a case-by-case basis... That I can agree with. And don't get me started about the streets! A national survey shows that New Orleans has the 2nd worst streets in the country. Yes, the south is known for it's urban sprawl and poor planning. Where I live, the central city has terrible streets and crumbling infrastructure while my tax dollars get spent to provide new roads and services in far outlying areas that I'll probably never visit in my entire life (BTW, N.O. streets are, IMO, better than the ones where I live). That's pretty darned bad! Maybe (a) your city's citizens haven't gotten fed up enough with the status quo, and (b) a viable reform candidate hasn't appeared yet. Here in N.O, it took some black men who were respected by the full spectrum of society, powerful enough to effect change, yet outside of the existing, corrupt power structure, to *begin* to effect change. Bizarrely(sp?) enough, that turned out to be the branch manager of the region's cable company! I hope sombody shows up soon. Honestly, though, I don't know if anyone would vote for a reform candidate around here since many people don't admit that there's a problem and, if they do, they won't admit to its cause. I think both (a) and (b) are probably responsible :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:06, DvB wrote: Ron Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 00:27, Paul Johnson wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:55:06PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: Ummm, somehow I don't think that when W was inaugurated, he was planning on having these new burdens placed on the Federal budget... Yeah, but that only accounts for the Afghan War last year, and *possibly* North Korea. Iraq is his own doing here. You mentioned Department of Homeland Security, with most of it in the Transportation Safety Administration. That would have happened with or without Iraq. Oh, and btw, it was the Democrats pushing to have all of the baggage screeners federalized, in the notion that would somehow make them competent. Last time I flew, I was actually very impressed with the competence of the baggage screeners relative to the old ones. I made comments to friends and family to that effect. I wonder if the old ones were fired? Would adequate pay have attracted competent workers in the 1st place? We'll never know... I got the impression that the level of training they received had a lot to do with it. They were polite, knew what they were doing and sort of had that the customer's always right attitude (or as much of it as a baggage ispector can have and still do the job). Other than that, I have no idea. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 13:17, David P James wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: Ya know, I've always wondered why Hitler declared war on us. We never did anything to him. He was fighting the Godless Communists, and a significant minority of Americans were anti-Semitic... The usual reason is that we declared war on Japan. Well, heck. He ignored treaties before. Why not ignore the Axis Treaty? It would have kept us out of the war long enough to starve England. Then he could have easily conquored it. Easily? How? They couldn't manage to invade even when Britain was in the weak state that it was in the fall of 1940, never mind later. The Battle Because of lack of air superiority. My thought was conquor via treaty with starving nation. of the Atlantic was basically won in 1942 by the British and the Canadians before there was any significant American contribution to the war, and it is that battle that Germany would have had to have won to have been able to starve England. I dunno about that... http://www.navalmuseum.ab.ca/atlantic.html Between August 1942 and May 1943, shipping losses and loss of life was appalling, particularly when compared to relatively small enemy U-boat losses. In May 1943, the battle began to turn in favor of the allies. Loss of shipping declined significantly and 41 U-boats were sunk during the month of May alone. http://www.theworldatwar.com/feature.htm Above all the use of aircraft, ... over the Atlantic Gap (now closed by very long-range B24 Liberator bombers), brought a high level of loss to the submarine arm. Hmm, who built all those B-24s, I wonder? However... http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/atlantic.html Even through mid-1942, Brit. Canada providing 98% of all escorts. The Americans liberated Continental Europe. But they did not save Britain. Arguably Canada did, but not the United States. Oh, and don't forget about Lend Lease ships for bases. There's no getting around it. Face it: GB would have been sunk (pun intended) without the US. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 14:32, Geordie Birch wrote: said Ron Johnson (on 2003-02-08), you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. or you could control the supply by hoarding them and sell them at a premium. ;) Well, that's where the arcade tokens as money analog breaks down, in regard to inflation: the arcade can just make (well, buy) more tokens, and will be none the worse for wear, but, of course, it doesn't work the same way in the real economy. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Ron Johnson wrote: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:18, David P James wrote: Travis Crump wrote: People and corporations produce their own money every day as well; have you ever written a check? Try coming up with a difference between checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government produced money that isn't circular, ie the first set isn't money because it is not government backed Have you ever gone to a fair or arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides? What are the tokens if they aren't money? I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. David, You're missing the point, which is that money, when it has no intrinsic value (or backed by that which has intrinsic value, for example, precious metals), become only, as another on the thread aptly put it, a means of keeping score, and is based on faith. Granted that money is a special form of asset because of its other roles as a unit of account and medium of exchange but in terms of having no intrinsic value it's not really alone as bonds, stock certificates, checks or arcade tokens don't have any intrinsic value either, and aren't generally backed by anything that has intrinsic value (except maybe the tokens, which are backed by a promise of a real service). The difference is that all the above (except the tokens) are backed by a promise of money, which, as we have determined, has no intrinsic value, so, in that sense, they're all issued and acquired based on the same faith of the financial system's stability plus some faith in the stability of the debtor. -- David P. James 4th Year Economics Student Queen's University Kingston, Ontario http://members.rogers.com/dpjames/ The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. -Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek IV -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
said David P James (on 2003-02-08), Travis Crump wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but what are you talking about. People and corporations produce their own goods and services every day. People and corporations produce their own money every day as well; have you ever written a check? Try coming up with a difference between checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government produced money that isn't circular, ie the first set isn't money because it is not government backed Have you ever gone to a fair or arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides? What are the tokens if they aren't money? I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. And I can spend my Canadian dollars in Canada, but good luck trying to get rid of them in a town like Arcata California, or Berkeley even. US dollars on the other hand can be used with no problems in many small retail outlets in Canada. Big liquidity difference between the two. An aside: I recently exchanged some $US for $CDN at a bank in Vancouver and received a small amount of US currency back in exhange for itself. Only in Canada. Geordie. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 15:21, Geordie Birch wrote: said David P James (on 2003-02-08), Travis Crump wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] And I can spend my Canadian dollars in Canada, but good luck trying to get rid of them in a town like Arcata California, or Berkeley even. US dollars on the other hand can be used with no problems in many small retail outlets in Canada. Big liquidity difference between the two. I'm sure that a Bank would exchange it for you. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 15:12, David P James wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:18, David P James wrote: Travis Crump wrote: People and corporations produce their own money every day as well; have you ever written a check? Try coming up with a difference between checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government produced money that isn't circular, ie the first set isn't money because it is not government backed Have you ever gone to a fair or arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides? What are the tokens if they aren't money? I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. David, You're missing the point, which is that money, when it has no intrinsic value (or backed by that which has intrinsic value, for example, precious metals), become only, as another on the thread aptly put it, a means of keeping score, and is based on faith. Granted that money is a special form of asset because of its other roles as a unit of account and medium of exchange but in terms of having no intrinsic value it's not really alone as bonds, stock certificates, checks or arcade tokens don't have any intrinsic value either, and aren't generally backed by anything that has intrinsic value (except maybe the tokens, which are backed by a promise of a real service). The difference is that all the above (except the tokens) are backed by a promise of money, which, as we have determined, has no intrinsic value, so, in that sense, they're all issued and acquired based on the same faith of the financial system's stability plus some faith in the stability of the debtor. Au contrere (contraire?), bonds are *secured* debt (say, by that factory that was built from the proceeds of the bond sale), and stock cer- tificates confer partial ownership, and, thus, if the corporation were to be liquidated, the holder of the stock certificate(s) would get an appropriate % of the net assets. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster (Socrates)
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 10:57, Colin Watson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 11:26:44AM -0500, Mike M wrote: In America, we say, Those who can, do. Those that can't, teach. An interesting retcon. That's a quote from George Bernard Shaw, an Irishman, who also said: Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. That's only the self-flagellators. The rest of us would just tell him to go fsck himself... -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:42:50AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:41:01AM +, Pigeon wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 02:37:53PM -0600, John Hasler wrote: Pigeon writes: It would be under tension, because the upper station is outside the geosynchronous orbit. So the bit above the break would fly off into space, and the lower bit would fall back. The tension would taper from nominally zero at the base to maximum at the attachment to the counterweight. Unless I'm totally screwed up I don't think this is right... everything below the geosynchronous orbit is orbiting too slowly to stay up on its own, everything above the geosynchronous orbit is orbiting too fast to not fly off unless anchored. So the maximum tension is where the cable crosses the geosynchronous orbit; there are minima at BOTH ends. In theory, you wouldn't need a lumped counterweight - you could simply extend the cable until the loose end had enough mass. This makes the presence of a minimum at the outside end more obvious! Isn't geostationary orbit ~22000 _miles_ above earth? That'd be one hell of a cable. Think it's more like 24,000... fortunately this particular (lumped-counterweight-less) cable is one of those magic hypothetical ones which abound in mechanics problems. On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 10:03:50PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: s/geosynchronous/geostationary I claim 1:41am exemption. :-) Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 12:37:48AM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:40:27AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: I love the liberals who have no qualms about sending the military to important, strategic places like Somalia and Bosnia, cut the funding for the military at the same time, and then raise holy hell when something goes wrong. Why, it almost seems hypocritical. I'm more for the pre-World-War-II stance of you leave us alone, we leave you alone; you attack us, we blast your ass back to the stone age and go home. Waiting until attacked first means we don't have to do any of that nation building bullshit afterwards. It's also cheaper and puts fewer people, soldiers or otherwise, on both sides in harms way. After World War 1, there was very little nation-building bullshit, but plenty of kicking them when they're down by insisting that their shattered economy should pay the war costs of the victors. We all know what the result was... World War 2. The post-war situation was pretty much the opposite - very little kicking-when-down and lots of nation-building bullshit. Result - we're all friends now. No, I don't like the idea of one nation remaking another in its own image by military force. That doesn't seem to work. But having defeated them in a war that they started, to offer them assistance in rebuilding their nation largely to their pattern rather than the victors' pattern seems to work rather well. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:43:49PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: What *really* pisses me off is when I'm approaching a roundabout to go around it in the correct (anti-clockwise) direction, some asshole coming the other way or from the right thinks that they can cut off the roundabount clockwise to turn left at the junction instead of going around like anybody with a brain would do. I've now had five very near misses thanks to these idiots, three had Californian plates, one had British plates (and for that I'm giving leeway since British roundabouts move clockwise) and one idiot was on the phone. WHAT??? You are joking? No, I don't think you are. In Bedford there is a rather daft roundabout laid out like this: | | Ashburnham Rd | | ___/ \__ __ / Car __ O - the roundabout park \___ Midland Rd People turning right from Midland Rd into Ashburnham Rd occasionally do what you describe, but only ever in the middle of the night when there are no other cars on the roads. I have never seen it done under normal traffic conditions, nor have I seen it done on roundabouts whose layout doesn't incite it so blatantly as the above example. I think your British idiot must have been suffering from the usual British problem of forgetting to drive on the other side of the road when abroad. The usual reaction of Bedford drivers to a roundabout is bafflement, hesitation and indecision - faults of which a single instance would be enough to make them fail their driving test - even when the roundabout is one they encounter every day and should be thoroughly familiar with. One roundabout was replaced with temporary traffic lights due to roadworks. The effect of this on the traffic flow was such that when the roadworks were finished, instead of reinstating the roundabout, the temporary traffic lights were made permanent. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Pigeon wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:42:50AM -0600, Nathan E Norman wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:41:01AM +, Pigeon wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 02:37:53PM -0600, John Hasler wrote: Pigeon writes: big snip On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 10:03:50PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: s/geosynchronous/geostationary I claim 1:41am exemption. :-) My dictionary (American Heritage College Dictionary) sz they're synonyms. Save your valuable exemption for a real error :) -- gt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes I fear I am living beyond my mental means--Nash -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 11:53:26AM -0600, DvB wrote: As far as essential goods, who decides this? The commonwealth of Pennsylvania currently (unless things have changed since I last heard) doesn't tax goods classified as foo and clothing. I support this despite the obvious drawback that people don't pay taxes on the purchase of designer clothing and caviar. Oregon lacks a general sales tax because there's no good way to make it not screw the poor, and Oregon has a lot of poor. Revenue that other states collect with sales tax instead come largely from property and income tax and the state lottery. The only items that have a sales tax are vices or luxuries, like tobacco, alcoholic beverages and gasoline. When I move to Canada, I'll probably move to either Edmonton or Calgary, since in Alberta there is no provincial sales tax. It would be nice if there was no national sales tax there, but I respect the fact that I have no say in the matter until I get Canadian citizenship.[1] I'd rather not live in a society where people tell me what I do and don't need based on some economic model. People need food to live and are required by law to wear clothing. I'm sure the vast majority of other goods can be classified fairly accurately based on the same criteria. Also, and this is just my personal opinion, taxing things that things that aren't deemed to be necessities isn't telling you what you do or don't need. You're still free to purchase those things. What kind of idiot was your economics prof? More of an idiot than your fuzzy math prof, apparently. You must have really hated your economics prof. I only ever took one economics class and often missed half of it because my Numerical Methods prof's tests took two hours to complete instead of the one allotted, so I wouldn't really know :-) Besides, the class didn't cover much in the way of stock investment. It's difficult to find good economics professors in my experience. I had one really good one in college but he was not given tenure, mostly because he gave honest grades I've learned most of my economics by reading. I already knew, to some extent or other, most of what the class covered before I took it. (the school was/is a farce). That would explain a lot of things if your school was/is a farce ;-)[1] [1] Note the smiley. Your arguments aren't totally bogus, even if I don't agree with the vast majority of them. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] [1] Pet peeve: When you move into another country, you don't get to try and change public policy until you're eligable to vote. You'll only accomplish annoying those around you. In a perfect world, you wouldn't be allowed to vote or use public services beyond incidentals (like roads, fire and police, this excludes health care and education for your kids) for 5 to 7 years after moving into a new state, IMHO, to give you time to pay in some revenue before you start tapping it (Oregon likely wouldn't be in the mess it's in if half of California didn't move themselves and thier families here). -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29536/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:24:55PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: That's pretty darned bad! Maybe (a) your city's citizens haven't gotten fed up enough with the status quo, and (b) a viable reform candidate hasn't appeared yet. Here in N.O, it took some black men who were respected by the full spectrum of society, powerful enough to effect change, yet outside of the existing, corrupt power structure, to *begin* to effect change. Here, we started hitting the same spot we were in the early 80's, and I think it says a lot about who moved in since then that Libertarian candidate Tom Cox got largely ignored drawing almost 10%, despite being practically a carbon copy of former Governor Tom McCall, who is widely regaurded as being the best thing to happen to Oregon since the British built Fort Vancouver, making Portland the first big commercial center for the territory. Thankfully though, everybody including rural conservatives (who are usually holdouts for candidates like Mannix) saw Mannix should be considered harmful. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29540/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 12:06:26PM -0600, DvB wrote: Last time I flew, I was actually very impressed with the competence of the baggage screeners relative to the old ones. I made comments to friends and family to that effect. I'm not sure you'd be filled with joy in your work if you were stuck doing extremely dangerous work for minimum wage. I'm not sure how many people really understood how poorly paid the airport officers were when they were pulling a paycheck from private industry. Now they make a wage more reflective of the work they do. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29543/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:27:42PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: I wonder if the old ones were fired? Would adequate pay have attracted competent workers in the 1st place? We'll never know... Not necissarily. The old ones working for private security agencies were given preferential hiring with the TSA to stay on that post. Not all got hired by the TSA, and the only reason you wouldn't get hired is if thier testing or your work history showed to them that you just didn't have your shit together. The ones not hired by TSA that stayed with thier private company would have either been assigned to a different post or laid off if losing the airport contract put them in an overstaffed situation. The ones hired by the TSA get to do roughly the same work, but instead of something around minimum wage with most security companies, they now do it for $35,000 to $48,000/yr depending on performance and experiance. Layoffs in the security industry tend to be done by raising the performance bar, seniority be damned. Because of this, I believe private industry and the airports get better security officers. This was a big win for socialisation. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29544/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:47:56PM -0600, DvB wrote: I got the impression that the level of training they received had a lot to do with it. They were polite, knew what they were doing and sort of had that the customer's always right attitude (or as much of it as a baggage ispector can have and still do the job). I don't know the detail of the TSA's training, and I can't give detail of mine, but I would say they're definately doing thier jobs at the airports well. I occasionally have to go run out to PDX to go pick up friends, and they've always had a friendly but no-bullshit attitude and definately looking up and around a bit more than the private ones did. I was certainly impressed with the coverage, and it was nice actually seeing loading zones enforced for a change (I hadn't been to PDX for a couple years until recently). One negative, though: I miss having the traffic officers whistling traffic to stop so people can actually use the crosswalks across NE [Upper|Lower] Airport Way to [Parking|Taxis and transit] from [Ticketing|baggage claim] without getting mowed down by other airport patrons in thier cars. I'm not sure what thier rationale was for eliminating the people best positioned to spot suspicious vehicles... -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29546/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 03:43:46AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: Ya know, I've always wondered why Hitler declared war on us. We never did anything to him. He was fighting the Godless Communists, and a significant minority of Americans were anti-Semitic... The usual reason is that we declared war on Japan. Well, heck. He ignored treaties before. Why not ignore the Axis Treaty? It would have kept us out of the war long enough to starve England. Then he could have easily conquored it. But, of course, he was insane. Otherwise, why invade Russia? He was pissed off with America for not being neutral enough, ie. helping Britain with supplies etc. but not giving equal - or any - help to Germany. Even before Pearl Harbor, it was very obvious whose side America was on, even if they weren't actually fighting. In Alistair Cooke's words America was very nearly a secret belligerent, and Hitler knew it. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 08:33:44PM +, Pigeon wrote: On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 10:03:50PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: s/geosynchronous/geostationary I claim 1:41am exemption. :-) I'm not sure that counts, you usually keep pace with me all night long. Don't you work the night shift, too? -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29552/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:17:40PM -0500, David P James wrote: The Americans liberated Continental Europe. But they did not save Britain. Arguably Canada did, but not the United States. And at that, Canadian Forces are basically the British Forces but flying the Red Ensign instead. I took history from a US perspective, and I still see that the British more than held thier own. America didn't save thier ass, America saved France's. Considering the centuries-old animosity between England and France, and France's initial help in stabilizing a young America, I'm surprised the Cold War found Americans, French and British on the same side (as opposed to .fr and .us versus .su and .uk) 8:o) -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29553/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 10:32:10PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: My dictionary (American Heritage College Dictionary) sz they're synonyms. Save your valuable exemption for a real error :) And American Heritage Dictionary also screws up the definition of hacker, giving it the meaning of cracker. This should be a clue in this group. Use dict instead, as you can (usually) get multiple sources for the definition (geosynchronous and geostationary being an exception, apparently). All geostationary orbits are also geosynchronous, but not all geosynchronous orbits are geostationary. baloo@ursine:~$ dict geosynchronous 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]: geosynchronous adj : of or having an orbit with a fixed period of 24 hours (although the position in the orbit may not be fixed with respect to the earth) baloo@ursine:~$ dict geostationary 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]: geostationary adj : of or having a geosynchronous orbit such that the position in such an orbit is fixed with respect to the earth; a geostationary satellite -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29554/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
Pigeon wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:18:14PM -0500, David P James wrote: I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. I can't just use rupees anywhere; they are probably only redeemable in India and neighbouring countries, though I might be able to sell them to someone going to India at the current exchange rate or at a discount. I don't quite follow what you're trying to say here. In general a foreign currency is subject to much the same liquidity problems as other types of assets. That is, a foreign currency is not the same thing as cash. -- David P. James 4th Year Economics Student Queen's University Kingston, Ontario http://members.rogers.com/dpjames/ The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe. -Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek IV -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
said Ron Johnson (on 2003-02-08), On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 15:21, Geordie Birch wrote: said David P James (on 2003-02-08), Travis Crump wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote: [snip] And I can spend my Canadian dollars in Canada, but good luck trying to get rid of them in a town like Arcata California, or Berkeley even. US dollars on the other hand can be used with no problems in many small retail outlets in Canada. Big liquidity difference between the two. I'm sure that a Bank would exchange it for you. I thought so too, but no bank in Arcata would touch it if I didn't have an account. This was in 1995. Geordie. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 23:37, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:27:42PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: I wonder if the old ones were fired? Would adequate pay have attracted competent workers in the 1st place? We'll never know... Not necissarily. The old ones working for private security agencies were given preferential hiring with the TSA to stay on that post. Not all got hired by the TSA, and the only reason you wouldn't get hired is if thier testing or your work history showed to them that you just didn't have your shit together. The ones not hired by TSA that stayed with thier private company would have either been assigned to a different post or laid off if losing the airport contract put them in an overstaffed situation. The ones hired by the TSA get to do roughly the same work, but instead of something around minimum wage with most security companies, they now do it for $35,000 to $48,000/yr depending on performance and experiance. Ah, good to know. Layoffs in the security industry tend to be done by raising the performance bar, seniority be damned. Because of this, I believe private industry and the airports get better security officers. This was a big win for socialisation. Either that, or rationalisation. Who was it on (another part of this huge thread) that was complaining about the balooning Federal deficit (partly because of the TSA), and how Bush 43rd was so evil? -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 23:58, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 02:17:40PM -0500, David P James wrote: The Americans liberated Continental Europe. But they did not save Britain. Arguably Canada did, but not the United States. And at that, Canadian Forces are basically the British Forces but flying the Red Ensign instead. I took history from a US perspective, and I still see that the British more than held thier own. America If the US hadn't chipped in with more ships and long range bombers, all the valiant work of the RN RCN would hae come up short. didn't save thier ass, America saved France's. Considering the centuries-old animosity between England and France, and France's initial help in stabilizing a young America, I'm surprised the Cold War found Americans, French and British on the same side (as opposed to .fr and .us versus .su and .uk) 8:o) All during the CW, the French steered a much more independant military course, having their own, non-integrated nuclear policy, and not being fully integrated into NATO. I wonder if that's because (as I understand it) most Franch partisans during the war were communists, and many other French fell right in with the Nazis? http://www.bobfromaccounting.com/4_22_02/francesurrenders.html (The French are most ungrateful we twice hauled their arses out of the fire.) For about 125ish years, there was some political/naval animosity beween the 2 countries, but the bonds of trade culture were too strong. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 08:55:15PM +, Pigeon wrote: In Bedford there is a rather daft roundabout laid out like this: | | Ashburnham Rd | | ___/ \__ __ / Car __ O - the roundabout park \___ Midland Rd People turning right from Midland Rd into Ashburnham Rd occasionally do what you describe, but only ever in the middle of the night when there are no other cars on the roads. I have never seen it done under normal traffic conditions, nor have I seen it done on roundabouts whose layout doesn't incite it so blatantly as the above example. I That's a typical modern American roundabout you describe above. Older ones are much larger (like the size of the inner ring of the Magic Roundabout previously mentioned). think your British idiot must have been suffering from the usual British problem of forgetting to drive on the other side of the road when abroad. That's what I figured and let it slide. The usual reaction of Bedford drivers to a roundabout is bafflement, hesitation and indecision - faults of which a single instance would be enough to make them fail their driving test - even when the roundabout is one they encounter every day and should be thoroughly familiar with. Same here. Vehicles obviously from rural Oregon or out of state are usually good to lay back a few extra meters from, because they either can't or won't sort out a traffic pattern that has a sign describing the maneuver in a simple diagram approaching the roundabout warning you of the traffic change, and another one on the roundabout itself describing the only legal movement around the damn thing. Your average Oregonian roundabout-ahead sign... http://www.mrtraffic.com/circleadvsign.jpg The sign telling you the only legal way of taking the circle (white signs are must-dos) http://www.trans.ci.portland.or.us/trafficcalming/images/pictures/circlesign5500.GIF Your average (small) Portland roundabout (larger ones do not have stop signs) http://www.mrtraffic.com/circleport1.jpg And apparently Delaware's department of transportation is either stupid or insane or both... http://www.state.de.us/research/register/september2000/signing and marking.revised---V-1-12.gif One roundabout was replaced with temporary traffic lights due to roadworks. The effect of this on the traffic flow was such that when the roadworks were finished, instead of reinstating the roundabout, the temporary traffic lights were made permanent. Roundabouts are handy in areas that don't have reliable eletricity or the cost of maintaining a light isn't worth it and get enough traffic where a stop sign is a problem. -- .''`. Baloo [EMAIL PROTECTED] : :' :proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system msg29562/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 22:58, David P James wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 15:12, David P James wrote: Ron Johnson wrote: On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:18, David P James wrote: [snip] Contraire is correct :) Thanks. That's true in one sense but not in others. It's true for a bond only if the issuer fails to meet their obligations. But if they do meet their obligations then you can't just take your bond back to the corporation that issued it and demand it be redeemed before it matures nor can you in most cases sell your stock back to the corporation. So it really depends on your point of view as to whether unredeemable assets are backed by anything. You are confusing secured liquid. Corporate bonds are secured (by that factory), and partially liquid (since,as you say, I can't arbitrarily go back to the company to redeem them, but I can quite easily sell them on the open market). -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 10:32:10PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: My dictionary (American Heritage College Dictionary) sz they're synonyms. Save your valuable exemption for a real error :) And American Heritage Dictionary also screws up the definition of hacker, giving it the meaning of cracker. This should be a clue in this group. Use dict instead, as you can (usually) get multiple sources for the definition (geosynchronous and geostationary being an exception, apparently). All geostationary orbits are also geosynchronous, but not all geosynchronous orbits are geostationary. baloo@ursine:~$ dict geosynchronous 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]: geosynchronous adj : of or having an orbit with a fixed period of 24 hours (although the position in the orbit may not be fixed with respect to the earth) baloo@ursine:~$ dict geostationary 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]: geostationary adj : of or having a geosynchronous orbit such that the position in such an orbit is fixed with respect to the earth; a geostationary satellite True, true. Any orbit not sharing Earth's axis will have an apparent figure 8 track. However, the parameters of the orbit (over the equator) defines an orbit that is the stationary subset of synchronous orbits. So, within the context of the thread, they are synonymous, if not in the general case. From a logic class many years ago: All Volvo drivers are liberal, but not all liberals drive Volvos. Here we are talking about a particular liberal that *does* drive a Volvo. :) Either way, it's a good catch. -- gt [EMAIL PROTECTED] If someone tells you--- I have a sense of humor, but that's not funny. ---they don't. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Sun, 2003-02-09 at 00:04, Paul Johnson wrote: On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 10:32:10PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote: My dictionary (American Heritage College Dictionary) sz they're synonyms. Save your valuable exemption for a real error :) And American Heritage Dictionary also screws up the definition of hacker, giving it the meaning of cracker. This should be a clue in this group. Use dict instead, as you can (usually) get multiple sources for the definition (geosynchronous and geostationary being an exception, apparently). All geostationary orbits are also geosynchronous, but not all geosynchronous orbits are geostationary. baloo@ursine:~$ dict geosynchronous 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]: geosynchronous adj : of or having an orbit with a fixed period of 24 hours (although the position in the orbit may not be fixed with respect to the earth) baloo@ursine:~$ dict geostationary 1 definition found From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]: geostationary adj : of or having a geosynchronous orbit such that the position in such an orbit is fixed with respect to the earth; a geostationary satellite Ah ha! The satellite can be in a polar orbit at 35,000 (38,000?) Km, so would be geosynchronous but not geostationary. Does American Heritage have a BTS? -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | || | For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start| | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very| | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system. | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster
On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 10:45:29PM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: On Mon, 2003-02-03 at 21:46, Pigeon wrote: Alchemy is an interesting example... Of course, alchemy itself is possible, because people used to do it. They were called alchemists. The fact that they never achieved their fabled goals is because the discipline they were following was mostly a pile of mystical bollocks with very little scientific method. Now, we know that it is possible to turn lead into gold, but it is not currently practical to do it on more than the minutest scale. To extend one's lifespan is not Actually, an interesting point of note is the fact that alchemists sought to transmute LEAD into gold, and not something like helium into gold. So obviously, intentionally or not, they had some basic knowledge of atomic mass. (Probably a rudimentary one based on the observations of physical mass, but an understanding none the less.) That, in turn, rather dismisses the point of this being mystical rhetoric and, instead, brings it into the realm of scientific pursuits. An amusing point is that we now *do* have the ability to turn lead into gold, but it's so expensive that we just dig it out of the ground. -rob msg29093/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: shuttle disaster
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:34:51PM -0600, DvB wrote: James Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Famine victims OK, but nobody has mentioned the people living in poverty in America. Boost welfare, more education funding, subsidise pay rises for the lowest paid workers... ooops, America's budget all gone ;-) sarcasm Of course! If we spent that much, people with enough money to have significant amounts of it in taxable stock accounts wouldn't be able to keep it all! /sarcasm Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. I've lost the thread here, I don't really get the joke - can someone explain this for me please. Maybe it's because I'm not American. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:38:09AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: On Wed, 2003-02-05 at 22:50, Pigeon wrote: On Wed, Feb 05, 2003 at 11:41:19AM -0600, DvB wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, 3 Feb 2003 22:36:45 +, Pigeon wrote: [...] [snip] I can think of a few off the top of my head: - run mobile power plants (vehicles, locomotives) off RME or alcohol - design the products of industry to last ten times as long as they do at the moment, and reduce industrial output by 90% Unfortunately, the world economy would crash. Yeah, it's broken. Symptoms of the same disease. - impose a 1% cashflow tax on the oil industry and put the money into fusion research The petroleum industry is already highly taxed in the West. But the money isn't put into fusion research. - put sails on ships Yankee Clippers were covered with sails, but were only a small fraction of the gross tonnage of modern cargo ships. It would be impractical. I've seen a photo of an experimental Japanese sailing ship, modern cargo ship size with a big bank of aerofoils instead of conventional sails. I'm not suggesting get rid of the engines, simply not to rely on them for everything. They all suffer from the problem that people who currently make vast amounts of money out of fossil fuels won't be able to any more. I have an unpleasant suspicion that we'll be dependent on fossil fuels until they actually run out and force us to do something else. Science can find lots of solutions, politics/greed are the problems when it comes to putting them into practice. The problem is that gasoline diesel are very convenient high- density fuels. But such fuels don't have to be derived from fossil sources. We could switch to RME and alcohol, and drive less. I'm pretty confident that a decent minorty of US cars will be using fuel cells in 15 years. So will my bicycle, I hope! Methanol-fuel-cell-powered laptops and mobile phones, I think, are almost with us. Maybe they are with us. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 12:16:13PM -0600, Ray wrote: On Thursday 06 February 2003 11:55, John Hasler wrote: Mike M writes: Can you imagine a 100 or a 1000 of these things? Yes, but why would you need that many? how many different airports do we have now? seems like 1000 would be normal to low. s/airports/spaceports/ - 100 is rather a lot! Would it be possible to use them to increase the length of a day? The question makes no sense. yes it would be possible to slow the rotation of the earth, but it would take a bit of work to do using these before it became noteable (unless you have your days down to 12 digits) You'd have to fling off continental-sized masses, a few tons at a time to avoid breaking the ribbon. The launching and landing of spacecraft would not slow the Earth's rotation, because the momentum lost on each launch would be returned when the spacecraft landed again. If you really want to slow the rotation of the Earth, build some massive tidal power barrages and put the energy to good use. Wouldn't be much quicker though. And watch the weather... What would happen when the ribbon broke and came fluttering back to the planet's surface? It would break at the weakest point which would be at the bottom. The ribbon would not be under tension so it would pretty much just hang there waiting to be repaired. It would be under tension, because the upper station is outside the geosynchronous orbit. So the bit above the break would fly off into space, and the lower bit would fall back. The ribbon itself would be very light - that website quotes 7.5kg/km - so would probably be about as troublesome as a fall of toilet paper. Whatever load happened to be attached to it at the time is a different matter. That's one reason for putting it in the middle of the Pacific. If the ribbon broke sufficiently high for the attached load to fall on a continent, the load would be falling from sufficient altitude to burn up before it hits the ground. it actually depends on how its done, most likely the tension which it would have would pull it away from earth (atleast the part still attached to the far end) and if it broke off high enough, then yes, there would be a line of ribbon that comes down that could cause problems. one of the many questions i can't answer is Why is this thead still going? and why on Debian User? Because it has caught the interest of a lot of Debian users. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Nathan E Norman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:34:51PM -0600, DvB wrote: James Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Famine victims OK, but nobody has mentioned the people living in poverty in America. Boost welfare, more education funding, subsidise pay rises for the lowest paid workers... ooops, America's budget all gone ;-) sarcasm Of course! If we spent that much, people with enough money to have significant amounts of it in taxable stock accounts wouldn't be able to keep it all! /sarcasm Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. You don't work hard for stock dividends. You just put your money in stocks and they come all by themselves... although I guess I did word that a little strangely. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
James Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:34:51PM -0600, DvB wrote: James Buchanan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Famine victims OK, but nobody has mentioned the people living in poverty in America. Boost welfare, more education funding, subsidise pay rises for the lowest paid workers... ooops, America's budget all gone ;-) sarcasm Of course! If we spent that much, people with enough money to have significant amounts of it in taxable stock accounts wouldn't be able to keep it all! /sarcasm Yeah, after all it's not their money .. they just worked hard to earn it. I've lost the thread here, I don't really get the joke - can someone explain this for me please. Maybe it's because I'm not American. :-) http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=articlenode=contentId=A3465-2003Jan2notFound=true -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster
Paul E Condon wrote: ... Witness 'alchemy'. Why do people today believe it is impossible? Because our folk culture has accepted, without really understanding, some limitations on the human spirit. So you don't believe the results of decades of atomic/nuclear research into the observed behavior that transmuting one element into another takes significantly more advanced equipment than the alchemists had? And that even our current advanced equipment can't transmute arbitrary pairs of elements? Daniel -- Daniel Barclay [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster
Mike M wrote: On Monday 03 February 2003 18:38, Daniel Barclay wrote: Kenward Vaughan wrote: ... In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be _teachers_ and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. - Lee Iacocca Wouldn't that be society resting on its laurels? And stagnating? (With no one creating additional civilization.) Socrates was stagnant and resting on his society's laurels? Good teaching inspires creativity. I didn't say Socrates was stagnant. I didn't say teachers were stagnant. No, I said (well...meant) that society would be stagnant if passing on knowledge were the _only_ highest aspiration. Someone's got to be creating/discovering/generating new knowldge or the pool of knowledge doesn't grow. Daniel -- Daniel Barclay [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... Personally, I feel that more money should be thrown at space research and technology, by either ... or the very rich (as in Redmond), As long as they don't get monopoly rights. Sorry dear Linux/FreeBSD/etc. user (or small country), we're blocking out your patch of sky because you haven't paid your Microsoft tax. Daniel -- Daniel Barclay [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster (space elevators)
Gary Turner writes: Not just impact. Impact is the most likely cause of failure. If the elevator should part at the CG, 23,500 miles of material would fall to the East, nearly circumnavigating the globe. The lower portion would not be heavy enough to do much damage. The upper portion could be designed not to survive passage through the atmosphere. [Taper] would be more efficient, but is not *required*. Required. Inter-atomic bonds are not strong enough to support an untapered cable. The idea of ribbons seems a bad idea. Think of the vibratory forces. People have already done so. I'm surprised no one has mentioned Robert A. Heinlein. He used the idea (space elevators--including construction and installation details) in several short stories and at least one novel, going back to at least the 60's, maybe earlier. Name them. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, Wisconsin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
Pigeon writes: It would be under tension, because the upper station is outside the geosynchronous orbit. So the bit above the break would fly off into space, and the lower bit would fall back. The tension would taper from nominally zero at the base to maximum at the attachment to the counterweight. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler) Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: shuttle disaster
On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 10:02:09AM -0800, Paul E Condon wrote: Alchemists had three generally accepted goals: the transformation of base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal solvent, and the discovery of 'the elixir of life' . Like scientists today, they looked to the sovereign (the government of the time) for funding for their research. In their search for funds, they would let the sovereign believe that there was some possibility that their research would yield practical results, such as changing real lead into real gold. They did not find an exlixir of life. They did not find the universal solvent. They did not change real lead into real gold. They lost their funding. - eventually, having lasted enough centuries for scientific chemistry to evolve. Is there a parallel to alchemy in the modern world? er... Economists? Everyone has their pet theory, none of 'em work, but governments seem to think they're the dog's bollocks and employ loads of them? Not sure whether to append a :-) or not... Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster (space elevators)
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 07:11:46PM -0600, John Hasler wrote: Paul E Condon writes: It is not hard to compute the tension in a space elevator ribbon. (It would be a fair question for a final exam in an undergraduate mechanics course.) It depends on position along the ribbon, on the Earth parameters (size, rate of rotation, etc. )... In particular there is no reason for there to be any significant tension is the cable at the base. With proper controls such a cable should just hang there if severed at or near ground level. A fail-safe design would make the connection to the bottom anchor the weakest point so that an over-tension event would not result in a cable fall. The real risk comes from an impact high up on the cable. There would have to be a tension at the base greater than the weight of the heaviest load you expected to send up. Otherwise when it started climbing the cable, it would simply pull the whole thing down... You'd also have to make an allowance for the tension created by the wind blowing it sideways; that might be rather large. The base would still be the point of minimum tension though. ...the mass-per-unit-length (kg/m) that is assumed for the ribbon. Which must be tapered, of course. The last time I checked, there was not a material having a suitable combintation of kg/m and tensile strength. Theoretically any material will work, but the dimensions get out of hand when using wet spaghetti. In practice carbon nanotubes are strong enough. So spaghetti's no good, but macaroni is OK. :-) Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: shuttle disaster
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 08:04:30PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote: On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 06:14:11PM -0600, DvB wrote: (advocacy of public transport which I totally agree with) Of course, this isn't necessarily an easy thing to do in many places where most of the growth has happened according to current zoning standards (like the southern US). I'm so glad that Portland realises it's way behind the game when it comes to urban planning. I'd rather be playing catchup with Northern European cities than having Portland become another Los Angeles or Seattle (a Los Angeles victim itself). Trouble is British cities, at least, seem to be playing catchup with American ones. Everything is designed on the assumption that everyone has a car and will use it for everything. New shopping centres are built outside the town, so it's a long way there and you have to drive. And the Government is quite happy to subsidise private transport to the hilt (expenditure on roads revenue from road and fuel tax) but moans like buggery about subsidising public transport. There's the New Town, Milton Keynes, which is totally designed around the car. It is _huge_ (by British standards). It is possible to get from one side to the other in about the same time as for a traditional British city, but that's because it is both legal and practical to do 70mph most of the way. If you live in Milton Keynes and you haven't got a car, you're buggered. The fact that everybody hates the place hasn't stopped lots of other towns building Milton-Keynes-esque urbomas around the outside. British town centres are still pretty close to the medieval street plan, and it's impossible to do anything about that without razing the place to the ground. As more and more people drive around, the town centres become gridlocked for several hours a day. It is therefore much quicker and much less frustrating to ride a bicycle. The trouble here is (a) you get wet and (b) most car drivers think that the normal physical rules about two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same time cease to apply when the two objects concerned are a car and a cyclist. Cycling is also seen as infra dig for some reason. It's for kids who aren't old enough to drive and nerdy types in Lycra shorts and crash helmets shaped like a Yorkshireman's cap. If you're old enough to drive, you have to have a car, even if you can't afford it. People think it's very strange when I turn up to fix their TV with my tools strapped to the back of my bike. A bicycle is an ideal accompaniment to a train journey as it provides a great solution to the problem of the station at the other end being some distance from where you want to be. Here again, Britain is moving backwards; as old trains are replaced by new ones which are half the length and don't have a guard's van to put your bike in, it is becoming increasingly hard to take a bike on the train. The American writer Bill Bryson comments that he cannot understand the British obsession with cars given that there is not a single aspect of driving in Britain that has anything pleasurable about it. I must say I rather agree with him. Pigeon -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
